• I remember the rush. I remember the sudden whoosh of the wind, and I remember the decent.

    It was a hard winter that year, no precipitation; the ground froze on its own, no need for rain or ice. I was surprised to see the snow in the pasture as we drove Roxanne, my 1973 Chevrolet Cheyenne 4x4 over the terraces. A solid white blanket, what little snow we got in December had melted with the three warm days earlier in February, this pasture seemed untouched, unaffected by the warmth. It had gotten so cold the snow was solid, barely giving way under the weight of my truck. I remember the panic in J.B’s voice when I received the call, sitting at the diner in Wamego having a cup of coffee and making small talk with local farmers. J.B Hildebrandt called me at 10:45 that morning saying he wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a body in his pond when he went to bust the ice for the cattle.


    Chief Homicide Detective Jackson Abel paused in telling his story to light a cigarette and take a sip of his steaming coffee. He shook a Marlboro from his pack and offered one to the waif brunette woman sitting across from him. She politely declined and fidgeted with her pen, tapping it on the note book in front of her. She checked the tape machine, made sure it was still recording, making herself busy while she waited. Why she needed to take notes when she was recording the conversation baffled Jack. The journalist let out a long drug out sigh, letting him know she was growing impatient.


    J.B and I went to high school together, after his daddy died in ’85 he took over the farm, I remember playing on the ice every winter, running out there in our wore out gym shoes and sliding across the ice. Hard to imagine having to investigate my boyhood playground as a crime scene. When I pulled up to the gate of the pasture J.B was waiting for me by the fence, he crawled in the cab and we drove out to the pond. When we got there the cattle had already come in for a drink so I had to honk the horn a few times to get them to move so I could pull up next to the water's edge. I asked J.B why he didn’t call the sheriff’s office when he thought he saw a body that morning but he said for sake of not being seen as old and out of his mind he’d rather call an old friend first. Mildly frustrated with having to be out in the cold instead of in the warm safety of the diner I shrugged it off and got out of the truck. I studied the pond for a minute, and didn’t want to call my childhood friend a fool but I didn’t see hide nor hair of a human body. But his eyes, and the panic in his voice made me want to investigate it further before I dismissed it. So, out of curiosity I did what I always used to do as a boy, I walked out onto the ice. Big mistake on my part, I’m about twenty-five pounds shy of being one-hundred pounds heavier than I was then. I broke through on the far south end of the pond, that’s when I saw them. His eyes, hard brown eyes staring hard into my own, eyes so full of hatred and contempt it made me feel ashamed of myself for even looking into them. I’d seen those eyes before, a deep chocolate color before, but now so pale the brown went grey; almost white, white like his skin, ghastly and pale. I knew this boy with his long black hair, Johnny Hawkins I’d just been talking to his grand-daddy at the diner. I panicked, thrashing around in the icy water. Even in his old age J.B is still strong as an ox, he pulled me to the service. I immediately ran to Roxanne and radioed into the Pottawatomie County Sheriff office that I needed a cornier and an ambulance we had a body in J.B’s pond.


    I still can’t get over his eyes… So full of hate, not fear like my own, or J.B’s. Why he was in J.B’s pond I haven’t figured out yet, or how he got there, or who killed him for that matter, it was pretty obvious he didn’t die in the pond. Just when I thought I’d seen it all… that’s when we found her.