Free GRAY MATTER by Gary Braver

laid him in it, then zipped it. He grabbed the butterfly net and went back down to the canal. The place was
dead—not a sound except for the bugs and bats chittering in the darkening skies. He went back to the shack, and when he was certain that the woods were clear, he moved outside and with his gloved hands picked up the dog and scraps of brain matter and dumped it all and the rabbit into another bag. He sprayed the ground with coon urine from the aerosol can to deflect search-party dogs.
    When he finished, he hauled the bags back into the woods maybe two hundred yards then turned west and headed to where yesterday he had dug the four-foot-deep hole, now covered over with brush. He laid down his bundles and uncovered the hole. It was deep enough and already limed. He dropped in the remains, filled the hole with dirt again, sprayed more coon urine, and then returned the brush.
    But the exertion in the suit nearly made him faint. He trudged his way to the next clearing in the trees then crossed up and over the rise that would take him back to Little Wiggins Canal Road and to the cutoff in the woods where the van waited with the Igloo cooler full of ice and the six bottles of Coors Lite.
    Billy thought about the beer then about the story in tomorrow’s local papers: How little six-year-old Travis Valentine of Little Wiggins Canal Road and his dog Bo were missing, and how the authorities speculated that the boy had gotten lost in the woods. And in a few days people would begin to fear that the boy and his dog had been snatched by alligators because it was nesting season and males are very protective by nature. And then it would come out how some large bulls reaching upward of eleven feet had been spotted in canals not too far from here. Wildlife officers would comment that although gators generally fear humans, some local animals had lost their timidity because residents had been feeding them even though that was against the law, and that most gator attacks occurred around dusk. And a spokesman from the Florida Game and Fish Commission would say something about how the boy’s death should not create a panic, that there had been only eleven confirmed deaths by alligator in the last twenty years, and that death by drowning and bee sting were more common. While that wouldn’t be much comfort to Mrs. Valentine, the commission just wanted to put things in perspective. And the local sheriffs office would solemnly promise that his men would hunt and kill the animal, and that the Game Commission would dissect it to ensure it was the one that got the Valentine boy.

    And the distraught mother would report how there had been no screaming or barking or sounds of thrashing water. And how Travis would never disobey her and go near the water because he had more sense than that. He knew about gators, and even though they had almost never been spotted in the vicinity, she had schooled him right. Besides, he had Bo who would detect a gator if it were nearby.
    But the authorities would express bafflement that even with a party of police, forest rangers, and a couple dozen backcountry volunteers with dogs, not a trace had been found of young Travis or his mutt—just a butterfly net and a solitary sneaker at the edge of the canal, leading them to rule out foul play, mountain lions, and bears, leaving them with the sad conclusion that both the dog and the boy had been snatched by alligators, the dog probably first—pulled right off the shore without a sound—then, when he went to help, another animal had burst from the depths and pulled in Travis, too.
    No bloody clothes, no ravished bodies, nothing but a single sneaker and a butterfly net.
    Like he had just up and disappeared snick snick.

7

    T o Greg’s mind, the groomed piney acreage surrounding the medical examiner’s office was an overstated apology for the interior grimness.
    One of the three satellite offices of the Boston headquarters, the Pocasset unit occupied the dark concrete