by Archer Mayor
“Well, it was long ago enough that you guys hadn’t gone to electronic filing yet with your fingerprints. You still used ink. I was wondering if you kept those old cards somewhere.”
“Far out,” she said. “That is a shot in the dark. Paper files may be becoming ancient history, but fingerprint cards are prehistoric. On the other hand,” she added, “we are New Englanders. We rarely throw anything away.”
She retrieved the coffee mug she’d given him and placed it on her desk. “That being said, where we’re going, you don’t want that. Trust me.”
She crooked a finger at him as she headed for the door. “Come with me, pilgrim. We’re headed for the bowels of Middle Earth.”
It did feel that way. The basement of this odd building was windowless, dank, concrete-lined, and only marginally illuminated, which explained why Nicole had brought along a flashlight.
She led him to a small mountain of decaying cardboard boxes occupying the far corner of a room otherwise filled with abandoned bikes, destroyed exercise equipment, and several home-built rusty racks designed to hold targets at the shooting range.
“What was the date?”
He rattled it off, and she scanned the labels on the boxes, although several had lost their tags over the years. “You do realize this is going to take you a while.”
“Yup,” he said, trying to open up some space in which to work.
She rapped her knuckle against a single box and added, “Unless you get lucky, of course.”
He grabbed hold of her prize and put it where he could process its contents, as she handed him the light and headed back upstairs, saying, “See me when you’re done.”
His luck, as it turned out, was not what either one of them might have expected. In truth, he hadn’t been sure what to expect—except for another hazily defined next step.
Or nothing at all, which is what turned out to be his reward in the end.
The contradictory eureka moment didn’t come, however, until after he’d checked the file’s chronologically arranged contents twice. DUI cases are complex structures, largely because—most cops believe—the laws enforcing them were written by drink-prone politicians who want to get out of trouble if they’re ever caught under the influence. There are forms and test results and questionnaires and affidavits and video files and roadside dexterity demonstrations and much, much more.
Including booking records, complete with fingerprint cards.
Or not.
Lester sat back on his heels and wedged the borrowed flashlight under his chin before dealing the file’s contents out like a cardsharp onto the concrete floor.
Fingerprinting had definitely taken place—the supporting documentation attested to it. But the actual card featuring the blackened blossoms of Kyle Kennedy’s whorls, swirls, and loops was missing. Someone had removed it.
Someone, Lester had become educated by Tina Sackman, who’d created an alternate use for them.
* * *
Sam got the call a half hour after putting Emma to bed, dressed, as was her daughter, in a pair of pink pajamas—although minus the sewn-on feet.
“It’s Gagne,” said the familiar voice. “Some local yokel fucked up and went after Gargiulo—saw him in traffic and lit him up, instead of calling it in, like we asked.”
“Where is he?” she asked, walking down the hall toward where Willy was watching TV, her adrenaline removing all weariness.
“That’s the problem. They lost him in Malta after a high-speed chase. That’s like fifteen miles north of Albany, just below Saratoga Springs.”
Sammie pressed her lips together with irritation. Murphy—always lurking in the wings. “Okay,” she said. “What’s the plan? Roadblocks?”
“No. He crashed. He’s on foot.”
“What? Jesus.”
“It gets worse,” Gagne told her. “He’s in the one place where it’s crazy hard to track him—about a square mile of woods. Used to be a secret rocket-testing site.”
“Oh, come on,” she replied, going into the living room, sitting beside Willy, and turning on her phone’s speaker as he hit the remote’s mute button.
“We got two things going for us,” Gagne said. “One is that there’s a ginormous semiconductor-manufacturing plant where part of the site used to be—basically blocking off one side of it—and the other is that the woods’re surrounded by roads where units have already been dispatched. With any luck, we have him contained, at least.”
“Right,” Willy groused. “That’s really gonna work.”
“What?” Gagne asked.
“Nothing,” Sammie said. “I’m coming over. Where’s your command center?”
