When she completed her assessment she called Trygg to face her, then took one of the three bandannas from around her neck and showed it to the dog.

“What’s the bandanna for?”

“It’s her uniform,” she said, slipping the bandanna over the dog’s head. “It tells her that she’s in work mode now; it reminds her to stay focused.”

“Like the orange vest that Bosco wore. I guess he needed a cap and trousers too.”

“It also serves to remind her what she’s looking for. She was trained to detect three different kinds of remains, remember? Putrefying, post-putrefying, and submerged.”

“What about ‘distressed body’?”

“We’re not looking for a living person—I left that one at home. Each bandanna has a distinct pattern; this one tells her we’re searching for older remains. Now are we going to talk all night or can we get to work?”

“Wait a minute,” Nick said. “We’re not just looking for an old graveyard here, we’re looking for double graves. Is there any way to tell your dog to search for the most recent remains she can find?”

“No—but she’ll respond more confidently to a stronger scent, and that might indicate a more recent grave. I’ll ask her about it—maybe she’ll help.”

“Ask politely,” Nick said. “Tell her it would be a real time-saver for us—I’d hate to have to excavate another whole graveyard.”

Alena squinted at him. “Do you have permission to excavate these graves if we find them?”

Nick shrugged. “Are we going to talk all night or can we get to work?”

Alena moved to a position downwind and began to work back toward the trees; it wasn’t long before Trygg zeroed in on a section of ground and lay down.

Nick looked at Alena. “Bingo?”

“Bingo.”

He pulled a flag from his back pocket and marked the spot.

Alena and Trygg worked quickly, systematically covering and recovering the area, narrowing their focus and eliminating sections of ground that yielded no results. Nick sat on the ground beside Ruckus and watched. Gunner was right, he thought. There was an almost psychic connection between Alena and this dog. She seemed to be able to look at the dog and know what it was thinking. As Nick watched the dog, he began to pick up things too—at least he thought he did. He noticed that the dog had a kind of body language that changed from time to time: the way she carried herself, the way she moved her tail, the way she pricked her ears or laid them back. He could see each change, but he had no idea what meaning to assign to it; it was like watching a man use sign language without knowing what each signal conveyed. Somehow, Alena had figured it out—and so had the dog.

Nick looked down at Ruckus. “Come here often?”

Ruckus stared straight ahead.