Drago #2a. Art LLC Spinella
was once gorse-riddled scrub forest not worth a timber company’s time or energy. High on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific, years of bureaucratic hurdles overcome, each was considered a masterpiece.
“Dunes does it right,” I said. “But there’s got to be some environmental or other B.S. hoops to jump.”
Sal smiled. “Got it handled.” He walked a dozen yards away, pulled out his cell phone and after five minutes returned, still smiling.
Within 60 seconds Forte’s phone buzzed. Flipping it open, “Chief Forte… Sure commissioner… Will do.”
He looked at Sal and me. “We’re lead on this and those bureaucratic hoops? There are none. The commissioner and Sheriff have signed off. So has DEQ.”
I turned to Sal. “Called one of your CIA buddies, huh?”
“Never was CIA. Nor would I ever be,” the big man responded, a faint chuckle in the tone.
Turning to Jacob, “Buck me some three-footers, square as you can. I’ll get my pickup and we’ll have us a bon fire.”
It took about an hour to load the five short logs into the back of the pickup and unload them at Willow Weep.
Jacob’s cuts, from the look at the skeleton, were roughly above the pelvis, just below the arm pits and a good two feet above where we figured the skull would be. I was glad Karl the reporter had returned to town rather than taking photos of what would appear to be desecration of a skeleton. But Sal’s plan was a good one and expedient.
We stacked the logs on a small pile of dry pine splits and ignited them. Since the fire wouldn’t be hot enough to destroy the bones, we were fairly certain we could salvage and reassemble the skeleton after the wood had burned off. But this was an old, hardwood tree so it would take time. Meanwhile, Sal and I took the Vic to town for a late breakfast.
Across from each other at the Eatin’ Station, eggs, bacon and toast along with our fourth cup of coffee, I asked, “What’s with Tatiana and you?”
Sal leaned back, wiped his beard with a napkin.
“Her visa is up next week. She’s heading home to Mother Russia.”
That was a stunner for me because the two of them had become as tight as a sailor’s knot.
“Can’t you pull some strings?”
“Not sure she wants me to, Nick. She’s homesick.” Taking a pull from his coffee mug, “Besides, you know me. I like living in the woods. She’s a Moscovite city girl. I like kicking back and watching you count trees. She loves her work and being in the thick of things. Let’s face it, there’s little call for a secret agent in Bandon.” The big man sighed. “It’s been fun, though.”
Sal and I have been friends since grade school and long-ago learned to offer advice sparingly if at all. I just nodded and let restaurant sounds of rattling plates, unintelligible conversations and an occasional cash register ding fill the void until he felt like talking.
“Besides,” he finally said, “Tatiana tells me Cookie is heading back to Chicago for the rest of the season so now you won’t feel like a third wheel.”
Our mutual misery was interrupted with the harsh nasal clatter of Bo Jangles’ voice. His name’s not my fault. Blame his mother.
“Nick! Is it true? Is it true you found an Indian IN a tree? Like buried in a tree? God, Nick, you have the coolest job. You really found someone in a tree? You’re the best detective in the world, Nick! Really!”
“Whoa, Bo. Take it slow.” The small man, who looked and sounded like Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 had become my new best friend after Sal and I helped retrieve his 1955 Thunderbird earlier in the year.
“How’d you hear about that and, by the way, we don’t know if it was a Native American and third, I didn’t find the skeleton, Jacob Cobb did.”
“Jake? Really? I’ve gotta talk to him. This is so cool!” Bo spun and nearly flew out of the restaurant.
“Word gets around a small town, Nick.”
At least it broke the melancholy. But it also brought another customer to the table. I watched as an older woman, slim, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, baggy sweatshirt hanging to mid-thigh covering stone washed jeans, stood from her table and headed toward ours. Her face was tanned but her eyes were squinting as if she had forgotten her glasses.
“Excuse me, did I just hear that man say you found a skeleton in a tree?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“That’s really strange. When I was a little girl, my brother found a skeleton in a tree. We called it the Man Tree and my brothers and I would talk to him, bring him cookies and we always included him in our nighttime prayers.” She flushed and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Sarah Cavanaugh. Pardon me for interrupting, but I never in my life thought there was another Man Tree.”
I waved her into the seat next to Sal. “I’m Nick Drago, this is Sallie Rand.”
She smiled at each of us in turn and continued. “We lived just south of Bandon. Our daddy raised sheep.”
“When was this, Miss Cavanaugh?”
“Sarah, please. Right after the Second World War. My family moved from Ohio. Daddy was in the Army and thought Oregon would be a good place to move. Most everyone was off to California or Florida or places like that, but he wanted to raise sheep and work on his inventions. 1945.”
Sal asked, “Inventions?”
She nodded, “It was an age of new inventions. He grew up at a time when everything from toasters to cars to refrigerators and even toilet paper were turning regular people into millionaires. He was always tinkering in the workshop and when the war broke out he enlisted and was gone for three years, first in Europe than during the final days of the Pacific theater.
“As soon as he returned he moved us to Oregon, bought a farm with the GI bill and raised sheep. His heart wasn’t so much in the sheep – that was a way to pay the bills – but he loved inventing gizmos. He got the first patent on those little potato peelers. He sold it to Sears and they paid him a couple of thousand dollars for the patent and probably made a gazillion selling them in their catalog and in stores. After that Daddy swore he’d never sell a patent again without a royalty.”
“And that somehow led to finding the skeleton in a tree?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Plastics were all the rage after the war. It was going to become the new frontier, he would tell us over dinner. He wanted to invent a binding agent for plastic. Super Glue, if you will. He figured with everything being made with plastic and most of it fragile in comparison with metal, special universal glue would be perfect for fixing all the stuff that broke.” She sighed. “A little ahead of his time, I guess. Anyway, he began tapping the different trees looking for a special sap or resin that could be the basis for the glue.”
Sal ordered more coffee all around. Sarah put a hand over her cup and shook her head at the waitress.
“One day daddy was drilling a hole in a tree and suddenly there wasn’t any resistance. He pulled out the drill and stuck a screw driver into the hole. It was obvious the tree was hollow so he figured it was dead inside.”
“What kind of tree, Sarah?”
“Madrone. You know the kind, with the bark that peels off in sheets.”
Sal and I looked at each other. “We know.”
“Was that the kind of tree you found the skeleton in this morning?”
I nodded.
“How odd,” she said.
“Sarah, is the tree still