Scent of the Missing Read online

  Our small-town girl disappeared in a slow news period. I wonder how much time she's got before funds run out, new local troubles arise, and she is crowded from the docket to take her place in local lore. The margin between SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING TEEN and UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS UNCOVERED IN STATE PARK ten years from now seems narrow.

  Time and numbers make me urgent. I cannot train my new dog too soon.

  Next morning's light is hard as a slap. The community has rallied beneath a red, white, and blue striped tent donated by a used car dealership half the state away. The structure is shabby; its attached bunting is worn. The top line sags. A good wind could be a problem here, but the morning is windless.

  At this early hour, the sun shines in at a slant, but it is already too warm inside the tent. Two hundred or so volunteers jockey for position behind the darker canvas of the wide blue stripes. We suck down donated orange juice or strong coffee or both—an unwise choice. The port-a-potties have not yet arrived, and today's search has staged in the middle of nowhere, from a plain so flat that any thought of a quick whip around a bush to pee should assume an audience, both local and televised. A caravan of mobile units from TV stations miles away has also arrived. Their antennae and cranes have already begun to extend.

  We hear more cars exit the road and crunch across the gravel and brush. Doors slam, and a voice from near the tent flap says that the sheriff's here with the parents, and we should be starting soon. I don't think so. I read a similar doubt on the faces of my teammates. Hurry up and wait is the case more often than not on large searches, and this one, with its ambiguous geography and its swelling ranks of volunteers, has become a large search. We were told to be on-scene at 7:00 A.M., and we've been here ninety minutes. I think if we deploy by 9:30, we'll be lucky.

  "I'm going to check on the dogs," says Terry, four bottles of water in the crook of his elbow. The dogs are crated behind the shade of our cars with Ellen, a field assistant, in attendance. I can see them through the tent flap. They look a whole lot more comfortable than we do.

  Aware they are on-scene to work, the dogs are alert. Collie Saber, German Shepherd Hunter, Border Collie Hoss, and Buster, a Lab. They scrutinize all newcomers, nostrils knitting and ears perked forward, their expressions speculative. I wonder how they sort passersby: old guy with a kidney problem... nice lady who ate bacon for breakfast, come here, nice lady... this guy's got two dogs—one of them, oh, one of them's in heat!... hey, that kid dropped McMuffin on his pants. Terry's approach makes them turn and grin. Their wagging tails bang-bang-bang against the bars of their crates.

  Here in the tent, a community group has made T-shirts for its members, purple T-shirts bearing several photos of the missing girl. WE'LL FIND you promise the shirts on the front. WE LOVE you they say on the back. Several participants have their video cameras out to record today's events. The sheriff walks in with two deputies and the missing girl's parents, and the group falls silent. A man whips his Tilley hat off. His friend with a digital camera continues to shoot: sheriff, mom and dad, TV reporter, crowd. A deputy's leaden gaze stops her. I hear the little scree of it winding down. She puts the camera in her purse.

  The sheriff's briefing tells us little that gossip hasn't already introduced. Yesterday's search found nothing relevant to the missing girl. But, we are reminded, every area cleared contributes something to a final answer. The sheriff's baritone is edged with weariness, ragged on its ending syllables, yet he speaks well. His words are clear and urgent. The community group will be divided into four units who will work, geographically, across today's new areas. We should expect hardship, he says. These places are ugly and brushy and filled with debris from illegal dumping. High boots are recommended. There will be broken glass. There could be snakes. A woman in front of me, wearing shorts, sandals, and a baby in a papoose on her back, looks at her husband. He looks pointedly at her feet, and she sets her jaw and turns away.

  The sheriff pulls the girl's parents forward. Though the woman appears shattered with fatigue while her husband's face is tight and reserved, it is his voice that gives way as he thanks the crowd. "Find our girl," says his wife in his wordlessness. She guides him away from the television camera, but he turns and gives the lens a long look in passing.

