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The cellphone buzzed in my shirt pocket.

Flipping it open, “Drago.”

“Nick. Chief Forte. Got a sec?”

“What’s up?”

“Need your help. I’ve got a man in a tree.”

“Call the fire department.”

“A logger would be better. I mean, IN the tree, not attached to it.”

I checked the calendar on the phone display. It didn’t surprise me that it was Monday. These kinds of calls always come on Monday.

“As in encased in a tree?” I asked.

“Come see for yourself, Nick. We’re at Bandon Dunes, new course. Can’t miss the crowd. And, uh, bring Sal.”

“You want me to bring Sal because you think Tatiana will come along. You’re a letch.”

“I’m the Chief of police in a small town. Allow me my foibles.”

I disconnected and hit the speed dial. Sal answered on the second ring and I repeated the man-in-the-tree line. He had the same reaction.

“I’ll be there in five,” he said. “Should I bring an axe?”

“No, Forte wants you to bring Tatiana.”

“Letch.”

Neither Tatiana nor Cookie cared to go along, electing instead to take Sal’s Prius to Coos Bay for some shopping.

Sal settled his 300 pounds into the passenger seat of the Crown Vic, pulled open the cup holder and dropped his ever-present ceramic and stainless-steel travel mug into the slot.

“Where are the donuts?”

“Didn’t have time to get them,” I answered. “We’ll make a stop afterwards.”

Sal harrumphed. Ever since hooking up with the Russian special ops agent Tatiana Malakova, Sal had been put on a donut restricted diet. He complained loudly about it, but most of it was bluster and bluff.

The ride to Bandon Dunes took barely 10 minutes under a perfectly cloudless blue sky. The blacktop two-lane shoulders its way through a forest of shore pine and Douglas fir along with the South Oregon Coast’s requisite brambles of blackberry bushes, ferns and huckleberry shrubs. Not to mention the bane of the area, gorse, a spikey, oily plant that refuses to die even when blasted with the harshest of defoliants and weed killers but will turn acres into a blazing inferno at the drop of a paper match.

The golf resort’s guard shack – a small glass building – was more for show than security and, as usual, was unmanned. We slid past the guest cottages nestled in the woods and made the swing toward the newest of the Dune’s courses, yet unnamed but sure to join the others which had been ranked among the top 10 in the country by a variety of golfing magazines and professionals.

The crowd of cop cars and an assortment of pickups were scattered like jacks along both sides of the road. Being August, nearly three months of dry weather meant most were washed and waxed, the colors looking like someone dumped a handful of Skittles on a green placemat.

Uniformed cops and plaid-shirted onlookers stood around a felled tree. As Sal and I approached, Chief Forte broke away. After 26 years on LAPD, he took the Chief’s job in Bandon. Sandy hair going gray and a medium build, Forte is fit, tough and thick necked. He looks like a cop.

“Gentlemen, this is as odd as it gets.”

We followed him across a strip of fairway-to-be to the center of the onlookers. Most of the faces I recognized, some grunted greetings, others simply nodded.

As we walked, Forte explained, “The course designer wanted a bit more rough along the east edge of hole 12 so that meant removing about a dozen trees.” He nodded toward the far side of the fairway. “He called in a tree service and they started removing some of a stand when one of the guys found this.”

A large Madrone lay on its side, the remaining stump roughly three feet high. In the middle of the stump were skeletal remains of what looked like foot bones, pale white and lacking any apparent flesh or remnants of clothing. Chainsaw marks sliced across the bones a few inches above the ankles.

In the tree now prone, what appeared to be the stub ends of two shinbones.

“That’s a guy in a tree alright,” I said to Forte who was standing quietly nearby, hands on his hips. “Any guess how old the tree is?”

“The arborist is on his way.”

“Jeffries?”

“Yeah.”

“Good man.” I walked the length of the fallen Madrone. From the cut to roughly seven feet up, the tree had an unusual bulge then returned to a narrower trunk.

“Odd growth pattern,” I said to Sal.

He nodded, “As if the tree grew around the body. Looks like an elongated onion, sort of.” To Forte, “Are you sure it’s really bone and not some sort of practical joke?”

“One way to find out,” he said, waving over one of the plaid shirted men standing nearby lugging a chainsaw. “Want to cut off a three foot chunk for me, Jacob?”

“No problemo,” he said nodding a greeting in my direction and hoisting the chainsaw in his right hand, giving a tug on the starter rope with his left. The raucous burrr of the two-stroke engine hit high C and Jacob tipped the chain into the Madrone. 20 seconds later, a three foot section lay on the ground. Two deputies lifted it on end. Jacob hit the kill switch on his chainsaw.

The men crowded around Sal, Forte and me to get a clear look at the section of trunk.

