Relic

= 8 =

Jonathan Hamm peered down the basement corridor through a thick pair of glasses that badly needed cleaning. Leather leashes were wrapped around his blackgloved hands, and two hounds sat obediently at his feet. His assistant tracker stood beside him. Next to the assistant was Lieutenant D’Agosta, holding soiled, heavily creased blueprints, his two deputies leaning against the wall behind him. Police-issue pump-action Remington 12-gauges hung off their shoulders.

D’Agosta rustled through the blueprints. “Can’t the dogs smell which way to go?” he asked irritably. Hamm let out a long breath. “Hounds. They’re hounds. And they’re not on a scent. They haven’t been on a good scent since we began. Or rather, they’ve been on too many scents.”

D’Agosta grunted, withdrew a sodden cigar from his jacket pocket, and began to raise it toward his mouth. Hamm caught his eye.

[46] “Oh yeah,” said D’Agosta. He pushed the cigar back into his pocket.

Hamm sniffed the air. It was damp, which was good. But that was the only good thing about this little picnic. First, there was the usual stupidity of the police. What kind of dogs are these? they’d asked. We wanted bloodhounds. These were hounds, he’d explained, a blue-tick hound and a black-and-tan coonhound. Given the right conditions, these hounds could track a lost hiker after a three-foot blizzard. But these, thought Hamm, aren’t exactly the right conditions.

As usual, the crime scene had been fouled up. Chemicals, spray paint, chalk, a thousand people tramping in and out. Besides, the area around the base of the staircase had been literally bathed in blood; even now, eighteen hours or so after the crime, the smell hung heavily in the air, agitating the hounds.

They first tried to follow the scent from the crime scene itself. When that failed, Hamm suggested they “cut for scent,” making a perimeter loop around the crime scene, hoping to pick up the trail as it exited.

The hounds had never been trained to work indoors. Naturally, they were confused. But it wasn’t his fault. The police wouldn’t even tell him if they were looking for a human or an animal. Perhaps they didn’t know themselves.

“Let’s go this way,” said D’Agosta.

Hamm passed the leashes to his assistant, who started walking ahead, the hounds nosing the ground.

Next, the hounds had bayed up a storage room full of mastodon bones, and the paradichlorobenzene preservative that poured out when they opened the door had caused a half-hour delay while the hounds recovered their sense of smell. And that was just the first of a series of storage rooms full of animal pelts, gorillas in formaldehyde, a freezer full of dead zoo specimens, a whole vault full of human skeletons.

They came to an archway with an open metal door [47] leading onto a descending stone stairway. The walls were covered with a crust of lime, and the stairway was dark.

“That must be the dungeon,” one of the policemen said, with a guffaw.

“This goes to the subbasement,” D’Agosta said, consulting the blueprints. He motioned to one of the officers, who handed him a long flashlight.

The shallow stairs ended in a tunnel made of herring-bone brickwork, its arched ceiling barely the height of a man. The tracker moved forward with the dogs, D’Agosta and Hamm behind. The two policemen came last.

“There’s water on the floor,” said Hamm.

“So what?” D’Agosta said.

“If there’s been any water flowing through here there won’t be any scent.”

“I was told to expect puddles of water down here,” D’Agosta replied. “It only floods when it rains, and it hasn’t rained.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Hamm.

They reached a place where four tunnels came together, and D’Agosta halted to consult the blueprints. “Somehow I thought you’d need to look at that,” Hamm said.

“Oh, yeah?” D’Agosta said. “Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. These blueprints don’t cover the subbasement.”

When one of the dogs whined and began furiously sniffing, Hamm came suddenly to attention. “This way. Quick.”

The dogs whined again. “They’ve got something!” said Hamm. “It’s a clear scent, it must be. Look at their hackles rise! Keep the light up here, I can’t see a blessed thing.”

The dogs were straining, pulling forward, noses up and sniffing the air ahead.

“You see, you see!” Hamm said. “It’s an air scent. [48] Feel the fresh air on your cheek? I should have brought the spaniels. They’re unbeatable with an air scent!”

The policemen slid past the dogs, one beaming his flashlight, the other carrying his shotgun at the ready. Ahead the tunnel forked again, and the dogs lunged to the right, breaking into a trot.

“Hold it, Mr. Hamm, there might be a killer out there,” D’Agosta said.

The dogs suddenly broke into a deafening baying. “Sit!” cried the assistant. “Heel! Castor! Pollux! Heel, damn you!” The dogs lunged forward, paying no attention. “Hamm, I need a hand here!”

“What’s gotten into you?” cried Hamm, wading into the frantic dogs, trying to grab their collars. “Castor, heel!”

“Shut them up!” snapped D’Agosta.

“He’s loose!” cried the assistant, as one of the dogs bolted into the darkness. They rushed after the retreating sound of the dog.

“You smell it?” Hamm said, stopping short. “Christ Jesus, you smell it?”

A pungent, goatish odor suddenly enveloped them. The other dog was frantic with excitement, leaping and twisting and suddenly breaking free.

“Pollux! Pollux!”

“Wait!” said D’Agosta. “Forget the fucking dogs for a second. Let’s proceed with a little order here. You two, get in front again. Safeties off.”

The two men pumped their shotguns.

In the echoing darkness ahead of them, the barking faltered, then stopped. There was a moment of silence. Then a terrible, unearthly shriek, like the screeching of tires, leapt from the inky tunnel. The two police officers looked at each other. The sound ended as suddenly as it began.

“Castor!” Hamm cried. “Oh, my God! He’s been hurt!”

“Get back, Hamm, goddammit!” barked D’Agosta.

[49] At that moment a shape suddenly hurtled at them from the darkness, and there were two stunning blasts from the shotguns, two flashes of light accompanied by deafening roars. The rumble echoed and died in the tunnel, and there was an intense silence.

“You fucking idiot, you just shot my hound,” said Hamm quietly. Pollux lay five feet from them, blood pouring freely from his ruined head.

“He was coming right at me …” began one of the officers.

“Jesus Christ,” said D’Agosta, “Stow that shit. There’s still something out there.”

They found the other dog a hundred yards down the tunnel. He was torn nearly in half, guts strung out in crazy patterns.

“Jesus, will you look at that,” said D’Agosta. Hamm said nothing.

Just beyond the body the tunnel branched. D’Agosta continued to stare at the dog. “Without the dogs, there’s no way of knowing which way it went,” he said at last. “Let’s get the hell out of here and let forensics deal with this mess.”

Hamm said nothing.