Color Blind (Team Red) (7 page)

“Wow,” Lt. Mercer said. “This is amazing stuff. What I find remarkable, is that his success seems to be measurable. Have you had success solving any of those cold cases?”

“Only one so far,” Gil admitted. “There’s not a whole lot of manpower to spend on ten-year-and-older cases, when we have so much current stuff to handle. But, we assign each person in the office one of the cold cases that Red has flagged. Each officer, or pair of officers in the instances where Red has linked two cases, work on their cases between current assignments. It involves a lot of reviewing old evidence, so its time consuming and often redundant. We are pretty hopeful about the two cases he’s managed to link up for us.”

“Just before you arrived, Teresa was telling us Red has the ability to prioritize. How does that work?” Lt. Osborn asked. This was his first contribution to the conversation, I had almost forgotten that he was present. “And, how would you measure something like that?”

“I can’t say it’s something we focused on measuring; although, it is very consistent in much of the work we have done already. One example would be when we asked Red about identifying a person in a line-up based on the scent off a bloody towel,” Gil explained. “We had picked up the towel at a crime scene a couple weeks earlier. During a breaking and entering, the perp sustained an injury on a glass window, then used a kitchen towel to clean up.

“Oh!”
Red said, scrambling to his feet and placing a paw on my lap
. “I remember that one! That was the case last week.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the one he’s talking about,” I agreed.

“I am brilliant!”

“I have to agree. That was actually one of your better ideas, Gil.” David said, and scratched Red’s ears.

“Oh, yeah, David… right there. Ohhhh.”
Geez, Red sounded like a cheap porno flick. I grinned, as I imagined David’s amusement when I told him about this doggie soundtrack later.

“As I was saying,” Gil continued, “we brought in a suspect while Red was at the police department on an unrelated evidence review. When I saw Red in the processing area, I asked him if it were possible to determine from sniffing a towel, if it belonged to our suspect.” Gil paused for a moment to sip on his coffee.

“Not only was Red able to tell us that it wasn’t our suspect’s blood, he was able to tell us the blood on the towel belonged to the guy’s wife. The wife was there to accompany her husband, only, she wasn’t a suspect. We had no way of holding her, or of getting a DNA sample.”

I could hear Red dance in a circle as if chasing his tail,
“This is the best part!”

I chuckled at my dog’s antics, and David started to laugh at my side. “I take it, he likes this story?”

“Oh yeah. He’s so full of himself right now, I can barely stand him,” I smiled indulgently.

“Red informed us the wife was on her period, and would probably be needing to change her feminine napkin (Nope, not the words Red used- some things I just can’t repeat), and we could probably get the DNA from that,” Gil explained. “You just can’t teach a dog to think of something like that. We had a couple female officers empty all the trash receptacles in the women’s bathroom on that floor, and we drew out the questioning on the husband for another hour; and sure enough, she finally went to the ladies room to change out her pad. We had two female officers follow that chain of evidence to the lab, and we were able to arrest her a couple days later when the results were in.

“A lot of things had to fall into place to make this work,” Gil continued. “What was brilliant was Red’s understanding of what we needed, and his ability to make a suggestion based on what he knew. The strength of the scent evidently told him she was wearing a pad. He was intelligent enough to realize what we needed for DNA, and offered a suggestion. Even if she had used a tampon, there would have been DNA on the applicator we could probably have used.”

David chuckled, “Red managed to gross out every male officer on the floor with his idea. Dog’s just don’t see blood or body fluids through the same lens as people.”

“True,” Gil said. “But, Ash, the lab tech simply adores him.”

“And Gil, absolutely adores Ash, the lab tech,”
Red tattled.

“Really?” I said. “Gil and Ash, huh?”

“What’s this, Gil?” Bas asked in a teasing tone. “Are you sweet on Ash? You got good taste, my man. She’s a beauty.”

“Geez, I just can’t keep things private around here,” Gil groaned, dramatically.

“You know better than that, Gil. The dog repeats everything. He couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it,” David laughed.

The group of us sat around the table for another fifteen minutes or so, leisurely sipping coffee and munching on home-baked cookies.

“When you and Red are talking, is there a limit to your range? Does he just fade out until you can’t hear him?” Lt. Osborn asked.

“The communication seems to work more like a phone call does. We have reception whether Red and I are separated by two feet or twenty. When we get about thirty feet apart, it’s just like the call drops. I hear him just as clearly when he’s across a room, as when he’s resting his head on my lap. Since he speaks to my mind, he can multi-task; it’s not like he has to stop and vocalize. For example, when he was growling at Devon earlier, we were able to carry on a conversation.” I took a gulp of my coffee then, canted the cup towards David to silently ask for a top-off.