“Looks like a rib cage to me,” Forte said, leaning over the log. Using a pencil as a pointer, “Rib, spine. Whoever it was, he was standing upright when he was, uh, treed.”

A reporter from Western World newspaper who had been hovering around the perimeter of the group stepped close to the tree and snapped three quick photos.

Forte pointed at him and ordered “Enough, Karl.”

“This is too good to pass up, Chief.”

“Until we figure out who this is and notify any kin, let’s keep those pictures locked up.”

The reporter grinned. “Not gonna happen, Chief. Let’s face it, this guy’s been dead a long time if that tree grew up around him. Have a statement for me?”

“Yeah. The Bandon Police Department has enlisted the services of Nick Drago and Sal Rand to assist in determining…”

“You did?” I interrupted.

“Does ‘enlist’ entail payment?” Sal asked.

“Question 1, yes. Question 2, no,” Forte continued, “…in determining the identity of the victim and how he or she became encased in a Madrone.”

“Good enough for now,” Karl said.

A dually Ford pickup nosed down the road its diesel rattling as it pulled onto the grass, Warren Jeffries Tree Service painted on the doors. A tall thin man climbed from the cab and ambled toward us, head down, hands in pockets.

“Hey Chief,” he said, finally looking up. “Nick, Sal. Howyadoin. Whatchagotgoin?” He looked at the Madrone. “Too bad you cut it down. Don’t see many 100-plus year old Madrones around here.”

“That old?” I asked.

“Easy. Grows fast, needs perfect climate and weather and drainage to stay alive.”

He walked along the length of the tree.

“Probably wouldn’t have lasted another 100, though, with the golf course nearby. Change in environment almost always kills ‘em off.”

He poked at the trunk with a pocket knife, peeling away flaps of the shedding bark, revealing a clear, smooth wood face.

“Yeah, pretty healthy. Odd configuration, though.” He ran a hand along the trunk. “Limbs were twisted when the tree was young. Left a cage of sorts. Never seen that before.” He continued prodding the Madrone. “See here? You can just make out the different limbs. Most of the gaps have filled in after all this time, but no doubt, it was woven into a vertical cradle when the tree was just a pup.”

Focused on the tree, he suddenly realized there were bones inside the trunk. “Holy macaroni. There’s a body in there, Chief.”

“Reason I called, Warren.”

“Jumpin’ Jesus. That’s really odd.”

“Ya think?”

“Can you give me a better guess on the age of the tree?” I asked.

Nodding, Jeffries crouched down and stared at the stump, picking at the wood with his knife.

“Field guess, 120 to 125 years old. No more, not less.”

He stood, closed the knife and slipped it back into his jeans’ pocket. “Could give you a better estimate if I had a slice of the stump without the feet, though.”

“Probably not necessary,” Forte said. “We can start with that.”

Looking once more at the stump and felled tree, “Damn peculiar. Too bad you cut it down, though.” Jeffries turned, stuffed his hands back in his pockets, hung his head and went away muttering to himself. Climbed into his truck and drove back toward the highway.

With the exception of two deputies, the rest of the gathering began to dissolve as if to say “Seen one skeleton in a tree, seen them all.” That’s Bandon folk for ya. Takes a lot to hold their attention.

“Now what, Chief?” I asked. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do.”

“Maybe not. I’d sure like to know what this is all about, though. Mind looking into it, just for the mental exercise? As usual, I can’t afford the manpower.”

“Sure.”

“What do you need?”

“It would help to get an idea of the race of the tree guy. Could be an Indian, in which case the Coquilles would want to take a look and see if it’s an historic site. Or it could be a 100 year old murder case. Maybe a satanic voodoo thing.”

“Voodoo thing?”

Sal chuckled. “Right. A voodoo thing in Coos County in the early 1900s. And herds of unicorns lived happily in the river valley, peacefully coexisting with lions and tigers, caribou and sheep.”

Jacob, still holding his chainsaw, interrupted. “Chief, you need me for anything else?”

Forte looked at me for an answer. “Well, what can we do to remove the skeleton from the tree?”

“Maybe the state police forensic people have some magic,” Forte said.

Sal cleared his throat. “Uh, guys. No magic needed. Who’s up for a bon fire?”

“Think we need some clearances or something,” I said. “Besides, we’re not in the Chief’s jurisdiction out here.”

“No sweat. I’ll call the Sheriff. Make a deal. The way the county’s budget is, he can’t afford the manpower either. Especially for a 100 year old dead body.”

He looked across the soon-to-be fairway. “This is gonna be another great course, you know?”

And that it would be. Bandon Dunes and the four sister courses were carved out of what was once gorse-riddled scrub forest not worth a timber company’s time or energy. High on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific, years of bureaucratic hurdles overcome, each was considered a masterpiece.

“Dunes does it right,” I said. “But there’s got to be some environmental or other B.S. hoops to jump.”

