Dog On It (20 page)

We drove over to Leda’s. She and Malcolm, the boyfriend, had a big house in High Chaparral Estates, one of the nicest developments in the whole Valley; I’d heard Leda mention that more than once. Malcolm was a brilliant software developer, whatever that was, making money hand over fist; she’d mentioned that, too.

We parked and walked up to the front door. Leda and Malcolm had a big green lawn, and the path was lined with all kinds of flowering bushes. I lifted my leg a couple of times—I always save a little, just to be ready for situations like this. Bernie knocked on the door, and it opened right away. Malcolm looked out, talking on a cell phone, something about capturing residuals, a new one on me, although I was familiar with marsupials, had actually seen one, a possum, I think, captured by a fox on the Discovery Channel.

Malcolm, still talking on the phone, raised his eyebrows at Bernie.

“That money I owe you,” Bernie said, his voice quiet, almost inaudible, very rare for Bernie.

“Have to call you back.” Malcolm stuck the phone in his pocket. “Yes?” he said.

“Here,” said Bernie, holding out some bills. His back straightened; I could feel the effort it took. “And thanks.”

“Oh, ah, no problem,” said Malcolm, pinching the money between his thumb and index finger, as though taking something smelly.

At that moment Charlie walked up behind Malcolm, a toothbrush in his hand. His eyes got big. “Dad?”

“Hi, Charlie.”

“Dad, hi.” Charlie stepped around Malcolm, hesitated. Bernie reached forward and picked him up.

Then Leda appeared. A quick back-and-forth went on, most of which I missed, except for something about why hadn’t Bernie simply sent a check. But by then Charlie had spotted me.

“Chet the Jet!” He wriggled out of Bernie’s arms, ran over, gave me a big kiss. I gave him one back. He jumped up on me, and I rode him around the lawn. Charlie laughed and laughed, holding on with his little hands. “Ride ’em, cowboy.” I bucked a few times, not too hard. He made squealing sounds.

“For God’s sake,” Leda said. “Those are hydrangeas.”

“Were,” said Malcolm.

A minute or two later, we were on our way home. Bernie was silent almost all the way. Just as we turned onto Mesquite Road, he said, “Know how much water those hydrangeas need?”

Oh no. Water again.

Bernie sat down with his laptop. “Gotta think,” he said. I gazed at the knife, lying beside him on the table. I tried growling at it again but Bernie didn’t hear, probably on account of how hard he was thinking. After a while he said, “Suzie’s probably right.” About what? I had no idea, but I tried not to interrupt when one of these deep-thinking sessions was under way. Soon Bernie was on the phone, making call after call. On the last one, he said, “I understand your bank handles the financing for Pinnacle Peak Homes
at Puma Wells.” He listened and said, “Oh, when did that happen?” More listening, and then Bernie said goodbye. He turned to me. “Western Commerce Bank cut Keefer loose a few months ago, and this guy says he doubts there’s another bank in the state crazy enough to take him on.” Right over my head, all of that. But the knife on the table, Boris’s knife, was a different story.

Bernie did some more tapping at the keyboard. Soon the printer was pumping out paper. Bernie waved a few sheets at me. “Look at this—all liens on Pinnacle Peak. It’s a house of cards.”

House of cards? One of my very favorite games. I always came in at the end, and always won. Bernie turned back to the keyboard. I went over to the table, growled at the knife, couldn’t help it.

“C’mon, Chet, I’m trying to think.”

The house grew quiet. Bernie’s thoughts roamed around like faint breezes. I found a nice spot under the table, wedged between two chairs, and closed my eyes. Tap tap on the keyboard: a soothing sound. I had complete confidence in Bernie.

I woke up sometime after the end of the deep-thought session and caught Bernie patting the pockets of a pair of jeans in the laundry pile, obviously searching for a forgotten smoke. “Oh, hi, Chet,” he said, tossing the pants aside in a casual way, like he’d actually been doing the laundry, “how about a walk?”

