The odds of Ripper’s hair showing up in the wound are astronomical if you’re assuming a purely natural explanation. Charles Manson’s hair would be a more likely find.
Nothing from Bart was found at the murder scene. If he wallowed in her blood like I did, then there should have been some trace.
Yet, miraculously, Juniper’s blood showed up on the bear miles away.
If the bears were people, you’d call it a frame-up.
A frame implies a framer.
Someone had access to Juniper’s body and Ripper’s hair. Later on they lured Bart to her blood.
This leads me to a paranoid revelation: everyone in the conference could be a suspect.
Richards is the most suspicious, but he hadn’t behaved as I’d expect a guilty man to behave. His responses were natural: he wanted to get the bear that killed Juniper. He was frustrated that he might have killed the wrong animal.
If he was Juniper’s killer, the smart thing would have been to go with the vibe of the room and point a finger at me. But he didn’t.
As for the others: Sheriff Tyson is as cold as ice and Detective Glenn is a mystery to me, but I’d think the both of them would find better ways to cover up a murder.
It doesn’t make any sense. And I’m no judge of character.
It’s probably not any of them. That’d be too Agatha Christie.
Hell, maybe I’m deluded and it’s exactly as they say.
Yet my gut says no. There’s a pattern here.
Hopefully they’re in the conference room right now weighing what I said.
Kendall seemed bright. She has to be bothered by the fact that her dead bear’s DNA showed up a year later and miles away. It’s just not rational.
Rational or not, I’m the one locked up.
I rap my knuckles against the metal bench, wishing this was a dream. Unfortunately, it’s very real.
I’m such an idiot.
I’m in here and the killer is outside somewhere, long gone.
He has everyone fooled. Down the hall is a room full of cops and wildlife experts that don’t even believe he exists.
Jesus. It’s a scary thought.
It’s one thing to kill someone and not leave evidence or hide the body so it’s never found, but to be able to murder someone and have everyone think it was an accident of nature?
That’s some kind of genius.
A shiver rolls down my spine when I think of the implication. This was either planned for a long time or done by someone who is very good at killing. Maybe both.
The presence of Ripper’s hair implies they planned on it looking like a bear attack. They just didn’t expect that someone would be able to get viable DNA and discover that their generic grizzly wasn’t so generic.
I remember Glenn mentioning some hikers hearing screams and investigating. Was the killer caught off guard? Had he been planning to take her body somewhere else but had to flee?
It’d be so easy to bury it out there where nobody could find it. That’s what I would do . . .
Maybe that was the plan but he got interrupted?
He left behind Ripper’s hair and took some of her blood with him to leave for Bart.
Getting it on Bart wouldn’t have been too difficult. Bears are curious. All it would take is a bucket of fresh meat to draw him in.
Maybe. I don’t know.
I shake my head. All this conjecture is giving me a migraine.
I look up at the sound of a key in the lock. Detective Glenn steps inside.
“Please, hear me out,” I insist.
He jabs the edge of a file folder toward me. “No, Dr. Cray, you’re going to sit down and shut up.” He nods to Sheriff Tyson standing in the hallway, watching. “If you can’t do that, I’m going to take her advice and have you sent for a psychiatric evaluation. Got it?”
I nod my head and slink down.
He leans against the door frame and flips open the folder. “I did a little more digging.” I think he’s going to talk about the case, but my hopes are dashed when he looks up from the folder. “I’ve looked into your background. It seems like you have a reputation for causing problems.”
Fuck. Here it comes.
Time to shoot the messenger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TROUBLEMAKER
As Detective Glenn reads selections from the folder, Sheriff Tyson watches me closely. Her face is inscrutable. She’s intimidating as all hell.
“You have a sealed juvenile file in Texas,” Glenn says. “But I find a mention of you being arrested for building bombs as a teenager and a child getting hurt. Care to explain?”
I stare at the floor. “No. Not really.”
When I was thirteen and still dealing with the loss of my father, I took up chemistry. I learned how to make bombs from household chemicals, and I’d go into the woods and blow things up.
That would have been fine if a friend—more of an acquaintance—hadn’t taken my bomb-making parts and tried to explode a car sitting in a shopping center parking lot.
The car was barely damaged. But his younger brother got acid burns on his arm. His parents went apeshit.
The first thing he did was tell the police I put him up to it.
Protesting my innocence was hard when they found my lab under my bed.
Thanks to a very understanding judge, I only got community service for it.
My mother was obviously thrilled.
This was shortly before she married Davis.
I never would have pulled that kind of thing with him in the house. For one, he would have insisted I never let my friends near my lab equipment and that I keep it safely locked up.
Detective Glenn notes out loud that I was fired from my first faculty position.
Again, my stubbornness.
From his point of view, without the details, I probably look like a know-it-all prick.
I could try to explain to him the details, but he’s not in a mood to listen. He’s reading me the riot act in front of Sheriff Tyson.
Maybe this is for show.
I don’t know.
The best course of action is to shut up. Tyson is primed to punish me. I’d probably be able to get away with swiping the blood sample. But getting away would still mean a trial, a lawyer, and I can bet for damn sure she’s going to make certain I spend a few nights in a cell before I see a judge about bail.
“We had the press conference,” says Glenn. “We explained the possibility of another bear.”
I refrain from pointing out that makes no sense if Ripper is pushing up daisies.
He continues. “We’ll have another look in the lab for possible contamination. Other than that, we’re considering the matter closed.” He snaps the file shut and tosses it on the bench beside me. “Understand your situation?”
I nod sullenly. Glenn steps aside.
Sheriff Tyson stands in my way. “You have two hours to clear out of my county. If you start running your mouth, you’re going to be back in a cell for tampering with evidence. Furthermore, if you insist that this is a murder investigation, take one guess at who gets arrested first.”
Glenn escorts me out of the building and to my car. Neither of us says anything.
There’s nothing to be said.
Clearly, he doesn’t believe me. The only reason I’m not back in the cell is because he took pity on me and told Tyson I was going through some kind of grieving process.
Hell, maybe I am looking at things all wrong.
I pack my bags at the motel, hop on the interstate, and decide I can deal with Juniper’s car later.
Eight miles later I pass a sign that says I’ve left the county.
A quarter mile ahead I spot a motel.
The stubborn part of me, the part that got me fired, makes me click on my turn signal and pull into the parking lot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE GRAPH
This is insane. I toss my motel room key on the dresser and fall down on the bed. I should be working on my research. I have enough field samples. The smart thing is to drive back to Austin and finish what I can before the semester starts.
That’s the rational, logical thing. Or is it?
When Juniper’s body was found, the hunters went out to find her killer—the brave men of the tribe ventured out to defend their own. They may have never met her, but she was still part of the human race.
No other animal draws boundaries as far out as we do when it comes to protecting other members of our group.
My instinct tells me Juniper was killed by a man—or a woman, not to be presumptive.