by Robert Crais
“You seem irritated, Scott. Did yesterday’s regression cause an adverse reaction?”
Scott lowered the phone and took a few breaths. Leland hadn’t moved. He was standing beside his truck, scowling at Scott.
“I’m talking about this dog. Maybe I need a dog psychiatrist. Do they make anxiety meds for dogs?”
Goodman hesitated for another several seconds, thinking, but this time he sighed before he answered.
“Probably, but I don’t know. I do know that dogs suffering from PTSD can be retrained. I would guess that, as with people, the results are varied. You and I have the advantage of medicines that can augment or temporarily alter our brain chemistry. You and I are able to discuss what happened over and over until the event loses much of its emotional potency, and becomes something more manageable.”
Goodman had gone into lecture mode, which was his way of thinking out loud, so Scott interrupted.
“Yeah, we bore it to death. Is there a short version of this, Doc? My boss is watching me, and he doesn’t look happy.”
“She was shot. Like you, her subconscious associates the sound of a gunshot, or any surprising noise, with pain and the fear she felt in that moment.”
Leland tapped his watch, and crossed his arms. Scott nodded to acknowledge him and held up a finger. One second.
“She can’t talk about it like me, so how do we deal with it?”
“I’ll find out if there are canine anxiety medicines, but the therapeutic model will be the same. You can’t take the bad experience away from her, so you have to reduce its power. Perhaps you could teach her to associate a loud noise with something pleasurable. Then introduce more noises, until she realizes they have no power to harm her.”
Leland had gotten tired of waiting, and was now striding toward him.
Scott watched him approach, but was thinking about the possibilities in Goodman’s advice.
“This is going to help, Doc. Thanks. I gotta go.”
Scott put away his phone, hooked up Maggie, and got out as Leland arrived.
“Guess you and this dog good to go, you got time to yak with your girlfriends.”
“That was Detective Orso at Robbery-Homicide. They want me back downtown, but I put them off until lunch so I can work with Maggie.”
Leland’s scowl softened as Scott expected.
“Why all of a sudden they want you so much?”
“The lead changed. Orso’s new. He’s trying to get up to speed.”
Leland grunted, then glanced at Maggie.
“How’d you and Miss Maggie here get on last night? She pee on your floor?”
“We walked. We had a long talk.”
Leland looked up sharply as if he suspected Scott was being smart, but he softened again when he concluded Scott meant it.
“Good. That would be very good. Now let’s you go work with this animal, and see what y’all talked about.”
Leland turned away.
“Can I borrow your starter pistol?”
Leland turned back.
Scott said, “Can’t have a police dog shit out when a gun goes off.”
Leland pooched out his lips, and studied Scott some more.
“You think you can fix that?”
“I won’t quit on my partner.”
Leland stared at Scott for so long Scott squirmed, but then Leland touched Maggie’s head.
“Won’t do, you shootin’ the gun if you’re workin’ with her. Might hurt her ears, bein’ so close. I’ll have Mace help you.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.”
“No thanks are necessary. Keep talkin’ to this dog. Maybe you’re already learnin’ somethin’.”
Leland turned away without another word, and Scott looked down at Maggie.
“I need more baloney.”
Scott and Maggie went to the training field.
11.
Mace didn’t come out with the starter pistol. Leland came out instead, and brought along a short, wiry trainer named Paulie Budress. Scott had met the man twice during his first week of handler school, but didn’t know him. Budress was in his mid-thirties, and sported a peeling sunburn because he had spent the past two weeks fishing with three other cops in Montana. He worked with a male German shepherd named Obi.
Leland said, “Forget that business with the starter pistol for now. You know Paulie Budress?”
Budress gave Scott a big grin and firm handshake, but put most of his grin on Maggie.
Leland said, “Paulie here worked K-9 in the Air Force, which is why I want him to talk to you. These Military Working Dogs are taught to do things different than our dogs.”
Budress was still smiling at Maggie. He held out his hand to let her sniff, then squatted to scratch behind her ears.
“She was in Afghanistan?”
Scott said, “Dual purpose. Patrol and explosives detection.”
Budress was wiry, but Scott felt a super-calm vibe, and knew Maggie sensed it, too. Her ears were back, her tongue hung out, and she was comfortable letting Budress scratch her. Budress opened her left ear and looked at her tattoo as Leland went on. Both Scott and Leland might as well have been invisible. Budress was all about the dog.
Leland went on to Scott.
“As you know, here in the city of Los Angeles, we train our beautiful animals to hold a suspect in place by barking. Heaven help us she bites some shitbird unless he’s trying to kill you, coz our spaghetti-spined, unworthy city council is only too willing to pay liability blackmail to any shyster lawyer who oozes out a shitbird’s ass. Is that not correct, Officer Budress?”
“Whatever you say, Sergeant.”
Budress wasn’t paying attention, but Scott knew the Sergeant was describing the find-and-bark method that more and more police agencies had adopted to stem the tide of liability lawsuits. So long as the suspect stood perfectly still and showed no aggression, the dogs were trained to stand off and bark. They were trained to bite only if the suspect made an aggressive move or fled, which Leland believed risky to both his dogs and their handlers, and which was one of his unending lecture topics.
