Dog On It (16 page)

“Lost me,” said Bernie.

“I’m just saying my knife is German and yours is not.”

“No?”

“But influenced by German methods—that was astute of you, spotting that.”

“Total luck,” said Bernie. “So where’s my knife from?”

“I just told you,” Otis said. “Zlatoust. It’s almost the twin of this one.” Otis rose, walked down the table, picked up another knife. “The Korsa—very nice, got it in last week. A mean-looking bastard—how sharp is this?” Otis rolled up his sleeve, drew the blade across his arm, shaving off a patch of hair. “But yours, just as sharp, same steel, forty X ten C two M—isn’t a Korsa. Notice the deeper runnel.”

“That groove?”

“Exactly. Lets the blood out faster. A fine piece of work, Bernie, and brand-new to me—thanks for bringing it over. Here. Stick out your arm.”

“No, thanks,” said Bernie. “Where’s Zlatoust?”

“Near the iron mines, didn’t I mention that?”

“What iron mines?”

“In the Urals, of course.”

“Russia?”

“Are there other Urals?” Otis said. He started laughing. I loved Otis’s laugh. It always went on and on in a loud crazy way until
he ended up coughing and beating on his chest. “Any Russian connection to your case?” he said when the chest-beating part was over and he’d had a glass of water.

Bernie started to shake his head, then paused. “Not a connection in any way I can see, but there is Ms. Larapova.”

“Who’s she?”

“A receptionist, or maybe a real estate broker,” Bernie said. “She looks like one of those Russian tennis players.”

Otis rubbed his beard. I was hoping that the piece of fried egg would fall out but it didn’t. “Think she’d be interested in the reenactment scene?” Otis said. “Could use some women—we’re refighting the whole Chattanooga / Chickamauga campaign next weekend.”

“I’ll ask her,” Bernie said.

“Could use some women,” Otis repeated, this time softer and with a faraway look.

General Beauregard was snoring beside me. With no warning, my own eyes felt very heavy. I took a nice deep breath and let them close, and sank into dreamland at once, a dreamland where the General and I chased after all kinds of creatures big and small, scaring the hell out of each and every—

“Chet? Wakie-wakie. We’re out of here.”

I bounced right up, stretched, gave myself a shake, followed Bernie to the door. General Beauregard didn’t open his eyes, but he gave his tail a single soft thump on the floor. The fun we’d had with those poor coyotes: our little secret.

I had a lovely snooze in the car, maybe twisted around a bit with my head poking through to the backseat, but the gentle motion and the rumble of the engine zonked me right out. When I woke up, totally refreshed, rarin’ to go, we were pulling in to Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells, don’t ask me why. We parked in front of the model home and got out, Bernie carrying the knife in a manila envelope.

We entered and there we were, back in that room with the tile floor, so nice and cool against my paws, and the fountain, no longer splashing. Right away I wanted to amble over to the edge and lift my leg. Why? I didn’t really need to go. A woman sat at the desk, a dark woman, not Ms. Larapova. She gave us a smile.

Bernie smiled back, not a real smile because his eyes weren’t part of it, just showing teeth, although he had nice ones for a human—did I mention that already? “We’re looking for Ms. Larapova,” he said.

The woman stopped smiling. “Ms. Larapova is not here.”

“When will she be back?”

“Ms. Larapova is no longer with the company.”

“No longer with the company?” Bernie said. He picked up a card lying on the desk. “It says right here—‘Elena Larapova, VP Marketing.’”

“I’m afraid that card is obsolete,” the woman said. She took it from Bernie’s hand and dropped it in the wastebasket.

“Chet!” Bernie said.

Oops. Did I hear growling, in fact, almost snarling? I made it stop, even though I didn’t like how she’d grabbed the card from Bernie, not one little bit.

“Do you know how I can contact her?” he said.

“I’m afraid not.”

“But suppose mail comes for her—she must have left a forwarding address.”

“I’m afraid she didn’t.”

Bernie was still smiling, and now his smile seemed real, maybe actually was. Bernie was full of surprises. Sometimes I didn’t understand him at all.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “I’ll just see Mr. Keefer for a moment.”

“I’m af—Mr. Keefer is away on business.”

“He was here this morning.”

“Now he’s gone.”

“Is he at home?”

“He’s away on business.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What’s your best guess?”

