by D. L. Keur
The onboard computer bleeped, its artificial voice engaging. ‘Unit 24, 10-23. 10-84.’ That was Kins. Way too inexperienced for this. “I’ve got to postpone taking you down,” Reid said. “I’ve got to meet my deputy.”
“I know. Another body.”
Reid shot another look toward her as he negotiated a curve. Her voice had changed. So had the look on her face. Her color was better, and her shivering had stopped. She was back. Momentarily, anyway.
*
Something switched inside Jessica at the sound of the police codes. Something in her brain snapped, and she felt a calm clarity come over her. She could breathe again.
Her eyes took in location. They were coming up to the property line of her dad’s land which crossed about two hundred yards above the falls, maybe a little over a quarter mile from where she’d been just a half an hour ago. A glance right, and there was the tip of The Sentinel. So close. The killers had been so close. Had she taken the cliff path, she’d have run right into them. And now she knew there were at least two of them—two different voices that she’d heard.
Sheriff Reid parked. Typed something into his computer—a request for the ME. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Do you have a PPE pack?” she asked, not quite believing that she was even considering it, much less had said it.
He frowned. “Yeah. In the back.”
“And an evidence kit and cameras?”
“Yeah.”
“I can help. I’m trained.”
She heard him suck in breath. She felt that way, too. What was she doing?!
“You think you’re up to it?” he growled.
“Yes.”
“All right. Then I’m swearing you in as an emergency deputy. Raise your right hand and repeat after me, ‘I do solemnly swear …that I will support the Constitution of the United States, …and the Constitution of the State of Idaho, …and that I will faithfully discharge the duties …of the Bitterroot County Sheriff’s Office …according to the best of my ability.’”
Jessie repeated the words—almost the same exact words except for state and county that she had sworn to just a little over a year before.
“Consider yourself sworn,” Reid said.
“Yes, sir.” What have I done?!
***
31 – Shock
Kins was sitting in his unit, his face ashen. Reid tapped on the window.
Jerking his head toward the sound, the young deputy’s fingers reached for the window switch. “Sorry, sir. Um. She’s dead.”
“No sorries. And I know. You coded that, remember?”
Kins’ hand reached for the door handle.
“No, don’t get out. I want you to sit there and, when you’re ready, when you’re clear-headed and calm, type out your report into the computer. When you’re done and have sent it in, then gotten back a response that it’s been received, only then are you to drive back to base. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man,” he said, tapping his palm on the window edge. Taking a breath, he started up toward the crime scene tape Kins had strung up, the plastic ribbon fluttering in the breeze. It was a cold day when this could happen anywhere, much less twice in his county, but here it was.
Behind him, he heard the crunch of feet on gravel. A look back showed Jessica Anderson, her dogs with her, suited up and heading toward him, and, honestly, he didn’t know what to think about this turn of destiny. He did know one thing, though. If ever he needed a full-fledged CSI, it was now. He only hoped she was as good as the Blaine county undersheriff had insisted she was.
“I don’t think having the dogs here is a good idea,” Landon said.
“They’ll stay out of the crime scene you’ve taped off. They’re trained to.”
Ok-aay. Right. Guess I’m not the boss, then.
Watching her, thinking about what to say back, he saw her move her arms and hands in weird ways and saw the dogs—all of them—range out and begin sniffing the ground. Except the one she called Mitch and the one that looked like a small Husky. They sat down and raised their noses to the air. Then, after a moment, they, too, went off.
What in the world was she having them do? He wanted to ask, but didn’t. Instead, he just found a likely rock, parked himself there, and watched her begin her job at the perimeter of what Dave had surrounded with yellow tape. He’d look at the body himself afterwards, he’d decided, watching as she backed up, looked around …frowned. What did she see?
“Queenie,” he heard her call, and the red, long-haired setter-like dog came from out of the woods, trotted up to her, then sat herself down in front of her. Moments later, the dog started casting, going slow, back and forth. Suddenly the dog sat again and barked once.
