Communing with Nature

I just can’t seem to get away from dogs, domestic or wild.  Most of my experiences with canines have not been good, but every now and then they help me out... like the other day. 

Long story short- Two guys in car.  One guy shoots other guy in back of head twice, first guy dumps body.  Cops find car full of blood (looked like the prom scene from “Carrie”) and are suspicious.  Cops pick up first guy, and then round up some of his buddies.  Buddies tell cops general area where first guy dumped body.  Detectives (me and partner) spend days looking for body.  

OK... now you are caught up.  My partner and I are out along a hilly, rural road looking at the beautiful autumn scenery; the colored leaves, the crisp air, the wonderful sights of fall... oh ya... and hopefully to find where a corpse was dumped.  In spite of the lovely sights, the prosecutor’s office tells us that if we cannot turn up with a body, they are going to release the suspect out of jail for lack of evidence, so we are not in a good mood.  As we turn a corner on this obscure dirt road, my partner says,

“Hey look, a coyote.”

 Sure enough, a coyote was sprinting out of a hollow about 50 yards away from the roadway.  Then the coyote stopped, turned around and looked at us. It seemed to be saying,

“Get lost, city boys... I’m hungry.” 

My partner and I stopped, and decided this was the best sign we'd had in three days.  We both got out of the car and started looking in the area we had seen the "Wild Kingdom" screen test run from.  After awhile I got a sniff of dead body, but after Feckless Fireplace Foibles I thought my nose may be out to lunch on locating the dead and decaying, so I did not get too excited.  Then I saw what looked to be a bit of blood, then a drag mark.  I looked around some more and saw another splash of blood, and some other drag marks in the underbrush.  I leaned over, placing my face as close as I could to the ground, trying to see any sign, slowly walking along...

Now, have you ever done something, like swat at a bug, or dribble coffee on yourself, then look around real quick to see if anyone saw you acting stupid?  Well, there I was, bent over and looking intently for more drag marks and/or blood when, under some brush, just a few inches from my nose, was a decomposing hand.  Me, the tough, veteran homicide detective went, “YAH!”, and jumped put near a foot in the air.  The first thing I did was look around to make sure my partner had not seen my screaming/levitation act.  Thank heavens; he was around the bend looking somewhere else.  Attached to the hand was the rest of “other guy”, looking none too bad for having been out for 6 days; the pathologist put it, "Limited animal predation activity".

Sorry Wile E. Coyote, it’s back to chasing roadrunners for you, but thanks for helping me keep a killer behind bars.

Click link below for a video of the crime scene:

http://looneytunes.warnerbros.com/stars_of_the_show/wile_roadrunner/med/wile_roadrunner_main.swf