Pursuits Unknown

by Ellen Clary

  Studying the map, Amy could see a group of three larger reservoirs, a group of two—one being quite large—and another group of three, with four smaller ones to the north and five even tinier ones further to the south.

  “Markus and David, since you know the area and can move faster, I’d like you to do the set of southern and northern lakes.”

  David smiled and said, “Ponds.”

  “Tyson and I don’t think he used those areas. My hope is that you’ll be able to rule those out and come back to help Steve, Yolanda, and Amy search the larger reservoirs.”

  The display then showed circles drawn around the larger lakes with their names on them. Steve would get the set of two with the very large reservoir, and Amy and Yolanda would each get a set of three. “It’s entirely possible that one reservoir has all three bags, so please keep that in mind.

  “While it’s possible that Adam may have walked to three different places, in the interest of time, we think he drove there. I don’t think he did any sneaking in from a hole in the fence. So check the parking areas first before walking all the way around a reservoir.

  “As you might guess, we descended on the Tomasian Farm and talked to everyone there. We have brought Tomas and all of the lab techs back for further questioning, and they’re all crowded into the police station next door.”

  “The cheery, windowless, brick cube,” Markus said. “That should make them confess to anything.”

  “A couple of you have met Sarah, and she is being very forthcoming about her growing concern about Adam. She also tells us that Adam is exploiting a side effect that they noticed a while back while trying to control heart rates and blood pressures. None of the techs have made any reference to what we saw down south, where Herman and Lincoln were brought down with a racing heart rate and out-of-control blood pressures. We’re grilling Tomas, but he’s claiming not to know anything about that. I don’t believe that for a second, but I don’t know if I have enough evidence to hold him for longer than a day. I will be able to confiscate the containers, at least for a while, because of the stolen data units being transported in them.

  “Tomas is a slippery eel. He’s up to something, but he hasn’t tipped his hand enough. I don’t think what Adam did is directly related to what Tomas has in mind, but they are cut from the same cloth. In my opinion, Adam embodies a more impulsive, less patient Tomas. You can tell that Tomas is very concerned, but it seems to be more about its effect on him and his operation than about potential harm to people.

  “I have let the Choran water district know that we might have a very serious contamination issue if we can’t get this resolved in five to six hours.”

  Beth readjusted her position. “Markus tells me there is a deli across the street that can make us lunches, since we won’t have time for an actual lunch later. Any questions?” There were none, but she could tell it was all a little too much. “Please all, stay in touch with us so Harris can track progress. If you find a bag, please contain it in one of the lidded buckets that we’ve provided. Also send out a photo, so we can all get a better idea of how he’s hidden the bags. Good hunting to everyone.”

  Yolanda turned to Amy. “Are you sure you’re okay to go back out?”

  “I’m more than sure. I want this to end soon.”

  CHAPTER 61:

  Steve and Pearl Search

  AS STEVE’S car approached the parking entrance, he shifted it into manual mode and parked it on the side of the road before the actual turn because he didn’t want to compromise any scent that might be left.

  Steve let Pearl out of her crate and she started dancing in a circle.

  /Where Gim? Where Lars?/

  “They’re working, like we’re supposed to be doing.”

  /Oh. Go sniff?/

  “Yes, wait a second.”

  She spun around more and drank in the area where they’d parked.

  “Stop, come here.”

  /Mmm?/

  “Don’t move around too much as I don’t want us to walk on anything.”

  She blew out her cheeks as if to say: Amateur.

  He called in. “Agent Holzar and Canine Pearl are at Little Stainley Reservoir, about to sweep the parking lot.”

  “Roger,” came what had to be Harris’s voice. “Four hours to deadline.”

