The Sighting - Part Six

By Cayce B. Shelton

Every time Joe told the story of Dan and the police, all the guys listening to him laughed a lot. I guess they could relate somehow. It always took a little urging to get Joe past that point. Seemed like every time he told about finding the bodies, he would get all shook up and stammer a lot.

"I think we should try to dig one of them girls up," said Bob, pulling the bark from a broken branch.

Joe stammered a word and then clearly spoke, "I don't think I want to be digging up no dead body, man. Just seeing them ghosts is about as scary as I want to get."

Dan chimed in, "Well, I know damn well there ain't anybody but us that gives a rat's ass about them." The skinny boy shook all over as if hit by cold water. He grunted as he threw a stick at a frog in the creek.

"Listen," whispered Bob, as he bent over and looked across the creek. The boys heard adult conversation in the field.

Suddenly, Joe hissed, "That's my Dad. What's he doing out here? He can't hardly walk." Joe crawled toward the exit tunnel. Bob and Dan followed like snakes on the ground.

They heard words that almost made sentences.

"I know they got---down here---sometimes.

My boy---and his two---I don't know---Did he ever---ghosts here---

Do you---in there?

There's no other---How do you…."

Joe crawled through the tunnel until he could see the adults outside. As he came scooting backward, Bob and Dan twisted to get back to the center of the clearing. Joe's face showed his fear as he exclaimed, "Cops. There's cops out there with Pop." The boy looked around the clearing as if searching for an exit that he knew did not exist.

Dan grabbed him by the shirt collar and spoke, keeping his voice just above a whisper, "What kinda cop is out there?"

Joe looked at Dan wide-eyed and replied, "Woman, there's a woman cop and a man cop."

"Is the man old," asked Dan, shaking his friend.

"No, no, young. Young cop, why?" Joe replied.

"Because I talked to some cops when me and Mom went to visit dad in jail, Dan whispered.

"Shit, we're gonna get arrested," cried Joe as he jumped to his feet and ran for the tunnel.

Bob and Dan called out for him to stop, but it was no use. The two boys left in the clearing shook with fear as they heard Joe caught by the adults.

"Well, Dan, it seems we have found your hiding place," said the woman. She pointed to the three wooden stakes and asked, "Are those the grave markers?"

Dan, Bob and Joe nodded in unison. The boys were too scared to say anything. They watched Joe's father struggle into the clearing using a crutch and a cane. The young male officer had one hand on the veteran, assisting him along. The father grinned at his son.

No one said a word as the female officer knelt at one of the stakes and began to dig with a small shovel she carried in her hand. When she had a pile of dirt loosened at the site, everyone watched her struggle to move it as she tried to clean out the dug area. Suddenly, without making a sound, Dan rose from the ground next to Bob and stepped over to the woman.

"Let me help," he said, simply, immediately putting his hands in the loose dirt and pulling it aside.

The female officer did not stop working as she looked at Dan and said, "My name's Delores."

Dan glanced at her, but did not reply. When Delores began to dig again, Bob, and then Joe, moved across the clearing to help move the loose earth. The other two adults stood close by and watched. Officer Delores knelt in a hole in the creek bank about two feet deep. Everyone watched her as she scraped at the bottom of the grave.

Suddenly, the officer Delores cried out, "Oh, God."

The three boys fell back as the female came out of the hole. Everyone watched the lady as she looked into the hole in the ground. After a few minutes of shaking, the officer got control of herself. She spoke to the other officer, "Jim, go to the car and call in. Bennett has worked on solving these cases so long I want him out here, too. DDon't tell them anything except to get out here fast with the coroner and a forensic team. They can figure the rest for themselves."

The officer helped Joe's dad to sit on the carpet of leaves before he left. Delores stepped into the grave and gingerly scraped more dirt. Dan was looking into the grave when the woman uncovered part of the dress that covered the skeleton.

He exclaimed loudly, "That's her."

The clearing was immediately filled with a golden cloud and the sound of ringing bells. The veteran and the woman looked around the clearing, a slight uneasiness in their faces. The boys grinned at each other. Without words, the boys moved to the other two stakes and began digging with their hands. Part of the remains of all three girls buried in the clearing had been uncovered before the officers arrived from town.

One of the new arrivals said that Detective Bennett had dropped dead as they were getting ready to leave the station house. The forensic team and the coroner carefully dug in all three graves to remove the remains. They had brought portable lights to be able to work through the night.

The lights were not needed inside the clearing as the golden cloud increased in brightness as each girl's remains were removed from the earth. The tinkle of bells made conversation difficult, but the adults soon became accustomed to the noise.

