By the smell, it's apparent I have a dead animal in the AC. I've looked all over in the cabin and under the hood and have found nothing. The only other place to look is actually in the AC ducts.

Does anybody have an idea on how to proceed? Where would be the most likely locations to look?

I'm trying to avoid a mechanic since he said it could run well into the hundreds of $$$ if they have to take the dash apart.

Turn the heater on full blast and make jerky! Om nom nom!

i think
the 05 has the ability for a cabin air filter (o6+ have the filter)
and have read post about people just installing one
if so i would drop down the glove box hinge (all the way)

and look at the black duct going vertical from the air intake ( top of cowl area) and should be able to see or use a inspection mirror to look up and down.
lot of 06+ folks talk about mouse droppings on the filter

you should be able to use mechanical fingers if you had to!

hope that helps and keeps it out of the $hop

^^ That would be my best guess for a starting point. IIRC, you can see the top of the fan through the filter access door. If necessary, I think you can easily drop the motor & fan by unplugging the electrical connector and removing three (maybe four) small bolts.

Good luck -- and welcome to TS!

Kerryman might have some pics in his gallery, if memory serves me well.

Found it. Pulled out the cabin air filter and it had rat droppings on it. So, I took of the cowling covering the windshield wiper motors and the dead rat was right there in the hole for air intake. It's tail had apparently gotten stuck so it was trapped.

Now to get rid of the smell. It's much better than when the rat was still there though!

Febreze is your friend.... good luck.

A friend of mine spilled kerosine in his wife's van - he was desperate since she was threatening to kill him. He took it somewhere that did some kind of ozone treatment on it and it worked really well, but I can't remember how much it cost.