As they tried to explain to him what they had seen and felt in the woods, however, a beefy gray-haired man in uniform came across to them and said, ‘What’s the problem here, Deputy?’ ‘These folks think they saw somebody lurking in the woods over yonder.’ ‘Not necessarily some body,’ Jack corrected him. ‘Some body or some thing.’ The beefy man had steel-gray eyes like nail-heads and a double chin which bulged over his collar. He held out his hand and said, ‘Undersheriff Dan Porter. And you are?’ ‘Jack Wallace. This is my son, Sparky. Well, his real name’s Alexis. This is Mrs Corinne Cusack. Her son Malcolm is one of the victims. We came up here to give some moral support.’ ‘And you saw somebody or something in the woods?’ ‘That’s right. Only glimpsed it. Something white; or somebody all dressed up in white. And we heard a kind of a wind blowing.’ Undersheriff Porter glanced sideways at Deputy Jeppersen as if to say, time-wasters. But all the same he said, ‘OK.
