Touching Evil (12 page)

Excitement thrummed in her veins.  If the match was verified, this was valuable information, indeed.  “If it does prove to be him, you’ll need to prioritize tips of individuals living or working in the area.  Triangulate a grid between all the nearby Pinter’s, focusing on the neighborhoods and businesses closest to this one.  Likely he either lives or works within a few miles of this grocery store.”

Oh.”  A thought occurred to her.  “Most of the Pinter’s stores have a pharmacy.  See if he had prescriptions filled there.”

“All the store employees will be shown the sketch,” he agreed.  “If it comes down to getting a look at his prescription history, it’ll take a warrant, but I can get it.  Do you have something specific in mind?”

“It’s just a thought.  He could be under treatment for some diagnosed mental illness, I suppose.  But I’m wondering if he might have some condition that caused him to lose his sense of smell.”  Close proximity to the odor of decomposition would be overpowering.  Even protective covering over the nose didn’t mask the smell.  “The kids at the scene hadn’t described the man with a mask.  So with this offender’s perverted predilection for corpses, maybe he dealt readily with the odor because he couldn’t  smell them.”

“Your mind…”  The admiration in his expression warmed something inside of her.  “What medical condition would cause a permanent loss of smell?”

She thought for a moment.  “There are several.  Advanced diabetes and MS are two, but I can’t imagine this offender having the strength needed for these crimes if he were in the advanced stages of either.  That also rules out Alzheimer’s and old age.  But there are medications that can lead to a loss of smell, too.  Also trauma to the nose, nasal polyps, radiation, chronic cocaine use…”  She gave a little shrug.  “The possibilities are there.”

“Yeah, they are.  It’s a good thought.”  For the first time she noticed the small smile playing about his mouth.  

“What?”

“I know we’ve had this conversation before, but you would have made a helluva cop.”

It was hard to think with the intensity of his gaze trained on her.  His eyes seemed more gold than brown when they were focused on something, and right now she was the object of his attention.  Muscles in her stomach quivered.

 “My reasons for using my training strictly for research and as a civilian forensic consultant haven’t changed.”  

“You said it was because you were too big a coward to do otherwise.”  His voice had lowered.  The slightly raspy tone scraped over nerve endings that seemed overly sensitive.   “But it wasn’t a coward who out-witted Vance.  Who saved Courtney Van Wheton and escaped from the barn you were kept in.  Somehow I’m going to find a way to convince you of that much.”

Sophia forced herself to look away, oddly shaken at how easily the conversation had veered to the personal.   She wished fervently that he could convince her of just that.  Wished he could make her believe that her success in diverting Vance from assaulting her in exchange for time to create a more ‘accurate’ profile to release to the public had been solely due to bravery.

Because when she’d discovered that he’d used the intervening time to sexually brutalize another victim…her cleverness had seemed like something much less admirable.  And until she could extricate Courtney Van Wheton’s screams from her mind, she knew she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

It was with a degree of relief that she noted the plume of dust rising from the road before them.  Within moments she could make out the approach of a dark Tahoe.  The cadaver dog and handler had arrived.

She wasn’t altogether certain what it said about her that the arrival and what it entailed was a welcome distraction from her memories.

Chapter 6

“George.”  The two men shook hands.  “Never sure who’s going to respond to the call out.  Glad to have you.”  Cam had worked with George Roberts several times before.  The man belonged to the STAR-1 civilian team that had an agreement with DCI, and were dispatched through the Story County emergency services.  Most recently Roberts had helped on a missing persons’ case Cam had worked involving a missing five-year-old girl.  The handler knew what he was doing.

 “Dr. Mona Kilby is working with us on this investigation.”  The name sounded foreign on his tongue but he delivered the falsehood without batting an eye.  Before he’d transferred to DCI Cam had worked for DNE, the narcotics enforcement branch.  He’d spent more time than he wanted to consider working undercover where his survival depended on his ability to lie convincingly.  It was that earlier undercover experience that had landed him on the multi-agency task force a couple years ago.  To Sophie he said, “George runs his own marketing firm.”

The man pulled a dark cap over his longish brown hair. “And my boss is a real pain.  Took some real arguing to get the time off.”  Tall and lanky, he had a lean face and an irreverent sense of humor.  His navy T-shirt read:  Z-Pack. We Find Zombies.

