Chapter Two: Dog Hunting

After being chewed out by the Chief, the two officers immediately rushed off towards the pool side of the house. Jacob, a wiry looking twenty-year old with a black crew cut under his hat looked over anxiously at James, his twin brother who had his hair a bit thicker. "This is so fucked up man, I told you we should not have gone off into the woods looking for that stupid cat. Now we are going to be fired and hopefully Garry does not kill us himself." Jacob spouted at his brother as he soon as they were out of earshot. James, the calmer of the two brothers, bumped his brother's shoulder. "Calm down Jacob, if we can help them find any trace of whoever did this, we may be able to make amends with both Garry and the Chief. Before we can do that however you need to calm your shit and get your head in the game. I'm not sure entirely what they did in there, but it's got the Chief spooked, and if that's the case we need to be on our guards much better than normal. So, stay sharp and look for tracks, misplaced twigs and branches, and anything else on where this guy might have gone."

Jacob nodded, "I guess I'll take the left side then, while you take this side. We make a quick search around the perimeter of the yard, meet back up and then make a slower approach." James nodded and turned his flashlight towards the trampoline, making his way over towards that side of the house. As he got closer, he examined the ground closely, looking for any signs of a hurried departure. Closer to the wood line he noticed a line of footprints heading towards the house, but nothing coming back. Looking at the footprint, he took out a camera and took some photos from various angles, and if he had to hazard a guess, believed the shoe to be around a size ten. 'He may not be too big then, not with a shoe that small, but that means nothing if an actual fight occurs trying to bring him in.' James thought as he continued around the house. 'Surely the others would have already gone around here, right?' But no, as he went around, he saw no other officers looking around the house except for his brother who waved him over. "Jacob, come here, I think I found something. Some tracks leading off behind Garry's house." Garry's house was on the corner of a perpendicular street. If you went back up, you went back to the main road. If you kept going straight, you would end up in an area with no turn, you would have to pull into someone's house, back out and turn around that way. The third way led further into the small suburb where you would come up on a four-way intersection. With that in mind, Garry's house is right there where you would turn to head towards the intersection, on its far side. Behind him were loads of smaller houses along that road and at the end are a bunch of small horse farms.

As Jacob moved towards James the branches in front of him rustled and he immediately pulled his service pistol and aimed, "Stop right there, put your hands up and come out of the woods slowly, now." James immediately came towards him from the other side, moving at a perpendicular as to not accidently shoot his brother if he had to fire while keeping the target area in sight. "Slowly, come out slowly" James reinforced his brothers call as he moved closer. "Is there anyone behind those trees that we could hit if we fired a warning round at him Jacob?" "No, fire one round off to the side" his brother responded as he prepared to fire the trees rustled again and out came a small dog, causing both brothers to laugh. "Damn bro, you just about shot a dog, that would have been a curse for life, you don't shoot dogs, ever. It's bad karma." Jacob said as he continued to laugh. "Come on, I think I found something over here." Jacob motioned his brother to follow him as he went over behind the pool. He kneeled down, and flashed his light at a line of really light, but wet, footprints leading from the woods to the pool, and a set of heavier footprints leading from the pool to the upper window of the daughter's bedroom.

"Shit, looks like he raised the window and jumped down, maybe landed harder on one knee and walked to the pool to try and clean his shoes." James stated as they followed the prints. "There is blood too, looks like someone in the house managed to stab cut him with something. It is bleeding bad too." Jacob responded as he examined the ground closer. Just then, "Jacob, Jason, check in, where are you two idiots?" the radio popped off on their belts as Jacob and James looked at one another. They did quick rock-paper-scissors which James lost as he sighed and used the radio. "Chief, Jacob might have found something. Looks to be a set of footprints leading off back behind Garry's neighbors, and a lot of blood. The suspect is definitely hurting, whoever it is."

Finally hearing a response, Marcus looked up. "Boys, gather around, the Gordon boys found a lead." As four more officers and Captain Jackson gathered around, Marcus pulled out his radio again and called the Gordon's. "James, repeat that last." "Jacob found a blood trail and footprints leading out from under the daughter's window leading off behind the neighbor's house." James repeated, and Marcus sighed, "Alright, looks like we may be able to catch this guy. Captain, bring out the K-Nines and let's get this hunt on the road. You four split into pairs of two and go on ninety-degree search patterns from each other behind the neighbor's house down to the end of the road. Captain Jackson and I shall take the Gordon's and search from the other side of the road along the same vector. We cannot lose this guy, let's move." Captain Jackson nodded and as they were about to call for the Gordon's they came back around and Garry finally seemed to wake up from his cathartic state.

