Full Tilt

20

Rampart, New York

At the crime scene, New York State Police trooper Dan Larco watched his canine partner, Sheba, sniffing the ground far off in the distance.

During the time they’d been assigned to help find human remains in the ruins of the barn, Larco had been thorough.

After Sheba had probed the burned wreckage, Larco had her search the fields and brush of the surrounding area in a widening grid pattern. They’d started north, moved west, then south, then east. Now, Sheba was in the northeast sector, some seventy to eighty yards away.

If there’s anything out there, she’ll find it.

Sheba could smell a small tooth in a football stadium, which was pretty good for a dog that started life fated to be put down.

She’d been abandoned, found eating garbage in alleys in Queens, put in the pound, then rescued by an animal welfare charity and offered to the state police canine team to train at Cooperstown. Now, the three-year-old was one of the best cadaver detection dogs in the state. She’d also played a key role in finding people in several search-and-rescue operations.

So far, at this site, she’d found only the deceased male in the barn.

A few of the other scene investigators had quietly indicated they were ready to sign off. But Larco was confident that if more human remains were here, Sheba would locate them.

The dog was able to detect human scent at any stage of decomposition, even if the remains were buried several feet under the surface. The scent radiated and weather conditions, like wind, humidity and temperature affected it. Sheba was trained to alert Larco whenever she detected any type of human decomposition by sitting down at the site. She was also trained not to dig up a site, so as not to disturb the evidence.

But Larco knew how her eager-to-please personality got the best of her sometimes. He watched her in the distance, snout to the ground, poking and probing, tail wagging, getting herself all worked up.

She ended searching abruptly, immediately sat and barked.

Had she found something?

Larco didn’t think so for, at times, sitting also meant a false alert-Sheba’s way of saying she was frustrated.

Pissed off, might be the truth.

She barked again, insistent this time.

“All right, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Larco was about twenty-five yards out when Sheba ceased waiting and began pawing at the earth under some bramble.

“Hey there!”

Larco chided her because she knew not to do that.

What’s got her so excited?

At first he thought she was pulling branches and sticks in order to get at whatever had her excited. Then she came at him, as if to prove that what was clamped in her jaws was not brush.

It was a leg bone with a decomposing human foot attached to it.

“Damn!”

Larco reached for his radio.