Death Scent

by D. L. Keur

  Hugh shifted his eyes to Landon’s. “I used it to haul wood, and, you know, you get dents when you do that.”

  Landon nodded. “Anything else you can remember?”

  Again, Kenny’s eyes got that distant look. “He smelled funny—kinda like….” The man actually sniffed, several times, inhaling as if he could remember the smell that way. “…Dirty socks or something,” he said finally. Then, after a moment, he said, “And he had real funny eyes—absolutely gray. Not pale blue. Gray.”

  “About how tall compared to, say, me or Kins, here?” Landon asked softly.

  The man stood up. Looked sideways toward the wall, then slightly up. He brought his hand up. “He was about like this,” he said, holding his hand about ten inches above his own head. “What’s that? Six-two, six-four?”

  So a little shorter than me. “How about age?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said, not engaging in any of his previous ‘remembering’ routine. Instead, he shrugged. “Not young. Not old. Maybe in his thirties. Could have been younger, could have been older. Not a good judge of age. Sorry.”

  They had a description. It had been a long time coming, and it wasn’t much, but it did match the few bits they did have—Jessica Anderson’s video captures from her drones.

  “Would you be willing to look at pictures when we get some to show you?”

  “Sure would. Just give me a call on my cell phone.”

  “And that number is?”

  The man rattled it off, and it matched what Landon had in the notes on his phone concerning Kenny Buford. “Thanks. Might be a day or so before we get them together.”

  “I’ll be here. …And come there,” Kenny said with a grin. “Save you the drive.” And Landon blessed the fact that Kenny Buford was gifted with a magnificent memory for physical details, even if how he accessed it was a bit on the strange side.

  *

  “If we go now, we’ll have just enough time to go over your results, Jessica,” Callen said once Jessica had finished filling out the requested paperwork for the sheriff’s deputy.

  “Did they tell you what it was? I couldn’t hear,” Elsie asked.

  “It was a decomposing fetus or neonatal human corpse,” Jessica said as her dad lifted her bodily over the fence after Jessie boosted Mitch back over, Milo making the leap all by himself.

  “You mean a baby?!”

  “They won’t know if it was pre- or postnatal until they do an autopsy,” Jessica replied. “Chances are from the brief glimpse I caught that it was a stillbirth, though.”

  “It’s still a baby.”

  “If we could leave the day’s unpleasant disruption behind us, please,” Callen said. “We’ve only got a couple of hours before the caterers arrive, and I think my staff have everything set up for us in the living room.”

  A fifteen-minute hike back to the house, then bathroom breaks, put them in the now darkened living room. “Robert? If you’d get the lights and start the show?”

  “I usually will pull only the most exciting parts, but we’re just going to speed through the visual record as I share my thoughts,” Callen said as the videos began playing, one on the main screen, with it and seven others playing in small insets to either side. “Here we have the beginning where Jessica is instructing her dogs. Interesting hand signs, I must say. I expected the dogs to begin casting, but they didn’t—not immediately. Then the big one begins after surveying the field, but the smaller—the Malinois—he stands and surveys a lot longer. Only then does he begin.”

  Callen fast forwarded, then suddenly switched to a video from a different viewpoint, running it at normal speed. “Now watch closely as the dogs methodically move. I was instantly intrigued. There wasn’t any randomness here. It was an amazing piece of calculated teamwork between the two of them. If we switch to camera 3 and 4—Robert, if you would—we can clearly see this.”

  “How long did it take them,” Doug Ingalls asked. “And what are their numbers?”

  Callen stopped, looked around the dim room, then, raising a hand to Robert, the video flipped off and the lights came on. “I’m going to assume that you’re not particularly interested in going through the details, so we’ll just get to the statistics.”

  Callen handed out some photocopies of a hand-drawn map marked with checkmarks and time notations. “The dogs found every hidden sample—every one, plus one—the dead infant outside the highway fencing. “They did so in just under fifty-two minutes, and I think they’d have been even faster was it not for them having to wait for their handler to come drop markers. Robert and Sandra—my helpers—indicated the dogs glanced at them when they came upon them, but went on their way, never straying from their assignment. All in all, an absolutely amazing demonstration.”

