by D. L. Keur
*
Landing at a small commercial airfield mostly used by crop dusters and small cargo planes, her dad taxied to the fueling area. A man came out and unlocked the pump, then waited as her dad fueled. Once that was done, they taxied to their assigned hanger.
Jessie got the dogs out of their crates. She clipped leashes on her dad’s pups and let Mitch and Milo loose, verbally bringing them to heel until she got them out over to the grass off the side of the taxiway.
Everybody did their business, and, after doing pick-up and bag duty, Jessie took everybody back to the side of the plane, snapping the pups’ leads to each other and telling them to platz while she changed out their crate pads and put in new ones. Then she put the pups back in theirs. Mitch and Milo she kept at her side, but clipped leads on them so none of the few people around the little airport felt uncomfortable.
Finally, her dad came out of the terminal that doubled as the airport’s tower, his quickstepping stride coupled with a stormy brow signaling to her that things were not as promised. Oh, boy.
“The rental company hasn’t delivered our vehicle. They ‘forgot’. It’ll be another hour.”
“Okay. Do they have a snack bar or anything here?”
He shook his head.
“Well, then, I guess it’s picnic time,” Jessie said with a grin.
“I’m not fond of K-rations, Jessie. I’d rather just not eat.”
“Okay,” she said, still grinning, then popped the cowling to access the front cargo hold and pulled out the tote she’d put there. She unlatched the top, then pulled out the sandwiches, soup thermoses, sodas, and packs of string cheese her gram and she had stashed inside. “I, for one, am hungry, though, and you’re welcome to join me, since there’s more than enough for both of us.”
Her dad fought it, then gave it up, a grin breaking out despite his peevishness. “Your idea?”
“Gram’s.”
He shook his head, his face relaxing, took two sandwiches, a couple of packs of string cheese, and one of the thermoses of soup, then plopped himself down on the tarmac.
Jessie did the same.
“Sorry to spring it on you about the business, but—”
Jessie shook her head and frowned, stopping him with a raised hand as she swallowed her bite. “Don’t be sorry. I kind of knew something was up when you all went to town last week.” Then she asked what she really wanted to know. “Did you mean what you said about me, though? That I earned it?”
Her dad’s face got that gentle look that always made her want to hug him. “Yes. A long time ago. You’ve got something special when it comes to dogs, Jessie, my Jessie. You’ve always had it, even as a toddler—you and the dogs all around you. It really is like you communicate with them on some unknown level. More than that, though, you’ve got the skill, the work ethic, and the know-how. You’re a hard worker and not afraid to take on huge projects, things I’d even balk at, like getting those permissions from the owners to fly your drones over every piece of private property in Idaho—"
“A work in progress.”
“And asking the state for a waiver to the law.”
“Also a work in progress.”
“Yeah.”
She flinched inside a little at asking something else she really wanted to know. Taking a breath, she plowed on. “When I came home at Christmas, you told me that you thought I needed help. You still think that?”
A look that Jessie always thought of as his eyes sparking flitted across his face. “I think you need to heal, and the best way to do that is to keep busy and work doing what you love.”
So, he does. It hurt. “Idle hands and all that, huh?”
“Yes.”
“But no therapy.”
“Waste of time, money, and, in all honesty, I consider it destructive, at least the kind of counseling most of those weirdos practice. I swear most of them are psychos themselves.”
Jessie laughed outright. “That’s actually evidentially accurate. Just like cops are criminally-minded.”
“You’re not criminally-minded.”
Jessie nodded. “I know. And I’m not a cop anymore, either. Even back in school, I wasn’t given a very good score for success in my psych evals. I don’t think like a criminal, so how can I outfox one? That’s the measure.”
Her dad blew a hard breath out. Shook his head. “Just wrong,” he muttered. Then, “Jessie, what happened that you finally did come home? You’ve never said.”
Jessie concentrated on her sandwich. Finishing it, she poured herself some soup. She set the lid down to let it cool, folded her hands in her lap, and raised her eyes to his. “Do you remember spending all that time teaching me how to defend myself while I was growing up?”
