Ripped To Shreds Page 11

  "No. The area our research is involved with is on the western side of the Bighorn Mountains. Unfortunately, there's no RV park in the vicinity. But this campground's close enough to suit our needs. Why do you ask?"

  "My husband and I were hiking through the forest and overheard a couple conversing. Your voice sounds quite familiar. I thought it might have been you and John." Actually, their voices were so faint I couldn't have recognized my own daughter's voice from that distance. As far as Barb knew, we'd heard the entire conversation clearly. So, I wanted to judge her reaction to my remark. However, her demeanor never wavered and was disappointedly indifferent.

  "No. It couldn't have been us if it was within hiking distance of this campground. I sure hope you two carry some kind of protection when you're out hiking around here," Barb said, with a concerned expression. "As you witnessed the other day, there are dangerous animals in the area. You'd probably be better off not putting yourselves at risk by walking around in the forest."

  "We're cautious, and my husband carries a gun for protection. And yet traipsing around in the forest still scares the bewillikers outta me."

  "I was thinking of pepper spray, or a flare, for protection, rather than a gun. I'd hate to see any animal killed unnecessarily. And that goes for hikers, like you and your husband, as well."

  "I truly appreciate your concern, Barb. We'll be careful, and we'd never harm an animal unless absolutely necessary. So, what are you and John researching here in Wyoming?"

  "We're mostly obtaining data involving the ecosystem of mountainous terrain such as is found in the Bighorns. At the moment, we're trying to get a reasonably accurate idea of the average number of black bears per square mile in this area, and scout around for possible grizzly sightings."

  My face no doubt paled to the color of the white plastic chair I was sitting on. "Grizzlies?"

  "We're not apt to spot one, but it's always a possibility, as they are moving farther and farther east from Yellowstone in their search for new territory. In fact, there have been a few reported sightings in the Bighorn Basin. But, in general, they haven't inhabited the Bighorn National Forest since the early twentieth century."

  "Good to know," I replied with a shudder.

  "Don't worry too much. We've yet to spot one, but it's an exciting prospect for people in our field of work."

  "No doubt. So, dare I ask? Have you determined how many black bears there are per square mile in this area?"

  Barb Harris was well versed on the subject, and I found the information she shared fascinating. "So far we haven't had much luck tracking any down, other than the one Bea executed for no reason whatsoever. I hate that the bear is dead, but she and her cub still count in our survey."

  "My husband and I came face to face with a mother and three cubs out there," I pointed in the general direction. "My husband thinks there's a good chance one of the cubs, who's quite a bit smaller than the other two, might have been the slain bear's baby."

  "Oh, good. That sounds promising. I agree with your husband. It wouldn't be unheard of for the sow to adopt the orphaned cub. We'll have to see if we can track those four down and tag them. Tagging them helps us keep track of the individual bears and is very beneficial in our research. The more we learn about them, the better we can protect them. Can you give me a little better idea on where you crossed paths with them?"

  After I attempted to pinpoint the area where we met the bear family, which is not easy when you were totally lost yourself at the time, I said, "Although I loathe the idea of hunting animals, I've heard if not for hunters, many species would become over-populated to the point they'd all die of starvation or disease."

  "There is some truth to that," Barb replied. "But a lot of hunters will kill anything that moves whose head would look good above their fireplace mantels. They often kill the large, healthy animals needed to keep the population strong. I feel we could control over-population more humanely by taking steps to reduce the animals' fertility."

  "I wholeheartedly agree, Barb." Then, without giving it any thought, I blurted out, "Now I understand why you and your husband were so pissed off after the bear-shooting incident here in the park."

  Barb's friendly expression turned to one of aggravation in a split second. Then she shot me a look that made my toes curl inside my sneakers. Suddenly I wished I hadn't made the remark. She was still boiling mad about the incident, I realized. Could she and her husband have been enraged enough to harm Bea for needlessly killing the mama bear? I was anxious to see what Rip thought about this possibility, even though I didn't feel it was very probable. My guess was the couple were against killing altogether.

