No Regrets

lot of fishing. He wrote of having supper with their shared family, eating “high on the hog” enjoying wild duck and venison.
    But Robert’s long trip home from Lopez hadn’t been without mishaps, even at thirty miles an hour. As he explained:
    That Hit and Run deal was this way. There was close quarters getting out of that station. Two men took over signaling me out of the Driveway and the station attendant went back to pumping gas. After maneuvering the boat around as Directed to get clear these men signalled me to go out all clear, I left then I got about 16 or 18 miles out of Town, This County Police man stoped me and arrested me for hit&runand Damage to proprity. I felt nohing or herd nothing This Policeman built his case on the Station attendants lies, his pop machine was an old machine, and it didn’t have no dents or scratches on it and realy I don’t think it ever got knocked over.
    I’m getting rested up some now IM glad you are feeling better, tell all hello for me and I think of you all by with Love
    Your Bro Robert
    Yes, Ruth Neslund’s health and well-being seemed very important to her family. They worried that she wasn’t well-rested and that she didn’t have enough money. Still, she seemed able to send them checks and to give them magnanimous presents like boats, cars, and checks for college tuition and living expenses.
    Ray Clever had heard the rumors that Ruth had said some shocking things to her relatives around the time Rolf disappeared. That was nothing new. For a long time, neighbors had heard her yelling things at her husband like, “I’ll see you dead before you get a cent to give to those bastards!” Whenever she caught Rolf giving money to Elinor or his sons, most of her friends and neighbors knew it. For Ruth, death threats aimed at Rolf weren’t unusual. She was certainly a woman of violent mood swings and she didn’t care who heard her when she was angry.
    Although Ruth didn’t want Rolf spending money on his own sons, she had been quite generous with her family, or, rather, it was possible that she was helping certain members of her family financially to assure herself that they would keep any dangerous secrets she had within the familycircle. But as solicitous as she was to Robert, she didn’t seem to care for her brother, Paul, at all.
    Paul Myers was a man of the sea, too, but he never reached the pinnacles Rolf had. Paul was rumored to have been in the Merchant Marine, and he sometimes worked fishing boats headed for Alaskan waters. Once, he put together a thick bankroll, but he had entrusted Ruth with his savings when she promised to invest it for him. By 1982 he had been sending her his paychecks and his Social Security checks for some time.
    As it turned out, he might as well have put all his money in a pull-tab machine in a tavern. To his dismay, Paul learned that Ruth had spent his money on some land in Whatcom County, but she put the deed in her name and in the name of Ruth’s younger son, Butch. Paul wasn’t listed at all.
    Ruth could talk her way out of anything, though, and she managed to convince Paul that she would give him a car she owned to make up for the money she had weaseled away from him. She also promised to send him checks for keeping his mouth shut about her business.
    In January 1982, Paul finally smelled the coffee, and, desperate, wrote a last angry letter to Ruth:
    Dear Sis,
    I have called you several times and I have finally come to the conclusion you have made a mistake.
    Love and affection that I have for you and the Blind addiction to your needs, I believe, have given you the impression that I can be treated like a dumb sucker.
    I’m not going to call you anymore or write you anymore.
    You get the money together that is mine and get it to me or send me the [unclear] and I’ll come get thecar. If you don’t I’m going to Seattle and I’ll show you who is a sucker.
    Your Bro Paul
    (P.S.) Send me any mail you have for me there.
    Paul showed up on Lopez Island in February 1982, to claim the vehicle that Ruth promised him. However, when he got there, she had changed her mind. She told him the car was gone. He was convinced that Ruth and her neighbor, Winnie Kay Stafford, had colluded to hide it from him. Despite the fact that she was about fifteen years younger than Ruth, the two women were very close friends. Ruth could talk Winnie Kay into almost anything.
    A man who knew them both said, “Winnie Kay can be crazy as a hoot owl