by Dave Sypher
"I agree. Have you been on many search and rescue crews yourself?”
Shinju shook her head. "I don’t serve on SAR crews. I’m typically hired to find people who go missing in more mundane circumstances.”
"You’ve come a long way to work on your case.”
"Trinity Thornton’s sister hired me to see if I could find out what happened to her sister and brother-in-law. I can’t leave without examining every lead I can in this case, and that means I had to come out here and hike the trail to see if I could find anything unusual. I think I did.”
They reached Shinju’s marker, and she pointed it out. "That’s where the game trail starts.”
"That’s how Scouts mark trails,” Sutton said approvingly, "Well, I know they used to teach them how to do that when I was in.”
"They taught it when I was a Scout,” Shinju confirmed, "As part of our outdoor badges. I got my badge and remember how much fun it was going out with other Scouts and either marking or following their trails. I found the ones marked with grass the most challenging.”
"We liked using rocks the best,” Sutton commented, "Since gusts of wind can blow twigs away.”
They followed the game trail, and when they reached the clearing, Shinju pointed out the bodies.
"There are three dead birds that look like they were vultures, and it looks like something was dragged away. I’m not sure if it was a fourth vulture, or something else. There’s quite a few broken branches all going away from the clearing.”
Sutton looked where she pointed, nodding. "Most of the grass has recovered, though I can see a few snapped tops where something was taken from here.”
"Be careful when you go over there,” Shinju advised, "As it’s pretty rank.”
Nodding, Ranger Sutton checked out the dead vultures.
"Yeah, that’s not natural. Something killed them, but I’m not sure what.”
"It didn’t look like a gun killed them.”
"Definitely not. There haven’t been any reports of gunfire in the park for a couple of years. You didn’t see anything else amiss?”
"I checked the other side of the main trail, walked down it about the same distance as this, and I didn’t see anything I thought was out of sorts.”
Sutton examined the bodies again, and came back shaking his head.
"It doesn’t look like something attacked and killed them. I’ve heard that carrion eaters aren’t that tasty to other animals, so it’s not too surprising that something else didn’t carry them off, but I didn’t see as many bugs on them as I’d expect. I’m going to have to report this.”
Pulling out his phone, Sutton made a note of the GPS coordinates of the find.
"Thanks for bringing this to my attention.”
"Are you going to follow the drag marks?”
"For a ways. In fact, I have time to do that now if you want to come with me. I’m surprised you didn’t do it earlier yourself.”
"This is my first time to the park, and I didn’t want to go off the trail and possibly get lost myself.”
"That’s a wise idea.”
"I have a satellite messaging device, but I’d hate to have to use it, you know?”
Sutton laughed. "Yeah, it would be embarrassing to have to get rescued, but it’s better than the alternative. Come on.”
He plowed right through the brush, then waited for Shinju to catch up.
She grimaced, and Sutton asked, "What?”
"My boyfriend told me to watch out for ticks, to avoid walking in long grass and brushing up against foliage if I could avoid it.”
"They’re not so bad out here. I wear bug spray, and they stay away. Did you bring spray with you? As prepared as you look to be, I’m assuming you’re wearing some.”
"I am wearing both it and sunblock.”
"Then you should be fine. Come on.”
Shinju followed Sutton though she had her doubts.
Once they were away from the clearing, Shinju could see very little, but Sutton pointed out signs that something had been dragged through the area a few weeks prior.
"My best friend’s grandfather was from the Mono tribe, and he also had some Ahwahnechee blood in him as well. Mostly people lump them in with the Paiutes, but they have their own name. He taught Wes how to track, and Wes taught me. See some of the grass stalks here are bent in a different direction than the other, and some have snapped tops. This means that something came through here that caused more trauma to the plants than just plain wind. I’m not seeing any depressions in the ground that could be tracks, but with the thick grass, that’s not likely to endure long. We can follow the trail a bit further and see if we find anything else.”
"A bit further” turned out to be another one hundred and fifty yards, and it was slow going through the dense foliage, and that coupled with Ranger Sutton’s regular stops to read any signs he could find meant that it took two hours to get that far.
"Since we haven’t found anything else suspicious, we should be getting back to the visitor center so you can get back to your sleuthing, and I can report the dead vultures. Follow me.”
Shinju found that by paying attention to what Sutton was watching that she could more clearly see their tracks from where they’d followed the faint trail through the wilderness. It wasn’t long before they were back at the game trail, and once they made it back to lower Yosemite Falls trail, Sutton turned to her.
"Thanks for bringing the dead vultures to my attention. We’ll have someone bring them in so we can try to figure out what killed them.”
