A Rush Of Silence

By William White-acre

Arizona. High Desert. Rogue Mountain Lion. Hunter. Hunting the killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William White-acre
• Release date: Nov 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370482597

William White-acre

Photographer first, scribbler second. Lived a long time. When your life resembles an epoch, well, it is scary. Just hope I can entertain.

Book preview

A RUSH OF SILENCE

William White-acre

copyright 2017 by william white-acre

Smashwords Edition

*other books by this author:

Surrounded By Mythology

I, The Hero

True For X

Forgotten Faces

white-acre.wixsite.com/photography

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1 Bethany Wilson: 1st Victim

Chapter 2 Anton Martell: The Photographer

Chapter 3 Carlos Ortega: 2nd Victim

Chapter 4 Dr. Rachel Winters: The Biologist

Chapter 5 Kristen Snow: 3rd Victim

Chapter 6 Caleb Foster: The Hunter

Chapter 7 Mobilizing

Chapter 8 The Call

Chapter 9 A Decision

Chapter 10 Sherry Pell: 4th Victim

Chapter 11 Into The Blackhills

Chapter 12 Ryan Paulsen: 5th Victim

Chapter 13 Confrontation

Chapter 14 Epilogue

A RUSH OF SILENCE

Chapter 1 Bethany Wilson: 1st Victim

She was just ten years old. Red hair. Freckles. Ordinary. The little girl was survived by her parents.

Although the details were still undefined, the one salient fact stood out: a small girl had been mauled and killed by an animal. Bite marks. Clawed flesh. Missing body parts. The grisly account shocked the Verde Valley, a tourist destination point that included Sedona, Arizona.

It was just coming on winter, a time when another scorching summer had begun to be forgotten. After months of triple digit temperatures and then the humid conditions of a desert monsoon season, fraught with lightning induced forest fires, the locals were happy to see a brief autumn give way to cooler days and cold nights. The sun, always the sun, still warmed the valley floor, giving off beautiful sunsets over Mingus Mountain, but it was tempered by a shift in wind direction, bringing in the threat of snow in the higher elevations.

The bear population was well into their hibernation patterns, seeking out dens throughout the Black Hills that loomed over the Verde Valley. Less than a hundred years before miners had sunk mineshafts all over the mountain range in hope of finding their fortune. Now Arizonans and tourists crawled all over the mountains on their ATV's and four wheel drive vehicles, using the old miner roads for sport and entertainment, while hunters pursued deer and elk through the many ravines.

The valley was home to many different types of game and the ecosystem supported javelina, badgers, coyotes, skunks, ring tail, coati, along with eagles and other raptors. At the top of the food chain was the mountain lion, the elusive cat, a predator without a natural rival in the habitat. Unless you add humans to the mix, where the State of Arizona permitted hunting of the large cat from late August to May.

The cougar was present from the tip of South America all the way up into Canada. It was a survivor, which had even been sighted as far east as Indiana. It lived by stealth and utilized an ambush technique to hunt its prey. Males could grow to be well over a hundred pounds and were capable of taking down large deer and elk, attacking the windpipe with a death bite to the neck area. Territorial, each cat could cover a range of over a 100 miles in search of food. Sleek, highly athletic, able to jump large distances, agile, with sharp claws and teeth, the animal was perfectly suited for different types of terrain. Like most from the cat family, it could climb trees too. Where ever deer roamed it would follow.

Until relatively recent the cat didn't attack humans, choosing not to interact with advancing civilization if at all possible. It wasn't necessarily shy as much as strategic, paring down its activity to pursuit of a food source. Up until 1970 a bounty had been placed on its head by the government in an attempt to eradicate the problem ranchers and farmers might face with the loss of livestock. Mountain lions weren't adverse to taking calves when the opportunity presented itself. Just the year before in the Verde Valley several pet goats had been killed and spirited away, along with numerous calves on several different ranches in the area.

It was an age old problem in the west. The animal population was being crowded out of their habitats, leaving conflict inevitable. Ranchers were accustomed to having wide swaths of land for grazing their cattle, while civilization advanced away from the cities. Developers had drawn up plans that extended suburban living into the forests and mountains all around the state of Arizona. Although relatively small, the population of Arizona was clustered around several population centers and expanding. You tube videos exposed the animal/human dynamic by showing eye witness accounts of invading wild life. The local news seldom skipped an opportunity to air a bear wandering too close for comfort or, in one notorious incident, a mother mountain lion and her cub frolicking on one of Phoenix's renowned golf courses.

