Death Scent

by D. L. Keur

  They spent hours going through driver’s license photos in the Idaho Transportation Department database. “Too bad the ITD doesn’t take photos of people the way they usually dress!” Lara said finally with an exasperated sigh. Then, looking over at Reid, added, “Like you and your cowboy hat, or the guy we’re looking for in his.”

  Landon couldn’t help himself. He started laughing. It caught on and the whole group of them wound up laughing themselves breathless. “What’s going on in here?” Captain Barry Olmstead said, walking in bearing some paperwork for Landon to sign.

  Landon waved him over, glanced through the documents, signed, then said, “Lara just cracked us all up with a pertinent point. Whoever would recognize somebody looking all flat faced and pouty, sans hat or whatever else they usually wear, but are made to strip off when we take those driver’s license photos?”

  “Oh.” Barry frowned, though, then, pointedly to Lara: “The point is to get a good frontal face shot.”

  “And how many people do you know resemble their driver’s license photos?” Lara asked him just as pointedly. She took hers out and held it up next to her face. “No resemblance.”

  It was true. Landon didn’t even want to think about his. Didn’t look a bit like him. Not really.

  Barry shook his head, muttered something, then stalked out.

  It was Lara who also wound up solving their problem. She went out to the bathroom, ran into Sam Hull, and towed him back with her. “Look at these, Sam,” she said, pointing to the blow ups of Robert Tandy’s originals. “Who is that driving?”

  Sam looked, stepped closer to the board, stepped back, thought a moment, then declared, “That’s ol’ Hugh Buford. Maybe ‘bout ten years ago, or so.”

  ***

  22 – The Test

  Mitch and Milo met them at the door, the four pups, plus Callen and his dogs coming down the hall to greet them. “I want them all,” Callen called. “They’re marvelous! Simply marvelous.”

  “Thought you’d like them,” Oli said. “But all of them?”

  “Every one. I could use eight more, to be honest. My group’s dogs are all getting up in years. These are good pups, perfect for the job and smart, too. Lots of drive.”

  “Eight?” Oli looked dubious. “Don’t have that many like these, sorry.”

  “But you will, right?”

  “Usually get one or two in every litter.”

  “Put my name on them, if you would,”

  Oli nodded. “I’ll keep you in mind.”

  “That’s all I can ask. But let’s make it official. I’ll put a reserve payment on them today, so you don’t forget.”

  Oli laughed. “Not necessary.”

  “And I say it is,” Callen replied, frowning. “I’m very serious. These are very, very good dogs. I want first dibs.”

  Then Callen turned his attention to Jessica. “And I envy you your two here. I’d swear they understand what we’re saying.”

  Jessie smiled. “They seem to, almost, don’t they?”

  “My staff has the test prepared. I’m afraid I’ve made it rather difficult, but I’m sure you and your dogs are up to it. Now, we’re just awaiting our guests. They should be here at ten.”

  “I think I’ll go lie down for awhile, then, if that’s okay?” And, calling Mitch and Milo, Jessie escaped to her room, there to fret.

  *

  “Time to get started,” Oli called with a knock on her door.

  “Coming.”

  Surrounded to either side by Mitch and Milo, Jessie asked them to get down. Both dogs raised their heads, then flipped, belly up, into ‘cute’ mode, tails thumping, mugs grinning, eyes full of humor.

  It was the usual ritual. She snapped her fingers and pointed ‘off’. In their usual ritual response, they ignored her, reclaimed her pillows with their heads, thereby forcing her to extract herself from between the covers that their bodies pinned down around her and scoot herself off the bed over the foot. Only then did they relinquish her pillows and bound—Mitch—and step down—Milo—off the bed.

  Their clowning around brought a smile, just like it usually did. It was a good ritual.

  Running a quick brush through her hair, she looked from one dog to the other, flipped them a treat, hugged Milo, stroked Mitch, and, with a quiet, relaxed confidence, she grabbed her pack and opened the door. She was ready. So were the dogs.

  Her dad waited there, shoulder leaned into the wall. He grinned, seeing her, shrugged himself upright, and said, “You look great. Guess the nap worked, huh?”

