Death Scent

by D. L. Keur

  Reid gave her a look like she’d called him an imbecile. Well, stop acting like one! “It’s something pretty easy to spot from high up,” Jessie offered, mollifying her tone.

  Reid looked at Dave. Sighed. “Okay. After lunch, we go back up high and start looking all over again.”

  “I’d program for three to four hundred feet. No higher because that breaks into aircraft territory,” Jessie advised. She did not need her drones confiscated again, this time by the ‘altitude police’.

  Dave laughed. “Got in trouble once about that when I was fifteen. Luckily, they just gave me a lecture and a rule book. Told me I had to register with the FAA and get a license.”

  “How high did you get?” Jessie asked, excited to know, and saw her dad’s eyes go ‘tired’. Tech stuff bored him to distraction unless it was his tech stuff …like flying planes and helicopters.

  “I’d passed the 10,000-foot mark. I was so excited. I got video of traffic looking like tiny ants, of real trains looking like models, of airplanes taking off, a helicopter landing…. It was so-ooo extra. …Then the cops came.” He grinned. “I still have the video.”

  *

  “You think the paint cans were a diversion,” Kins asked once Landon came back from cancelling the roadblocks. The young deputy already had a drone in the air, using the on-screen controls to fly it instead of the controller.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, like I said, hand spray-painting a vehicle would definitely make it stick out. What if he left those spray cans in plain sight to just make us think he painted it a different color?”

  Landon turned on his heel and headed back for his rig.

  “Where are you going?” Kins yelped.

  “To rescind my last order cancelling the roadblocks.”

  Thankful that his previous order hadn’t yet been executed, Reid wound up spending an hour on the phone dealing with the Hogalby problem again with one of the commissioners. Done, he answered a call of nature, then headed back to where Kins was still glued to the laptop, and found Jessie and her dad back down off the mountain, the dogs all sitting and lying quietly around them as they stepped up to watch the laptop screen, too. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We need to talk …once you’ve heard what Deputy Kins has to say,” Oli said.

  Landon switched his attention to Kins. “Speak up.”

  The kid flushed, instantly flustered.

  Must be hereditary, or something.

  “The deputy who collected the cans didn’t see any tracks, and she said the ground was pretty soft,” Kins told him.

  “She still there?”

  “Come and gone.”

  “You spied on her?”

  “I helped her locate them,” Kins said, looking for all the world as if he’d just been reprimanded.

  Landon ignored it. Kins was going to have to toughen up and not take things so personally. “You can speak through those machines?”

  “No. I used my phone and then led her in with a drone.”

  “Actually, those are two-way microphones on them, but using them uses more battery power,” Jessie Anderson put in.

  “Right.”

  “Thing is, she didn’t see any tracks or impressions,” Kins repeated, “and that’s soft ground.”

  “Then I’m glad I still have those roadblocks up.”

  “I don’t think they’ll catch anything,” Jessie said softly.

  He threw daggers at her. “What?!”

  “I’ve been watching as Kins does the sweeps. There’s another road …well, more of a really faint skid trail. But I think, by how noticeable it was, that it’s had vehicle traffic lately.”

  “Where?!” Kins asked.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Landon demanded.

  The woman sighed. “Because I’m not sure. I wanted to see if it held on each sweep.”

  “Show us,” Landon said, checking his temper into the tightest lockdown he could. This is what her old boss meant—you gotta ask the right questions. She doesn’t volunteer anything!

  Using a mouse she plugged in, she tagged something and an inset appeared, playing a part earlier in the recording as Kins continued to follow the track he was already on. Landon realized with a start that the machine that he’d had locked up in his office for weeks was something very powerful and very special if it could do what she was doing with it while Kins continued to do what he was doing. Amazing.

  Then he actually saw what she pointed to, her fingers tracing a looping pattern through parts of the recording. It hadn’t been clear at first, but, with her pointing it out to him, he could definitely see what she was talking about. “Well, I’ll be. Good eyes.”