Oli nodded.
“Well, self-defense against someone who is trying to kill you is, I found, pretty straight forward, whether hand-to-hand, or with a weapon.”
Again, he nodded.
“But …I don’t know how to describe it. There’s a difference between people who are actually attacking you, and people who want to hurt you. There’s this feeling of maliciousness, of evil, and they like that evil. It’s like they’re filled with …hateful glee at the prospect. They’re rabid. A rabid pack of animals. Nothing human. Nothing humane. That’s what ate into me as those men came at me. It was gruesome, nasty, mean, violent glee. They were enjoying terrorizing us. I had to wait till they were close enough. Down to seven rounds in my last clip. I could see their faces. They were actually enjoying the prospect of killing me and the wounded men Acer and I were protecting.”
She felt tears rolling down her face. “Dad,” and she was sobbing, now, and hated herself for it. “I can’t handle knowing there are actually people in the world like that. They like viciousness. I just can’t handle it. I may have studied it in my psych classes, but nothing, nothing, prepared me for …for that.”
He scooted himself next to her as the last words came out, grabbed her, and pulled her into him. Then just held her. …Didn’t say a word.
***
20 – Comfort Zones
Robert Tandy’s room was, in a word, austere. White walls with brown wood trim, a tan carpet, and a twin bed, neatly made with a white bedspread, an end table, and lamp. There was a chest of drawers to the other side of the bed, a single clock—with hands on a circle of numbers—on top of it. There was a closet door—closed—and an open door, exposing a small, white tiled bathroom. In front of the room’s one window sat a desk with nothing on it but a laptop computer and another lamp. A chair—plain wood—sat tucked in under that desk, set perfectly four-square. …And then there was the floor to ceiling bookcase filled with identical, unmarked black binders. That bookcase took up one whole wall.
Robert Tandy pointed to one entire row. “Red,” he said.
Reid looked at Martin and blew a breath. There must be hundreds if not thousands of photos inside of them.
Robert Tandy then pulled out his desk chair and sat down, adjusted its position to, again, four-square, before carefully opening his laptop.
They watched him type in his password, his fingers surprisingly deft. Moments later, he opened up an app and clicked on a red square, clicked on 2008, and, when that opened, clicked on a clipart rendition of a truck. “There,” he said as the screen began to fill with photographs of red trucks—small pickups all the way up to semi-tractors and dump trucks.
Fishing out his phone, Reid pulled up the stills they’d captured from Jessica Anderson’s video enhancement. Then he started to compare.
Robert looked at the picture Landon had up, reached out a finger and swiped to the next one like an expert, then the next. Grunting, he started scrolling through his pictures on the laptop with surprising speed, stopping occasionally, then moving on.
Screen pages later, the man stopped, looked again at Landon’s pictures, looked at the ones on the screen, and said, “This one.”
Reid and Martin both bent in. “How do you know?” Landon asked.
<
br /> Robert Tandy pointed to the rear bumper. “That deep scrape gouge.” Then he pointed to the grill on a front view. “And those teeth are missing.”
Looking closer, Landon saw that Tandy was right. The missing grill teeth weren’t significant, but the angled gouge on the bumper was.
Tandy then opened a drawer and pulled out a thumb drive. He proceeded to pull the photos over onto it, the computer burning copies to the little device. When it had completed the job, Robert pulled the drive from its slot and put it on the desk near Martin.
Getting up, Robert Tandy then went to his wall and pulled out a particular binder—one that looked identical to all the rest. Opening it, he paged through, then popped open the binder’s rings and pulled out five stiff pages mounted on both sides with 35mm originals of the scanned-in, digitalized photos. “You can make copies and then bring me them back,” he said. “The negatives are in the little white packets slipped in between the mounting cardboard, too, if you need those. They are all labeled.”
“Are you sure it’s okay for us to take these?” Landon asked softly. “I know they’re valuable.”
Tandy nodded. “It’s okay. Martin Doyle is my friend.”
