Death Scent

by D. L. Keur

  The one thing all of the forensic techs were happy with was the number of bones recovered—even tiny ones—and all because of a dog’s scenting ability. Using a pack had proved much more productive than using just a few dogs to do such a huge job, but Jessie was glad for the help of the FBI’s HRD teams. Without them, they’d be out here beyond tolerance. Beyond forever, Jessica thought. She missed working with the pups. She missed her daily routines. What ever had made her think that she’d want to spend her life looking for the lost, strayed, or dead. Now, she knew better. Once more, her dad and her granddad’s advice—ignored—had proven true. Search, rescue, and recovery was not as fulfilling—not nearly—as training dogs was for her.

  Alone with her thoughts, she watched her tired pals keep working. Dedicated to her, and, admittedly, she to them, this would be the last time she ever asked them to work this hard. They were tired. They were losing condition, despite triple rations of fat and meat, plus the booster shots Dr. Kathy Caldwell had given them.

  “Never again,” she promised them, handing out chunks of, not dog jerky now, but real raw beef as they all took a break for a snack and water.

  *

  Landon pulled everybody in he could. He got the State Police to help. He warned Dispatch not to communicate via either computer or radio. Phone only, one on one, until they had their target.

  The safest course was to catch him on the road, but Landon was taking no chances. “We’re setting up a trap at the house, too.”

  They reconnoitered the property, then brought in ATVs in case Barry made a break for the woods, stationing themselves around Flora Roberts’ house, camouflaging themselves with debris from the forest, glad for the cover the trees provided. S.W.A.T. dug in nearest the house and garage.

  Then they waited. …And waited. Landon was sitting parked in his unit between two trees, his nice, clean vehicle now covered in last fall’s tamarack needles and dirt to hide it. He wondered if Barry had split town already.

  An hour passed, then another.

  Movement. On the driveway.

  Two figures. Walking.

  Where’d he leave his car?

  Watching, his nerves making his eye twitch, Landon held his breath. He prayed nobody would cough or step on a branch.

  It was Barry. Landon saw the man. Next to him, a younger man—skinny, with long, black hair—chattered on about something Landon couldn’t make out through his open windows.

  He heard Barry answer. Were it up to him, they’d take him out on sight—one well-placed bullet to the brain stem. But, of course, that didn’t sit well with policy or the courts. The rule was to try to take them alive, never mind the danger to law enforcement.

  Let S.W.A.T. handle it, he willed. Those were the rules. Those were his very own orders. But some of his regular deputies were hotshots. Let S.W.A.T. handle it. He blew a silent breath, every muscle screaming …and waited for S.W.A.T. to make their move.

  *

  It became a hostage situation in less than three seconds. Landon saw it happen. What he didn’t anticipate—none of them did—was that Barry, who only ever barely passed his yearly firearms requalification tests was, in fact, deadly with a gun.

  He had two men down, the boy with him held like a shield in front of him, before disappearing into the house. Within moments, S.W.A.T. had that house surrounded. Landon and the rest of the force emerged from hiding.

  Agent Fuller, the member of the FBI team skilled in hostage negotiation, went to work with a bullhorn. Nobody answered him.

  More gunfire erupted, radio chatter now telling them that Barry and his hostage had fled out back. “Officer down!” came the call. “Officer down!”

  Landon rammed it in gear and, driving through the bushes that lined the side yard between the house and the garage, busted through the back fence. He was vaguely aware of S.W.A.T. team members running alongside, using his rig as cover.

  He almost managed to end it right there. Instead, he missed by inches. So did S.W.A.T.

  Chasing after, Landon tore up the wooded hill behind the barn. The man was on one of his department’s ATVs, the deputy who’d been riding it bouncing like a limp doll, head lolling, against his back, Barry using her like a shield. Landon felt sick. More, he felt rage.

  Behind him, three other ATVs were closing. They outflanked him, taking shortcuts through the brush. He aimed for where he knew the trail wound around and up the mountain. It was the only way up for his four-wheeler. He just hoped he’d get there before Barry if his deputies didn’t take the man out first. “Pray they do.”

