Excerpt: A Pattern of Deceit
Nighttime was pushed aside by a new day. Dampness clung to everything. The first light of dawn caught the underside of a gull, a lone sentinel that floated quietly through the heavy morning air and surveyed the reaches of Zeller marsh. Random, but purposeful flaps of its wings gave it control as it maneuvered aloft, buoyed by the steady on-shore breeze. Gray-white feathers glowed from the new light, changed to pale orange then soft pink and back to orange as it searched for signs of food. The marsh would offer up nothing for the gull’s breakfast this morning, at least nothing easily gained, readily available. After carefully viewing the entire marsh, the gull circled lower to check an object it could see at the eastern edge. There was something lying partly in the water not far from a dirt road that ran north toward Lake Erie. The gull determined it was not suitable and headed back for the lake shore, beating its wings to gain height and speed, intent on finding something choice.
An eerie quiet covered the marsh, punctuated only occasionally by the lyric calls of Red-winged Blackbirds. A pair of blue herons waded in the shallows, patiently watching for their chance at a meal, poised to quickly grab any fish that glided close enough. The marsh was located in a remote area a little more than two miles from Lake Erie. It was surrounded by parcels of overgrown, unworked farm acreage and stands of scrub trees. A modest underground spring bubbled up to keep the marsh supplied with water and its runoff meandered in a narrow channel until it reached Sandusky Bay. The power of the lake, itself overpowered by rough weather, succumbed from time to time to wind and rain that could push the flow back through the channel to raise the water level in the marsh and flood the lowlands around it. Most of the time, however, the marsh water slowly ran away to the Bay.
Zeller was one of those hidden places known only to the lucky few who had been able to locate its whereabouts; mostly by accident. It was a little nook of relief from an otherwise congested world. Solitude prevailed here. The marsh was accessible only by an unmaintained dirt road that ran by and humans rarely encroached on this space. Occasionally, those locals who knew it was situated here - wild and surprisingly unspoiled - came to fish and to shoot ducks. Days would go by without anyone coming down the road. On this morning, two visitors penetrated its early morning peacefulness as their pickup truck noisily bounced and rocked over sun-hardened ruts.
The truck jostled the two men all the way to where the road ended at a small clearing. There, the marsh curved eastward for nearly fifty yards. No one had ever tried to work the road any father around the marsh because it would have been a struggle to do so. Beyond was a thick woods guarded by interwoven underbrush that had grown unchallenged for longer than anyone who knew about this spot could remember.
The two men got out and began to retrieve their fishing gear from the truck bed.
“You seen something back there?”
“Naw, I was too busy trying to keep this damn thing on the road. The ruts and holes are miserable the whole way. Could bust a spring on a car, I imagine.”
“Looked almost like somebody was laying there.”
“Come on, get your stuff, let’s do some fishing.”
“No, I’m serious...it looked like a body.”
“Dead animal, maybe. Maybe a deer got sick and died. Big muskrat or coon.”
“It didn’t look like no animal.”
“Got to be a dead animal. Come on, let’s get to fishing.” The other man didn’t budge. “Okay, for crying out loud, let’s go take a look.”
“I almost don’t want to.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He looked over his shoulder up the road and then back at the other man. “What the hell. Let’s look anyway.”
The two men walked the road towards the way they had come, tentatively looking for what had been seen. They went about a hundred yards and there it was.
“Jesus, you was right.”
“It’s a body...I didn’t want to say it, but I thought so...I thought it was a body. Damn, I feel sick. I ain’t never seen a body like that before...jest out, laying out...in the open. Funeral home is different, but out here...damn, it’s so spooky. Damn.”
“You got your cell phone with you?”
“In the truck...in my jacket...”
The other man started for the truck in slow trot.
“I better call Ed...get him out here. Goddamn, I hate to do it, though...I don’t think he knows about this place. Got to give him directions. Then he’ll know. Damn.”
After he had placed the call to the Erie County sheriff’s office, he walked back to join the other man.
“Ed’s on his way.”
“It’s a black woman. Real black skin. Got nice clothes on.”
“No way...a black woman? Recognize her?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t see her face very well. Somebody dumped her out here, I bet.”
“Probably.”
“That would mean its murder...she was murdered.”
“Yeah, yeah...that’s right. Means also that in a few minutes Ed Lowery is going to know about one of the best fishing and hunting spots around. Damn, I wish I didn’t have to let him know about this place.”