The woman’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I loved when Bernie made that happen. We walked outside feeling like winners, at least I did. Standing in the parking lot, Bernie tried Keefer’s home and cell numbers, got no answer. He
opened his laptop, searched for a number for Ms. Larapova, found only one listing—the Pinnacle Peak office we’d just come from.

“What’s
our
best guess, Chet? Where’s the girl? Where’s Madison?”

Madison? Her face up in that barn window, across from the entrance to the old mine: I could see it. And how she’d tried to help me, actually did help me, making my escape possible: That I remembered. I started trotting around the parking lot, sniffing for my scent trail, the trail that would take me back to Mr. Gulagov’s ranch. My scent was in the air, easy to find, but all it did was lead me round and round in circles.

“Chet?”

And then all at once, maybe because the man was on my mind, I picked up a scent by a spiky bush in a corner of the lot, a very faint scent that I knew. Human, male, musty and a bit nasty, with a hint of cooked beets: Mr. Gulagov. I trotted around the bush, followed the trail toward the office door, where it petered out. Then I backtracked to the spiky bush, tried to find a trail going some other way, and couldn’t. I sat down and barked.

“Chet? What is it? Keefer? His scent will be all over the place around here.”

I barked louder. Help me out, Bernie. “Come on, boy. Nothing more we can do here.”

No? There had to be, but I didn’t know what. We drove home.

The phone was ringing when we went inside. Suzie’s voice came over the answering machine. “Hi,” she said. “Nothing important—just wondering how Chet was doing.”

Bernie ran for the phone, sliding a bit on one of my toys—a favorite, actually, bone-shaped, made of a nicely chewy but firm rubber—and losing the manila envelope. As he skidded to
a stop—a stiff-legged skid almost as good as one of mine—the knife flew out of the envelope and stuck point first in the floor, the handle quivering.

“Hello?” Bernie said. “Chet! Knock it off!” He listened for a moment, said, “He’s, um, fine, his usual—Chet!”

But I couldn’t help it. The knife—that knife!—sticking in the floor, vibrating in my ears with this throom throom throom: You’d be jumping up and down, too, count on it. Bernie grabbed the rubber bone and flung it through the open window. I dove out after the bone, raced across the backyard, snagged it, spun around, and jumped back inside. A new game, and what a game, indoors and outdoors, running and leaping—this one had it all.

“Chet!” Bernie grabbed my collar. “Calm down.” I tried to calm down, tried to keep a grip on the rubber bone, tried to pant, all at the same time: way too much for me. I barely noticed that Bernie was no longer on the phone. “For God’s sake, Chet—she’s coming over for dinner. The place is a shambles.”

Uh-oh. Shambles. I wasn’t sure what that was, only knew it meant the vacuum cleaner, and I couldn’t be in the house during vacuuming, we knew that from experience. Bernie got to work. I went into the backyard, checked the gate first thing—closed, too bad—and buried the rubber bone in the far corner. I sniffed around for a bit, detected the recent presence of a lizard, probably one of those tiny-eyed ones with a flickering tongue, but nothing else new, and dug up the rubber bone. I lay down and chewed it till my jaw got tired and buried it again, digging a real deep hole this time, one of my very deepest. It took a long time to shove the dirt all back in, get everything packed down the way I like, but it sure felt good, doing things right. That was one of Bernie’s sayings: A job worth doing is worth doing well. I lay down for a spell, thought about nothing. The sun felt good. I decided to dig
up the rubber bone again. I’d only scratched the surface when I heard Iggy barking next door.

I barked back. Iggy barked. I went over to the side fence, peered through a space between the slats. There was Iggy in a side window at his place, peering out. I barked. Iggy’s head snapped around toward the fence. Could he see me? Why not? I could see him. He barked. I barked. And then, from far away, came that she-bark again. I got a funny feeling down my spine. We went quiet, Iggy and I, listening for that she-bark to come again. Iggy had his face right to the window, his flabby round ears as straight up as he could get them.

“Oh God,” Suzie said when Bernie came in from the grill, a big smile on his face and two big steaks with those perfect cross-hatched marks burned into them, “I should have told you—I don’t eat meat.”

Bernie’s smile did a funny thing, kind of lingering while his face moved on to other expressions. Suzie didn’t eat meat? That was like saying she didn’t eat. I was shocked, and Bernie, too: The steaks almost slid off the platter. But not quite. I sat back down.

