Ripped To Shreds Read online

  While my stained and gritty teeth soaked, I reviewed the photo I'd snapped just as I'd lost my balance. From what I could tell, a whitish smear was the right corner of the two cardboard boxes atop a brown sheet that was draped over something like a table. The small Styrofoam cooler on the end table that'd hold seven or eight cans of beer, at best, was cockeyed and blurry in the photo. The label on it that was still impossible to make out, but it resembled Chinese lettering to me. No surprise there, as nearly everything Americans purchase these days was made in China. It made sense the couple would carry a small cooler of cold drinks with them if they planned to spend an entire day in the forest, completing their research work involving the bear population in the area.

  Crapola! It'd been all for naught. My disappointment was palpable. I wouldn't have minded the ill-fated outcome of my failed attempt at snooping if I'd at least captured something worthwhile on the single photo I'd managed to obtain. Instead, all I'd ended up with was a sore body, nasty dentures, and a great deal of embarrassment.

  I ruminated as I sat at the kitchen table, soaking my right hand in a tub of water and Epson salt, while my teeth soaked in a glass next to me.

  Final note to self. Give your impulsive decisions a little more thought next time. Just because their vehicle was missing didn't mean one of them wasn't still in the RV. Our vehicle is gone, isn't it? And I'm still here, ain't I? I must need my head examined. Not only was it a stupid idea, but now I'll have to avoid running into Barb and John Harris completely. Not an easy task in a private, secluded campground where, like Rip and I, RVers wandered around at all hours of the day and night. I'd also have to explain my current condition to my husband when he returned home, which wasn't apt to be a barrel of fun. Rip's right! Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

  Chapter 18

  When Rip returned from Willie's baseball practice, I noticed he had incriminating chocolate stains on his chest. I often wondered why more and more food ended up on the front of his shirts the older he got. Had the target—in this case, his mouth—gotten smaller and harder to hit? Surely not. And you'd think with all the practice he'd had shoveling food in his mouth over the years, his aim would be dead-on by now.

  "What in the world happened to you?" He shook his head as he gave me the once over. "Are you in pain, sweetheart? Do you need me to take you to the ER?"

  "No, I'll be fine," I replied. Without going into a lot of detail, I said, "I was out and about on the campground property earlier and for some unexplainable reason, right out of the blue, I lost my balance and took a tumble. Not paying attention, I guess."

  I didn't mention to Rip that it wasn't explainable because I couldn't quite put what happened into words, but rather unexplained, because I had no desire to put it into words. Despite the fuzzy line between truth and deception, he was satisfied with my account of the mishap, and I was relieved I hadn't had to tell him a bald-faced lie.

  To divert the conversation away from my injuries, I asked Rip how Willie's baseball practice went. "Do you think they stand a chance at winning the championship game?"

  "Yes, of course," he replied. "But they stand just as good of a chance at losing it. It depends on which team shows up for the game. Today the boys seemed more interested in discussing the upcoming high school prom and who they might ask to be their dates to the dance. Willie is the youngest kid on the team, only a freshman, and the only player seemingly devoted to improving their skills at practice today."

  "You, of all people, can't blame the boys for being distracted by their potential prom dates. If you remember right, the first time you asked me out was to accompany you to the prom our junior year. And look at us now! Still joined at the hip over fifty years later."

  "Yes, I guess you're right. And to think everyone said it'd never last! I guess we showed them, didn't we?"

  Rip's expression was one of smugness and triumph, until I jokingly replied, "Don't declare victory quite yet, dear. We're still on the right side of the grass, and no one but God knows what tomorrow will bring."

  * * *

  After a less than fulfilling bowl of oyster stew, sans the high-carbohydrate mini crackers, Rip shared some information he'd garnered at the local greasy spoon that morning. On occasion, he liked to banter with the local men at a small diner where a brood of them congregated at the crack of dawn every morning to discuss the news of the day. I refer to the group as a "brood" because, no matter how Rip describes the gathering, we all know it's nothing but a gossip session among grown men. Not one of whom would ever admit to behaving precisely like a group of chattering women—described by them as "old hens"—exchanging rumors, speculations, and hearsay.

