Chris Audet was drawn to the
water.

Whether he was fishing
for hornpout or bringing his kids to Horace Lake or Tucker Pond to swim – the water was the place to which the Loudon native always returned.

“I think he just felt free being in the water,” said Candace Jelley, Audet’s former wife of more than 10 years. “He grew up at the ponds his whole life.”

That’s why Audet’s family is shocked and confused after the father of four was found dead in the Contoocook River in Penacook on Sunday night.

Audet, 45, was found unresponsive in a shallow portion of the river by a passer-by near Island Shores Estates, New Hampshire Marine Patrol said. Audet was wearing swim trunks and a gray sleeveless T-shirt. He was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

Authorities say the investigation into Audet’s death is ongoing. Marine Patrol had originally said an autopsy would be performed Monday, but officials haven’t returned calls requesting information about whether Audet’s death is being considered suspicious, or whether that particular stretch of the Contoocook River is considered dangerous.

Meanwhile, Audet’s family is reeling without more information about their loved one’s last moments.

Audet’s former stepson, Nick Ford, 23, said he saw that a person had been found in Penacook on the news Monday. Marine Patrol had put out a description saying that the man had an American flag tattoo on his right biceps and a blue tattoo with names on his left biceps. He was also wearing a red bracelet with the words, “In Memory of Papa Weed.”

Ford knew Audet had an American flag tattoo – he loved the flag – and a tattoo listing the names of his children. But he never imagined that it could be Chris.

“There are so many people who might have tattoos like that,” Ford said. “My last thought was that it was him.”

Then, Ford got a message from the woman who Chris had been living with in Penacook. She said she recognized the “Papa Weed” bracelet that she had made for him, and said Chris hadn’t come home from a fishing trip to Island Shores Estates with two friends two days before.

Before Ford knew it, Marine Patrol was at the family home asking to see a photo of Chris.

“They said, ‘We are 99 percent sure it’s Chris Audet,’ ” Ford said. “It was all so surreal.”

It wasn’t too unusual for Audet to be distant, his family said. He had struggled in recent years, let go of his sanding and refinishing business and wasn’t as much a part of his family’s lives as he had been.

But he was always there when he was needed, they said.

Jelley said he was always doing things to help others – especially if it involved physical labor. He loved working on floors, and had built a reputation in the Concord area from his business, Audet Floor Sanding & Refinishing.

“It didn’t matter if you paid him or not,” Jelley said. “He would do anything for free for anybody.”

His 26-year-old son, Codi, said he had seen him the week before he died and that he seemed to be doing well. For Chris’s family, that just leads to more questions about what happened to him between then and the day he died.

But while they wait for more information, Audet’s family is doing their best to remember him and celebrate his life.

His 18-year-old daughter, Madysen, and his niece, Kaitlyn, set up a memorial for Chris on a rock at Island Shores Estates. They bought a red cross, two American flags and red-and-white striped balloons to put in a bucket near the spot his body was found.

In red spray paint, they wrote the words, “RIP Chris Audet.”

On Tuesday, the family got together at Chris’s father Richard’s home in Loudon to look at old photos and reminisce.

They sorted through photos of Chris, with his gap-toothed grin posing with characters at Disney World, on fishing trips and wrestling with his kids.

Madysen described her father as energetic, loving and outgoing. She said she’ll remember him shouting for her at her hockey games, and the cutouts he kept of the articles from when she appeared in the newspaper.

Codi said he would remember family trips camping, swimming and fishing, where Chris was always in his element.

There will not be a funeral for Audet, but a gathering to celebrate his life will be held at his sister Stephanie Curtin’s house on July 21 at 1 p.m. Family and friends are welcome to attend.

 (An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Chris Audet lived at Penwood Estates in Concord. Audet does not live at Penwood Estates, but he did work there.) 

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