“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking both of our hands. “I’m Sheriff Carl Jensen from Lompoc.” He pointed to the trailer. “My wife and two sons are inside. My wife’s the one who found what’s left of a person when she woke up. We were up real late last night enjoying the quiet of the woods before that.”
“Can we talk to your wife, Sheriff Jensen?” Sally asked.
I looked at her before glancing back to the sheriff. “Is she sleeping?”
The sheriff smiled. “How’d you know?”
“Because when people experience a trauma, they either really want to talk about it—in which case she’d be out here with you to greet us—or they experience a drop of adrenaline that leaves them exhausted,” I said.
The sheriff chuckled, touching his nose before pointing at me. “Right on the nose. She’s done with all of it. As soon as she realized we weren’t in any danger, she went back to the trailer and crashed.”
“Can you tell me what happened here last night?” I asked.
“Well, sir, we cleaned up after dinner, sat down at the campfire we built, and had a few beers. About one in the morning, we heard a lot of howling in the woods. I didn’t know these woods were populated with wolves but I s’pose it makes some sense, though we are a bit too far south for that.” He paused for a minute and looked out into the sequoia forest. “Anyway, the howls died away after a while and we all went to bed. My wife don’t sleep so good anymore and when she heard a blood-curdling scream, she got up and went out. A few minutes later, she heard animal sounds in the woods just north of us. She came back to the trailer and grabbed a flashlight and my sidearm…” He stopped to pat the gun on his hip.
“She went back out there alone?” Sally asked. I turned to look at her and noted how wide her eyes were.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jensen said with a smile. “She’s former military, a lifelong hunter, and a better aim than I am, I’m embarrassed to say. I’ve been on the force for forty years and the woman can still outshoot me. It’s a matter of deep pain for me.”
The tongue firmly planted in Sheriff Jensen’s cheek in no way made him look like he was being the least bit serious.
“Anyway, she walked into the woods, taking bear spray with her because she was pretty sure that’s what she was gonna find. After about fifty yards in that direction, she stumbled upon a gruesome sight.” He pointed to the trees. “I can take you to it.”
“I’m a little confused because when my deputy called me, she indicated you told her it was a murder. From what you’re saying, it sounds like an animal mauled some poor guy in the woods.”
Jensen nodded. “Well, I’ll leave that to you to decide when you see the scene but, yessir, I’m pretty convinced it is a murder.”
What he was telling us was odd but I wanted to see for myself. I looked at Sally. “You ready?”
“Whenever you are, Sheriff. Let me get flashlights.”
It wasn’t yet dawn but the sky had already begun to brighten. I knew it would be darker in the woods so I waited patiently for Sally to return from retrieving the items from the Blazer, taking one that she passed me.
“It’s this way,” Jensen said before moving to the edge of the clearing and then walking into the woods. All three of us turned on our flashlights and made our way through the pine forest. When I spotted a sequoia, my breath caught. Sequoias were easy to distinguish from other redwoods. I looked up and watched the monster tree disappearing above the tree line.
The base of the tree was at least eighteen feet across with a dark red bark. The branches of the tree began at least a hundred feet off the ground and until that spot, all a person could see were smooth, widely spaced vertical grooves in the tree. Standing beside it made me feel like a tiny insignificant ant in the whole scheme of things. We were all quiet as we passed the tree and continued deeper into the woods.
After fifty yards, Jensen stopped, turning to us. “Now you’ll see what I am talking about.” He turned and pointed his flashlight to the ground about ten yards from us. The first thing I saw was something flesh colored and covered in blood. I realized it was a human hand as I began to walk toward it. We crept through the forest being quiet until we stopped in front of it. I crouched down and pointed my flashlight at it, noting that it appeared to have been torn from an arm which wasn’t anywhere around. It definitely looked like an animal attack to me. When I stood up, Sally, standing beside me, had her head back and she seemed to be sniffing the air. When she finally turned to look at me, she appeared startled that I’d caught her in the act.
“Smells like blood,” she said, shrugging.
I deliberately sniffed the air and she was right. There was a strong coppery scent of blood in the air. The man—and I assumed it was male from the hand—probably had been killed here.
“There’s more,” Sheriff Jensen said from about ten feet away. His flashlight pointed to the ground and we walked over. On the ground in front of him was a second hand, severed from the arm in precisely the same place at the wrist, and in the same manner… torn off, not cut with a blade. I was now certain our medical examiner would be finding teeth marks in the exposed bone. I still wasn’t convinced this was anything other than an animal attack.
“Come on. I’ll show you the rest,”
