When I glance back, her hands shoot up. “That wasn’t an insult, Butler. Not to the pooch or her trainer. I’m just curious. I don’t know how this works.”
I resume walking. “Storm should slow at any spot where the trail tangles. For instance, where Gloria’s captor knocked her out and dragged her into a hole. However, if the entry trail and exit trail overlap, Storm might skip the tangle and just keep going.”
“Because she knows the exit trail is usually the important thing—where Gloria went afterward.”
“Right.”
Jen goes quiet as we continue. Two minutes later, we’re at the stream again.
“Is it possible—again, not insulting anyone here—to ask her to find a tangle of scents? Or to show you where Gloria stopped?”
“It’s not something we’ve trained her for. For us, it’s all about taking us to where a person is now. Tracking missing people. That’s hard enough in this terrain.”
I crouch in front of Storm and think as I pet her. Then I straighten. “The problem is that the waypoint should be obvious. It’s not as if Gloria pulled off to pee and rejoined the trail two minutes later. She was hit on the head and dragged to a hole that couldn’t have been far from where she fell. With the number of times Storm has followed this section of the trail, she should have diverted at least once.”
I glance down at Storm. “She clearly knows she’s missing something, and she’s a smart dog.”
I rub the back of my neck. “Maybe I’m overthinking it. She knows where the trail leads so she’s skipping any side paths.”
“Or maybe Gloria was buried on the other side of the stream?”
I squint over at the running water. “Possibly? Gloria said she walked through water with her captor. That was to foil any tracking, but Storm eventually found the exit point, which is here. Then Gloria says she woke and heard the water, knew that was the way back and headed toward it.”
I pause and look both ways. Then I shut my eyes to listen for the water. To Jen’s credit, she doesn’t speak. When I look again, I say, “Okay, so it seems as if she woke and walked away from the water, but with my eyes closed, if I was farther from it, I could see how she’d make the mistake.”
I glance at Jen, who shrugs and says, “You’re the detective. It’s way too complex for me. What exactly do you hope to find at the scene anyway?”
I pause. Then I say, “What did you hear about Jolene?”
“That she died of misadventure.”
“That is the council’s ruling.”
“Huh,” she says. “Let me guess. Her misadventure was that she stumbled into a person-shaped pit and dirt magically covered her.”
“Something like that. But I didn’t say it. The council has been very clear on the ruling, outlining dire consequences if we contravene it.”
“Dire consequences worse than shutting down Rockton?”
“Yes. Nothing must get in the way of closing. Nothing. But if Jolene did trip into a person-size hole and dirt fell from the sky to cover her, that falling dirt also conveniently put a small length of pipe in her mouth to allow breathing.”
“Wait? You’re saying—Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re not saying anything. But if you were, you’d be saying someone not only buried Jolene but let her think she’d survive? Gave her a way to breathe for a while? That’s cold.”
Jen shakes her head. Then she says, “You want to see if the same thing was done to Gloria. If there was another pipe. What did she say?”
“That she was fully buried and couldn’t breathe. Which is why I want to check—because that means it could be a separate incident. Also, finding the site might give me other evidence.”
A rumble sounds overhead. We both look up, squinting in the direction of Rockton.
“Da plane, boss,” Jen mutters.
The first exit flight is arriving in Rockton. With it, something in me collapses.
“Screw this,” I say. “I’ve been out here too long already. Eric needs my help, and I’m chasing a killer who won’t be prosecuted. I can’t even tell the council that I caught Jolene’s killer because they don’t want to hear about it. So why the hell am I bothering?”
I glance over to see Jen standing there, and I wrinkle my nose. “Ignore me. I’m tired and frustrated. Let’s get back to town where we can do some actual good.”
“How about one more pass?”
I sigh, and with that sigh, everything in me seems to droop.
“The point, I think,” Jen says slowly, “isn’t about punishing the killer. It’s about finding them. Letting them know they didn’t get away with it. Also making sure there’s not another Gloria, one who won’t survive.”
“One more pass,” I say, holstering my gun. “Then I’m following April’s advice and confiscating all the shovels.”
* * *
This time, when I walk the route, I don’t rely on Storm’s nose. Instead, I channel Dalton and use whatever tracking skills he’s managed to impart. Any footprints on the trail itself are lost beneath our own. Same goes for any signs of passage. What I want are signs that someone left the path. They should be here. Gloria’s captor led her at knifepoint off this game trail and neither would have been trying to hide the signs.
I spot them this time, which suggests I just wasn’t looking very hard before. There’s a place where crushed undergrowth suggests someone left the trail. A footprint confirms it. I follow and find a few more footprints. Storm noses them and then grunts, as if to say, “So this is what you were looking for.”
When Jen moves in behind me, I wave for her to stay clear. The last thing I need is more footprints.
“I see disturbed soil over to your left,” she says. “That’s what you want, right? To find where she was buried?”
I nod and follow her gaze to see scratch marks in the dirt. I take two steps and then stop as I realize it really is just scratch marks. Some creature—wolverine or bear—pawed at the ground, disturbing the soil.
I tell Jen that and pick my way around the site. The burial spot should be impossible to miss, yet I’m not seeing it. All I have are maybe a half dozen partial footprints in one area. Beyond that? Nothing. There also isn’t a dead tree in sight, or a rock larger than my fist.
I circle the spot looking for the place Gloria and her captor left it. There’s nothing. Not a broken twig. Not a crushed plant. Not a smudged footprint. I spend ten minutes making increasingly larger circles and when I glance back, I can easily see my own signs of passage, but that’s it.
That isn’t possible. Gloria’s captor led her off the trail, and I can see that. There’s no sign that’s the spot where she knocked her down—certainly not where her captor dragged her—but there is also no sign that they moved past that small clearing.
I call Storm over and have her circle searching for a scent.
She finds none.