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NOSES AND BONESES
By Jess the Dog Lady

DO NOT REPRODUCE THIS BEFORE ASKING ME!!!

CHAPTER SIX

George hopped from the descending helicopter with his two team mates. The ramshackle trailer was in sight, just through the milo field. Nicky and Mark followed him quickly, all three crouched under the turning rotors. Lights began to come on inside the trailer as the three men took up their positions. Mark and Nicky, polar opposites when it came to appearances, took the rear of the trailer quickly, while George positioned himself by the rickety front steps of the trailer. The front door opened just as George got into position, so he triggered the signal to let the other men know to come around to the front. He waited until the subject made her way down the three metal steps, then quietly snuck up behind her to place his gun’s muzzle against the back of her skull.

“Move or make a sound and I’ll drop you right now. No one will ever know what happened. Walk calmly towards the helicopter,” George informed her as the other men took their positions behind him. They already knew she lived alone, but watched their surroundings carefully just in case she’d brought home another man from the local bar. It was their job to scare her, and judging by the smell of urine coming from their prisoner they were succeeding. Her slippers didn’t make a sound as she staggered through the cut milo stalks, but her raspy breathing was clearly audible. A pink foam curler fell from her head as she was unceremoniously assisted into the helicopter. Twelve minutes after first touching down, they were already lifting off, headed for Nebraska.

“I hear you know our friend, ‘The Dog Lady’. The funny thing is, she doesn’t know you. Now, no offense, but since you’re out of breath from only walking a hundred yards, I have to assume you couldn’t work a dog if your life depended on it. Some back up handler you’d make! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA.” George laughed heartily. This woman was nothing like he’d imagined. For some reason, he’d expected a woman who could at least raise her arms over her head without becoming winded. Instead, he was facing an idiot who was blabbering to him about her friends in the FBI.

“Lady, we are the FBI! Hey, I just realized something... where was your patrol dog? I never even heard a bark when we landed? Do you even have a dog? So you’ve had over seven-hundred finds in two years with that same patrol dog? You only have six-hundred people in your county! Are folks in your area so stupid that they can’t find their own way home and that’s how you accumulated those numbers? Or were you lying?” Nicky chimed in. They were going to have over an hour with this woman to torment her, and they were making every second count.

As the winds picked up around Scout and I as we sat on the chilly prairie I realized that time was wasting. Nothing more could be done from my end to protect my family and time was wasting for working this case. With every gust of wind that came, the scent would be harder for Scout to work. I gave Scout a final hug, then turned to my back-up to inform him we were back on the case. Up until now, he had remained silent, never asking for the sudden urgency for radio silence. In fact, he hadn’t asked a single question, other than if I was wanting a vehicle to come up for us to sit in to get warm. I figured I owed him some sort of an explanation.

“Some idiot put this case on an internet mailing list for Bloodhound fanciers. She thought it would make her look good to know me, I reckon’,” I spoke into the wind. “She is no longer an issue, but she put us at risk. You’re wearing your vest, yes?” I asked him. I was referring to the standard protection vest, lined with Kevlar and worn by intelligent law enforcement officers across the country.

“Yeah, It’s on,” He replied.

“Good. Let’s get back to work, no radio transmission unless we need help. Keep your head down, but your eyes open. Consider us at risk until we get to safety, ok?” I responded, taking a deep breath to clear my head. I looked at Scout, who was wearing a thin blanket of snow like a shield. I wished that someone would come out with a Kevlar vest for dogs that was functional, yet also easily tolerated by dogs. So far, the manufacturers were only concerned about human officer safety. It would be my job to watch out for Scout’s safety during the remainder of this case. I gave Scout a final hug, then asked her if she was ready to go back to work. Although tired, Scout got up again, ready to work until she dropped for me.