A walk? Never a bad choice, especially now—I could tell from Bernie’s eyes, nonsparkling, that the deep-thought session hadn’t led very far. Bernie did some of his best thinking on walks; my best thinking could come at any time—I was kind of unpredictable that way. In a moment we were out in sun and fresh air, on a nice long ramble up the canyon and back down Mesquite Road, passing Iggy’s house. Iggy’s house was smaller than ours and a little run-down, with tiles missing from the roof here and there and the trim faded colorless. At least it seemed colorless to me: Bernie always says I’m not good with colors, basing his opinion on who knows what. But back to Iggy’s house: One other thing about it was its age, older-looking than all the other houses on Mesquite Road. That made sense, because the couple who lived there with Iggy—Mr. and Mrs. Parsons—were
old, too, had possibly even known Bernie’s grandfather back in ranchland days, or one of them had, the details foggy in my mind. The only up-to-date thing at Iggy’s was the electric fence. The electric-fence dude had come to our place, too, after Iggy’s was all set up, given Bernie a long spiel about lawsuits and liability, subjects that turned us off, me and Bernie. Bernie had interrupted him, taken Iggy’s new collar in his hand, and walked right over the invisible line on Iggy’s lawn, testing the shock on himself. Then Bernie turned to the electric-fence dude and shook his head. That was the end of that.

But Iggy’s rambling days were over. At first he’d come out on the front lawn as usual, and I’d drop over to play, but when I left Iggy always tried to follow me, a little slow to get the electric-fence concept, ending up with a bad surprise every time. Now he hardly came to play out front anymore, doing his business in the backyard, separated from ours by the Parsons’s garage.

I could see him as we went by at the end of our walk, watching out the window. Iggy’s watching-out-the-window technique needed improvement. Sometimes, like now, he got his nose too close to the glass and fogged it up. That frustrated Iggy, and he started in on his yip-yip-yipping. I barked back. Iggy yipped. The window fogged up some more. Then: surprise. The front door opened, and old Mr. Parsons looked out. He wore long pants and a shirt buttoned to the neck, but his feet were bare. Why did that grab my attention? Couldn’t tell you.

“Mr. Little?” he said.

We stopped. “Yes?” said Bernie.

“Spare a moment?” said Mr. Parsons; he had a high, thin voice.

“Sure.” Bernie walked over. I followed.

“Amazing how he does that,” said Mr. Parsons.

“Does what?”

“Stays right by you, even without a leash.”

“Chet’s not a fan of the leash,” Bernie said.

Mr. Parsons laughed, a wheezy laugh that ended in a kind of gasping fit. I didn’t know Mr. Parsons very well but was starting to like him—those bare feet were tough and wide, spread out all over the place, like he didn’t wear shoes much. “Neither’s ol’ Iggy,” he said, “but he don’t follow like that, no way, no how. Fact is, Mrs. Parsons hasn’t been feeling too well lately.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. Had a bit of a stroke, according to the doc. Which is why I haven’t been taking Iggy on his walks—can’t really be leaving Mrs. Parsons.”

“I could take him if you want.”

“Very kind,” said Mr. Parsons, “but I wouldn’t presume. Maybe Chet could come over once or twice, have a little play with Iggy out back.”

“Sounds good,” Bernie said. “How’s right now?”

From inside the house came a banging noise: Iggy, for sure, throwing himself against some door that was keeping him from joining us.

“Right now wouldn’t be the best,” said Mr. Parsons. “I’m going to give Mrs. Parsons her pills, kind of complicated with how many there are, keeping track and all.”

“Call when you’d like Chet to come over,” Bernie said.

“Will do,” said Mr. Parsons. “Nice to see Chet looking so well. Truth is, I was concerned after that other night.”

“What other night?” said Bernie.

Mr. Parsons squinted, the way humans do when trying to see something far away. “Can’t recall, exactly.” He shook his head. “I’m on some pills myself,” he said, “get them online, but they’re
supposed to work the same as the real ones. Interfere with my memory, which wasn’t too good in the first place, not these days.” He licked his lips. “And seeing him here like this probably means I got the whole thing wrong.”

“What whole thing?”

“Happened real quick, in any case.”

“Mr. Parsons? What did?”

