by Paula Munier
“I taped off the scene,” she said, again as if she could read his mind. It was a little unnerving.
He nodded, and for the second time that day, he and Susie Bear took up the rear as she and Elvis led them back up the trail.
But this time they were going uphill, along the steep incline that rose along the boundary between the Lye Brook Wilderness and the Appalachian Trail, before veering off into wilderness proper. It was nearly noon, and the sun was nearly straight above their heads. Mercy wore a blue Boston Red Sox cap now, covering most of her hair and shading her eyes. She moved with the steady rhythm of an experienced hiker, slim hips and long legs evident even under the loose cargo pants she’d tucked into her high-topped brown hiking boots. Troy was enjoying the view.
She stopped about ten feet beyond where he’d found her and the baby, and pointed to the tape she’d attached to the long hanging branch of a tall maple.
“This is where Elvis took me off-trail.”
“Is it marked?”
“Yep.”
This time, Troy and Susie Bear led the way, following the broken twigs and human and canine tracks in the muddy ground. Apart from their own footfalls and the panting of the dogs as they scrambled up and down the rocky terrain, the only sounds were the rushing of Lye Brook, the birds chattering in the trees, and the occasional distant shout of a happy hiker.
“Is this it?” he asked when they came to a clearing marked by the same duct tape Mercy had used along the trail.
“Uh, no.”
“No?”
Mercy Carr stopped at the edge of the tape, and Elvis stopped, too, settling quietly at her feet. She removed her baseball cap and shook her head, red strands falling around her face. Her face shone with sweat, and she wiped her brow with the back of her hand.
“But you taped it off anyway. Why?” He looked at her with curiosity and waited for an answer. She didn’t strike him as an alarmist, so he figured she must have a good reason.
She sighed and put her cap back on. “Explosives.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“EXPLOSIVES?” NOW THAT WAS NOT THE ANSWER he expected to hear. He stood very still and stared at the area she’d marked off. The earth before him revealed nothing: no disturbed ground or raised patches or subtle variations in the color of the soil significant enough to indicate hidden explosives. At least not to his naked eye. Susie Bear sensed his caution and trotted over to sit quietly at his side.
“Elvis alerted to explosives.”
She said this casually, as if it happened every day. Maybe it did, for her and Elvis. Or had, in the recent past. Troy waited for her to explain herself.
“Two tours in Afghanistan. Elvis here is a bomb-sniffer dog. EDD extraordinaire.”
“Explosive Detection Dog.” Troy regarded the Belgian shepherd with a new respect. He’d done a tour in Afghanistan himself, and knew what important work these K-9 soldiers did. Good-looking dog, indeed. “And you?”
“U.S. Army corporal, retired.” Mercy scratched Elvis behind his ears. “We’re both retired now.”
“Retired,” he repeated. “But you just happened to be searching for explosives in the Lye Brook Wilderness.”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I mean, no, we were just out for a walk in the woods. It’s not like we were outside the wire on a mission, and he was sniffing out IEDs.”
“And yet…” He let his voice trail off. He wanted her to explain herself—and her dog.
“I really don’t know what set him off.” She ran her long fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her damp forehead. “I got worried. So I taped it off just in case.”
“So you’re not sure about the possibility of explosives.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, he’s retired.” Mercy looked down at Elvis and smiled. “He’s a dog. He’ll pick up the scent of a coyote or a rabbit or somebody’s leftover lunch and take off after it.”
“But this is different.”
She crossed her arms, whether out of annoyance or aggression, he wasn’t sure. The Belgian shepherd growled softly, sensing her change in mood. Susie Bear reacted in kind. Apparently their new friendship did not extend past the well-being of their handlers.
“Down,” Mercy and Troy said in unison. Both dogs backed down.
“I’m listening,” he said, knowing that even the remote possibility of explosives might trigger bad memories for both her and her dog.