  Steve laughed to himself. Just a little pressure, he thought. He had chosen the parking area of the smaller of the two reservoirs, hoping if Adam had been here, there would be less ground to cover. Looking out across what must be a half-mile of water, he realized that even a find here would take some time. He got out his olfactory reflectometer storage device, which would forever just be called a sniff-o-meter in his mind, and called up Adam’s shoe smell. It felt weird that they had taken this smell from a recently dead man, but he hadn’t been technically dead when they took the sample, so he hoped the smell wasn’t compromised with that distinctive smell that a dead human has.

  He held it out to Pearl and she took a long inhale. It reminded him of getting high in college, which they all still did even though there were less hazardous methods available now.

  And then she was off.

  “The parking lot. We need to cover the entire parking lot.”

  Pearl said, /Pffft./ Clearly, she thought she knew exactly what she was doing, and who was he to argue?

  First, she scented the air, then put her nose to the ground and moved in a weaving pattern, occasionally stopping to blow out through her nose and shake her head.

  Every so often, he would ask her to move to a spot and start again, but for the most part he just let her work.

  When it was clear that there was nothing to be found he got a tennis ball out and told Harris over the radio, “Big goose egg on Little Stainley. No sign of Adam, moving on to the Big Stainley lower parking lot.”

  “Roger,” came Harris’s voice again. “Let the record show that Agent Holzar will be moving on to Big Stainley Reservoir lower parking lot.”

  Steve put the handheld down and turned and threw the tennis ball for a delighted Pearl, who bounded down the access road with her hindquarters bunched underneath her.

  After a few throws, Pearl and he got back in the car and he drove it manually down the street to Big Stainley.

  Though the parking area was paved, the entry was dirt, so Steve tried a track analyzer that he had connected to his handheld. It had an image of Adam’s car tire and it could compare a current photo to the stored one. It could even compensate, within a certain tolerance, around an image damaged by the car tire going too fast though the dirt.

  He got out and left Pearl in the car at first. He ran the tire analyzer on a couple of tracks he could see. It pinged, indicating a partial match on one of the prints.

  “Central, I have a possible match on Adam’s car tire, though it appears he was going at speed. I don’t think he stopped. Will check further.”

  “Okay,” Harris said.

  They did the same exact search routine that they did at Little Stainley, and wound up with the same results. Geez, I hope we’re not doing this wrong. he thought.

  “I think that Adam cruised through here, but didn’t stop. Off to our last destination.”

  JUST BEFORE setting out, he looked at the last lake. The reservoir looked like a real lake, with smooth curving shoreline, and not like a stopped-up drain whose shoreline had a ragged edge. This particular reservoir wasn’t a perfect lake-like shape, as there was a point that jutted in on one side, and the lake was smaller and more pinched in near it.

  Pearl headed off, nose to the ground, stopping every thirty seconds or so, lifting her head and sniffing the air. They were traveling along an access road that approached the lake and turned into a trail that circled around it. She took a side trail that led out onto the point which looked like a fine picnic spot. There were a dozen footprints going in all directions. Steve hoped that they weren’t tracking a walker and his lunch and that for all their work, they would find the remains of a half-eaten tur
key on rye or sourdough.

  They worked their way down to the water and Pearl said, /Here,/ and looked up with her mouth open, panting with an excited expression.

  “Good girl, Pearl.” He threw her tennis ball back in the direction they had come.

  With Pearl fetching her prize, he looked down to try to figure out what had happened. “Central, Canine Pearl has tracked Adam to the edge of the water and I’m trying to assess what’s here.”

  “Any sign of a bag?” asked Harris.

  “Negative. I’ll send you some photos.”

  “Roger.”

  Pfffft, he thought while he took some images. Adam stopped here and from the shoe print, knelt down, but why? In contemplation? Confusion? Admiration? Probably not on the last one, he guessed. Adam’s feet seem to shift around in a few places in this spot.

  Pearl had returned with her ball and handed it to him.

  /Ball? Ball?/

  “Not now, we still need to work.”

  She seemed to deflate a little, but he gave her a liver treat, which perked her up.

