"Hey, John. I've heard a lot of good things about you." Mike approached the dog trainer with his hand out. "And this is the famous Peachy who found that banker, right?"

John's tense smile eased up and he shook Mike's hand. "Yeah, Peachy's the one. Our most famous case. Back in '92. This guy Randolph was buried alive in a Queens cemetery. An angry employee did it to get even with him. You read about it in the paper, right? What you don't know was that Peachy located him through his airhole. His scent came right up through that hole."

"Smart dog," Mike said. "Sorry about the precinct slipup. We didn't want to keep you waiting. Is someone on the way?"

Smart Mike, April thought.

"No way, Peachy can't do anything with this. Too many people. Too many cars. And you know, a repeat of yesterday…" John shrugged, clearly softened by the praise. The dog was going crazy. April kept her mouth shut.

Mike pointed at the dog. "She always like this?"

"Peachy? No, she's an extremely well-trained dog. She'll sit on the seat until I give her clean scent of the missing p and tell her to 'go find.'" John went over to the window. "What's with you, honey lamb?"

Peachy was nuts trying to get out of that car.

Goose bumps rose on April's arms. Something was up. The dog knew it right away. "She wants out, John. She wants to find him." Finally April got out of the car herself.

John laughed. "She doesn't know who he is, sweetheart. She can't find if she doesn't have a scent of your guy." He tried soothing the dog. Peachy whimpered and pawed John through the window. "Hey, that hurts."

"What does she want?"

John shrugged. "Beats me. Humans have maybe five million olfactory cells in their noses. A Doberman, like Peachy, has one hundred fifty to two hundred million cells. She can smell a ball thrown by a kid two days ago, squirrel pee in the grass, a parrot on somebody's shoulder half a mile away-you name it. Young dogs can go wild in an environment like this. With scent particles of literally everything falling all over the place, they're bombarded with stimuli we can't even imagine." John was showing off for Mike.

"That's very interesting. I had no idea." Mike patted the dog's head. He appeared to have all the time in the world. "And they can search for a lot of other things, right?"

"Of course. Lots of things."

"A cadaver?" April approached the trainer and the dog in the car with extreme caution. "Hey, Peachy." She wasn't exactly afraid of it, but wanted to stay out of slobbering range.

"Sure."

"Or something else that's out of place on a scene?" April's eyes were on the dog, who was yelping and carrying on. People were starting to drift over for a look. Pretty soon the Central Park Precinct officers would be on their case. It had been stupid to neglect them. But it was clear she wasn't in harmony, wasn't doing anything right.

John frowned at his barking pride and joy. "Quiet," he commanded.

The noise stopped. Peachy tensed, shivering all over, at attention.

"Why don't you let her out," April suggested. "She's a tracking dog. Let her do her thing."

"She's acting crazy, like a puppy." John opened the car door. "Maybe she has business to do."

"Yeah, and maybe she knows something that we don't." April looked over at Mike. Their eyes locked, and he gave her a smile. Her stomach did a little flip. The dog wouldn't let them pursue the subject further.

As soon as the car door was open a crack, the Doberman threw herself against it and leaped out like an Olympic athlete. April was shocked. Peachy seemed bigger than the last time she'd seen her. She jumped on John, almost knocking the six-footer over. With her two front legs on his shoulders, she was as tall as he was.

"Off," he commanded.

Instantly, the two front legs went down. At the same time the dog raised her muzzle to take in huge snoutfuls of the air above her head. Then she grabbed the leash out of John's hand and pushed it at his arm, shoving him hard.

"The kid wants to work. Let's go," April said, pleased that at least the dog supported her.

Suddenly John's mood changed. "Whatever you say. I'm good to go." His jaw tightened as he clipped on Peachy's leash. "Down," he commanded. Peachy dropped to her stomach. He went to the car and returned in a few seconds with a bottle of Evian and a bowl. He filled the bowl with the water. "Okay," he told the dog.

On command the dog got up and slurped at the contents of the bowl. "They work better when they're hydrated," he explained. When the bowl was empty, John gave Peachy a large dog biscuit. Peachy crunched it down in one bite. Then she stood at attention, looking at him expectantly and growling at the back of her throat.

"Good girl. What a good baby. Want to go to work? Huh? How about it? Let's go work. Yeah, baby." The C scar by the side of John's mouth cavorted with his enthusiasm. His color was up and April could see him zoning with the dog.

Finally, he turned to April and Mike. "I want you two to stay here; you have a radio, right?"

Mike shook his head. "I don't want to use the radio. You have a cell?"

John nodded.

"Okay, we'll keep you in view, but if the dog takes off, use the cell to contact us. I'm calling in to let the captain know we've decided to work the area."

"Fine. Whatever you say. Good girl. Good girl. Peachy, just one more second and we're out of here." He was careful to keep Mike with the stronger scent away.

Mike gave John his number. John punched it into the phone memory. "Technology," he muttered. "And Mike, one warning. This is not a bomb dog. This is not a drugs dog. This is a people dog."

"Meaning?"

"She expects to find live people here in the city, in the park. She doesn't expect to find a dead person. I suspect she either smells a dead person or a dead animal. There are two schools of thought on whether they can tell the difference. In any case, that's why she's acting like this. She may smell your man, and he's dead. I'm just preparing you, okay?"

"Oh, let's not be too pessimistic," Mike replied. "She could also be turned on by delicious smells at the zoo." He gave April a triumphant little smile.

April hadn't thought of that. The zoo was a mile away across the park at Fifth and Sixty-fifth Street. Penguins and polar bears and who knew what else.

John shook his head at Mike. "Not a chance. Okay, Peachy. Go find for Daddy." Peachy took off, nose high in the air.

Not more than five minutes later, a hundred yards from where they'd been, under a thin layer of fresh leaves, the dog located a dribble of something that looked like intestines. Mike and April saw her stop and bark happily. They ran to the spot as John was praising her, before he even moved in to see what she'd found.

Looked like insides, stank like hell. What got them interested was that there was nothing else. No body, either human or otherwise. It was a weird find. If animals had been at something, they wouldn't eat the bones and leave the tissue. Mike used his radio to call in the find. If the tissue turned out to be human, they'd have a homicide on their hands.