"I will go with the first two teams, keep us in check on that other side. Do not be a hero anyone, we follow our training and watch each other's back and no one else will have to die tonight, barring one." Garry stated coldly to the others as he racked his service pistol and turned on his flashlight. Then he turned to his other neighbors who had crept back up while all that was going on. "Go home, this area is officially a crime scene and a search party is about to begin. Do not be in the path or you may be considered hostile." Mac, an older man living across the street, walked over to Garry. "I'm so sorry Garry, are you sure you do not want me to come along." Garry's eyes softened a bit as he looked at his friend, "Not this time Mac, whoever did this is extremely dangerous, and I cannot afford any more deaths tonight. Go home, lock your doors, and if anyone comes up who is not an officer and tries to break in, call me, we will be back faster than you can eat that famous chicken curry of yours." Mac shook his head but turned and left.

Marcus just shook his head at Garry, "He was just trying to help, you did not need to be that hard on him detective." "Sometimes you have to be hard, in order to keep people alive." Garry responded back to Marcus. "Even so, there is still a fine line to being hard, and being an ungrateful ass. Make sure you remember that line, and get your gear on. I brought an extra set with me just in case." Garry looked at him and nodded, his face still angry but not as bad as it was. Walking over to the Chief's car, Garry pushed down on the back and popped the trunk. Inside, he picked up a set of body armor, gloves, helmet and some extra mags for his Glock before closing it back. Making sure everything was on correctly, Marcus double checked the straps were all set before he went to the four officers he would be leading. "Let's go gentleman, we have a suspect to catch."

Less than half an hour later they found the suspect, bleeding out in the back of horse barn eight houses down at the back of a horse farm. There was not much special to it, the two groups went in a line at ninety-degree differences and made their way forward. Neighbors seeing lights behind their houses called out from window's asking what was going on and were told to shut the windows back unless they had information on someone wandering behind the house bleeding heavily. The third house in, Garry's group was told they saw a tall, European looking man with blonde hair clutching his waist as he limped by trying to stay out of the lights. Hearing that, Garry contacted Marcus and pulled his other group in. Once Marcus arrived, they set new intervals and pushed forward, this time all in a line together but spaced out as they closed in on the suspect.

Finally, on the eighth house, a ranch by the looks of it, the rancher came out and said he had shot at a man trying to break into one of his shacks and that he had run off rather haphazardly towards one of his barns. Together, the officers and the rancher closed in on that barn and in the last stall on the right, found a dirty, six-foot five blonde European looking man face down on the dirt unconscious. The rancher, an older man by the name of Thomas Matthews, was promised a reward at the station once the suspect was booked.

As Marcus called for an ambulance for the suspect, Garry walked up and starting taking off the extra gear, stowing it back in the trunk of Marcus's police cruiser. When Garry did not believe anyone else was watching the weight of the night finally seemed to catch up to him as his shoulders slumped and he looked ready to pass out beside the cruiser. Marcus rushed towards him and caught him just before he hit the ground. "Hey look at me man, look at me, you need to rest. The others can finish taking care of this guy, get in the car and I'll take you back to my place. You don't need to be sleeping in your house tonight." Garry barely had his eyes open and despite how much he wanted to decline, he knew he would not be able to stay awake much longer and silently agreed. Marcus set him down with his back to the tire as he opened up the cruiser door, before helping him back up and into the cruiser. "Captain Jackson, I assume you can handle the rest from here?" Captain Jackson looked over to him and nodded in the affirmative, his countenance much calmer than before as he looked Marcus in the eye. "Get him out of here, he shouldn't be anywhere near this house for a while. I'll make sure this asshole gets booked as soon as he can stand." "He will rot in hell for this Jackson, you can count on it. Time to get Garry to my place." With that, he pulled out his keys, opened his driver door and started the cruiser, then went on home. He did not dare look at the clock, knowing his wife would still be up and he had forgotten to call, 'Well, I know where I am sleeping tonight, or should I say day.'