Bear Talk

Janet was in the kitchen, sitting before the table, a blanket wrapped around her. Her expression was blank, directed at the glass of water between her hands without seeming to see it. We needed information from her, but she wasn't in much of a position to provide it. Tina and Karen, Chris's girlfriend, both gently sought to get her to open up but she remained silent, staring through the water.

While we waited, we had nothing else to do but speculate. “Oh it couldn't have been a bear,” insisted Jeff.

“Why not?” Dave questioned. “It looked like he took a claw to the face.”

Jeff was very insistent on this matter. “Because there are literally no bears for miles. Bears don't spend time in this part of the state.”

“There was that bear that they had to tranquilize out of a tree in Milwaukee a couple years ago,” I noted. “From that I'd think bears might come this way sometimes.”

My point excited Jeff. “One time. One time in decades we get a bear in the city, one time gets lost and that's all it takes?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I'm just saying it happened once. I'm not saying we're on the bear highway to Milwaukee or anything.”

“It happened once,” Dave reasoned, “it could happen again.”

Jeff gave him a 'you're an idiot look'. “Do you know what the odds are of that happening here?”

“Probably a billion to one. Or more!” Dave had gotten a bit wide-eyed and excited. I'd not really seen him get like this before. I found it interesting. “I'm sure you'll know whatever big number it is.”

“I do,” Jeff reassured. “And it is a big number. “

“You know, that's good, that's an excellent piece of information to have,” Dave noted. “None of it helps Tim. Does it matter if it's 'impossible' for it to be a bear or not? I'm not saying its probably that it was a bear, but it's not impossible.”

“It's improbable,” Jeff stated. “Highly unlikely.”

“But not impossible,” Dave pushed.

“I never said it was impossible,” Jeff clarified. “Just improbable enough to be impossible. It just can't have been a bear.”

“It was a bear.” Janet's voice wavered and shook. She was barely audible compared to the raised voices we'd just heard. As quiet as she was, her words cut through the room. “I saw it; it was a bear. A bear that killed Tim.” She repeated this once or twice more before busting into tears. Already at her side, Tina and Karen swarmed to comfort her.

Dave found a way to look concerned and smug at the same time. “There. Eyewitness says bear.” Jeff again protested the unlikelihood of this occurrence but that did nothing to change the evidence we currently had before us.

With that settled, Dave turned to me. I'd said I'd help move the corpse if it wasn't a crime scene and it looked like random misadventure. Bother. I had sort of hoped I wouldn't have to pay off on that. Still, a promise was a promise.