Sal smiled. “Got it handled.” He walked a dozen yards away, pulled out his cell phone and after five minutes returned, still smiling.

Within 60 seconds Forte’s phone buzzed. Flipping it open, “Chief Forte… Sure commissioner… Will do.”

He looked at Sal and me. “We’re lead on this and those bureaucratic hoops? There are none. The commissioner and Sheriff have signed off. So has DEQ.”

I turned to Sal. “Called one of your CIA buddies, huh?”

“Never was CIA. Nor would I ever be,” the big man responded, a faint chuckle in the tone.

Turning to Jacob, “Buck me some three-footers, square as you can. I’ll get my pickup and we’ll have us a bon fire.”

It took about an hour to load the five short logs into the back of the pickup and unload them at Willow Weep.

Jacob’s cuts, from the look at the skeleton, were roughly above the pelvis, just below the arm pits and a good two feet above where we figured the skull would be. I was glad Karl the reporter had returned to town rather than taking photos of what would appear to be desecration of a skeleton. But Sal’s plan was a good one and expedient.

We stacked the logs on a small pile of dry pine splits and ignited them. Since the fire wouldn’t be hot enough to destroy the bones, we were fairly certain we could salvage and reassemble the skeleton after the wood had burned off. But this was an old, hardwood tree so it would take time. Meanwhile, Sal and I took the Vic to town for a late breakfast.

Across from each other at the Eatin’ Station, eggs, bacon and toast along with our fourth cup of coffee, I asked, “What’s with Tatiana and you?”

Sal leaned back, wiped his beard with a napkin.

“Her visa is up next week. She’s heading home to Mother Russia.”

That was a stunner for me because the two of them had become as tight as a sailor’s knot.

“Can’t you pull some strings?”

“Not sure she wants me to, Nick. She’s homesick.” Taking a pull from his coffee mug, “Besides, you know me. I like living in the woods. She’s a Moscovite city girl. I like kicking back and watching you count trees. She loves her work and being in the thick of things. Let’s face it, there’s little call for a secret agent in Bandon.” The big man sighed. “It’s been fun, though.”

Sal and I have been friends since grade school and long-ago learned to offer advice sparingly if at all. I just nodded and let restaurant sounds of rattling plates, unintelligible conversations and an occasional cash register ding fill the void until he felt like talking.

“Besides,” he finally said, “Tatiana tells me Cookie is heading back to Chicago for the rest of the season so now you won’t feel like a third wheel.”

Our mutual misery was interrupted with the harsh nasal clatter of Bo Jangles’ voice. His name’s not my fault. Blame his mother.

“Nick! Is it true? Is it true you found an Indian IN a tree? Like buried in a tree? God, Nick, you have the coolest job. You really found someone in a tree? You’re the best detective in the world, Nick! Really!”

“Whoa, Bo. Take it slow.” The small man, who looked and sounded like Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 had become my new best friend after Sal and I helped retrieve his 1955 Thunderbird earlier in the year.

“How’d you hear about that and, by the way, we don’t know if it was a Native American and third, I didn’t find the skeleton, Jacob Cobb did.”

“Jake? Really? I’ve gotta talk to him. This is so cool!” Bo spun and nearly flew out of the restaurant.

“Word gets around a small town, Nick.”

At least it broke the melancholy. But it also brought another customer to the table. I watched as an older woman, slim, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, baggy sweatshirt hanging to mid-thigh covering stone washed jeans, stood from her table and headed toward ours. Her face was tanned but her eyes were squinting as if she had forgotten her glasses.

“Excuse me, did I just hear that man say you found a skeleton in a tree?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“That’s really strange. When I was a little girl, my brother found a skeleton in a tree. We called it the Man Tree and my brothers and I would talk to him, bring him cookies and we always included him in our nighttime prayers.” She flushed and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Sarah Cavanaugh. Pardon me for interrupting, but I never in my life thought there was another Man Tree.”

I waved her into the seat next to Sal. “I’m Nick Drago, this is Sallie Rand.”

She smiled at each of us in turn and continued. “We lived just south of Bandon. Our daddy raised sheep.”

“When was this, Miss Cavanaugh?”

“Sarah, please. Right after the Second World War. My family moved from Ohio. Daddy was in the Army and thought Oregon would be a good place to move. Most everyone was off to California or Florida or places like that, but he wanted to raise sheep and work on his inventions. 1945.”

Sal asked, “Inventions?”

She nodded, “It was an age of new inventions. He grew up at a time when everything from toasters to cars to refrigerators and even toilet paper were turning regular people into millionaires. He was always tinkering in the workshop and when the war broke out he enlisted and was gone for three years, first in Europe than during the final days of the Pacific theater.