  Barb shook off her initial reaction of anger and simply shrugged in response to my comment. Without a word, she walked over to put more quarters in the three dryers. It seemed to me that the park owners had intentionally set the dryers on the lowest temperature possible to ensure it'd take several dollars' worth of quarters to dry each load. I kept threatening to string a clothesline from the back of the trailer to a nearby tree, but Rip didn't think either Boonie or the RVers in nearby sites would appreciate the view of his stained boxers and my stretched out, faded brassieres blowing in the breeze. He'd said, "This is a classy RV park, not an old run-down trailer court. Despite what some people might think, there is an immense difference between the two, you know."

  When Barb Harris finished stuffing coins in the machines, she turned toward me and I glanced at her hands. Although trimmed barely above the tip of her fingers, her nails were well-manicured. They bore no sign of polish, but who's to say she hadn't recently trimmed her nails and removed black polish from them?

  I probably should have left it at that, but I now had reservations about Barb and her husband, so I asked, "Didn't I see you in the nail salon on Main Street a while back?"

  "I don't believe so," Barb answered. "Because I just had them cut down and the polish removed yesterday. My work makes it difficult to keep them clean and looking good."

  "I understand completely." I was trying to come across as if I were only making small talk to be polite. I tried to sound curious, but not accusatory. "So, tell me, do you think an animal got Bea or that someone who didn't care for her took her out?"

  While studying me carefully, Barb appeared to mull over her reply for several moments before speaking. Apparently she'd come to the conclusion I was just a nosy old broad with nothing better to do than sit in a laundry room and jabber about things that didn't concern me. Finally she said, "The news coverage indicated it was an animal. If the investigators are correct about that, she had it coming as far as I'm concerned. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if one of her enemies killed her."

  "She had enemies? As in more than one?"

  "I've heard Bea Whetstone had many enemies, Ms. Ripple. She wasn't exactly at the top of my list of favorite people, either, but I'd never hurt anyone, or anything. However, a lady I met at my hairdresser's a while back named Jan might have wanted Bea dead badly enough to kill her."

  "Jan?" I was taken aback by the familiar name. "You mean the fancy-dressing widowed lady with the long brunette hair? Nice, but a bit on the uppity side?"

  "I didn't know she was widowed. I just assumed she was divorced. But yeah, that's probably the one you're referring to. Don't know her last name, but I heard she was having an affair with Boonie Whetstone. The gal who trimmed my hair thinks she's a gold-digger and looking for her next sugar daddy. Kerri said that if history repeats itself, Boonie will be history soon after Jan manages to drag him to the altar. Being that you're familiar with this lady, do you happen to know if that's true?"

  "No, I don't have a clue. I only met her a couple of times, and I was under the impression she'd just arrived in Wyoming for the very first time. But she sounds like a real piece of work if what your hairdresser told you is correct."

  That didn't jive with what Jan had told me. But one would not expect a woman like her to tell someone she'd just met that she was on the hunt for a
new man with deep pockets, and that the owner of the campground was her latest conquest. Intrigued by this information about the woman I'd conversed with the last time I'd done laundry, I asked, "Would this RV park produce enough income to make Boonie appealing to a conniving woman on the prowl for a well-to-do husband?"

  "Probably. Take what you paid to stay here times the number of sites in this jam-packed campground and it amounts to pretty impressive revenue. Since they meter the electric on each of the monthly sites, and we all foot the bill for the power we use, there can't be a ton of overhead in this sort of business either. Not to mention, Boonie's pretty easy on the eyes."

  When Barb was through speaking, she turned away and busied herself with hanging shirts and folding towels. I was practically foaming at the mouth in anticipation of more scandalous details to come, but my laundry room companion didn't seem inclined to want to discuss the sordid affair between Jan and Bea's husband any further.

