Bones (8 page)

"Even if you bathe and use deodorant?"

He smiled. "No getting away from it. You can mask it from your fellow humans, but not the dogs."

"Okay, but what if I'm not near the dog?"

"Let's go back to the rafts. Every minute, these tens of thousands of rafts come off us like a cloud, surrounding us and drifting away from us as we move, with the heaviest concentration very near us. As we move, it spreads into a wider and wider cone--that's known as a scent cone. As they drift, some of these rafts will catch on other objects, especially plants."

"And Bingle smells the rafts?"

"Yes. A dog's nose is literally a million times more sensitive than ours for some scents. And it's thought that their brains process scent information in a different manner than our brains do."

"So he can follow this cone of scent?"

"Yes. He's also trained to find the scent of human blood, body fluids, tissue, skeletal remains, and decomposing remains. And he can find any of these things in minute amounts."

"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this, but how were you able to train him to find bodies--to teach him what a dead body smells like?"

"In this line of work, I have access to bones and other biological material from cadavers. But some trainers use a synthetic chemical that's made just for the purpose of training these dogs."

I couldn't hide a look of disbelief. "Fake cadaver smell?"

"Yes. Different formulas for different levels of decay."

"Not the kind of thing you'd want to accidentally spill on your carpet, I suppose."

He laughed. "No, but Bingle might not mind. Dogs aren't bothered by what we think of as horrible odors. To them, the worse it smells, the more interesting it is. And for Bingle, that smell is associated with praise--finding it brings a reward."

"But even decaying bodies must smell--well, unique, right? Because of the varying conditions they are left in, if nothing else--out in forests, in deserts, underwater--"

"Sure, to some extent. He's not trained for one smell alone, of course. Best of all, Bingle has a couple of years of experience, so he knows what it is he's looking for. Bingle's nose is sensitive enough to find a single drop of blood. You let him sniff a car, he can tell you if a body has been in its trunk."

"My husband and his partner made Bingle sound as if he were Super Dog."

"Oh no. He has his limitations. Conditions have to be good for him to search, and there are things that can throw him off. But his biggest limitation is talking to you right now."

"What do you mean?"

He smiled. "If I could understand everything he tries to say to me, we'd get better results. Lord, who knows what he could accomplish? More than once, I've looked back and realized that I just failed to read him; he was trying to show me where to find something, but I insisted that we do things my way. There are times when I can see he's frustrated, trying to get things across to his dumb handler."

"I don't know," I said, "you two seem to have a pretty good partnership."

"Well, partner," he said to Bingle, who immediately became alert, "ready to have another go at it?"

Bingle got quickly to his feet, but continued to watch David with anticipation.

"VBuscalos!" David said, giving the same hand signal he had before. "Find 'em!" The dog immediately went back to work.

David worked him for another twenty minutes, and again provided water and rest. On the fourth round of work, the dog's weaving pattern suddenly narrowed. He was still moving side to side, but faster and faster. He stopped and looked back at David, his ears forward, the look intent.

"That's an alert," David said excitedly. "Whatcha got?" he said to Bingle. "Show me where it is. Muestrame donde esta. Sigue--keep going."

Bingle moved off again, nearly in a straight line.

"How did you know it was an alert?" I asked.

"I know him," David said simply, hurrying after him. "When his ears are straight forward like that, it's as if he's checking in with me. I'm part of his pack. He's asking me, 'Can't you smell that?' " He kept watching the dog as he spoke, then said, "He's got something. Look--the scent has caught on the grass."

Bingle was rubbing his face against the grass, biting at it.

"VBuscalo, Bingle!" David said. "Find it!"

The breeze came up again and the dog stopped, held his head high, and sniffed with a slight bobbing motion of his nose, as if trying to draw in more of a specific scent.

"Whatcha got?" David asked again. "Whatcha got, Bingle? Show me! VMuestramelo! VAdelante!"

Bingle sang a high little note, then rushed on ahead of us. He stopped about twenty yards away--I could see him circling anxiously in one area, heard him making chuffing noises. Suddenly, he sat down on his haunches, lifted his head back so that his nose was straight up in the air, and began crooning.

"That's his way of giving a hard alert," David said, rushing forward.

Bingle met him halfway, and nudged at a pouch on David's belt. "zDonde esta? Where is it?" David said, and the dog loped back to where he had alerted and barked.

David reached the dog before I did. "Bingle," he suddenly said, "you beautiful son of a bitch!"

Bingle gave a loud bark of agreement.

** CHAPTER 8

WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 17

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

If I hadn't talked to Andy before following Bingle, I might not have understood why David was now enthusiastically praising his dog, pulling out a floppy toss-toy that was apparently the dog's all-time favorite. On the ground where Bingle had indicated his find, I could clearly see the burial signs Andy had mentioned. There, in a long patch, the soil contrasted slightly in color with other nearby soil--it appeared to be less compact and there were more rocks and pebbles in it. The plants growing over it were not as tall or sturdy as their neighbors.

It was not a clearly defined grave-size rectangle with nice, neat edges. But it was not much bigger than a grave might be, and was obviously unlike the area immediately around it.

"Let's move back from this site," David said. "We don't want to disturb evidence."