  Now that's a prime example of a hanging rack full of pots calling an entire stovetop full of kettles "black", wouldn't you say? I know I certainly would.

  "So what earth-shattering revelation did you fellows discuss today?" I asked.

  "You'd have been hanging on every word of our conversation, Rapella."

  "Really? Go on!" My interest was instantly piqued.

  "You remember Fred from the hardware store?" Without waiting for my reply, he continued. "Well, he was speaking to Elmer the other day, who'd had a discussion with Gordon about something Gordon had heard from Ned."

  It sounded to me like the brood's grapevine was operating on all cylinders. I asked, "So from whom had Ned heard the news?"

  "No one at the table seemed to know."

  "Aha! So there's the weak link in the gossip chain."

  Rip stared at me in disgust for a few seconds before exclaiming, "How many times do I have to tell you we do not engage in gos—"

  "Very well," I interjected. I was anxious to hear the details and didn't want him to veer off on a tangent. "Go on with your story."

  "All right. Ned heard that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Bea Whetstone had made a notation in the report that Bea had a broken wrist and a crushed ankle bone. Along with several other non-extenuating injuries, he believes they were inflicted prior to her death and the subsequent damage inflicted by animals."

  "So has it actually been declared a homicide now? Have they arrested, or at least interrogated, any suspects yet?"

  "No one seemed to know that either."

  "I hate to say this, dear, but your boys club's gossiping technique needs a little work."

  * * *

  Ranger Rick stopped by about an hour later. He was clearly dead set on tracking down the party responsible for the illegal poaching He'd asked us if we'd do him a favor, to which I'd exclaimed, "You bet!" and Rip simultaneously replied, "Depends on the favor."

  As I've mentioned on several occasions, Rip was much more cautious than I was. Perhaps a lifetime of protecting law-abiding citizens from those among us who don't feel an obligation to obey the laws of the land had made Rip think twice before agreeing to become involved in certain situations. Being intimately involved in numerous crime scenes that could turn a person's heart inside out, and at times their stomach as well, had also played a part in molding Rip into the man he was today.

  In the same vein, perhaps it was a lifetime of not really giving a rat's behind what hazards and pitfalls might lie ahead that had helped make me the self-sufficient, courageous, and persevering individual I am today. As I'm sure you could guess, Rip had phrased my personality differently. He'd described me as an impulsive and reckless, act-first-think-later, wild-hair-up-the butt, devil-may-care sort of character who didn't have the sense God gave a dandelion, if I remember right. And due to the fact I'd brooded over his depiction of me for days, I'm fairly certain I've remembered it precisely.

  Ranger Rick asked if we'd follow him to a site near the swampy valley, where both illegal bear traps had been discovered. He'd wanted us to set our game camera up at such an angle we might capture a photo of the trapper, or trappers, as the case might be. "I want to catch this bastard, and will stop at nothing to do it. Oh, sorry, ma'am, please excuse my lang—"

  "Please, Rick. Quit apologizing
for being honest and saying what you're thinking," I cut in. "If I wasn't such a lady, I'd say I'd like to catch that mother—"

  "Shush!" Rip had placed his hand over my mouth before I could continue. "I think the ranger gets the idea."

  Rick smiled and said he and a few fellow rangers were scouring the area on an every-day basis now, searching for illegal traps before they were triggered by an unsuspecting animal. He hoped the motion-sensing camera would detect movement as the perpetrators wandered into its field of vision. "If we could somehow catch an image of the trap in the possession of its owners, we'd have compelling evidence of guilt. Capturing photos of the trap actually being set up by the guilty party would be rock-solid proof of culpability."

  As the three of us discussed the scheme, the two men quaffed down several beers each and I nursed a key lime margarita I'd found hiding in the far back corner of the refrigerator. Since tequila was my poison of choice and it was too early for our customary afternoon highball, I'd decided not to check the expiration date on the bottle for fear it'd take some of my enjoyment out of downing it.