 Cam’s mouth quirked as he read it.  The cadaver dog handlers, like major crime agents were present at some pretty grisly discoveries.  It wasn’t unusual to use humor to establish some sort of emotional distance.  And even then there would be sights that were impossible to scrub from the mind.

“I want you to meet someone new.”  He went to the back seat and opened the door to let out a black and white border collie.  

Cam eyed the dog.  “Where’s Deke?”  Every time he’d worked with the man before he’d worked with an intelligent-looking German Shepherd.

Roberts grimaced.  “Participated in that search over by Elkader last month.  You hear about it?”

He had.  An elderly man with Alzheimer’s had wandered away from his caregiver.  His body had been found miles out in the country, on an abandoned farmstead.

“On the way back to the vehicle Deke got his foot caught in the rotted cover of a cistern.  I even had him on a leash, but the place was so overgrown, I just didn’t see it.”  Remorse was evident in his voice.  “Had some pretty nasty splinters taken out of his paw.  He’s still favoring it so he’s not up for work quite yet.  This is Veyda.  She was a rescue pup a couple years ago.  Has all the training standards met and has proven herself several times over.  She’ll do fine.”

Cam watched the dog beeline for Sophie and was unsurprised to see the delight on the woman’s expression.  They’d spent several hours one afternoon in a shelter looking for a pet for Livvie to present Carter for his birthday.  Their progress had been slowed by Sophie’s inability to pass a cage without stopping to coo over the animal inside, no matter how homely or battle-scarred.

Sophie lowered herself carefully to one knee to pet the animal.  Stopped herself, hand midway in the air to look at George.  “Will I distract her?”

The man grinned.  “You’d distract any of us, Dr.  But she hasn’t gotten the work command yet.  You can pet her.”

Cam watched Sophie fuss over the dog and the canine’s blissful response.  It occurred to him that in that regard, dogs and men weren’t all that different.  With or without a disguise, Sophie would rate a second glance from any male with a pulse.

In concise words he brought the other man up to speed.  Roberts nodded.  “Dispatch said you had a small search area, so it shouldn’t take long.  Where do you want us to start?”  

Cam pointed toward the path into the woods.  “Through the trees and down a bluff there’s a clearing.  That’s where the corpse was found.  Another unrelated bone was discovered in a cave down there.”

Roberts called to the dog and it reluctantly left Sophie to return to its owner.  He snapped a leash on its harness.

“They brought the body out on the path that way,” Sophie ventured.  “Won’t she alert to the scent?”

“She’ll definitely pick it up.  But I won’t give her the command until we’re at the search area.  Once she’s working nothing can disturb her focus.”  The handler started off and Sophie followed, Cam falling into step behind her.

George and Veyda led the way toward the path that would take them to the ridge above the clearing.  Roberts was the chatty type, and he kept up a constant monologue as they walked.  He had a fascinated audience in Sophie.  “Dogs can identify smells at least a thousand times better than humans.  They’ve even been known to alert to thirty-year-old body dumps.”

“Does she work from air scent or ground?”   Cam reached out to steady Sophie as she stumbled on the uneven terrain.  If she fell with her injured wrist she’d have difficulty breaking her fall.

 “Both,” Roberts informed her as they walked through the dense trees.   “You’ll see her working nose up and then once she gets a scent she’ll have it down, trying to find the source.  These dogs search specifically for human remains, and they alert to the gases decomposing bodies release into the air.  Where we’ve got about five million olfactory receptors in our noses, dogs have nearly fifty times as many.”  As if in demonstration of her handler’s words, Veyda turned her head first in one direction then another as her entire body quivered with the act of sorting out the scents.  Occasionally she’d look back at her owner, as if questioning why she hadn’t been given the start command when there were clearly so many target scents in the area.

When they came to the clearing, Cam hung back to help Sophie maneuver the descent.  “By the time I’m done with this I should be able to find the place in my sleep.”  He reached out to catch her around the waist when one of her feet skidded out from under her on the treacherous incline.

“Let’s hope that’s never required.  Although I’m beginning to think we may be spending far more time in this place than either of us had intended.”