  "All right," says the sheriff. "We've got no better reason to be here." The crowd stirs beneath the tent, convicted again. As two deputies step forward to divide the ground-search volunteers, I feel a tug on my arm. "We're going," mouths Johnny. He jerks his head in the direction of another officer discreetly leading us out of the tent and away from the crowd.

  As we gather around the deputy and the dogs press their noses to the crate bars to smell him, he opens a map on the hood of a truck and shows us where we're headed. "The word is this may be it," he says. "We think she's here." He points to a spot and then makes a wide circle with a forefinger.

  "Why here?" asks Terry. The retired detective in him is never far away.

  The deputy shrugs. "Anonymous tip." He stares at the map a long moment. "That's all we've got."

  The dogs quiver and circle and pee as we release them from their crates. A few bark excitedly as we load them into the trucks, engines and air conditioners on. Safe now in transport crates, they are ready to go. I can hear them winding themselves up behind the glass, scuffling and muttering, that signature dog sound that's more grumble than growl.

  Three dogs work separate sections of the area we've deployed to, fifty acres of patchy terrain, dried creek bed, and dumped appliances. A variable wind has risen, strong enough to make a little thunder in our ears, but born of ground radiation, it offers no relief from heat. The dogs will use the wind, though. Turning east, north, then west, through binoculars I watch them sweep their individual sectors, heads up and tails visible above the bending grass, handlers following yards behind.

  Collie Saber moves across the scrub at a steady trot, despite his heavy coat and the day's temperature. I hardly need binoculars. He is easy to see from a distance, a tricolored boy flashing against the dun terrain. Fleta follows, watching him thoughtfully, with Ellen in trail behind them both, taking notes. The scruffy field is flat. Saber's wide sweeps are clean and unbroken. At the end of the sector, they pause. The Collie looks back to Fleta and turns with a movement very like a shrug of his great ruff—an all clear that's readable even from where I stand. I see Fleta turn and shake her head to Ellen. A moment later, Ellen's voice crackles across the radio that they're coming in.

  Max and Hunter are winding their way through a clutch of small trees that cling to the edge of a rainwater runoff gully. I watch the German Shepherd's great dark ears working independently as he penetrates the sector, as though there is much to hear skittering in the grass. A nervous prairie bird flushes yards away from where they walk, and both Hunter's ears come forward so rapidly that the light spots within them seem to blink like eyes. He doesn't turn for the bird, however, continuing on his course, nose thrust forward. He leads Max through the trees and they disappear behind them, visible only as an occasional twitch and flash of Max's red shirt as they work the rest of the sector.

  Trained to alert differently on the living and the dead, the dogs' demeanor across the area is consistent. No pause, no head pop, no sudden, energized movement, no bark. Their passage stirs rabbits and shivers a few snakes from the brush, but the dogs communicate their disinterest. They all seem to agree that nothing's here.

  The deputy watches quietly. "I hunt with a Lab," he says, looking out to Johnny and Buster. "Great dogs. Can't stop them."

  Fleta has already returned with Saber. Max comes in with Hunter, shaking his head. Hunter takes a drink of water as fast as Max pours it and flops down with a sigh. A few minutes later Johnny returns with Buster. "Nothing," he says. "Except a bunch of baby rabbits in a washing machine out there."

  "Aw," says Ellen. "Bunnies. How many?"

  "Dunno," Johnny replies. "Enough to be breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the snakes."

  "God." Ellen folds
her arms across her chest and shakes her head. Ellen's worked ranches, but she's ready for any kind of good word here.

  The deputy says, "Thing is..."

  We look at him. His cell phone buzzes, and he walks away, muttering into it, one hand pressed to the opposite ear to block the wind.

  A new search area, and we are moving fast. Ground searchers have found a location where the scent of death is strong, and third-hand word to the deputy by cell phone suggests the presence of possible evidence too. Now a potential crime scene, the area has been cleared, and the sheriff waits for the dogs. We'll use a different approach: one way in, one way out—a cautious trail rather than a wide sweep—to confirm or deny what's been found.

