Death Scent

by D. L. Keur

  The dog was panting. Her eyes were dilated. She knew somehow that she wasn’t pleasing her humans, and that made Jessie sad. “Guter Hund,” she crooned. “Sehr gut. It’s our fault, not yours, Numa.”

  The dog nosed her dad, and he wrapped his arm around her. “Okay. One more thing. Only. She can’t handle much more stress.”

  “I know.”

  Getting Mitch and Milo, Jessie introduced them to each other—no problem. Then, dropping target articles, she asked the dogs to come and pointed to them, telling them to ‘find it’.

  Mitch and Milo looked at her, tails tentatively wagging in confusion. This was baby stuff, they were telling her. Numa sniffed, her eyes confused.

  Jessie moved to the next. “Numa, such.”

  Moving from one to the next, all around the working area, she begged and pleaded, Mitch and Milo trailing along as Jessie repeatedly asked Numa to alert to it.

  Mitch sat suddenly and whine-barked.

  Jessie looked at him. “What? Was ist?” she asked.

  He got up and trotted up to her. Sat. Lifted a paw.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think I do,” her dad said. “Let Numa loose and leave them alone. Come over and sit with me and just let them all alone.”

  Doing as bid, Jessie unleashed Numa. Immediately the dog downed. Jessie signed for Mitch and Milo to stay, then backed away, turned and went over to where her dad still sat on the ground. Sat down next to him. “Now what?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Let’s just be still.”

  Minutes passed. The dogs just lay there. Then, all at once, Mitch reached his nose over to Numa. Sat up. Stood up.

  Milo got up. Started moving from scent item to scent item. Mitch followed him, pausing to look back at Numa, then at Jessie, then at Numa, again.

  Now the bomb dog got up. She looked back at Oli, then turned her attention back to Mitch and Milo. Hesitating, she took a tentative step towards them where they stood as if waiting. Looked back at Oli.

  Then, all at once, as if deciding, she trotted over to Mitch and Milo. Put her nose down. Lifted her head.

  Mitch nosed her. Whined a little.

  Milo moved to the next item. Stopped. Waited.

  Mitch followed moments later, and, after another small pause, Numa joined them.

  So it went. When Milo began again at the first item, Jessie caught on. “They’re teaching her,” she whispered, and saw her dad nod just ever so slightly, then indicate silence.

  *

  Agent Newsome’s team noticed it. “Did you know that there were no law enforcement personnel included in the pictures shown to Kenny Buford? There are no state, city, or sheriff’s personnel included, at all,” Agent Newsome said. “None.”

  Reid looked a question at the man. He was sitting with them, and so was Martin. They were going over everything they had. “I didn’t order that,” Reid said.

  “I think it’s the new default setting,” Martin said. “That new software the state has forced on us. I think I remember seeing that there’s a checkbox on the bottom, already checked. It leaves out law enforcement personnel.”

  “You’re right,” a woman named Special Agent Lynn Corelli said. “But there are also no men included who have anything but dark brown or black hair, either. Or anyone with anything but blue eyes.”

  “That’s the description Kenney gave us,” Reid said. “…Which matches what we have on video recording.”

  “Hair dye? Wigs? Contacts? Remember, this guy’s smart. Knowledgeable. Methodical. What we call organized. He knows how to avoid detection—no skin oils, no skin flakes, no hair.” This came from a man named Special Agent Justin Holt, a man who reminded Landon of his first year dorm-mate at ISU—smart, confident, quick. And intimidating. Landon was still friends with him—a lawyer now, doing what Landon had wanted to.

  “What about the urine Jessica Anderson found?” Martin asked.

  “That belonged to the murdered man, Stewart Walsh.”

  “First I’ve heard about it,” Martin said, and Landon nodded. Him, too.

  “I’m sorry. We must have neglected to include that in our daily briefing.”

  Landon shook his head. “Not necessarily. I probably wouldn’t remember even if you had. The whole thing is too huge.”

