“Well, I don’t have years,” said Arpad. “I don’t even have a week, because my DOJ sponsors are breathing down my neck to lock the design of this thing so they can start getting it into the hands of police departments all around the country.”
“Any suggestions,” I intervened, “on how we might harness this as efficiently as possible?”
“I suggest we bring in a cadaver dog to prescreen the search area, see if there are places he’s interested in. Dogs cover ground faster than we can; a good dog could save us days or weeks of gridwork.”
“I thought the idea behind this was to replace the dog,” said Thornton.
“More like ‘supplement’ the dog,” Arpad said. “Dogs have spent millions of years evolving great noses. They can be trained to pick up tiny, tiny traces of specific scents—bombs, drugs, truffles, tumors, human bones. Not only can they detect it, they can track it, swim upstream—figuratively speaking—to the source of it. Scent isn’t a static, stationary thing; it’s almost got a life of its own, like moving water: it flows, it pools, it sinks, it creeps along underground layers of rock. A good cadaver dog can work his way up that current of scent—a few molecules at a time—till he gets closer and closer to the source. If we bring in a good cadaver dog, we could narrow the search area by ninety percent or more.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “You know any good cadaver dogs?”
“Actually, yes,” said Arpad. “A German shepherd named Cherokee. He found some bare human bones in a creek bed up near Bristol, which isn’t particularly amazing; he found a freshly drowned man in twenty feet of water in the Big South Fork River, which is rather amazing. I actually worked with Cherokee to help calibrate the sniffer. I ran different decomp samples past him to see if he’d alert on them—to make sure he’d recognize them as human remains. Then I repeated the process with synthetic, laboratory mixtures of a few of the key chemicals in decomp. Cherokee alerted on them; so did the sniffer. All that was indoors. Then we went out into the woods, where we did all that again with buried samples. The dog found them all; so did the sniffer.”
Thornton settled back in his chair and drummed his fingers together. “So, no offense intended,” he said, “but what’s the sniffer got that the dog doesn’t have?”
“It’s got stamina,” said Arpad. “A dog’s nose gives out pretty quickly—the neurons that send signals to the brain just get tired and quit sending. A cadaver dog can work intensely for maybe half an hour, tops, then he’s got to rest. The only thing that gives out in the sniffer is the battery, and that takes sixty seconds to replace.”
Thornton nodded, satisfied. “You reckon we could get Cherokee out here anytime soon to scout around, help us narrow down the search area?”
“I’ll call and see,” he said. “Where’s the search area?” He reached back to a credenza tucked beneath the window and grabbed a cylinder of rolled paper. Unfurling a topographic map of the Oak Ridge Reservation, he spread it on his desk and weighted the corners with books.
Thornton and I looked at each other. “There’s the rub,” I said. “We’re not exactly sure.” Arpad’s gaze swiveled from me to Thornton and back again. I laid one of the hillside pictures on the map. “We think it’s buried here, where this picture of this barn was taken.”
“And where’s the barn?”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “We don’t know where it is. Or was.”
He looked stunned. “You’re saying it could be—or could have been—anywhere on the reservation?” I nodded glumly. “And you don’t even know if it still exists?” I nodded again. “This is a chemical probe, guys, not a magic wand,” he said. “You’re talking about a search area that’s, what, fifty thousand acres? It would take a lifetime to probe this whole place. Several lifetimes. I don’t mind looking for a needle in a haystack, but this is fifty thousand haystacks. Call me when you can narrow it down to just one.”
AS WE DROVE AWAY FROM the research complex, I said to Thornton, “Arpad’s a little low-key, but he’s really excited about this.”
Thornton guffawed. “Yeah,” he said. “And Miranda’s voting Republican in the next election.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Okay, he’s not so excited,” I admitted. “I was trying to be upbeat. Sorry we wasted the trip.”
“Wasn’t wasted,” he said. “I can call up Arpad’s sponsor at DOJ and tell him the gadget works. Long as you already know where the body is.” I must have looked alarmed, because he quickly added, “Kidding. I’m kidding.”