  We park at the base of a shallow rise crisscrossed with bike trails and more dumped appliances, a whole host of abandoned cars. Our deputy gives a little jerk of his head as we look upward, waiting for clearance to deploy.

  "Kids park here," he says.

  I think of sex in this tangled, airless scrub and feel old. "Really?" I ask, doubtfully.

  "The stars are nice," he replies. A little twist of his mouth suggests he knows this from experience, and I wonder if he's busted kids here or was once one of them himself.

  His cell phone buzzes again. After a few moments he turns to us. "Thing is," he says, "there's a smell in a locked car, and an object not far away that may have been a weapon, and fresh clothes in the mud. Because this might be a crime scene—if not this one, then another one—we don't want you to track the whole area, but we'd like you to bring the dogs and see what they think about the car."

  Fleta and Saber, Max and Hunter, Ellen and I follow the deputy up the thin trail to the top of the rise. A distance away, perhaps two football fields long, I can see a group of volunteer searchers watching us, their purple shirts dark as a bruise against the buff-colored ground. I hear the huddle of voices when the breeze shifts and I am downwind. At the top of the rise, the sheriff and two deputies are still and expectant. They turn to lead us carefully to the car in question, a battered blue '72 Impala. Just beyond it, a stainless butcher knife lies in the dirt. The knife is clean and bright. Next to the Impala, a pair of crumpled blue jeans rest in such a way that it appears someone dropped his pants right there and stepped out of them. The jeans remain in that position, the legs stacked, the fly open, the waist upward and wide. A thread of dust marks a few denim folds that I can see, but it doesn't appear to me that the jeans have been here long.

  Ellen and I are taking notes as first Saber, then Hunter slowly circle the car. Both are experienced cadaver dogs, and though they sniff every crevice, neither gives a flicker of interest. Fleta shakes her head, and minutes later, Max does too.

  "No," says Max. "The dogs say no."

  The sheriff gestures us all closer forward, and the fug of decomposition is palpable. "Have any of you ever smelled a dead body?" he asks. Fleta, Max, and I nod and step nearer, and without thinking about it, we simultaneously put our noses just above the trunk. The air is thick and foul.

  "This doesn't smell right," I murmur just as Fleta also shakes her head. I always have difficulty explaining it, but to me dead human smells different from squirrel, rat, or possum on the side of the road. Not just more scent—human death seems specific and particular. I don't know the why behind the chemistry. All that shampoo, maybe, or trans fat or antiperspirant, or maybe we're all pickled in Coca-Cola, like the urban legend says.

  "Something's dead in here," says Fleta, "but I don't think it's human."

  Max guides Hunter forward again, watching. "Where's the dead thing, Hunter?" he says. Off-command to find human scent, Hunter circles the car in the way of any curious dog, stopping warily and putting his nose to the back left wheel well. Max kneels into the area, then drops his head. "Got it," he says, his voice sad. "It's a dog."

  We all bend down, and there, caught above the back axle, we can see a dog's paws and its limp head dangling. A medium-size mixed breed, brown fur ticked with black. The flesh of its mouth is pulled back from the teeth; the eyes are muddy and glazed. The pads are intact but slightly shriveled, and I can see a small white stone between two of them. This dog was either hit by the car or crawled up there to die. An uncomforted end. I hear the lazy drone of flies.

  "Dead for a while," says Max.

  "Well, okay," says the sheriff. He gets up stiffly. Though he is sunburned, the flesh beneath his eyes is gray.

  "Got anywhere else for the dogs to search?" asks the deputy.

  The sheriff shakes his head. "Don't have anywhere else for anybody." Then he adds, "This search is going to be a long one. Guess you folks can go home. We'll call you back if we get something for the dogs."

  We stand a moment. He gazes along the rise to the motionless group of volunteers. Below us, another vehicle has pulled up and parked. The car doors slam, thunk, and—slower— thunk. The sheriff turns.