  He floored it, bouncing and yawing and spinning up the trail through the forest across the lower west slope of Long Peak, heading for the south one.

  *

  Jessie heard the sound of an ATV. They were coming to collect more of her evidence bags. Calling the dogs, she waved and headed toward her cache. Then she saw arms flailing, jerking—extra arms.

  Above her, she heard her dad yell. She turned to look. He frantically waved, signaling ‘find cover’. He had his rifle in his hand.

  Ducking into the tumble of angular boulders fallen from the upper falls cliff, she heard the sound of more ATVs. …Gunshots—small arms fire. From above, the boom of a large caliber rifle. Dad.

  She heard the crash—metal rolling, bouncing. She cowered against the rock, the dogs pressing near.

  Silence.

  Where’s the rider? Hurt? Dead? It’s got to be the perp. Why would he come back knowing we were up here?!

  She pulled her sidearm, flipped the safety off. She had to think.

  More shots fired. They ricocheted off the rocks to the north of her. Close. Spraying chips. She ducked down and scrambled away, the dogs with her. She had to find a better hiding place. She had to think.

  She figured she had three choices, to find a good spot to try to get a bead on him, to find a better place to hide, or to let him take her hostage and depend on her dogs, her dad, or one of the deputies to take him out.

  The first would be tough in the cover she had, hiding was her preferred choice, but letting him take her hostage was the best chance for survival for both her and the dogs if her dad and the deputies realized what she was doing. But she’d already run. The man knew she knew he was whom law enforcement was chasing. He probably knew she had a gun. No dice on that, then.

  She was running out of time and options. She could hear him—the noise of his movement, the soles of his shoes scrambling on rock. He’s west of me. Maybe fifty yards. Pulling herself in between two boulders, she dug out her phone, blessing the autofill and the AI that knew how she texted. ‘L Falls rocks. Will break for cover downhill. Perp closing.’ Then she added, ‘Don’t shoot my dogs.’ She sent it out to group 1—her family—and to group 5. That group was 9-1-1 and Sheriff Reid’s phone number.

  Crouching, she sucked breath, preparing. Hissing, now, she caught the dog’s eyes, signaling ‘platz’ and ‘bleib’—down and stay. Repeated it. “I don’t want you coming with me. Stay.” Then firmly, “Bleib.”

  More deep breaths.

  With one last glance at her dogs to make sure they were doing as told, she made a dash for it, heard a shot ring out—large caliber, again.

  *

  The message came, vocalized through his speakers in the computer’s ever calm voice, and Landon felt his stomach drop. Ramming his foot into it, he tore up the last remaining yards of ground, aiming for the lowest of the rocks that stood between him and open ground.

  He took it at an angle, praying he wouldn’t overturn. The rig bucked, scraping hard on the rocks, tires spinning, grabbing, throwing the rig sideways in lurching jerks. “Come ON!” It bucked, then found traction, ground over the top. Barry was but about fifty yards from him.

  He saw her dash out from cover, aiming for the trees. He saw Barry aim. She turned. Fired. Barry fired. Then the man jerked—hard. Something had hit him from behind. Blood spurted from his shoulder.

  Jessie was down and rolling. Back up on her feet and
running. Barry’d missed. He was wounded. But he was drawing aim again.

  His foot jamming the throttle into the floorboard, Landon begged the machine to get there, aiming purposely for the ridge of angled rock that Barry stood on. How he wished he had a machine gun mounted on the hood.

  In front of him, something brown hurdled through the air, a bigger body hurdling with it—the dogs Mitch and Acer. And then something even bigger—white—Milo. Barry went down, the dogs on top of him, tearing at him.

  …There was no way he could stop, now. “Get out of the way, you lunks!” His hand on the horn, his brain frantically praying, his rig hit and went airborne just the way he needed, as if by Providence. “Thank you,” he said, mourning that he was destroying a darned good vehicle even as he said it and braced for impact …then saw Barry manage, despite torn face, neck, and chest, to roll upright. He saw the gun raise—just a glimpse, but it froze there in his eyes, Barry looking square at him, his weapon trained. “This is it, then.” But in that blink, as muzzle fire flashed from the weapon, the man’s head exploded. Landon’s windshield took the hit as he felt his rig connect.