  Jessie laughed. “The dogs worked.”

  “In your dreams?”

  “With their cutsies.”

  “Hmmph. Yeah.” He looked down at them. “The cavorting cavaliers. Let’s go. The ogres are waiting.”

  “Ogres?”

  “Bunch of sourpusses. I’ve been sitting in on their conversation with Callen. Really full of themselves, they are.”

  “Nice.”

  “If you say so.”

  “How about ‘usual’?”

  “That I’ll buy.”

  Outside, Callen stood with a group of five people, faces she recognized from SAR newsletters and Internet mug shots. Introduced around, she shook hands with one and all, barely hesitating despite her repugnance for the ritual. “Callen seems to think a lot of you,” Elsie Poindexter, the present leader of a small but influential SAR group, said, “so, when Doug told me about this, I invited myself. Hope that’s okay with you.”

  Jessie nodded. Doug was the head of one of the big, national organizations. “Of course,” she replied, smiling. “No problem.” It was a lie, but she wasn’t about to make a fuss about the woman’s presence. Nor anyone else’s. This was her show, but she wasn’t in charge of it. Callen was.

  “Shall we get started?” said their host. “This way.”

  “One more question. How old is the Malinois?” asked Doug Ingalls.

  “Almost a year.”

  One of his brows arched and his lips compressed. “That’s way too young.”

  Jessica heard Callen blow a long breath out his equally long nose. “This is not a standard test. This is my test of this woman’s method. You were invited because I thought you’d, perhaps, find it illuminating to see some experimental methods in the field. Now, if we can get on with it?”

  It was the first time that Jessica had ever heard Callen Parker move from his typical, very English noblesse oblige to an irritated, even temperamental ‘haughty’. She was grateful.

  *

  Callen explained the test to her, the observers listening in. “Forty acres, a total of thirty scent placements of varying sizes and levels of decomposition, some of which are animal remains to throw them off. Two of my staff have also laid track, then hidden themselves to try to distract the dogs.”

  Jessie nodded, listening. “Synthetic or real human remains?”

  Callen looked startled at her. “Real. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve only trained with synthetic. I’ll be very interested to see how they do when they experience the real deal,” Jessie said.

  Callen frowned. “I’ve never had much luck training that way,” he said. His eyes spoke ‘dubious’.

  “Well, let’s just see how they do,” put in Elsie.

  Jessie smiled. Her sentiments exactly. She was excited by the prospect.

  “I don’t see rubble or even a ladder or slide, though,” Jake Dawson said. He was the leader of an urban SAR team.

  “This isn’t an urban HRD test. It’s a test of Jessie’s method and her dogs. As I mentioned, she’s got a unique program. It’s that I’m testing.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “What’s th—”

  “Please. Let’s get on with the testing. Questions may come later.”

  “Can you at least give us an overview of what we’ll be observing?” Doug Ingalls asked.

  Callen turned to Jessica. “Miss Anderson?”

  Taking a deep breath, her nerves suddenly kick
ing up, again, Jessie faced the group. “My dogs work as a team. They work the entire field at will. Once they alert, I go to their position, drop a marker where they indicate, then stay there until another alert indicates my need to attend.”

  “Well said,” Callen congratulated. “Let’s begin.” He looked at his watch, raised his hand. “In three …two …one …mark.”

  Jessie walked a distance from the group, Mitch and Milo following. Her nerves were on fire, her stress level peaked. “Sorry, guys. I’m a mess, again. You’re going to have to forgive me.”

  Both Mitch and Milo nosed her. She smiled, instantly feeling better. “Now, sizt.”

  Bottoms hit earth. Eyes and ears attended. Jessie signed ‘all’, ‘dead’, ‘human’, then her sign for them to coordinate and split the field between them at will, speaking the instructions simultaneously. They’d done this a hundred times and more …with synthetic human remains scent. Never with real remains. She could only hope they wouldn’t falter because of the change.

  One more time through their instructions, and she sent them. “Such. Seek. Find it.” Then she watched and waited.

