“Whiskey has, as a matter of fact. Well, she started that way, sort of sounding like a warm-up howl, then she’d start singing.”
“Or, it could be Mourning Notes tried a song that Whiskey didn’t know, and Whiskey howled randomly. When Whiskey wasn’t following her notes, she might have switched to a different song, so Mourning could have the singing on tape. She’s calling you Graves, and Whiskey is Goth-hound, by the way.”
Gabriel pressed the pads of his fingers together, steepling them as he looked at the ceiling, running through the different times they’d been out there. “That works,” he said. “Not ‘the grave’ … Graves as a name? I’m not talking about Graves and the Goth-hound but the explanation of the songs.”
“I figured that this house she’s in is somewhere nearby, but not so near that you can hear her singing, right?” Reaper asked.
“When I’m at that stop sign, I can’t hear a thing, but Whiskey can because Whiskey’s got Whiskey ears?”
“My guess,” Reaper said, watching the video on silent.
“Why doesn’t Whiskey walk up to the house? She never does. She gets to the stop sign, sits and sings. And, of course, we’re standing almost straight across the street from Daniel.”
“There’s a good question. And I don’t have an answer for you. It could have been that you trained her that that was her singing spot.”
“How would I have done that?” Gabriel asked.
“Could be that she was walking you toward the sound, and you interpreted it as going to see Daniel. If you picturedDaniel’s grave and that was, in your mind, the destination, that’s the image that Whiskey would have seen. If you put those thoughts on repeat, you trained her.”
“Wishful thinking. His grave was still fresh.”
“You loved your brother,” Reaper said gently. “Who wouldn’t have a glimmer of hope that they could stay close? And I’m not discounting the possibility that this wasn’t orchestrated by Daniel. It’s his sense of humor. But he would be working within the realm of physics, so he’d have to figure out a lot of moving pieces.”
Gabriel sat silent. Yeah, Cathy wasn’t the only one; he still wanted to believe Daniel was somehow involved.
“Brother, I have seen some crazy shit in my life. I have a dear friend who can do things that transcend belief. One of my old teammates comes from the Louisiana Bayou, and he has woo-woo skills that freak me out on a regular basis. I’ve even met some of the men who were involved in the military psychic experiments back in the eighties. To hear them tell it, there is no such thing as time, and there is no such thing as the end of our existence. By showing you that video, I don’t mean to redefine your own experience. I’m merely trying to give it more context.”
“OK, thanks for letting me know, Reaper,” Gabriel said.
“You know, I don’t want to interfere in how you do things,” Reaper said. “But you need a couple pieces of information. You do geolocation for a living. And you know this, but it wouldn’t take much to find out where this is. Mourning Notes posts on all the major social media sites, and she gets a lot of interaction and followers. A couple of the videos have gone viral.”
Gabriel clenched his jaw. Reaper was leading him somewhere with all this.
“Look, Whiskey is famous in our area. Somebody put it together that Goth-hound and Whiskey were probably one and the same.”
Whiskey waddled over to sit between Reaper’s knees to get her ears rubbed.
“More than one somebodies,” Reaper said. “Enough somebodies that Kate got tagged.”
“That’s not great news,” Gabriel said.
“One of the comments is a link to the newspaper article on the search when the children were found on Sweet Gum.”
“With Whiskey’s name?” Gabriel asked.
“Her name, your name, Daniel’s name. Your photo with Whiskey.”
“Nobody asked my permission to put my name in the paper,” Gabriel said.
“They don’t have to ask your permission,” Reaper said. “You were there; it was in the public eye, as part of a public safety event. And it wasn’t emergency management that gave out your name. That’s policy. But there were plenty of people talking about Whiskey. The search-and-rescue community is pretty tight. Everyone knows everyone. Someone could have seen Whiskey and shared news about Daniel’s death. Someone else could have mentioned that you’re his brother. Some reporter could have been sitting there taking notes. It’s not hard to imagine how that article was written.”
“It’s quite the leap that in all the world of howling dogs that someone landed on Whiskey, though.”
Reaper tipped his head. “It is, and it isn’t. First, this woman has friends, and those friends will share it with their other friends. The group that started following this woman knew her or knew someone who knew her. They’re from this area. If they were doing an Internet search for D.C. bloodhounds, they would have found that article.”
“Agreed.”
“And how many dogs are there that sing like Whiskey?” Reaper asked.