Animals were being pushed out of their territory, left to assimilate with people who were encroaching on their survival. Attacks were the natural result of such crowding. Even some unlucky tourists had fallen victim to the warping of the standing ecosystem, with, for example, one man from Europe being attacked by an angry Javelina, sending him to the hospital for over twenty stitches to his leg. Although college biologists were out there proclaiming the rights of nature and what society has to do in order to accommodate or maintain the balance, an unstable truce continued.

Bethany Wilson had been an innocent bystander, too young to have a say. The American Southwest had vast tracts of land--stretches of wilderness--but in some places the cougar was down to a last foothold. Unfortunately, Bethany fell victim to that dwindling sweep of real estate. Her parents had chosen to rent a home in an unincorporated area of the valley, where undulating hills of the valley floor licked at the back door to their house. Stretching out for miles and ending on towards the Mogollon Rim was open land.

The family had found it ideal, the three bed room house with the horse corral out back. Rent was relatively low and there were no neighbors within shouting distance. A dirt road unwound from Cornville Road, the main artery that linked Cottonwood and the small communities that were near Interstate 17. Bethany's father liked the place immediately, envisioning plenty of space to set up a work shop, a place where he could work on the custom furniture that was his second job. He worked at the Home Depot in Cottonwood but dreamed of establishing a business supplying specially designed pieces for the people in Sedona.

Her mother worked at home, baking custom creations for her friend's cottage industry cake business. The pay was minimal but steady, enabling her to home school her daughter, something many of the people in the valley chose to do. Partially for religious reasons, and political, she wanted to control what her daughter learned. As parents, they wanted to impart their libertarian views onto their child, fearing any exposure to public education would undermine what they wanted Bethany to believe. Unlike her husband, She saw the house as a temporary situation until they were able to afford their own home.

Their daughter was active and loved being able to roam the surrounding area around their house unencumbered by any type of traditional neighborhood. Cornville was unincorporated for a reason. People chose to live their for the general sense of freedom, free of most ordinances and regulations living in a city or town brought. In practice, you found half paved roads, often wandering off up and over hills to only come to an abrupt end without warning, no municipal sewage system, no street lights, bringing an inky blackness to the area after dark, and an injection of self-autonomy people in the West were desirous of.

As in many communities across Arizona, the ones that shared Cornville's makeup, wildlife and humans co-existed cheek to jowl as the first Yavapai Sheriff's deputy on the scene liked to put it. It wasn't uncommon to have elk or deer appearing out the window or fresh badger tracks in your earthen driveway. The air around the town gave off a musty, organic smell born of feed, hay, and animal dung.

Bethany was ten years old, enjoying her time at home with her mother, even though her best friend attended a charter school in town. Her mother had only a High School education but she assiduously adhered to an online instruction manual, blending in tracts from the Bible regularly in order to ground her daughter in a vaguely fundamental leaning education. This left Bethany apart from her friends most of the time but she loved helping her mother in the kitchen, interlaced with her schooling.

Her school hours of instruction fluctuated from day to day, depending on how much piece work her mother had to do or catch up on. Even while baking though her mother would try to include some basic math in the recipes or improvement of her reading skills while reciting the ingredients as they prepped for the next baking order. As with her approach to home schooling, Mrs. Wilson was meticulous about her baking.

It was a Friday the day Bethany disappeared. Mrs. Wilson had been busy all that day trying to fill several orders. One order was for a wedding cake and she had botched the layering once before changing to another recipe. Her boss had called twice by ten o'clock to check on her progress. Mrs. Wilson didn't liked to be pressured when she baked but it was unavoidable sometimes. Her boss was one of her best friends too so their work relation was a solid one. She never failed to make an order deadline and always delivered near perfection.

The day had started out wrong when she overslept. The night before she hadn't slept much since her husband had brought home a new puppy. It was to be the new family pet. He had stopped by the humane society and selected a mutt, half retriever half werewolf he had said over the phone when he called his wife to tell her what he had done. She was apprehensive at first, thinking it was too soon. Not three months before their pet dog had gone missing.