As the police teams began to gather their equipment to follow the stretchers out of the clearing, Dan touched Delores on the arm. Bob and Joe were close to him when he spoke. "There's one more," he said, simply and softly.

"The last girl must be Cathy Boyd, right?" she asked. "You told me the names of these three, so the last must be her."

Dan gave her a little smile. "Yeah, it's Cathy Boyd. But, you can't just dig her up like we did these," Dan stated as he followed Bob and Joe out of the clearing.

The woman looked around as the golden cloud filled the space around her and the boys. She could see the other officers and Joe's father out in the field using flashlights.

As the golden cloud moved with them across the field toward the culvert, Joe looked for his father in the small crowd of people near the road. He spoke to nobody in particular, "I guess I'm not gonna get in trouble over all this, huh?"

"No, son, no trouble," the woman said, softly. "In fact, if it was up to me, I would give you all medals. I think you were so brave to do all that you have done for these poor girls."

Dan reached to take the woman's hand as he walked beside her. He asked the question that had been on his mind a long time, "Will they ever find out how they died?"

Dan felt the squeeze on his hand as Delores replied, her voice breaking, "I don't know. I do know that at least one of them has been here a very long time. The others, like Cathy Boyd, were reported missing. Detective Bennett had worked on her case for the last fifteen years. Being a juvenile officer, I had reviewed many missing child cases. Hers was one of them."

The boys glanced at each other as she talked. The golden cloud lighted the entire culvert as Dan led the group to the center of the pipe. Delores looked at the sand in the bottom of the shaft and then toward each end of the tunnel. Everyone was silent as a police captain, golden light reflecting the gray at his temples came near, his head bent over.

Delores spoke to him, ignoring the boys. "The boys say that a girl by the name of Cathy Boyd is buried here. But, the records show that she disappeared about fifteen years ago. How can they be wrong now after we found the other three girls?"

The question she put to the captain was quickly answered. "Maybe because this culvert replaced the old wooden bridge about ten years ago. These boys were probably just babies then, they wouldn't know the difference. If you think a girl is buried here," pointing to the sand at his feet, "then we'll have to get a court order to get the county to dig it up for us."

Suddenly, the inside of the tunnel was filled with the loud ringing of bells. Everyone in the tunnel clapped their hands over their ears and ran for the exit. They all looked back into the tunnel. Standing side by side a short distance inside the metal tube, the four girls that the boys immediately recognized, smiled and waved as bells rang. The boys waved at the four girls.

Suddenly, the woman gasped as one of the girls appeared to quickly move toward her. When the cloud was very near, a child's arm reached out and a small finger touched the officer on the forehead. The female officer began to shake as the golden cloud moved back. As the woman staggered back Bob and Joe reached to help her. The darkness closed in around them as the natural sounds of night returned.

I can show you where all of them are buried. The girls were buried next to each other in Grove Hill Cemetery. Detective Bennett was buried in Hill's Cemetery. Dan is buried close to the girls. His mother couldn't afford to bury him. Joe and Bob didn't want him in Potters Field so they got their families to take care of him. Joe always choked up when he talked about that time.

It seems like only yesterday when that lady cop came out to see us. We didn't see her right off, though. The first we knew she was around was when we heard shooting coming from Dan's house. Bob, Dan and I were just coming out of the tunnel down at the creek when the first shots were fired. That was when we saw the black and white police car in front of Dan's house. Dan's old man was out of jail, drunk as usual, when the two cops came to tell us about the funeral for the girls.

That Delores lady got into a fuss with the drunk about us boys finding the girls and he hit her. When she tried to defend herself, he got a gun. Well, she shot first, missed and took a bullet in the shoulder. The three of them shot a couple more times before the drunk got hit in the head.

We didn't know what was going on in the house right then. We were running up to the house as they were shooting. Suddenly, Dan just doubles up and dives into the ground. When Bob and I stopped to help him, we found a bloody hole in his back. When we turned him over there was another bloody hole in the middle of his chest. He never knew what hit him.

We didn't go to the girls' funeral. I don't remember why we didn't go. But, we did go to Dan's funeral. Bob and I stood next to my dad at the gravesite. Bob and I stayed after everyone else had walked away. We would not leave until they let the casket down. When the two men pulled the ropes up from the casket, all of us heard the tinkle of bells. The two men looked uneasy as Bob and I looked around for the golden clouds.

Suddenly, close by, it seemed, we heard a girl's voice say, "It's time to go, Daniel."