  Watching her, I was amazed by her efficiency at folding her clean laundry. All she had left was a heap of about a dozen washcloths. As she rapidly emptied the pile, I was mesmerized by her fastidiousness. Her growing stack of folded washcloths were in precise and color-coordinated order; three red, three green, three yellow, and so forth. Barb stopped twice during this procedure to adjust the stack and make sure each washcloth was in perfect alignment with those beneath it. Obsessive compulsive disorder, perhaps?

  I continued to observe the meticulous animal activist. Her movements were in razor-sharp cadence; fold, fold, fold, stack, fold, fold, fold, stack. It was like watching a robot on speed, or a young army recruit fresh out of boot camp. She completed her task quickly and left with a simple, "See you later."

  "Thanks for the warning," I jokingly replied as Barb Harris walked out the door.

  As you can imagine, thoughts were whirring through my head as I finished up my laundry at my own pace and technique, which were not nearly as fast or neat as Barb's. Folding our own hand towels was less fold, fold, fold, stack, and more wad, wad, wad, stuff.

  I was wondering why Jan had told me, when I'd first met her, that she'd just arrived at Rest 'n Peace RV Park the day prior to our meeting? She'd also indicated it was her first time in Wyoming. Was she hiding something other than her clandestine affair with the park owner?

  Not telling a stranger in a laundry room about her covert intentions was to be expected, but being dishonest about her time spent in Wyoming didn't seem quite as logical to me. Rather than spouting outright lies, why didn't she just tell me nothing at all? We all know what happens when the web we're weaving gets too tangled. Sometimes it's the deceiver himself who gets caught up in his own labyrinth of lies. As Walter Scott said: "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!" Is it even remotely possible his quote could apply to Jan in the mystery behind Bea Whetstone's death? I wondered.

  As I continued to wait for my second load of laundry to finish drying, I ruminated over what Barb Harris had just shared with me. I had to wonder if the rumor was true. Could either Boonie or Jan, or perhaps the two together, have perpetrated a plan to eliminate the main obstacle keeping them from taking the next step in their relationship? Rip had been of the opinion Boonie wasn't acting like the grief-stricken widower one would expect him to be. Granted, every individual mourns in their own personal manner, but to appear as if he wasn't grieving in any manner whatsoever seemed odd to me.

  Was Boonie aware of Jan's strategy, according to Barb's hairdresser, of landing men with money so she could seize a great deal of it later on when she ultimately dumped them? Should he be made aware of that rumor going around—in local hair salons, at least? Should Rip and I bring it to his attention somehow, just in case he was totally in the dark? Had Boonie accidently stepped into a trap, much as the cow moose with the twins had done? With this possibility in mind, I could hardly wait to get back to the trailer to share what I'd learned with Rip. A spooky squeaking sound behind the temporarily closed office as I exited the laundry room didn't make me want to linger any, either.

  * * *

  Rip was out and about when I returned to the trailer. I'd turned on the stereo system and was singing along, enthusiastically off-key, to Uptown Funk. Because it's nearly impossible not to, I was busting a move in beat with the Bruno Mars tune and hoping I didn't bust something else in the process–like a hip or an ankle. I stopped abruptly when it occurred to me that someone passing by might be watching me through our open window and call 9-1-1, concerned I might be experiencing a life-threatening seizure.

  The RV sites were close enough together that the previous evening I had observed the woman in the motorhome next to us as she was preparing supper. Through her open window, I saw her accidentally drop a fried pork chop on her kitchen floor, pick it up and fan it like it was a Polaroid picture, flick a stubborn piece of debris off of it with her index finger, and then place it on the plate in front of her oblivious husband. I'm not passing judgment on my neighbor, mind you. Because, after all, who of us hasn't done that exact same thing a time or two ourselves?

  On the contrary, I'm just giving you an example of the limited amount of privacy in the occasional camping facility, like the Rest 'n Peace RV Park, who stuffs too many units in too little space. In a few cases, particularly where the newer parks are concerned, it's a matter of pure greed, in my extremely biased opinion.