“As soon as he returned he moved us to Oregon, bought a farm with the GI bill and raised sheep. His heart wasn’t so much in the sheep – that was a way to pay the bills – but he loved inventing gizmos. He got the first patent on those little potato peelers. He sold it to Sears and they paid him a couple of thousand dollars for the patent and probably made a gazillion selling them in their catalog and in stores. After that Daddy swore he’d never sell a patent again without a royalty.”

“And that somehow led to finding the skeleton in a tree?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Plastics were all the rage after the war. It was going to become the new frontier, he would tell us over dinner. He wanted to invent a binding agent for plastic. Super Glue, if you will. He figured with everything being made with plastic and most of it fragile in comparison with metal, special universal glue would be perfect for fixing all the stuff that broke.” She sighed. “A little ahead of his time, I guess. Anyway, he began tapping the different trees looking for a special sap or resin that could be the basis for the glue.”

Sal ordered more coffee all around. Sarah put a hand over her cup and shook her head at the waitress.

“One day daddy was drilling a hole in a tree and suddenly there wasn’t any resistance. He pulled out the drill and stuck a screw driver into the hole. It was obvious the tree was hollow so he figured it was dead inside.”

“What kind of tree, Sarah?”

“Madrone. You know the kind, with the bark that peels off in sheets.”

Sal and I looked at each other. “We know.”

“Was that the kind of tree you found the skeleton in this morning?”

I nodded.

“How odd,” she said.

“Sarah, is the tree still standing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. My mother sold the farm when Dad died in 1993. I think the new owners wanted to turn it into a cranberry bog. When she died two years ago, she hadn’t been back to the place since it was sold and said she just couldn’t go back, although she talked about all the good times we had there a lot.”

Sarah gave us the location of the farm which Sal plugged into his iPhone GPS; located it in a bare minute. He pulled up the Google Map and zoomed in on the property.

“Can you tell me where the tree is, or was?” he asked.

She looked at the screen. “Isn’t that amazing,” she said then pointed at the location on the northern-most edge of the property. The new owners apparently never turned the property into a bog because the aerial view showed grassland and a small herd of white specks we assumed were sheep.

“One last thing,” I said. “How did you know there was a skeleton in the tree?”

She blushed. “My oldest brother Andrew started whittling away at the bore hole daddy started figuring he could make a hiding place for some of his own treasures. I think they were magazines of a kind daddy would not have approved.” Sal and I both chuckled. “He kept making the hole bigger until one day you could look in it. And looking back was a skull, the eye sockets exactly aligned with the hole as if he was staring out while Andrew was staring in.” She leaned forward and quietly said, “It scared the chicken poop out of him.”

“What did your father have to say about it?” Sal asked.

“Oh, daddy never knew. Andrew and us kids made a wooden plug out of Madrone bark and covered the hole. It was our secret. I had just turned 10 the day before so I considered it a special secret gift for me. Over the years, we’d remove the plug, talk to Tree Man, tell him jokes and stuff, ask his advice about things and then put the plug back.” She smiled, “It was a great secret to have as a child. Adults weren’t allowed to know.”

Sarah Cavanaugh rose from the seat and smiled, her clear hazel eyes leveled at me. “Mr. Drago, the Tree Man was special to us. Now that I’m older, and another one has shown up, would you mind letting me know if you find out how people wound up in these trees? As a kid, we didn’t think much about it. Now I’m curious and I’m sure my siblings would like to know, too.”

“My pleasure. All I need is a phone number.”

She removed a small pencil from her jeans pocket and scribbled on a napkin. “It’s a Phoenix area code. That’s where I and my brothers now live. I’m here to visit friends, but I’ll be heading back in a couple of days.” She smiled, “We’d really like to know.”

“You got it, Sarah.”

She returned to her table, gathered up her purse and left money for the bill, giving a wave to Sal and me as she left the restaurant.

“Nice woman,” Sal said.

“Tree Man. Huh. Who woulda thunk it. I’ll give Forte a call and fill him in.”

After telling him about the conversation with Sarah Cavanaugh, Forte said he knew the farm and the owner, a grouchy long-time resident, and he’d send one of his officers to see if the tree was still standing.

“Can that wait, Chief? I’d rather keep this piece of news close to the vest. We don’t need old man Wilson carving up the Madrone out of curiosity. Besides, I figure we’ll have a better idea of what we’re looking at when Sal’s and my fire burns the wood from the skeleton.”

“Fine by me. We’ve got a raccoon terrorizing some misplaced Californians on Lewis Lane,” he said joking. ”Can’t stop the important stuff to go looking for another man in a tree.”

I slipped the cell back in my pocket.

Sal rubbed his beard. “I’m hungry.”

“You just finished four eggs and two sides of bacon, Sal. How could you be hungry?”

“That was breakfast.” He looked at his watch. “It’s now lunch time. I want a cheeseburger.”

We ordered two, with fries and chocolate shakes.