Heck, who at the time had a full-time trooper job and a wife who ate up much of his time, would rise at 4:00 a.m. to train his hound-a hardship for him but not for Emil, who woke immediately and joyously, knowing he was on his way to the fields. Oh, Trenton Heck worked. He knew the old tracking adage: “If you’re not handling the dog right, it’s your fault. If the dog’s not tracking right, it’s your fault.”
But Emil did track right. He had a remarkable nose-one of the few, in his vet’s estimation, that were two or three million times more sensitive than a human nose. He learned fast and the hound so exploited his nature that Heck, whose marriage was rocky and whose job was going nowhere, occasionally felt bad watching this astonishing dog and lamented that he himself had no consuming skill or drive to match Emil’s.
After six months of training, Emil could follow a mile-and-a-half trail in record time, shaming the German shepherds that were the troop’s unofficial trackers. By age two Emil had his American Kennel Club TD classification and a month later Heck took him up to Ontario, where he was awarded his Tracking Dog Excellent certification by pursuing a stranger over a thousand-yard trail that was five hours old, never hesitating on the turns or the cross-tracks meant to confuse the hound. After the TDE rating Emil more or less joined Haversham’s troop, to which Heck was assigned, though the state technically had no budget for dogs. The troop did, however, spring for membership (dog and man) in the National Police Bloodhound Association, which two years ago gave Emil the famed Cleopatra Award for finding a lost boy who’d fallen into the Marsden River and been swept downstream in a heavy current, after which he’d wandered deep into a state park. The trail, through water, marsh, cornfields and forest, was 158 hours old-a record for the state.
Heck had taken to reading a lot about bloodhounds and believed that Emil was the descendant (spiritual, there being no true lineage) of the greatest of all tracking bloodhounds, Nick Carter, who was run by Captain Volney Mullikin down in Kentucky at the turn of the century, a dog credited with more than 650 finds resulting in criminal convictions.
Emil himself had put a fair number of people behind bars. Much tracking work involves trailing suspects from crime scenes or linking weapons or loot to defendants. Emil, because of his AKC papers and his solid history of tracking, was a permitted “witness,” though he appeared on the stand through his spokesman, one Trenton Heck. Most of the dog’s assignments, however, involved locating escapees like Michael Hrubek.
Tonight in fact it was the anticipated triumph in tracking down the psycho and earning Heck his reward that preoccupied him as they pushed through the brush. He should have had his mind on what he was doing though for he didn’t see the spring trap until Emil stepped right onto it.
“No!” he cried, jerking back hard on the line, pulling the hound off balance. “Oh, no! What’d I do?” But Emil had already fallen sideways onto the large Ottawa Manufacturing trap. He yelped in pain.
“Oh, Jesus, Emil…” Heck dropped to his knees over the animal, thinking about splints and the emergency vet clinics, frighteningly aware that he had no bandages or tourniquets to staunch the flow of blood from a severed vein or artery. As he reached for his dog, however, his trooper instincts took over and he realized that the trap might be a diversion.
He’s waiting for me-it’s a trick!
Heck flicked rain from his eyes, lifting the Walther, and spun about, wondering from which direction the madman would come charging at him. He paused momentarily, debated and when he heard nothing turned back to Emil. He’d have to risk an attack; he wasn’t going to leave the dog unattended. Holstering the gun he reached for Emil, Heck’s hands shaking and his heart only now beginning to pulse quickly in the aftermath of the fright. But the dog suddenly shook himself snootily and stood upright, unharmed.
What had happened? Heck gazed at the animal, who, as far as he could tell, had landed square on the burnished trigger plate of the trap.
Then he understood-the jaws had been sprung before Emil stepped on the trigger.
“Oh, Lord.” He gripped the dog around his neck and hugged him hard. “Lord.” The dog eased back and shook his head, embarrassment now piled on top of his indignation.
Heck crouched down and examined the trap. It was identical to those at the shop on Route 118. Hrubek obviously had set it. But how had it been sprung? There were two possibilities, Heck supposed. First, that a small animal, its head lower than the steel jaws, had bounded onto the trigger and set it off. The second possibility was that someone had come by, seen the trap and popped it with a stick or rock. This, Heck decided, was the likely explanation-because next to the trap he saw several bootprints in the mud. One set was Hrubek’s. But someone else had been here as well. He looked closely at the prints and his heart plummeted.
“Oh, damn!” he whispered bitterly.
He recognized the sole. He’d seen these prints-of expensive L. L. Bean outdoorsman’s boots-earlier in the evening, not far from the overhang where he and Emil had picked up Hrubek’s westward trail, miles back.
So I’ve got some competition here.
Who is it? he wondered. A plainclothes trooper or cops maybe. Or more likely-and more troubling-a bounty hunter like Heck himself, seeking the reward money. Heck thought of Adler. Had he sent an orderly to find the patient? Was the hospital director playing a game of ends against the middle?
With the stake being Heck’s reward money?
He rose and, clutching his gun, examined the two men’s tracks carefully. Hrubek had continued south along the private road. The other tracker was coming from that direction and heading back toward Route 236. He’d done so after Hrubek-some of his prints covered the madman’s-and he’d been running, as if he’d learned where Hrubek was headed and was in pursuit. Heck followed the L. L. Bean prints to the highway and found where the man had stopped and studied a tread mark, left recently by a heavy car. The tracker had then sprinted to the shoulder of Route 236, where he’d climbed into a vehicle and hurried west, spinning his wheels furiously. From the tread marks it was clear that the man was driving a truck with four-wheel drive.
The scene told him that Michael Hrubek had got himself a vehicle and was probably just minutes ahead of this other pursuer.
Heck looked around the turbulent night sky and saw a distant flash of silent lightning. He wiped the rain from his face. He debated for a long moment and finally concluded he had no choice. Even Emil couldn’t track prey inside a moving car. Heck would speed west down the highway, relying on luck to reveal some sign of the prey’s whereabouts.
“I’ll leave the belt off, Emil,” Heck said, leading the dog into the pickup. “But you sit tight. We’re gonna waste some fuel here.”
The hound sank down on Heck’s outstretched leg, and as the truck sped onto the highway with a gassy roar, closed his droopy eyelids and dozed off.
22
Seven miles outside of Cloverton, along Route 236, Owen spotted the car parked by the roadside near a stand of evergreens.
Oh, you smart son of a bitch!
He drove past the old Cadillac then abruptly slowed and turned off the road, parking the truck in a cluster of juniper and hemlock.
He’d gambled, and he’d won.
About time, he thought. I’m due for a little luck.