Scent of Murder (18 page)

Ruben shouted, “Break. Clear.” He stepped forward and got right next to Hallett, leaning his face into Hallett's like a drill sergeant in the army. “What the hell was that?”

Hallett took a step back to regain his personal space as he holstered his pistol. “What was what?”

“That suspect had a pistol. Why didn't you shoot immediately?”

Hallett hesitated, then said, “I was worried about hitting Rocky.”

Ruben sighed in frustration. “Look, I know you love your dog. I love him, too. But don't lose sight of the fact that he is a tool to protect you and the citizens of Florida. You don't risk getting shot just to avoid shooting Rocky. Is that understood?”

Hallett just stared at the dog trainer.

This time Ruben raised his voice and said, “Is that understood?”

Hallett nodded his head.

“What exactly do you understand?”

Hallett mumbled, “A police service dog is a tool for the officer.” It was a line from one of their training manuals. “Is that good enough for you?”

“It is if you really believe it.”

*   *   *

Junior ate a sandwich while he waited outside the Palm Beach Community College, or whatever it was called now. Most of the community colleges had been converted to state colleges and offered bachelor's degrees. He couldn't figure out bureaucracy. The campus was too big to watch every building, but he knew her last class and had made an educated guess. It made him feel like God knowing what this girl would do before she did it.

Junior had used some of the skills he'd developed over the years to find the perfect surveillance point and spotted Michelle Swirsky almost immediately as she walked out of the Health Science Building with her bright red backpack.

He already realized she'd be much more of a challenge than the other girls. She actually went to school when she was supposed to, and it appeared that her mother kept a very close eye on her. Maybe her home life wasn't as bad as it looked on paper. His research made him think the family was a train wreck. He'd have to reassess after he watched her a few times. His concern was that if he spent the time watching her, he'd become fixated and not be able to move on to a more reasonable and safe target. That's what had happened every time in the past. Besides, he had a time frame. He didn't know how long he could keep flying under the radar, but if he acted quickly, Michelle couldn't be connected to him. And no matter how he looked at Michelle, he knew he couldn't go back to just letting the girls go without seeing him.

He'd finally seen a flyer for Tina Tictin. It was on the bulletin board of the county courthouse, and it was clear that no one thought she'd been abducted. He noted the line at the bottom of the flyer that said,
Last seen possibly in a late model brown Ford F-150 pickup truck
. He didn't own a pickup truck, so once again no one would ever connect the two of them.

Michelle hopped into a new blue Honda CRV driven by a nice-looking woman with flowing brown hair. Junior recognized her as Mrs. Swirsky, although her photograph didn't do her justice. He followed the blue Honda, which drove away from the school and out Sixth Avenue South in Lake Worth. It was easy to stay five cars back and still keep the Honda in sight. He was starting to understand how cops were able to follow people without being noticed. After a couple more turns, the Honda pulled into the parking lot of a Publix grocery store. He was shocked to see the cute Michelle pop out of the car wearing a Publix uniform shirt. Her mother had driven her to work. She kept a schedule.

Perfect.

 

19

Tim Hallett watched John Fusco and Claire Perkins as they walked toward him. The two looked more and more like partners, and he felt a pang of jealousy. But the surprise at seeing John Fusco at the K-9 training facility off Forest Hill Boulevard was nothing compared to the shock Hallett felt when he learned the detective came specifically to ask for help. He grudgingly admitted that Fusco had swallowed a lot of pride and come up with a creative theory about the missing teen Hallett had made the initial report on.

They had waited until Sergeant Greene and Darren Mori joined them at the training facility. Ten minutes later, they stood in the classroom with a gigantic map of central Palm Beach County spread out on the floor. Hallett could see that it was a South Florida Water Management District map and showed more detail than anything he had ever seen before.

Hallett didn't comment about Claire wearing plainclothes instead of her CAT shirt and fatigues. She didn't say a word as Fusco explained the situation.

