Part Two
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
Eleven
Two days later, Fiona started her day with a call on a missing elderly man who’d wandered out of his daughter’s home on San Juan Island.
She alerted her unit, checked her pack, added the necessary maps and, choosing Newman, was on her way to Deer Harbor and Chuck’s boat. With Chuck at the helm she briefed the unit while they carved through the passage.
“The subject is Walter Deets, eighty-four. He has early-onset Alzheimer’s and lives with his daughter and her family on Trout Lake. They don’t know what time he left the house. The last time anyone saw him was before he went to bed at about ten last night.”
“There’s a lot of wooded area around the lake,” James put in.
“Do we have any information on what he’s wearing?” Lori rubbed Pip’s head. “It’s pretty chilly out.”
“Not yet. I’ll talk to the family when we get there. Mai, you’ll be working with Sheriff Tyson.”
“Yeah. We’ve worked with him before. Is this the first time he’s wandered off ?”
“Don’t know yet. We’ll get all that. The search began just after six, and the family notified the authorities by six-thirty. So they’ve been searching for about ninety minutes.”
Mai nodded. “Tyson doesn’t waste time. I remember from before.”
“They’ve got a couple of volunteers picking us up, driving us to the location.”
By the time they got to the lake, the sun had burned away the mist. Tyson, brisk and efficient, greeted them.
“Thanks for the quick response. Dr. Funaki, right? You’re base?”
“Yes.”
“Sal, show Dr. Funaki where she can set up. The son-in-law and his boy are out on the search. I’ve got the daughter inside. He got dressed—brown pants, blue shirt, red cotton jacket, navy Adidas sneakers, size ten. She says he’s wandered once or twice, but hasn’t gone far. He gets confused.”
“Is he on any meds?” Fiona asked him.
“I had her make a list for you. Physically, he’s in good shape. He’s a nice guy, used to be sharp as a tack. Taught my father in high school. History. He’s five-ten, about a hundred and sixty-five pounds, full head of white hair, blue eyes.”
He led her inside a spacious, open-floor-plan house with killer views of the lake.
“Mary Ann, this is Fiona Bristow. She’s with Canine Search and Rescue.”
“Ben—Sheriff Tyson—said you’d need some things of Dad’s—for the dogs to smell. I got his socks, and his pajamas from last night.”
“That’s good. How was he feeling when he went to bed last night?”
“Fine. Really fine.” Her hand fluttered to her throat and away again. Fiona could hear barely controlled tears in her voice. “He’d had a good day. I just don’t know when he left. He forgets, and gets confused sometimes. I don’t know how long he’s been gone. He likes to take walks. Keep fit, he says. He and my mother walked miles every day before she died last year.”
“Where did they like to walk?”
“Around the lake, some light hiking in the woods. Sometimes they’d walk over to see us. This was their house, and after Mom died and when Dad started having trouble, we moved here. It’s bigger than our house, and he loves it so much. We didn’t want him to have to leave his home.”
“Where was your house?”
“Oh, it’s about three miles from here.”
“Could he have gotten confused? Tried to walk there to find you?”
“I don’t know.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips. “We’ve lived here for nearly a year now.”
“We checked Mary Ann’s old place,” Tyson added.
“Maybe he and your mother had a favorite spot, or route.”
“They had so many. Even five years ago he’d have been able to find his way through the woods around here in the dark, blindfolded.” Her eyes teared up. “He taught Jarret—our son—how to hike and camp and fish. He’d declare Hook and Line Day—hook school and drop a line so he and Jarret could—Oh God, wait.”
She dashed away.
“How’s his hearing?” Fiona asked Tyson.
“He wears a hearing aid—and no, he didn’t take it. He’s got his glasses, but—”
He broke off when Mary Ann rushed back. “His fishing gear. He took his fishing gear, even his old fishing hat. I didn’t think—I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”
Armed with data, Fiona worked with her unit on strategy.
“He had three favorite fishing spots.” She marked the map Mai had posted. “But he also tended to try others, depending on his mood. He’s both physically fit and physically active. So while his mental condition may bring on confusion, turning him around, disorienting him, he could overdo it. He takes meds for high blood pressure and, according to the daughter, tends to get emotional and upset when he can’t remember things, and he’s starting to have some trouble with his balance. He needs a hearing aid and isn’t wearing it.”
The problem, as Fiona saw it, as she assigned sectors, was that Walter might not, as small kids and the elderly tended to, take the paths of least resistance. He’d tax himself, she thought, facing steep climbs rather than easy slopes.
He’d probably had a purpose and a destination when he started, she thought as she gave Newman the scent. But along the way, it was very likely he’d become confused.
How much worse to be lost, to look around and see nothing familiar, when you once knew every tree, every path, every turn?
Newman was eager and scented along a drainage. The air would rise upslope, and the chimney effect, the rise of the tree lines, would disperse the scent in several directions. When they moved into an area of heavy brush she looked for signs—a bit of torn clothing in the briars, bent or broken branches.
Newman alerted, then chose a path that challenged the quadriceps. When it leveled, she stopped to give her partner water and drink some herself.
She checked her map, her compass.
Could he have detoured, backtracked or looped away from the fishing spot, angled toward his daughter’s old house? Going for his grandson after all? The Hook and Line Day?
Pausing, she tried to see the trees, the rocks, the sky, the paths as Walter would see them.
For him, she imagined, getting lost here would be like getting lost in his own home. Frightening, frustrating.
He might become angry and push himself, or scared, only more confused and wander in aimless circles.
She gave Newman the scent again. “This is Walt. Find Walt.”