Jessica Anderson moved to her, squatted down, put a marker and a ruler down on the ground, then snapped photos with both cameras.
Landon twitched with the desire to know what the dog had found. He stayed put. Said nothing. One thing he knew, though, it was a darned good thing he hadn’t gone to check the body. He’d have walked right through whatever the dog and Jessie were focused on.
Long moments later, after Jessie had finished taking pictures and swabs, the dog moved again—just a few inches. Abruptly it again sat and barked once, then laid down right beside whatever it had targeted, snout pointing downward at it.
Landon was now on his feet. He could barely contain himself, especially when Anderson took out the UV light and turned it on. “Sheriff?” she called moments later.
Finally! Keeping his voice neutral, he asked, “What is it?”
“I think we’ve got a pretty fresh sample of a human male urinating. I think we just got lucky.” She was swabbing like crazy as she said it, sticking the swabs into their tubes.
And, at that moment, one of the dogs in the woods, then two …then a lot, began to bark, then howl. The sound raised instant goosebumps on Landon’s flesh.
The girl jammed the tubes into her pack, jumped up, grabbed her gear, and ran, the red dog with her. Alarmed, hand on his holster, Landon chased after them both.
A huge white streak—her monster dog—flew by him, caught up with Jessica, then, dodging in front of her, disappeared into the woods in the direction of the sound. All the animal’s hackles, from his neck to his tail, were standing straight up.
Landon felt a black fear rear up inside him. It radiated from his kidneys around to his gut, then upwards, stifling his breath. He slowed to a walk. Unholstered his gun. Then he sprinted.
*
Milo beat her there by yards. Then, he, too, sat, raised his snout to the sky, and let out a bone-chilling howl. It was a body—a naked, bloody, male body. Queenie stopped dead and downed. She went no further. Jessie was glad.
“Brave Hunde,” Jessie whispered, approaching.
Mitch’s eyes were filled with sorrow. So were Oso’s. Acer, Britta, and Sumi just looked on, their demeanor stoic, resigned, accepting. Milo’s eyes met Jessie’s, and he came over to her, planting himself in front of her. “Braver Hund,” she whispered. “I’ve got to, Milo. I know you’re trying to protect me.”
The big dog seemed to understand. With a huge sigh, he stepped around her to come up beside her left knee. Behind her, she heard the sheriff stop and suck in a hard breath. As he should. The victim had been staked, mutilated, then gutted, his intestines pulled from his belly. It had been an ugly, excruciatingly painful way for him to die, and even Jessie wasn’t prepared for it. Tiny stars started circling her vision. I’m going to faint. I can’t.
She squatted, bent her head between her knees, sucking breath, trying to get more blood moving into her brain. It wasn’t working, though. The stars got stronger. “Sheriff? I think I’m going t—”
*
He managed to catch her before she landed in the middle of the corpse. What he was having problems with was his own visceral reaction. Never in his life had he seen something this terrible except in movies. Never.
He wasn’t p
repared for it. Nobody could be, except maybe somebody who’d been in a war zone. “Oh, my God in Heaven, help me.” And, in that moment, Landon realized that maybe he just wasn’t cut out for this job.
Backing up, dragging Jessica’s limp body with him, he got himself and her out away from the horror. Her dogs, heads and tails all drooping, followed.
Sitting himself down by the side of the creek, he sucked in the cold wash of air from it. Jessica Anderson held limp against him in one arm, he pulled out his phone, praying he had signal.
He did. Barely.
He didn’t call Kins who was probably still parked but a few hundred yards away in his unit. He called Martin. And he was glad for the company of Anderson’s dogs which all laid themselves down in a circle around him and their mistress. “Dear God in Heaven, help me.”