  While Steve sent the photos, she poked around some, sniffing, then looking out over the water, then back where they’d come from and took two steps and resumed sniffing.

  /Here!/

  “What?” Steve said.

  Pearl walked further along the water, but she wasn’t on the path. She was walking carefully right on the edge of the water, weaving out and back in following the water’s edge. Her nose was on the ground. She wasn’t air-scenting, she was following his track.

  They continued in this manner all the way around the pinched end of the water. This is weird, why would Adam do this, he wondered, but Pearl seemed so sure. He couldn’t resist asking, “Pearl, are you sure about this?”

  /Search./

  Which was her way of saying: I’m busy, talk to the tail.

  “You’re the boss.”

  She ignored him and continued on. Steve backed off the squishy edge; it supported her weight easily but, with his weight, he just sank.

  Steve was just about to update their status when she stopped. Her head came up and she turned back sniffing on the track she’d covered, then went forward and turned again.

  /Here./

  “Here what? What do you mean? I don’t see anything, nor is it likely he’s standing here.”

  /Here,/ she said and looked over the water.

  Steve sloshed over to where she was. She was telling him the trail around the edge ended here. Anything else would just be Adam leaving. So what did this mean, he wondered? He wanted not to sound like a complete bumbling fool when he called in, so he wanted to have at least a theory.

  He looked around the shore. No sign of a bag anywhere, just like the last place that Adam had stopped. Is it possible he took the bag away from the water? Naw, that doesn’t make any sense. It has to be close to the water.

  Pearl kept looking off at the water. He got out his binoculars and slowly scanned the surface. There was a bump out in the middle. Zooming in, he could see what looked like a small tarp that was close to the color of the water.

  Pearl was wiggling her butt in anticipation.

  /Fetch?/

  He reached down and rubbed the back of her neck. “No, sorry, I don’t know what it is, and we need to look at it closer first.”

  She looked disappointed and blew out her cheeks.

  “We will go take a look.” He wasn’t sure if she would understand that, but she knew that she couldn’t just swim out, chomp on it, and bring it back, which is all she wanted to do.

  He got out his comm. “Hello Central.”

  “Hello there.”

  “There is something small floating out on the water that I want to get a closer look at. Could we get someone with a boat out here?”

  “Checking—”

  The line went dead and he threw the tennis ball a couple of times for Pearl.

  “Agent Holzar?”

  “Yes?”

  “One of the Choran water district employees will be there in a couple of minutes to get the boat out.”

  “Roger,” he couldn’t resist saying.

  A FEW minutes later, a district vehicle appeared and headed down the access road. Steve looked up to see a woman, her shoulder-length hair waving in the wind, driving quickly towards them and sliding to a stop. “Hop in, my name’s Janet.”

  They bumped down the road a very short way to a small low building that was beside the water.

  Pretty small building for a boat, Steve thought. Wait a minute, aren’t boathouses on top of the water? Where do you put the actual boat?

  Janet leaped out of the truck in a practiced fashion and jogged over to the door, old fashioned keys in hand.

  “No keypad.”

  “Kinda low tech here,” she said as she pulled open the door, went in, and started tugging on something.

  When Steve got to the door, he nearly fell over laughing. “A canoe!”

  “We don’t use power craft on this water.”

  “Well, it’s not like we’re in a hurry or anything,” Steve said, hoping he didn’t sound snippy.

  “If you grab that side, it will go faster.”

  Steve thought, Well, she does have a point there. He stood on the side and they each grabbed a gunwale, lifting the canoe out of its storage spot and setting it on the ground at the water’s edge.

  Janet disappeared for a moment, emerging with two paddles and two life jackets. She put the paddles in the boat and handed him a life jacket. “The PFD is required,” she said.

  Frowning at it, and looking for the adjuster so he could make it bigger, he muttered, “Pure Effing Delay device.”

