Wrapping the long leash around the saddle horn, I accepted Johnny Ray’s hand to mount the huge horse. I threw my leg over the saddle and paused, waiting until my stomach settled. I had been raised on a farm and lived for years with horses, but I had only recently learned to ride. I still didn’t like the height from the ground, and Mabel stood over eighteen hands high at the shoulder. Maybe I should have taken a smaller, less tranquil horse. Too late now. Bending, I held the glove in its open evidence bag down to Cheeks. “Find!”
Cheeks stood up on his hind legs, balancing, and sniffed the gloves. The scent of vinyl was strong, a source of confusion to the dog and he looked up at me dolefully. “Find,” I said again, and again Cheeks dutifully sniffed before dropping back to all fours with a pained grunt. I led him to the back of the SUV and out a ways, moving west. Again, I held the gloves out to the hound and commanded him to find.
The dog had been retired for two years, accepting a home on the farm because he could no longer keep up with younger dogs working as trackers. He was as old as dirt; he had an arthritic hip and his nose wasn’t the best anymore. But in his prime, Cheeks, named after his long, drooping facial skin, had been one of the best, and he hadn’t forgotten how to find a scent. Jowls dragging the ground, he put his nose down and walked in a large circle, sniffing. I turned Mabel as Cheeks circled once, twice, in a widening pattern. After a moment, he paused, his tail held erect, the ruff on his shoulders standing slightly stiff. “Yeah. Good dog,” I said. “Find.”
With a satisfied woof, Cheeks headed west, toward the stand of trees I had unconsciously thought of as soon as I’d seen the sycamore leaf twisted in the laces of the small red sneaker.
2
I held on to the saddle horn as Cheeks walked west, the reins twisted in my right hand. The saddle was an old western cutting saddle Jas had found at a sale when she’d started badgering me to learn to ride. The high cantle held my hips securely, the horn keeping me upright and in place when I wanted to slide left or right. I had never really understood how riders managed to stay on a flat English saddle. I was graceless on my own two feet, and any sense of balance I had on the ground was lost when perched up high. If I could have convinced someone to tie me in place on horseback, I’d have done it.
Cheeks pulled hard against the leash in a straight line west until we were over the first low hill, and then he seemed to have a problem. He moved left and right and back again, ignoring the hooves of the huge horse, so intent on his task that Mabel snorted and stomped in warning. “Easy, girl.” I pulled back on the reins, bringing Mabel to a halt. With my other hand, I gave Cheeks more leash, the dog’s movements pulling the nylon cord from the reel with a whirring sound.
The old dog was excited, moving left and right, around and back. I could envision the other dogs playing with the shoe, tossing it high and catching it, a game of tag and fetch all at once. Cheeks stopped, his haunches quivering, his nose buried in the tall grass. I knew what I’d find. More parts of the little girl.
Unexpected tears filled my eyes. Some mother and father’s special little girl…Using Jack’s cuff on my wrist, I dashed the tears away and tried to figure out what to do next.
I hadn’t considered what might happen if I needed to dismount. Blowing out a breath, I said, “Well, this is peachy.” Having no choice, I shifted my weight to my left leg, swung my right over the mare’s back and dropped down—and down—to the ground, where I landed hard. Mabel looked back over her shoulder with placid eyes, her thick black lips moving as she chewed on her bit. “Now what?” I asked the horse. Mabel sighed, her huge barrel chest expanding and contracting. Mabel clearly had no suggestions.
Cheeks looked up from the grass, his woeful eyes on me, wanting me to come see what he had found. I couldn’t figure out how to get to him and still keep the horse with me, too. Bad planning. “Some forensic nurse I’ll be,” I muttered. “Two hundred yards from the barn and I’m already useless.” Mabel dropped her head and chomped at the long grass. “How about you staying here awhile? Okay?” The huge black horse ignored me, munching on. With no choice, I dropped the reins, lifted the forensic tote off the horn and moved to Cheeks.
In the eight-inch-high grass, liberally coated with Cheeks’s drool, was a second toe. The digit was blackened, the toenail half off, its iridescent blue polish shining in the morning sun. Fighting tears, I took photos and marked the site with the spray can of garish orange paint in my bag, making a two-foot ring on the grass. I should leave the toe in situ for the crime team, but I worried a scavenger might make off with it. I added the toe to an evidence bag, labeling this one TOE 2, WEST FORTY PASTURE, with the date and time, and dropped it into my tote. I didn’t have a GPS device, so crime scene would have to document the exact location by the orange spray paint.
I called Cheeks to me and flopped on the ground beside him, giving him a thorough scrub along the ears and neck. “Good dog,” I said, my voice thick with misery. “Yes, you are. Good, good dog.” I cleared my throat and forced my shoulders to relax, talking to the dog for the comfort it gave me. “Those stupid men didn’t know what they gave up when they put you out to pasture, did they, Cheeks? Yes, Cheeks is a good dog.” I was supposed to give a tracker a treat when he was successful, but I had forgotten to bring dog treats. Cheeks didn’t seem to mind, pleased with the praise I heaped on him until I felt able to stand again.
Mabel looked at me and seemed to smile when I hooked the tote back over the horn and tried to lift a foot to the stirrup. I was several inches from success. Mabel’s shoulder was a full six feet from the ground. I stood five feet four. In shoes. And I wasn’t as limber as I used to be.
Leading the mare to an old fence post, I hooked Cheeks’s leash to the post and pulled Mabel around. She kept going, around and around. “You think this is funny, don’t you?” I said as I tried to position her for mounting. Cheeks sat and watched, his canine grin only egging Mabel on, I was sure of it. I climbed down off the post and tried again to get her into position, then climbed back up the cedar post. Mabel moved again, stopping just out of reach, her eyes on me over her shoulder.
I laughed, the sound shaky. Cheeks woofed happily at my tone. And suddenly I was okay again, or okay as one got when carrying a child’s toe in a bag. “Let’s try this again,” I said to Mabel, making my voice more commanding and less imploring.
When I got the Friesian to pause long enough for me to throw a leg over her back, I slung my body up and landed half in the saddle. Mabel was moving again, around in circles. By the time I got both feet settled in the stirrups, she had circled away from Cheeks, who sat panting in the rising warmth, but I had done it. I had retrieved evidence that might have been destroyed by rodents or birds, and gotten back on the mare.
Taking control of the situation and the reins, I retrieved Cheeks’s leash and ordered him once again to find. An hour later, after a meandering traipse through the west forty and onto fallow land, the old hound stopped near a creek and lapped at the water, as did Mabel. In horse and dog years, they were both in their seventies, content to be working as long as they didn’t have to move fast and there was plenty of water and liniment at day’s end.
The sycamores were just ahead, pale green leaves and curling bark and spinning seeds just released from the stems. It was spring, and everything was sprouting out green. As if he sensed that the day’s work was nearly done, Cheeks pulled on the leash and headed directly to the trees. The earth beneath the stand was stripped of growth, windswept, the center tree ancient, bigger around than I could reach, its bark curled and hanging loose from the trunk like pages of a book.
There were no toes on the bare ground. There was no sign of a body under the copse of sycamores. But there was a strong, musky odor, skunk-like, rank and bitter. Cheeks lost the scent.
Enough time had passed that I thought the Crime Scene team had probably arrived at the farm, so I tied off dog and horse under the trees and checked the cell phone. There were four bars of reception this close to the I-77 corridor, and I called the barn number. The phone had a loud outside bell with a distinctive chime and Johnny Ray picked up on the fourth ring.
“Davenport Downs,”