by Alex Kava
“I’d like to see the autopsy report,” O’Dell told her.
Jacks’s eyes darted to the colonel, and it was Platt who answered. “I can get you a copy.”
The two women exchanged a look that echoed their earlier frustration with government bureaucrats. Ironically, Jacks saw O’Dell as an ally despite her federal badge. She could see that the detective knew exactly what Platt was doing, shutting her out yet again even though he and the CDC were all too willing to use her department’s resources and have the Chicago police provide a cover and protection for them to work in secret.
O’Dell wanted to remind him that it only made things more difficult in the long run. She had worked with enough local law enforcement officials to know that pulling rank and flexing your federal muscles only ruffled feathers and sometimes put you in danger if you needed them to watch your back.
Jacks gave O’Dell a smile and nodded at Platt as she turned and left. He watched, waiting for Jacks to be gone and the elevator doors to fully close.
“I think we may have found her,” Platt finally said.
Without asking, O’Dell knew he meant Dr. Clare Shaw, the scientist-slash-madwoman whom O’Dell had been trying to track down for months.
Dread knotted in her stomach. When the scientist disappeared they believed she had confiscated and taken with her a lockbox from her research facility. An insulated lockbox that most likely contained at least three deadly viruses.
“Bix is examining the blood labs himself. That’s why he asked me to help you process the room.”
Roger Bix was the infectious-control director at the CDC. He and Platt had worked together many times on cases that had been as dangerous as they were frightening. One of those had been her own exposure to Ebola.
“Even if this jumper was infected with one of the viruses Shaw stole, how can you be certain it came from her? Surely there are other ways he may have come in contact with it.” She started putting on the gear, doing her best to hide her hesitation.
“I know this isn’t easy for you, Maggie.”
She glanced up at him. The bureaucrat who had rudely sent Detective Jacks away was gone. Soft brown eyes found and held hers. He had removed the hood, and tufts of his short hair stood on end. This was the man who had won her friendship and even a piece of her heart.
“You don’t have to do this,” he continued. “I know Shaw is your case, but AD Kunze could send someone else to do this part.”
“No, it’s okay.” She reached for one of the hoods and a pair of gloves. “Besides, I’m already here, so let’s do this.”
She felt his eyes still studying her. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said as she rolled up the cuffs of the Tyvek suit, then wrapped and secured the Velcro straps tightly around her ankles, then around her wrists. “How can you know that the virus in this jumper has anything to do with Dr. Clare Shaw?”
“From the samples that the medical examiner provided the CDC. Bix has already determined that the young man was infected with the bird flu. He’s double-checking his findings and rerunning some tests, but he sounds quite certain it’s a new strain of the virus. One we’ve never seen before.”
“And Dr. Shaw?”
“We know she was working on it before her research facility was destroyed in the mudslide.”
“Wait a minute. If it’s never been seen before, how was she working on it?”
“She helped create it.”
6
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
What’s so special about a goddamned dog?”
The old man ambushed Creed and Jason as soon as they brought the dogs through the security door to the senior care facility. Creed recognized the man from the last time he had visited. The old guy had grilled Creed on how he’d gotten into the place. Creed had pointed to the door but failed to mention he knew the security code.
“They keep that door locked,” he’d told Creed at the time, and he only seemed to become more agitated by Creed’s casual attitude.
At first Creed believed the man was concerned about safety, fearing that someone could easily breach security and come in. But then he told Creed, “Let me know when you’re leaving, so I can get the hell out of here with you.”
That incident had stuck with Creed. He couldn’t imagine being held someplace against his will and everyone around him telling him it was his new home. He almost hadn’t come back today except for Hannah’s pestering and nagging. Somehow—as always—she’d convinced him this was a valuable training opportunity for their dogs.
So he’d brought Jason with him. But already Creed could see that the old man had rattled Jason as well. The kid was tense. Jason had told Creed on their drive that his grandfather had been moved to this place recently. He admitted he hadn’t been to see him, but it didn’t look like guilt that had Jason shifting his weight from one foot to another.
As soon as the old guy left, Jason confessed in almost a whisper, “I’m just not comfortable around old people.”
“Why?” Creed asked, and that one-word question seemed to startle Jason. Sort of like the kid didn’t think he’d ever need to explain it any further than making the statement.
“What do you mean, why?”
“What is it about old people that makes you uncomfortable?”
Jason thought about it.
“For one thing, they get away with saying stupid things. Stating the obvious. It’s like they get a pass for being rude or embarrassing. Just because they’re old. Ten bucks says we’re not in there fifteen minutes and one of them points at me and says something like, ‘Oh look, that guy’s missing half his arm.’”
“No different than kids. Maybe that’s how you need to look at them—like they’re kids again.”
“Yeah, well, one of those kids taught me how to ride a bike. Picked me up and carried me when I wiped out. Hard to think of him as a kid. I looked up to him.”
