Scent of Murder by James O. Born Read Free Book Online Page A

him.

 
    5
    Hallett paused, still keeping the beam of his flashlight pointed in front of Rocky. It was always a concern that a police service dog would read or be influenced by subtle, inadvertent clues from the handler. In training, Ruben Vasquez went to great lengths to keep the handler in the dark as to where practice drug bundles were hidden so the dog had to find them on his own. Now Hallett wondered if he was violating that dog handler commandment by shining his light in front of Rocky, in effect leading him where Hallett thought might be the best place to look.
    Rocky hesitated, and Hallett waited patiently, not wanting to rush him.
    Darren and Brutus walked over, but Hallett raised his hand to give Rocky a moment more. Then the dog leaned down, put his paw over his nose, and made the same funky lawn mower sound.
    Darren asked, “What is it?”
    â€œNot sure. But you heard that abnormal alert, too. Just like this afternoon.”
    â€œIt didn’t sound like any alert I ever heard or saw before.”
    Hallett stepped back and spread his beam over the soft, muddy ground just off the packed white shell-rock road between the fields and the pine windbreaks. He was missing something.
    Claire and Smarty walked over, but they stopped well outside the perimeter of where Rocky was alerting. She didn’t want to contaminate their potential crime scene. She called out, “Any idea what we’re looking for?”
    Hallett shook his head. “I don’t see anything in the area. Not even a branch or leaf.”
    Claire said, “Maybe it’s not something we can see on top of the ground.”
    Hallett said, “Rocky would start digging if it was buried.”
    â€œThat’s not what I’m talking about. Maybe it’s just a strong scent.” Claire carefully walked around to Hallett. She surveyed the scene like a movie director, changing position and squatting low to look along the plane of the ground. Finally, she said, “I see three things of interest. It looks like a tire tread right here”—she placed the beam of her flashlight on a patch of ground—”a shoe print here, and the ground has been disturbed over here.”
    Now that she pointed them out to him, Hallett noticed all three disturbances in the soft ground. He pulled out his phone and snapped a few photographs. “You think we should call crime scene? Fusco was in charge earlier, but I didn’t see them take any notice of these imprints.”
    Claire let out an exasperated sigh. “We’re supposed to be trained and adaptable. We don’t need crime scene just to take a few photographs and make a plaster cast of a shoe that may or may not involve the case.”
    Now Darren said, “You can make plaster casts?”
    Claire just shook her head and walked over to her Tahoe. A few minutes later she came back carrying a plastic box with the material needed to make a cast of the imprint.
    As she mixed and poured the plaster, Claire said, “There’s not enough of the other two imprints to make a cast. But I would guess the tire is small enough that it went to an import. The other imprint might be someone’s butt where they slipped and fell.”
    Darren had to say, “That’s a pretty big butt.”
    Claire snapped a few photos as the plaster dried.
    All three of them froze at an unusual sound on the quiet night air.
    Darren said, “You hear that?”
    It was a vehicle.
    *   *   *
    Junior took his foot off the gas and allowed the Olds to coast as he edged it toward a small stand of pine trees. There was someone on the edge of the road up ahead. He couldn’t make out any details, but he could see the shadow, and it threw off his plan.
    He’d thought he’d be able to creep in unseen and do what he had to do. He had to creep in unseen for the plan to work. As his eyes adjusted to the light he could make out that the figure was a