A Year At The Opera

Chapter 10: The Investigation in the Woods, Part 1

Word Count: 4000 words

Ingram and Aaron

Ingram arrived at the scene of the crime about ten minutes after Aaron's call.

"There you are!" He said. Aaron turned around to see them. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, we're mostly fine but that person isn't." Aaron said.

"Who?" Ingram asked, approaching Aaron, Mason tagging behind.

Aaron pointed at the hand sticking out of the ground.

"What. The. Fuck." Ingram said, taking a step forward to look at it closer. "Is that a hand?"

"A what?" Mason walked up next to him, peeking over his shoulder.

"I think there's a body under there." Aaron said. "Can't be that old, ground's still fairly wet. Someone buried it recently."

"What the fuck!" Mason took a step back, unable to process how casual Aaron was being about this.

"Look, what do we do?" El asked, shoving herself into the conversation.

"We call the police, obviously." Ingram said.

"How are you all this calm?" Mason asked, pacing around in the same place, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "There might be a dead body buried under there!" He said in a forced whisper, trying to keep his voice down as if someone was listening.

"I don't know, man." Aaron said. "If we call it in, we're opening ourselves up to be suspects."

"Did you not hear me? There might be a dead person buried a few feet from you!" Mason clutched his face in his hands and continued to nervously pace in place.

"We heard you, Mace. But panicking isn't going to help us, right now." Ingram said, semi-calmly. "We're all scared but we need to keep it together." He turned to Aaron. "And I don't care if we incriminate ourselves, there might be a dead person there. Someone might be looking for them. They might have a family. If we're innocent we have nothing to worry about." He gave Aaron a weird, accusing look. "We are innocent, right?"

"Ohmygod, yes, we didn't kill and bury whoever is in there, there'd be mud on our clothes and body, wouldn't there be?"

"Just confirming, man."

"Look, we are innocent," El interjected. "But are we sure we want to be involved in this? We could just leave an anonymous tip or something."

"No, I'm pretty sure they can track that shit." Aaron chimed in. "One way or the other, if we tell them, we're in this. If we don't—"

"Not an option, don't even think about it." Ingram said.

"Look, all I'm saying is, let's weigh our options here. Either we call the police, tell them their might be a dead body in the woods and open ourselves up to being suspects. Considering we don't know how old that body is, and the fact that we don't have alibis beyond each other for last night, that might be a risk, and a headache considering how many interviews and interrogations we might have to give and sit through. These cases can last for a looooong time. Or, we pretend we never saw this, enjoy another day or two at the cabin, go back and never talk about this. Just be chill about it."

"I say we call the police. I don't mind the interviews or the interrogations. My mom's a very good lawyer, she'll do her best to keep the press and reporters away if that's what you're worried about. But that might be an actual person in there, with a family probably waiting for them to come home, worried sick. Don't you think they at least deserve to know what happened to him?" Ingram crossed his arms.