“Okay. We’ll get these back to you right away. Thanks, Robert.”
“You’re welcome.”
Robert Tandy walked them out. Never once did he or had he made eye contact or gotten close enough to touch, not even to shake hands.
*
Located out on the river, Callen’s place was modest and very unassuming—at least it seemed that way when you drove up. Inside, though, the house was a lot bigger than it looked. Spacious and comfortable, airflow was immediately noticeable. So were dogs—Callen’s dogs. All six—two GSDs, two Labs, one Golden, and one mutt—sat patiently as Jessie came in with Mitch and Milo. At Callen’s nod, they approached, one by one, as he pointed to each, greeting the newcomers with cautiously wagging tails.
Immediately, Milo went into play mode, forearms flat on the ground, butt in the air, tail wagging furiously. Mitch, much more conservative, soon realized these were cohorts and relaxed his inborn reticence toward canine strangers. “You can let them off lead, now, if you want,” Callen said.
When Jessie did, all eight dogs did the nose to tail thing, again, this time as a group, then disappeared around a corner like a gang of kids intent on making for the playground.
“Do your dogs know how to use a dog door?” Callen asked.
Jessie laughed. “No, but they know how to open human ones unless they’re locked, and then even, sometimes, when they are. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll show you to your rooms. Then, Margaret is setting up a tea on the patio,” Callen said, his arm extending. “This way to your rooms?”
The room Jessie was taken to had its own bathroom with a shower. Stashing her carry-on and equipment bag in the closet, she went to her dad’s room and knocked on the still open door.
His room was similar to hers. “Yours have sliders going to a small garden sitting area?” she asked.
He opened the curtains. “Yep.”
“Wow. Lap of luxury and all that.”
“I guess. If that’s what you’re into.”
“I’m not, but, still, it feels like V.I.P. treatment, doesn’t it?”
Her father laughed. “I guess so.”
Somehow, his answer peeved her. “I suppose you’re used to it.”
He grinned. “Yeah, pretty much. Nothing much impresses me, anymore, Jessica. I find that, usually, the more ostentatious, the more the jackal.”
“Callen’s not like that.”
“I know he’s a good guy, Jessie. But Callen Parker is the exception to the rule.”
Finding their way to the patio, Jessie met Margaret Parker, a woman who was what Jessie thought of as typical ‘queen mom’ material—thick in the waist and conservative in dress with a friendly demeanor and ready smile. Unlike Callen, Margaret still spoke with a decidedly heavy London accent. And the ‘tea’ Callen mentioned wasn’t just cups of a hot, brewed beverage, but rather a light meal of what turned out to be delicate meat sandwiches, a pudding, and delicious sweet cakes.
Jessie wasn’t quite prepared for what Callen sprung on her as she bit into a bun Margaret called a ‘Sally Lunn’. “I took the liberty of inviting a few friends over for the actual trial, then dinner tomorrow night after it,” he told both her and Oli. “Thought it would be delightful if Jessica could elaborate on her proposed changes to search and rescue techniques, specifically that involving multiple dogs working under one handler.”
Jessie looked at her dad who was busy slathering clotted cream and jam on his second sweet bun. He took a bite, saw her watching him, and gave her a wink.
“Just a few chairpersons and team leaders. Oh, and a president of one of the national organizations of which I’m a member.”
Callen glanced at Oli’s frown, then put his eyes back on Jessie and smiled. “Hope you don’t mind.”
***
21 – Trust
The day dawned bright and sunny with temperatures in the sixties. Mitch and Milo were both feeling happy and confident, which was better than Jessie felt.
She hadn’t slept well the night before, not just because of nerves about the upcoming test, but mostly because of Callen’s bombshell announcement. Jessica felt ‘on the spot’, and she wasn’t prepared. She didn’t have any of her tracking results. Those were all home on her drives, the files too huge to easily transfer by someone back at home. Nobody there was computer savvy enough.