Gagne didn’t argue with her. “Shoot for the Malta town offices, on Route 9. If we’re not there, somebody’ll give you directions. The Hermes site is a mile away at most.”
“The what?”
“That’s what they called it, right after the war—the Hermes rocket-testing site.”
“Yeah,” she said, half to herself. “Why not? This whole damn thing is like science fiction.”
There was some background noise on Gagne’s end, before he said, “See ya in a few,” and unceremoniously hung up.
Willy leaned toward her and kissed her neck. “Have fun at the office, honey. Try not to get your butt blown off.”
* * *
At least the travel time was fast. Sam played her blue lights through the Vermont leg of her trip and met little traffic in any case, given the time of night and her chosen route, which went for miles between towns so small, they didn’t even have gas stations.
She’d heard of Malta, on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs horse country. By and large, it was groomed, well mannered, and fed by the largesse of wealthy second-home owners, not to mention the huge new semiconductor plant’s payroll and the appeal of a nearby lake.
She didn’t find anyone she recognized at the town offices, as expected. There was a command post there, or at least a group of people manning phones, and Gagne had left notice for her to be given directions to the Hermes site.
The transition from neatly mown neighborhoods to dense trees—officially the Luther Forest—was abrupt, and made clear by the sudden vanishing of streetlamps, traffic, and urban lighting.
As she’d gotten ready to depart Brattleboro earlier, dressing in her outdoor BDUs, or battle dress uniform, and updating Dispatch and Joe personally by phone, she’d asked Willy to read aloud from Wikipedia about her destination, thereby learning more about the semiconductor plant and the old rocket site. Counting the surrounding forestland, it was—as Gagne had implied—the worst possible environment in which to find a single man on the lam.
She found where she was headed on the appropriately named Rocket Drive, where vehicles beyond counting were clustered, most of them still flashing their eye-piercing, pulsing, multicolored LEDs. Almost in protest, she killed her own headlights as she parked near the tightest assemblage of cars, and walked toward a tent filled with variously uniformed people.
Thankfully, Scott Gagne had kept an eye out for her, and emerged from the crowd as she approached.
“You made good time,” he said.
“You got everybody here but the National Guard,” she commented, looking around.
His voice dropped as he confided, “Yeah, well. We may’ve gilded the lily a little, there. You said you’re pretty sure Gargiulo killed the Robinson girl—so we kinda advertised that we’re after a mad-dog psychopath, just to catch everyone’s interest. I’d appreciate it if you don’t blow our cover by getting wobbly in your convictions, okay?”
“Got it,” she reassured him.
“That being said,” he went on, “we still don’t have enough people to just lock the place down till morning, so we could do this in daylight, and we weren’t able to get the state police chopper with infrared.”
Gagne led her to the center of the tent, where a map had been laid out on a makeshift table, surrounded by laptops, radios, and cell phones, all of
which seemed to be operating at once. He squeezed her up next to the table’s edge and began explaining, “Things have improved a little since we talked. As fast as we could, we dispatched units to the periphery and worked our way in. We found a ski mask in Gargiulo’s wrecked car that stank enough of his scent, even I could smell it, so we’re cycling through dog teams as we speak. By now, we’re pretty sure our guy’s somewhere inside this rectangle—basically a quarter mile by half a mile. Problem is it’s hilly, wooded in spots, and riddled with tunnels, bunkers, warehouses, and other weird junk I can’t even describe that date back to the rocket program. It’s also pitch-black, and I already told you about our manpower.”
“Then I can help,” she suggested.
“Already got you hooked up. You wearing a vest?”
She opened her Windbreaker. “And I have a shotgun in my car.”
Five minutes later, after checking in with the incident commander and fetching her 12 gauge, Sam followed Gagne along a dirt road, away from the lights. The break from the noise and flashing LEDs was a relief, but almost immediately, they saw—a hundred yards ahead—a much smaller, quieter, and more dimly lit group near a couple of parked SUVs.