“Oh, uh, it’s, um, my fault,” Bernie said. “Someone like you, I should have known.”

Suzie smiled as though having fun—but how could this be fun, suddenly finding out you weren’t getting dinner? “Someone like me?” she said.

Bernie made a few awkward—what was the word Suzie had used? shambling?—yes, shambling movements and said, “You know. Delicate.”

Suzie’s smile broadened; yes, she was having fun. “Delicate.”

“And strong,” Bernie said. “Strong and delicate. More strong than delicate, definitely.”

Suzie laughed. A really nice laugh—did I mention that already?—so much more pleasing than Ms. Larapova’s. “Mind if I check your fridge?”

“Oh no, you don’t want to—”

But the door was already open. “I’ll just freshen this up a bit,” she said, removing something from way in the back.

“I couldn’t let—”

“It’ll be fine. You and Chet can have the steaks.”

Suzie: a gem.

They sat at the kitchen table; I was over in the corner by my bowls. “You, uh, drink wine, yes? Or not?”

“Love wine,” said Suzie.

“Red or white?”

“Red, please.”

“Hey, me, too.”

Easy on the wine, Bernie. That was my first thought—I’d seen things go wrong in this area before.

Bernie poured. “It’s from Argentina,” he said.

“I’ve always wanted to go there.”

“Yeah? Me, too.”

If he was going to keep saying “me, too,” we were in for a long night. I spotted a layer of pure fat on one end of my steak and bit into that first.

“Mmm, delicious,” said Suzie.

“You like the wine?”

“Very much.”

“Oh, good. Great. I like it, too. A nice shade of red. And the taste, not too—what’s the word?—but at the same time . . .” His voice trailed off. Often, maybe even usually, Bernie ended up being the smartest human in the room. Tonight was different.

They clinked glasses. I loved that, clinking glasses, the sight and the sound, but mostly how no glass got broken. How did they do it? My adventures with glass never turned out that way.

Under the table, their feet weren’t very far apart. Bernie wore flip-flops. His feet were strong and wide; if you were reduced to spending your life on two feet, his might see you through. Suzie wore sandals; her feet looked strong, too, but skinnier and much smaller. Her toenails were painted some dark color, and she wore a silver ring around one toe. Suzie was interesting, no doubt about it. An urge came over me to sidestep my way under the table and give her toes a quick lick. I resisted it. She was the guest.

“Any progress on your case?” she said. “The missing girl?”

Bernie placed his glass on the table. He leaned forward, his back now stiff: the posture of tense Bernie. “Short answer or long?”

“Both,” said Suzie.

Bernie’s back, still straight, relaxed some. He wasn’t all the way to laid-back Bernie, but closer. “No progress—that’s the short answer,” he said. “We may even be going in reverse.”

“But isn’t going in reverse what you do?” Suzie said, losing me right away.

Not Bernie, though. He gave her a sideways look and said, “Yeah.” Then he went to the counter, got the manila envelope, took out the knife, and set it in front of Suzie.

“What’s this?”

“Our only tangible clue,” Bernie said. “It was used to attack Chet. The attacker drove a blue car. On the night Madison came home late, she was accosted by a blond man who stepped out of a blue BMW.”

“And therefore?”

Bernie sipped his wine, actually more like a gulp. “Possibility
one: The blond man tried once more, this time successfully. Possibility two: She escaped again and is now on the run.”

“Why wouldn’t she just come home? Or go to the police?”

“Sometimes family dynamics, in this case not too good, get in the way of logic. But the other problem with possibility two is this attack on Chet. If Madison was on the loose, no one would be coming after us.”

“They came after you?”

“Maybe it was meant to be a warning—or maybe he was looking for me. Either way, the implication is that someone has Madison and doesn’t want her found. And that adds up to kidnapping for ransom, except there’s no demand.”

Suzie pointed at the knife, not quite touching it. “What about tracing this?”

“Russian, that’s all we know. Our knife guy is checking out the serial number, but it’s not like guns—you don’t need a license to own one.”

Suzie took a bite of whatever she’d freshened up from the fridge, something brown and spongy. “Mmm,” she said. Had to like Suzie. She drank some wine and said, “Are Madison’s parents rich?”