  I unconsciously played a word search game on the iPad while directing my attention to the discussion taking place between the two men. Rip related the news (a.k.a. scuttlebutt) he'd heard in the cafe that morning via the old crows' rumor mill. The ranger admitted he'd heard something of the same nature at the barber shop the previous afternoon, except that the pre-death injuries had been a dislocated kneecap and a couple of fractured ribs. The Buffalo barber shop, as you've probably figured out by now, is one of the major lifelines of that aforementioned grapevine. I wasn't convinced either one of the stories had an iota of truth to them, but paid attention just in case.

  "Have you heard if they've put together a task force to investigate the possibility of her death being a homicide rather than a lethal animal attack?" Rip inquired.

  "No. But my friend, Kelly Rohr, heard that Paul Pardee told Winston Aldrich he'd been told by an acquaintance of his that Sheriff Wright, the Simon Legree of Johnson County, had refused to accept the findings as evidence of foul play. She'd stated that Bea's death had undergone sufficient examination and the ruling of accidental death would stand with no further funds being 'wasted frivolously' on the cut and dried case."

  Rip shook his head in disbelief. "Even with my limited personal experience with her, I've seen she can be a real battleaxe. I also found her to be a bit lackadaisical. You can learn a lot from tips received from the public. On occasion, they can even help solve complicated cases. She seems unwilling to take the time or make the effort to pursue any of the incoming tips, even ones with overwhelming merit. I took her two photos captured by our game camera after we set the camera out the day—"

  Rip stopped mid-sentence, as if something important had just occurred to him. I could almost visualize the glow of a light bulb turning on over his head.

  "What?" I asked.

  It was clear the ranger was mystified by Rip's abrupt halt, as well. He asked, "What is it, Rip?"

  "Something just occurred to me. Rapella, think back to the day when we discovered the images on the memory card."

  "We've made so many attempts to capture a good wildlife photo, I can only vaguely recall that day. Why?"

  "It's the timing," he responded, as if that told me all I needed to know to put two and two together.

  "What timing? I don't know what you're talking about."

  Ranger Rick sat silently, watching the exchange between Rip and me as if we were engaged in a tennis match.

  "We set the camera out the day we first met Rick on the other side of the marshy valley. Remember? We spoke with him about Bea's disappearance that afternoon, although we didn't know at the time what had happened to her."

  "Yes, I do recall that now. And?" I was thinking back to that first conversation with the ranger.

  "If we spoke to him directly after we sat up the camera that day, it was after Bea had gone missing. Remember, we asked Rick if his department was involved in the search? So, after the camera was activated that day, it remained on until Rick found it during the search party sweep of the surrounding forest."

  "Okay. So?" I was having difficulty following his line of thought.

  "So the images of the black fingernail and blue shirt cuff weren't captured until after the fact. I'm sure whatever happened to Bea took place the night before she was discovered missing by her husband. We set the camera out the next day, and it wasn't until after her disappearance those two images were captured."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right. So the images most likely had nothing to do with her death. The fingernail and cuff belonged to hikers, out on a trek through the forest, no doubt. Gee, Rip, aren't you kind of glad now that the battleaxe didn't pursue your tip? That might have been a little embarrassing for a career law enforcer once the timing error had been realized."

  My teasing was not well-received by the former sheriff, as you can imagine. It was a little uncalled for on my part since, like Rip, the timing error had flown over my head like a Phantom jet, too. Feeling contrite, I added, "Just kidding, honey. Kudos to you for figuring that out, because I never would have thought of it."

  I ignored the look he gave me. It wasn't one of gratitude for my pitiful attempt at praise. As I've said before, I've had a vast amount of experience in analyzing his expressions and reading his mind, and to be frank, you don't want to know what I'm certain was going through his mind at that moment.