Fusco said, “The F-150 was photographed running the red light at U.S. 441 here.” He jabbed at the map with his index finger pointing to Lake Worth Road and U.S. Highway 441. “That was about ten minutes after the clerk saw Tina get into a similar-looking truck here.” He moved the same finger across the map to a store on Military Trail just north of Lake Worth Road.

Fusco looked up but stayed on his knees so he could point at different spots on the map. “The garden shop manager at Home Depot didn't leave the store all afternoon and found evidence of a break-in that evening, but never reported it. The kidnapper in this case has used a different vehicle each time he grabbed a girl. I now think he might borrow them. It makes perfect sense if he knows how to hot-wire a vehicle. It also means he's very smart.”

Hallett had caught on and appreciated the detective's leap of faith. This was the kind of thinking that solved complex cases, but it was becoming less and less common as people expected scientific means to be used to gain convictions. Goddamn
CSI.
Hallett said, “So the kidnapper, using a stolen truck, grabbed Tina and headed west, past U.S. 441 on Lake Worth Road.”

Fusco said, “That's the theory. We're taking the truck into evidence and processing it just in case.”

Hallett smiled and said, “Not bad, who helped you? Is Claire getting you to open your mind to new things?”

All Fusco said was, “Funny.”

Darren Mori spoke up. “But where was he headed? He could cut through Wellington, end up on Southern Boulevard, and be out in Belle Glade in forty minutes.”

“That is a definite possibility. But it is also possible, if not more likely, that he was looking for an open area like this.” He brought his finger down hard on a wide area of undeveloped land. “This old farmland was bought up but hasn't been developed yet because of the real estate crash. There's no reason for anyone to be out that way. It's isolated and fits in with where he took the girls before.”

Claire Perkins said, “So what's the plan?”

“We use cadaver dogs to search as much of the fields as possible. We have Mori and his dog, plus three other certified K-9 units from other local police departments. If we need more, we can call FEMA and they'll have some registered in the area that they can recommend. For now, it's just a search. Who knows, we may get lucky.”

Hallett recognized that lucky breaks were responsible for about half of the big cases solved by any police agency. TV shows never wanted to take that into account. Of course, even he realized that often the luck was a result of extremely hard detective work. But in this case, having a red-light camera take a photograph of the truck no one reported stolen was nothing but pure, freakish luck.

*   *   *

Out in the field, Tim Hallett kept his mouth shut. This was not Rocky's area of expertise. If they were looking for drugs like cocaine or marijuana or some type of explosive chemical like TNT or ammonium nitrate, Rocky would be all over it. Cadavers were an entirely different specialty, and Brutus showed unbelievable ability in the area. He found everything from a single human tooth to a few strands of hair during training, and Ruben Vasquez had commented that he had never seen any dog with as strong a drive as Brutus.

Now Sergeant Greene stepped over to the group of three deputies, holding their dogs as they talked about the plan to search the area. The sergeant said in a low voice, “It's been more than a week since the girl disappeared. Obviously if she's still here we're looking for a body.”

They all nodded.

After the sergeant had walked away, Hallett turned to his partners and said, “We conduct the search as a unit. Brutus may be the one sniffing, but there's nothing to say we all can't help. This is a long shot, but it's exactly the sort of thing we were designed to handle.” He looked over at Darren and clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep it light and fun for Brutus, and he'll keep going and going. We've got a few hours of daylight left, and the other dogs are gonna conk out long before the sun sets.” He looked at several dog handlers who were not assigned to the CAT unit. They milled around their vehicles, not organizing like a team. Each was used to working individually.

Hallett had known the area when it was farmland, before the town of Wellington was developed. Now sprawling minimansions and horse farms had laid waste to the area that was once a wildlife sanctuary. He knew it was tough on the farmers to resist the big payouts on land that wasn't providing them much profit, but he hated to see the county jammed with so many northern transplants in hastily constructed houses.