“OK girl, show me!” I whispered in her ear. Scout took off in the same direction, but I could see that she was having trouble working the scent. Every time the wind died down a little, she’d shoot forward, only to come back to re-work the area as the winds picked up. I raised my eyes and saw that we were nearing the windmill. I had to make a decision that I might regret later, but I did it. I pulled Scout from the trail temporarily as I decided to let her work a couple different areas. I brought her closer to the windmill, then asked her to resume the trail. The winds had picked up to gale force strengh, so I decided to pull Scout soon if we hadn’t made the find. The winds would make it too hard for us to continue if they kept up this pace.

Behind me, I faintly heard sirens over the noisy wind. I swiveled my head to look at the same time Halloran did. “Oh shit!” He cried.

“What?” I asked him over my shoulder. “It’s the local wanna-be dog handler!” Halloran yelled in my direction.

“They self-deploy whenever they hear of something interesting happening. The dog they run is nasty as can be!” He replied.

“Bite dog?” I asked him, still debating what to do about working this area with Scout. A bite trained dog was one thing. Working alongside an unstable dog was an entirely different matter. “No! He’s just nasty! Can you work any faster?”

“I’m not the one working this case!” I snapped, as I turned to face him directly. “Scout is working as fast as she can based on the conditions. We’re not miracle workers!” I cried in frustration.

"I’ll stall them, but please get moving!” He responded before getting on his radio again. “Command, we’re approximately one mile to the South-east of your position, just before the service road. Would you have someone bring us some hot coffee and blankets, please?” I didn’t need a compass to know in which direction we were headed to know that he’d just sent the other search team on a wild goose chase. I could imagine them screaming off in the opposite direction, although I couldn’t hear the sirens. Somehow I just knew that they were running code all the way and would put on seventy pounds worth of back-packs as soon as they arrived at the “scene”.

With a little time captured, I walked Scout closer to the windmill hoping that she might pick the scent up again. With a resume work command under her belt, Scout quickly closed the distance and headed straight for the windmill. I was bent over at the waist to keep from getting picked up and tossed by the high winds as we worked across the prairie. Scout’s face was crested with snow and mine wasn’t much better when she finally turned to look at me and sat. I praised her and told my companion that we were done.

“You guys might want to take a look around here, but I can’t make any guarantees. We need to get warmed up. Maybe we can try again when the storm lets up, OK?” I yelled to Halloran through the driving snow. Scout only heard the word, “OK.” With that, she headed right for the one-thousand gallon water trough sitting under the windmill and peered in. As I had dropped her lead after giving her a treat, I had to run to keep up with her. Scout attempted to climb over the high walls of the trough to get in, then backed away to sit facing me again on the sheet of ice formed around the trough’s base.

“Give me your light!” I yelled to Halloran, my headlamp being long discarded.

In the murky darkness of the water, I could see something that was just a little lighter in color than the rest of the water. I walked to the other side of the trough as I grabbed the asp from my belt-based holder. Flinging it to my side extended the tactical asp to its full thirty-one inch length. The trough walls were four feet in height, so I buried my arm into the bone chilling water, kept liquid by the constant infusion of fresh water to its mass. Using my asp as an extension of my own arm, I managed to hook what looked like fabric and start to raise it to the surface.

“Call it in. We got the last one.” I stated wearily, staring at what was left of the third victim, now water-logged and swollen. I shook out my asp, then cracked it against the frozen ground to collapse it back to its normal fifteen inches. Into its holder it went as I reached to brush the new snow off of Scout’s back. Flashing lights approached us, along with the promise of somewhere to warm up.

“There’s a helicopter circling around the airfield. They have a priority package for you but can’t land due to the weather!” A deputy screamed at me as we jogged through the wind to his waiting squad car.

“Tell them to either land or dump my package! I don’t care how it gets here, I just want it now!” I yelled back, even though both Scout and I were now out of the wind and in the back seat of a warm Ford Explorer. The deputy relayed my message and I heard them say over the radio that I’d have it waiting for me at the local hospital, just forty minutes from our location, if the roads were still passable.

“Get us to the hospital.” I told him, then sat back with my dog to warm up under the blowing heater fan. I found the thermos of coffee that’d been left for me and began to drink right from the thermos, letting the heated liquid scald my throat as it headed down to warm me from the inside out.