  Both dogs stood and, after a moment, Milo took off, casting. Mitch stood for awhile longer, his eyes on Milo, but his nose sniffing the air for long moments. Then, he, too, took off in a trajectory almost ninety degrees opposite Milo’s.

  With bated breath, Jessie watched them go. A hundred yards …two hundred. Jessie was losing hope. Surely they should have alerted to something by now.

  Suddenly, Milo downed and woofed.

  Taking off toward him, Jessie was halfway to him when Mitch alerted, too, his unique whine-bark very telling.

  Grinning, now, she made it to Milo, gave him the ‘okay’ sign, then sprinted toward where Mitch sat. “Such a good boy.” She dropped a marker and hadn’t even signed for him to renew his search when he took off, again, on his own.

  Milo alerted again, and, again, Jessie sprinted toward him. And Mitch, again. It was going to be a race, with her doing most of the running.

  Mitch alerted scant feet from his tenth find, and Jessie worried about a false positive, but dropped a marker where he indicated, especially when, testing the alert, Mitch insisted with a bounce. “Okay. You know best,” she said. “Guter Hund. Love you, Mr. Marvelous.” But he was already back on search. Then, once more, came Milo’s woof—several of them.

  She sprinted toward the sound, which was coming repeatedly from within the scrub oaks. She almost tripped over him in the deep brush. “Good, good Milo. Sorry about that. Clumsy humans, and all.”

  He got up once he’d pointed to his ‘find’, watched her drop the marker, then, ducking his head, threaded his way through the thick bushes to the west.

  Jessie followed and started at a young man squatting by a tree. “Oh!”

  “Hi. Completely ignored me after one glance,” he said.

  Mitch’s alert interrupted them. “Off I go,” Jessie said with a grin.

  And so it went. Jessie was winded and sweat-soaked by the time she knew, by the numbers, that they’d found them all and not too many. Milo’s bark …barks—insistent. Then a howl. …Repeated howling. Jessie ran. She couldn’t see him. The howling continued. She heard someone’s footsteps behind her—the young man she’d met briefly in the woods.

  Spying Milo’s white body, Jessie broke through the brush to see him bouncing up and down, up and down, another howl resounding. “Was? Was ist los?” she asked.

  He whined. Sat. Looked through a chain link fence. Stuck his head up in the air and howled, again.

  Mitch came running up. Nosed Milo. Looked beyond the fence. Then he, too, began to bounce and bark.

  “Callen, there’s a problem. We’re at the western boundary—the highway fence,” Jessica heard the young man say.

  She turned to look at him. He had his phone to his head and was obviously in communication with her host. “He’s indicating another ‘find’. Actually, both of them now are. They’re insistent. …Outside, on the highway side of the fence.”

  “That’s not fair!” Jessie said accusingly. “I call foul.”

  “We didn’t—” The man listened. “Callen’s coming.”

  Actually, everybody came, including her dad. By that time, though, Jessie had decided. She was pulling a piece of tarp out of her pack when they all came running up.

  She threw it on the fence as Callen said, “What are you doing?”

  “There’s something out there,” Jessie said. “Both of them say so, and I trust them.” She turned on him, still angry. “I told this to your man, here. This is not fair, and I call foul.”

  “Robert? Did you—”

  “No. I swear. No tricks.”

  “Hup,” Jessie called, leaning her weight into the fence to make it stable. Milo bounded over the four foot barrier. She looked at Mitch, then, and he bounded up, Jessie catching and steadying him, as he boosted himself over, too.

  “Jessie,” her dad said, stepping up. He cupped his hands, and, using them to give herself a leg up and over, Jessie followed her dogs.

  The whole slope down to the highway was weedy grass, all mowed short, but still green. Milo downed at a slight dip of disturbed ground. Mitch sat, then bounced. Both dogs didn’t bark or howl anymore. Jessie was already there. She stared at what, repeatedly, they pointed at with their noses—nothing apparent, but she had a bad, bad feeling.

  She turned toward the crowd now standing on the other side of the fence. She began to shiver, despite being flushed and sweaty. “I think you need to call 9-1-1. I think there’s someone …or thing—” She heard her voice falter, and paused. Took a breath. “I think there’s something human buried here.”