  "Right," he says. "I'll go tell the parents."

  He walks down the path, and they walk up toward him. As they near, I watch the sheriff stand a little straighter. The father, too, lifts his head and squares his shoulders and pulls his wife to his hip as they climb. And in that moment before they connect, on day thirteen of a search for a missing local girl, I wonder how they can bear the unknowing, what these parents most wish for—words that leave the door open or words that press the door closed.

  Our cars are loaded for the long drive home, and the dogs are having a last romp in a small park along a stream. Two of the local volunteers on today's search stand with us beneath the shade of a pecan tree. One is about to drive back to her college for summer classes. The other has had a quick shower and will head another direction to her restaurant shift miles away.

  One asks what we think the dogs know about this search. Do they feel what we feel? Does the search continue to trouble them, as we humans are troubled?

  Fleta shakes her head, pointing out that from the dogs' perspectives, this search was successful. They were asked to do a job: find the missing girl or indicate definitively she's not here, and they did. Apart from three vagrants in a tent city, no one living or dead was there to be found. And after the day's sectors were done, volunteers hid so the dogs could find them, a quick and upbeat conclusion to a hard workday, a game that fools no one but keeps motivation high. These dogs are all praise-hounds. They played along, finding and grinning and capering.

  No, Fleta suggests. There are exceptions, but usually the dogs let go of a day's search better than we do. We trust them to do their jobs, and they trust us to tell them they have done it well. And when we tell them, they believe us.

  I watch them play. Common goals aside, these dogs are complete individuals in the field. I have searched beside Hunter's intensity, Saber's calm authority, and Buster's bounding accuracy. Even this evening's pleasure they pursue in different ways. The German Shepherd noses for critters in the brush, while the Lab snaps at minnows in shallow water, trying to catch them. We tease him, and Buster raises his head with muzzle dripping, looking fusty and bemused, but he grins at the sound of his name and tries for fish again. The beautiful Collie, Saber—much-admired and he knows it—rolls ungracefully in the grass, groaning unnh-unnnh-unnhhhhh-mmmmmmm. His white ruff is streaked with green when he gets up, and his coat splays every which way. He is thoroughly happy to be such a mess. "Brickhead," says Fleta, hugging him as he nuzzles her ear. "Doofus."

  The Border Collie brings every one of us his ball. Hoss is a dog of great charm and is completely tone-deaf to rejection. It's time to leave, but he is persuasive. We throw and throw and throw again. "Fetch therapy" we call it, and it works. The local volunteers leave laughing, Hoss still petitioning them with his ball in his mouth all the way to their cars.

  As we head out, I wonder what my own dog will bring to the work, to the team, and to me. I like the thought of a long drive home with a Golden snoring belly-up in the back of the car: a good dog who has worked well. A partner. A friend. After a search like this one, that companionship m
ust take away a little of the ache.

  2. DOG FOR THE JOB

  IT'S 102 DEGREES when I step out of the airport in Midland, Texas, but my hands are cold. I've got a dog carrier, a collar and leash, and a canine SAR training vest. I'm wearing my team ID and a stunned expression I can describe only now as deer in the headlights.

  After almost a year of research, breeder queries, and preemptive puppy-proofing at the house, I am a half-hour away from the Golden Retriever that will be my partner. Today there's little evidence of all the meticulous preparation: I look down and realize I'm wearing different-colored socks and that in my blind scramble to get from home to the airport at dawn, I also brought a new dog toy, size-appropriate for a Great Dane, a stuffed red lobster with "Cape Cod" embroidered on the claw. I don't remember picking it up at the house. I don't remember pushing it through security. I think the lobster is probably bigger than the puppy is.

  "Where's the pet?" asks a cabdriver who sees me standing alone, cradling the empty carrier and the toy.

  "I'm going to be having some puppy!" I babble, waving the lobster as if to clarify. The driver shakes his head and backs away from me, clearly figuring I'm not all there.