Page 30 of Scent of Peril

Waiting for another opportunity to strike.

“Please, have a seat.” Sergeant Wayne Carter gestured to a pair of chairs positioned across a desk in the tiny office.

He and Jess did as he asked, and Teddy stretched out at Jessica’s feet. Logan noticed the dog was never far from her side, offering another layer of protection.

But even a dog as protective as Teddy couldn’t stop a bullet. This shooting, on the heels of the others, concerned him.

“If you don’t mind starting at the beginning?” Wayne suggested.

He nodded and gave the background information as succinctly as possible. Craig Benton chartering the plane, seeing the piece of tail fin while he was leaving the area, then heading to the Sullivan ranch to pick up Jess. Wayne looked surprised to learn that Teddy had alerted to the scent of drugs on his plane.

“Drugs, huh?” Wayne sat back in his chair. “We’ve seen an increase in drug overdoses recently. The hospital has put out an alert and have supplied multiple doses of Narcan for our officers.”

“Which drug specifically?” Jessica asked. “Meth? Heroin? Cocaine? Fentanyl?”

“Fentanyl has been the biggest concern,” Wayne said. “Will your dog alert on any type of drug?”

“Yes, he’s been trained to find them all.” She reached down to stroke Teddy’s fur. “We’ve even included the chemicals that are used to make synthetic drugs like fentanyl. When we go out on a search, I use the term peppers. That way nobody else knows what we’re searching for.”

“I see.” Wayne nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, so back to your story. Teddy alerted on the scent of drugs that you believe weretransported to the Bighorn Mountains by this Craig Benton guy.”

“Yes. Benton lost a glove on the plane. Teddy found it. The drug scent may have been on that article of clothing.” He shrugged, then continued the story. “We hiked out to where the plane part was located when someone fired shots at us using a rifle.” He explained his theory that Benton might have assumed they’d returned to the area to find him, rather than picking up a piece of tail fin. It was ironic how his attempt to help the Sullivan family with information on their parents’ plane crash had ended up putting Jessica in the middle of danger. “We returned to the plane to fly out, but he fired again, damaging the plane so that I had to make a crash landing.”

He had Sergeant Carter’s full attention now. “You’re both lucky to be alive.”

“Yep.” He glanced at Jessica, knowing she wouldn’t believe in luck so much as having faith in God watching over them. “Anyway, we hiked through the woods away from the plane, heading southwest. We camped in my tent overnight, and Teddy woke us the following morning growling and barking. We found a pair of tracks in the snow within sixty yards of our campsite.”

“But the perp didn’t shoot at you?” Wayne asked.

“No. The tent was covered in a layer of snow.” He glanced at Jess again, then shrugged. “All I can figure is that he must not have realized we were camping there until Teddy created a ruckus.”

“Go on,” Wayne encouraged.

He finished the story, explaining about the gunfire at his home, and then this final attempt here in Cody. As he finished, it occurred to Logan that these incidents had crossed several jurisdictions. The mountains, which was probably federal land, the town of Greybull, and now Cody.

“I can see why the chief hasn’t said much to us,” Wayne muttered. “Everything up until this recent incident isn’t our responsibility.”

“Except now it does impact your department.” Jessica’s tone was sharp. “This guy followed us from the mountains, through Greybull, and here to Cody. We’re going to need help from law enforcement to find and arrest this guy. Your cops and others will need to work together on this.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Wayne raked his hand over his hair. “But let’s be honest, this is more of a federal case than a local one. I need to call the FBI offices in Cheyenne to see what they think.”

Logan didn’t like the way Wayne sounded as if he were passing the buck. “And how long will that take?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Can you describe Benton for me?”

He grimaced. “I hate to say it, but he was rather average. White guy, about five ten, maybe weighed one eighty pounds. He wore a hat, but I could tell he had dark hair. Brown, not black. Brown eyes too.”

Wayne made notes, but Logan could tell the description was far from helpful.

“I would know him if I saw him again,” he said. “Unfortunately, this guy has been smart enough not to get too close.”

“Teddy will also recognize him,” Jess said. “He alerted us to the gunman just before he fired at us.”

“Okay, is there anything else you can think of that will help us find him?” Wayne asked.

“He had a lot of cash on him when he paid me,” Logan said. “I figured he was rich, not that he was a drug dealer.”

Wayne made another note. “I’ll discuss our next steps with the chief. Oh, and I need your contact information.”

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