Pinky, Bethany had named her. She had a large hallo of pink around her eyes, giving her a doll like appearance. She had been found wandering around the back streets one day when they were coming home from church. Bethany, then five years old at the time, had insisted her dad stop the car. The dog immediately rushed towards them, tail wagging. There was no collar on her and she seemed to be a stray. They took her home with them and she and Bethany became inseparable. As with some dogs, Pinky had a wonderful disposition and seldom if ever was aggressive. She was small, a mixture of so many breeds it was difficult to determine what her lineage was.

Later, after their daughter's body had been found, the Wilson's realized that their missing dog had been an unintentional warning. One morning the family realized Pinky was gone. Bethany's father had inserted a doggie door in the kitchen door so the dog could go in and out whenever he wanted. Although the dog was a small dog it was happiest when she was outside. The family trusted her to return when she wanted to and the arrangement worked remarkably well. Pinky would spend many hours out back and seldom left the property, pushing through his personal door with a sharp bark to announce her arrival whenever she came into the kitchen.

Pets become a part of the family, like another child. Bethany had been devastated to learn her pet had gone missing, but her parents were equally dismayed. They searched for days throughout the area, and put up flyers around the town with a photo at the bottom. No one called. Finally, over a month later, Mrs. Wilson quietly removed her bowl from the kitchen floor, wanting to move pass the tiny tragedy. It took Bethany longer to get over the loss.

Now she had to contend with a puppy whining all night, restricted to a makeshift corral to keep him from relieving himself on the carpet. The family was suffering through the house breaking period, attempting to teach the dog the rules of the house. With the puppy nipping at her socks while she baked, Mrs. Wilson tried to catch up with her orders. It wasn't like her to fall this far behind. She had decided to give Bethany a day off from school work, while she plowed through the orders. With baking though it wasn't possible to speed up the process. Baking inherently took blocks of time. Then after came the dressing stage, applying the finishing touches that were individually ordered. Custom orders always took concentration and a certain level of precision. Birthdays, Weddings, Anniversaries, Retirements, each one demanded its own attention to detail.

Bethany had been left on her own for most of the day, told to complete some lessons her mother drew up for her. Around three o'clock, as Mrs. Wilson was just applying the final touches to one of the orders, fielding a call once again from her friend asking about her progress, Bethany came into the kitchen to ask her mother for permission to go outside and play in the back. Mrs. Wilson asked her if she had finished her lesson plan and was told that she had. Squeezing letters onto the top layer of the cake and speaking to her boss, she casually gave her permission. Bethany smiled, took a swipe of leftover icing with her finger as she often did, and dashed out the back door. It would be the last time Mrs. Wilson ever saw her daughter.

Mr. Wilson got home from work around five. He found his wife still in the kitchen cleaning up her work dishes, trying to set up for dinner. He stood by the kitchen door for a moment, letting the aroma of fresh baked cakes sweep over him. It was a sensation he knew he was never going to get tired of. They exchanged greetings, with him peeking in the boxes of bakery goods to see what she had made, receiving a good-natured smack on the hand for his troubles. She told him she had been working on her projects all day, after having to start over once because she had messed up the order. He kissed his wife and asked about Bethany.

I don't know, Mrs. Wilson said vacantly, turning to look out the kitchen window, almost stepping on the puppy at her feet.

You don't know, her husband said, surprised.

I was so busy...I let her go out to play, she said, as a stray sliver of concern slipped into her voice.

She's probably out back fooling around, her husband said, scooping up the puppy and going outside. Wanta go see what Bethany's up to? The puppy licked at his face. Come on, let's go surprise her.

Mrs. Wilson watched her husband go out the door then answered the phone again, telling her friend, Got it done-finally. She could almost hear a sigh of relief on the other end. I know, you promised this today. Can you come by and pick it up or do you want me to swing by there now? I still got dinner to get going but-- She listened as her friend said she would pick up the cake because she had to deliver it that very night since the customer had changed their plans, moving up the party. Great. Saves me a trip.