He shot her a look, noting her grim expression.  He felt a similar feeling of foreboding.  It was hard to hope for a positive outcome in this search, given what they knew about this UNSUB’s connection to Vance.

Cam showed George the spots where the body had been found, and the cave where it had been kept.  

Roberts looked pensive as he scanned the area.  “If someone disposed of a body he’d want to do so with the least amount of physical labor.  Here that means dumping it in the river or digging a shallow grave somewhere in this clearing, so the body doesn’t have to be hauled off site through those woods.  Can’t see him dumping in the river around here, though.”

Sophie looked at Cam for confirmation.  “Why not?”

“The Raccoon is heavily fished.  According to DNR, this area is a fairly popular spot.  And that means increased chances of discovery.  Fishing lines getting snagged on the body.”  He was deeply regretting his decision to re-don the jacket.  Although the morning temperature had been mild, it had to be at least mid-eighties right now.  He plucked a pair of mirrored sunglasses from his inside coat pocket and donned them.

George re-folded the map, tucked it away.  “They’ve pulled more than one car chassis and washing machine out of this river in places, though.  If it was me I’d haul the body by boat further down the river.  Closer to West Des Moines the Raccoon gets a lot deeper.”

“That’s what you’d do, huh?” Cam’s voice was dry.  Roberts grinned.

“You don’t know how lucky you are that I didn’t turn to a life of crime.”   The handler returned his attention to the dog, which was straining at the leash, clearly anxious to begin.  “How recent do you think the dump occurred?”

“We don’t know.  We can’t even be sure there is a dump here,” Cam said, as much to remind Sophie as himself.  “The gurney would have enabled the UNSUB to transport the box and body from the vehicle on the road to the cave.  It could have just as easily been used to cart it back to the vehicle.”  The words were true, but lacked conviction.  Maybe the offender had planned that this corpse would find a home in a rural cemetery like the first six of Vance’s victims had.  If that were the case, this site had been selected solely on the seclusion it afforded the UNSUB to act out his perversions in secret.

It’d be easier to believe that scenario if not for that human bone they’d found.

As if plucking the thought from his head, Sophie murmured, “It would help if we could age the bone.  I know Lucy has some expertise in the area, but she’s swamped right now.  It’s too bad Gavin Connerly’s not still consulting.”

“He’s on a plane back.”  Her head swiveled toward his, surprise in her expression.  “Got a text from Gonzalez earlier.  He had called her concerning your…article in the paper.”  Meaning her obit, but there was no reason to let the handler in on the secret.  Too many people knew the truth already.  “The SAC filled him in and he volunteered to come back immediately and consult, free of charge.”

There was a slight smile on her lips he didn’t quite trust.  “How very altruistic of Gavin.”

He grunted at that.  The forensic anthropologist from Berkley had been a huge help aging the human remains they’d excavated from the rural cemeteries.  Cam didn’t know what was bringing the man back, and he didn’t care.  He’d welcome any insight the man could offer.

A side benefit was that he’d be stationed once again at the Medical Examiner’s suites and that he seemed to drive Benally crazy.  That was a talent Cam could appreciate.

“Start with the clearing then?”

Cam nodded at the handler.  “Fine by me.”  

Roberts shrugged out of his backpack to take out a well-worn tug toy.  He told  Sophie, “The dogs are trained using positive reinforcement.  The breeds we use will do anything to play.  So we start them with play, and reward them the same way.”

He turned to the dog.  “C’mere, girl.  Come tug.”  Veyda launched herself at the other end of the toy and grabbed on with a show of teeth.  Bracing her feet, she pulled mightily, letting out a mock ferocious growl.  The two played for a minute or two before Grady replaced the toy in the pack and re-shouldered it.   He led the dog to the furthermost corner of the clearing where they could work downwind, reached down to unleash the dog and said, “Game on.”

The dog shifted from play to work with an alacrity Cam didn’t always see in humans.  It tested the air carefully and then put its head down to scent the ground.  Over and over it performed the same act, moving in a pattern discernible only to the handler.   Roberts stood a slight distance away, subtly keeping the dog to a grid that Cam knew the man had mapped in his mind upon his first sighting of the scene.