Robert Crais - Suspect

Scott pulled over, watched until Daryl was almost out of sight, then tightened the gap and pulled over again. Maggie didn’t mind. She enjoyed straddling the console and checking the sights.

Daryl went into a mini-market, and stayed so long Scott worried he had ducked out the back, but Daryl emerged with a super-size drink and continued hoofing it south. Five minutes later, Daryl crossed Sixth Street and entered MacArthur Park one block from where the arrest team staged to bag Marshall.

“Small world.”

Scott frowned into the mirror.

“Stop talking to yourself.”

Scott parked at the first open meter across from the park, cracked the door, and stepped out for a better view. Scott liked what he saw.

MacArthur Park above Wilshire contained a soccer field, a bandstand, and bright green lawns dotted with picnic tables, palm trees, and gray, weathered oaks. Paved walkways curved through the grass, inviting women with strollers, skateboard rats, and slow-motion homeless people pushing overloaded shopping carts stolen from local markets. Women with babies clustered at two or three tables, young Latin dudes with nothing to do hung out at two or three more, and homeless people used others as beds. People were catching sun on the grass, sitting in circles with friends, and reading books under trees. Latin and Middle Eastern men raced back and forth on the soccer field, while replacement players waited on the sidelines. Two girls strummed guitars at the base of a palm. Three kids with dyed hair passed a joint. A schizophrenic stumbled wildly across the park, passing three ’bangers with neck ink and teardrops who laughed at his flailing.

Daryl circled the ’bangers and cut across the grass, passed the three stoners, and made his way along the length of the soccer field toward the far side of the park. Scott lost sight of him, but that was the plan.

“C’mon, big girl. Let’s see what you got.”

Scott clipped Maggie’s twenty-foot tracking lead, but held it short as he led her to the spot where Daryl entered the park. Scott knew she was anxious. She brushed his leg as they walked, and nervously glanced at the unfamiliar people and noisy traffic. Her nostrils rippled in triple-time to suck in their surroundings.

“Sit.”

She sat, still glancing around, but mostly staring up at him.

He took the watchband from the evidence bag, and held it to her nose.

“Smell it. Smell.”

Maggie’s nostrils flickered and twitched. Her breathing pattern changed when she sniffed for a scent. Sniffing wasn’t breathing. The air she drew for sniffing did not enter her lungs. Sniffs were small sips she took in groups called trains. A train could be from three to seven sniffs, and Maggie always sniffed in threes. Sniff-sniff-sniff, pause, sniff-sniff-sniff. Budress’ dog, Obi, sniffed in trains of five. Always five. No one knew why, but each dog was different.

Scott touched her nose with the band, waved it playfully around her head, and let her sniff it some more.

“Find it for me, baby. Do it for me. Let’s see if we’re right.”

Scott stepped back and gave the command.

“Seek, seek, seek.”

Maggie surged to her feet with her ears spiked forward and her face black with focus. She turned to her right, checked the air, and dipped to the ground. She hesitated, then trotted a few steps in the opposite direction. She tasted more air scent, and stared into the park. This was her first alert. Scott knew she caught a taste, but did not have the trail. She sniffed the sidewalk from side to side as she moved farther away, then abruptly reversed course. She stared into the park again, and Scott knew she had it. Maggie took off, hit the end of her lead, and pulled like a sled dog. The three ’bangers saw them, and ran.

Maggie followed Daryl’s path between the picnic tables and along the north side of the soccer field. The players stopped playing to watch the cop and his German shepherd.

Scott saw Daryl Ishi when they reached the end of the soccer field. He was standing behind the concert pavilion with two young women and a guy about Daryl’s age. One of the girls saw Scott first, then the others looked. Daryl stared for maybe a second, then bolted away in the opposite direction. His friend broke past the back of the building and ran for the street.

“Down.”

Maggie dropped to her belly. Scott caught up fast, unclipped her lead, and immediately released her.

“Hold’m.”

Maggie powered forward in a ground-eating sprint. She ignored the other man and everyone else in the park. Her world was the scent cone, and the cone narrowed to Daryl. Scott knew she saw him, but following his scent to the end of the cone was like following a light that grew brighter as she got closer. Maggie could be blindfolded, and she would still find him.

Scott ran after her, and felt little pain, as if the knotted scars beneath his skin were in another man’s body.

Maggie covered the distance in seconds. Daryl ran past the pavilion into a small stand of trees, glanced over his shoulder, and saw a black-and-tan nightmare. He skidded to a halt at the nearest tree, pressed his back to the trunk, and covered his crotch with his hands. Maggie braked at his feet, sat as Scott taught her, and barked. Find and bark, bark to hold.

When Scott arrived, he stopped ten feet away and took a minute to catch his breath before calling her out.

“Out.”

Maggie broke off, trotted to Scott, and sat by his left foot.

“Guard’m.”

Marine command. She dropped into a sphinx position, head up and alert, eyes locked on Daryl.

Scott walked over to Daryl.

“Relax. I’m not going to arrest you. Just don’t move. You run, she’ll take you down.”

“I’m not gonna run.”

“Cool. Heel.”

Maggie trotted up, planted her butt by his left foot, and stared at Daryl. She licked her lips.

Daryl inched to his toes, trying to get as far from her as possible.

“Dude, what is this? C’mon.”

“She’s friendly. Look. Maggie, shake hands. Shake.”

Maggie raised her right paw, but Daryl didn’t move.

“You don’t want to shake hands?”

“No fuckin’ way. Dude, c’mon.”

Scott shook her paw, praised her, and rewarded her with a chunk of baloney. When he put the baloney away, he took out the evidence bag. He studied Daryl for a moment, deciding how to proceed.

“First, what just happened here, I shouldn’t have done this. I’m not going to arrest you. I just wanted to talk to you away from Estelle.”

“You were at the house when Marsh was busted. You and the dog.”

“That’s right.”

“He tried to bite me.”

“She. And, no, she didn’t try to bite you, or she would have bitten you. What she did is called an alert.”

Scott held up the evidence bag so Daryl could see the broken band. Daryl glanced at it without recognition, then looked again. Scott saw the flash of memory play over Daryl’s face as he recognized the familiar band.

“Recognize it?”

“What is it? It looks like a brown Band-Aid.”

“It’s half your old watchband. It kinda looks like the one you’re wearing now, but you caught this one on a fence, the band broke, and this half landed on the sidewalk. You know how I know it’s yours?”

“It ain’t mine.”

“It smells like you. I let her smell it, and she tracked your scent across the park. All these people in the park, and she followed this watchband to you. Isn’t she amazing?”

Daryl glanced past Scott, looking for a way out, then glanced at Maggie again. Running was not an option.

“I don’t care what it smells like. I never seen it before.”

“Your brother confessed to burglarizing a Chinese import store nine months ago. A place called Asia Exotica.”