  “We’ve made a new set of possibles. We’ve had the images manipulated to compensate for hair and eye color, and we’d like to bring Mr. Kenny Buford back in to look through them,” Special Agent Corelli said.

  “Do it.”

  “How many individuals,” Martin asked.

  “We’ve narrowed it to just over two-thousand, based on our best analysis. That’s better than the eight-thousand we started with, though.”

  Landon groaned. “Poor Kenny. I suppose I’m in there.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “I’m the right size and in the age range.”

  The agents, all of them, exchanged glances. “You don’t fit our profile,” Agent Corelli said finally.

  Landon eyed her.

  “What she means is you don’t have the necessary propensities,” Holt said.

  Landon stared at him. Saw the glint in his eye. “You mean I’m not smart enough.”

  “Not in our unsub’s way. You’re not cold-blooded, either.”

  Martin began laughing. Clapped Landon on the shoulder. “In other words, Landon, you’re too dumb and wimpy to pull this off.”

  ***

  41 – Before Color

  Numa had gotten it. Within an hour. She was a happy, happy dog. “You know this means I’m going to have to treat her like my dog until this is over,” Oli said to Jessie over a quiet breakfast at the kitchen table. It was three-thirty in the morning, and the rest of the house was still sound asleep, but she and her dad had both felt it, both gotten up, practically running into each other in the hallway. There was a tension in the air.

  The brindled Malinois sat next to him, owning him as hers. And he was owning her, too. Her jaws snapped as he dropped bits of his breakfast off his plate for her, and Jessie smiled. “You used to have a dog,” she said softly.

  Her dad’s head dipped. “Yeah. …She died.”

  “I know. Wasn’t she a Malinois, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  He raised his head, eyes shifting from his plate to the dog. “They die too young.”

  Jessie understood that problem. But Malinois often lived longer than GSDs. She said as much. “She could have another four to six years, Dad.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather have a friend for a few years, rather than no friend at all?”

  Her dad picked up the sausage sitting uneaten on his plate and flipped it, spinning, into the air. Numa immediately launched herself to snap it up, mid-spin, at the top of its arc. “Time to get going, Jessica. I want to be up on that unholy mountain way before he can see color.”

  “Okay.”

  *

  Jessica and her dad were back on the mountain working. They were, as yet, the only ones up there. The mountain being the last of his rounds, he was happy to see them there. Then he saw the new dog. She eyed him as he approached, immediately planting herself in front of Oli and staring at him. “Am I going to get bitten?” he asked, never pausing his climb.

  The man said something to the animal, and it sat. Its eyes never left Landon’s, though. “That a 300 Win Mag?” he asked, eyeing the rifle Oli Anderson had slung on himself, military style.

  “It is.”

  Landon nodded. “Coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  He went down to where Jessie worked and offered one to her. “A new dog?” he asked, tipping his head up toward her father.

  “She’s Dad’s. We spent yesterday …well, Mitch and Milo did, teaching her to search out human remains.”

  “That quick?”

  “She’s Malinois,” Jessie said, grinning. Then, “But she’s a trained bomb detection dog, so
it was a matter of transitioning her to HRD.”

  “Oh. And that can be done in a day?”

  “Not usually.”

  He nodded. They weren’t sharing. Something had changed. “Well, I’ve got to get back to town.”

  “Okay.”

  Yeah. Something had definitely changed.

  *

  Back down off the mountain, Landon sat in on Kenny’s session with the FBI profilers. As they flipped through the pictures, he noticed that they had arranged them, not by QK numbers, but alternating similarities and differences, and none of it in a discernible pattern. Why? He didn’t ask, just sat quiet.

  An hour in, and Kenny suddenly sat bolt upright. “That’s him!” he said.

  Landon sat forward. He recognized the face, but not the person.

  “You’re sure?” Agent Corelli asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Hang on.”

  The screen went blank, and, after a couple of minutes, they asked him to look again. The screen came back on with a series of eight faces laid out in two rows. All of them shared common facial features.

  Kenny pointed to the exact same picture. “That’s him, I tell you.”

