The Blood of a Tarnished Badge: Tracks to Nowhere

IV. The Ring of Death

The entire school was in mourning and a couple of days had passed since Rochelle Parker took her own life. Mikala didn't know Rochelle was that fragile and wondered what she had going on in her life that made her want to end it all. She was one of the best members of their team, that's why she was elected to conduct the suspect interview for their project. She had gained excellent insight on the techniques used to conduct interviews effectively from Sheriff King and her notes she turned over to Mikala were detailed and professional oriented. At first, I had become frustrated, because I felt Rochelle had dropped the ball hindering the team. We had to scramble for answers to complete the first portion of the project on time in her absence. I'm sure the project deadlines were the last thing on her mind. In the end, I pondered what I could have done differently by reaching out to her when she needed someone the most. Her behavior that evening continued to baffle me, but the blood drops on the pages of her notes made me even more curious.

The entire situation was wrong and the pieces were out of place, but once again I tried to focus on the task at hand. I put those thoughts on the back burner so I could concentrate on helping the rest of my team cope with our loss, yet still try to encourage us all to complete our final project.

Only having four members remaining, it was my turn as Team Leader to step up for the team. I set up a meeting for an hour of the Sheriff's time in his office prior to the opening ceremonies of Sandy Creek's 5th Annual Spring Festival. The meeting time was for everyone's convenience and I was counting on the entire team being there. We needed to gather more information and what our next steps would be pertaining to the confession we obtained from Eliza Goode. The end of the school year was fast approaching and we needed to create a very dynamic presentation to complete our criminal scenario. We were ahead of schedule, but we couldn't afford any more obstacles thrown in our way to slow the project down. The tragic loss of our teammate was more than enough to throw a monkey wrench in both our plans and goals.

Just when I thought everything was getting back on track, Curt, who was enrolled in the Virginia Public School System, had already started his summer break and he was visiting with us for two week. He was always a welcomed break from the norm, the only problem was I had to finish my schoolwork and I couldn't allow my brother to become a distraction.

The first night Curt was in town, he told me he heard there was going to be an exciting bear wrestling match that evening and he wanted all of us to go. I was intrigued to see what went on at those events, but Curt's hair brained ideas had gotten me in trouble so many times before and I wasn't going to fall into that trap again. I declined the invitation hoping that he would drop the idea, but there was no changing Curt's mind once he was determined to do something. His plan was to sneak out of the house at 10 p.m. after Uncle J.B. and Aunt Glenda went to bed.

According to Curt, the match was held in the field on the Earley Farm near the railroad tracks. The Earleys owned the farm directly behind Maurice Robinson's family farm. Curt and I were both familiar with the area, it was our favorite place to look for arrowheads and "Indianheads" as Curt referred to them. I had always fantasized that later on in life, I was going to own property like that farm. Its location was the perfect serene location where we would spend hours there sitting on the hill right behind Mo's old barn watching the trains chug down the tracks and boats zoom down the Eden River in the distance. However, there was a large 75 foot deep ravine that separated the tracks and the river which prevented people from taking a shortcut through Mo's property. The view from that vantage point was breathtaking.

Curt knew the woods between the two farms like the back of his hand. Walking down the service road allowed him access to the woods where he could watch all of the action first hand without anyone seeing him. It was alleged that some of those events were actually sponsored by deputies, so Curt had to be careful because they also used the concealment of the nearby woods to watch the matches without being noticed.