No Regrets

theisland. I’m mad as hell at the deputy sheriffs! Why did they wait a year and a half to start tearing up the property?”
    “They were just an old couple, and they seemed to get along all right,” a woman eating dinner at a very popular eating spot, the Islander-Lopez Restaurant, told a reporter. She had heard on good authority that Rolf had been seen in Hong Kong.
    Someone said that the investigators better have a good reason for “doing what they’re doing. Otherwise [Ruth] will have a lawsuit that won’t quit.”
    Disappointed and besieged, the sheriff’s men kept building their case. Ray Clever worked to establish the state of Ruth and Rolf’s relationship, only to end up with twenty-three statement forms from couples and individuals who had known the Neslunds over the years—some through business dealings, and others socially. He was surprised to find that every one of them described Ruth and Rolf as a relatively happy couple, not unlike scores of others on Lopez. What he had would be of more help to the defense than the state.
    “Would you testify to that in any trial?” he asked at the end of each interview.
    “Yes, of course,” they answered, to Clever’s dismay.
    There were those who had once laughed at the Neslunds’ unfortunate dinner parties, but as time passed, even they modified their recollections. It was the deputies who had responded to the “domestic violence” calls who knew how fierce the fights were. They had arrived after the “company” departed and seen how the Neslunds’ arguments had ended with broken crockery all over the floor, andbruises, scratches, lumps, bumps, and even bite marks left on the participants.
    But the rumor mills kept churning. Much more than even a small town, everyone on a sparsely populated island seems somehow connected. The evolution of the disappearance of Rolf Neslund as a folk tale was becoming entrenched. The case belonged to Lopez Island, a somewhat suspect bit of popular culture or of island history. Rolf’s vanishing under such eerie circumstances was becoming, as some said, a “tourist attraction.”
    The goriest gossip said that Ruth had killed Rolf and reduced him to bits in her meat-grinder; it was a story right out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
or
Sweeney Todd.
Irreverently, some jokesters referred to Rolf’s alleged death as “The Meat-Grinder Murder,” and whispered that local restaurants would be serving “Rolf Burgers” soon.
    Ironically, Lopez Island had long been touted as a most friendly spot where newcomers were welcome, and a tradition had grown where people in cars passing one another always gave a cheerful wave. One entrepreneur ordered dozens of T-shirts and had them silk-screened to show a drawing of a burn barrel with a hand sticking out. Beneath that, words were emblazoned to say, “Wave! You’re on Lopez Island!”
    The sheriff’s men didn’t see the humor, and few would blame them. Wherever Rolf was, it was their job to find him, and they weren’t making much progress.
    “That’s what got to us the most,” Ray Clever remembers. “Some people didn’t think Ruth was capable of harming Rolf, and others believed she had killed him, but they didn’t care.”
    It was disheartening to see how public opinion was gradually swinging over to Ruth Neslund. The public, ofcourse, did not know about the lab results that suggested the Neslund residence had probably been a virtual abattoir at one time. And they didn’t know about what Paul Myers had told Clever. Or about what had happened in the Columbia Tower meeting with Ruth’s nieces, Joy Stroup and Donna Smith. That information, and all the forthcoming information, was sealed tight, waiting for the right moment.
    Within the year Fred Weedon would represent Ruth in bringing suit against everyone and anyone connected with the execution of the second search warrant. Ruth was on the offensive, threatening to sue for $750,000 in damages to her home. She claimed poverty and illness, but she exuded confidence as everyone involved in the 1982 search of her property—the San Juan County deputies, the sheriff, the State Attorney General’s Office, and the Washington State Crime Lab—was warned that they might be sued.
    If she prevailed, Ruth would have no need to proceed with her bed-and-breakfast business. She could have lived quite comfortably for the rest of her life. Still, she said she looked forward to running her home business.
    She just naturally liked people,