Chapter 4
HER NAME’S ANNIE. Good girl, too. Four years old, a little rambunctious, but has the drive. Won’t find a better worker; that’s for sure.”
The handler, Don Frechette, reached down and scratched his dog affectionately behind the ears. In response, Annie, a high-spirited yellow Lab, waved her tail so hard she nearly whacked her own face.
Wyatt liked dogs. Last cold case he’d worked, the cadaver dog had found a fifty-year-old bone in a dry creek bed. The bone had looked like a desiccated twig and smelled like dirt. One of the younger officers had nearly cast it aside before the accompanying forensic anthropologist had caught his arm. This old thing? the officer had asked. But it’s just a stick.
The forensic anthropologist had found it funny. Later, however, she’d confessed to Wyatt that she considered the whole thing amazing as well. The bone had long since lost all organic matter, she explained. What was left for the dog to scent? But the dogs always know, she mused. Forget the latest advancement in GPS tracking and forensic analysis; anytime she was out in the field, she just wanted a good dog’s nose.
Tessa had expressed an interest in getting a dog. Maybe he could take her and Sophie puppy shopping this weekend. Visit the local animal shelter, bring home a new addition to the family. Surely that’d earn him some points with the kid.
Or would that be trying too hard? Tessa had made it very clear the worst thing he could do was try too hard.
It wasn’t that Sophie hated him, he reminded himself. Maybe.
“Conditions?” he asked Frechette, gesturing to the man’s light rain jacket, then the dog’s thin coat, given the low-forties chill.
“Not a problem. We’ll warm up soon enough. I don’t mind the cold. Pools the scent, keeps it low, easier to track for the dog. And Annie fatigues faster in heat. Morning like this, clear skies, low temps, she’ll be raring to get to work. Now, you said it’s a car crash.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Glass?”
“Quite a bit around the vehicle.”
“She’ll need her boots, then. Other terrain?”
“Mostly mud, one briskly moving stream. There’s some prickly shrubs, the usual mess of random rocks and broken branches. Getting down is a little tricky, given the grade. But once you’re in the ravine . . . Decent hiking, actually. God knows the Fish and Game officers have probably already made it to Maine and back.”
“Fish and Game? Who’s working?”
“Barbara and Peter.”
“Oh, I like them. Good people. And they came up with nothing?”
“We’ve all come up with nothing.” Wyatt wasn’t surprised the dog handler knew the Fish and Game officers. New Hampshire was big on woods and short on people. Sooner or later, felt like you knew everyone you met and had met everyone you knew.
“Need any more information on the child?” Kevin was asking. “We believe she’s female, approximately nine to thirteen years of age.”
Frechette gave Kevin a funny look, then peered down at Annie, who was nearly dancing with anticipation. “Hey, girl, you need a description? Plan on calling the kid’s name? Or maybe use your color-blind eyes to find a pink coat?”
Kevin flushed.
“We don’t need vitals, Detective. All we need is Annie’s nose. Trust me, if there’s a child out there, Annie’ll bring her home.”
After a bit of discussion, they settled on a search strategy. Having worked with several different dogs in different situations, Wyatt already knew most handlers had their own opinions on the best way to get the job done. Given that their search area was relatively small, and now scent contaminated by dozens of officers who’d already been swarming the scene, Frechette wanted to approach it like a tracking case. Start Annie in the back of the car, last suspected location of the child, and see if she could pick up a trail from there. A strategy better suited for a bloodhound than a Lab, Frechette confessed, but he remained sold on his girl’s skills. His dog had the training, had the drive; she’d find their missing child.
A little yellow Lab puppy, Wyatt thought. Red bow around its neck. Here, Sophie. Got this for you.
Most likely Sophie would accept the puppy, while continuing to regard him with her thousand-yard stare.
Wyatt was in trouble. He’d figured it out six months ago. He hadn’t just fallen in love with an amazing woman, Tessa Leoni; he’d fallen in love with her kid. And while dating in your twenties was all about hoping the parents liked you; dating in your forties was all about hoping her kids accepted you. In that regard, nine-year-old Sophie was proving a tough nut to crack.
Not that she hated him. Maybe.
They headed back down the ravine.
The other officers were dropping back, per the handler’s request. Wyatt had issued the command by radio. It was a tough call to make, pulling back the human searchers in order to bring in a canine. But the rule of thumb was that one dog was worth 150 volunteers. Meaning Annie was the best hope they had, and for her to do her job, she needed all the searchers and their various scent profiles out of her way.
Some of the state and local officers were already passing them, heading up as they headed down. Now Barbara and Peter from Fish and Game paused on their return to scratch Annie’s nose. Not having been issued her work command yet, Annie responded by preening happily.
