Whenever there is death, I tend to want to hang out. I don’t think it’s because I am some sort of monster, or have any Goth leanings; it’s just my job and I enjoy it.
So when I heard that a dog showed up at a house with a human leg, it piqued my interest. The problem was that it was in a neighboring jurisdiction, and they probably didn’t need me coming in and telling them how to investigate this. As a matter of fact I wouldn’t have the first clue in how to interrogate the dog, I mean... should he be considered a suspect or merely a witness? How hard can you lean on a dog? Do you have to get him a lawyer or someone from PETA?
Well, I had to content myself with following the story in the local paper, along with an occasional contact with the detective who was working on the case. It seems as though the dog was not inclined to reveal his source of... well... meat, and the detectives were not able to find where in this rural, farmland area the rest of the body could be .
Now the leg was both a lower and upper leg, with the foot attached, but most of the tissue had been removed (by a combination of decay, insects and Fido’s hunger). It was assumed that this female (there was polish on the toenails) had to be out there, somewhere, in a shallow grave or somewhere that was hard to get to, because after 4 days of searching, nothing was found. Then, the same mutt showed up with a portion of the other leg (the femur). This brought the focus back to the dog. I was able to speak to the supervising detective in the case, and he said, “The dog's still not talking."
Well, they tried attaching GPS tracking systems to the dog, which resulted in the near loss of about $500 in equipment. They even brought out search dogs, who evidently have their own code of “species silence,” because they were not able (or willing to rat out their brother canine) to find anything. After a week of searching, they gave up.
A couple days later, a local farmer found the body in the middle of his alfalfa field. And, because I had made such a pest of myself, I was asked to come to the autopsy, and to take part in a secondary search of where the body was found. Gruesome, but cool.
It is still a mystery how this woman died, and even who she is; however I will always think of her when a dog is licking my hand.
2 comments:
You did not, in fact, drop off the edge of the world. Welcome back.
-Paul
Man's best friend... woman's worst enemy.
Canines have a tendency to "cache" kills (think of a dog burying his bone). next time, starve Fido... then see where he goes to when you finally let him out.
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