We moved over to a level spot nearer to the tree, where David continued to play with Bingle and praise him. The other members of our group must have been watching us, because before David beckoned, Ben and Andy donned packs and headed our way, with Thompson and Flash Burden not far behind. Duke and Earl moved more slowly from the campsite, bringing Parrish; Merrick and Manton managed to sleep through the commotion.

"A hard alert?" Ben called as he came within earshot.

David smiled. "Yes, and my dog doesn't lie."

"Where?"

But Andy had already noticed the plants near the place where Bingle had alerted. "Wow. Right there." Drawing closer, he pointed out several wildflowers and said, "You see? Most of them are shorter than others of the same species, growing right next to them. That might be happening because something's preventing their roots from developing--the roots may be running into some type of barrier underground."

David commanded Bingle to stay and we walked with the others to where Andy stood.

David conferred briefly with Bob Thompson and Ben, then said to me, "Would you mind keeping Bingle company while we check this out? You can watch from the shade over there--best spot in the house. You'll be able to see and hear everything."

"Look, I'm fond of the dog, but I have a job here, too. I don't want to be shut out--"

"This is a crime scene--" Bob Thompson began, but Ben interrupted.

"Oh, I think Ms. Kelly should be allowed to stand as close as possible," he said, and although he wasn't smiling, I could hear some amusement in his voice.

"Ben--" David protested, in a way that made me all the more unsure of Ben's motives for suddenly being so cooperative.

Ben ignored him. In quiet, considerate tones, he said to me, "Allow me to explain that we don't just bring out our shovels and dig, Ms. Kelly. We start slowly and carefully, systematically surveying the burial area, setting up a grid system and so on. Perhaps you wouldn't mind staying with Bingle while we do the preliminary work. I'll let you know when we're about to actually see the body--if there is a body here."

"She's there," I heard a voice say. I turned to see Parrish looking straight at me, smiling. "Yes," he drawled slowly, "her lovely body is right there."

"Tranquilo," David said to Bingle, who was standing between us. The dog had not growled or barked at Parrish's approach, but I could see what had caused David to give the command to take it easy--Bingle's stance was rigid.

"I'll watch Bingle," I said.

Parrish laughed. "Better let him watch you."

"That's enough out of you," Earl said, pulling Parrish back from the group.

"Ve con ella," David said to Bingle, and gave me a tennis ball. As he said this, he made a motion with his hand that evidently told Bingle that I was to receive all of his attention. Bingle stared at the ball with the kind of intense concentration that might have been used by a psychic to bend a fork. We played for a while, then sat together and watched as Flash videotaped and photographed the site, Thompson talked to Parrish, and David, Andy, and Ben hovered over maps and studied the ground, defining an outer perimeter several feet beyond the loosened soil.

Our place was, as David had said, the best spot in the house. We were only a few yards from the patch, we were in the shade, and the breeze had shifted toward us--both shade and breeze provided relief to Bingle, who lay panting softly, eyes closed in contentment.

Ben bent over a duffel bag, and handed out gloves. He next removed a set of metal rods, each about half an inch thick, bent at a right angle at one end--the handle. Working from different directions, the men each picked a spot, leaned on the probes--which did not go too far into the ground--then pulled them from the ground and moved them a little closer to the site of the alert. This process continued, until Ben's probe sank easily into the earth. "Here," he said. As he pulled it up, Bingle lifted his head, then came to his feet, ears pitched forward. The dog started to move toward Ben.

"Stay," I commanded. He ignored me, but David had heard me, and snapped the command again--in Spanish this time. Bingle obeyed, but protested with a sharp bark.

"He smells it," David said. Then, wrinkling his nose, added, "So do I."

David went back to the duffel bag and took a small jar from it; he dipped a finger into it and then rubbed the substance just beneath his nose, making a small, shiny mustache of it. He offered the jar to Andy, who used it. He didn't offer it to Ben.

Ben was putting a little marker--a small yellow flag on a wire--near the spot where he had probed. They continued in this fashion until they had a few other places marked. The yellow flags formed a rough oval, about six feet long.

Bingle was agitated--fidgeting but obeying David's command to stay. Every now and then I would get a whiff of what he was reacting to--an unmistakable smell, a smell that is sweet and pungent all at once--a smell that you instantly know the meaning of, even if you have never smelled it before. Perhaps some primal memory repulses us from this scent, tells us that this is the smell of the death and decay of one of our own.

"I'll show you what we're doing," David said, coming over to calm Bingle. As he moved closer to me, I said, "Vicks VapoRub."

He moved his hand, just stopped short of touching his upper lip. "A menthol and camphor smell compound that's sort of similar to it, yes. I use it to mask the decomp odor. Do you need some?"

"Not yet."

"Don't wait too long," he said. "Once the smell is in your nose . . ." He paused, then said again, "Don't wait too long."

He began to show me the scene maps they were drawing, with nearby peaks as triangulation points to mark the position of the tree. The grid lines were shown, over which the position of the grave, the outer perimeter boundary, and a cluster of boulders were drawn.

"If we need to testify about any of this in court, we'll have a precise record of where we found any evidence or remains, how the remains were positioned--and so on."

Bob Thompson walked up to us. "What's taking so long? Parrish says she's there, about two feet down. He's already confessed. I just need a preliminary identification."