“Red’s hearing is good enough, I don’t have to speak loudly to get his attention. I combine speech and our version of sign language, since I never know if he’s looking my way.”

“Actually, when I hear you start to talk, I look over to see if you’re speaking to me. I can hear you talking over a distance, better than I can one of the guys,”
Red commented.

“I didn’t know that,” I said, surprised. This had never come up before.

When I relayed this tidbit to the group, Lt. Mercer suggested, “Women have higher pitched voices. The vocal range may have something to do with why he can pick your voice out easier.”

Gil agreed that was probably the case, and volunteered to check on a dog’s hearing range. He was no longer a K-9 handler in his duties with the SPD, but he still worked with the dogs peripherally, in particular, with Red; he tried to keep up to date on tracking ideas, evidence handling, and general canine behavior and biology to be a better policeman.

“On that subject, Gil, do dogs see better than humans?” I asked.

“I’ll have to give you one of my no, but yes, answers,” He chuckled. “First off, I’m sure you already know that dogs are color blind.”

“They see in black and white?” Lt. Osborn asked.

“No,” Gil corrected. “Dogs are color blind, like people who are color blind. They can’t see in shades of red or green. Most of what they see is in muted shades of yellow and blue. If you were to look up color blind on the internet, you’d see dogs have a very limited color spectrum. Secondly, dogs don’t have the same visual acuity that humans have – maybe only thirty or thirty-five percent. I’d have to look it up to be sure.”

“So, you’re saying, compared to people, dogs are near-sighted?” Bas asked.

“Yep, pretty much. On the flip side, they have better eyesight than humans in dim light, so I would venture to say their night vision is superior. They also detect movement better than people, so they would be faster to see something camouflaged than you or I would.”

“I am a noble nocturnal hunter,”
Red said with pride.
“All the better to lay my trap for unwary cats.”

“Aw, come on Red, enough with the cat trapping. The neighbor’s cat is awfully sneaky. You may have a predisposition to hunt at night, but it’s gonna take a great idea to catch him.”

Again, with the evil chuckle.
“Her. But, I have come up with the idea of the perfect cat trap,”
Red boasted.

“We already told you, we won’t help you make a cat trap,” David reminded him. “And I’ll remind you that you are not allowed to hurt her.”

“The only thing that I’ll hurt is her pride,”
my dog said, smugly.

“I like that no cat will be harmed in the execution of your plan, Red. Which brings me to a question of my own… What do you plan to do with the cat if you catch her?” My mind went off tangent with mental thoughts of a cat trying to tear its way out of a burlap sack.

“How much postage do you think I need to mail her to the Catskill Mountains?”

The what? Postage? “You can’t mail a cat!” I objected, very strenuously, I might add.

“I don’t see why not. If no one opens the box then the cat will be both alive and dead- no harm, no foul.”

“Alright, who is half-ass teaching Red about quantum physics and
Schrödinger’s Cat
paradox?” I asked the room in general. I was so tempted at this point to just bang my head on the table top, but a clearer head prevailed (I didn’t want to slosh my coffee). I repeated Red’s reasoning out loud to let everyone know the level of insanity to which my dog had sunk.

“Uh, that would be me,” Ken admitted. “I wasn’t teaching him about it, I was doing homework for my science class, and Janey and I were discussing the Schrödinger’s Cat theory. We were also talking about the Catskill Mountains, too. My mom lives there, and we are thinking about a trip back east to visit my family over the holidays.”

Sigh. “Red, you know Schrödinger’s Cat is just a scientific theory, right? You can’t really mail the cat, it would die in the box. If you catch the cat, you can’t hurt it, so that means you can’t mail it.”

“Maybe we can give her to Gil? He’s already got one cat, we may as well just load him up with one more. Besides, Molly likes cats; as far as I can tell, that’s the only thing wrong with her,”
Red said, referring to Gil’s Golden Retriever.

“The cat isn’t ours, Red. We can’t just give her to Gil, we can’t give her to anyone, she’s already owned by the neighbor.”

“But she keeps coming into MY yard,”
Red complained, channeling his inner two-year-old.

“Hey, Pal,” Gil interrupted, “What did I do to you that you’d palm another cat off on me? I thought we were friends.”

“Gil likes cats.”
Red said simply. I relayed this to Gil.

“Actually, I’m a dog person. The cat belonged to my ex-girlfriend. When we split up, she said she didn’t have room for the cat, so I just kept him. I like Dude, he’s pretty laid back, so it’s not a hardship.”

Mine was not the only laughter in the room, “You have a cat named, Dude?”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and tease. I didn’t name him, I just feed him kibble,” Gil explained. “Let me tell you, the name’s not the worst part. Dude is one of those munchkin cats with the short legs. He looks like a stuffed animal. Molly adores him, and carries him around in her mouth like he’s a favorite toy. Damn cat, just goes all boneless and lets Moll walk around the house with him hanging in her jaws, like a live muzzle ornament. Craziest thing I’ve ever watched.”

