hygrometer in them like a humidor, and I recall the amber glass smoking pipe on the desk inside the apartment. Maybe he likes to walk his dog in Norton’s Woods because it is remote and usually quite private, and of little interest to the police unless there is a VIP or high-level event that requires security. Maybe he enjoys coming here and smoking weed. He whistles at Sock, bends over, and slips the lead off him, and I can hear him say, “Hey, boy, do you remember our spot? Show me our spot.” Then he says something that’s muffled. I can’t quite make it out. “And for you,” it sounds like he says, followed by, “Do you want to send one…?” Or “Do you send one…?” After playing it twice I still can’t understand what he is saying, and it may be that he is bent over and talking into his coat collar.
Who is he talking to? I don’t see anyone nearby, just the dog and the gloved hands, and then the camera angle shifts up as the man straightens up and I see the park again, a vista of trees and benches, and off to one side a stone walkway near the building with the green metal roof. I catch glimpses of people and conclude by the way they are bundled up for the cold that they aren’t wedding guests but most likely are walking in the park just like the man is. Sock trots toward shrubs to leave his deposit, and his master moves deeper into the gracious wooded estate of ancient elms and green benches.
He whistles and says, “Hey, boy, follow me.”
In shaded areas around thick clumps of rhododendrons the snow is deep and churned up with dead leaves and stones and broken sticks that make me think morbidly of clandestine graves, of sloughed off skin and weathered bones that have been gnawed on and scattered. He is scanning, looking around, and the hidden camera pauses on the three-tier green metal roof of the glass-and-timber building I can see from the sunporch at Benton’s and my house. As the man turns his head, I see a door on the first floor that leads outside, and the camera pauses again on a woman with gray hair standing outside the door. She is dressed in a suit and a long brown leather coat and is talking on her phone.
The man whistles and makes a gritty sound as he walks on the granite gravel path toward Sock, to pick up what the dog has left… “
and this emptiness fills my heart…
“
Peter Gabriel sings. I think of the young soldier with the same name who burned up in his Humvee, and I smell him as though his foul odors are still trapped deep inside my nose. I think of his mother and her grief and anger on the phone when she called me this morning. Forensic pathologists aren’t always thanked, and there are times when those left behind act as if I am the reason their loved one is dead, and I try to remember that. Don’t take it personally.
The gloved hands shake out the rumpled plastic bag again, the type one gets at the market, and then something happens. The man’s gloved hand flies up at his head, and I hear the jostle of his hand hitting the headphones as if he’s swatting at something, and he exclaims, “What the…? Hey… !” in a breathy, startled way. Or maybe it is a cry of pain. But I don’t see anything or anyone, just the woods and distant figures in it. I don’t see his dog, and I don’t see him. I back up the recording and play it again. His black gloved hand suddenly enters the frame, and he blurts out, “What the…?” then, “Hey… !” I decide he sounds stunned and upset, as if something has knocked the wind out of him.
I play it again, listening for anything else, and what I detect in his tone is protest and maybe fear, and, yes, pain, as if someone has elbowed him or bumped him hard on a busy sidewalk. Then the tops of bare trees rush up and around. Chipped bits of slate zoom in and get large as he thuds down on the path, and either he is on his back or the headphones have come off. The screen is fixed on an image of bare branches and gray sky, and then the
Who is he talking to? I don’t see anyone nearby, just the dog and the gloved hands, and then the camera angle shifts up as the man straightens up and I see the park again, a vista of trees and benches, and off to one side a stone walkway near the building with the green metal roof. I catch glimpses of people and conclude by the way they are bundled up for the cold that they aren’t wedding guests but most likely are walking in the park just like the man is. Sock trots toward shrubs to leave his deposit, and his master moves deeper into the gracious wooded estate of ancient elms and green benches.
He whistles and says, “Hey, boy, follow me.”
In shaded areas around thick clumps of rhododendrons the snow is deep and churned up with dead leaves and stones and broken sticks that make me think morbidly of clandestine graves, of sloughed off skin and weathered bones that have been gnawed on and scattered. He is scanning, looking around, and the hidden camera pauses on the three-tier green metal roof of the glass-and-timber building I can see from the sunporch at Benton’s and my house. As the man turns his head, I see a door on the first floor that leads outside, and the camera pauses again on a woman with gray hair standing outside the door. She is dressed in a suit and a long brown leather coat and is talking on her phone.
The man whistles and makes a gritty sound as he walks on the granite gravel path toward Sock, to pick up what the dog has left… “
and this emptiness fills my heart…
“
Peter Gabriel sings. I think of the young soldier with the same name who burned up in his Humvee, and I smell him as though his foul odors are still trapped deep inside my nose. I think of his mother and her grief and anger on the phone when she called me this morning. Forensic pathologists aren’t always thanked, and there are times when those left behind act as if I am the reason their loved one is dead, and I try to remember that. Don’t take it personally.
The gloved hands shake out the rumpled plastic bag again, the type one gets at the market, and then something happens. The man’s gloved hand flies up at his head, and I hear the jostle of his hand hitting the headphones as if he’s swatting at something, and he exclaims, “What the…? Hey… !” in a breathy, startled way. Or maybe it is a cry of pain. But I don’t see anything or anyone, just the woods and distant figures in it. I don’t see his dog, and I don’t see him. I back up the recording and play it again. His black gloved hand suddenly enters the frame, and he blurts out, “What the…?” then, “Hey… !” I decide he sounds stunned and upset, as if something has knocked the wind out of him.
I play it again, listening for anything else, and what I detect in his tone is protest and maybe fear, and, yes, pain, as if someone has elbowed him or bumped him hard on a busy sidewalk. Then the tops of bare trees rush up and around. Chipped bits of slate zoom in and get large as he thuds down on the path, and either he is on his back or the headphones have come off. The screen is fixed on an image of bare branches and gray sky, and then the
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