Creed didn’t have an answer. The only grandparent he’d ever known died when he was a teenager, shortly after his sister Brodie disappeared. He always figured not knowing what had happened to Brodie had probably killed his grandmother. Years later Creed knew it was what drove his father to commit suicide. In one way or another, Brodie’s disappearance had killed a piece of all of them.
Now, as Creed and Jason waited for the director, Creed squatted down on his haunches so he was eye level with the dogs. Grace didn’t need his reassurance. She was a pro, anxious to get to work. Her nose was already working the air. But this was Molly’s first time outside their training facility, and Creed wanted it to be a positive experience for her.
He scratched behind her ears and told her what a good girl she was. She was watching Jason’s foot tapping. Her tail was down.
Creed glanced up at Jason, disappointed to find his trainee’s eyes darting around the community area and checking the hallways to the rooms. His eyes were everywhere except the one place they needed to be—on his dog. He was so caught up in his own discomfort that he wasn’t paying attention to Molly.
With one hand Creed continued to pet Molly. With his other hand he covered the toe of Jason’s shoe. Then he leaned down hard, putting as much weight as he could on the top of Jason’s foot, pinning it to the floor.
The tapping stopped.
7
Creed glanced up. He could see Jason holding back a grimace of pain.
“Emotion runs down the leash,” he reminded the kid before taking his hand off Jason’s foot.
The kid nodded. Shifted his weight and his attention. He tightened his grip on Molly’s lead.
This was supposed to be a training session for Jason as well as the dog. Jason had started working with Creed and the dogs about seven months ago. When Jason wasn’t so focused on himself, Creed saw signs that he would make a good dog handler. He seemed to genuinely enjoy the dogs, and the dogs were eager to please him when they tr
ained together.
Creed was trying to cut the kid some slack. A year ago Jason was still in Afghanistan when his life turned upside down. An IED explosion took off Jason’s lower right arm. It was a lot for any twenty-one-year-old to deal with. But being a good K9 handler meant constantly putting yourself in situations outside your comfort zone and all the while still thinking about your dog first—above and beyond anyone or anything else. Jason still had a chip on his shoulder and Creed wasn’t sure what it would take to change his attitude.
This senior care center was outside Creed’s comfort zone, too. As was the topic of their search. Hannah had recently convinced Creed that they needed to include infections and diseases in their repertoire of scent detection. Several years ago she had added natural-disaster searches along with drugs and explosives. All of those were things Creed understood, although he was never crazy about searching for explosives. Like Jason, Creed had experienced an explosion in Afghanistan, too, while he was a Marine K9 handler. The one time he didn’t listen to his dog, it had almost gotten both of them killed. He’d learned the hard way the importance of putting his dog and the dog’s instincts first.
But Creed respected Hannah’s instincts, too. He’d discovered early on that his business partner had a nose of her own for what was right, not just for the business and the dogs, but for him as well. So if Hannah believed they needed to add infections and diseases to their list, Creed added them.
The process was basically the same. He knew the dogs were capable of sniffing out almost anything as long as Creed could figure out a way to communicate with them. He used a variety of techniques that included different words or phrases. “Fish” meant drugs. So he could tell his dog to “go find fish” in the middle of a crowded airport and not have drug dealers or mules running for the exits.
He also changed up collars, harnesses, and vests so his multitask dogs knew what they were searching for from the minute he put on their gear. This medical stuff required a new level of creativity for him to come up with words and phrases that wouldn’t alarm patients and residents. After all, he couldn’t just tell the dog to “go find cancer.”
This care facility had agreed to let them come in and test their dogs. It was a great on-the-job opportunity for both the dogs and the trainers. Yet as Creed patted Molly and Grace while he stood up, he could see that Jason still looked uncomfortable.
“We’ve been through the drill,” Creed told him, eyes boring into him now as he tried to hold the kid’s attention. “It’s not that much different from our other searches.”
“I’m good,” Jason said, but his face told a different story.
“The dogs can smell that you are not good.”
This time surprise registered on Jason’s face. He hadn’t thought about that. He looked at the dogs, then reached down, giving them his hand to sniff before he scratched them behind the ears, one at a time.
“But so far, the dogs have only sniffed samples in containers.” Jason glanced around the facility again. “Not people.”
Creed followed the kid’s eyes. Several residents sat on the sofa at the far corner of the room. They were watching the dogs and not the big-screen TV. A couple of old men played cards on the other side of the large area. A staff member smiled as she kept pace alongside an old woman using a walker. Creed decided no one was close enough to listen.
“We walk Grace and Molly around.”
“Into their rooms?”
“No. Not unless they invite us. As far as the residents are concerned, they’re therapy dogs. They’re used to them coming in.”
“Like the old guy that met us at the door?”
“He has other motives,” Creed said as he looked over his shoulder to see the man still hanging around the door. “This is Molly’s first time out, so I expect her to just observe. But Grace knows what we’re here for.”
