What Terrible Secret Hides in the Bulrushes?

Posted on Oct 03, 2017 Topic : Fiction

In this excerpt from When the Bishop Needs an Alibi, Amish bishop Henry Lapp uncovers a mystery hidden among the bulrushes and cattails of the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge.

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Henry Lapp crouched in a sea of bulrushes and cattails.

As he waited, dawn’s light splashed over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east, crossed the San Luis Valley, and settled against the base of the San Juan Mountains in the west. Sunrise turned the marshland into a sea of gold and warmed the brisk fall air. Henry moved behind a clump of bulrushes, the ripened seeds temporarily filling the lens of his Nikon binoculars.

Henry again heard the flat, rattle call of a sandhill crane, a gar-oo-oo that never failed to quicken his pulse. He brought his binoculars around to the sound and adjusted his focus. Nearly four feet tall, with a wingspan of at least six feet, the male crane was a beauty to behold. Its gray color provided a perfect camouflage against the fall stalks, rendering the splash of red against its forehead all the more surprising.

The crane took several steps east, and Henry did the same, barely noticing the way his boots sank in the mud.

Henry stepped forward, completely focused on the birds, and his foot struck against something. He lost his balance and began to fall. His dog Lexi jumped out of his way, and Henry tried to focus on saving the binoculars, on not dropping them in the mud.

He was thinking of that, of how precious the binoculars were to him, when he landed on his backside, scaring away the family of three and causing an entire flock of cranes to take flight. He shook his head at his clumsiness and called Lexi closer, but the beagle was now emitting a low, menacing growl.

“Lexi, shush.”

The dog paid him no mind. Her growl turned to high-pitched barks, and more cranes rose into the morning sky.

Henry lurched for the dog’s collar, and he twisted, turning back in the direction he’d come. That was the moment he saw what made him trip, what Lexi was now backing away from, still alternately growling and yipping.

Hidden among the bulrushes and the cattails lay a woman’s body, facedown in the brush.

Stumbling forward, he knelt beside her, swept aside her hair, and placed two fingers to her neck. He couldn’t detect a pulse, and she certainly wasn’t moving. But then again, his own heartbeat was thundering in his ears, and his hands were shaking. He should get help, run to the visitor center, but first he had to be sure. Gently he rolled the body over, his heart sinking in recognition.

She wouldn’t be needing help. That much was for certain. Henry uttered a prayer for her soul even as his gaze froze on the bruise marks around her neck. His tears didn’t begin to fall until he looked at her face—unmarred and unlined in death, as if the worries of her life had slipped away and sailed across the vast Colorado sky.