“Your military patrol dog, however, is taught to hit her target like a runaway truck, and will take his un-American ass down like a bat out of hell on steroids. You put your military dog on a shitbird, she’ll rip him a new asshole, and eat his liver when it slides out. Dogs like our Maggie here are trained to mean business. Is this not correct, Officer Budress?”
“Whatever you say, Sergeant.”
Leland nodded toward Budress, who was running his hands down Maggie’s legs and tracing the scars on her hips.
“The voice of experience, Officer James. So the first thing you have to do is teach this heroic animal not to bite the murderous, genetically inferior shitbags you will ask her to face. Is that clear?”
Scott mimicked Budress.
“Whatever you say, Sergeant.”
“As it should be. I will leave you now with Officer Budress, who knows the military command set, and will help you retrain her to work in our sissified civilian city.”
Leland walked away without another word. Budress stood, and painted Scott with a big smile.
“Don’t sweat it. She was retrained at Lackland to make her less aggressive, and more people-friendly. It’s SOP for dogs they adopt out to civilians. The Sarge there thinks her problem will be the opposite—not aggressive enough.”
Scott remembered how Maggie lunged at Marley, but decided not to mention it.
Scott said, “She’s smart. She’ll have find-and-bark in two days.”
Budress smiled even wider.
“You’ve had her now how long? A day?”
“She was smart enough to soak up everything the Marine Corps wanted her to know. She didn’t get shot
in the head.”
“And how is it you know what the Marines wanted her to know?”
Scott felt himself flush.
“I guess that’s why you’re here.”
“I guess it is. Let’s get started.”
Budress nodded toward the kennel building.
“Go get an arm protector, a twenty-foot lead, a six-foot lead, and whatever you use to reward her. I’ll wait.”
Scott started to the kennel, and Maggie fell in on his left side. He had cut and bagged half a pound of baloney, but now worried if it would be enough, and if Budress would object to his using food as a reward. Then he checked his watch, and wondered how much they could accomplish before he left to see Orso. He wanted to share what he learned about the neighborhood burglaries from Marley, and believed Orso would see the potential. Maybe after nine months of nothing, a new lead was beginning to develop.
Scott picked up his pace, and was thinking about Orso when the gunshot cracked the air behind him. Scott ducked into a crouch, and Maggie almost upended him. She tried to wedge herself beneath him, and was wrapped so tightly between his legs he felt her trembling.
Scott’s heart hammered and his breathing was fast and shallow, but he knew what had happened even before he looked back at Budress.
Budress was holding the starter pistol loose at his leg. The smile was gone from his peeling face, and now he looked sad.
He said, “Sorry, man. It’s a shame. That poor dog has a problem.”
Scott’s heart slowed. He laid a hand on Maggie’s trembling back, and spoke to her softly.
“Hey, baby girl. That’s just a noise. You can stay under me long as you like.”
He stroked her back and sides, kneaded her ears, and kept talking in the calm voice. He took out the bag of baloney, stroking her the whole time.
“Check it out, Maggie girl. Look what I have.”
She raised her head when he offered the square of baloney, and licked it from his fingers.
Scott made the high-pitched squeaky voice, told her what a good girl she was, and offered another piece. She sat up to eat it.
Budress said, “I’ve seen this before, y’know, with war dogs. It’s a long road back.”
Scott stood, and teased her by holding another piece high above her head.
“Stand up, girl. Stand tall and get it.”
She raised up onto her hind legs, standing tall for the meat. Scott let her have it, then ruffled her fur as he praised her.
He looked at Budress, and his voice wasn’t squeaky.
“Another twenty minutes or so, shoot it again.”
Budress nodded.
“You won’t know it’s coming.”
“I don’t want to know it’s coming. Neither does she.”
Budress slowly smiled.
“Get the arm protector and the leads. Let’s get this war dog back in business.”
Two hours and forty-five minutes later, Scott kenneled Maggie and drove downtown to see Orso. She whined when he left, and pawed at the gate.
12.
Twenty minutes later, Orso and a short, attractive brunette wearing a black pantsuit were waiting when the elevator doors opened at the Boat. Orso stuck out his hand, and introduced the woman.
“Scott, this is Joyce Cowly. Detective Cowly has been reviewing the file, and probably knows it better than me.”
Scott nodded, but wasn’t sure what to say.
“Okay. Thanks. Good to meet you.”
Cowly’s handshake was firm and strong, but not mannish. She was in her late thirties, with a relaxed manner and the strong build of a woman who might have been one of those sparkplug gymnasts when she was a teenager. She smiled as she shook Scott’s hand, and handed him her card as Orso led them toward the RHD office. Scott wondered if Orso would meet him at the elevator every time he arrived.
Cowly said, “You were at Rampart before Metro, right? I was Rampart Homicide before here.”
Scott checked her face again, but didn’t recall her.
“Sorry, I don’t remember.”
“No reason you should. I’ve been here for three years.”
