A Cardinal's Warning

“Tweet, tweet, chipchipchipchip.”

Jeff’s ears perked up at the cardinal’s call. Strange how it penetrated the otherwise quiet woods where a quarter‑mile bike path snaked from behind a line of dorms, beside a few tennis courts, professors’ homes, and finally alongside the small town’s main drag. Besides this repeated call, no other sounds filled the air save for the crickets chirping in nearby fields. No other bird answered—just silence. This was the perfect trail to stroll for clearing one’s thoughts after a day full of phone calls, reading midterms to a dozen students, and researching the latest laws granting special accommodations for students with any number of learning disabilities.

Jeff loved inhaling the mixture of scents—roses, maple trees, and the occasional whiff of hamburger when a few folks chose to dine at the campus’s open firepit. Never mind his own total blindness; he’d learned every square inch of campus thanks to Jag, the guide dog he’d received from a school in California two years ago.

To his left, Jag pawed the ground and sneezed. He’d stopped so quickly that Jeff had to catch himself from tripping over a downed tree limb.

“Steady.”

Jeff drew out the command with as calm a voice as he could muster, but Jag kept pawing the ground for several more seconds. Whatever distracted him had stolen his focus. Guide dogs were dogs after all, no matter how thoroughly they’d been trained, so basic instincts might kick in when something strange hung in the air.

Or was a little romp time in order? Jeff often removed the harness when basking in this wooded paradise. Here, Jag could run off steam, beg for a game of fetch when picking up the end of a broken tree limb, or answer nature’s call.

Not this afternoon. As Jeff removed the harness, Jag’s body tensed; the hair along his spine stood on end; his head lurched forward. An acrid, metallic smell dwarfing the roses’ sweet aroma wafted on the breeze. No doubt he and Jeff smelled death hanging in the air. Jeff had smelled an aroma like this before, when his dad’s big hound dragged a squirrel into the family barn where it decomposed over the next few days. Back then, Jeff buried the critter in a matter of minutes by placing it in a ditch and tossing a few rocks on top.

“No. It can’t be,” Jeff moaned as his stomach turned flip‑flops.

Three days ago, one of his freshman students, Jackie Hoover, had disappeared and no one had found her since. Much of the search had focused on the highway and the city park across the street from the college. Besides being a frequent patron of the disabled students center, she was an avid jogger. She’d often run with floormates, but three days ago she’d traveled alone, and no one on campus had seen her since.

After fitting Jag back in his harness, Jeff tried relaxing his shoulders before trekking further. His favorite part of the path—a gradual switchback—lay just up ahead, a few steps from a gazebo that housed a picnic table and two rocking chairs. A wooden bench sat in an adjacent patch of lilacs, where Jeff often pulled up a book from his Kindle app, donned his headphones, and let its electronic voice read his latest purchase.

Today, reading was the last thing on his mind. The stench alone drove away any desire to sit and read, and thoughts of his missing student made his nerves stand on end as he tried to keep his mind from wandering down the darkest scenarios of what might have befallen her. He hoped that central Nebraska’s low crime rate might hold up to its billing and Jackie might be found alive.

Just past the switchback, blacktop changed to gravel‑studded packed earth—great traction for any good tennis shoe but a bit annoying for a dog’s front paws. Bushes lined both sides of the path beneath the limbs of two tall trees that formed a leafy archway.

Jag pawed the ground and sneezed as the tags hanging from his collar jingled. The gentle breeze that had blown since Jeff walked outside stopped, yet the stench still lingered. No birds sang and, even for the moment, crickets seemed to hush their chirping. Not even the distant traffic that always rumbled at this time of day made a sound.

Jag lurched right, whined, woofed, and plunged his head into the trailside bushes.

“Jag, no!” Jeff admonished, snapping his leash. “Jag, come.”

The brawny Labrador woofed once and whined while taking another step away from the trail.

“No, come.” Again, Jeff snapped the leash, hoping that his guide would leave whatever fascinated him alone.

Another lurch forward followed by a soft growl and low woof made up Jeff’s mind. The time had come for a quick probe with the red‑tipped mobility cane he always brought with him in case something happened to Jag. Palms sweating, he arced it to the right. Something resisting its swing scooted along the ground. Paydirt?

Jeff’s fingers tingled, perhaps recalling the last time he handled a dead rabbit decaying in Dad’s shed. This time, he had no trash bag to wrap it in or shovel with which he could bury it out of sight and out of mind.

Instead, he dropped his cane so that it stretched from whatever its tip encountered back toward the trail. At least the bench wasn’t far away. Leading Jag there, he tied his leash around one of its legs and commanded him, “Stay.” This time, his dog obeyed.

Crouching, Jeff edged his way back toward his cane’s rubber handle. Sweat poured down his arms as his heart throbbed. Crawling under the bushes, the stench almost made him gag. Damp leaves and mud left over from the morning’s rainstorm clung to his skin as he crept along the ground. Whatever stank couldn’t be too far away.

If he knew someone were near, Jeff would’ve called out for help. But no rustle of branches or sound of footsteps broke the eerie silence.

“Oh, my God!”