***
32 – Wonder Dogs
By the time Martin arrived with the ME and the reinforcements he’d brought with him, Jessica Anderson had recovered and was back at work, processing the scene around this fresh body. Landon helped as he could, but he had to keep his eyes elsewhere as much as possible. If she noticed, and she had to, she didn’t give any sign of it. For that he was grateful.
Martin Doyle, for his part, also didn’t say a word. What he did was take over as incident commander, marshalling the plan of action.
Sidling up to Landon, he asked about Jessica, and Landon gave him a quick rundown. “Okay,” Martin said. “She does look like she knows what she’s doing in a big way. I’ve been watching her. But what’s with the dogs?”
So Landon explained that, too, as best he could. Right now, he wasn’t coordinating his brain with his mouth very well, though.
“Why are there a couple of dogs up on the slope?” Martin asked.
“They’re her human remains detection dogs. Miss Anderson thinks there may be more …victims around here. Luckily, so far, anyway, they’ve not found anything. At least as far as I know.”
“Hmmph. Okay. HRD, you say. I’m beginning to like this young woman.”
Landon wasn’t. It seemed to him that all this trouble had started with Jessica Anderson and her pesky drones. He said as much to Martin.
Martin pulled him aside. “Reid, I know this has shaken the living daylights out of you. I’ve never seen you this rattled, even after that nasty accident last December. But, God, man. Think about it. If this has been happening right under our noses, isn’t it better to find out now before worse happens?”
Reid just cold stared the man. “Worse,” he finally said, and he felt like just giving up.
“Yeah. Worse. And don’t think it can’t get worse.”
Landon was, once more, having a difficult time with both his stomach and his breathing. It was like the organs were vying for the same space in his body. “I’ve got to take a walk.”
“You do that. I’ll take over helping Miss Anderson.”
The sharp deep bark of a dog interrupted Reid’s plans, though. Both he and Martin jumped at the sound. Both of them had their hands on their sidearms, Martin wincing and giving up the action that fast, his good arm reaching for his shoulder.
Jessica Anderson came out of the woods, stared up the slope, then, just like the last time, she started running toward her dogs.
Martin and Reid both followed. “God, what now?” Landon snarled. And he wanted to curse the sun and the sky and anything else he could, even God.
*
Milo was down, still as a statue. The only thing he did as Jessie ran up was turn his big head toward her. Then he pointed down with his nose.
Kneeling down, Jessica tried to see what Milo knew was there on or in the rocky ground. She saw nothing but rocks and hard ground, though, and she didn’t have a trowel with her. She didn’t even have a knife.
“What do you need?” came Sheriff Reid’s voice. He was panting and his face was pasty—very unlike him.
She looked up. “I didn’t bring my pack—stupid. Do you have a knife, maybe?”
“I do.”
Moments later, he handed her a pocket knife.
Unfolding it, Jessica started carefully picking at the rocks and hard, gravelly dirt. A couple of gentle scrapes revealed a small cylindrical object—a phalanx. “It’s a finger bone,” Jessica whispered. “There’s been another body around here.”
“Is it human?”
Jessica nodded. “It’s human.”
Jessica heard the man named Doyle holler out for her kit and cameras to be brought up. “Get a pack of evidence markers, too,” he yelled. “We’ve got another one. Or, at least, a part of another one.”
Far below, the medical examiner looked up. Then, pointing to the deputy beside him and to the woman’s body he’d been working on, he stripped off his gloves and started trudging up toward them.
Reid touched Jessica’s shoulder. “Were you done with the other body?”
“Yeah. Just packing up.”
“Then maybe …do you think …the dogs….”
“Yeah,” she said.
The ME, a neighbor she’d known since she was a kid as Dr. Lorenson, M.D., reached them, nodded to Jessie, and asked, “What did you find, Jessica?”
She showed him, and, squatting down, he pulled out a particular set of brushes from his bag and started working around the phalanx she’d already exposed. “You’re a forensic pathologist, too,” Jessie observed.
The man nodded.