“That’s your date for the evening,” Gagne said as they closed in. “You’re assigned to Deputy Sheriff Lisa Schamberg. I chose her myself ’cause we date back; she used to work for the PD. Good people, great dog handler, incredibly hard worker—a little on the focused side. You two should get along.” He smiled. “Normally, we would have a full tracking crew behind each dog, but the perimeter’s too big and we don’t have people to spare. So, we’re making do.”
As they got within a few feet of the group, Gagne called out, “Lisa—yo,” and was immediately met by a short, strongly built woman dressed like Sam in boots and combat uniform, who came out to meet them leading a handsome, young, powerful German Shepherd on a leash.
She shook Sam’s hand. “You Martens?”
“Thanks for taking me on,” Sam answered.
Schamberg indicated Scott Gagne. “Thank him. He’s says you’re okay, that’s good by me. This is Brio.”
The dog briefly sniffed Sam’s outstretched hand—as if obligated by politesse—but otherwise kept by his handler’s side, constantly looking up at her with unmitigated devotion. Lisa—Sam was amused to notice—steadily reciprocated, despite her tough-guy demeanor. She repeatedly made small loving gestures with her hand—tiny caresses of the dog’s ears, fingertip strokes along the nape of his neck—which reminded Sam of similar displays between humans. There was no doubting the bond between these two.
A voice behind them inquired, “You ready to go in, Lisa?”
Schamberg said something quickly to her dog and glanced at Sam, saying loudly enough to be heard by all, “Good to go.” She then explained more quietly, eyeing Sam intensely, “This is a fresh sector, so any scent should be relatively uncontaminated. It’s about the only thing we have going for us. Ready?”
Without waiting for a response, she quickly swapped Brio’s leash and collar for a thirty-foot tracking lead and harness before telling Sam, “No offense, but if the shit hits the fan, the dog’s my partner and my priority. Just so you know. Bullets start flying, he and I hit the ditch. It’s up to you to take out the bad guy. You good with that?”
“Yup,” Sam replied, having figured as much.
Schamberg studied Sam’s shotgun, noticing the flashlight fixed just under the barrel. “You got a remote switch for that?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep it off most of the time, if you can. There’s no moon tonight, but there’ll be enough vision anyhow, once our eyes adjust.”
Schamberg suddenly gave her a broad winning smile, transforming her serious face. “Try not to shoot me and Brio in the ass, and never light us up. Deal? ’Cause you’re bringing up the rear.”
Sam smiled back. “Deal.”
As of that moment, watching Lisa and her dog head off, Sam felt as abruptly alone as if she’d been dropped off the side of an ocean liner, and was floating in a vast and empty darkness.
From Sam’s own familiarization training at the police academy, she knew better than to converse further. Dog handlers can be an obsessively concentrated bunch, and this one appeared beyond average. Crouching slightly as she trotted behind her dog, Lisa behaved like a half-human, half-canine avatar herself—as quiet, lithe, and loose-limbed as Brio as he gracefully cut back and forth across their line of approach—“casting,” in their lingo—his nose seeking Gargiulo’s scent on the ground.
In an ideal world, humans leave behind three different scent trails as they walk. One—arguably the strongest—is a triangular-shaped wake, suffused with a trademark odor, which largely hangs in the air like an invisible cloud. The closer a dog’s nose gets to the source, the narrower that pie shape becomes. Unfortunately, that plume can be vulnerable to wind and the elements. The second is what we leave behind in our footprints—featuring not just our own smell but also the added flavor, if you will, of the minute disturbances our forging ahead may have caused. The third is even more subtle, involving both the aboveground objects we contact—low-hanging leaves and branches—and the molecular makeup of whatever environment we traverse. Canines trained to pursue these three categories are generally called, respectively: air scent, tracking, or trailing dogs. At the start of his search—once his nose became oriented—Brio began exhibiting the classic traits of a trailing dog.
Sam, however, also remembered being told that whatever the training or technique, problems arise almost inevitably. Topography, weather, temperature, air movement, passage of time, competing odors, and more all regularly conspire to make a dog’s job more difficult.