Jeff felt his breath catch in his throat as slick fabric slid beneath his fingertips. One moment, he touched the shorts fitted over still muscular legs, then the tank top covering a stiffening torso, a wristband, then a shock of hair matted with blood or dirt—he couldn’t tell which.

“Jackie?”

The young woman said nothing, just lay there as her corpse had done for some time. Jeff’s breaths came more rapidly now, no matter how he tried to slow them. His head spun and, for the briefest moment, he felt as if he might faint.

“Jackie?”

The holler came from somewhere up the trail. Jeff stood and motioned for Jag to sit to his left. What was he to say since those searching for his student’s whereabouts would discover him handling her remains? He couldn’t run lest someone suspect him of tampering with evidence. He’d no doubt have questions fired at him from the media, the cops, and campus officials.

Frozen in place, Jeff wished he could regroup. He’d tell whoever kept calling for Jackie everything he’d found and leave the rest for others to figure out.

“Jeff… Jag, what you doing here?”

The voice belonged to Ron Haugh, the head of campus security.

“I was taking a walk before heading home. Jag smelled something before I found this.” He waved toward the runner’s remains while trying to hold back tears. “And you?”

“I was walking the campus when I saw some bird dive beneath the branches, rise, and act like someone had come too close. Then came that awful smell. Through my binoculars, I glimpsed footprints and surmised the search was over.”

“Over?” Jeff asked. “I’m going to hear Jackie’s bubbly voice in my dreams… her excitement when talking about running track… her description of how the sun shines over the academic quad. And I’ll miss how she loved my Jag like no one else on campus.”

Ron said nothing while Jag—still leashed to the bench—continued to sneeze.

“I hate to stop you,” Ron finally said, “but now that we’ve found Jackie, the cops need to know.”

“I suppose,” Jeff said. “Somehow I shoved the need for them from my mind. They’ll see my fresh fingerprints and think I tampered with something.”

“No, they won’t,” Ron said. “That body looks like it has been laying there for at least two days. And the cops will be able to see that. You just hold tight and let them work.”

Ron’s pager beeped. Within minutes, more security guards reached the scene. Sirens wailed, stopping only when Ron spoke his location.

“Nice work, Mr. Haugh.”

“Don’t thank me,” Ron said. “Thank this guy and his dog.”

Jeff felt a slap on his shoulder, perhaps a reminder to keep his thoughts from wandering down Stunned Griever’s Lane. As much as he’d gushed out memories of Jackie, he was in no mood to speak with the law. Only time would tell if he were truly seen as the happenstance discoverer.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” one of the cops asked.

“My colleague here followed his dog off the trail and found Jackie’s body just before I saw it through my binoculars. But I suppose you folks have some important work to do.”

“True that. My name is Officer Kelly. My folks and I will be taping up this whole area for as long as it takes to investigate the crime.”

Jeff nodded, fingers twitching. Had he really touched the dead body of the same student who had brightened the moods of the disability students’ staff every time she swung by? She’d no longer greet everyone with that infectious smile and cheery giggle. The tension on campus would ebb, replaced by sadness. And what about the perp who had taken Jackie’s life? Would he be dealt justice?

“You were a big help,” Officer Kelly said when he returned from walking the crime scene’s grid. “If you hadn’t discovered Jackie’s body, more anxious searching would have to be done, more nerves left frayed, more questions left unanswered. Now we just have an investigation to do and a murderer to catch. Meanwhile, you can breathe a little easier.”

An hour later, Jeff sauntered up his driveway toward his ranch house’s front door and the swing that sat a few feet down the porch. At least here, he could avoid talking with the town’s tiny news staff as long as no one leaked his phone number. That he had been the first to discover Jackie’s body would remain unknown to everyone except the few who waited for the coroner. If Ron gave him any further credit, he’d accept it and move on. No doubt, he’d be in touch with the school that trained Jag. Guide dogs did great work, but they didn’t discover dead bodies very often. Jeff had met friends who had to retire their dogs after traumatic encounters shook them to the core.

Now, what Jeff needed was sleep—and the weekend to regain his footing before classes began on Monday.

A Month Later

The opening bars of “Five O’Clock Somewhere” playing on his cellphone signaled to Jeff the weekend had come. He slipped the harness over Jag’s head and fastened its clip, making sure it was snug around Jag’s chest. A walk around the quarter‑mile bike path was in order—the first such trek he’d take since the day he discovered Jackie’s body.

Head erect, Jag led him onto the winding path like a pro. Their strides matched each other so that they glided along as if having barely a care in the world. Jeff thought of everything that had happened in the past month to make this little paradise safe again.

Jackie’s killer had turned himself in, pleading insanity only long enough for emails describing premeditated harm he planned to do to Jackie for the breakup they’d experienced the previous spring. At least two more security guards now patrolled the campus daily. And a funeral for Jackie had drawn over five hundred family, friends, and fellow students who packed the aisles of a nearby church two weeks after the murder.

Rounding the switchback on the trail, Jeff felt his ears perk up. A cardinal was beginning to sing a light melody of tweets, chips, and chitters, eager for whoever his mate might be to come home and roost.