The Scent

Detective Ackers had to hurry. It had been three days and the scent would be lost soon due to the incoming storms. The storms were forecast earlier in the week at the time of the murder and as Friday approached, Ackers knew he would have to work quickly if he didn’t want to lose what little lead he had. The body of a young lay near a paper plant in the center of town. The woman appeared to be in her early thirties with no sign of a struggle. Detective Ackers could smell the fragrance of a popular perfume she had spritzed herself with that morning. She had coffee that day, a bagel with strawberry cream cheese for breakfast followed by a peppermint that the woman thought would cover the coffee smell on her breath.  She would have been correct in most cases however this was not one of those. The young woman was the victim of an apparent homicide and Detective Ackers was anything but an ordinary detective.

A cop approached Detective Ackers with his chest held high displaying both hands on his hips. “Can I help you sir”, the cop asked? Detective Ackers gave an abrupt reply, “No”. The cop assumed the man was a nosey reporter and would have gotten the hint to back off. He didn’t get the response he had expected. Ackers had not looked up at the cop until this moment. He flipped his badge toward him and explained that he was Detective Ackers with FBI and he would not be explaining anything to a local cop, especially a rookie. Ackers could smell the doughnuts that were filled with a vanilla custard and by the looks of this young cop he only ate the doughnuts to fit in with the veterans. He was in shape and typically ate healthy. A shot of beet juice in the morning before his morning jog, talcum powder in the pants to keep the private parts dry under pressure and an array of vitamins were flowing through his system. The rookie cop wanted to make an impression and pushed harder on the man before him identifying himself. “We were on the scene first and where is your superior? How did you get here so quickly? I’m going to need to see more identification or speak to someone above you before you go any further on our crime scene”, the rookie insisted?

Detective Ackers loved a challenge but you could hardly call this a good one. This would simply be fun. “Look rookie, you got up this morning went for a jog to burn off some frustration because you haven’t had any in awhile. You pride yourself in being healthy but you don’t want to seem like a health nut to your fellow officers so you had a doughnut this morning. The thought of it in your system is making you feel like crap right now while the sugar rush has you a little jittery. Your nervous which you hope that talcum powder in your pants is masking the musk sweat you have coming from your pores. You want to make a good impression but you don’t want to come off as a know it all so you’re questioning me but you’re not sure what exactly you should be asking me. I know this because the shampoo you used in your hair this morning is mixing with the sweat beginning to drip from your brow. Coconut for men I assume”? The rookie stared at Ackers in utter silence with his mouth open. 

Ackers just walked away leaving the rookie in utter shock. The cop wondered if being new on the local police department warranted an FBI agent keeping tabs on him as part of a test or something. Detective Ackers did not confirm or deny the rookie’s suspicions, his attention was back on the young woman. She had intercourse the night before but he did not see a wedding band on her hand and she didn’t smell like a mom whose baby daddy stopped by for late night visits. No smell of chicken nuggets, chocolate milk, candy or mac-n-cheese from a box. This young woman was evidently single with an occasional visit from an admirer or boyfriend. Could the killer be a jealous ex? Just then Detective Ackers got wind of a very familiar scent. This was the scent of something very dangerous. 

Have you ever smelled something that immediately took you back in time to a specific place or moment? That smell had the power to lift you from the present and place you in the middle of a scene from your past like an actor in a movie. ACTION! You replay the events of that moment as if it were happening to you all over again. That smell took Detective Ackers back to a place and time he wanted to forget. He couldn’t be sure until he saw it for himself. In order to know for sure that this smell was the same smell from that moment so long ago, Ackers would have to track it down. 

            Detective Ackers had a secret. You could say he had a nose for things similar to those of a canine but better. Choose the best breed of canine with a nose for tracking and Detective Ackers could top that animal. He never told anyone on the force or those he was close to about his ability to sniff things out. Most of his fellow agents just thought he was either super lucky or just that good at his job. Detective Ackers knew better. He knew he could smell better that anyone or anything on this planet. The only way he could dull his scent ability was with a device he created similar to nose plugs but smaller. Noone could see them tucked up inside of his nose. When he removed them the smells around him were sharp and distinct and nothing was more distinct than the scent of FEAR. 