“It seems to me, Red, that the only thing you can do is revel in the satisfaction of catching the cat, then you need to let her go,” I sympathized. Well, I tried to sound sympathetic, I have to say, I had no real interest in seeing him actually trap a cat.

“Gil, since you’re here, any ideas on what we can do for the colonel’s staff?”

“Have you asked Super Dog if he has any insights or observations?”

“That’s an idea, but sometimes he comes up with personal stuff that may not be appropriate.”

“Lt. Mercer is pregnant,”
Red told me helpfully.

I signed ‘woman pregnant’, to let David make the judgment call on that one. If the lieutenant was obviously showing, this news wasn’t something that everyone didn’t already know. It could also be a touchy thing to bring up if she was a single officer.

“Lt. Mercer, Red tells us you are expecting a baby,” David said.

“Talk about surprised,”
Red told me.
“She’s looking down at her belly like she’s never seen it before.”

“Baby?” She asked, in a hushed voice. “Really?”

“She doesn’t sound upset,” I murmured to David. “Good call.” I congratulated him on guessing she’d be okay with the news. “How did you know she wouldn’t freak out?”

“She has been playing with her wedding band as if she wasn’t used to it being there. I assumed she is recently married,” David replied, quietly. “She looks close to thirty, so I figured it wouldn’t be a mistake if she’s pregnant.”

“We have been trying to have a baby, but I’ve been so busy lately…” Her voice trailed off as if she were still thinking through the idea. “Oh, my gosh, I could be. Is he sure?”

Gil answered first, “If Red says you’re pregnant, he’s probably basing it on elevated hormone levels. We haven’t really done tests to see if he can tell how far along a woman is, but he’s told us on numerous occasions that he can smell when a woman is pregnant.”

“It’s definitely possible; although, I would have to see a doctor to confirm. Oh, wow, I hope you’re right. This would be wonderful.”

“Congratulations,” Bas said. “If Red says it’s true, I have no doubt he’s right.” Other well wishes were echoed around the room.

“We can play the guessing game,” I suggested. “The same one I played with Bas the first time Red and I tried to explain what we do.”

“There’s also an option to take Red out on the deck and just tell him stuff to relay to Teresa. It’s within the thirty foot range, so she can communicate with him, even with the sliding doors closed,” Bas added.

“How does the guessing game work?” Lt. Osborn asked. His chair squeaked slightly, leaving me with an impression he leaned forward in his chair.

“Just walk around the room and either point at an object, or collect a few items from various locations and line them up where Red can see, and indicate which order you want him to relay the object’s name to me. If he doesn’t know the name of the object, I’ll have to ask him a few questions to narrow it down, but we will eventually figure it out.”

I heard the lieutenant’s chair scrape out as he pushed away from the table. “I’ll collect a few things and bring them back to the table.”

“While you’re doing that,” Lt. Mercer said, “I’ll take Red outside and chat with him for a few minutes. How long can he retain a message in his memory?”

Gil chuckled, “I think that dog remembers everything he hears. We have found Red has a great memory, but he may not quote back verbatim. It’s not unusual for him to add side comments to what people say, so be prepared for anything.”

Bas, David, and I joined in with Gil’s amused laughter. “He’s come up with some really interesting observations based on his interpretation of slang.”

Bas added, “Or, because he hears what you say, but reads your body language as something else.”

Red let me know he was accompanying Lt. Mercer outside, and I listened to the light click of his nails on the wooden floor of the dining area.

“How often have you had to do these little demonstrations for people?” Colonel Spencer asked.

“Not too often,” I replied. “We have less than two dozen people in the circle of friends or professionals, mostly from the police department, that know or suspect what we can do. The Team has talked about approaching the military to offer our services, but we hadn’t gotten as far as to pick out who to approach, or how to go about it.”

“Lt. Osborne, feel free to grab an item out of a kitchen drawer or cabinet. If you want to add something from your pocket, that’s fine too,” David directed, fully confident that Red could figure it out.

The men started speaking amongst themselves about possible military applications, all stuff we had considered when we had these discussions as a team. I sipped my coffee and tuned them out as I waited for my dog to start sending me information.

From the deck, I could hear Red as clearly as if he were standing at my side.
“Lt. Mercer is telling me she hopes she’s pregnant, and her husband, Greg, wants a girl first, then a boy. They have already picked out names. Kimberly Anne, after Greg’s mom Annalee. Lawrence Robert after each of their fathers.”
I think Red sighed, then he continued,
“Now she’s just going on about the wedding and the dress- Geez, Teresa, you’re not gonna get all girly like this when you and David get married, are you?”