I made a mental note to go by the auto parts store later. The patch job on my oil line needed to be repaired correctly, or I’d find myself with a locked up engine.
The oil line reminded me of Eugene Loach. What a waste of carbon. The man was a racist bastard who had fixed his hate on all “Mexicans.” According to Lamar, Latinos had turned up in the hospital, hurt but afraid to talk. The farmers in the western part of the county were complaining that they couldn’t hire enough labor to bring in the crops because the workers had left the county. It all added up an organized campaign against the Latino community, and I was sure that Loach and his boys were involved. But were they smart enough to conduct an organized attack? Was someone else behind it? Or maybe I was just connecting dots that weren’t there.
The house was empty when I returned. Mom had left a note letting me know she would be late for dinner. She had a meeting with her attorney, whom she was consulting about the Tin City graveyard project.
As Lamar had predicted, the sheriff hadn’t shown much interest in old dead bodies when he had a fresh one to occupy his time, but Mom wasn’t about to let that stop her.
I showered, got ready to meet Cedar, and was about to let the cat out when I heard footsteps on the gallery, followed by a revving engine and tires spinning out.
“What the hell?” I yelled, then opened the door to a fire. “Holy shit!”
Flames poured out of a bundle of sticks piled up outside the door, and a rivulet of fiery liquid spread down the gallery.
Wrapped in a bath towel, I stepped back inside and grabbed the mini extinguisher from the pantry. As I doused the flames with foam, I realized this wasn’t some kind of prank.
It was a warning.
The sticks weren’t just stick. They were switches, freshly stripped and stacked neatly for burning, an old-fashioned way of delivering a message that had once been favored by the Klan.
Somebody was sending me a message:
Back off.
With a broom, I swept the pile of switches and foam into the yard. Just in case they were still watching, I raised my middle finger and sent a message of my own.
2
Cedar and Dr. K were waiting for me when I finally reached the lab. Cedar sat at the table. Chigger was in her lap.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I was putting out fires at home.”
“Metaphorically speaking, I hope,” Dr. K said.
“Nope. Someone set fire to a bundle of switches on our porch. Probably just a prank.”
“We’re glad you’re here, then.”
There was a round table in the middle of the room. The table was stacked with circuit boards, a black box, and something that looked like a black sock stuffed with cotton.
“Boone,” Cedar said with a tinge of excitement. “Hope you don’t mind, Dr. K’s trying to help me calibrate the N.O.S.E., and Chigger keeps acting up. That’s a problem because technically, no dogs are allowed in school, even in the name of science.”
“Has Cedar explained that in return for helping,” Dr. K said, “you’ll be excused from the lab assignment?”
“I’ll be glad to help,” I said. “What do I do? Record data? Calibrate the black sock?”
“The most important part,” Cedar said. “Hold the dog.”
I took the pup. He squirmed and try to jump down.
“Hold him still, Boone.”
“I’m trying.” I rubbed his belly. That calmed him.
Cedar had inserted two metal probes the width of spaghetti into Chigger’s nose and secured them with white tape.
“What’s with the probes?” I asked.
“My apparatus measures water vapor when Chigger breathes.” Cedar said. “According to my research, dogs can separate the air they inhale from air they exhale.”
“What it does it mean if the amount of water vapor is different?”
“A beagle’s nose is highly evolved,” Cedar said. “It keeps the dog from resampling odors. See the slits in the sides of Chigger’s nose? They push exhaled air out. That stops it from blending with the new smells and diluting the scent. Keep rubbing, please. He’s getting bored.”
The dog wasn’t the only one. My attention had begun to wander, too. “What’s the point in the water vapor? I thought beagles had thousands of scent receptors.”
“They do,” Cedar monitored the laptop. “But it’s only part of the story.”
“As Cedar learned,” Dr. K added, “Beagles as a breed have excellent noses, but almost every dog is capable of scent memory. There must be a physiological reason for his prowess, other than scent receptors.”
“Okay, I understand that,” I said, “but what’s the ultimate goal here?”
Cedar pointed at the over stuffed sock. “The N.O.S.E.”
“Whose nose?”
“Not whose nose, the N.O.S.E. Remember when I told you about the whole device at Red Fox Java?”
“Um. Well. See.”
“Basically, you didn’t listen to a word I said, and now you have no clue what I’m trying to accomplish.”
“I do! But not…exactly.”
“Dr. K, you were spot on. Holding the dog is the only job he can do right. Boone, you can rest for thirty seconds. The first set of measurements has been recorded.”
“Hey,” I said. “That was harsh. Did I deserve that?”
“Yes, you did, and I would give you a smack in the head,” she said, “if it wouldn’t mess up my data collection.”
Dr. K laughed.
It took me by surprise.
I jerked, and Chigger tried to jump from my lap. The small piece of tape pulled loose, and one of the probes slipped out.
A warning sound beeped on the laptop.
“Boone!”
“Sorry! He wiggles!”
Chigger pawed the other piece of tape off.
“Bad dog!” Cedar peeled the tape from the dog’s paws. “Dr. K? Do you have anything else we can use? This is messing up the readings.”
“I believe so.” She hopped up from the table. “Let my check the first-aid kit in the storage area. We bought some of that expensive material that allows the skin to breathe…” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared into the storage room.
Chigger began canvassing the floor for smells, while Cedar got the probes ready for another round.
“I’m really sorry for not listening to you before," I said.
Cedar punched a key on the laptop. “If you don’t want to take me seriously, fine, but I wish you’d show respect for my research.”
“I meant no disrespect, Cedar. Really.”
“What does N.O.S.E. stand for?”
“Non canine…Odor Sensing…Ergonomically…thing.”
“Not even close.”
“Close enough! The word odor was part of it, right?”
In the other room, Dr. K screamed.
“What’s wrong?” I said, standing.
The professor rushed into the room, her face white a bed sheet, hands flying around in an old-fashioned tizzy. “It’s gone! It’s been stolen! I have to call campus police. Get the dog out of the room quickly, please.”
“What was stolen?” I asked.
“Our store of explosive alkali metals!” she said. “Sodium, potassium, they’re all gone!”
3
Between the time that Dr. K called in the theft and the campus cop’s arrival, Cedar whisked Chigger down to the faculty lounge. That left me to pack up Cedar’s equipment while the cop filled out an incident report.
“So you lost some metals, didja?” the cop said. She was middle-aged with a belly gut, spindly legs, and a page-boy haircut. “Wasn’t silver or gold, was it?”
“No,” Dr. K said. “Worse than that. These metals are dangerous, not expensive.”
“Dangerous huh? That changes things. Who’s got access to the storeroom?”
The cop set her coffee down and dropped her newspaper on the table. The headline read: FIRE VICTIM IDENTIFIED