  Kins spoke up, never taking his attention off what he was doing, “Should I abort this search?”

  “I think so,” Landon said.

  “Where to?”

  Jessie showed him, pointing to a place just west and down slope of where the first body had been found, then crossing back and forth across the forest service road until it disappeared into even heavier timber. Landon could clearly see it, now that she’d pointed it out. That’s her training as a CSI, her being able to pick that out that way.

  Kins maneuvered the drone upslope and dove down between the trees. Landon’s brain objected, his eyes begging to close. He kept them locked on the feed, anyway. Why didn’t we see that when we found Sue’s body?

  Starting his run, Kins sped down the track—and it was, in fact, a track. “It looks like it continues down the west slope of Long Peak,” Agent Newsome said, peering over Landon’s shoulder.

  Landon turned. He hadn’t realized the man had joined them. “So, then, we do cancel the road blocks, now. Where does the trail end?” Reid felt excitement rising in him.

  “I can’t tell, yet,” Kins answered.

  “There are a lot of small places on that side,” Oli observed.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  The Anderson girl was staring at him as if she was waiting for something. “Something you need?” Landon asked.

  “I want to engage hyperspectral cameras—actually FLS cameras, to be accurate, but they include hyperspectral imaging. Once you’re done with my drones on this job, that is.”

  “What kind of cameras?”

  “Hyperspectral imaging. Originally developed to identify mineral deposits, they can ‘see’ bones,” Jessica said. “It’s will speed things up, because everybody’s tired.”

  “We are,” Newsome put in. “If she’s got the equipment to do it, it will make it go faster.”

  “I have the cameras, but haven’t mounted them. But I can, now that I’ve got the drones back.” She paused, watched him, then said, “Again, though, you’d need to secure a search warrant to do it. And I want to extend the search to the west slope of Long Peak, too, since the vehicle tracks seem to head across it.”

  The warrant wasn’t a problem. At all. What troubled him was her extension of the search field to Long Peak’s west slope. “You think there’s more bod— …Bones?”

  Her eyes dropped. Agent Newsome didn’t say a word. Neither were a good sign. Jessie spoke first. “I don’t know. I hope not,” she said, raising her eyes to his. “But I’d like Kins to do the flying, so we can just go to an area the cameras identify and start working. The imaging can show us what’s above ground—the high probability areas—but it will take the dogs to find the hidden stuff.”

  His brain went into its blurred whir. “Won’t it pick up animal bones, too, though,” his mouth spit out without telling him beforehand. As usual.

  “Yes. But I’m hoping for skulls, hips, that sort of thing—things that are obviously human.”

  “We’d miss some bones though, right?”

  “We would,” Newsome put in. “At this juncture, though, I think we’re far ahead of what we would have ever recovered without Miss Jessica Anderson’s dogs—some of the best HRD work I’ve seen.”

  Landon shook his head, not wanting to. So w
e’d miss some, but not that many, is what they’re saying, and going over every inch of this mountain, never mind the adjoining ones, would take months.

  Landon sucked in a big breath, held it, decided, then said, “Okay. Let’s do that. I’ll get Barry started on the warrant. Should have it within the hour, I’m guessing. …Deputy Kins?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  Landon turned to look at him, expecting the man to be attending him. He wasn’t, though. His eyes were on the screen, the live-feed showing the drone still running down a track between the trunks of trees, the branches whizzing by. Landon shook his head. He had his answer. Kins would do it. The federal government was helping pay the overtime, so the county commissioners would be off his back.

  ***

  39 – Frustration

  “We’ll need GPS coordinates every time the cameras show a hit,” Jessie said, showing Kins how to send via the computer to Newsome’s phone app that she’d shared. “Agent Newsome said he’ll coordinate locations to dog teams.”

  “That’s smart,” Kins said, grinning. “These are just amazing machines and more amazing software!”

  Marking out what she knew they’d already covered, Jessica guided the drone over an area high up on the south slope that none of them had yet searched.

