Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

“So what? I’m not even allowed at your house anymore?” he asked.

“Just for a while, she said.” Paul frowned.

“But you’re leaving in a couple of weeks for California,” said Davey. “Then we won’t even see each other until like August.”

“I know,” said Paul. “We can still hang out at school though.”

“We only have three days left,” said Davey. “Two and a half, because Wednesday is early-release.”

They took turns pushing gently, keeping a constant, slow spin on the platform. Davey plowed into Paul’s shoulder when the platform came to a sudden halt.

“Hey bro, let’s go,” said Kris. Just a few years older than Paul and Davey, he towered over them.

“I thought you were going to hang out for a while,” said Paul with the slightest hint of whine in his voice.

“Nope,” said Kris. “Gotta get back.”

Davey and Paul stood up from the platform.

“Not you,” Kris said, pointing at Davey. “Mom doesn’t like you,” he sneered.

“Yeah, I know,” Davey looked Kris in the eye.

Kris nodded, warming up to Davey’s strength. “You be alright getting home?” he asked.

“Yup,” said Davey. “See ya, Paul,” he punched Paul lightly on the shoulder. Davey turned from the brothers and set off towards his house. He lived only a block away from the playground and was allowed to come to meet Paul if Kris was going to be around too.

Davey held his head up until he rounded the corner and glanced back to see that Paul and Kris had disappeared from view. When he was sure he was alone, he sat down hard on the curb and propped his chin up with his palms. The weekend before the end of the school year would normally thrill him, but this year it brought a sense of loss.

His mom had signed him up for catcher’s camp every morning, and now he couldn’t go to Paul’s house in the afternoon. His afternoon would consist of hours trapped in educational summer programs.

Might as well be summer school , he thought, scowling.

He imagined a typical day and sunk further into depression. His mom would mandate breakfast at home, which meant he would have to get up even earlier than usual. Dressed in his baseball clothes, she would drop him off at the practice field, rain or shine, and he would move through perfect summer days executing drills, sucking the life out of a game he was supposed to love.

When Davey played sports, he would get lost in the game, enjoying every second. Practice was the heavy price he had to pay. Coaches always focused their attention on moving the group forward, but Davey excelled at sports and would spend the days repeating maneuvers he had nearly perfected. He wasn’t a showoff, so he didn’t anticipate the praise the practices would surely bring. Instead, Davey’s quiet shyness meant he was in store for weeks of blushing discomfort.

Davey sat up straight, surprised by a thought echoing up from the back of his head unlike his normal thoughts: I won’t have to play baseball too long, it said, he’ll come for me soon. Davey shuddered in the warm June sun. He stood slowly, brushing off the back of his pants, suddenly unsure if the voice had come from inside his head after all.

Davey ran home.

THE MIDDAY SUN SEEPED IN around the edges of the blankets covering the windows. Mike had never been very good at home improvement. The quilts and comforters were held in place by yards of duct tape, struggling to adhere to the walls. He couldn’t remember committing this vandalous act of decor, but he resonated with the sentiment. The bright light of the day didn’t serve any purpose other than to remind him of his problems.

With no income and mounting debt, he would lose his small house soon. His company had stretched his forced hiatus another week; still waiting on sufficient cause to fire him outright. Mike pushed himself up from the couch and scratched the top of his head. Down the hall the bathroom called. He shuffled by his unused bedroom and noted how clean it looked compared to the rest of the house. His typical day involved watching television until he was hungry or drunk enough to make a meal of popcorn, rice, or noodle soup. He had no use for the formality of clean sheets and pillows, preferring to spend his night dozing so he wouldn’t feel the letdown of nothing to do in the morning.

He returned to the living room just as the local newscaster appeared in the commercial break of the morning game shows with a news flash—“Police have responded to this New Hampshire home this morning based on a distressed call from a neighbor.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the pleasant two-story cape that served as her backdrop. “Find out what they discovered. That and your weekend forecast, all in our noon report.”

Mike propped his arm on the couch cushions and let his eyelids sink halfway, thinking he could use another short nap before breakfast. His eyes had nearly closed when curiosity fluttered them back open. In the background of the reporter’s shot, a nicely dressed young man with glasses appeared briefly in the distance. Mike couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was a chance that the guy had been Leslie’s producer. Mike searched for the remote control. He hadn’t seen the young producer since the incident at Bill’s house, and he didn’t even know the guy’s name, but he flipped to Leslie’s channel to be sure. He was just in time to find Leslie delivering a more lengthy broadcast from the same scene.

“Authorities aren’t commenting on exactly what they found inside this quiet country house,” she informed her viewers, “except to say that the owner and sole inhabitant appears to have been the victim of foul play." She tilted her head and frowned slightly, letting the public know that she disapproved of murder.

“A few minutes ago, we had a chance to ask the officer in charge a few questions,” she continued.

The shot cut away to a medium-sized, plump man wearing the uniform of New Hampshire state police. “We don’t have any details yet except to say that we have indeed found evidence of a break-in, and there appears to have been a struggle. We’ll have more information in the coming hours,” he assured the camera.

Just after the officer finished his statement, but before the live shot of Leslie returned, the camera panned down as the cameraman moved away. Mike’s thumb stabbed at the remote control, pausing the image. His lips parted as he beheld the officer’s feet, shown on TV because of a bad edit by the local station. Just to the left of the officer’s scuffed shoe, Mike spotted a giant footprint in the loose dirt. The similarity to the footprint he had found on his hike was unmistakable. He stared at the footprint for another few seconds and then started the video again, noting every detail. Eventually, Leslie described the town of the attack, but not the exact location.

Mike recognized the town name: East Motton. He had driven by that very town just days before, on his way back from his hike. He replayed the newscast again, picking out pertinent details and trying to discern visual landmarks from Leslie’s brief on-camera monologue. Rubbing his forehead, Mike jumped up and trotted to the kitchen to fetch a pencil and paper. He watched the story a third time, writing down the facts he would need. When he was finished, he turned off the TV for the first time in days and propped his notepad up against the front door. He was shaved, showered, and out the door in under fifteen minutes.

ON THE ROAD, Mike scanned the radio for more information about the murder. Until recently, conducting genetic research had provided this same feeling—turning over a wide set of jumbled details again and again until they fit themselves together into one coherent world-view. Doctors would send him mountains of unsorted test results. His job had been to synthesize everything—all the tiny tidbits—into a big picture. In that same way, Mike puzzled through the details of the crime, trying to understand why he was so sure that it was connected to his hike. He paused on a AM news station when he heard the phrase “home invasion,” but it turned out to be a different crime.