Stephen White - Warning Signs

All I saw was the dog sitting peacefully. I expected something different, though I don't know what. "Basement," I said in reply to Dorsey's question. "My memory is that the stairs are in the kitchen." I added, "What do you mean, 'positive'?" Though I knew what she meant by "positive."

She didn't answer. She found the way to the kitchen and led Shadow down the stairs. I fumbled for a light switch, finally illuminating the dark staircase. The basement was nicely finished, but the ceilings were low and the space felt claustrophobic. The large room at the base of the staircase was set up as a home office for Royal. One long wall was lined with shelves filled with an impressive collection of abstract pottery. I counted fifteen large pieces and a few small ones. A prominent space on a shelf that was near the foot of the stairs was empty.

Royal's collection of ceramics had apparently once included sixteen large pieces.

After no more than ten seconds, Shadow moved from a quick sniff around Royal's office to focus on an adjacent utility room. There he immediately picked a spot near the center of the room, raised his snout in the air, circled once, and sat.

Dorsey said, "Wow. That's another alert. He's confirming."

"Confirming?"

"Watch this," said Dorsey with obvious pride.

She moved a six-foot stepladder from the far wall and set it up on the exact spot where Shadow had been sitting. She released him from his lead and, without a moment's hesitation, the dog climbed the length of the ladder, balancing his front paws on the top platform, his back paws on the second-to-last rung.

"Isn't that cool?" Dorsey said. "I didn't even have to teach him that. He does it all on his own."

"Amazing," I agreed. I could barely breathe. It was as though Shadow were stealing all my air.

"It's another positive," she said, as she lifted the dog off the ladder and placed him on the concrete floor. "I think it's the same spot he smelled from up above. I bet something's been tucked up there between the floor joists."

I leaned in and peered up into the dark recess.

She asked, "What do you think?"

"The floor plan is kind of hard to follow from down here, but, yeah, I think it may be the same spot where he sat upstairs."

She pulled a flashlight from an asspack around her waist and aimed the beam up toward the ceiling. "Holy moly, there it is. Wow, wow, wow. I've never found a real one before. I'm just a trainer, you know?"

I reminded myself to exhale. "Are you going to go up there and look at it?"

"Are you nuts? The device could be booby-trapped. Shadow locates the things; that's where my involvement stops. I sure as hell don't examine them or disarm them. I've already given enough of my body to law enforcement, thank you, and I've gotten as close as I plan to get to that device, whatever it is."

"Of course, I wasn't thinking," I said. I was so nervous, I was barely capable of thinking.

Dorsey said, "What do you say we get the hell out of here as quick as we can? It gives me the willies knowing that there are really explosives here."

"You're sure that we're talking… explosives?"

"Me? I don't smell a thing. But Shadow's pretty sure. He's been an A student. Most K-9s work at eighty-five to ninety percent accuracy. Shadow's almost done with his training and he's been near ninety-five percent for the last couple of weeks. The fact that he's sure is plenty good enough for me."

"If that's the case, getting out of here as fast as we can sounds like a perfect plan," I said. My throat was so dry I had trouble getting the words out of my mouth. I held my breath for a moment so I could listen hard for the sound of a clock ticking.

Or my heart pounding.

Nothing.

Dorsey wasted no time herding Shadow back up the basement stairs toward the front door. Seconds later, Dorsey, Shadow, and I were all back outside on the Petersons' front porch. When I looked up, I saw Sam pacing across the street.

Dorsey waved to him while she simultaneously slipped Shadow a treat.

"It's positive, Sam," she called out. "Sorry."

Sam buried his face in his hands. I was pretty certain that if I were any closer to him I would have heard him curse me in some imaginative way.

To Dorsey, I said, "I think I'd feel a whole lot more comfortable if we got off of this porch, maybe joined Sam across the street."

A t Sam's suggestion I departed the scene, loitering around the corner while Dorsey loaded Shadow into the back of the old Mercedes. Sam wanted Dorsey and the dog long gone before the Boulder Police Department mobilized its assets to deal with the latest crisis at Royal Peterson's home. Sam had already told me that his plan was to tell his superiors that he'd received an anonymous tip, not that he'd finagled a way to get a bomb-sniffing dog to do the initial reconnaissance of the house.

In the three minutes after Dorsey drove Shadow and the Mercedes away, a half dozen Boulder Police Department black-and-whites arrived, followed moments later by a big rescue squad truck, a pumper from the Boulder Fire Department, and finally, about ten minutes later, a truck and trailer carrying bomb squad members and their equipment. I thought it was an impressive response for a town the size of Boulder.

The Petersons' block was evacuated in short order; many of the evacuees ended up congregating near my anonymous post around the corner. A lot of people gathered; I assumed that the block behind the house had been evacuated as well. Yellow tape seemed to be stretched everywhere. I kept an eye out for Susan Peterson's neighbor, the one with the two little kids who'd given me the key, but they never came around my corner. I wondered if the police had used Boulder's reverse 911 system to alert the neighbors. The program permitted the authorities to use an automated system to phone residents and inform them of an emergency. I made a mental note to ask Sam.

When the first TV microwave truck arrived, I used it as my cue to begin walking away. On foot, if I ambled, I figured it would take me about fifteen minutes to get to my office downtown. If I pushed the pace a little bit, I thought I might have time to grab a snack before I got to Walnut Street and still have about twenty minutes to prepare myself for Naomi Bigg's noon appointment.

Knowing myself, I knew that I'd spend every one of those twenty minutes second-guessing my decision to alert Sam Purdy that there was a possibility that explosives had been planted in Royal and Susan Peterson's home. Although I couldn't quite convince myself that I'd done what was right, the fact that Shadow had discovered a cache of explosive material brought me close to convincing myself that I'd done what I had to do.

B y twelve o'clock,the scheduled starting time of my appointment with Naomi Bigg, only about an hour had passed since Sam Purdy had called in the threat of explosives at the Peterson home. I decided that the odds were long that Naomi Bigg would have already heard about the arrival of the bomb squad and the fire department. She would have had to be watching TV or listening to the news on the radio. Nonetheless, as I waited for the red light on the wall to flash on, I steeled myself for the possibility.

What would I do if Naomi confronted me? I'd already decided not to lie to her. Instead, my plan was to maintain that by tipping off the police the way I had, I had not breached her confidentiality at all.

My argument? As with most rationalizations I'd heard in my life regarding ethics, my reasoning had a structure as complicated as DNA.

First, I planned to argue that the information that I'd shared with the police was the result of deduction on my part. Naomi had not, in fact, told me that I would find explosives in the Peterson home. Yes, she had obliquely raised the possibility that Ramp and Paul may have been planning to place a bomb, but then she had vociferously argued against it.