Page 63 of Silent Bones
He stood in the doorway, watching the taillights disappear through the misty rain, red blurs swallowed by the trees. The house felt quiet again, but in a different way now. Like it had witnessed something it wasn’t meant to see.
Noah leaned one hand against the doorframe and stared into the dark.
His reflection in the window looked older than he remembered. Worn down by things he couldn’t name.
He said softly, “Yeah. Me too.”
15
The radio was playing something that sounded like a banjo having an identity crisis when the voiceover kicked in. “Come one, come all to the Whitehall Sasquatch Festival! Pancakes, prizes, and maybe, just maybe, a glimpse of the beast himself. Bring your boots, bring your binoculars… and bring your belief!”
McKenzie reached for the dial but didn’t turn it off. “You think we’ll get free T-shirts if we pretend we saw something?”
“You already do pretend,” Noah said, eyes on the road. “Every time you talk about your high school basketball career.”
McKenzie held up a hand in mock offense. “I wasbench MVP, thank you very much.”
“You’re from Scotland, they toss haggis not basketballs.”
“Not my school.”
Callie didn’t say anything from the back seat. She was staring out the window, arms crossed, her silence a kind of static in the car. Noah glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She didn’t meet his eyes. Was it embarrassment from the previous night? Or validation of what she felt deep inside?
He would have been lying to say that he hadn’t thought about it until he fell asleep or that he wouldn’t want to explore it further. But today he had to put it to one side and focus on the case. A task easier said than done.
The road curved, pine-lined and slick from the morning drizzle. Whitehall wasn’t far now. It was located a good two hours south of High Peaks and about forty minutes northeast of Lake George.
The festival had started as a joke a decade ago, but like all good folklore, it found a way to become real. What used to be a bar bet and a few drunken howls in the woods had grown into a weekend event with sponsors, Sasquatch-shaped waffle makers, and three local breweries releasing limited-run ales with names likeHair of the BeastandGone Squatchin’ IPA.
“Just so we’re clear,” Noah said, “we’re not here to eat pancakes and chase fairy tales.”
“No pancakes?” McKenzie groaned. “You take all the joy out of my job, Sutherland.”
“We’re here because Langley is the best primate trace analyst in the Northeast,” Noah continued. “And he’s already looked at other fur samples.”
McKenzie looked out the windshield as the town came into view. “God help us if he says it came from an actual Sasquatch.”
“I doubt that will be the case but we have to rule out the animal aspect.”
“We already did when we found Stephen zip-tied.”
“Sure, that’s one angle. One that is very credible. However, we don’t know for sure if Stephen was even at that campsite, as the others were dead and we don’t have a witness or cameras that place him there.”
“His name was down with the booking.”
“Right, but maybe he left to see someone. Maybe he had a change of mind and didn’t go. Avery never went. Maybe hehooked up with the wrong person through a gay app. That case of a guy killing gay men in Toronto is a prime example of what can happen when you place yourself in vulnerable situations.” He took a breath. “So until we have a definitive answer, the public and state still want us to give our due diligence and rule out an animal attack.”
They passed under a sagging banner stretched across Main Street: WELCOME TO THE 6TH ANNUAL WHITEHALL SASQUATCH FESTIVAL.
Below it, booths had popped up like mushrooms after rain, lining the sidewalks with fake fur pelts, footprint casts, wood-burned signs readingI BELIEVE, and airbrushed T-shirts with red-eyed silhouettes peeking through trees.
A man in a full-body gorilla costume, cheap and glossy, stumbled by as they parked. His mask was sideways. A cigarette dangled from the mouth slit.
Callie finally spoke. “That one’s definitely endangered.”
They got out and joined the flow of foot traffic.
Booths pressed in on either side. One offered “certified sighting maps” with stars marking alleged encounters going back fifty years. Another sold jerky labeled100% Authentic Cryptid Meat. It was probably cow, but no one was asking.
