The Creek

No one would ever accuse my life of being dull.  In fact, I have been told many times that I should write a book...trouble is, if I did, a lot of people would never speak to me again...

But...we have had a bit of extra excitement around here.  Several years ago, one of the sons of the deacon of our church, who lived right across the highway from us (we bought our house from another one of his sons), found a human skull while walking around under the overpass that is between our houses.  At first, the police didn't want to believe it was really human, but the deacon, Brother Chester, convinced them to come and see.  Sure enough, it was human.

The police even came over to our house and checked out an old tombstone our boys found in the same creek a few months before the skull was found.  But the police determined that the skull was from a young woman, where our tombstone was a young man 21 years old.

Brother Chester kept after them, but the police were either slow or not inclined to share a lot, so a few years went by without much news.  Then, one day, I got a phone call from a friend asking me if I knew why there were police cars at the overpass at the end of our property.  I didn't, but had a feeling it might have something to do with the skull.  Mary Susannah and Beau could not contain their excitement, so they crept down there and got a few pictures before the police spied them and told them to go back home:

As it turned out, they were indeed digging for more evidence, and even found some more bones.  Another year or so went by, and there was finally some news in the papers.  It's believed a man killed his wife and dumped her body under the overpass.  Here is a link to the story:

 Missing Woman

To say my children have been excited about this is quite an understatement.  They've searched their memory trying to remember exactly how it all happened.  They've poured over the couple of newspaper stories we could find.

Finally today, Mary Susannah and grand daughter Chloe decided they just had to go to the creek and see the crime scene again.  There was no way I would let them go there alone - homeless people have been known to hang out under that overpass.  So, if they couldn't go alone, then they decided "I" should take them, and they got the three younger kids to back them up.

I was outnumbered...

But I also had car keys, and it feels like 150 degrees outside, so I loaded them all up and we drove across our pasture to the overpass.  Angel-Leah wasn't sure she liked this idea at all once she was there, and opted to stay in the car - until she saw us all get out and start to walk away.  In a heartbeat, she was with us, holding onto my hand for dear life.

We walked through waist high grass, braving both poison ivy and snakes, and crept under the bridge.  Wow, it was MUCH cooler under there, no wonder the homeless people like it!  In fact, maybe I will just lug my easy chair under there and crochet the summer away...

Mary Susannah and Chloe had sweetly made a cross and placed it where they thought the body had been found:

Tommy and Luke were a lot more interested in the bird's nest they found that they could SEE, than the thought of a body that had been removed a long time ago!

We explored and searched and itched at the grassy stuff that was brushing against our legs.  I had Mary Susannah take another picture to show how close our house was to where the bridge is:

We were probably sleeping in our beds within site of this man as he put his poor wife under the bridge and left her there.

We were soon home, and Chloe went through the pictures she had taken on her phone.  Suddenly she cried out that there was a face in the bushes in one of her pictures.  She emailed it to Mary Susannah so they could see it bigger, and sure enough, there in the middle of the picture you can see what looks like a ghostly face!

Can you see it, there in the shadow of the post?

Mary Susannah and Chloe spent much time examining this face.  After a while, Chloe, who we sometimes tease should have been born blond, observed:
"It doesn't look much like the picture in the paper.  Do you think there are more bodies dumped under that bridge?"

Oh help...

Mary Susannah decided to mess with the image a bit.  She put it on edit, and tried to outline the face.  This is what she came up with:

We got quite a kick out of this.  Suppose she has a future as a police department sketch artist?

So now we are all settled back at home.  It's quiet.  The little kids are playing in the water hose, the big girls are in Mary Susannah's room.  I have the computer all to myself.

But I don't have much hope it will last for long...