“Look. Back in Afghanistan, when Elvis was doing training exercises or on patrol, he’d do what he’s supposed to do. You know, when he got the right command.”
“But you gave him no such order here today.”
“Of course not,” she said forcefully, causing both dogs to sit up straight again. “We left all that behind us.”
Troy walked the length of the tape, staring at the ground again, and again seeing nothing that sparked any safety concerns on his part. But he was no bomb-sniffing dog. And neither was Susie Bear, who was learning to find shell casings when called upon to do so but had more experience looking for lost hikers or invasive species or illegally procured fish and game. People and plants and wildlife, not incendiaries.
“It’s been a long time since Elvis got that order. Maybe he’s just rusty.”
“But you’re not convinced.”
“No,” she admitted.
“Because?”
“Because he was the best,” she said, her voice thick and her eyes shining with pride or tears or both. Again, Troy wasn’t sure. He was usually better at reading people, but there was something about this woman that eluded him.
“The very best,” she said, repeating herself.
He considered this. “Maybe somebody buried fireworks or lost a gun or—what’s this got to do with our Baby Doe?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, maybe.”
“Weird.”
“Agreed.”
“Okay, I’ll report this and have a team come check it out. Let’s move on.”
She pointed to the edge of the clearing. “We went this way when we heard her cry.” She led them through the bramble where she and her dog had followed the siren song of a baby wailing in the wilderness. Ten minutes later they entered the small glade where Mercy and Elvis had found the child.
Troy scoured the ground. “Not much here.” But on the other side of the opening in the trees there were footmarks.
“I followed those tracks to the stream, where they ended,” she said. “That’s when I decided to turn back and bring the baby in.”
“Show me.”
She took him through a scrub of young birch and small spruce to the stream. He lamented the fact that Mercy and Elvis had already been this way twice, and this second traipsing was obscuring what was already a trail growing cold. But there was nothing to be done about it.
An investigation at the stream’s edge revealed nothing. He waded across, Susie Bear on his heels, while Mercy and Elvis waited on the opposite bank. But there were no traces of any human traffic here. Susie Bear ran up and down along the banks of the stream, trying to pick up the scent where someone may have exited the water. But apparently she found nothing. He and his dog splashed back, and she repeated the exercise along this side.
Nothing.
“Only one more thing to try.” Troy pulled the baby’s blanket out of his pack. “Here’s hoping that the scent of whoever brought her out here is still on this.”
“The baby’s scent is on it, as is mine,” she said. “And yours.”
“I know. It’s a long shot. But if any dog can do it, Susie Bear can.”
He held the blanket under the Newfie mutt’s nose for a long moment. Then he pulled it away and said simply, “Search.”
She went to work, nose sniffing, clumping up to Mercy, and then over to Troy.
“Search,” he said again, and gave the dog another opportunity to smell the blanket.
Susie Bear snorted, wagged her tail, and went back to work. Broad snout twitching, she lumbered along the e
dge of the stream for about a hundred yards, and then turned into another blowdown area littered with fallen limbs. Elvis, who’d been shadowing her along with Mercy and Troy, now bounded after Susie Bear.
“Call him back,” Troy told Mercy.
“Sorry.” She whistled for the Belgian shepherd, but he ignored her.
Troy ran after the two dogs. He could hear Mercy jogging after him. The marshy ground was strewn with rocks and branches, and he slipped and slid along the uneven surface. By the time he caught up to them, the energetic canines were playing together in a corner of the blowdown area lined with black raspberry bushes laden with fruit due to ripen in the next month.
Susie Bear was kicking at a pile of pine needles and debris. Elvis was digging around in the brush, spraying dirt and twigs as he clawed at the earth.
At the sound of his approach, the Newfie mutt dropped to all fours. She looked at him, her dark eyes lively, her black feathery tail whacking the forest floor and whipping up dead leaves with every whomp. Elvis ignored Troy, intent on his burrowing and the growing hole at his feet.