“Because of the collar?”
“Right. She’ll sniff the surrounding air, but she should be able to tell if there’s a resident with C. diff and if so, let us know exactly which person it is. If she does detect it, she’ll alert by lying down in front of the infected person, or in the doorway to his or her room.”
“You’ve seen her do this?”
“Twice last week.”
“And both people had C. diff?”
Creed nodded.
Clostridium difficile was a bacterium picked up from contaminated surfaces and usually spread from health care providers. From Creed’s own research, it was particularly nasty because symptoms didn’t show up in the beginning. Toxins released by the bacterium attacked the lining of the intestines. The resulting infection could be fatal if not detected early, especially in people with compromised immune systems. Diagnostic tests could be expensive and slow. In the test studies Creed read about, dogs were able to detect C. diff with one hundred percent sensitivity and ninety-six percent specificity. And they were able to do so in the very early stages, sooner than any of the available lab tests. The same was true for several cancers.
“I get how dogs sniff out dead stuff and drugs,” Jason said, now keeping his voice low and quiet as more residents wandered closer. “Even explosives. They’re all very different smells. But infections? Cancer—all that stuff—seems like it would smell similar.”
“You mean like a sick person just smells like a sick person.”
Jason met Creed’s eyes as if checking to see if he was making fun of him. Creed wasn’t.
“Remember that dogs can differentiate between smells. Consider beef stew on the stovetop. You smell beef stew. Dogs have the ability to layer scent. They smell the beef, carrots, potatoes, onion . . . every ingredient. They can separate each of those scents. So to Grace—and hopefully Molly—diabetes smells different than cancer, and lung cancer smells different than prostate cancer, because each of those conditions triggers different reactions in the body. The immune system releases different mechanisms to fight or compensate.”
“Dead bodies seem easier.”
“But even they smell different at various stages of decomposition.”
“Okay, I get it,” Jason said. “It just seems . . .”
“Too incredible?”
“A little bit.”
“But for dogs, it’s second nature. A dog’s whole world is based on scent. It’s just a part of who they are, what they do. They have over three hundred million scent receptors compared to our measly five million. Think of it this way. You can get a whiff of a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee. A dog can detect a teaspoon of sugar in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It’s not just that they have sensitive noses. The part of the dog’s brain that’s dedicated to analyzing odors is forty times greater than ours. When you think of it that way, we’re not training them so much as we’re harnessing those abilities and finding a way to communicate what we want them to find.”
“Hey, Jason! What are you doing here?”
Both Creed and Jason turned to see the man waving at them from one of the hallways. His feather-white hair stood straight up like he had just crawled out of bed. But Creed thought the rest of the old man—his trousers, buttoned shirt, and cardigan—all looked neat and pressed as if he had just stepped out of a business meeting. Until Creed noticed the pink bunny slippers.
Creed heard Jason stifle a groan before he said, “That’s my granddad.”
The man clapped Jason on the shoulder as his rheumy blue eyes took in Creed and the dogs.
“You must be working,” he said, then offered his hand to Creed. “I’m Gus Seaver.”
“Ryder Creed. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Before another word was spoken, Creed and Jason noticed the dogs. Both Grace and Molly were sniffing the air, rapid breaths. Then suddenly the two of them lay down right at the feet of Gus Seaver.
8
CHICAGO
Despite the hood’s plastic shield, O’Dell
immediately could smell something slightly rotten when she crossed the threshold into the room. Beyond the narrow alcove she saw that everything looked curiously neat. Bedcovers were pulled up and tucked in at the end, though on closer inspection she saw the imprint in the top pillow where someone had laid his head.
Still, there was no clutter occupying the nightstands. The desk’s surface had a hotel phone and notepad that hadn’t been disturbed. A room service cart in the corner had plates with stainless steel lids still in place. That was where the smell was coming from. O’Dell walked over and gently lifted a lid to find overripened strawberries. They were carefully stacked in an untouched pyramid.
Platt watched her from the alcove, arms crossed, eyes intense. She was getting the first look before he began taking samples. If Jacks was correct, the victim was the last one inside this room.
Then she turned and saw the flat-screen TV. Something had been sprayed across the surface, thick droplets that had dried. She noticed that the wall behind had been splattered, too, with rust-brown flecks that O’Dell suspected might be blood.
She glanced at Platt, inviting his input.
“I’m thinking bloody sputum.”
She looked back at the screen and the wall and said, “Seems like a lot.”
“The autopsy report has photos of his lungs. I’ll forward everything to you.”
She went back to examining the room. She’d do an overall view first, then come back and work a grid.
Nothing was missing from the minibar. One glass from the tray held what looked like water. Half full. The other glasses were still upside down on their rims, the coasters on top. The ice bucket was dry. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
“There doesn’t appear to be any kind of ritual,” she said while her eyes continued the search.
