“I will. That’s what happens when it’s so long between visits.”
“Well, if it helps, we did hear someone,” Jacob says. “We caught a man’s voice maybe a quarter mile back. They were off the trail, and the guy was whispering. Nic thought it might be a couple sneaking away from Rockton, so we kept quiet as we passed, giving them privacy.”
“Did you hear what was being said?”
Nicole shakes her head. “A guy was talking. That’s all we caught.”
I turn to the forest and raise my voice just a little. “Jen, are you out here?”
Storm appears first, barreling through to see Jacob and Nicole, and we need to drag her off before she knocks Nicole flying. I stand over Storm to hold her still while Nicole pets her.
“Riding your dog now,” Jen says as she steps out. “The sheriff hasn’t bought you enough motor toys?” She nods at Nicole and Jacob with a gruff greeting that softens a little for Nicole.
“Could you escort Nicole and Jacob into town?” I say. “They heard someone a quarter mile back. If I’m lucky, that’s far enough away not to have overheard us. I’m going to check it out.”
“By yourself?” Jacob says.
“I have Storm.”
“And you have me,” he says. “My brother would kill me if I let you chase down bad guys alone.”
“Minor-league bad,” I say. “But yes, since you know where you heard that voice, I’ll take the help. Jen? Escort Nicole straight to April, please. I don’t want her sneaking off before she’s had a full prenatal exam.”
Nicole rolls her eyes, but follows Jen down the trail.
* * *
As Jacob and I head out, it’s a struggle to keep from peppering him with questions. They really have been away too long. I understand it. They’re a new couple. Part of me is envious. Dalton and I have been permitted a handful of weekends off. I dream of an entire week alone together. I’d take a month, maybe even a summer. More than that, and we’d both be jonesing for outside conversation. Neither of us is overly sociable, but we love our group of friends, and our brains need the extra stimulation of conversations and debates that go beyond our echo-chamber-for-two.
Jacob is accustomed to a very different kind of life. He lived in the woods with his family until Dalton was taken, and then with just his parents, who’d died when he was a young teen. He’s introspective and introverted by nature, and I think his short visits to Rockton are all the socializing he needs. As for Nicole, she spent a year being held captive in a cave. She’s more sociable than Jacob, but she finds a serenity in the wilderness with Jacob, the two of them bonded tight and happy together.
Any catching up will need to wait.
Jacob leads the way off-trail. The longer we walk, the more certain I am that I’ve missed my chance. The forest is silent, and Storm isn’t perking up to show she’s caught a live scent. Conrad and his “fan” must have seen Jacob and Nicole—or he heard us talking—and they’ve bustled back to town along another route.
Jacob slows and cocks his head. I listen, but I only catch the faint burble of a stream over rocks. He mouths Too far, and I realize the stream is what he’d heard, an audio indication that we’ve walked past the point where they heard the voice.
He considers a moment and then reverses course. I fall in step behind him. Storm snuffles the air but only lightly, as if scenting something other than her target. We’re on the opposite side of the path from where Jacob heard someone, meaning there’s no trail here for Storm to follow.
After a few moments, Jacob slows. He motions for me to wait, and he slips back to the path, presumably to check landmarks. When he returns, he whispers, “We’re in the right area, but it’s quiet.”
I gesture that I’m going to check it out, while asking him to stay back with Storm. He nods. They’re close enough to come to my aid if I need it.
I creep to the path. Then I stop and listen. It’s thick brush here, the kind of spot where I could be a foot off the path and have someone pass by without seeing me.
When I hear nothing, I ease across the path and into the brush on the other side. I make my way through, stopping every couple of steps to listen. Still nothing to hear.
Okay, that’s not exactly true. If I strain, I can pick up the distant rustle of some critter in the undergrowth. A red squirrel scolds. The wind whispers through the evergreens, perfuming the air. But immediately around me, all is silent. Any birds or animals know I’m here and they’re waiting for me to move on.
What I don’t hear is a human sound. Not a voice. Not a footfall. Not a cracked branch.
I’ve missed my chance—possibly through my own carelessness, happily reuniting with Nicole and Jacob when I was supposed to be working. It’s easy to do that here. Too easy, the line between Detective Butler and Resident Casey blurred often to invisibility.
Down south, I’d worked with a detective who’d moved from small-town Newfoundland, and he’d always said it had been both rewarding and restricting working and living in a community of a few hundred people. At the time, I didn’t really understand either part. Now I do. This way of life and of policing suits me better than I ever imagined, but I still need to work harder on separating my roles.
I’ve lost my chance to catch Conrad with his informant, but I still have one hope. The scene of the crime, or in this case, the scene of the meeting that I consider criminal. I very much doubt either participant left behind incriminating evidence, but at least I might be able to get shoe prints.
I call for Jacob to rejoin me, and Storm picks up Conrad’s scent on the path. He’d snuck out of town off-path, but once he felt safe, he’d followed the trail to meet whoever sent him that message. Then they left the path to tramp along a game trail and ended up in a clearing.
Storm snuffles around the clearing while I search for clues. I find and mark two partial prints from the same tread.
“Hey,” Jacob says. “Someone tried to cover their tracks here.”
I glance over to see him looking down at a scuff mark. Someone left a footprint and then tried to rub it out. It’s a laughable attempt, so obvious that it draws our attention to a footprint that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The hasty erasure leaves enough for me to get an idea of both the shoe size and tread pattern.
When Storm woofs, I’m bent over the print, sketching the tread in my notebook. She gives another woof, and I’m on my feet, turning to find her. The sun has started to drop, and it gets dark faster in the forest. Spotting a black dog isn’t easy, and she gives a third woof before Jacob and I locate her, ten feet away.
I make my way over and find her nosing at the ground.
“It’s been disturbed,” Jacob says. “Something digging. Bear maybe? Wolverine?”