Orso said, “Three and a half. Joyce spent most of her time here on serial cases with me. I told her about our conversation yesterday, and she has a few questions.”
Scott followed them to the same conference room, where he saw the cardboard box was now on the table with the files and materials back in their hangers. A large blue three-ring binder sat on the table beside it. Scott knew this was the murder book, which homicide detectives used to organize and record their investigations.
Orso and Cowly dropped into chairs, but Scott rounded the table to Orso’s poster-sized diagram of the crime scene.
“Before we get started, I went to Nelson Shin’s store this morning, and met a man who has a business two doors down—here.”
Scott found Shin’s store on the diagram, then pointed out Elton Marley’s location.
“Marley was burglarized two weeks ago. He’s been hit four or five times in the past year, and he told me a lot of other businesses in the area have been hit, too. Your diagram here doesn’t show a delivery area behind the building that opens off this alley—”
Scott drew an invisible box with his finger to illustrate the area behind the buildings where Marley had been loading his van. Orso and Cowly were watching him.
“A fire escape goes to the roof. There’s no security except for window bars on the lowest windows, and the area back here is totally hidden from view. I’m thinking the bad guys use the fire escape to reach the higher windows. They dinged Marley for a computer and a scanner this time. Last time, they grabbed a boom box, another computer, and a few bottles of rum.”
Orso glanced at Cowly.
“Small-time breaking and entering, easy-to-carry goods.”
Cowly nodded.
“Neighborhood locals.”
Scott pushed on with his theory.
“Whoever it is, if the same perp is behind all these jobs, he might be the person who broke into Shin’s the night I was shot. Also, I went up to the roof. It’s a total party hangout—”
Scott took out his cell phone, found a good picture of the beer cans and debris, and passed the phone to Orso.
“Maybe the guy who hit Shin’s store was long gone, but if someone else was up here when the Kenworth hit the Bentley, they could have seen everything.”
Cowly leaned toward him.
“Did Marley file a report?”
“Two weeks ago. Someone went out, but Marley hasn’t heard back. I told him I’d check the status and get back to him.”
Orso glanced at Cowly.
“That’s Central Robbery. Ask them for the robbery reports and arrests in this area for the past two years. And whatever they have on Mr. Marley. I’ll want to speak with the DIC.”
DIC was Detective-in-Charge.
Cowly asked Scott to repeat Marley’s full name and the address of his store, and wrote the information on her pad. As she wrote, Orso turned back to Scott.
“This is a good find. Good thinking. I like this.”
Scott felt elated, and that something trapped in his heart for nine months was beginning to ease.
Orso said, “Okay, now Joyce has something. Come sit. Joyce—”
Scott took a seat as Cowly picked up a large manila envelope and took out the contents. She dealt out four sheets of heavy gloss paper in front of Scott like playing cards. Each sheet was printed with six sets of color booking photos. The pictures were in pairs, showing each man’s full face and profile. The men were of all ages and races, and all had white or gray sideburns of varying shapes and lengths. Cowly explained as she laid out the pictures.
“Identifiers like hair color, hairstyle, length, et
cetera, are part of the database. Anyone look familiar?”
Scott went from elated to nauseous in a heartbeat, and in that moment was once more lying in the street, hearing the gunfire. He closed his eyes, drew a slow breath, and imagined himself on a white sandy beach. He was alone, and naked, and his skin was warm from the sun. He pictured himself on a red beach towel. He imagined the sound of the surf. This was a technique Goodman taught him to deal with the flashbacks. Put himself elsewhere, and create the details. Imagining details took concentration, and helped him relax.
Orso said, “Scott?”
Scott felt a flush of embarrassment, and opened his eyes. He studied the pictures, but none of the men were familiar.
“I didn’t see enough. I’m sorry.”
Cowly pulled the cap off a black Sharpie and handed it to him, still smiling the relaxed, easy smile. She wore no nail polish.
“Don’t sweat it. I didn’t expect you to recognize a face. I got three thousand, two hundred, and sixty-one hits for gray or white hair. I pulled these because they have different hair types and sideburn styles. That’s the purpose of this exercise. As best you can—if you can, and no sweat if you can’t—circle the style closest to what you saw, or cross out the styles you can definitely rule out.”
One of the men had long thin sideburns as sharp as a stiletto. Another had huge muttonchops that covered most of his cheeks. Scott crossed them out along with the other styles he knew were wrong, and circled five men with thick, rectangular sideburns. The shortest stopped mid-ear, and the longest extended about an inch below the man’s lobe. Scott pushed the sheets back to Cowly, wondering again if he had seen the sideburns or only imagined them.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure I saw them.”
Cowly and Orso shared a glance as she slipped the sheets back into their envelope, and Orso plucked a thin file from the spread on the table.
“This is the criminalist’s report on the Gran Torino. After we spoke, I reread it. Five white hairs from the same individual were found on the driver’s side.”
Scott stared at Orso, then Cowly. Orso smiled. Cowly didn’t. She looked like a woman on the hunt, and picked up where Orso left off.