The fishing on the river near the house was best in the morning before the heat of the day baked the mud and produced oppressive humidity. I was there before daybreak, walking a path alongside the still water. The sun reflected off the distant surface broken only by lofting ducks into the cool morning.
My recollection led me toward a line of rocks protruding above the surface and outward from the shore to a channel where the water was deepest. It never bothered me much to fish alone. Not like it did my daughter who imagined my age made it dangerous. She was right about slippery rocks and didn’t realize the extent of damage to my knee from a prior fall.
Rocks under my feet as I was inching toward a great place to cast, the golden hue of the far shore enticing me to rush forward. The many times I had cast a fishing line in sixty-eight years flooded my mind as I reached the waterline and prepared to do so again.
My lure hit the water, still and black in the early dawn. Ripples reached daybreak’s glow as I slowly reeled in the line. My heart raced when the lure reached a place where I caught fish before and a wake followed a tug on my line. It became taunt and the rod tip bent low. The battle was short, as was the largemouth bass by a few inches. I released it as the water became visible beneath the encroaching day.
Moving downriver to a better location where bushes grew taller than my waist, the smell of decaying animal became overwhelming. I made my way out farther to the last rocks near the channel and cast a chicken liver hoping to attract a giant catfish. During the wait I watched the sun come up over the water.
And then I saw it, naked and floating face down in the underbrush. The sight was ghastly. I stumbled backward and fell. Standing for another look to be certain—it was a woman. I reeled in my fishing rod and took my cell phone out of my pocket. It shook in my hand and I saw the “no service” message before rushing to solid ground. Before reaching the shore and where I noticed the smell of decay, a second body lay face to the sky. A young man with a hole in this head. I dropped my rod and staggered toward my vehicle never having seen a dead body outside of a casket. Now there were two.
They found gunshot residue on the local woman’s hand and the gun was never found. It remained a local mystery for four years to the day. Her boyfriend confessed to making it look like a murder/suicide. He did so by note and the police recovered the weapon from his hand.
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DAGilberthorrorwriter 