Chapter twenty
Shinju caught up on her notes back in her hotel room after showering, changing, and letting Chris know she was safe. "Hiked lower Yosemite Falls trail, which is where the Thorntons were last seen. I followed a game trail and came upon a suspect clearing: Scattered across the clearing were the carcasses of three dead vultures. I finished my circuit of the trail, went to the visitor center, and asked a park ranger to accompany me to the dead vultures. The ranger claims to have a Native American friend who taught him how to do some tracking, and we followed some old drag marks for a couple of hundred yards. We didn’t find anything along the drag marks, but I don’t think that’s unusual since it has been weeks since the Thorntons went missing. Ranger Elijah Sutton commented that there weren’t as many insects feeding on the bodies of the vultures as he would expect. He did say the lack of depredation by other animals is not a surprise to him since vultures are carrion eaters and would not taste that appetizing to other animals because of this. This is the only thing I found in Yosemite Park that I think may relate to the case.
"My reasoning follows: Cassandra Nash mentioned that Logan and Trinity were cocaine users. She said they weren’t addicted, but used it recreationally, and that their son, Griffin, knew about their use.
"I had Cassandra Nash file a missing persons report on Griffin when his recent associates said they hadn’t seen him for a few weeks. A body matching his description was positively identified by Cassandra Nash as that of her nephew. Griffin’s preliminary toxicology report shows that he died of a probable fentanyl overdose, as he had that and cocaine in his system. Additional testing was ordered done to determine if there was more than cocaine and fentanyl in his system, and whether the amount of fentanyl was truly high enough to cause his demise. If this is the case, then it’s possible that Logan and Trinity may have been sold the same adulterated cocaine, ingested it, and died in the park, and afterwards vultures fed off of them, and subsequently another animal or animals dragged off their remains. This would explain why no one hiking the trail saw or heard anything unusual the day the Thorntons disappeared. Since the search parties were looking for the couple along several miles of trail and started their search in the afternoon, it could’ve become too dark for them to continue searching that night, allowing a large animal or animals, possibly bears, to drag the bodies off after the vultures ingested enough of their flesh to poison themselves. So one of my major theories at this time is t
hat the Thorntons died of an accidental overdose, were preyed upon by vultures, which also overdosed, and their bodies were then dragged off by one or more bears.
"Unfortunately this theory will be very hard to prove without having either Logan or Trinity’s remains available for testing. However, if I’m right, I would expect to have heard of a more local deaths due to adulterated cocaine, but there has been no mention in the news about a rash of overdose deaths in the area. This leads me to wonder if the Thornton family wasn’t specifically targeted, making them the victims of homicide. I don’t believe that either Cassandra Nash or her husband would’ve had a motive to murder the Thorntons. They have their own successful distillery business and appear financially stable; well able to afford premium imported coffee. From what I’ve seen and heard, they got along fine with each other, and therefore, I assume that they were getting along fine with Logan and Trinity as well at the time of their disappearance. If the Thorntons were murdered, I have no one I believe could be a suspect, as Griffin Thornton had been declared emancipated several years ago and had no contact with his parents until just prior to his own death, though him dying at approximately the same time as his parents disappearing was puzzling to me until I learned of the manner of his death. Griffin doesn’t appear to have had any gang affiliations, so a turf war or revenge killing of Griff and his parents seems unlikely at this time. Griffin did contact his parents asking for money shortly before they disappeared, and they turned him down, which could be a motive, but Griffin is dead, and apparently neither Logan nor Trinity mentioned the fact that Griffin had recently contacted them to either Cassandra or Bryce Nash. As my investigation stands now, I don’t believe I will find the Thorntons or be able to give the Nashes a definitive answer as to what happened to them beyond my theory of what could’ve happened.”
Uploading her notes to Sanchez Investigations’ cloud storage, she decided it was time for dinner.
She was walking across the parking lot towards her car when she felt the ground ripple under her feet. She immediately stopped, saying to herself, "I thought I drank plenty of water while I was out hiking, and I don't really feel dizzy. What’s wrong with me?”
The ground shuddered under her again, and realization of what was going on dawned on her as a nearby man called to his wife, "Earthquake! Don’t go inside!”
Shinju staggered out of the parking lot when she saw a ground swell coming in her direction, causing several cars in its path to shift.
She stood on ground that felt like it had liquified underneath its uppermost layer. She likened it to having stood on a relative’s waterbed while playing as a child.
The shaking intensified, and the man steadied his wife so that they staggered together out of the lot next to Shinju.
More people began pouring out of the hotel, but Shinju was watching with concern as a crack appeared in the road in front of the hotel.
Snapping heralded the splitting of a nearby tree trunk, and Shinju and the others near her kept an eye on the pieces to make sure they wouldn’t topple onto their small island of land.
A young girl fell down and began screaming, but when her parents scooped her up, they discovered that she was only frightened and bruised.
One car rolled far enough that it bumped into another, causing the alarms in both to sound. The cars’ owners shook their heads in dismay as they pulled out their key fobs and silenced their alarms.
After a little over a minute, the shaking eased, and the ground ceased heaving under her feet, and Shinju let out a sigh of relief.
She took a step towards the parking lot, but the man who’d called to his wife, held out a hand.
"There may be an aftershock or an even bigger quake coming, so you’ll want to hang on for a couple of minutes,” he warned her.