  Kins let out a yelp. “It’s a skull! Looking right at us!”

  “Where?” Jessie didn’t see it. That upset her. She was trained to.

  “Go back!”

  Back-tracking, she slowed the drone. She didn’t have the skill Kins had to manually fly it and watch the feed. Frustrated, she asked, “Take over?”

  “Sure.” He slid his fingers onto the big touch pad and, that quick, got the drone to swing back. “There,” he said. “Isn’t that a skull?”

  Yes, it was. And, around it, traces of the rest of the skeleton embedded in what looked like rock, but Jessie guessed was actually hardened soil. She’d missed it completely. “Coordinates?”

  Kins tapped the icon with his little finger, never losing control with the ones he was using on the pad to maneuver the drone. Jessie envied his skill. “We’re going to head over there,” she said.

  “Okay. I’ll figure out a search pattern and, when I see something, I’ll send you the numbers, Agent Newsome.”

  “The guy must have at least seven brains to be able to multi-task like that,” Jessie told her dad as they headed up. “I think he’s in the wrong career.”

  Oli laughed. “Yeah. You should know about that.”

  Jessie shook her head and looked away. “Don’t start, please, Dad.”

  “Then don’t waste yourself on fruitless pursuits, Jessie. You’re a natural dog trainer—I’m betting the best in the world.”

  She felt her face flush.

  *

  Jessie’s cameras showed multiple bodies, some obviously still partially intact and obviously human. “We’re going to have to search the rest of Long Peak,” she told them. “The West slope, and even the north face. Maybe the adjoining mountains, too.”

  “I agree,” Agent Newsome said.

  Landon stared at the two of them—his FBI liaison and ‘the dog girl’. “That will take weeks …months!”

  “Probably,” Newsome said. “…I’ve got more help coming,” Agent Newsome put in after too long of an uncomfortable silence. “Two more forensic teams and some six more HRD teams from FEMA. I’ve also put in a call to the universities if this goes into summer, which it looks like it will. This is too big for any of us, now. Way, way too big. A possible nineteen bodies, so far, going back at least ten years, maybe more.”

  Landon felt himself go cold. Ten years….

  *

  “Do you have any bomb dogs, still?” Jessie asked her dad, searching him out in his office after dinner where she knew he was trying to catch up on paperwork.

  He sat back and frowned. “Why?”

  “Do you?” she pressed.

  He stared at her, and she knew why. Rarely did she ever push. “Four of them, all retired,” he finally said. “And I’ll ask again, why?”

  Jessie nodded. Good. “Because I want to try to see if at least one of them will pick up on human remains detection.”

  He dropped his eyes …stayed silent for way too long. He was tired. So was she. “Dad?”

  He jerked his head up. “Ah, okay. I’m guessing old Numa might be the best bet, but, yes, you can try it. What are you thinking?”

  “Well, instead of you following me around up there, you could work with her. It would give us another nose, another team.”

  “I thought Newsome said FEMA was sending in more HRD dogs.”

  “They are. But you’re just tagging along with me, dropping evidence markers. If, instead, you could work the ground above or below me, we’d get done with this horrible job even faster.”

  He sat back and blew out a huge sigh. “I’d love for all of this to be over,” he said. “I’m so tired of that mountain, of worrying every time I see someone who shouldn’t be where they suddenly show up, of the rain, the snow, the cold and the awful heat during the day that bakes down on us.”

  It was the first time Jessie had ever heard him complain. It was, she realized, a sign that, yes, her dad, her hero, her safe harbor, was human, not superhuman like she’d always seen him. And she also realized that he was getting older …that this work they were doing was aging him, and, when she thought about it, it was taking a heavy toll on her and her dogs, too. She had deep circles under her eyes and she, just like her dogs, was losing weight she couldn’t afford to.

  “When do you want to try them?”

  Jessie tried to smile …didn’t manage it. “As soon as possible. I’ll clear it with the sheriff tomorrow, if that’s okay.”

  “Okay.”

