"No. I got my bike chained down the road there."

"Your daddy wouldn't be Arden Swain, the optometrist?"

"That's my uncle. My dad works for the city. His name is Dale."

"Oh sure, I know him. I mean I know who he is, not like we're old pals or anything. If you're asking me if I saw any red setter eleven days ago, I don't think so."

"No. What I mean, I think I found him. I mean I'm kind of afraid I found him. Over there across that other road, way over."

"You think you found him? Let's go inside and get a cold one and talk this thing over, Bruce."

After he had taken his first long swallows of icy cola, Bruce explained about the terrible stink and not being able to see down in there.

"First I got to see that it's him, and after that I'll talk to my dad about getting him up out of there and burying him back home where he belongs. Maybe it's a raccoon or a fox or a big rabbit or something like that."

"Now, a flashlight might not work, just aiming it straight down there," Mr. Moon said, 'because in old wells what you get a lot of the time is a bunch of brush and vines growing out of the walls, out of the cracks between the old stones. Now, right here I've got this big old mother of a flashlight, and we can tie it on some long string, turn it on, and lower it down there. This lens part tips down a little, and the handle on top makes it perfect for the job."

"I can do it and bring the flashlight back, Mr. Moon."

"You're big enough to call me Fred like everybody else, Bruce. Now, the stink is real bad?"

"It's really terrible. I nearly threw up."

"Okay, we'll take a couple of Peggy's dish towels here, and this little bottle I'll fill with rubbing alcohol, and when we get to the well, we soak a little into the towel and tie it around our noses and mouths."

"You really don't have to come along."

Fred Moon stared at him, then finished his soft drink and put the bottle on the counter. He nodded at Bruce.

"You're afraid it will be your dog, and then you'll do a lot of crying and carrying on and you don't want anybody watching you."

"I... I guess so."

"If you didn't cry and carry on, you wouldn't be normal, and besides, I won't watch. Let me go in the office and tell Peggy where we're going. Then, if it is your dog, what we'll do, we'll put your bike in the pickup and take it on home. Will anybody be there?"

"No."

"So we'll leave off the bike and I'll drop you at City Hall.

Now we've got everything organized. We forget anything?"

"I don't think so."

Fifteen minutes later they reached the well and got the towels in place. Fred Moon lifted the edge of his and leaned over the well and said, "Hoooeeee! That is one powerful smell."

He tied the cord to the flashlight and turned it on and began to lower it slowly.

"Whatever's down there is going to look pretty sorry," he said.

"I know," the boy said.

"It's okay."

There was a lot of brush growing out between the stones of the sides. The light twisted slowly around and back, lighting a small portion of the old stones. It went down so far Fred began to wonder if he should have brought more cord. Then it touched something and tilted. He raised it free and let it slowly turn, let it touch an aluminum train case, a rotting hand and wrist, and then the ghastly face upturned.

The cord slipped out of his slack hand, and the light fell and tipped on its side, still burning in a few inches of water. Fred Moon scrambled back and turned and tore the towel off and threw up. Moments later, he heard the boy throw up. He wiped his sour mouth with the towel and went to the boy and said, "I guess neither one of us is cut out for this line of work."

"At least it... wasn't Baron," the boy said. That face down there was imprinted on his brain so vividly he could still see it no matter where he looked. And he knew he would never forget it, no matter how long he might live.

Carolyn Pennymark was stretched out on her bed, head propped up, the phone wedged between shoulder and jaw.

"Hey, Marty? Little Red Roving Hood here. The rain quit and I have been up and down and around, and if there is anything else here, nobody else is going to find it either, so I better come in."

"Is that so? Really scoured it, huh? What did you come up with?"

"Just dumb junk. A rumor one of the computer geniuses is making it with one of the choir Angels, but it turns out she's the age of consent, so that's nothing even if I chased it down. Also, the old man is deep into Alzheimer's, too far gone to ever make another appearance anywhere. It seems that John Tinker Meadows has a little history of messing around, but it has been nicely covered up in the past. There's talk they may put up a big medical school and hospital and so on, but it wouldn't make very exciting copy."

"So you want to head for the barn?"

"That's about it. I'm getting tired of the chimes."

"You sure it's time to come back?"

"Marty, what's wrong with you? Don't you trust me to tell you when a story is dead?"

"Certainly, doll. You know it's over when it's over. You can figure out the best way back and get started whenever."

Thanks."

"Oh, by the way. It just came in over the wire a couple of minutes ago, some kid found a female body maybe dead three months in the bottom of a well out there west of Lakemore.

But it's probably nothing, right?"

"Why, you miserable, rotten son of a bitch. You knew that and you let me keep talking! Goodbye, Marty baby."

She slammed the phone down and ran out of the room toward the stairs.

Fourteen.

As soon as the bottom of the well had been so brightly floodlighted the long ladder could be placed without touching the body or the luggage, two men from the State Bureau of Investigation went down to the bottom, wearing masks, and cut away the brush from the sides of the shaft as they went down. Once at the bottom, they took pictures of the body from every possible angle before slipping it carefully into a rubberized zippered body bag. The body bag was placed at an angle into a large mesh bag shaped somewhat like a hammock, and men up at ground level hoisted it slowly up the shaft, with one of the technicians following it up the ladder, keeping it from bumping the sides or the ladder. Once the body was up at ground level, it was placed in a hinged metal box with a rubber gasket which made it airtight.

When the body box had been eased into the ambulance, the mesh bag was lowered again and brought up with the luggage which had been found resting on and against the body. There was an aluminum train case, two small suitcases and a portable typewriter. These items were placed in the ambulance as well, with every care taken to avoid smudging any fingerprints which might be on them, especially on the train case and the typewriter case.

The ambulance then proceeded to the city, sixty miles southeast of Lakemore, and drove to the basement entrance to the Southern Memorial Hospital, where they put the sealed container on a cart and rolled it to that section of the City Morgue equipped for the performance of autopsies.

The autopsy was begun at eight o'clock on the evening of the day the body was discovered, and was performed by Dr. George Ludeker, the Medical Examiner, assisted by Dr. Everett Johnson. Dr. Ludeker dictated each step of the procedure as it progressed. Dr. Johnson, from time to time, took pictures of the body for possible use in the investigation into the death.