Sleep Softly

“You got a shoe with part of a foot. No body?”

“Not with me, no,” I said, managing to sound wry and jaded instead of near tears. “But I have a couple ideas where it might be.”

“How…? Never mind.” I could almost see Buzzy scratching his head as he pondered how to investigate and interrogate a toe. “I’ll get an investigator out your way ASAP. And maybe a crime-scene crew?” He was still perplexed. I’d had longer than him to figure out what came next and understood that I didn’t have a crime scene. All I had was a toe.

“Dogs, Buzzy. The canine team. To find the body. I’ve got four hundred acres here. There are farms on the east and the south, and an illegal garbage dump nearby. Not to mention I-77 close by, where a body could be tossed.”

“K-9’s up near Ford County helping track a suspect of a bank CEO shooting and aborted robbery. But I can send a crime-scene team out.”

I sighed. “Buzzy, I’m going to look for the body. I’ve got one of the Ethridge boys’ old tracker hound dogs—it’s done work for the K-9 unit—and we’ll be heading west from the barn. Cheeks has worked with horses before, so I’ll be on horseback. I’ve got my cell phone with me.”

“Why west?”

“Sycamore leaf,” I said. “There was a sycamore leaf in the laces.” I hadn’t even thought about my reasons for heading west until he asked and I paused, surprised. “I don’t have many sycamore trees on the property, but there’s a small stand of about four…. Just head west from the barn, Buzzy. And have your crime-scene crew take the shoe in the evidence bag and the voice tape in the back of my truck. I’ll provide digital photos later.”

“Gotcha. Cavalry’s on the way.”

Snapping the phone shut, I stuffed it in a pocket. Clicking to Mabel and Cheeks, I took up reins and leash. Together, we ambled to my truck where I removed the tote of forensic supplies, added in bottled water, a compass, sunscreen and a box of Fig Newtons, and looped the bag over the saddle horn.

Satisfied that I had what I needed and that the old dog would stay out from underfoot properly, I looked up at the saddle—up and up. My stomach fluttered at the thought of sitting up there with all that power beneath me. I braced myself. I could wait here like a good little girl and let the cops handle it. I could never get up on that horse and never go scouting to find the rest of the little girl. I could be a coward. Or I could do what needed to be done.

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,” he said. I could tell he had started drinking and I wasn’t really surprised. Johnny Ray didn’t much like cops. The thought of law enforcement on the premises would drive him to the bottle.

“Johnny Ray, are the cops there yet?”

“They’re here,” he said sourly.

“Let me talk to the officer in charge.”

“It’s your boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your boyfriend. The FBI agent. He’s done took over. And let me tell you, the sheriff’s stomping around, cussing under his breath. He’s mad as a dead hen.”

“Wet hen.”

“Huh?”

I shook my head in frustration. “Let me talk to Jim.” A moment later I heard his voice in the background as Jim directed the unloading of some sort of equipment. Closer, directly into the old black receiver, he said, “Ramsey.”

I felt an unreasoning sense of relief at the single word, as if someone had given me a hug and told me he would take care of me and any problem I might have. That was a feeling that didn’t last. “Hi. I’m glad you’re—”

“Ash? What the hell do you mean, taking off and ruining a crime scene. Damn it, don’t you know how hard it’s going to be find this body?”

“You have dogs?”

“Do what?” Jim said.

“Dogs. Do—you—have—tracker dogs?” I said it sweetly, so sweetly my mama couldn’t have sounded more sugary. Jim Ramsey knew what I sounded like when I was ticked off. About like I did now. “You know, to find this body? Or does the FBI have another way to locate a body in the rough? Like, oh, I don’t know, psychics?” When Jim didn’t answer, I said, “No. You don’t have any dogs. Because the dogs are up near Ford County. But I have one of the best tracker dogs in the state on my farm and he’s managed to follow the trail to the edge of my property. And he found another toe while he was at it. The site is marked clearly with bright orange paint.”

Jim sighed. “I’m acting like an ass, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are,” I said pleasantly.