I pulled the ski mask back over my face as I entered the hospital room. Scout stayed in the hall on a down-stay, which after her past few days of excitement, meant fast asleep. “So, this’s the wanna-be dog handler who tried to get my ass killed tonight?” I greeted the unwilling patient. In her frumpy housecoat and only one ratty slipper, she looked slightly less impressive than the average turd in full restraints.

“I understand you’re in need of a vacation, so I’ve arranged a ninety-day stay for you here in Nebraska’s finest psychiatric facility. I want you to have a lot of time available to think about what you just did. Maybe you could also think about those hundereds of cases you supposedly worked for the FBI while you’re here.” Muffed screams behind her gag were all I could hear as I walked out the door. She was plenty scared, which was all I’d wanted. Well, almost... “Orderly, be sure that this woman has a chance to experience your E.C.T. room while here. I’ll pay extra.”

I headed for the motel room with Scout at my side, then called my parents to let them know were were almost done. I had one more thing I wanted to try tomorrow.

The next morning, two deputies stood at my motel room door with a thermos of coffee and a waiting Explorer in the snow filled parking lot. Only six inches of standing snow had fallen during the night, but the high winds had created two feet high drifts. “We got a confession last night.” One of the deputies informed me, her cheeks ruddy from the chilly air.

Scout and I walked out into the brisk morning air and climbed into the waiting truck, then headed for the Coroner’s office. Sharon, the Coroner and local veterinarian, welcomed me into her office as Scout waited out in the truck. “The bodies found in the drums were pretty decomposed, as was the body they fished from the trough. If it’d been warmer, we might not have had much left to work with,” She informed me. “Instead, the bodies in the drums were able to provide a partial semen sample from each of the victims. It’s not a great sample, but it’s something. We also have other evidence we’re working on identifying. What do you need from us?” She asked me.

“I’d like some scent pads from the semen if possible. Also, see if you can get anything from the personal items found behind the drums if not too many people have handled them. Maybe we’ll get a chance to use them later.” I told her, then showed her what I’d need and how to do it. I gathered my zip-lock baggies, then headed back out to the truck to be driven back to the sheriff’s office. Inside, there was a man who’d just confessed to these killings and I wanted to see how my dog would do in a line-up using these scent articles. Once inside, I let the Chief know what I wanted, then went to the fenced-in courtyard to wait for the line-up members to arrive. I hadn’t seen the confessor while in custody, so this would be an honest line-up as I really had no idea who it could be.

Seven men walked out of the building into the fenced courtyard. All were shackled and handcuffed, and all wore prison issue coveralls. I recognized one of the faces, a deputy who’d been out on the callout early last night, and smiled at him. Oh well, that still gave me six people to work Scout on. All were started out in a single file line, then ordered to fan out and stand with their backs to us.

“All right... My dog won’t bite unless you try to run. Just stand still and this will be over with shortly.” I instructed the men. The Coroner stood to my side and let Scout sniff her before I started her on the scent pads. I didn’t want Scout to trail the Coroner, so we used the “missing member”approach to eliminate the Coroner from our search parameters. Scout was started and she made a bee-line for one of the figures standing nearest to us.

“Is that him?” I asked Scout, fully expecting her to move on to the next man in the line-up. Scout nudged the person with her nose, then sat, expecting a treat. I had no choice. I praised her and handed over the goodie she’d said she’d earned, even though I was unhappy that she’d ID’d the deputy.

Later on, back inside the building, a detective for the case came over to me, “I can’t tell anyone if their ID is right or wrong, so I usually just say nothing. I heard you telling the other guys how your dog worked and thought you needed to know this. I want you to listen to my words carefully, OK? ‘Trust your dog. Dogs don’t lie.’ That’s all I can tell you.”

“I’m sorry he did it. I doubt you’ll ever find any answer that makes sense.” I sadly replied, before thanking him for the confirmation of my dog’s performance in the field. I could only imagine what it must be like to discover that a fellow officer had done so many horrible things to those women.