  “Okay. And thank you.”

  Newsome looked at Landon. “We need to talk.”

  *

  Lieutenant Sheila Long was subbing for Barry Olmstead in the office. “Where’s Barry?” Landon asked.

  “He said he was going to look at a helicopter.”

  “Hmmph.”

  Back at his desk, Agent Newsome with him, Landon called the airport. “This is Sheriff Reid. Do you have a Barry Olmstead out there looking at a helicopter that’s for sale?” he asked the woman who answered the phone.

  “Ah…. I’m sorry, Sheriff. We don’t have any helicopters on premises that are for sale, and nobody is here right now except me and John Gilmore, our mechanic.”

  “All right. Thank you.”

  He hung up. “He’s not there.”

  “I just checked Craig’s List and every other site I could find offering helicopters for sale. There aren’t any close by,” Holt said.

  Landon nodded. He was still in shock. Barry. Can’t be. His own captain. But his own records, checked and double checked by the FBI, had pretty much locked in that Barry had absolutely no schedule conflicts that gave him a solid alibi for the times of the latest killings.

  “His car’s not at his residence, either,” Martin said, walking in. Red’s there with a team. Neighbors haven’t seen him since Sunday last. Say he only shows up about once a week to cut the grass. Told them he’s living with a girlfriend.”

  “His unit?”

  “Still here in the yard.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “He have any family we don’t know about?” Corelli asked.

  “No immediate,” Landon said. “All dead. Most of his nearest relatives are all in Oklahoma.”

  “That’s what we tracked down. And he doesn’t seem to have any friends we can find.”

  “That’s not right. I know he has kin. He mentioned them,” Martin said.

  Landon called his dad …got told to talk to Sam. “He knows everything and everyone,” his dad said.

  *

  “You know, I seem to remember something about his gram …or maybe great gram. Not sure on that. Let me go visit a friend,” Sam Hull said.

  “May I come with you?” Landon asked. Newsome nudged him. “And Agent Newsome, here?”

  “Sure …if you don’t mind visiting an old folk’s home.”

  Landon shook his head and chuckled. Obviously, Sam didn’t know that he visited theirs regularly …or did before this nightmare started. “I don’t mind.” He turned to Newsome. “You?”

  “Not at all.”

  *

  The woman, a Selma Thayer, was ancient. “You remember old Gabby Lyn Roberts?” Sam asked her after about ten minutes of catching up chit chat.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Isn’t she related to the Olmsteads?”

  “No. Only Olmstead I know of was Roberta, and she married into the Roberts family. Came out of Oklahoma. She’s was an in-law, not a blood relation. Big difference, there. Gabby’s son Harold married her while he was stationed over there.”

  “Okay. I remember. It’s Roberta. She was Barry’s aunt,” Sam said, nodding.

  “You mean Barry Olmstead? Yeah, she was. Took care of him …all those three kids the summer their mom died. I think that’s probably why Barry moved back here. Fond memories of that summer, and all. Sad little boy, as I remember. But Roberta died young, too. Too bad. She was a nice girl.”

  “What happened to Harold’s place?”

  “Still in the family. It’s a part of one of those family trust things. All the Roberts property is.”

  “So who would live there?”

  “Probably Gabby’s great granddaughter, Flora. Gabby, she was the matriarch of that family, y’know. She had a thing for Flora, and that was a real nice house and property. Off the beaten track, and all, but Flora liked that. She liked things quiet.”

  The old lady’s face scrunched up, then cleared. “Flora must be in her late thirties or forties, now. She makes art for some company back East. There was a write-up in the paper a couple years past about her doing it . Cutesy stuff and all.”

  “You know her married name, by chance?”

  “She never married. She’s still Flora Roberts, as far as I know. And I read the paper every day, so I’d know if she went and got married or died, even if I wasn’t invited to the wedding or funeral …which wouldn’t happen.”

  So, Flora Roberts….