  ***

  23 – Skeptics

  “It’s probably just crap,” Elsie muttered as they waited for authorities to arrive. “Homeless people do that, you know,” she said, directing her gaze at Jessie as she said it. There was disapproval written all over the woman, in her voice, in her expression, in her body language.

  “They don’t usually bury it,” Callen observed dryly.

  “Whatever.”

  Jessie realized the woman was scorning her dogs …had scorned the entire demonstration. The rest probably had, too. It saddened her, but she’d expected it. But this made the idea of giving a presentation at dinner even more nerve-wracking.

  *

  It took Sacramento County authorities almost an hour to get there. Once they did, they made short work of snapping a couple of photos, then getting a shovel. Moments later, though, the officer digging stopped. “Call the coroner,” he said to the deputy with him. Then he looked over at Jessie. “We’ll need your statement.”

  Jessie had her eyes on what they’d uncovered. Her dogs had been right. As always.

  *

  Naturally, Sam Hull had been dead on. Sure enough, in the DMV database there was a red Chevy truck listed as belonging to Hugh Buford, purchased new in 2008. A visit to Hugh—in his eighties, now—yielded them a “Yep. Gave it to my nephew a handful of years back,” he told them, giving them the man’s address and phone number. “Go easy with him. He’s kinda simple, y’know.” And all the specifics Hugh gave them matched what they’d tracked down via the truck’s vehicle history, too. But, supposedly, the nephew had sold it to someone else, though the present title was still in the nephew’s name, despite the release of liability that had been filed.

  “Could be a ruse,” Barry said. “You should take backup.”

  Bringing four backup units, Landon himself approached the nephew’s house, all his nerves taut. The man—a heavyset fifty-something came out of the house as Reid got out of the car. “Can I help you, officer?” he asked, no hedging, and a face as readable as a young kid’s.

  Landon relaxed somewhat. The man was in tight jeans, cheap sneakers, and a t-shirt, despite the April chill. There was no bulge of a knife or gun apparent. “Are you Kenny Buford?”

  “That’s me.”

  “You have a red pic
kup?”

  The man frowned, said, “Yes,” and pointed to the two-year-old Ford Ranger sitting in the drive right next to the house. The truck was cherry colored, not red.

  “I mean the 2008 Chevy 1500 you got from your uncle, Hugh Buford,” Landon said.

  “Sold that when I got the Ranger,” Kenny said.

  “To whom?”

  “Ah…. Don’t remember the guy’s name. I think I’ve got it somewhere. Don’t throw much out around here, and it’s old habit to keep copies of everything.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you could help us out on this,” Landon said.

  “Sure.” The guy motioned to him. “Come on in.”

  Landon glanced at one of his deputies—poor Kins, again—and motioned for him to join him. The young man trotted up, and they both followed Kenny Buford into his house.

  After half an hour of rustling around through papers on and in a desk, then rifling through a big, metal filing cabinet, Kenny Buford finally let out a yelp of glee. “Found it!”

  ‘It’ was a photocopy of both the title, filled out to the buyer, and another of the release of liability Kenny had carried down to the local DMV. Attached was the receipt and proof of release of liability he’d gotten from the DMV for his three-dollars-and-fifty-cent fee payment.

  “You remember what this ‘Bernard Jones’ looked like?” Landon asked, reading the name—the same name they’d turned up on their search of the records—a name, physical address, and mandatory Driver’s License number, none of which existed. It was something the DMV should have caught in this, the computer age. It hadn’t.

  “Uh….” Abruptly, Kenny sat down on the edge of an overstuffed chair. “Ah, sit. Sit,” he said, extending his hands out, palms downward, then flapping them a little. “I got to think back.”

  Landon watched the man frown, creases forming between his brow and on his forehead. The blue eyes went far away, staring nowhere. Then the man’s face shifted. “…Yeah. Tall guy. Skinny. Real white skin, real dark brown hair. I remember him looking through the glove box, then under the seat. Wasn’t too concerned about the engine or nothing. Didn’t care about the dents.”