He realized that they might not be playing.
“What are they doing?” Mercy appeared at his side, slightly out of breath.
“I’m not sure.”
“Your dog seems to be alerting to something.”
“Yours is just making a mess.”
They stepped forward together. He squatted down to take a closer look at whatever was preoccupying Susie Bear. He grabbed a stick and pushed around the loose soil, scraping away bark and brush.
“I don’t see anything.” He looked at the dog. “Nothing here, girl.”
She whined, and wagged her long tail even harder.
“Always trust your dog,” Mercy said as she turned her attention to Elvis. Troy followed her gaze, and watched the sleek shepherd nose a long bone from a slight mound of dirt and leaves, about a foot from where Susie Bear waited patiently for Troy to get a clue.
“That looks like…” She hesitated.
“A femur bone.” He finished the observation for her.
“Come,” said Mercy in a stern voice Troy suspected had kept wayward soldiers as well as shepherds in line.
Elvis trotted over to her.
“Drop it,” they ordered in unison.
To his credit, the shepherd dropped the bone.
“Human,” she said with confidence.
“Probably not.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Could be from a bear or a deer. Our bones are more like theirs than you might think.” People were always calling in about bones they’d found in the woods or on their property, and nine times out of ten they were not human.
“Uh-huh.” She was obviously not convinced.
“Let’s take a closer look.” He could feel Mercy’s cool blue eyes on him as he retrieved a pair of plastic gloves from his pack and slipped them on his hands. Then he picked up the femur bone gingerly. He raised it up in front of him.
The bone was more than twenty inches long.
“What do you think, about twenty-two, twenty-three inches long?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a tall person.” Mercy tilted her head, challenging him to disagree with her.
He couldn’t. She was probably right. The bone was most likely human. A tall human, given the fact that the average femur was a little shorter than this one. But he didn’t say anything; he just waited to see if she could tell him why.
“Oh, I get it, this is a test.” She grinned at him. “Okay, the distal condyles are asymmetrical, which means this creature walked on two legs, not four.” She pointed to the bony projections at the bottom of the bone, which looked a bit like knuckles. They were indeed asymmetrical, unlike their counterparts in bears and deer.
“That’s right.” He wondered how she knew that. He was about to ask her when Susie Bear barked. She still lay at the edge of what Troy now suspected could be a shallow grave, her tail still whomping away. Holding the bone gingerly, he walked over to her. Mercy and Elvis followed at a distance.
“Good job, girl.” He scruffed the thick fringe on Susie Bear’s head and gave her a treat from his pocket.
“Always trust your dog,” Mercy repeated.
Troy tossed a treat at Elvis, too, and the handsome boy caught it easily.
Mercy came up beside him, removing her cap and slipping it into her pocket. She leaned in close to examine the bone more carefully. So close he could have reached out and touched her hair, which smelled faintly of lavender and lemon.
She pointed to a clear marking on the bone, her forefinger fractions of an inch from the femur. “Looks like an old break.”
“Don’t touch it.” He stepped away from her.
Mercy snorted. “I wasn’t going to touch it.”
Elvis growled at him. Susie Bear sat up, ears alert, and growled back at the shepherd.
“Quiet,” she told the Malinois. He settled down, but still appeared ready to pounce at any moment. “Sorry. He can be a little high-strung sometimes.”
“PTSD?” He knew that dogs could be as susceptible to PTSD as human soldiers. It would explain why Mercy was so protective of the shepherd, and why he alerted to explosives in a forest halfway around the world from the battlefield. Not to mention that Malinois from working lines were bred to be dynamic and driven dogs with a strong prey/chase drive.
“Yeah.” Mercy stiffened. “But he’s doing much better.”
They say that the best working dogs are the ones that either want to chase the ball or kill the ball. The game warden knew that Susie Bear was the former and Elvis was the latter. Killing the ball was what he was bred and trained to do.