  “Let’s go drive out there,” Sam said, once they said their goodbyes, then got the address from the Assessor’s Office. The property’s location was at the end of the county road that ended where Minnow Creek came down between the west slope of Long Peak and Green Hump. Looking at the satellite images, it had about a hundred-yard-long driveway that ended in a broad apron in front of the house and a detached one car garage. The whole of it was set back in the trees, good for them, but good for Barry, too, if that’s where he was holed up.

  “We’ll need backup.”

  “We’ll need your S.W.A.T. team,” Newsome said, his phone already at his ear.

  ***

  42 – Lock and Load

  They came in all stealth mode—the S.W.A.T. team leading.

  S.W.A.T. went in on foot, moving from tree to tree. They needn’t have bothered. Nobody was there.

  The garage was empty. One of the S.W.A.T. team members found Flora’s car. It was sitting in the woods, covered in pine needles and dirt. Out in the unused barn behind the house, they found the truck parked in the central alley. It had been spray painted black, and it was missing the two front grill teeth. It also had the deep gouge in the back bumper. Landon took out his pocket knife, scraped a nick of paint off where it wouldn’t be that noticeable. “Sure enough. Red.”

  Inside the house, the FBI agents and some of his deputies were doing a search. They found Flora’s checkbook, a bank statement, and a file cabinet filled with up-to-date paid bills. But there was no sign of Flora.

  Landon wondered if Flora was the girlfriend Barry had mentioned to his neighbors. They were about the same age, her a bit older, but not looking it.

  Landon was still having a hard time believing that the man his dad had trusted, the man he himself had been working next to for his entire career in law enforcement, from rookie deputy to sheriff, was the killer.

  Agent Holt came out from the laundry room. “Hamper’s full of men’s clothes,” he said. “No women’s, at all. Not even undergarments. Does Flora wear men’s clothing?”

  “I have no idea,” Landon replied. He knew some women did.

  “Look here.” Sam came out of the bedroom holding a deputy uniform in a plastic bag, its dry cleaning tag still hooked to the neck of the hanger. “The tag reads ‘B. Olmstead’,” he said.

  Newsome emerged from the bathroom
. He was holding an evidence bag. “I don’t know any woman who shaves their whiskers, and the shaver—a man’s shaver—had a few whiskers stuck under the head.”

  “Color?” Holt asked.

  “Looks blond to me. Could be light brown.”

  Flora had dark brown hair. Barry was blond. “So where’s Barry?” Landon asked.

  Newsome answered with a shrug. “Obviously, not here, right now. I say we put the uniform back. Put everything back, and get out of sight. Before he comes back.”

  “If he hasn’t been watching us the whole time,” Landon said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Holt agreed.

  “He could actually be out looking at a helicopter,” Corelli said.

  “I’m wondering where Flora Roberts is,”—Newsome.

  Landon wondered that, too. He didn’t like thinking about it.

  *

  Jessie and her dad, plus one other HRD dog team, were pretty much alone on the south slope. Upslope, two forensic teams were working on some difficult extractions, one a Canadian team of two, the other an FBI team of three. Everybody else was over on the west slope where Kins had seen evidence of human bones with her drones. A couple of deputies were down at their cars. The rest had disappeared.

  Jessie was searching out the last of the lower slope grids while her dad and his dog worked the upper. The other team was working the middle where there were also some remaining unsearched grids. They knew they had at least the rest of today and tomorrow to go before joining the others on the west slope.

  Searching out the last of the creek bed one more time, Jessie saw no end in sight to the long, tedious job. Her body ached, especially her back, hips, knees, ankles, and feet—mostly her ankles and feet. Clambering for hours in the rock strewn terrain which had an average slope of anywhere from thirty to fifty degrees was wearing on her after nearly two weeks of it. All of them felt it—Jessie, her dad, and her dogs. Numa was the only one of them bounding and bouncing.

  The team of Canadian forensic specialists working nearest was about a half mile up from her. Their site comprised the buried portions of what was suspected to be a single individual—the one whose skull Kins had spied. The other team of three was working way higher up, pulling bits and pieces of a mystery victim found close by.