I glanced over at her. “Do kids from the high school come out here for parties?”
“Do I look like the kind of girl who would be invited to a bush party, if there was one?” she said, sending me a withering glance.
“I’m never going to be able to find my way here again,” I said, looking around, feeling the sense of isolation and quiet. “I was hoping to hire someone to clean up this crap, too, but I’d be afraid they’d get lost.”
She wasn’t listening anymore, off in her own world of camera angles and light. I regarded her with interest, as she positioned herself low and snapped a photo of the moss-covered log, with the forest in the background. “You’re a long way from home. How did you get up here so many times to explore? You needed a ride up here today.”
“I have a bike. It’s not that far.”
“For a fifteen-year-old,” I said, then thought of Isadore. She had clearly made it up here by bike, too. I still couldn’t figure out why, and what she’d meant when she made such a point of the spot where Uncle Melvyn went off the road. “Is this the only encampment that you know about?”
She frowned, looking around. “I saw another one once, but I’ve never been able to find it again. It’s not in a clearing like this is. It’s in an evergreen part of the woods. And it looked like someone was using it. Creepy. I didn’t stick around.”
“I’ve got Gordy and Zeke coming out to mow my property, and I was hoping they could clean up this campsite, too, but I’m afraid they’d get lost.” She snickered, and I cast her a look. “Hey, be nice.”
“I’m sorry, but those two couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag.”
I tried to hide my own smile. “So judgmental,” I murmured. “Would you show them where it is, if I get them to do it?”
She shrugged but said, “Sure.” She eyed me, then added, “You know, I could help them, too, if you’re paying.”
“You’d do that kind of work?” I was surprised; it’s not my kind of thing, clearing brush and trash, but Lizzie was, in many ways, tougher than I.
“It’s better than scrubbing floors. Grandma and I have an agreement: I do all the outside work, and I don’t have to clean inside.”
“You’d be willing to show Gordy and Zeke the way here and help them clean up?”
She paused and eyed me. I got the same feeling I did when a salesman had his sights on me. I knew the question she was going to ask before she even spoke.
“What’s it worth?”
I had to admire her sense of timing. In the dense isolation of the woods, I was more sure than ever that she was the only one who would be able to guide the intrepid duo this far. “Look, if you can find the other encampment, too, it’ll be worth a lot more. You find me that other encampment, and guide and help Gordy and Zeke, and I’ll . . .” I eyed her as she fiddled with her camera. “I’ll buy you a new gadget for your camera. How would you like a panoramic lens?”
Her eyes widened. “And a macro zoom?”
“You’re pushing it, kiddo, but maybe.”
She got down to business right away. “Look, we need to go back soon, right? On our way, I’ll try to find the other encampment.”
I was glad I had worn a pair of my oldest jeans, as well as hiking shoes borrowed from Shilo’s wardrobe. The girl had the same shoe size as me, luckily—the only size we have ever shared—and never traveled without an abundance of footwear. I followed Lizzie, weaving through the woods and stepping over fallen trees. It was exhausting, and I knew I was going to ache the next day, but Lizzie never seemed to tire. Oh, for the stamina of fifteen.
A couple of times, I thought I heard a motorcycle engine. Were we near the highway? Or was someone trespassing in the woods, zooming around on the trails? It would be tempting, I supposed for a dirt-bike rider. Lizzie stopped a couple of times and cocked her head. I took the opportunity each time to catch my breath and look around, finally tuning in to what I had missed until now: birdsong. A harsh screech, discordant and echoing, trilled to me. The bird alit on a low branch, watching us with an unnerving stare. It was a blue jay, and it was curious about our incursion into his territory. The next time we stopped the blue jay was there again. Was it the same one, and was it following us?
Lizzie paused, looked around and nodded. “I know where we are, now. I’ve only been this way a couple of times, but I think we’re almost there.”
Close to us was the sound of water, and soon we stepped over a trickling stream that bubbled and chuckled along a winding trail. I stopped and cupped some of the water in my hand. It was frigid cold and clear, and tasted clean when I sipped it from the cup of my hand. My fabulous woodswoman skills told me it was springwater. My spirits lifted. I could not believe that this was my land!
Lizzie led me up a path that was even more treacherous because it was on a slope. She scrambled ahead of me, and I heard her cry, “Aha!”
I scaled the last bit, huffing and puffing, and looked down over a crude encampment with another half-collapsed tent. The fire pit was like the other one, a simple ring of rocks. Lizzie took photos, as she had of the other encampment, searching for unusual angles and zooming in on things, while I looked around.
Finally, I sat down on a log near the fire pit and picked up a stick, while Lizzie wandered, taking close-ups of the tent. I was about to tell her we ought to get going, when I heard an involuntary exclamation from her and turned to find her backing away from the tent, her expression blank, her whole body trembling.
“What’s wrong?” I said, standing. She just pointed.
I strode over to the tent and looked in. Then I turned around and raced to the edge of the woods to throw up. I still contend that is any sane woman’s reaction to finding a very, very dead body.
Chapter Nineteen
I’M ASHAMED TO say that I did not hold it together as well as Lizzie did. That fifteen-year-old girl led me out of the woods and back to the castle, where I babbled to McGill and Shilo about the awful scene we had discovered. McGill called Virgil, and before long the cops were at the castle yet again, this time in the bright light of day. Fortunately, Lizzie, her face white, her lips compressed, assured them she was able to guide them back to the scene—I would have had no clue how to find the encampment again—but I made McGill go with them, so he could make sure she was all right.
My story this time, as related to a sheriff’s deputy, was brief, because the body had been there awhile before we arrived on the scene. We found it, that was all. I paced after that, then went to the kitchen to make a big pot of coffee. Shilo and I had discovered a commercial coffee urn in one of the closets in our perambulations of the castle, and it was about to come in handy. I made several dozen mini muffins, too, with the mini-muffin tins I had bought the day before, and heaped them in a basket and set them on the kitchen table. I set out as many coffee cups as I could find, then called Janice Grover at Crazy Lady Antiques to see if she had a box of old mugs I could buy or borrow. Unfortunately, all I got was an answering machine. It was just make-work anyways, something to keep my mind busy as it shied away from the terrible sight I had seen in that tent.