Free Shepherd's Crook by Sheila Webster Boneham Page A

could be in the next county by now. And if someone had picked her up, she could be anywhere. Jay rounded the end of the long pole building several strides ahead of me. He stopped, hair poofed away from his neck as his hackles rose, and scared me back to the moment with a loud woof.

eighteen
    Jay stopped barking and his whole body started to vibrate. About halfway down, outside the fatal storage room, Hutch was talking to a woman. At her side stood a dog wearing a harness over a blue-and-gold vest that said Marion Co. Search & Rescue K9. The dog’s shoulder came to the woman’s knee, and his medium-length coat was a bright yellow-gold, but unlike a Golden Retriever, he had four white stockings and a collar of white fur. He was angled away from me so I couldn’t see it, but I knew he had a white muzzle and heavy white ruff as well. It was Hutch’s former partner, Jo Stevens, and her young search-and-rescue dog, a Golden Retriever x Australian Shepherd cross named Shamus.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I asked when I reached them.
    Jo hugged me and Shamus poked me with his nose, wagging and grinning, while Jay shared his joy with all three of them. When she let go, Jo said, “I was here for the weekend, visiting family. Hutch called and told me what happened.”
    When I first met him, Hutchinson hadn’t cared a bit about animals in peril. Now, a year later, he said, “I thought Shamus might track the missing dog.”
    Even if they had a way to give Shamus the scent, tracking Bonnie in the sea of olfactory input around this place was going to be challenging, to say the least. Judging by the look on Jo’s face, she knew it, too. I said, “I wish we had something with Bonnie’s scent.” I thought for a moment, and an image came to mind of Ray’s rattletrap old pickup pulling into the Winslows’ place, Bonnie riding shotgun. “Hutch, is Ray’s truck still here? Bonnie always rode beside him on the front seat.”
    â€œIt’s parked at the far end of the building,” he said. “I don’t think it’s locked. It wasn’t yesterday.”
    â€œLet’s do it,” said Jo as she gathered Shamus’s leash.
    As she and Hutch turned away, I asked, “How long are you going to be in town?” Jo had moved to Indianapolis to join an inter-agency canine search team. It was a great opportunity, but I missed her.
    â€œI work tonight,” she said, shrugging at me. “I’ve got about an hour, then I need to hit the road.”
    I thought about taking Jay to the truck to get the scent, but decided a general search would probably be as effective. If Jay sensed Bonnie hiding somewhere or … I wouldn’t let my thoughts go there. In any case, Jay would let me know if Bonnie was nearby.
    We began with the overgrown lane I had found on Saturday. Jay ranged back and forth across the grassy stretch and into the corn stubble, tangling the longline twice on the remains of last year’s crop. I unclipped him and let him move freely, knowing he’d be at my side in a snap if I called. About halfway along the lane, he veered into the field and ran between the rows, not chasing, but determined to reach something. My heart took a little leap and I jogged to where he had entered the cornfield, hoping to see Bonnie hiding there. The field rolled just enough that all I could see was Jay’s back, but I could tell that he was sniffing something. I walked into the stubble, afraid to breathe.
    Fur. I let my breath go. Gray fur, and a few bones. The remains of a rabbit dinner, and they had been there awhile.
    â€œJay, come.” He took one last sniff and followed me out of the corn. We spent another forty minutes or so, walking to the end of the lane before cutting across the back edge of the big field and returning to the buildings by way of the tree and fence line. There was no sign of the dog, at least nothing I could see. I