A trail of crime scene tape stretched between trees Tuesday in Lewiston’s Garcelon Bog leads to an area where human remains were discovered in January. Maine State Police are investigating, but have yet to release any other information. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

In a rain-soaked Garcelon Bog on a gloomy Monday, I found a curious thing.

Along a barely-there path, roughly 50 yards off the main trail, a plastic glow stick hangs seven feet up the trunk of the tree.

It’s already getting dark in these woods, but the stick has no more glow to muster. One can imagine it was once placed there to illuminate a campsite, but there are no other signs of camping — or of any human presence at all.

Except for all the shredded crime scene tape, that is.

In late January, a body was found by someone who had been walking the trail, which winds through a thick patch of woods near the end of Russell Street extension in Lewiston.

Was the body that of a man? A woman? An adult or a child?

Was this death the result of suicide? Natural causes? Murder?

We don’t know. Maine State Police are investigating the matter and they have said next to nothing at all about it as they await the results of DNA testing.

At least once a week, I get a message, a phone call or an email about it: “What’s up with the body they found in Garcelon Bog?” they ask.

But I have no answers for them and the bog itself has disclosed nothing.

Nothing much, anyway.

Near the start of the main trail, veering off to the left, is a path that doesn’t appear heavily traveled. One might not even notice the trail at all if not for the police crime scene tape that dangles from various trees stretching on for about an eighth of a mile.

Travel deeper into the woods along that path and you will find even more crime scene tape: short bits of it wrapped around skinny trees; a longer section hanging limply against thick trunk; random tatters that cling to tree branches in spite of the wind that wants to blow them away.

In this otherwise pristine wilderness, these bits of bright yellow assault the eyes and whisper of something terrible that has happened here.

The temptation is to follow this trail of crime scene tape deeper into the woods but ultimately, the land gives way to soft ground and deep water and one can walk no further.

It was in this area that I found the feckless glow stick hanging in plain sight.

A glow stick hangs from a tree at Garcelon Bog in Lewiston. Mark LaFlamme

I circled the tree a couple times, dog like, looking at the glow stick from several angles. Was it a clue of some sort? A small but crucial piece of evidence overlooked when the police came sweeping through?

It seems unlikely. When police technicians go about collecting evidence, very little escapes their attention. Every little scrap is collected as a potential clue; every cigarette butt, shredded candy wrapper, mutilated bottle cap, muddy sock or human hair is tweezed into evidence bags and labeled meticulously.

If the glow stick bore witness to whatever had transpired in Garcelon Bog, it would be doing time in a crime scene locker as we speak.

At any rate, I left the glow stick where it was, more out of superstition than anything else. Hanging from the tree the way it is, it serves as a fine symbol of the mystery that hangs over the case of the body found in Garcelon Bog.

Of course, in the end, it may turn out to be no mystery at all.

Maine State Police are called in when a death is potentially suspicious, it’s true, but their handling of the case alone doesn’t hint at foul play.

The fact is, state police are not inclined to answer our frequent questions about the case until they have something firm; something revealed, verified and then verified again through lab testing.

Only then will we know the sad fate of whomever it was who died in the strange and beautiful patch of woods known as Garcelon Bog.

A trail of crime scene tape in Lewiston’s Garcelon Bog hangs Tuesday from a tree near where human remains were discovered in January. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

In the meantime, imaginations wander.

In a file I keep close at hand are two names. One belongs to a local woman who recently vanished amid rumors that she had significant drug debt that she could not pay.

The other name, collected by a colleague, belongs to an Auburn woman who apparently went missing after a friend had prescient dreams about her vanishing.

Will one of those names emerge when the Garcelon Bog mystery is finally closed? Or will it be some other name; a name belonging to somebody’s son, brother, daughter, sister, father or mother?

Whatever the facts turn out to be, it will be curiosity satisfied for most of us and the beginning of heartbreak for somebody else.

In the meantime, Garcelon Bog is a nice little spot, unblemished by the kind of litter you find in other wooded areas across the area.

If you can ignore the ugly mess of crime scene tape near the start of the trail, you’ll have yourself a good, short hike with no indications whatsoever that something tragic has occurred among the trees.

You’ll find a long, neat bridge assembled to keep your feet out of the muck.

You’ll find a rather wild looking fort made of old tree limbs that was probably slapped together by some of those rare kids who still take time to play in the woods.

You might hear spring birds and possibly a far off train whistle, but otherwise its just skeletal tree limbs clattering together in the stiff, cold breeze.

It doesn’t feel haunted. It doesn’t feel dangerous. It’s just a cool little oasis right near the very center of the city.

And whatever secrets Garcelon Bog has been keeping, it means to hold onto them a little bit longer.