The Heinman farm sat well below road level, about fifty yards to my left. On my right, a steeply sloped, heavily wooded hill rose maybe a hundred feet above the roadbed. The farm lane came uphill toward the mailbox at a slant, with bare-limbed maple trees between it and the road. As an added measure, between the road and those trees was an old woven-wire fence covered with a thick tangle of brush and weeds. Put up, I was sure, to keep the larger debris from the roadway out of the Heinman property. There was an old, rusty Ford tractor from the fifties, quietly decomposing within ten feet of the galvanized mailbox that was perched on top of a wooden fencepost. That old tractor had been there the very first time I’d seen the farm, nearly twenty-five years ago. By now it and its rotting tires had become part of the landscape.

I saw 216 talking to the two elderly Heinman brothers. They were near the mailbox, looking toward the area ahead of the patrol car. As I approached, a body came slowly into my view in front of 216’s car. It was lying kind of on its left side, parallel with the direction of the road, with its feet pointing away and downhill from me. I started making mental notes as I walked. Faded blue plaid flannel shirt, blue jeans, one black tennis shoe…and hands bound behind its back with yellow plastic binders. Damn. We call them Flex Cuffs, and use them when we run out of handcuffs. They’re like the bindings for electrical wiring: once they’re on, they have to be cut off. What we had here was an execution.

Two more steps, and I saw the head. More accurately, I saw the remains of the head. You often hear the phrase “blow their head off,” but it’s rare to actually see it.

Hester and 216 stepped over and joined me at the body.

“Hi Carl,” said Trooper 216.

“Gary. Glad you could come.”