  *

  “How can this be?!” Landon bellowed, the deputies surrounding him—the ones going off swing shift and the ones coming on graveyard—all looking down at their boots or their hands or the floor, anywhere but where they should be.

  He knew he’d lost it. He knew his ugly temper had finally escaped his iron grip. He didn’t care—not at the moment. All the dead. And in his county!

  But not all on your watch, came his mind’s unbidden thought.

  Who cares?! At least six of them were, he shot back to it, and that quelled his ever-churning brain.

  Behind him, he heard rustling. He ignored it. “We’ve got nineteen bodies, now, and maybe bits and pieces of others,” he said, modifying his voice and his desire to yell it out. “These are your kith, your kin—your friends and relatives, children of your friends and relatives. How can this have been happening without somebody, anybody, having even so much as a clue?!”

  Nobody answered.

  More rustling.

  Holding up a closed hand, he extended his index finger and bent it back with the other. “We’ve got somebody who actually sold the truck to our suspected perp. Saw him. Met him.” He extended his middle finger and bent it back. “We’ve got video imagery of him.” Now, he extended his ring finger and did the same, “And we’ve got a darned good idea of how he’s gaining access without using the main roads. We should be closing in on this guy. Heck, we should have him locked up by now. But we’ve got nothing. Just more and more bones piling up!”

  Agent Newsome cleared his throat. “Sheriff?”

  Landon rounded on him and saw the whole team of profilers standing in the doorway watching him. “What?!”

  “Serial killers like this evade law enforcement because they are so rare and appear, in everyday life, so normal. Nobody expects it. Nobody anticipates it. Sociopathic killers aren’t average criminals, and your deputies …even most FBI agents, we’re trained to deal with criminals and their crimes, not psychos parading as Joe or Jane Normal-Everyday-Citizen.”

  “Your team,” Landon snapped, thrusting his chin at the five standing there.

  Newsome nodded. “My team and teams like us, yes, but we’re specialists. We train for years. I repeat: seri
al killers—most of them, anyway—seem like normal, everyday people. You’d never suspect them. Never. Don’t blame your deputies. Don’t blame anyone. Not even the unsub. He’s sick, damaged …can’t control his urges. But he’s also smart and very skilled …crafty and knowledgeable. Time to get back to work, and let your deputies get on with the jobs they’ve proven very dedicated and very good at doing.”

  Dropping his head, Landon suddenly felt ashamed. He’d deserved that dressing down. More, even. So deserved it. …So, own it, he told himself. …To the good men and women standing here having suffered your stupidity and unjust criticism.

  He looked up, looked at each of his deputies in that room, swallowed, then said, “I apologize. You didn’t deserve that. …I was wrong. It’s…. Just chock it up to my stupidity and frustration.”

  Eyes raised. They watched him.

  “I don’t expect your understanding. I won’t let it happen …ever again. …I’m just …sorry,” he said, the last coming out almost as a whisper. And he hoped they knew he meant every word.

  Retreating to his office, he went in and closed the door, locked it, turned off the lights, then just sat staring out the window, his eyes on the Bitterroots, on the mountains that he loved.

  ***

  40 – A Teaching Moment

  Sheriff Reid wasn’t happy with her. Agent Newsome and the RCMP experts were on her side, though, and that helped. Having a day off from clambering around the mountain did the dogs a world of good, as it did her and her dad. Being home was like an elixir, breathing new vitality into her, her dad, her pack.

  Numa, the bomb dog—her dad’s choice—wasn’t picking up on it, though. Frustrated, Jessie tried again and again, using the real human remains she’d begged off the FEMA teams.

  “This isn’t going to work, Jessie,” her dad said.

  Plopping down in the tanbark, Jessie just wanted to cry. It should work. It should.

  Mitch and Milo. They’d ‘talked’ to the rest of the pack—their pack. But would they ‘talk’ to Numa? “Let me try one more thing,” Jessie said to her dad who had joined her on the ground, the nine-year-old Malinois female lying down next to him and watching them both.