As the group of people stood waiting, the woman who’d been warned by her husband complained to him.
"I thought you said that Sacramento doesn’t have earthquakes!”
"I said they have fewer earthquakes than many other areas of California,” the man corrected her, "And you know that’s exactly what I said. I didn’t say the area doesn’t get them, just that they have fewer, and they tend to be milder than they would be in other areas since it’s not on the San Andreas fault.”
"Well, I don’t like it. We should move,” the woman griped.
Three minutes later, the crowd of people began dispersing, some of them heading back into the hotel, while others got into their cars.
The owners of the cars that had bumped eased them apart and amiably began exchanging insurance information.
Unsure of what to expect in the city, Shinju went to a closer restaurant than the diner she had been eating at after discovering that the power was out. Whether it was a city-wide outage or local, she didn’t know, and she didn’t feel comfortable driving any further than she needed to.
"We’ve got cold sandwiches, wraps, and the like,” her waitress told her as she lit candles that were usually only used for ambiance in the eatery. "No fries, onion rings, or other fried sides, but we’ve got salads, including green and potato, and also macaroni salad, bags of chips, and cookies, cakes, and pies for desserts. If you want ice cream, the owner will throw it in free of charge, as it’s likely to melt and go to waste if the power stays out all night.”
"How often does the area get power outages?”
"Not too often. We don’t get many quakes this bad, but it’s always a crapshoot as to when service will be restored. Speaking of which, I have to tell you we can’t take debit or credit cards while the power is out.”
"I’ve got some cash on me,” Shinju reassured the waitress.
"In that case, I recommend you stop by the grocery store and pick up some extra food and drinks on your way home, because I guarantee you there will be panic buying before long if the power stays off.”
"Really?” Shinju was surprised. "I’m visiting and staying in a hotel, and I can’t have much in my room, because my refrigerator is so small.”
"Get a pack of water bottles. That way, you can stick some in when you want, and you’ll be set if the water pumps have gone out or a water line was broken by the quake. Get foods that don’t need much preparation like jerky, cheese sticks, crackers, and so on. If you don’t get them tonight, they might not be there in the morning. You’ll want to buy a cooler and block of ice to keep your foods cool in case the power remains out all night tonight and into tomorrow.”
"I’ll keep that in mind,” Shinju said. "Right now, though, I’ll take three of your turkey wraps, with potato salad, macaroni salad, and a green salad. I’ll also take a slice of blueberry pie, slice of chocolate cake, and cookies for desserts.”
"That’s not a bad way to start stocking up,” the waitress smiled, "And you’re helping us out by taking food that might otherwise have to be thrown out. You want some ice cream while you’re here?”
"Sure, why not,” Shinju agreed.
"What flavor?”
"Surprise me.”
Grinning, the waitress made her way to the kitchen, where several flashlights had been placed to provide light for the cook.
"Three turkey wraps, two of them to go. Oh, hon, what side and dessert did you want to eat now?”
"The green salad, please,” Shinju couldn’t help but smile at the casual attitude of her waitress, "And the cake.”
"Coming up in a few minutes.”
Four other groups came into the restaurant, attracted by the candles. The youngest was a newlywed couple who didn’t have any cash.
"I’m sorry, but debit and credit cards are out with the power,” the waitress told them. "I’m sorry but I can’t give you any food.”
"How about an IOU?”
"Do you have personal checks? Given the emergency situation, the owner said he’d accept them, but just until the power comes back on.”
"No.”
The woman began crying, rubbing her belly, and Shinju realized that she was pregnant.
Frowning, th
e cook stalked out of the kitchen with two plates, placing them in front of the couple.
"You eat this,” he ordered them.
The waitress opened her mouth to protest, but the cook shook his head. "Cameras are out along with the power, and if you’ll sign off on the food on the destroyed sheet, no one will ever know that we fed a hungry pregnant woman when the power was out.”
"And all of you, please keep your mouths shut about this as well,” the cook said to everyone else in the restaurant.
"I didn’t see anything,” another woman called out.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about,” one of the men said.
They looked at Shinju, and she smiled. "I don’t even live in the state, so I have no idea how things work after an earthquake, so who’s to say I saw anything of interest?”
Her plate of food was brought out shortly after that, and Shinju found she was rather ravenous. She was feeling comfortably almost satisfied by the time her cake and ice cream came out. She laughed when she saw that the waitress had given her three scoops, one chocolate, one vanilla, and one strawberry.
"What?” The waitress winked at her in the flickering light of her table candle. "You said I should surprise you.”
"And so you did,” Shinju laughed again.
The other patrons were given generous servings of ice cream as well, and after they finished their meals, the cook and waitress collected cash from those who could pay, while waving the expecting couple out.
The husband, his eyes shining with unshed tears, hugged the cook and waitress.
"Thank you. I don’t know what we would’ve done without your kindness.”
"You do better,” the cook admonished the man. "You get you some canned foods and keep some water and cash on hand at home from now on, okay?”