He chuckled. “I’m sorry. I have a good reason.” His voice lowered. “Guess what local is running this gig, because the county investigators are up at the bank thing in Ford County. Sheriff C. C. Gaskins, himself.”

“Johnny Ray told me. Gaskins is a bona fide male chauvinist pig, but you didn’t hear it from me. It’s been years since the sheriff had to do fieldwork.”

“And it shows, but you didn’t hear it from me. Couple deaf folks talking on cell phones. Head west, huh?”

“Yes, and while you’re at it, I’ll try to get Cheeks to find the scent again. We ran into polecat scent and his sniffer shut down.”

“Polecat…”

“Oh, yeah,” I grinned into the morning light, knowing Jim would hear the laughter in my voice, “and it’s quite, ummm, potent. Hope you brought overalls and boots to put over your fancy FBI suit and tie. It’s aromatic and a mite damp out in the west forty.”

“Well, hell.”

“Yep. I reckon that says it all fairly well. Bring some Tylenol and Benadryl, will you? I’ve been up too long, the glare is giving me a headache, and the dog is going to be sore from the exercise.”

“Will do. On the way.”

It was only after I cut the connection that I wondered why Jim was on the farm. What was the FBI’s agent coordinator of the Violent Crime Squad, from the Columbia field office, doing answering a call about a red shoe and two toes? On first glance, I would have assumed that someone in local law enforcement, probably C.C. himself, had called him in. FBI worked only on cases at the behest of local law, unless there was a task force already in place. Yet Johnny Ray had said C.C. was unhappy at Ramsey’s presence. Interesting.

I drank bottled water and shared the Fig Newtons with Cheeks, munching as I thought about the implications of a task force that had something to do with the red sneaker. There had been nothing in the local Dawkins Herald or the Ford County paper about a special task force. I only read The State newspaper on weekends, but there had been nothing there either.

Placing the food and water back into the tote, I studied the surrounding countryside. The farm was a bucolic setting in a rural county, though only half an hour from Columbia, the state capital, a sprawling city with big-city problems and big-city prices. Long, low rolling hills stretched out before me, pasture for Davenport Downs’s horse stock and acres sown with hay, alfalfa, soy beans. A few strategic acres were planted with mold-resistant sweet basil, parsley and other herbs, tomatoes, summer squash and zucchini. Most were only half-sprouted this early in the year. The smell of fresh-turned earth, pollen, horse and polecat; the sounds of birdsong; the far-off roar of a tractor carried on the wind—all were part of Chadwick Farms, my family home.

I didn’t like the conclusions I was drawing about what a task force might mean when combined with this isolated location and a kid’s shoe. A hidden grave, perhaps tied in with other graves. But I couldn’t seem to stop putting two and three and maybe forty-six together and coming up with…This was bad. This was very, very bad.

“Cheeks. Come,” I said, reeling the old dog in. “We have work to do.” I bent and searched the hound’s rheumy eyes. “Have you had enough time to get that polecat scent out of your nose yet?”

Cheeks looked back at me with his usual mournful expression.

“Let’s give it a try.” Leaving Mabel tied by her halter in the cool beneath the sycamore trees, her saddle loosened, her bridle pulled from her mouth and draped across her neck, I shouldered the evidence bag and held the sneaker-scented gloves out to Cheeks. He sniffed, black nostrils fluttering slowly. He looked up at me, his lower lids drooping, showing red rims. He sniffed twice more, securing the scent in his memory. “Find.”

Cheeks meandered out into the pasture and circled back. Out and back. I let him sniff again, trying not to encourage him in any particular direction. Again he moved out, nose to the ground, lifted, back to the ground. Around and around in an ever-widening circle.

Some hounds are air dogs, meaning they are so sensitive they can pick up a scent left on the air, carried on the breeze. Cheeks was a ground hound. Not a cadaver dog, either, one trained to find only dead bodies. But he’d searched for a little of everything in his years in law enforcement and I hoped he’d be able to find the scent again. Ten minutes of wandering away from the sycamores, he succeeded. His ruff bristled, his tail went tall and stiff and he pulled hard on the leash, his nose puffing at the earth.

