“Studies have been done about how serial killers choose special burial places for their victims. Despite his claims to the contrary, we think Parrish knows exactly where to find the victim’s grave. Ben thinks Parrish likes to stage things precisely — and dramatically. Detective Thompson and Ben agree that Parrish has probably revisited the burial site; he most likely chose a site that he could find again and again. Ben said it would help Parrish relive the pleasure of the kill.”
“The pleasure . . .” I shook my head.
“I know,” Andy said, grimacing. “Ben says we have to try to think of this the way Parrish would, if we want to find her.”
“So what would we look for, then? Some sort of landmark?”
“Exactly. Anything that would help Parrish find the site again.”
At that moment, Ben called to Andy, so I gave Andy’s binoculars back to him and thanked him for the explanation. As I walked back toward the camp, I noticed that Bingle and David weren’t in sight. Bob Thompson joined Ben and Andy.
I heard Bingle give a single, happy bark from somewhere in the woods. I looked for the dog and found him pacing back and forth before David, hardly sparing me a glance, focusing his attention on his owner, who was opening one of Bingle’s equipment packs. David called a greeting to me, then commanded Bingle to sit. The dog immediately obeyed, but it seemed to be taking all his self-control to do so. His body was taut, his eyes watching David intently. His ears were pitched forward, his cheeks puffing slightly with excited breaths.
David smiled at me. “Don’t you wish you felt this way about starting your workday?”
He pulled out a leather collar and Bingle’s tail began swishing rapidly through the pine needles beneath it.
“For him, it’s play. Just a big game. His favorite game.” He replaced the bright-colored nylon collar Bingle had been wearing with the leather one.
“
Bingle got to his feet and barked.
“Can I join you?” I asked. “Or would it be too much of a distraction to Bingle?”
“No, he’s used to other people being with us. When my group of handlers trains together, we always have at least two people out with the dog. On most searches, there are detectives or rescue personnel or other people around. Bingle has learned not to be distracted by them.”
As we walked with the dog to the edge of the meadow, Bingle’s attention was so focused on David, I was afraid the dog would walk into a tree.
“Great conditions,” David said to me. “See how the grass in the meadow is moving?” He took out a small, rounded plastic object and squeezed it. A small cloud of fine powder puffed from it, and he studied its movement as it drifted by.
“Nice breeze, coming right at us,” he said, pleased. “Moist air. Let’s try to get some work in before it gets too warm.
Bingle barked sharply in impatience.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” David said.
“Rowl, rowl, rowl,” the dog answered, in near-perfect imitation.
“
The dog took off in a weaving pattern, not running full bore but moving in his steady, long-legged pace, David not far behind him. I was a close third.
Sniffing the breeze, Bingle stopped every now and then, sometimes doubling back a short distance, but almost always moving forward. David spoke to him, encouraged him as he made his way through the meadow.
I kept watching, puzzled. This search method seemed to be all wrong, at least according to all the movies I had seen — which usually portrayed dogs tracking escaped convicts. How did he know what to look for? Or where? Bingle’s nose was up in the air most of the time, not down on the ground. And he wasn’t baying. He was zigzagging quietly through a field, obviously pleased to be at his work, but not giving any indication that he was close to finding anything.
After about twenty minutes, David gave Bingle a command to rest, and gave the dog some water. When I caught up with them, I took out my notebook and the one item of special outdoor journalism equipment I had packed — a waterproof pen. I asked David about Bingle’s style of searching.
“The baying business is basically Hollywood, trying to combine a foxhunt with a manhunt, I suppose,” he said. “Bingle barks more than the average search dog, mainly because I let him — some handlers consider it a sign of poor training to let a search dog bark. They only want the dog to bark when he finds a missing person alive. There’s a lot of religion out there when it comes to handling dogs, if you know what I mean. I suppose if you had one that barked all the time, he might, oh, scare a lost child, for example. And if you’ve got a police dog trailing a killer in the woods, you don’t always want the dog to alert the criminal to your presence with a lot of baying and barking.
“But Bingle isn’t a police dog, and most of the people he looks for are dead. I guess I figure I know Bingle — and he’s got a personality that needs to let out with a bark every now and then. He’s a talker. None of the cadavers has complained about it yet. And if I ask him to work silently, he’ll do it.”
“Okay, so no baying. But how will he ever find Julia Sayre’s scent? You never gave him any article of clothing to work with, or—”
“If you ever meet Bool, my foolish bloodhound, you’ll see a tracking dog. I’m not saying that Bool never uses air scenting — he does, but primarily, he’s tracking. He spends lots of time with his nose on the ground. He was born with a truly amazing sense of smell — probably better than Bingle’s. Unlike Bingle, though, he’s not what you’d call smart. I’ve got to keep him on a lead, or God knows, if the person he was trailing happened to have fallen off a cliff, he’d follow the scent right over the edge. He becomes nose-blind.” He paused, smiling wistfully to himself.
I thought about the times my own dogs had relentlessly pursued some interesting scent, which usually resulted in holes in our backyard or knocked-over trash cans. “You’re searching areas that might include crime scenes,” I