  While the two men each opened up another beer, I went back to my memories of the day we met the ranger. I remembered Rick saying how sad the situation with the missing woman was and that it was a "damn shame", almost as if he'd already known she was dead and wasn't just at a friend's house, or possibly even ticked off at her husband and holed up at the Comfort Inn. Bea could have done just that without informing Boonie in an effort to get retribution for whatever grievance she'd had with him. I'd spent several nights at my parents' house in the early years of our marriage. After Rip had apologized for being wrong about whatever issue we'd argued about, I'd returned home. Funny how, now that I had reflected back on those incidents, I realized it had been Rip who'd been wrong every stinking time. He's lucky I've put up with him all these years, I thought.

  If I've completely confused you with my irrelevant blathering, the point I'm trying to make is that my own thoughts that day had naturally leaned toward a situation like that rather than immediately assuming Bea Whetstone had suffered a devastating injury, or worse, been killed. But Ranger Rick had immediately assumed the worst, which, as it turned out, was the correct assumption. I'd have to bring this up with Rip after the ranger left, even though I knew my skepticism would be met with angry denial.

  Was Ranger Rick more intimately involved in this case than we'd realized? Had he been the individual responsible for discovering his former sister-in-law's body based on the fact he knew exactly where he'd left it? After all, he might have felt that if it were he who found the woman's body, it might throw suspicion away from him instead of the other way around. A reverse-psychology type of scheme. On the day in question, Rick never mentioned having any knowledge of, or relationship with, the missing woman. He gave no clue of Bea being his ex-wife's sister, and someone he felt might be responsible for his divorce. Why had he not mentioned knowing Bea? I wondered. I listened more intently now to the two men's exchange.

  Rick leaned forward in the recliner as he launched into a rather lengthy commentary. "Although I agree with you that it's lazy police work, I don't doubt the ruling is correct. I'm convinced it was nothing more than Bea being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You told me about the bear she shot that stepped inside the perimeter of the campground a few weeks ago. That's proof enough that it's not unheard of for them to encroach on the park's property. If not a bear encounter while she was on her customary morning hike, it could have taken place the evening before. When Bea left the office late that evening, I'm guessing alone and unarmed, she could have been taken by surprise by a mara
uding bear. Possibly a bear on the hunt for a meal, because it's likely it would have been heading to the campground dumpster to pillage for food. The large trash container has a locking lid, of course, but the bears don't know that. Their sense of smell is so acute, they can smell food in a dumpster from miles away. It wouldn't take much of a blow by a hungry or startled bear to fracture someone's ankle or wrist before it dragged them into the forest to feed on."

  The very idea of Bea experiencing something so horrific made my stomach roil and I hope telling you about it doesn't have the same effect on you. I don't want to upset you, but you need to hear exactly what happened to Bea Whetstone to understand and appreciate what Rip and I went through to seek justice for her.

  "Hmm," Rip said after careful deliberation. His face had a slight greenish tinge to it, as if the ranger's words had made him queasy. "You make a valid point, son, but I'm not so certain there isn't more than meets the eye in this particular case. I've witnessed a lot of mind-boggling things during the thirty-seven years I served as a law enforcement officer. Enough to know that truth really is stranger than fiction more often than you'd think."

  Apparently, Ranger Rick had tired of the topic because his next words, as he popped the top on his fourth bottle of pale ale, were, "Did you know you can use beer to loosen rusty bolts?"

  "No," Rip replied. He was so easily distracted, I often wondered if he might have a touch of attention deficit disorder. This was just another one of his frequent "squirrel!" moments. "But that does make sense. I've heard that beer's basically a diuretic, so it's also beneficial for helping someone pass a kidney stone."

  "Yeah." The ranger laughed. "A twelve pack of brew would definitely help dull the pain of passing it, too."

  The men's discussion went downhill from that point. I eventually tuned them out and concentrated on composing an email to our daughter. Regina had a tendency to worry when she didn't hear from us every few days. She was akin to a mother hen with three-day-old chicks who didn't have enough sense to not walk straight up to a salivating fox and chirp a warm greeting.