  Janet didn’t object to his tone, but just said, “Personal Flotation Device, and I grabbed the biggest one we had. Let me help you.” She grabbed the adjustor, pushed a button on the latch to release the tension, and fitted it to him.

  “I get to row, too?”

  “Actually, we’ll be paddling, and yes, it would help.”

  She did a little bit of prep, closing the door of the boathouse, and they put the canoe in the water. She got in the back and held the boat in place while Steve and Pearl got in.

  She handed him a paddle and asked, “Do you know how to use this?”

  “An oar?”

  “It’s a paddle. Oars are in a row boat and you pull on them. We do this instead.” She demonstrated a forward paddling motion.

  “I think I can manage that.”

  “Good, because going in a straight line is harder than it seems.”

  “Er.”

  “Don’t worry, I can fix things from the rear of the boat.”

  They started off towards the tarp that was floating on the lake, the boat moving in a haphazard zigzag direction.

  “This is hard,” Steve said, feeling a little frustrated.

  “Try to paddle when I do and on the opposite side of the canoe.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her paddling and noticed her pushing the paddle out away from the boat and the end of her stroke. “Am I supposed to be doing that?”

  “The J stroke? Naw, it’s just for the person in the back.”

  They eventually got to what was floating in the water. Janet kept her paddle in the water, steadying the boat.

  “Okay, Pearl, let’s have a sniff.” He offered her the sample smell, which she sniffed at, then he put the handheld down and picked her up and put her on his lap.

  The canoe rolled some with the shifting weight.

  “Is this a good idea?”

  “It’s okay, for now, but don’t let her lean out too far.”

  Steve held Pearl in his lap and Janet brought the boat closer.

  Pearl took a sniff and another. No reaction.

  Janet moved the boat a little further.

  No reaction. Steve thought, all this effort for nothing.

  Janet guided the canoe to the other side.

  Pearl extended her head and said, /Here./

  Yes! He th
ought. “Good girl. Check again.”

  She tried a different spot. /Here./ A different spot. /Here./

  “Excellent. Good girl, Pearl.”

  He gave her a liver treat, which she gobbled down and asked, /Swim?/

  “Not yet. Soon though.”

  She sighed and flopped down into the canoe, making it shudder.

  He got out the comm. “Central, Canine Pearl has confirmed that Adam has touched the tarp. I’m going to pull the tarp off slowly.”

  “Okay, Agent Holzer. Proceed with caution.”

  “Roger.”

  He handed the handheld to Janet. “Could you record this while I pull the tarp off? The camera is on right now and sending to Central.”

  “I’ll need to clamp it to the gunwale.” She did so and aimed it at the covering.

  Steve narrated: “I’m picking up the corner of the tarp.”

  He lifted a corner. Leaning closer, he could see a plastic bag with a colored stripe along the top.

  “Um, Central, I am looking at a small drybag.”

  “Dry as in waterproof?”

  “Correct.”

  “Does the bag look intact?”

  “From this angle, yes; checking closer.”

  He stopped and looked up at the far shore to steady his vision. While Janet was doing a good job of keeping the boat stable, concentrating on the small bobbling bag was making him a little dizzy. He looked down again. The bag was floating in the water. There was a strip of something along the side of the bag and what appeared to be a small piece of tape at the bottom.

  “Central, I’m going to pick it up using the bucket, as that seems safest.”

  “We can see it on the screen. Go ahead.”

  He got the ungainly bucket out and put it partially in the water, hoping to coax the bag in. No such luck. He pushed the bucket down further and maneuvered it under the bag. He had it lined up but now he was moving five gallons of water from the side of a canoe. The canoe rolled to the left. “Pearl, move away.” She had a concerned look on her face, but did so.

  He worked the bucket to the surface with the bag contained in it. Laughing, he said, “I can’t believe what I’m looking at. Water inside a waterproof bag, that’s sitting in water. There is a stripe of something along the side of it and there’s a string attached to the bottom. There’s probably something not good about the water inside the bag, huh?”