Page 6 of Fallen Creed

Creed thought maybe Spencer would follow her. Maggie knew he liked to work a scene without an audience.

“My wife worries too much,” Spencer said, still referring to the phone call. “We took in a young woman about six months ago. Apparently, she didn’t come home last night after work. I keep telling Nora she’s not a kid, you know. But my wife worries.”

Creed nodded, glanced out the door after Maggie. He never understood how some people shared their private lives with complete strangers. He had a difficult enough time sharing details of his life with those closest to him.

Spencer rubbed a hand over his face like maybe he recognized Creed’s sudden discomfort. But he didn’t make a move to leave.

“So, I’ve seen how cadaver dogs work,” he said instead as he crossed his arms and took a good look at Grace. “I know it’s the decomposition smells that they’re trained to find. But I don’t quite understand how they can sniff out electronic devices. Agent O’Dell said your dog might be able to find something as small as a microSD card? Those things are less than a millimeter thick. Smaller than a postage stamp.”

“All electronic devices that have memory storage capacity have a chemical coating,” Creed told him. “It’s called triphenylphosphine oxide. That’s a mouthful, so we call it TPPO. The coating prevents overheating. The chemical is cheap. It’s effective and all companies use it for everything: microSD cards, thumb drives, smartphones, computers, external hard drives and even smart watches. It’s the smell of that chemical that Grace has been trained to sniff out.”

“And it’s strong enough to smell even on those tiny cards?”

“Dogs can detect odors in the parts-per-trillion range. We know they can smell thresholds of chemicals that different technologies can’t even measure.”

“Do you mind if I watch?”

Creed did mind. But Grace didn’t, and she was getting antsy. There was something about Ted Spencer that Creed liked, even if he was a bit too willing to share how much his wife worries.

“As long as you stay back and stay quiet.”

“Sure, sure. No problem. It’s just that we spent the last three hours searching. I really can’t imagine her finding anything.”

Creed leaned down and snapped the leash off Grace’s vest. Her nose was already up, sampling the air. To Creed the house smelled with a mixture of fried bacon and the scent of stale marijuana smoke. But Grace’s nose could go beyond those.

“Grace, show me Tippo.” It was a lot easier to say than garbling the acronym TPPO.

She raced across the living room, zigzagging around shoes left where they were taken off and a coffee table littered with takeout containers.

“I’m surprised she—” Spencer stopped himself before Creed shot a warning glance.

Without being distracted by any of the clutter, Grace went directly to a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. It was built into the wall, real hardwood, maybe walnut. At one time, it probably matched the crown molding that had been painted over several times and removed in some spots.

Freddie Mason didn’t look like a reader to Creed, but he had an eclectic library that included blockbuster bestsellers along with the classics and some old textbooks. On closer inspection, Creed could see the markings on the spine. They looked like old library books.

He glanced back at Spencer, who only shrugged, trying to abide by the rules of keeping quiet.

Grace sat at Creed’s feet. Her nose poked the air. Her eyes met his.

Ordinarily, he’d never train his dog to alert by touching the target scent. But this was different, and Grace understood that this was an exception.

He picked her up in his arms. A few inches over six feet tall, he could lift her to the top shelf. That wasn’t where her nose was going. She was straining to the right and focused down. He leaned her to the place she wanted, and almost immediately, she tapped her nose to the spine of a thick blue cover.

Creed put Grace back on the floor. He tugged a pair of latex gloves from his daypack. Without looking, he could feel Spencer had edged closer to this side of the room and now stood just feet away. With a gloved hand, Creed pulled the book carefully from where it was squeezed in. He held it up for Spencer to see.

“Did I already miss something?” Pakula asked from behind them as he came in the front door.

“Shakespeare,” Creed told him.

He waited for Pakula to join them. Then he let the book fall open in his hands. He flipped a few pages to where he could see a slight bulge. Two microSD cards were tucked deep into the middle of the book.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Spencer said.

Pakula glanced at the other books still on the shelves. “Do we need to go through all of these?”

Creed was already reaching into his daypack for Grace’s reward. She had alerted specifically to just the one volume, but it wouldn’t hurt to lift her up again.

“Let me ask Grace,” he told Pakula.