I slowly walked into the airport’s tiny bar with Scout at my side. We were both chilled to the bone and staggering from exhaustion. Scout eagerly laid down as I slowly climbed up onto the bar stool at the far end of the bar. Catching the barmaid’s eye, I motioned her towards me. The man sitting to my right looked very familiar, but I was too tired to think of who he might be.

“Bring me a bottle of wine, a chilled beer mug, a bowl of water and a well-done plain cheeseburger will ya’?” I asked the barmaid, who was dressed in black slacks and a white frilly blouse. She took my order, then walked away from us wrinkling her nose. She didn’t comment on my dog with the badges hanging from her harness. Had she looked closer, she would have seen that they were actually ski lift tickets.

“You stink lady. What’d you do-- roll in something dead?” The guy to my right asked me. I was too tired to explain.

“Something like that,” I replied as my order was delivered as requested. The wine flowed into the beer mug, clear up to the top of the handle. I let it sit for a bit, hoping to entice some ice crystals away from the edge of the glass. While the wine worked its magic, I grabbed the freshly offered cheeseburger laden plate from the barmaid. I slid off the bar stool slowly and knelt down to give the plate to Scout. I wasn’t hungry-- I just wanted a drink and a smoke. My new drinking buddy lit up a cigarette from a pack laying on the bar.

“Hey Pal..... Can I get a smoke from you?” I asked him as I reached for his pack, not waiting to hear his actual answer.

“Here,” He said as he held up his gold lighter to the end of my cigarette. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the first feelings of the smoke filling my lungs. I opened my eyes as he withdrew his hand. Before it was out of my sight, I noticed the four tattoo’d letters across his knuckles. I took another look at his face to be sure. It was him.

“Hey man, can I buy you a Cognac?” I asked him.

“You know what I drink?”

“Ayup. New York. 1990. Chesterfields Club on West 57th Street. We hung out for a while. You drank Courvoisier.” I reminded him, knowing he wouldn’t remember and I was lucky that I did.

“Yeah? Well, Hell, if you can remember what I drink, I probably ought to buy you one. I see you have a bottle though. What’s with the dog?”

“Seeing eye dog.” I stated blandly as I nodded my head in Scout’s direction. That got him to chuckle and I remembered that he’d always had a nice laugh.

“You ever get a new manager? You were bitching about the fella you had that night.” I asked him.

“Oh yeah. Got a team of them now and they’re just as screwed up as the one guy was back then!” He exclaimed a little too loudly, making me wonder just how long he’d been sitting there drinking at that tiny bar at that tiny Nebraskan municipal airport.

“Hey man, no offense, but do you know you’re in Nebraska? I mean, you know where you are, right?” I questioned him.

“Guess I got lost.” he replied, which I took to mean that he’d missed his plane because he was too wasted to get on the right one. He’d probably taken the next available flight, which happened to bring him through Nebraska. I’d only waited twelve hours for the storm to let up, but I had a feeling he’d been drinking longer than that.

“Where’re you headed?” He asked me.

“I’m going home.” I responded, my New York accent slowly making its way out of my mouth more with every sip of wine that I drank. I looked out the window and saw a small jet pulling up to the gate. “Where’re you headed?” I asked him.

“Dunno. I guess back to New York.” He replied as sullenly as he had spoken when I’d first met him all those years ago.

I tipped my mug back to drain the last drops out of it and then slipped the remaining bottle of wine into my inside coat pocket. My drinking buddy stopped me as I reached out to toss a couple bills on the countertop.

“I’ve got it,” He replied, throwing several fifty dollar bills onto the counter as he also stood up. Scout joined me as I gathered up her leash.

“Thanks for the wine. Don’t go to New York, man... You need a change of scenery.” I told him.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. See ya’ woman.” He replied, as he left our company at the bar’s entrance.

“That’s ‘Dog Lady’ to you.” I corrected him. “See ya’ Ozzy.” I retorted, as I headed for the plane which would take us home.




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