bikers with lots of muscles and tons of tattoos.” She sighed again. “I haven’t been called out there since the sheriff had the talk with Floyd so I think things are under control. I’m not sure if it’s because of Greg though. Greg is a really passive guy which is why he’s a perfect fit for the bar. And he’s big enough that I suspect he can remove troublemakers by force if needed. It’s probably why Floyd put him behind the bar. Still…” She paused and I turned to look at her. She kept her eyes on the road.
“What?”
“Well, I think Greg is just as intimidated by Floyd as the rowdy bunch.”
“You’re right. Floyd sounds like a piece of shit bully.”
She nodded. “Which is why I’m glad he’s rarely around.”
The car lurched as it ran over a bump and I looked straight ahead, noting how rutted the road had gotten. The trees were thick on both sides of us. We’d only been driving about fifteen minutes when Sally pointed out the front windshield. “There’s the lights from the sheriff’s car. He told me he’d leave them on for us.”
I looked where she was pointing and sure enough, I spotted a large trailer and a smaller truck hooked up to the front of it. The headlights of the truck were on, pointing off into the trees and the trailer was lit up inside. The lights in the trailer told me that the sheriff of Lompoc and whoever was with him were probably waiting for us to arrive. As soon as we drove up, the door to the truck opened and a tall man stepped out. I hadn’t realized anyone was sitting inside the truck, probably because I was too focused on how creepy it felt just being this deep in the woods with no one around.
Sally and I got out and walked over to the man who was about sixty with a slightly paunchy belly and a ruddy, sunburned face. I noticed that he wore a sidearm strapped to his hip and I really hoped he was who he said he was. I had my Glock and Sally also wore a gun, but the last thing I wanted to have to do was draw my weapon.
“You must be Deputy Winters,” the man said to Sally, sticking out his hand.
“Yes, that’s right and this is our new sheriff, Rome Harmon,” Sally said.
“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