Troy also knew that some of these war dogs never recovered from their experiences—and never could adapt to civilian life once they were injured or aged out and were ready for retirement. Some remained so combative that they had to be put down instead. Maybe Elvis was still overly aggressive, too.
He wasn’t sure about the dog. And he wasn’t sure about his pretty handler, either. He wondered if she suffered from PTSD, too. He’d seen a lot of soldiers fall apart both on and off the battlefield. Either they couldn’t handle what happened to them over there—or they couldn’t handle what happened to them when they came back here. He’d have to find out more about Mercy Carr—and exactly where she’d been and what she’d been up to since that summer at the town pool a lifetime ago.
“That break might help us identify the victim,” she said, changing the subject.
There was no us here, he thought. There was just him and his congenial dog in the woods with this woman and her unpredictable dog. He didn’t know what to think. Too many variables and too little data. He sighed.
“Babies, bombs, bones.” Troy looked at Mercy. “You and your dog have had a very busy day.”
CHAPTER SIX
MERCY STOOD WITH ELVIS AT THE EDGE of the crime scene, behind the tape, as the Crime Scene Search Team sorted through the detritus of the forest floor for evidence. They’d roped off a large circle about sixty feet in diameter around the slight mound where the dogs had found the bones. At first they concentrated their efforts on that spot, but after coming up with only a couple of finger bones and hair, they’d widened the search area.
“Bone fragments everywhere,” Troy was saying to the medical examiner, a short, cheerful woman of about fifty named Dr. Darling. “Some bear must have gotten to the body fairly early on.”
“We may not find many more of the large bones left intact,” said the medical examiner. “You know how much black bears love their marrow.”
Mercy knew they were probably right. She’d spent many a summer helping her grandmother at her veterinary practice—and she’d learned a lot about animals, wild and domestic, in the process. Bears were omnivores that fed on nuts and berries and ants and honey, but they weren’t above feasting on small mammals like fawn and moose calves, rats and rabbits and more, when the opportunity presented itself. But the
y usually didn’t bother with bigger animals unless the prey was already injured or dead. When their superior noses led them to a dead moose, bears would rip through the thick hide that kept other scavengers out and binge on the meat inside.
They didn’t swing their meal around like coyotes or wolves; they preferred to straddle the dead animal to protect it from rivals, or grab a big piece and go sit down, enjoy it, and then come back for more. Some even napped on the carcass between snacks. They especially liked the marrow, so they’d crush the bones to get at it, leaving not much but shards behind.
The question was, how did the victim die? Did the bear kill the victim—or was the victim already dead when the bear came along for a sweet postmortem snack? Black bears rarely attacked humans, and then usually only when protecting their cubs. From what she knew about bears and what she knew about humans, she’d bet money that human nature was to blame here, not Mother Nature.
“But the remains are strewn all over,” said Troy. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“We’ll keep on looking.” Dr. Darling squatted on the ground, sorting contentedly through the remains, her foghorn tenor easily heard across the clearing.
“This must be a fairly old burial site,” he told her, “given the state of the remains.”
“What we’ve found so far has been picked pretty clean, so they’ve probably been here awhile,” she conceded.
Dr. Darling reminded Mercy of a pug. The game warden, on the other hand, was your classic Labrador, good-hearted and good-looking in the earnest and energetic way of retrievers. Martinez always compared people to canines—he’d called Mercy a pit bull, loyal, smart, and misunderstood—and she’d picked up the bad habit. But there was something to it.
She remembered the first day she’d seen Troy at the Northshire Center Pool all those years ago. She’d been sitting on a deck chair tucked under a blue umbrella close to the chain-link fence surrounding the pool area, down by the shallow end of the Olympic-sized pool, where the moms gathered with their toddlers on the steps. Away from the middle depths, where raucous prepubescent boys played water polo, and away from the deep end, where high school guys splashed high school girls sunning on deck chairs nearby.
