“Yeah, we don’t have any grizzlies in this area,” Sophie said. “And I can’t imagine a black bear actually attacking anyone. I’ve never heard of it happening, ever.”
Despite the common conceptions, bears actually very rarely attack people. In general, a bear will only attack if it feels provoked. Mothers with cubs are the most likely to attack a human, as they feel the protection of their young is the most important thing. However, even then a black bear mother is more likely to bluff charge (pretend to attack, then stop at the last second) a person she sees as a threat and run away than actually attack. A grizzly bear is more likely to attack than to run away, but the Willow Bay area hasn’t had a grizzly bear spotting in over fifty years. Most of the grizzlies moved to the woods deeper inland, further from human contact.
I’ve spent my whole life living in Willow Bay, and I had never heard of a bear attacking a human.
“It’s weird,” I agreed.
“I mean, remember in high school when I was dating that guy, Brodie or something?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re going to have to be way more specific than that.” Sophie had been, well, a little bit on the promiscuous side in high school, and through most of adulthood. In fact, her current relationship with Taylor Shaw, a local policeman, was currently at an all-time record for Sophie of five months.
“Oh shut up,” Sophie replied, sticking her tongue out at me. “There was only one guy named Brodie at our high school. Tall, football player, brown hair. You’re just jealous because you didn’t get any back then.”
“One of us had to care about their grades instead of chasing boys.”
“And look where it’s gotten you; you spend your days being peed on by cats and puked on by dogs.”
“I think it’s worked out really well, I’m your boss so I get to make you do all the gross stuff!”
“I’m going to pee and puke on both of you if you don’t stop arguing,” Bee muttered from her bed. I rolled my eyes at her; with Karen in the room I couldn’t actually reply.
“Anyway,” Sophie emphasized, “there was that one time when Brodie and I got drunk and decided to streak through the woods, naked. It was like, four in the afternoon or something, so the sun was still out. I came across a bear, and I was so drunk that I had no idea what to do, so I just started screaming. It bluff charged me, and I ran away as fast as I could.”
“I remember that; we made fun of you for days because you totally panicked and didn’t listen to the rule that you’re just supposed to back away slowly.”
“Yeah, well, if a two-hundred-pound bear came charging toward you at top speed, I’d like to see you walk calmly backwards with your eyes on the ground.”
Karen laughed. “That’s true, though picturing Sophie getting bluff charged by a bear while streaking through the woods certainly is something.”
“Well, as entertaining as this conversation has been, I’m going to go to the crime scene,” I said. “Sophie, do you want to come with? Karen, we should be back before one, but in case we’re not I’ll text you to let Strawberry’s owner know, ok?”
“All good,” Karen told me. “I have a whole bunch of paperwork I can catch up on, and if not, there’s always Netflix.”
I waved goodbye to Karen, gave Bee a quick pat on the head, then headed out to the crime scene where my presence had been requested.
2
Fifteen minutes later Sophie and I were standing at the trailhead just behind the gazebo in Railworkers Memorial Park. A police cordon had already been set up across the trail, but despite the fact that there was nothing visible from inside the park, it seemed half of Willow Bay had shown up to see what all the fuss was about.
“Do they know who it was yet?”
“I heard it was one of those high school kids smoking pot.”
“Are you joking? They wouldn’t cordon off the area if it was just kids.”
“No, I heard he was smoking pot and drowned in the pond.”
“Oh, well that sounds much more reasonable Gladys.”
“Well I don’t see you coming up with any ideas.”
“I already know, it was a woman who was hiking and got mauled by a cougar. I heard that from a very reliable source.”
“Oh yeah, who’s your source, Antonia?”
“Maybe.”
Sophie and I pushed past the crowds of speculators and made our way to the cordon. A young, very frazzled-looking police officer was guarding the yellow tape. He was looking anxiously past us, as though realizing that if this crowd really wanted to get past and see what all the fuss was about, there was no way only one officer who looked like he had just started shaving three weeks earlier was going to be the one to stop them.
“Hi, Chief Gary sent for us. Angela Martin and Sophie Mashito,” I told him.
“Oh. Uh, yeah, step on through,” the man said, lifting the yellow tape for us slightly. Sophie and I slipped under the tape and walked along the path until it became obvious that we were approaching the body.
Chief Gary was speaking with Taylor, Sophie’s boyfriend, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of us he waved and made his way over.
“Angela, Sophie. Thank you for coming,” he told us both. “Please, over here. I know it’s not the first dead body you’ve ever seen, but I should warn you, this one is a bit gruesome.”
Sophie and I glanced at each other as Chief Gary led us off the path slightly and into the woods. About ten yards off the trail we reached a tiny clearing where a man’s body lay.
He was facing upwards, his eyes staring into emptiness. He had been blond, and athletic looking. I had to admit, I was a little bit thankful that I didn’t recognize him. Willow Bay being as small as it was, I knew a good seventy percent of the people that lived here; probably more than that just by sight. I didn’t recognize him at all.
His face and body were scratched, his clothes torn. I crouched down next to him and inspected the marks, and Sophie knelt next to me.
“Well, I’m glad the cops didn’t find me like this back when I was a teenager,” she said.
“Yeah, it doesn’t look like a good way to go,” I replied.
“Now, I’m not the expert, but it looks like bear claws to me.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” I said uneasily. I moved to the other side of the body and saw that his head had been caved in; the wound was covered in dried blood. I looked up at the nearby pine trees: one of them had a matching blood stain about five feet up.
“The impact against the tree is the cause of death?” I asked Chief Gary, who nodded.
“Yeah. We think the bear attacked him, then pushed him and he hit his head, which was the death blow.”
I looked over at Sophie. “Do you recognize him?” I asked her quietly, so Chief Gary wouldn’t hear. She shook her head no.
“Weird for a body we don’t recognize to show up here like this, and someone we don’t know at that.”
“Well, if he was a tourist, maybe he ran into the bear and didn’t know what to do and was attacked.”
“If anything could have provoked a bear to kill someone I think it would be seeing you naked,” I joked, and earned a punch in the arm from Sophie for my trouble.
“Oh shut up. What do you think, anyway? You’re the vet.”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, getting up from my hunched position. By all accounts, it did look like a bear attack. It was difficult to be exact, of course, and I certainly wasn’t trained in animal attacks, but the scratches were consistent with a large animal such as a bear. “I mean, it could be a bear.”
“What else could it be?” Chief Gary asked, and I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a cougar? I find it unlikely that a cougar would have attacked a man of this size though. But then, I also think it’s unlikely that a bear would attack.”