  Callen stood suddenly. “And, now, ladies and gentlemen, if you would all please join Margaret, my wife, on the patio for some lovely refreshments we’ve prepared, while Jessica, her father, and I finish some business to which we must attend.”

  They waited till the group had exited to the patio area, then Callen requested Robert and Sandra to break down the equipment and take it to “the inner sanctum.”

  “This way,” he said to Oli and Jessica as his staff began to fold away the sliding partition that covered the wall-sized display screen they’d been watching. “Margaret, bless her, has provided us our own little tea in my den. She, as is her wont, anticipated this turn of events. I didn’t. Unfortunately, we’re still going to have to suffer through dinner, but, meanwhile, let’s enjoy your huge breakthrough, Jessica. Just amazing work. Amazing. Of course you’ll get my sanction. And I would like your permission to present this video record to the international association.”

  ***

  24 – Home

  Landon Reid was running his stud horse through a reining pattern when he heard the plane overhead. Letting the horse stop and blow, he looked up and wondered if it was Jessica Anderson and her father coming home. Not many folks had planes that landed at their small, private airport. Could be. It had been about a week. Hope she got what she wanted.

  And, for just a moment, he felt sorry for the girl. Woman, darn it. She’s no kid.

  “Just acts like one,” he muttered, answering his own self-scold.

  The stud horse gave a snort and tossed his head, then began pawing. Landon patted him on the neck. “Okay. Back to it, shall we?” he asked, nudging the horse into a lope with a touch of heel and lift of rein.

  The horse stopped short mid-pattern moments later, his head going up, ears pricked as the snarl of a high-performance engine interrupted the pastoral quiet of Landon’s small ranch. “What in the world—”

  The engine stopped. Then, “Sheriff Reid?”

  “Here,” he called, recognizing his ME, Dr. Jerald Lorenson’s voice. He dismounted and let himself out the gate, his stud horse giving him a shove in the middle of the back. “Duster, quit,” he hissed as Jerald came around the side of the barn. The man looked excited. “What’s up, Doc?”

  “I just got confirmation back that what I thought I’d found in the autopsy is, in fact, what I suspected.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have casts of the sizes and shape of both the left and right thumbs of whomever strangled Sue.”

  “…Wha— How?”

  “From imprints on the skin on the neck and corresponding damage to the cartilage of the esophagus. There were no fingerprints—not surprising. We think the killer wore gloves, but the pressure was hard enough that it did leave evidence that I was able to get Meridian to determine thumb shape and size. The killer has thumbs in which the second phalanges are very, very long—just over an inch-and-a-half—and also which are very much wider than is common at the interphalangeal articulation between the first and second of the thumb phalanges.”

  Reid frowned, understanding everything up to interphalangeal articulation. “Could I have that in plain English, Doc?”

  “Here,” Jerald said, shoving an image at him. “We genera
ted the size and shape from our findings. They look like this.”

  Behind Landon, his stud gave a small snort, then started rubbing his head against Landon’s back, practically knocking him into Lorenson. “Sorry, Doc. Duster, quit!” Then, “This is good. Really good. Come in for some coffee?”

  “Love to.”

  “Let me put the beast away.”

  *

  Back home and armed with Callen Parker’s blessing, Jessie decided to try the local ‘sanctioned’ search and rescue group. Led by a man named Nelson Remmers, his group was independent from any other organization in the U.S. and abroad, but it was him the sheriff’s office called when there was the need for a wildland search—independent Idaho.

  The meeting was scheduled for 7:00 P.M. in the county fairgrounds’ indoor arena, a place Jessie hadn’t visited since before she’d gone to college. Arriving half an hour early in hopes of catching Nelson or maybe someone she actually knew, she found no cars in the parking lot. Walking around to the metal clad building that housed the indoor arena and its bleachers, she found the place locked down tight and no note on the door indicating a last-minute change of venue. She decided to wait. Maybe they all arrive nearer to seven, she posited.