The searchers all looked tired, Wyatt thought, but not dispirited. The search hadn’t been going on long enough to be considered a failure but, at the four-hour mark, was becoming more concerning. How much ground could a young child have really covered in the early hours of the morning? And why wouldn’t she backtrack at the sound of their voices?
They had passed from an easy search into the land of more troubling. These officers, especially Barbara and Peter, were experienced enough to know it.
They arrived at the crashed Audi. Frechette whistled low under his breath as he took it in.
“Damn. Talk about a nose dive. It’s like the thing sailed over a cliff or something.”
Wyatt didn’t comment. Without any results from the Total Station, he wasn’t sure about the “or something.”
Annie took in the wreckage as well, whining low in her throat. She was no longer dashing about, but regarding her handler fiercely. She knew, Wyatt thought. With a dog’s unerring sense, she understood it was time to work.
Frechette told the dog to stay. She whined again but did as she was told. The handler walked around the scene, taking in the broken glass, the bloodstains, the pieces of warped metal. He was looking out for his dog, Wyatt realized, as was his job.
The handler came around, peering in the rear passenger’s side window. “Think the kid sat back here?”
“That’s our assumption,” Kevin spoke up.
“Clean,” Frechette commented.
Wyatt frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, most of us carry a lot of shit in our cars. Extra jacket this time of year, snacks, bottles of water, I don’t know. Mail we haven’t taken into the house yet, dog leashes, random junk. At least, my vehicle has most of that stuff. Bet yours does, too.”
Wyatt couldn’t argue with that. He stepped closer. First time around, he’d been focused on the damage in the front. This time, he saw Frechette’s point. The floor of the rear of the vehicle contained some shards of glass, most likely from the broken whiskey bottle or dragged from the front as the driver had crawled through. But, yeah, the normal detritus of everyday life—old coffee cups, bottles of water, snacks for the child, iPad for playing in the car . . . Nada. The rear seats, cargo area, held nothing at all.
Apparently, the only item the driver thought you needed for a road trip was a bottle of Glenlivet.
“That a problem?” Wyatt asked the handler.
“Not at all. Good news, really. I was worried the back might have more glass, be hard on Annie’s paws. Way I see it, we can load her into the cargo area, have her jump into the rear seats and get to work. Hey, Annie!”
The yellow Lab, still obediently sitting next to Kevin, whined in response.
“Wanna work?”
A single enthusiastic bark.
“All right, honey. Let’s go to work. Come, Annie. Come!”
The dog bolted to his side, a yellow bullet that paused only long enough to home in on her handler’s face, awaiting the next command.
“Up!”
She leapt into the cargo area.
“Go!”
She was in the passenger’s seat, not sniffing, not exploring, big brown eyes still riveted to Frechette’s face.
“Okay, Annie,” Frechette called through the open rear hatch. “Here’s the deal. There’s a missing girl and you’re gonna track her. Track, do you understand?”
Wyatt thought this was a pretty colloquial approach to dog training, but what did he know? Annie certainly seemed to understand, ears pricked, body on high alert.
“Scent up!”
The dog dropped her head, began snuffling over the seat, the door handle, the window. Her lips were peeled back slightly, as if she was taking the scent not just into her nose but into her mouth and tasting it.
“Go find, Annie. Go find!”
The dog whined, now working the rear seats in her own grid pattern, back and forth, back and forth. She was on the hunt, no doubt about it, her attention no longer on her handler, but 100 percent focused on catching scent.
She backtracked. Moved from behind the passenger’s front seat to behind the driver’s seat. More anxious sniffing, another low whine. Exploring both rear car doors thoroughly, up and down, side to side. Then a first exploratory paw, stepping off the seat onto the glass-studded floor.
Thank God for dog boots, Wyatt thought. He couldn’t have watched it otherwise.
More whining, anxious, distressed. Then Annie was back on the seats, side to side, back and forth. Then with a graceful hop she was over, in the rear cargo space, diligently working that space inch by inch.
Some dogs lie down to signal they are on scent. Others barked. Wyatt wasn’t sure of the nuances, but best he could tell, Annie wasn’t having any luck yet. And it was pissing her off.
She glanced at Frechette, whined again, clearly frustrated.
“Scent up!” he repeated.
The dog dropped her head, back to work. She leapt from the cargo area to the rear seats. Then, after another few minutes of careful exploration, backtracked to the middle of the bench seat. She snuffled, paused, snuffled.
Then, facing forward, she leaned forward toward the glass-strewn center console, her movements slow and careful. She understood glass, Wyatt realized. Or at least had enough experience with it to know to proceed with caution. More sniffing, above the glass. And then.
Woof.