On foot, we crossed the pasture, a field of hay to my left, fenced pasture to the right, separated by the grassy verge between. Cheeks’s nose followed a convoluted path. On the other side of the field, we entered a darker, cooler place, earth-brown and loamy, mixed trees, oak, maple, scrub cedar, swamp hickory, tulip poplar with its yellow blooms still turned toward the April sun.

Cheeks pulled me left into a slight depression and the earth changed beneath my feet, turning pale and sandy, the remains of the ancient river that once had flowed through the state and now was no more. I remembered the grit that fell out of the laces and the curled toe of the shoe. There had been yellow-white sand in the mix. No red mud, no yellow tallow—a poorly draining clay-like soil, which would be typical of the area—but grit and pale sand. I had recognized it but not placed it, not consciously, yet I had known that Cheeks would head in this direction when he found the scent again. Because of the sand.

My breath came harsh and fast as the old dog’s pace increased. “Good boy, Cheeks,” I muttered, stumbling along behind him. “Good old dog.”

He pulled me down a dip, past a lichen-covered grouping of boulders cluttered with rain-collected debris from a recent storm. Back up over a freshly downed tree, its bark ripped through by lightning, its spring leaves withered.

We were surely near the edge of Chadwick Farms property by now, over near the original Chadwick homestead, close to the old Hilldale place. I could see open land through the trees off to one side and the tractor I had heard earlier sounded louder. Cheeks sped up again, his gait uneven as his degenerating hips fought the pace, and I broke into a sweat.

And then I smelled it. The smell of old death.

I reeled the leash back short, keeping Cheeks just ahead. The hair on his shoulders lifted higher and his breathing sped up, making little huffs of sound. His nose skimmed along the sandy soil. The old dog put off a strong scent of his own in his excitement.

Rounding two old oaks, Cheeks quivered and stopped. He had found a scrap of cloth, his nose was planted in it. Just beyond was a patch of disturbed soil, the fresh sand bright all around, darkened in the center. More cloth protruded from the darkened space.

“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered, pulling back on Cheeks to keep him close. “Oh, Jesus.” It was a prayer, the kind one says when there aren’t any real words, just horror and fear. Cheeks lunged toward the darkened spot in the sand, jerking me hard.

“No!” I gripped the leash fiercely and pulled Cheeks away, back beyond the two oaks. With their protection between me and the grave, I stopped. Legs quivering, I dropped to the sand and clutched the old dog close. I was crying, tears scudding down my face. “Someone’s little girl. Someone’s little girl. Oh, Jesus.”

Cheeks thrust his muzzle into my face, a high-pitched sound coming from deep in his throat, hurt and confused. I’d said no when he’d done what I wanted. Shouted when he had found what he’d been told to find.

“I’m sorry, Cheeks.” I lay my head against his face and he licked my tears once, his huge tongue slathering my cheek into my hairline. My arms went around him, my body shaking with shock, fingers and feet numb. “Good Cheeks. Good old boy. You’re a hero, yes you are. Sweet dog. Sweet Cheeks.”

I laughed, the sound shuddering. “Sweet Cheeks. Jas would tease me all week if she heard me call you that. But you are. A sweet, sweet dog.”

The hound stopped whining and lay beside me, his front legs across my thigh. The pungent effluvium of tired dog and death wrapped around me. The quiet of the woods enveloped me. I breathed deeply, letting the calm of the place find me and take hold, not thinking about the death only feet away.

After long minutes, the tingling in my hands and feet that indicated hyperventilation eased and I stood. I checked my compass, dug out the spray can of orange paint and marked both trees with two big Xs.

“Okay, Cheeks. I hope you can get me back to Mabel. Home,” I commanded. “Let’s go home.” When Cheeks looked up at me with no comprehension at all, I held my jeans-clad leg to him so he could sniff the horse and said, “Find. Find.” He was a smart dog, and without a single false start led me back along the sandy riverbed. With the bright paint, I marked each turn and boulder and tree on the path, back into the sunlight and the pasture.