Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 44

The Sergeant reached Shaniko while I was making these calls and called me. By that time it was obvious, to me, that we would not be the investigating agency. I told him we lost the investigation because the 'death,' according to the doctor, took place in Jefferson County and it was ruled an accidental drowning.

I instructed him to go back down to the ranch, learn what he could and view the body to see if there was any sign of injury, including a syringe mark, bruises, etc. that would indicate foul play.

I would be in the office until I heard from him.

I told Dr. John that the Sergeant would do the best he could to see if there was any problem, but, neither of us was hopeful.

The Sergeant got back to me a few hours later and said he couldn't see anything on the body that would arouse suspicion and those people he talked to said it had been an accident; no one had done anything to cause it.

Our thoughts were not only physical foul play, but we wondered if someone had slipped something into his drink or food to cause him to not be able to take care of himself and drowned.

Only a blood screen for alcohol and drugs would prove that, and to my knowledge no blood was take for analysis. We were all very frustrated.

I was scheduled to take my family down to Carla's folks' farm just out of Redmond for the 4th of July weekend. We had a late start, but we headed down there. I had told the Sergeant that he didn't have to go down to the ranch on the 5th, I would be doing that.

The 4th of July went fine. We sat under the stars and watch a fireworks display that was a few miles north of us.

Friday morning, the 5th, my Father-in-law and I headed out early to go to the ranch and make some rounds in South County. He had never been to the ranch so he was looking forward to the drive.

We arrived at the ranch a little after 0900 and I met up with the Chief. She said this was the first body she had ever seen.

She described him as young – he was about 25 if I recall right – but not a good swimmer. She said he looked 'so peaceful' as he lay on the gurney in the clinic.

We talked for a while, everything on the ranch was going well according to her and there were no obvious problems that I saw.

We left the ranch and headed north up to Antelope. It was quiet there so we passed on through, continuing north to Shaniko. In the middle of the switch backs going up the hill we met the OSP Lieutenant in charge of The Dalles office coming down.

He had another Lieutenant with him and they were heading to the ranch. After a couple minutes talking we decided to go down to the little café/General store in Antelope (renamed Zorba the Buddha by the Rajneesh) and have some coffee.

We got down there and found out it wouldn't be open for another hour or so. That was a huge relieve to my father-in-law, he wasn't looking forward to having anything from that little café.

The Lt. said that fireworks had caused a fire on a hill side in The Dalles, it took a bit to put it out. While we were discussing it two 'Peace Officers' came up to talk.

I mentioned that the Lt. was telling me about a fire caused by fireworks and one of them started laughing and said we had our own 4th of July fireworks.

Thinking that they probably shot off some over their lake, I mentioned that. She said "No, the boy that was drowned on Wednesday was cremated Thursday night and sparks were just shooting out of the chimney."

She thought it was great fun. I didn't.

I was still not comfortable about how that death was handled. But, even if I had thought it was funny I wouldn't have laughed.

The Rajneesh were fond of making jokes and then taking offense if you laughed. The Lt. and I just looked at each other.

I said I had to head out and the Lt. said they did too, and we left.

We had lunch at the Oasis Café in Maupin. I had met the owner while campaigning. I like him, his food was good and reasonably priced and he was a good conversationalist. During the summer he augmented their income as a Deschutes River guide and had clientele from as far away as New York City.

The rest of the 300 mile patrol went off without incident, and we headed back to Redmond.