She retreated to the center of the bench seats. Woofed again. Jumped over the seat backs to the cargo area. Another bark, tail up, eyes back on Frechette as she ran to the rear bumper, body on high alert.
Frechette got the message. “Track, Annie. Track!”
She sailed out of the car, a tad too enthusiastically, then had to backtrack to recover the trail. But within a matter of minutes, she was on scent, head down, sleek body moving effortlessly over the ground as she jogged from side to side, bush to bush. She began to ascend the ravine; they followed.
Moving in the dog’s wake, Wyatt began to notice things he hadn’t spotted before. The way this one bush had a broken branch. Another offered up a long strand of dark hair caught between two leaves. A person had come this way, and to judge by the freshness of the snapped twig, very recently.
Tracking was never completely linear. They stayed ten feet back, allowing Annie plenty of space to work as she jogged forward, eased back, raced right, then regrouped to the left. An older, wiser dog might have paced herself, whereas Annie had clearly thrown herself into the chase. Come hell or high water, she was gonna find her target.
They worked their way up the ravine in a slow zigzag pattern, as if the initial person hadn’t known where she was going. Had been stumbling around in the dark.
More evidence: a dislodged rock, trampled grass, a scrap of torn fabric. Wyatt flagged each item for future collection. They’d have to map this trail, sketch it up, then retrieve all evidence for testing.
Two-thirds of the way up, they came upon a large boulder, streaked on one side with a reddish-brown substance. Blood, Wyatt realized. Heavy enough not even the rain had been able to wash it away. They paused as Annie worked the base of the boulder, whining anxiously. The girl had been injured, then. Maybe, as they’d discussed, she’d regained consciousness before the mother and gone in search of help.
A lone child, standing roadside in the middle of the night . . .
They didn’t talk anymore. Annie moved forward. Wordlessly, the three men followed.
Cresting the hill, Annie began to bark. Now she dashed into the road, racing straight ahead, then right, then left, then around and around in a twenty-foot circle, nearly frantic. She crossed the road, darted back. Headed back down the ravine ten feet, came leaping back.
“Track!” Frechette commanded, frowning at his charge. “Told you she was young,” he muttered under his breath, half excuse, half explanation.
Annie didn’t look at him anymore. She continued running in circles with growing frustration.
Abruptly, the dog sat. She stared at Frechette, barked twice, then lowered her head and lay on the ground. She was no longer a friendly, eager canine. In fact, she wouldn’t look at them at all.
“What does that mean?” Wyatt asked.
“She’s done. Not only lost the trail, but she’s worked herself into a state over it. She’ll have to rest before we can try again. Give us thirty minutes.”
Wyatt nodded at the handler, who stepped forward to tend his despondent charge.
“Dogs don’t take failure well,” Kevin commented.
“Neither do I.” Wyatt headed back to the edge of the ravine, peering down at the meandering trail they’d just followed. So someone—the missing child?—had made it this far, and then . . .
“Sir.”
Wyatt turned to see Officer Todd Reynes standing by him. “Todd,” Wyatt greeted him. “Heard you were the first responder. Thanks for taking the lead in looking for the missing kid.”
“Not a problem. Sir, that’s the search dog, right?”
“Yep. Her name’s Annie. Young, we’re told, but did a good job tracking the trail this far. Now, however, you can tell she’s a little frustrated.”
“She’s lost the scent?”
“Apparently.”
“I think I might know why.”
Wyatt arched a brow. “By all means, Officer,” he said, indicating for the man to explain.
“See that sign there?”
Wyatt turned toward the roadside. Sure enough, fifteen feet down was a yellow caution sign warning of the sharp turn ahead.
“When I first arrived on scene, I noticed the caution sign because Daniel Ledo, the man who placed the initial call, was standing beside it. While right about there”—Reynes pointed to Annie, still lying on the ground, gazing up at her handler mutinously—“was the ambulance.”
Wyatt straightened. “You’re saying—”
“That’s where the EMTs loaded the driver onto the stretcher.”
Wyatt closed his eyes. He got it now. The scent the dog had picked up, the trail they had just followed up the ravine. Not the missing child’s after all, but the driver’s.
“Always the risk,” he muttered. “I mean, you can tell the dog to track, but you can’t tell her who to follow.”
He crossed to Frechette to break the news. Frechette reiterated that his dog needed a break, but in twenty or thirty minutes, they could try again.
Which they did. Twice, with the same results.
According to Annie, one scent came out of the vehicle. One scent trailed up to the road. They circled her around the wreck. They brought her to the fast-flowing stream.
Annie grew increasingly sullen and resentful. She’d done her job.
One scent. One trail. One person, who mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the paved road.
That was Annie’s story, and she was sticking to it.
“Houston,” Wyatt declared shortly after 10 A.M., “we have a problem.”