Body Found on Trail

This time I knew exactly what I was looking at.  I'm a slough sleuth.  I investigate nature's crime scenes.

It was an early morning in a forest "that knows how to keep its secrets".*  A mole was lying dead, spread-eagle on the trail.  His tail had been - gnawed on.

When I got back to headquarters and reported what I had found to Hyperion, he said, "Are you sure it's not a vole or a shrew?"  But I knew what I had seen. It was definitely a mole.  An Eastern Mole.

The evidence was plain.  Shrews and voles are only 1 - 4 inches long, or a bit longer, whereas moles are 4 - 6 inches long.  Big difference.  Plus, moles have very distinctive snouts and limbs.

Get a load of the paws on this guy.  They looked unreal to me, but I can see how they would help a mole "swim" through the dirt in his neighborhood.

A mole is a solitary creature, except during mating season.  Read:  Does not play well with others!  They live underground, tunneling, and eating worms and insects, minding their own business.  This one looked innocent enough, except for a few grains of sand under his chin.  But looks can be deceiving.

I tried to get a centipede - the only witness - to spill the dirt, but he wasn't talking.

I was left to my own questions.  Had the perpetrator dug the mole out of his tunnel?  Was it a fox, maybe, or a coyote?  You know how wily those predators can be.  If so, why leave the body here, in plain sight?  Or had the mole gotten caught out above ground, in a web of intrigue and deceit?  Had he been carrying secret information to an unknown contact?  Had he been set up?  Had he been picked off by an owl, suddenly and silently appearing out of the dark night?  Had he slipped from his raptor's talons only to fall to his death on the trail?  Even worse - was it a female, forced into a life of crime to make ends meet?  Not a John Mole, but a Jane Mole? Were there, perhaps, baby moles in a secret den somewhere, waiting for her to come back?

This is me, a woman still "trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions"*, signing off.

*Credit for these phrases goes to Garrison Keillor from "A Prairie Home Companion" radio program, as I copied some material used in his weekly segment about stock character, Guy Noir, Private Eye.