Part 2 of a legend in a Wisconsin lake and a recently discovered body of a missing explorer from two hundred years before.
“Is this some more of your ghost-hunting stuff?” A mischievous smile threatened to erupt on my face.
“I told you it’s not ghost hunting,” Lisa snapped at me. She calmed down when she noticed I was grinning. “Now stop that. What I’m going to tell you is true, and I’d swear it on a stack of Bibles.”
“You’re an agnostic,” I reminded her with the same grin.
Her stare made me raise my hands in defense.
“Alright, alright, I’ll quit.”
“Good!” she huffed.
“Rumors started on the online forums a few months ago about some hunters discovering a body in the hollow of a tree.” Her eyes lit up. “County sheriff went out there, and then a coroner, of course. Well, they took it back to the lab, but they couldn’t get an ID on the body.”
“Oh, spooky. A missing persons case,” I said.
“Shut it! Everyone knows that. But those who discovered the body said it looked like a wax figure. You know the ones that looked like a mannequin, but it was a frozen solid body stuck inside the hollow of a tree. I guess the county coroner did nothing to it since he couldn’t do much with a frozen corpse when they finally got it out. Thing is that the coroner called his buddy at the state forensics lab to take the body.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lisa admitted. “I would need to ask Gretchen, one of Bob’s friends. She’s a lab assistant and saw the corpse. We met her for coffee one day, and she told us the frozen body completely preserved everything when arrived at the state lab. Most of the clothing remained along with a leather hat. But no wallet or modern devices.”
“Okay, so the killers took the stuff and left the body, which remained frozen during the winter. So what?”
She held up her hand.
“I’m getting to that. Yeah, you would think it’s just a normal frozen body from over the winter. Then, it began to thaw out. The clothing the man wore when he died already confused them.”
She looked around the room as if someone would overhear us. Lisa looked so sincere, I forced myself not to laugh.
“The man wore a simple brown robe with a cinture wrapped around his waist. And get this! The man wore only one sandal. Does that sound like anyone we know?”
I grunted and grinned to cover the chill that went through me at the thought of seeing such a body.
“So, you’re saying this corpse is the missing friar?”
Lisa grinned.
“I’m sure of it. But that’s not even the strangest part of the story. According to the autopsy they did on the body, Friar Ranney had been dead for only five years at most.”
Her voice fell dramatically as she stared at me.
“So, where’s he been for the rest of the time?”
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