John Fusco was walking from his black Crown Vic toward the K-9 officers. Hallett was surprised to see him wearing something much less formal than his usual suit and tie. He had on a pair of black tactical pants and a white shirt with a badge embroidered on it and the words
DETECTIVE FUSCO
under the badge.

Hallett caught the smile Fusco threw Claire as he approached.

Fusco said, “I thought we could start by covering the perimeter of the fields, then work our way in as we have to. We'll do as much as we can today and pick it up again tomorrow.”

Hallett listened, but his mind started to drift as he realized Tina Tictin didn't live too far from Arnold Ludner's house. He knew something was keeping the sheriff's office from going after Ludner. It was probably some restraining order the shithead son had filed with the court. He wished there was a way to get to the former financial adviser.

Then an idea popped into his head. No one had looked at the other two sons. The two that had been involved in the drug trade for many years. They could be the key to finding and questioning Arnold Ludner.

And sniffing out narcotics
was
part of Rocky's area of expertise.

*   *   *

Darren Mori and Brutus had only found one other body in almost two years of working together. And that one barely counted. It was an elderly woman who had fallen in her bathroom and died. Darren happened to be on patrol that day and got the “suspicious activity” called in by a neighbor. The neighbor was concerned because she hadn't seen the old woman in three days and she wouldn't answer the door or her phone. As soon as they had stepped onto the porch by the front door, Brutus started acting funny, almost as if alerting to narcotics. He paced back and forth in front of the door and scratched at it. Usually Brutus would sit down by the area where he'd smelled a cadaver or body part. He wanted to get to that area. With the neighbor standing right behind him, Darren decided that was enough to enter the house forcibly. After knocking several times, he broke a small frame of glass with the back of his flashlight, then reached in and opened the door.

Brutus dragged him through the house directly to the decomposing woman on the floor of the tiny bathroom attached to her bedroom. Two cats hissed at Brutus from the far side of the body. The big gray tabbies looked like they were keeping watch. Darren realized it was more likely they were hungry and preparing to start gnawing on their former master.

It wasn't exactly a mystery or even anything to brag about, but at least he could claim that he and Brutus weren't virgins when it came to finding cadavers.

This was an entirely different circumstance. Darren was nervous, but he couldn't let anyone know, especially Brutus. He had to stay calm and upbeat to keep the playful Golden Retriever from getting bored or worn-out. Not only was the rest of the squad counting on him, there were detectives, other K-9 units, and uniformed deputies milling around the scene as well. Darren knew most of them and didn't want anyone to have any ammunition for jokes about him later. He didn't mind the names like Kato. He no longer explained himself to the rednecks who couldn't tell the difference between a fictional Chinese character and someone whose grandparents emigrated from Japan. In one sense, it was politically correct to call all people from the Far East “Asian,” but in another sense, it lumped everyone together. Europeans and Americans no longer made an effort to distinguish between people from China, Korea, or Japan—even though the culture and language of Japan were as different from China's as from America's.

Darren realized he was building this search up in his mind to mean more than it really did. Whether Brutus found a body or not, it wouldn't really affect racial stereotypes across two continents. But it would mean something to him. He took a deep breath and looked out over the area they expected Brutus to search. The field was substantial. He could see where someone had tried to grow different crops and apparently just abandoned them after selling the land. One area held corn; another looked like it was growing wild tomatoes that used to be in some kind of order. There were the usual scrub-brush windbreaks between the fields and the seemingly never-ending maze of canals. The canal system in South Florida was complex and allowed the South Florida Water Management District to prepare for an oncoming hurricane by dumping water before it arrived. It was also a means by which to manage the gigantic Lake Okeechobee. Here it was just another impediment that Brutus would have to overcome while he searched for a dead teenage girl.

*   *   *

Junior couldn't believe he'd given in to his urge to enter the Publix where Michelle Swirsky was working. Usually he'd fantasize about things like this, but he rarely took the extra step of actually risking contact with the girl before he was ready to consummate their relationship.