“A miracle?" Shelley asked. She was cheering up. "Logical, reasonable, etcetera," Jane said.
“Like what? If there were a logical explanation, we'd have thought of it already."
“Not necessarily. We've been too shocked at the apparent conflict of perceptions to study it dispassionately."
“You sound like a professor."
“I watch The Learning Channel, which is probably where you got that rye-bread theory. Now, seriously, there must be circumstances that could account for this."
“Give me an example," Shelley said.
Jane paced the room, thinking. "Okay — here's one. What if what we saw was identical twins.”
Shelley's laugh was more of a yelp. "Oh, Jane. If you're going to be ridiculous, apply your Learning Channel experience. Be more modern. How about if Marge has been saving Sam's toenail clippings and selling them to a syndicate of mad scientists who are cloning people?"
“I like it," Jane said with a smile. "Okay, what if the body was somebody else wearing a really, really realistic mask. One of those latex things."
“That's not quite silly enough," Shelley said. "But it is theoretically possible."
“Unfortunately, it brings us back to the same questions: why would anybody need to do that, and how could they have counted on us — or anyone-else-coming back to be witnesses?"
“Okay — let me think this out. How about if somebody else was supposed to come back and be the witness?"
“What do you mean?"
“Well, suppose I was playing this trick for some reason. I might have gotten someone else to wear the mask, lie in the leaves, and all that. Then I'd come back here to the cabin, pretend I'd lost my watch, but was also sick at my stomach and asked you, as a good friend, to go look for it. I'd say I thought it might be on the ground at the far end of the campsite, and voila, you'd find the body."
“And before that could happen, somebody else ac- cidentally stumbled on it for another reason entirely?" Jane considered it. "Possible, I guess. So we weren't supposed to find it, somebody else was. But why?"
“Why is a different matter entirely. Right now we're concentrating on how."
“Okay, but if we imagine this realistic mask, doesn't it mean Sam himself has to be involved in the deception? Don't you need to model it on a real face?"
“Oh, I don't think so. They have them made up to look like famous people at Halloween. I'm sure the President doesn't let some toy manufacturer come into the Oval Office and make a mold of his face."
“I guess this mask thing is a possibility, but we can't get hung up on it and miss something else. Shouldn't we go to the lodge and see if we can find out where Sam says he was?"
“Right. But we have another stop to make first. We need to go look at the place where we found him," Shelley said.
“For clues?"
“For our own peace of mind.”
Jane opened the drapes before they left the cabin. "Wow! Look at that! You can see the creek now, it's risen so much. But at least the sun's trying to struggle out and it's not raining."
“Come on, Jane. I'm getting hungry and it's time for breakfast. We need to look over the campsite before all the good food is gone.”
There were no clues in evidence.
In daylight, they weren't sure precisely where they'd seen the body. The whole site looked different. Rain had washed gullies and created weird little dams out of leaves here and there. The fire had not only gone out, but was a pool of nasty gray water.
But there was a spot just beyond the clearing that looked as if the wet leaves were a little bit more squashed down.
“He either got up and walked away or somebody picked him up," Jane said.
“How do you figure that?"
“Because there are no drag marks. Look." Jane put her foot on the leaves and pulled it back. It left a groove in the leaves and a muddy streak on the ground.
Shelley nodded. "But it rained all night, I think. Other leaves could have gotten washed out over such marks.”
They examined the area thoroughly, even turning over leaves to see if there were any objects or signs of blood, but discovered nothing.
“What now, Sherlock?" Jane asked.
“Breakfast. We could move around a lot, sitting by different people, and see if anybody smells of latex.”
Jane looked at her sharply. "You are kidding, right?”
Shelley drew herself up. "The rest of them might think we're crazy, Jane, but I expected you to know better.”
Eleven
Jane and Shelley felt awkward and embarrassed, and the others seemed to be feeling the same. Benson welcomed them with a vague smile, not quite able to look right straight at them. Edna, who was tidying up the magazines in the lobby, undoing Liz's arrangements, suddenly had to rush away on another errand after saying a quick "Good morning, ladies."
“I feel like we forgot to get dressed and nobody wants to notice or mention that we're in our underwear," Jane whispered to Shelley.
“Remember that time the PTA board had the meeting at your house and it wasn't until the meeting was over that we noticed one of your cats had horked up a hairball under the coffee table?" Shelley said.
“Oh, God! I'll never live it down. Yes, that's the exact same feeling. We should have thought this out a little better before we got here. How about pretending last night never happened?"
“Nope. You're the one who said we're taking the line that we were mistaken and are vaguely sorry.”
Breakfast today was a little more modest. Cereals, fruits, scrambled eggs, and toast were the primary choices. The room was also a good deal more crowded. Several more strangers had been added to the mix — young, athletic-looking people for the most part. Jane noticed that three of them at one table were talking quietly and looking at her and Shelley. Word must have gotten around about the batty pair who imagined dead bodies in the woods.
Everyone else ignored them. Nobody signaled them to join a table.
“Let's sit with Liz," Shelley said, fixing herself a bowl of cereal. "She'll either defend us or tear us into little scraps. Either way, we'll be done with the best or worst.”
Liz and Al were sitting with Eileen Claypool and one of the new people. Jane and Shelley took their plates over and sat down.
“Good morning, everybody," Shelley said with shrill cheerfulness.
There was a mumble of greeting and the young man at the table was introduced as the boating instructor. Liz had been grilling him and went back to it. "What I'm getting at," she said to him, "is why lessons in driving around in a boat is educational? I'll grant that it may be fun, but the school district isn't in the business of providing fun.”
Eileen saved the young man by responding, "But aren't school plays and concerts mainly for fun? And you offer driver's education, don't you?”
Liz wasn't impressed by the reasoning, though she wasn't quite as curt and accusatory toward Eileen as she'd been with the young man. "Plays and concerts,like most sports, emphasize team play, taking a specific role in society, and doing your best for the group. Although, to be honest, I believe far too much effort and budget are spent on both. As for driver's ed, almost everyone these days must learn to drive a car skillfully and lawfully."