            Detective Ackers had spent three days tracking that smell. The rain would come and the smell would be gone but he was about a hundred miles from the original crime scene where the young woman had been found. Although the nail polish from her nails were fresh and the strong odor from the paper mill covered up many scents, Detective Ackers smelled Fear. Fear had such a distinct awful smell that reminded you of a bad fire. Even though a house may not burn to the ground anything the smoke touched was considered damaged because you can’t remove the smell. That is how fear works. You may not be consumed by it but you carry it’s stinch on you like smoke after a bad fire. The young woman had that smell. Whatever killed her had terrified her to her very core and it wasn’t anything normal like a raging dog or creepy stranger. She had faced her worst nightmare and didn’t survive. 

            Detective Ackers followed the smell of fear from the young woman to a small town about a hundred miles away almost seventy-two hours later. The time wasn’t his concern as he was known to have still been able to track a smell almost two weeks later but smells always grew faint after a heavy rain and the forecast was calling for it. Detective Ackers had to hurry, although his scents ability was good it was no match for good ole mother nature and her power to wash things away with a multitude of those pesky wet drops. He quickened his pace through town allowing the windows from his car to stay completely down so the smells could carry swiftly across his nose. He was about to go through a green light and continue further when the smell took a turn. The smell was getting stronger as Detective Ackers did his best to go the speed limit. The last thing he needed was another encounter with a local rookie cop. It would be a different cop but the same ole contest of who are you and what are you doing on my turf? The last cop was fun to toy with but the next would only be annoying and delay his arrival toward this mystery destination. Delays he could not afford with the incoming rain ahead. The sky was dark and cloudy but the rain was not supposed to come until late in the night or early Friday morning. Detective Ackers raised his head slightly catching better whiff of that smell but keeping his eyes on the road. 

He was just that good. His nose was better than any GPS money could by and it was giving him turn-by-turn directions. The smell hit him hard while his foot pressed the brakes on his car bringing it to a complete stop. Looking around there was nothing around of any consequence. He had driven through the small town following the scent to an open field by a lake. There were trees and what appeared to be some beaten trails created from years of hikers or lovers sneaking off into the wooded area. He found a decent place to park before exiting his car. There! The smell was drawing him near one of the beaten paths. The sky was only getting darker. He didn’t have any back-up but he couldn’t wait. To call for back-up would require explanations he didn’t have time to explain, besides how do you explain that your nose lead you to this wooded area on the outskirts of a small town nowhere near the original crime scene. It didn’t matter what others thought. Detective Acker knew he was right about this just as he had been right so many other times before this one. 

Detective Ackers walked into the wooded area, following the beaten path until he had to stop and vomit. Whew! He missed his shoes. The last time the contents of his stomach landed right on his newly purchased shoes that he rewarded himself with for getting promoted to this new position as an FBI Detective. 

That vomit on the side of the road made him close his eyes for a moment. The smell was getting thicker and he couldn’t deny it any longer. It was here. Fear itself was here and it had killed the woman. 

Detective knew Fear very well. It was Fear who had given him this gift of scent if you can call having this kind of ability a gift. It wasn't had helped him in his career for sure but the price was heavy. He would have to have encounters like this one. Encounters where the world as we know as humanly possible pauses for the the supernatural. There would be times Detective Ackers would have to ignore what he knew was true for simply not having "real" proof to convince the naked eye. He wasn't going to ignore it this time. He couldn't do this anymore. Detective Ackers couldn't live this way any longer. There is one scent stronger than Fear and Detective Akers would find it, this had to end one way or another and he would be the one to do it. Fear won't know what hit him until the truth was staring it in the face. It could be defeated.