Just ten minutes later her friend pulled up to the house and left her car running as she walked to the front door. They exchanged hellos and a little shop talk then she left with cake in hand. Mrs. Wilson loved baking but sometimes it became burdensome and more of a job than an avocation. She stood at the door for a moment and watched her boss disappear down the road, in route to Cottonwood to deliver the cake.

Honey, her husband called from the back door, I couldn't find her. Are you sure she's not in her room?

What? she called out, now a little more worried.

It's getting dark out there, her husband declared, trying not to hurry into his daughter's room.

They both converged on her bedroom, arriving at the same time. Sitting on her bed was her lesson plan, neatly stacked next to her books. The room was tidy, an attribute their daughter had that continued to surprise her parents. Her tiny shoes were lined up in the closet, equally spaced apart. All of her clothes were neatly hung on hangers, arranged by color. Mrs. Wilson had once asked one of her friends if she needed to be worried about her daughter's predilection for orderliness and was told to enjoy it.

Mr. Wilson stared at the poster on the far wall with the wild mustangs running across a mesa, the one his daughter had seen at a store in Flagstaff and begged him to buy for her. Mrs. Wilson walked to the bed and picked up one of the four stuffed animals arranged neatly across the pillow. Without thinking, she raised it to her face to sniff at the material. Her daughter had received it some five years before as a birthday gift.

I'm going to call over to Cory's house to see if she went there, she suddenly announced, heading back into the kitchen.

Who do you want me to call? he wanted to know, reaching in his pocket to pull out his cell phone.

Try...try the Marshalls...maybe she went there, she answered, reaching for the land line phone, punching the speed dial. Bethany and Cory had been friends since they were toddlers. Cory's family was the closest neighbor, just down the road. Come on...somebody answer, she muttered, listening to the phone ring. Dammit, she cursed under her breath when she heard the answering machine pick up. Hello, uh...I'm looking for Bethany. Give me a call when you get this.

They haven't seen her, Mr. Wilson called out from the other room. Who's next? Who else can I call? he asked, trying not to let any sort of alarm slip into his voice.

Are you sure you checked everywhere out back? she shouted out, now becoming frantic with worry. Sometimes she likes to go up on the ridge, you know.

I checked, he declared, irritated. I didn't see her anywhere.

Like many places around Arizona, especially in the unincorporated areas, after dark a blanket of darkness settled over the land, like a celestial curtain had been drawn. Most of the locales didn't have any street lights and except for the occasional illumination from sparsely placed houses there were no outdoor lights. It's an astronomer's dream, was how one of the local law enforcement officers described it. All encompassing blackness, so said one of the original journalists to write about the disappearance.

It's dark out, honey, Mrs. Wilson cried out, fighting off a sob.

Her husband embraced her and said, It'll be okay. We'll find her.

A moment later Cory's mother called and told them she had seen Bethany earlier in the day but she had left her house to return home around four o'clock. The die was set. The Wilsons had become another statistic. Missing child. Disappeared. Loss. The template was well established. There was going to be a media spasm, complete with photographs and probably videos. News organizations would devote time and space to the case. Personal tidbits would tumble out, spilling into the public's consciousness.

Mr. Wilson made a few more phone calls, long shots, hoping to find his daughter. Mrs. Wilson looked out the window at the inky black night, unable to control her emotions. Then the police were called. The Yavapai Sheriff's office was notified because they had jurisdiction over the unincorporated town. Mr. Wilson knew the Sheriff's office response would be slow and probably ineffectual so he called a friend of his that worked for the Cottonwood police. It was a neighboring town but he hoped his friend would help out in any way he could.

His friend, the police officer, had just gotten off duty and told him on the phone that he would come right over to their house. He arrived a short time later and listened to what had transpired, noting that the Wilson's had called all of their daughter's friends. He decided immediately that something had gone wrong, placing a call to the Yavapai Sheriff's office, contacting a friend he knew on the force. This sped up the response time immediately.

By midnight, as the Wilson's sat exhausted by fear and anticipation in their kitchen, an organized search had been launched. Teams of volunteers fanned out behind the house and on up into the forest land. Standing at the Wilson's back door you could see a constellation of flashlights spanning as far as you could see in both directions. The working theory was that she might have injured herself out in the wilderness and was incapacitated. Up in the higher elevations the temperature would be dropping into the thirties overnight. Hypothermia was a very real concern.