  ***

  43 – Dead and Alive

  Jessie watched in horror as Acer, Milo, and Mitch scrambled to leap clear of the hurtling vehicle, the perp’s head dissolving in a blast of blood as the sheriff’s unit crashed right into him, then flipped completely over, nose first, the shooter’s body disappearing under it. “Oh, my God!”

  The engine stopped, the dust settling. She smelled hot radiator fluid, then gas. Then she saw her dogs. They were alive. Acer limped.

  She picked herself up, and, ignoring the pain that shot through her knee and leg, ran toward the overturned vehicle.

  *

  Surprised he could, Landon heard the hiss. Surprised he was alive, he smelled the gas. Upside down, his head jammed against the headliner, one of the roll bars was pressed against his neck. Fumbling, he tried to hit the release on his safety harness …failed.

  He couldn’t see. The deflated airbag blocked his vision. So did his hat crushed down on his forehead and over his eyes.

  He tried to find his pocket and the knife he always kept there—couldn’t do it. Couldn’t squeeze his hand under the restraining belt.

  “Landon?!”—Jessica Anderson’s voice.

  “I hope you have a knife. Cut the belts.”

  About then, he felt himself loosed. She already had.

  *

  He was heavy, curled wrong. The smell of gas was strong—acrid—the fumes burning her eyes. She heard something that sounded like a gas furnace igniting from its pilot light. Black smoke boiled. Crackling. The rig was on fire. She had to get him out.

  She felt Acer come next to her, then big Milo, too. Where’s Mitch?

  Landon’s head popped out, his arms reaching, pulling. His shoulders caught.

  Acer and Milo both grabbed a piece of the man’s shirt as she desperately tried to extricate him, a man whose shoulders were too big to easily fit through the bent and twisted window frame.

  Then, suddenly, they all went tumbling as he somehow propelled himself into them. “Run!” he yelled, scrambling to his feet, the dogs bounding sideways to get out of his way.

  Jessie felt him grab her, lift her by an arm, her shoulder popping. He dragged her along, her hip and legs bouncing against rocks, the dogs scuttling along with her.

  She managed to get her feet under her …almost, then did.

  *

  He knew it a split second before it happened. “GET DOWN!” he yelled.

  She didn’t. She was screaming something. To the dogs, he realized.

  Slamming into her, he knew he hurt her, as he dropped on top of her, covering his head and neck with his arms. In that moment, he saw two dogs leap to disappear into the forest. He hoped they all had made it. “Dear God in Heaven, protect us.”

  The concussion felt like a sledge hammer hitting him, the sound deafening him instantly as heat and pressure blew the secondary gas tank, the one that hadn’t ruptured. He felt as if his soul had somehow shaken loose of his body, but the feeling vanished moments later, and he was real again.

  Debris—hot, searing, burning—raining down, the chatter of it all around him. The stink of burning wool—his uniform—the stink of burning human flesh—maybe his own, maybe Barry’s—he didn’t know. He couldn’t feel anything at all. …Black, acrid smoke.

  Everything was silent, except for a vague ringing that was coming from inside of his head. My ears. I can’t hear. Then, slowly, the sound of crackling getting louder …louder. “Thank you, God.”

  Easing himself off of the still body beneath him, he touched her shoulder. “Jessie?” God, he hoped he hadn’t hurt her too bad.

  She groaned. Then, her hand reached out to press the rocks beside her head. “My dogs! Are my dogs okay?!”

  He looked around. Didn’t see them through the smoke. He’d heard her call them enough. Should know their names by now, he told himself. …Tried to remember. Then his mouth moved. “Acer? Mitch? Milo?” he called, though, to him, his voice sounded far, far away and so, so muffled. He managed to remember them all. “Britta …Sumi …Oso …Queenie,” he called.

  Jessica managed to roll herself over, then, using his belt as leverage, sat up. Vaguely, he heard her begin to call them, too.

  From out of the trees they came—Mitch, then Milo, and, finally, limping badly, Acer. Then the others, the red one bounding toward her, the fuzzy, small Husky one, too. …The other shepherds.