“I thought you were a physician like Gram.”
“Was. Went back to school for this because I got tired of the government bureaucracy and politics in medicine.”
Jessica nodded. That’s why her grandmother had quit practicing, too.
“I’m going to see if the dogs can find more,” she said.
“It would certainly help to have more than a piece of the hand,” Lorenson said.
Getting up, Jessica called Mitch and Milo to her. Signing ‘all’, ‘dead’, and ‘human’, she asked them to cast again, and both dogs went to work, Jessie trailing them. Not fifty yards on, Milo suddenly lay down and gave his single bark alert. “Guter Hund, braver Hund. Good dog!” she called, but, inside herself, she felt her spirits crash. Flashes of the other dead corpses blinked in her mind, and she shook her head, trying to erase them.
Mitch alerted—insistently—barking over and over. Opening her eyes, she saw him hop up and down in place, his eyes seeking hers. Beside her, Milo watched her, his eyes worried. She dropped the marker she was still clutching onto his find, gave him strokes, then bent down and hugged the big dog she loved. Taking a breath, then, she straightened, held up her hand, and, when he was ready, asked him to search again, before heading up toward where Mitch was frantically calling her.
“Watch out. Your other dogs are coming at a run,” Reid called.
Jessie stopped and looked down the slope. Sure enough, here came her pack. She shouldn’t let them, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed them. This was too, too much to be alone with.
Reaching her, the dogs circled as she again started climbing toward Mitch. Then something odd happened. Milo came over and parked himself in front of her, making her stop. The other dogs moved in around him, and all of them touched noses with him. Abruptly, Milo turned and trotted up the slope to Mitch, the rest of the dogs close on his tail.
Jessie, Reid coming up beside her, just watched. She didn’t move to join them.
Moving in around Mitch, Milo laid down into his sphinx mode, and Mitch started to vocalize, occasionally pointing his head at his ‘find’. Then, every dog that had been standing stock still moved in, sniffed, then backed away and, after a moment, trotted off, noses near the ground. As Jessie watched in awe, they spread out across the mountain’s long upper face.
“What’s happening?” Reid asked, his voice so quiet, but so close to her shoulder that it made her jump.
“I…. I think— Let’s just wait and see.”
“What do you think is happening?”
“I think that the whole pa
ck is now on the search for the dead on this mountain. I don’t know how, but, somehow, they’ve communicated the goal to one another. That’s what I think. I’ve got no proof.”
Within moments, Jessica had her guess confirmed, though. Britta alerted. Down slope, Acer did, too. Then Queenie. And Sumi. None of them had ever been HRD trained.
One after another, the dogs started giving their alerts, each their own version. Even Oso, mostly an air scent dog. “Oh, my lovely friends,” Jessie whispered. “Oh, my wonder dogs.”
“That they are, Miss Anderson. That they are.”
***
33 – Lumps
“We’re going to have to call the state in,” Martin said. “We can’t handle this alone. There’s just too much.”
“I tried that already,” Reid told him. “They’ve got their own problems with that war they’ve got happening. They keep calling me for help. A quarter of our force is down there.”
“Why?”
“National Guard. They got called up, and I had no choice but to let them go.”
Martin shook his head. “You know, they ought to just let the gang bangers and those militia weirdos go at it and kill each other, then round up the survivors and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. That’s what I think.”
“I know what you think,” Landon said dryly. “You and Dad, both. Wholesale slaughter.”
Martin blew out a disgusted sigh. “That’s what’s happening now. To our guys.”
Landon ducked his head and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about it.
“Okay. Let’s get the FBI in here.”
Relief …and not. Keep it mellow. “I’m not calling in the FBI. We take care of our own. This is local. We’re going to keep it local, if I have to emergency deputize every upstanding citizen in the county to help.”
“I don’t get it. A few minutes ago you were—”
Landon rounded on the older man. “Because it’s gotten personal, that’s why, Martin. For me.”