  But seven came and went and still nobody showed up. Pulling out her phone, she dialed Nelson Remmers’ listed number. And, as usual, got the answering machine with its curt, gruff-voiced message of “Leave a name and number” after an electronic voice dictated the number she had dialed. She’d already done that. Twice.

  Her grandfather quizzed her when, back home, she walked in the door at eight. “How’d it go?”

  “It didn’t,” Jessie answered. “Nobody showed up, and there was no note. Remmers’ phone went to voicemail, as usual.”

  “That’s strange.”

  But Jessie didn’t think it was. What she thought was that the local SAR group was a closed club. They might post notices in the paper and online on their website, but those notices were probably bogus. They probably met at Remmers’ house or something. She told Darby as much.

  “Well, why don’t we drive over there and see?” her granddad said, getting up.

  Jessie just shook her head. “It’s already dark outside. They’ll have quit by now, anyway. Besides, it’s almost bedtime.”

  “Come on, Jessica Marie,” he said grabbing his hat, coat, and some keys. “Let’s take the bull by the horns. Get in my truck.”

  *

  They took one of the official business trucks with its ‘Anderson’s Working Dogs’ signage and logo. “How do you know where he lives?” Jessica asked, getting in the passenger seat.

  “Because he advertises that he sells dogs and that he’s a trainer. …Like we don’t.”

  “You know much about him?”

  “Enough to know that he’s not someone I want to rub elbows with,” Darby said quietly.

  “That doesn’t speak well, Granddad,” she answered just as quietly. Then, “How did he come to be recognized as the local SAR leader?”

  Darby looked sideways at her. “The Remmers go back to World War I era here, Jessica. They aren’t newcomers like our family.”

  Jessie shot him a look. “We’re ‘new’? We’ve lived here for what, two decades now?”

  “And, in this country, that’s still a newcomer. Idaho is like that, Jessica. You’ve got to live here for half a century to be taken as even a legitimate county resident. It takes at least two generations to become established, and, even then, the founding families still consider you an outsider.”

  Pulling into a ramshackle place on Fog Creek Road, Jessie saw lights and vehicles under security lights at a wooden barn. “I guess you’re right, Granddad.”

  “Usually am.”

  As they got out, dogs exploded into a rage of frenzied barking that was more than just an intruder alert. “Wow,” Jessica whispered.

  “Yep. You be ready, just in case,” her granddad warned. “Man’s been known to loose them on folks.”

  A young man came out, looked, then went back in the barn’s man-door. Moments later, a short, paunchy man in jeans, a blue plaid shirt, and a battered cowboy hat came out the same door. He pointedly shut it behind him as Jessie and Darby approached. “What can I help you with?” the man asked.

  “Looking for the SAR group,” Darby answered.

  “Well, yeah. You’ve found it.”

  Darby gestured toward Jessica. “Granddaughter here went to the fairgrounds looking for your meet.”

  The man grinned. “We’re a closed group,” he said. Then he spit at the ground—an insult to them. “We don’t need more dogs or handlers.”

  “Do you test?” Jessica asked, breaking in.

  The man turned his face to hers for a moment, then looked back at her granddad. “When we need to. It’s five-hundred, non-refundable, to apply, no guarantee of certificating.”

  ‘Certificating’. Jessie wanted to roll eyes, but stopped herself. Five-hundred dollars was outrageous when thirty for members to a hundred for non-members was the going fee. “Are you a NASAR or US&R certified tester?” Jessie asked.

  Again, the man spit. “Nope.”

  “What qualifying credentials do you carry, then?”

  Remmers laughed. “My own. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got better things to do than stand here jawin’. You know the way out, I’m sure.”

  Wow. Just wow, Jessie thought as the man turned on his heel and went back through the barn’s man-door. The distinct snap of a latch was audible.

