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CHAPTER ONE

I spotted Stretch standing over the body as his German shepherds circled nearby.

Kankakee River State Park is one of my favorite spots, not only because I can get the dogs here in under ninety minutes for human remains detection training, but because it has a little of something for everyone - from picnicking to camping to communing with nature to fishing and hunting to canoeing or biking or hiking. Kankakee's got nature trails and pathways that unfold for miles along both sides of the river. That said, today felt as though my dogs - Alice, my bloodhound, and Rex, my springer spaniel - and I had meandered endless miles through copses of pine trees and maples, white and red oak, hickory and American beech with nothing to show for it but thirst and exhaustion. The ground we traipsed upon a floor mat of wilted leaves and dirt, peppered with scrubs and undergrowth, branches downed by storms and high winds, shrubs and wildflowers and a wide array of other brush I could neither remember nor pronounce. I'd never ventured this deep into Kankakee before - was getting that Hansel and Gretel vibe and I glanced at my watch for the fiftieth time in the past hour. 

I figured if we kept hiking in this direction, we'd eventually trip over an ocean.

My name is Cory Pratt, and I am bone weary. Weary not only from trudging about Kankakee River State Park all the livelong day, but as a result of the crappy-choppy sleep I'd gotten last night. Said crappy-choppy sleep was the direct result of my detective sister venturing downstairs into my quarters of the household my fortress of solitude - and waking me up at one in the freaking morning to inform me that my attendance would be required at Kankakee State Park, at the first crack of dawn, in order to help the Bourbonnais Police Department and investigators from the Illinois State Police in their continued search for some elderly gent who'd wandered off from some kind of family gathering. I mumbled my acceptance to keep my sibling from further shaking at my shoulder, praying she'd exit stage left, but my sister paused a long moment before stating, You know I'll be back in a few hours to make sure you're up and at em.

I knew she would... and, of course, she didn't disappoint.

My sister-tormentor, Detective Crystal Pratt, is an investigator in the Violent Crimes Section inside the Area 3 Detective Division in the Chicago Police Department. And though I'm the CEO and president, treasurer and secretary, sole proprietor and all-around gopher at the COR Canine Training Academy, I'm also a fulltime student at Harper Community College, having recently wrapped up a spring semester of computer science courses and currently entering the second week of Harper's summer session. As a result, my instructor-led dog obedience sessions have been cut in half, and Alice and Rex and I only help out on the cadaver dog front, on rare occasions, when some poor soul goes missing and is presumed dead.

Today being one of those rare occasions.

And what better way to spend Memorial Day than slogging about Kankakee River State Park.

When Bourbonnais PD set up the grids in which the human remains detection dogs would search, they informed us the missing person was an elderly gentleman who suffered from an extensive list of medical conditions. I checked my watch again and figured the entire day was shot, a complete bust... kaput. There's no way some old-timer could have made it this far into the forest. His family had panicked - I couldn't blame them one bit - and turned the campsite upside down and inside out looking for their absent patriarch before contacting the local authorities. The Bourbonnais Police then searched the surrounding woodlands and nearby trails well into the evening before putting out the call for a few dozen other search-and-rescue and HRD dogs, such as Alice and Rex, as well as their handlers to arrive at Kankakee at first light to assist in the hunt.

As we continued our march deeper into the forest, I fixated on how when I got back home, I'd slip under the covers and snooze like Rip Van Winkle. Then my thoughts returned to my working hypothesis on how the old coot had actually OD'd on family merriment and good cheer, trekked back to the park's main entrance, and phoned a cab or, if he was a particularly contemporaneous octogenarian, an Uber or Lyft to come and whisk him the hell away from his kinfolk. In fact, I was genuinely confident as to the legitimacy of my theory when Alice and Rex latched on to the scent. A couple of snouts rose in the air for the briefest of seconds, then the two pitched forward, narrowing the space between them, coming together as one and breaking into a full-out sprint, springing forward like an arrow from a bow, now racing side by side... beelining toward the scent's origin. 

I jogged after Alice and Rex, scratching past tree branches, leaping thick undergrowth, not an all-out sprint as I didn't want to roll an ankle on the uneven terrain, but keeping the dynamic duo in my line of vision. The crowns of the trees, the branches and leaves - the forest canopy - robbed us of considerable daylight, leaving us veiled in murk and shadows, a perpetual twilight. My heart pounded as I passed an abandoned windbreaker and then, sixty yards further on, I spotted a cane. I cut right around a pine tree and that's when I caught sight of Stretch and his German shepherds.