And then there’s the dog itself. As sentient creatures, they have moods and feelings, good days and bad, and their handlers need to be sensitive to each. The dogs also know no bounds—their dedication overrides their self-preservation. They will work until they drop, overheat to the point of death, and sacrifice all to protect their human partner or achieve their goal. That creates in the handler a paradoxical dilemma. Like the doting parent of an idiot savant, this person has to manage the actions of a single-minded tracking machine, while preventing her “child” from destroying itself through the excesses of its own nature.
Jogging along behind this intuitively driven team, Sam could only admire them as Lisa escorted Brio through his paces, all while studying his body language for fatigue, assessing for possible threats, and watching for evidence—in near total darkness.
Which is where Sammie fulfilled her role. Widening her eyes for maximum night vision, she swept the nearby possible ambush sites, looking for movement, shadow, and listening for anything amiss. If Lisa was Brio’s guardian—watching his back to allow him his full attention—then Sam was Lisa’s in turn.
And vigilance was called for. Brio was visibly no longer trailing an elusive scent. After twenty minutes, even Sammie could tell he was onto the real thing—the actual vapor cone of their quarry—which brought his nose up into air scent mode. All three of them picked up their game—more alert, more adrenalized, more mindful of something about to snap.
Lisa and Brio transformed into an offbeat parody of Fred and Ginger in full swing—a taut leash between them—the dog pressing forward, straining against his harness, and his handler fighting to restrain him, increasingly sensitive to a possibly violent encounter looming ahead. Lisa’s posture became a sniper’s, hunched over to present a smaller target and sighting between the ears of her distant dog, who was aimed like a rifle barrel at his objective.
Sam struggled to not watch them, to keep her eyes on what was ahead and within the surrounding inky blackness. Menacing outlines, arboreal and concrete, natural and man-made, drifted by as they traveled on methodically, each ghostly apparition needing at least a cursory check. Bunkers, pits, steel sheds, and storage buildings arose in turn, the two women knowing the dog’s nose would warn them of danger, while aware that the same organ was seriously othe
rwise occupied, pursuing a single odor and only maybe—or maybe not—aware of anyone else.
After all, who knew if Gargiulo was alone?
The pursuit reached a climax with operatic flourish. The dog coming to a dead stop before the silhouette of a man suddenly separating from the bushes ahead—frighteningly nearby—the flash of a gun, fired at close range and straight at them, its ballooning explosion of blinding light seeming like an onrushing meteor—and followed by the twin yelp of the dog and the scream of his partner.
Lisa, howling with rage and abandoning her promise to drop out of harm’s way, filled the night firing at near-automatic speed, shooting into the gloom repeatedly as she threw herself onto Brio’s recumbent shape. Sam stabbed the darkness with her light, sighting down the shotgun, waiting for a target.
But the man had disappeared.
Sam ran up alongside Lisa, who’d emptied her magazine and was slapping a second one home while cradling Brio in her arms. Sam saw the dog’s bright eyes reflecting back at her, its tongue reaching out to comfort Lisa and lick away the blood coursing from the top of its head, and decided on little evidence that Brio was injured only, and would be okay.
Lisa understood her hesitation without a word being said. “Go, go, go!” she yelled, gesturing with her free arm. “I don’t think it did major damage. Go get the son of a bitch. I’ll call it in.”
Sam pressed on, her hearing replacing Brio’s nose as she followed heavy footsteps retreating ahead. This was not proper procedure—exposing herself needlessly to danger, with dozens of armed officers just minutes away. But on the ground, egging her on, she saw regularly spaced drops of fresh blood. Also, from all around, she could hear the shouts of people closing in on her position.
“Stop” she shouted as she ran, as if rationalizing her own impulsiveness. “Police.”
In fact, in that moment, it was she who suddenly came to a halt, startled by a monolith darker than the night sky beyond it, as tall as a towering building, looming before her as if it had sprung from the earth without a sound. It was one of the abandoned steel gantries, designed to hold rocket engines, six stories high, its walls made of rusting flat metal—silent, still, and as powerful in appearance as a fortress dropped from space.