but I never in my life thought there was another Man Tree.”
I waved her into the seat next to Sal. “I’m Nick Drago, this is Sallie Rand.”
She smiled at each of us in turn and continued. “We lived just south of Bandon. Our daddy raised sheep.”
“When was this, Miss Cavanaugh?”
“Sarah, please. Right after the Second World War. My family moved from Ohio. Daddy was in the Army and thought Oregon would be a good place to move. Most everyone was off to California or Florida or places like that, but he wanted to raise sheep and work on his inventions. 1945.”
Sal asked, “Inventions?”
She nodded, “It was an age of new inventions. He grew up at a time when everything from toasters to cars to refrigerators and even toilet paper were turning regular people into millionaires. He was always tinkering in the workshop and when the war broke out he enlisted and was gone for three years, first in Europe than during the final days of the Pacific theater.
“As soon as he returned he moved us to Oregon, bought a farm with the GI bill and raised sheep. His heart wasn’t so much in the sheep – that was a way to pay the bills – but he loved inventing gizmos. He got the first patent on those little potato peelers. He sold it to Sears and they paid him a couple of thousand dollars for the patent and probably made a gazillion selling them in their catalog and in stores. After that Daddy swore he’d never sell a patent again without a royalty.”
“And that somehow led to finding the skeleton in a tree?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Plastics were all the rage after the war. It was going to become the new frontier, he would tell us over dinner. He wanted to invent a binding agent for plastic. Super Glue, if you will. He figured with everything being made with plastic and most of it fragile in comparison with metal, special universal glue would be perfect for fixing all the stuff that broke.” She sighed. “A little ahead of his time, I guess. Anyway, he began tapping the different trees looking for a special sap or resin that could be the basis for the glue.”
Sal ordered more coffee all around. Sarah put a hand over her cup and shook her head at the waitress.
“One day daddy was drilling a hole in a tree and suddenly there wasn’t any resistance. He pulled out the drill and stuck a screw driver into the hole. It was obvious the tree was hollow so he figured it was dead inside.”
“What kind of tree, Sarah?”
“Madrone. You know the kind, with the bark that peels off in sheets.”
Sal and I looked at each other. “We know.”
“Was that the kind of tree you found the skeleton in this morning?”
I nodded.
“How odd,” she said.
“Sarah, is the tree still standing?”
“Oh, I don’t know. My mother sold the farm when Dad died in 1993. I think the new owners wanted to turn it into a cranberry bog. When she died two years ago, she hadn’t been back to the place since it was sold and said she just couldn’t go back, although she talked about all the good times we had there a lot.”
Sarah gave us the location of the farm which Sal plugged into his iPhone GPS; located it in a bare minute. He pulled up the Google Map and zoomed in on the property.
“Can you tell me where the tree is, or was?” he asked.
She looked at the screen. “Isn’t that amazing,” she said then pointed at the location on the northern-most edge of the property. The new owners apparently never turned the property into a bog because the aerial view showed grassland and a small herd of white specks we assumed were sheep.
“One last thing,” I said. “How did you know there was a skeleton in the tree?”
She blushed. “My oldest brother Andrew started whittling away at the bore hole daddy started figuring he could make a hiding place for some of his own treasures. I think they were magazines of a kind daddy would not have approved.” Sal and I both chuckled. “He kept making the hole bigger until one day you could look in it. And looking back was a skull, the eye sockets exactly aligned with the hole as if he was staring out while Andrew was staring in.” She leaned forward and quietly said, “It scared the chicken poop out of him.”
“What did your father have to say about it?” Sal asked.
“Oh, daddy never knew. Andrew and us kids made a wooden plug out of Madrone bark and covered the hole. It was our secret. I had just turned 10 the day before so I considered it a special secret gift for me. Over the years, we’d remove the plug, talk to Tree Man, tell him jokes and stuff, ask his advice about things and then put the plug back.” She smiled, “It was a great secret to have as a child. Adults weren’t allowed to know.”
Sarah Cavanaugh rose from the seat and smiled, her clear hazel eyes leveled at me. “Mr. Drago, the Tree Man was special to us. Now that I’m older, and another one has shown up, would you mind letting me know if you find out how people wound up in these trees? As a kid, we didn’t think much about it. Now I’m curious and I’m sure my siblings would like to know, too.”
“My pleasure. All I need is a phone number.”
She removed a small pencil from her jeans pocket and scribbled on a napkin. “It’s a Phoenix area code. That’s where I and my brothers now live. I’m here to visit friends, but I’ll be heading back in a couple of days.” She smiled, “We’d really like to know.”
“You got it, Sarah.”
She returned to her table, gathered up her purse and left money for the bill, giving a wave to Sal and me as she left the restaurant.
“Nice woman,” Sal said.
“Tree Man. Huh. Who woulda thunk it. I’ll give Forte a call and fill him in.”
After telling him about the conversation with Sarah Cavanaugh, Forte said he knew the farm and the owner, a grouchy long-time resident, and he’d send one of his officers to see if the tree was still standing.
“Can that wait, Chief? I’d rather keep this piece of news close to the vest. We don’t need old man Wilson carving up the Madrone out of curiosity. Besides, I figure we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at when Sal’s and my fire burns the wood from the skeleton.”
“Fine by me. We’ve got a raccoon terrorizing some misplaced Californians on Lewis Lane,” he said joking. ”Can’t stop the important stuff to go looking for another man in a tree.”
I slipped the cell back in my pocket.
Sal rubbed his beard. “I’m hungry.”
“You just finished four eggs and two sides of bacon, Sal. How could you be hungry?”
“That was breakfast.” He looked at his watch. “It’s now lunch time. I want a cheeseburger.”
We ordered two, with fries and chocolate shakes.
CHAPTER TWO