Heading out for her morning run with her dogs, her dad surprised her by joining her, his pups trailing him. “Thought we’d see Callen’s estate, since he invited us to,” Oli said. “Maybe try to find that trail through the scrub oaks he said leads down to the river.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s up, Jessie, my Jessie?” her dad asked.
“Nothing.”
He pulled up short, his dogs milling about his knees until he told them to ‘sitz’. Jessie stopped, too, Mitch and Milo both downing. Jessie gave them the okay to go explore, and they did. Then she pulled up a piece of ground, sitting down cross-legged. “I’m ill-equipped and ill-prepared,” she said.
“For the test?”
“For the dinner talk.”
“Just be yourself,” Oli said.
“Are you responsible for this?”
“Nope.”
“You didn’t say anything to Callen about that test you and Granddad saw?”
“Nope.”
“Is it my turn to disbelieve you?”
That seemed to jolt him a bit. “Nope. And I’m very, very sorry I challenged you about your honesty the other day, okay? My bad.”
Jessie sucked in a deep breath. “Forgiven.”
“But not forgotten.”
“It’s the first time you’ve ever doubted me. It shocked. Worse, it hurt. A lot.”
“I know. And I don’t …and didn’t. Doubt you, that is. Not really. This whole situation of you facing felony charges threw me. Just threw me. …Jessie, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, unable to quash the smile that broke on her face. Somehow, all her hurt and stress just seemed to vanish into thin air. She felt better than she had in days. So, this is all about my father’s trust in me? Wow.
She got up. “I love you, Dad.” Then, unable to stop herself, she added, “…But not enough to let you beat me down the hill.” And she took off, Mitch and Milo bounding out of the scrub to join her.
*
Callen was outside with his dogs when they came back from their run. He waved them over. “Are these my pups?” he asked.
“Well, they’re the ones I brought for you to pick from,” Oli answered. “Of course, you’re not obligated.”
“Mind if I play with them a bit?”
“Not at all. Be my guest.”
Squatting down, Callen introduced himself to the pups. They seemed to take to him immediately. “Th
ey speak German?” he asked, looking up at Oli.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Heir,” Callen called, taking a few steps.
The dogs looked at Oli, then at Jessie, then back at Oli. “It’s okay,” Oli said softly, using the key word ‘okay’ in a very specific way.
When the pups still looked dubious, Jessie turned to Mitch and Milo. “You want to go with them?” She raised her hand in Callen’s direction, but only as a question, not a command, and her dogs knew the difference.
The dogs looked at her, looked at Callen, then, Milo deciding, Mitch on his heels, the two of them trotted over to the pups, nosed them, then bounded over to where Callen stood still encouraging them. The four pups followed.
“How in the world do you do that, Jessie, my Jessie?” her dad asked, admiration clear.
She turned pensive eyes his way. “I’m as much at a loss as you are. I have no idea. Maybe it’s just because we’re all such a team, now.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s priceless. Think they’ll be okay if we disappear for an hour?”
“Oh, sure. I left my room open. Their dog beds and chew toys are there, plus their kennels and their woobie blankets. They’ll be fine.”
Then, let’s go find us a shower and go out to breakfast, shall we?”
Jessie felt dubious about it, much as she really would love to escape Callen’s domain for awhile and get her head on straight for the upcoming ordeal. “What will Callen and Margaret think?”
“That we went out for a dad and daughter breakfast,” Oli said with a laugh. “I told them last night after you went to bed. There’s this breakfast joint I go to every time I’m in town. You’ll love it. They make your favorite.”
“Eggs Benedict?”
“To die for.”
That sealed it.
*
After getting the photo lab to put a rush on reproducing and enhancing Robert Tandy’s photos from the negatives, Doyle and Reid grabbed four deputies to help them, including Lieutenant Red Wheeler, Dave Kins, Regina Larson, and Lara Somners. He handed out thumbdrives with Robert Tandy’s digitalized versions, then spread out the full color prints on a sticky white board, all of the photos blown up way larger than the originals. “We’ve got to get every match possible to the man in this truck,” Doyle said, taking a pointer and circling the driver. “I know it’s not much to go on, but it’s all we have.”