I toss up a roll of evidence tape and she opens a Buck Tool. One thing about ATF agents, they all carry their own portable tool kits that include knife blades, screwdrivers, pliers, scissors. It goes back to needing them at fire scenes, if for no other reason, to pull nails out of the soles of your steel-reinforced boots. ATF agents get dirty. They step in all sorts of hazards. Lucy cuts the rope above the knot and tapes the ends back together. “Just a simple double half hitch,” she says, dropping the rope and tape down to me. “Just a good ol’ Boy Scout knot, and the end’s melted. Whoever cut the end melted it so it wouldn’t unravel.”
That surprises me a little. I wouldn’t expect someone to bother with a detail like that if he were cutting off rope so he could hang himself with it. “Atypical,” I comment to Lucy when she climbs down. “Tell you what, I’m going to be bold and take a look.”
“Just be careful, Aunt Kay. There are a few rusty nails sticking out. And watch out for splinters,” she says.
I am wondering if Benny might have adopted this old stand as a tree fort. I grip weathered gray boards one after the other and work my way up, grateful that I wore khakis and ankle boots. Inside the deer blind is a bench seat where the hunter can sit as he waits for an unsuspecting buck to wander into his sights. I test the seat by pushing against it, and it seems fine, so I sit. Benny was only an inch taller than I am, so I now have his view, assuming he came up here. I have a strong feeling that he did. Someone has been up here. Otherwise the floor of the stand would be thick with dead leaves, and it isn’t at all. “You notice how neat it is up here?” I call down to Lucy.
“It’s probably still being used by hunters,” she replies.
“What hunter is going to bother sweeping out leaves at five o’clock in the morning?” From this vantage point, I have a sweeping view of the water and can see the back of the motel and its dark and slimy swimming pool. Smoke curls out the chimney of the Kiffin house. I envision Benny sitting up here and spying on life as he sketched and perhaps escaped the sadness he must have felt since his father’s death. I can imagine only too well as I remember my own young life. The deer blind would be a perfect spot for a lonely, creative boy, and just a stone’s throw ahead at the water’s edge is a tall oak tree wearing kudzu around its trunk like spats. I can picture a red-tailed hawk sitting high up on a branch. “I think he might have drawn that tree over there,” I say to Lucy. “And he had a damn good view of the campground.”
“Wonder if he saw something,” Lucy floats this up to me.
“No kidding,” I reply grimly. “And someone might have been looking back,” I add. “This time of year with no leaves on the trees, he might have been visible up here. Especially if someone had binoculars and had a reason to be looking over this way.” Even as I say this, it occurs to me that someone might be looking at us right now. A chill touches my flesh as I climb back down. “You got your gun in that butt pack, don’t you?” I say to Lucy when my feet are on the ground. “I’d like to follow this path and see where it goes.”
I pick up the rope, coil it and tuck it inside a plastic bag, which I then shove into a coat pocket. The evidence tape goes inside my satchel. Lucy and I start out on the path. We find more shotgun shells and even an arrow from bow season. Deeper into the woods we walk, the path bending around the creek, no sound but trees groaning when the wind gusts and the snap of twigs beneath our feet. I want to see if the path might take us all the way around to the other side of the creek, and it does. It is a mere fifteen-minute hike to The Fort James Motel, and we end up in woods between the motel and Route 5. Benny certainly could have walked over here after church. There are half a dozen cars in the motel parking lot, some of them rentals, and a big Honda touring motorcycle is near the Coke machine.