  However, in many other cases, the lack of elbow room is the result of a campground that was built in 1962, when the typical RV consisted of a station wagon towing a primitive fifteen-foot travel trailer or a boxy pickup camper clamped to the bed of a Chevy C10. That same prehistoric campground is now doing its best to accommodate today's forty-five-foot motor-coaches with four slide-outs, more bells and whistles than Winnebago Industries could have ever imagined when the company was founded in 1958, and a tow vehicle, like a Jeep Wrangler, attached to its hitch. By the time all the motorized slide-outs are extended in some of these newer high-falutin' RV's, the owners are "camping" in more square footage than was in our first two homes combined.

  I was daydreaming and placing a couple of folded dishtowels in a kitchen drawer when Rip walked in a couple of minutes later. If you can picture a mood that's a mixture—in equal parts—of anger, excitement, bewilderment, and determination, that combination exactly describes Rip's disposition as he explained the factors behind his mixed emotions to me. I'd been anxious to tell him about my interaction with Barb Harris but could tell whatever he had bottled up in him would boil over if not released soon.

  "I went to the police station and asked the desk clerk if I could have a word with the sheriff about the death of the campground owner. To my surprise, Jaclyn Wright opened her office door and escorted me right inside."

  "Oh, good. What made you decide to go to–"

  "Because you asked me to. So, after I explained my career in law enforcement to her, I showed her the two questionable images we captured on the critter cam," Rip said. He was wound up tighter than an Egyptian mummy. I could have told him the sofa he was sitting on was on fire and he wouldn't have skipped a beat in reciting his story.

  "What did she say about–"

  "She barely gave them a glance, and then responded even ruder and more arrogantly than I had anticipated. Believe it or not, she replied, 'Really? Two undecipherable, blurry images off a game camera is what brought you barging into my office this morning, thinking you'd discovered some earth-shattering clue that'd turn this tragic incident upside down?' Can you believe that, Rapella?"

  "No, she should have–"

  "For starters, I didn't barge in. She invited me in."

  "I know, sweetheart. Don't let it–"

  "She told me if her competent detectives followed up on every silly little tip that was brought to their attention, they'd get nothing else done. I saw one of her 'competent' detectives in the parking lot, picking his nose and sending a text—to his under-aged girlfriend, no doubt. He couldn't have been over twenty-one. If he wasn't still wet b
ehind the ears, he was at least damp."

  "You were a young recruit at twenty—"

  "Then Sheriff Wright told me Bea's death had been ruled an accidental animal attack because they had no evidence to suggest otherwise. She had the gall to say that my assistance was not necessary or beneficial to the case, or to the Buffalo Police Department in general."

  "Calm down, dear," I said. "You need to—"

  "She had the nerve to tell me I should go back to the campground clubhouse and play bingo with the other old fogeys."

  "Take a deep breath, honey." I finally got a full sentence in. I was afraid if he got any more riled up, his blood pressure would shoot through the roof. "It sounds like she's as strict and straightforward as everyone has said."

  "Straightforward? Whose side are you on? Wasn't it you who thought we should run those photos by the police department?"

  "Honey, I'm on your side, of course. I just meant she was not an easy-going person to deal with, and you did the best you could."

  "Not easy-going? That's an understatement if I ever heard one. I guess that's what I get for doing what you requested," Rip said in obvious disgust.

  "Hey, I–"

  "To be an effective sheriff you need to be able to deal with the public and show people you appreciate their willingness to assist in cases like this. You don't just steamroll over their efforts to help and send them packing when they come in on their own accord with information that might aid in solving a pending case. That's precisely what she did to me today. By the way she acted, you'd think Sheriff Wright was the Captain of the New York City Police Department. "

  "Heavens, no! That'd be Tom Selleck."

  The look Rip shot me made it clear he didn't appreciate my reference to Blue Bloods even though it was his favorite prime-time TV show, which should come as no surprise to anyone. After a seething glare and ignoring my remark, which should also come as no surprise to anyone, he finished his comment.