Sleep Softly. Gwen Hunter
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and I broke into a sweat.
And then I smelled it. The smell of old death.
I reeled the leash back short, keeping Cheeks just ahead. The hair on his shoulders lifted higher and his breathing sped up, making little huffs of sound. His nose skimmed along the sandy soil. The old dog put off a strong scent of his own in his excitement.
Rounding two old oaks, Cheeks quivered and stopped. He had found a scrap of cloth, his nose was planted in it. Just beyond was a patch of disturbed soil, the fresh sand bright all around, darkened in the center. More cloth protruded from the darkened space.
“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered, pulling back on Cheeks to keep him close. “Oh, Jesus.” It was a prayer, the kind one says when there aren’t any real words, just horror and fear. Cheeks lunged toward the darkened spot in the sand, jerking me hard.
“No!” I gripped the leash fiercely and pulled Cheeks away, back beyond the two oaks. With their protection between me and the grave, I stopped. Legs quivering, I dropped to the sand and clutched the old dog close. I was crying, tears scudding down my face. “Someone’s little girl. Someone’s little girl. Oh, Jesus.”
Cheeks thrust his muzzle into my face, a high-pitched sound coming from deep in his throat, hurt and confused. I’d said no when he’d done what I wanted. Shouted when he had found what he’d been told to find.
“I’m sorry, Cheeks.” I lay my head against his face and he licked my tears once, his huge tongue slathering my cheek into my hairline. My arms went around him, my body shaking with shock, fingers and feet numb. “Good Cheeks. Good old boy. You’re a hero, yes you are. Sweet dog. Sweet Cheeks.”
I laughed, the sound shuddering. “Sweet Cheeks. Jas would tease me all week if she heard me call you that. But you are. A sweet, sweet dog.”
The hound stopped whining and lay beside me, his front legs across my thigh. The pungent effluvium of tired dog and death wrapped around me. The quiet of the woods enveloped me. I breathed deeply, letting the calm of the place find me and take hold, not thinking about the death only feet away.
After long minutes, the tingling in my hands and feet that indicated hyperventilation eased and I stood. I checked my compass, dug out the spray can of orange paint and marked both trees with two big Xs.
“Okay, Cheeks. I hope you can get me back to Mabel. Home,” I commanded. “Let’s go home.” When Cheeks looked up at me with no comprehension at all, I held my jeans-clad leg to him so he could sniff the horse and said, “Find. Find.” He was a smart dog, and without a single false start led me back along the sandy riverbed. With the bright paint, I marked each turn and boulder and tree on the path, back into the sunlight and the pasture.
3
I shared more Fig Newtons with Cheeks—not the best food for a dog, but not the worst, either—took the animals to the creek for water, and used the quiet time to compose myself before moving horse and dog to the edge of the woods near the sandy depression. Once there, Cheeks and Mabel and I remained in the shade of the trees and waited for law enforcement.
Cheeks had developed a bad limp and wouldn’t make it back to the barn on his own four feet. His medication was in the kitchen, too far away to do him any good, and I could tell he was in pain. Not much of a reward for a job well done. “There’s a price to be paid for every good deed, sweet Cheeks,” I said, stroking the hound. “You find a body, you get aching joints. And I’ll bet you the cops are going to be mad at us for finding the body in the first place.”
Cheeks just panted in the rising warmth, his huge tongue hanging out one side of his mouth. In the distance, I heard the unmistakable sound of engines. Standing, I tied the dog off near Mabel and waited at the edge of sunlight.
Johnny Ray led the way along the fence that marked the pasture, driving his old truck, a seventies-something battered Ford pickup that he couldn’t seem to kill, though the motor sounded like a sewing machine that was missing a beat, and the paint was rusted and dulled out to a weary, piebald brown. Behind him came unfamiliar vehicles, a white county van, two four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles, a sport utility vehicle. For the most part, they stayed off the crops and on the verge of mown grass, but Nana would lose some hay. I figured she would have a few words to say to C.C. about that, words he wouldn’t like, and that would force him to apologize, at the very least.
The vehicles pulled up near the trees and killed the engines, pollen and dust swirling around us all. Special Agent Jim Ramsey unfolded himself from Johnny Ray’s pickup, wearing that distinct air of the FBI, suit pants and a heavily starched white dress shirt that glared in the sunlight. We were dating. Sort of. As much as I would let us. Jim was divorced, with a young daughter I hadn’t met yet. I liked Jim a lot, far more than I admitted, but he was nearly nine years younger than I. It was the age difference that I was having trouble with.
The sheriff, Johnny Ray and five cops, some in uniform, followed Ramsey from various vehicles. All were men except for one of the crime-scene techs, and I nodded to Skye McNeely, who waved back, holding up a box of Benadryl. She was my height, plump from motherhood, and newly married to the father of her child. I knew most the other cops from the rescue squad, where I volunteered. “Thanks,” I said, catching the box Skye tossed.
“Ashlee,” Sheriff Gaskins called, swiping an arm over his sweaty forehead. His pale skin gleamed in the bright sun, and sweat already stained the western-style suit coat he removed and tossed into the van. “The crime-scene guys say you did a good job with the shoe. Very thorough. Listen, thanks for getting us this far.”
“Welcome,” I said, watching the cops stack equipment and bags of fast-food breakfast. The smell of bacon and eggs made me salivate.
“That the tracker dog?” Ramsey asked.
I glanced at the animals and found Cheeks standing, straining at his leash, tail wagging. I realized he might know some of the cops, too.
“I know Cheeks,” Gaskins said. “Best tracker in the state at one time. Caught those bank robbers on motorcycles back in ninety-seven. Tracked them twenty miles to their homes.”
“That’s Cheeks. He’s still got a nose, but his hips are going,” I said.
I took two small pink and clear capsules back to my pack and buried them in the center of a Fig Newton. “Here you go, boy.” Cheeks took the treat instantly. Benadryl was an old veterinarian’s trick. It worked to combat all sorts of problems in older dogs and they could take it every day without upsetting their digestion. The dog rubbed his jowls up and down my leg in thanks and I gently smoothed the length of his ears. He sighed in ecstasy, a trail of drool landing on my boot. I’d reek by day’s end.
“Okay, people, we need to spread out, get as much work done as possible until the investigators get back from the bank scene,” Gaskins said behind me. I hid a smile at his officious tone. C. C. Gaskins was the highest elected law enforcement official in the county, but, while a trained investigator, he didn’t usually handle fieldwork. It was very likely that this was his first independent investigation in years. And he had an FBI guy watching.
“We’ll make a grid,” he continued, “and when the rest of the crew get here, we’ll go over it foot by foot until we find the body or rule out its presence.”
“It’s here.” I stood straight and walked back to the group of cops.
“Woman’s intuition is a wonderful thing, Ashlee,” C.C. said, his tone gently patronizing as he spread out a map of the county on the hood of Johnny Ray’s pickup, “but we need more to go on.”
I stood as tall as God had made me and put my hands on my hips. “Woman’s intuition?” I repeated. “I beg your pardon?”
“We need to go about this search in an approved manner until the dogs get here, Ash. That way we don’t mess up the crime scene. Not that we don’t appreciate all the help you’ve been to this point.” He turned his back to me in the sharp silence and concentrated on his map.
“So I can take