  *

  From out of the forest and over the rocks they come bounding and limping toward her—her Acer, her Milo, her Mitch. Then, from the opposite direction, through the smoke, here came her Queenie, her Oso, her Sumi, her Britta. “Kommen, come,” she called, catching at them with her one hand—the one that worked—as they converged on her. “Oh, my wonder dogs. My wonder dogs. Oh, my God. Thank you. Are we all okay? Brave Hunde. Brav. Good, good, good, good, great dogs.” She buried her head in their fur—each one. “I love you.”

  “Are they all right?”

  Sniffling, never realizing till that moment that she was weeping, she turned to look up at his worried, filthy face, and threw her head back and laughed. “We’re alive—all of us. That’s all that counts. Thank you for coming to our rescue, Sheriff Reid.”

  *

  “It’s Landon,” he told her as her dad, his dog with him, came lunging across the rocky berm, stopped upon seeing his daughter, and, heaving, squatted down and bowed his head, his dog staring down at them.

  Landon watched Oli Anderson for a moment, then glanced at Jessica. “It wasn’t me, you know. You can thank your dogs and your sharpshooter dad for saving our bacon.” Then, “Oli Anderson? Thank you.”

  The man glanced at him, a disgusted look on his face. “Took me four rounds,” he grumbled between gasps.

  “At over a thousand yards, I’d say that’s some fine shooting. Darned fine shooting, indeed.”

  ***

  EPILOGUE

  A neighbor lost his oldest son that day. Landon Reid lost two deputies, a man and a woman. They were buried with full honors. Only one had a family, which continues to receive death benefits from the state’s insurance fund set up expressly for such contingencies. Five others were wounded, but returned to duty after a full recovery.

  Mitch had to have a few of stitches, a brace on his ear where the cartilage had been damaged, and a bandage on his head to keep the braced ear immobilized. Milo had two cracked ribs, some bad bruising, and some cuts that needed suturing. So did Landon. Jessie suffered a bruised knee, shoulder, hip, and shin along with a badly sprained ankle from drop rolling on the rocks as Barry shot at her. She suffered a shoulder dislocation from Landon dragging her, plus a broken arm, some very sore ribs, and a great deal of bruising over most of her torso from Landon’s crushing body slam.

  Both Acer and Jessie had to have casts, Jessie on her right forearm, and Acer on his right front leg. Acer had a hairline fracture of t
he ulna. Jessica had breaks to both the radius and ulna. Landon and the dogs all had cuts and burns from the rain of burning debris, but all of it was much better than dead.

  The crushed, broken, and burned remains of Barry Olmstead were extracted from beneath Landon’s unit, and, after autopsy, sent to the crematory, then deposited in the county’s version of Potter’s Field when no one came forward to claim his body. Oli Anderson’s bullets, which had gone right through Barry Olmstead’s shoulder and head, were never recovered. No one bothered to look for them.

  Motive for the murders was never confirmed, but interviews with family and friends conducted by FBI profilers began to suggest that Barry might have been sexually abused. He was known to have been badly bullied by an older sister, a sister whose whereabouts are still unknown. As a teen, Barry exhibited voyeuristic and manipulative tendencies, inducing friends and fellow students to execute acts he planned and observed, but in which he did not often participate.

  Six Canadians were identified among the deceased. The rest came mostly from out-of-state, with only nine local victims. All deaths of the victims found on Long Peak, save one, were able to be attributed to Barry because of a macabre diary found in his safety deposit box. The identity of one of the oldest sets of recovered remains found upon the slopes of Long Peak was never identified, but the body of Flora Roberts was discovered buried in her back yard, yet another victim of Barry Olmstead’s perverse legacy. She was exhumed and, after autopsy, given a proper funeral and interred in the family plot at the Northridge Cemetery.

  THE END

  Would you please take a moment to leave your honest review for me? Even a one liner would be appreciated, and, if you are interested in knowing when new books and audio versions of novels in the The Jessica Anderson K-9 Mysteries series become available, you can sign up for my newsletter on my website, DLKeur.com. Thank you. –Dawn