  ***

  25 – Formal Complaint

  “So what does it take to become an official ‘wildland’, as you call it, search and rescue handler or group?” Darby asked Jessie the next morning over breakfast.

  “Ah….” Jessica immediately wondered where her grandfather was going with this. She blew a breath. “In most states, you become a unit affiliated with the Mountain Rescue Association or MRA and the National Association for Search and Rescue—NASAR. In Idaho, it’s a little different, I guess. You usually get sponsored by the local sheriff and apply to the Idaho State Search and Rescue or ISSAR.”

  “You’re a SARTECH II tested by NASAR, aren’t you?” Oli put in.

  “I am. Since I’m no longer a first responder, it’s iffy on an instance-by-instance basis on whether that certification would still be honored, now. I’m told it’s an insurance thing.”

  “You’re FEMA certified,” Ana-Mari said.

  Jessie nodded. “But that’s all urban disaster searches.”

  “And now by Callen,” Oli put in with a grin.

  “Yeah.”

  “And all that gets you where?” Darby asked.

  “Nowhere in Idaho, I guess,” Jessie answered, defeat coloring her voice.

  She sat down with her plate, grabbed the maple syrup, and poured it over her French toast and sausage.

  “Why? I’d think that would automatically qualify you to run a search and rescue operation,” Darby came back.

  “In another state, maybe. If I was a first responder, especially, but, like I said, not in Idaho.”

  “So, it’s all on the county sheriff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great! And you ain’t popular with him, now. You’d have been better off staying in Colorado.”

  That was true. But Jessica hadn’t wanted to stay in Colorado. Home was here.

  “So, what’s your plan, Jessie?” Oli asked, his voice soft.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know you have one.”

  Watching her butter swim in the syrup, she took a breath and held it. Then she looked up. “I want dogs to work in packs—to autonomously move in search of the lost or dead. And that’s what I’m trying to train for. But it’s a three-fold battle. One is getting Idaho and other states to let me use drones, second is getting recognition for the method, which I’ve got a start on with Callen’s blessing. The other is refining the training with my dogs, then repeating it with a different bonded pack. Over and over,”
she said. “And I want to go national, then international, with it.”

  “Whew!”—Darby. He ducked his head and focused on eating.

  “Big dream, Jessie, my Jessie,” her dad said softly.

  “Yeah. Probably too big.”

  “Nothing is ever too big for the Andersons,” Darby put in. “Nevertheless, this morning, we’re tackling the Nelson Remmers problem head on. I won’t be treated that way, and I certainly won’t let Jessica be treated that way. He’s a cad, a slimeball, and a shyster all rolled into one. Already talked to someone and got the fax back. Ana-Mari? Oli? Jessica? Get dressed for town.”

  “Not me,” Ana-Mari said. “My 4H group is meeting here today at ten.”

  “Spoil sport,” he sniped, grinning as he did.

  “Trouble-maker,” she shot back at him with a laugh.

  *

  Landon Reid did not expect to find Jessica Anderson, her dad, and her granddad all waiting for him when he got to the office at just after nine. “That’s what I get for treating myself to breakfast out,” he muttered.

  Getting a briefing from the deputy on rotating desk duty, he blew a breath, then stepped out into the waiting area and motioned them back. “So, what’s this about?”

  “Search and Rescue in this county,” Darby said, settling himself into one of Landon’s two office chairs. Jessica Anderson indicated the other chair to her father, then pulled up a piece of cold floor for herself amidst the still teetering piles of files. She lowered herself to a cross-legged sitting position, butt on the floor. Once she had, Oli Anderson then took the proffered chair.

  “I’m speaking about one Nelson Remmers, in particular, Sheriff,” Darby Anderson continued. “He showed us the gate when we went to inquire, and we know he isn’t qualified like our Jessie, here, is. I’m given to understand that you’re the man in charge of all of it, so Nelson Remmers has your say so, and, if I might say, and I will say, his attitude leaves a lot to be desired.”