but wiggled out. Glancing in the hole it was obvious why Sarah Cavanaugh’s brother was startled. Peering back at me was a skull, the dim light giving the alabaster bone a haunting, menacing stare.
Turning to Billy, “Got a flashlight?”
“Sure do, coach.” He pulled a nine-inch Maglite from his belt and tossed it to me.
Clicking it on, I played the beam into the hole and across the skull.
“What do you see, Sal?” I said, handing him the Maglite. The big man took my place in front of the opening and played the beam.
“Looks like a scrap of leather around the neck.”
Forte was next, bending his head close to the hole, “Sure seems like it.” He reached through the opening, cheek against the smooth bark, fumbling around for a second before pulling his arm out. In his hand a medium-length of tattered thong. Thin, fragile with age, obviously leather.
All of us stood around Forte as he stretched it to its full length – about 10 inches. One end had the remnants of a knot; the other was broken as if someone had tugged at it until it snapped. Considering the condition it was in, not much pressure would have been necessary to fray the leather.
“Think that’s where the clay egg was?” Sal asked.
“My guess,” I said.
“What clay egg?” Wilson was as mesmerized by the leather as were we all.
He deserved an answer. “This piece of leather was used, I figure, to hang a clay ball around the Tree Man’s neck. Don’t know exactly why, but we have an idea of what was in the egg based on what we found in the Madrone at Bandon Dunes.”
“Treasure?” he asked. “It would be mine, I reckon since it’s on my property.”
Shaking his head, Forte answered, “You’re gonna have to discuss that with, I don’t know, somebody. Or a whole lot of somebodies.”
Stepping back in front of the opening I asked, “Anybody got a mirror?”
Billy half jogged to the Tahoe, opened the rear hatch and popped the top on a plastic tub. He rummaged around for a second then returned with small polished metal oval, a hole in one end. “For looking under cars for bombs,” he said. “You need the broom stick that attaches to it?”
My eyebrows raised, “Bombs? Bandon? Expecting terrorists, Billy?”
He gave a shy grin and shrugged.
I tipped the mirror into the hole and simultaneously aimed the flashlight at it, successfully casting the beam down into the hidden darkness of the trunk. Unlike the other Madrone, this one had grown independent of the skeleton leaving a void while the first grew into and against the skeleton. The beam reflected off of the rib cage, pelvis and leg bones. The bottom of the casket-like well had a small piece of cloth, shards of what appeared to be another clay egg and a ripped page from a magazine. Playboy, I’d guess if the Cavanaugh boy used the tree as a hiding place for “boy stuff” as his sister Sarah had suggested.
“Got a chunk of wire in your rig?” I asked Wilson who grunted and tromped back to the Jeep returning with a coil in one hand and what appeared to be a straightened coat hanger in the other.
“What do you see, Nick?” Sal asked.
“Miss October. Maybe June.”
I bent the end of the coat hanger into a hook and wrapped some wire around the other end. Repositioning the mirror and handing the flashlight to Sal who aimed it at the polished metal, I slid the hook into the opening and lowered it with the wire.
Playing the wire one way then another, the tip of the hook finally latched onto the small eyelet that once was the top of the clay egg. I pulled it up, detached it and handed it to Forte who took a quick look and slid it into a jacket pocket.
“And you said you don’t know how to fish,” Sal muttered.
“Can’t hook the smaller pieces. Egg is broken,” I said after trying to snag a few different shards. But I did get hold of one of the magazine pages and yanked it up and through the opening. I glanced at it. Not a quick glance. It was, in fact, a centerfold from an early Playboy. “Miss June, 1957,” I said. It was stained and smudged with God knows what. Boys will be boys.
Billy took possession and grinned.
“Don’t get too excited, Billy, she’s old enough to be your grandmother.”
“Not mine, Nick. Trust me,” eyes glued to the only slightly faded photo.
After again giving Wilson a warning about telling anyone about the tree, we returned to the Chief’s office, passed around the Playboy centerfold – Carrie Radison, a hot red head -- and put the piece of clay into an evidence box, Forte stashing it in a small safe behind his desk.
Sal and I climbed into the Vic and returned to Willow Weep.
“I’m hungry.”
“Sal, are you ever not hungry?”
Smile. “Nope. Think it’s a psychological thing. Something about being shot, being chased by a lunatic in a Honda, that little jousting stunt with the two of you shooting at each other out open windows and Forte bluffing Wilson with that fake subpoena. Makes me hungry.”
“The subpoena thing was pretty smart, actually.”
“Good thing Wilson didn’t push it. Pretty embarrassing if he’d seen the bank’s letter that the Chief was overdrawn on his checking account.”
We pulled into the gravel drive and parked. Both of us climbed out of the Vic and headed for the rear deck which was closest to the kitchen and coffee maker.
At the table, Cookie and Tatiana were hunched over, looking at the two halves of the clay egg.
“Hi ladies,” Sal called. “Whatcha doing?”
I leaned over and kissed Cookie on the top of her head. She had a small LED flashlight and was playing the beam inside the egg.
“This is beautiful, Nick.”
“What is?”
“Inside this clay thing. The map.”
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