Next, he checked the pockets of the bright orange vest. No wallet, but he found a can of bear spray. If you had bear spray in your pocket and a rifle in your hand, why the hell wouldn’t you fight back? It made no sense.
The man’s vest also held a digital camera and a small notebook. No cell phone. Josh clicked through the photos, surprised to find nothing but pictures of the monkeys. Page after page of the notebook was filled with notes on monkey behavior, along with several references to locations.
He bagged the items and then forced himself to study what was left of the man’s face. He didn’t recognize him, which wasn’t surprising. He certainly didn’t know every hunter who roamed the six hundred thousand acres of the Ocala National Forest every year.
Before long, he heard approaching vehicles. FWC officers generally worked alone, but thanks to their computer-aided dispatch system, when he called in, every officer in the area had heard about it and would have headed in his direction.
Hunter Boudreau arrived first in his FWC F-150 pickup. He took one look at the body and muttered, “Holy crap, that’s a tough way to go.”
“I was thinking the same thing, but it’s weird. The guy had a rifle in his hand and bear spray in his pocket. Why did he let the bear get that close? And why aren’t there any defensive wounds?”
Hunter crouched beside the body and studied it as well as the surrounding area for several minutes, fairly vibrating with intensity. Josh could see him working his way down his mental checklist. “He have any ID on him?”
“Not that I’ve been able to find.”
Marco Sanchez, another FWC officer, reacted to the body with the same shock as both Josh and Hunter. “What the heck happened out here? We’ve never had a bear kill somebody.”
Hunter stood, nodded. “True. Let’s try to ID this guy so we can notify next of kin.”
Josh noticed a set of footprints leading away from the body and followed them into the tree line. As he walked back to the others, he held up a black object. “I found his wallet. Twenty-five dollars in cash, but no ID and no hunting license.” He raised a brow. “Can’t imagine the bear taking his driver’s license.” Josh hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “There are footprints leading away from the body. I’ll go see where they lead.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe he was with a friend and his buddy escaped. But right now, that’s all speculation. Sanchez and I will wait for the medical examiner and the biologist and see what else we can find.”
Josh held up the evidence bags. “He also had a camera with nothing but pictures of the monkeys and a notebook filled with notes about them in his pocket.”
The three men looked at one another. “Is this guy another monkey researcher?” Sanchez asked.
They all remembered the female PhD student from the University of Florida who had been beaten severely last year and had eventually called off her research project due to death threats.
“Be careful, Hollywood,” Hunter added as Josh started tracking the footprints.
They were smaller than his own, so he figured whoever they belonged to wasn’t quite as tall as his own six feet.
He’d gone a quarter of a mile when the footprints ended abruptly. It took him a few minutes before he discovered a set of tire tracks several yards away. Someone had tried to erase their footprints. What were they hiding?
Resigned to a hot, sweaty walk, he followed the tracks as they headed into the sand, then looped back to the road several times, further raising his suspicions.
The trail ended in front of an aging green GMC Sierra, parked in front of an even older camper. As he studied the fresh coat of dark-green paint, he flashed back to Delilah’s paint-stained fingers, and his heart sank. She’d gone to a lot of trouble to disguise her presence. Dozens of questions and possibilities sprang to mind, but he refused to speculate.
He walked up the camper’s rickety metal step and knocked. No curtains twitched at the small windows on either side, but he kept his hand on his weapon in case she wasn’t alone. Besides enjoying their morning flirtation over coffee, he knew nothing about her personal life or living situation. “FWC. Open the door, please.”
No sound came from within, so he knocked again. “Officer Tanner. FWC. Open up, please. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Josh was ready to circle around back when the door eased open several inches. Delilah stood behind the partially open door, arms crossed over her chest, chin up at a defensive angle, both surprise and alarm in her expression. “Officer Tanner. What brings you all the way out here?” Her frosty tone suggested she was still ticked off about their earlier conversation.
He studied her a moment. Outwardly, she looked tough and intimidating, but then he glimpsed that flicker of worry again, the hint of vulnerability that always hit him like a one-two punch to the gut and tempted him to wrap her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. There were deep currents in Delilah he wanted to explore, but right now, he needed answers. He kept his smile friendly, casual. “Hello, Delilah. May I come in?”
She nodded once, and he followed her into the tiny but immaculate camper and sat down across from her at the dinette. Their knees bumped, and he muttered “Sorry,” but his eyes never left her face.
Just as he opened his mouth to ask what she’d been doing near a dead body, she leaned forward, frustration—and a hint of confusion—in her gaze. “Your family runs an outfitter. You and I have talked about the monkeys. Now you’re telling Wells you support FWC removing them? What does that mean exactly? Have they hired a trapper?”
He held his hands up, palms out, and decided to roll with the conversation. He’d learned to let witnesses talk, get whatever was on their minds said, since they often told him what he needed to know without prompting. If not, he could always redirect. He also wanted to clear the air and reestablish the trust they had been building. “First of all, I wasn’t going to give Wells my personal opinion and have him quote it as an official FWC statement.”
She raised her brows and nodded, waiting.
“And second, nothing official has been decided. There is no timeline or management plan in place, but after yesterday’s incident, I’m sure it’s coming.”
“Would you stop it if you could?”
He looked away, then back at her. “I don’t know. I tend to think we’d be better off without them.”
For an instant, she looked like he’d stabbed her in the heart, but then her temper flared. Dang, she was beautiful with her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes flashing.
“You said yourself most of the problems would resolve themselves if people quit feeding them.”
“I did. I also think they’re fun to watch, and I am well aware they bring money to the Outpost.” He sighed. “It’s complicated. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, does it?” The words popped out without warning, and he froze, waiting for her answer.