Although Mr. Wilson's cop friend didn't want to voice another alternative scenario, most of the volunteers were thinking about it. Abduction couldn't be ruled out. Bethany was an open, trusting little girl, one brought up in a small town that didn't have much reason to fear any criminal intent. The fact remained as far as they traced her movements during the time period she would have at one time been walking down the long dirt road that led to her house. It wasn't well traveled. A sexual predator would have had ample opportunity to snatch a gullible child and not ever be seen. Once back off the dirt road going east or west on Cornville Road would have taken them quickly away from the area, north on I-17 to I-40 or south to Phoenix or anywhere.

Sex offenders did live in the valley. The local newspaper printed their arrival whenever they registered. It was the law. Although they were unwelcome, it was an established procedure. The police, on a dual track with the search effort, had already begun to check the registry, trying to piece together any possible link. Rattling the cage, so said a detective assigned to the case from Yavapai County. There would be no leads, no results.

The search went on for most of the night. Mr. Wilson stayed up the entire night, drinking cup after cup of coffee, while his wife finally fell asleep as the sun was coming up. The searchers wandered in the next morning, cold and tired. A woman from the Yavapai Sheriff's Office appeared around eight o'clock, having driven up from Prescott. She was sent there to be the liaison, the go between, a link connecting the Wilson, the Sheriff's Office and the media. Hello, my name's Sherry, I'm from the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, she greeted the Wilson's the next morning, trying to strike a friendly but professional tone. She had only joined the Sheriff's Office the month before, transferring from an out of state police force.

The Wilsons were worn down by having to meet numerous representatives of the local authorities. Just that morning Mr. Wilson had a testy exchange with the supervisor of the Forest Patrol Unit over the way he was devoting his resources to the search. Mr. Wilson, like everyone else, knew that time was working against them.

Inertia had set in. It was a common occurrence during search and rescue operations. The 48 hour window had passed, leaving yawning uncertainty. The searchers were tired and disillusioned. Only the parents dared not think about the obvious. Police officers came and went. Volunteers drifted away. At least the local media continued the drumbeat of publicity about a little missing girl near Sedona, Arizona.

The Wilson's were advised to utilize the media's insatiable appetite for stories. Work them, the media liaison told them, notching her eye brows for emphasis. They are vital. Mrs. Wilson turned over a few videos of her daughter: birthday party, first time on horse back, and playing with the family dog. Bethany was a photogenic model, always quick to smile for the camera. You have to make the public care about her, Sherry informed them, speaking in a whisper so no one within ear shot could hear her. She was stepping beyond her professional bounds and didn't want to interfere with the investigation.

All the affiliates in Phoenix picked up the story, quickly followed by the cable outlets. Cute little girls gone missing were big entertainment, something to feature on the broadcasts. With the disappearance came the invasive and, mostly, base speculations that quickly evolved into accusations. TV, the hot medium, led the way with salacious fiction, tearing into the Wilson's personal life. Neighbors were recruited to give impromptu testimony, anything to keep the bright lights lighted.

Slander went viral, with strangers weighing in, passing judgement. Mr. Wilson had returned to find his wife had strangled their young daughter and he reluctantly aided in the cover up. Why? They were having financial difficulties and Mrs. Wilson had made a cold, calculated decision to ease the burden. No, bloggers added, the mother had lost it one day and snapped, ending in Bethany's violent demise. Others pointed to the father being a pedophile and a murderer. The mother was an innocent victim in the whole episode of criminality.

Sordid as it all became, nothing changed the fact that Bethany Wilson was missing. Vanished. One day she was playing in her back yard and the next she was a ghost, gone. The town of Cornville had a vigil set up and most of the towns people participated. Candles were lit and a procession walked slowly through town and on out to the Wilson's house. Mrs. Wilson watched from the living room window as a trail of tiny lights streamed towards them, sobbing. It had been over a week since she last saw her daughter.

Two weeks. A month. Then seven weeks later there was news. The Wilson's received a call from the Sheriff's office. A hunter had stumbled across human remains half buried almost a quarter mile from their