When Jack saw the gathering, he stood up in the passenger seat and started wagging his tail and whining. As they got closer to the group, McCain could see two other people, a man and a teenager. He assumed they were the hunters who had taken the bear. McCain parked, grabbed his jacket, and let Jack jump out to greet the men at the campfire.
“Hey, Jack,” Hargraves said. “You ready to earn your keep?”
Jack just wagged his tail and started sniffling around the ground to see if anyone had accidently dropped a bite of cookie or candy bar.
“Sorry, guys. I got here as soon as I could,” McCain said to the group. “How did you get here so quickly, Stan?”
Hargraves, who had been at the same meetings in Olympia, said, “I came straight here from the capital. I didn’t have to get a mangy dog.”
“This is Jeremy Stratford,” Williams said pointing to the third deputy.
“Luke McCain,” McCain said to the officer. “You must be fairly new? I thought I knew all the Yakima deputies.”
“I’ve been here for a little over a year,” Stratford said. “Been in training and on patrol out on the reservation.”
“Good to meet you,” McCain said and turned to Williams. “So what’s the plan?”
The sheriff’s office had taken the original phone call, and as senior officer on site, Williams was in charge of the investigation.
“I know it’s getting dark,” Williams said. “But I think we need to get back to the bear with Jack as soon as possible.”
Stratford had arrived a short time before McCain, but Williams and Garcia had already been to the kill site. And, of course, the Jamisons knew right where the bear was, so the senior Jamison was asked to take the lead. Once everyone was geared up and ready to go, they started down the trail. McCain grabbed his backpack, threw in the extra coat, but decided to leave the tent and sleeping bag.
The group only had to go a mile or so, but with the darkness and terrain it took them almost an hour to make the hike. During the walk in, the Jamisons went step-by-step through the story of how Tanner had been drawn for the bear tag, how they’d done some scouting, where they’d spotted the big bear, and how they’d made the stalk and the shot. After shooting the bear, the Jamisons had skinned it, broke it down into quarters, and put the meat in cheesecloth-style game bags to help keep it clean and cool. After talking to the sheriff’s office dispatcher, they left the meat where they’d butchered it.
Both Williams and Garcia confirmed what the Jamisons believed they had discovered. Before they had hiked back to the truck to meet McCain, they had photographed the ear, the other contents of the stomach, and everything else in and around the dead bear.
Unlike grizzly bears that would occasionally attack humans, especially if they were protecting cubs, their smaller and blacker cousin, Ursus americanus, rarely attacked people. But it did happen. McCain remembered reading about a situation a few years back where a black bear, for no particular reason, had killed a man up in Alaska. He wasn’t sure what had happened up here in the mountains of Central Washington, but he definitely wanted to get a better look before drawing any conclusions.
Chapter 2
The ear looked like, well, an ear. A left ear to be exact. A small, slimy ear with a bit of the lobe missing. It was difficult to determine if it was an ear from a Caucasian, a Hispanic, a Native American, or an African American, as it was discolored on the upper half and very washed out on the lower half.
McCain knelt and, without disturbing any of the bear’s other organs and assorted innards the Jamisons had stacked into a neat little pile, he looked closely at the ear.
“I’d say it came from a woman,” he announced to the group standing in a circle and shining their flashlights and headlamps at the severed ear.
“How’s that?” Williams asked.
“I’m pretty sure there is a piercing right at the outside of the middle of the ear,” he said. “You know, like the girls who work at the coffee stands all have. And, I’m guessing there had been at least one in the lobe right where it is torn.”
Williams got in close, took a look, and said, “I believe McCain has something there.”
The other guys, including the Jamisons, took turns, one by one, and looked at the ear closely. To a man, and a teenager, they agreed. Yep, those were piercings.
“Not that a man’s ears couldn’t be pierced like that,” said Garcia. “I’ve seen some guys with some pretty crazy piercings. Have you seen the picture of the dude on the internet that looked like he tripped and fell face first into a fishing tackle box? There’s stuff sticking out everywhere.”
“That’s true,” Tanner Jamison said. “There’s this one kid at our school who wears a three-piece suit every day, carries a briefcase and has about seventeen piercings on his face. Nice guy, he’s just a little different.”
“And that blue cloth looks like denim, from a jacket or jeans,” McCain said. “We’re definitely looking for a body.”
“That’s why we wanted you up here,” Williams said. “Do you want to try tracking with Jack tonight?”
Other police agencies in Washington State used dogs for certain details, and so did the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They had a couple Karelian bear dogs at their disposal for certain tasks. Mostly those dogs were used to bark and harass animals such as bears and wild cats upon their release back into the wild, after having been rehabilitated in captivity. The unique little dogs have incredible reflexes and can harass the animals without harm to the released animals or themselves. The Department also used dogs at the state borders to sniff out potential issues with vehicles bringing contraband into the state. Mostly the WDFW dogs were used