More crashing sounds from deep inside the house. Mr. Parsons seemed not to hear them. “Now it’s coming back to me, the particulars. Might even have been one of those nights you had a tent set up out back and a fire going. Always get a kick out of that—Mrs. Parsons can see down from the upstairs window, where we’ve got the rocker. Anyways, a little later—Mrs. Parsons might have been having some trouble getting comfortable that night—I was downstairs, happened to look out the kitchen window, thataways.” Mr. Parsons pointed down the street. “What I thought I saw—hard to say on account of darkness, and how quick it happened, like I said, so don’t hold me to it . . .” His voice trailed off and his eyes got blurry.

“I won’t hold you to it, Mr. Parsons. What did you think you saw?”

“Hard to believe, really,” said Mr. Parsons. “More like something in a dream. But a car was parked down there, outside that house on the other side of the street, the one with the for-sale sign, and two guys threw something in the trunk and drove off.”

“What kind of something?” Bernie said.

“That’s the dreamlike part,” said Mr. Parsons. “More properly, might call it nightmare.” He glanced down at me. I was thinking, You’re going great, old buddy. Spit it out. “What it looked like to me,” he went on, “was a dog. And not just any dog but this one here, namely Chet.” He reached out, gave me a pat. His fingers,
all gnarled and swollen, felt cold. “On the other hand, here he is in the flesh, so I must’ve been seeing things.”

“I don’t think so,” Bernie said. His face had gone all hard. “What can you tell me about the two men?”

“Nothing,” said Mr. Parsons. He closed his eyes. “One might have been bigger than the other. The blond one.”

“One of the men was blond?” Bernie’s voice sharpened. The hair on my back rose a bit.

Mr. Parsons opened his eyes. “The bigger one. His hair stood out in the night.”

A woman called from inside, her voice weak. “Daniel? Daniel?”

“Sorry,” said Mr. Parsons. “Must go.” He closed the door. Iggy crashed into something one more time.

We crossed the street, over to the house with the for-sale sign.

“What happened here, boy?” Bernie said. “I get the feeling I’ve been pretty stupid.”

Bernie? Stupid? No way. Bernie was always the smartest one in the room, except for maybe when he’d had too much bourbon. There was a night, for example, when he’d been stringing the Christmas-tree lights, a story I may get to later.

We gazed at the house with the for-sale sign. The shades were drawn, and some rolled-up newspapers lay in the driveway. I went and picked one up, was starting to run around with it when a woman came out of the house. She wore a business suit, carried a big briefcase, and had some kind of phone plugged in to her ear.

“You’re early,” she said. “It doesn’t start till noon.”

“What doesn’t?” Bernie said.

“The walk-through. Aren’t you an agent?”

“A neighbor.”

“Oh? Which house is yours?”

Bernie pointed. The woman came forward. “Charming,” she said. “And you don’t need me to tell you what a great street you’re on, with the canyon so near. Values are holding up nicely. If you ever think of selling . . .” She handed Bernie her card.

He took it, at the same time saying, “Chet?”

I dropped the paper, what was left of it, tried to look small.

Bernie examined the card. “This is your listing?”

“You’re looking at the listing queen of the East Valley,” the woman said. Then she spoke her name, missed by me, on account of an annoying scrap of newspaper turning up under my tongue. The woman and Bernie shook hands; she was one of those two-handed handshakers, holding on to Bernie’s longer than necessary. Uh-oh. And the way she was standing changed, too: Had her chest been sticking out quite that far before? In certain situations, always with women, Bernie was helpless.

But now he didn’t seem to notice. “How long has the house been empty?” he said.

“A couple months, except for some renters.”

“The renters are still here?”

“No, they cleared out last week, hardly stayed more than a few days, even though they paid for a full three months up front.”

“I don’t remember seeing them around,” Bernie said. “What did they look like?”

“I only met the one who signed the rental contract, a big guy, blond, might have been foreign—he had an accent. Swedish, maybe?”

“Did you get his name?”

“His name? It’ll be on the contract, but I don’t—”

“You’ll have a photocopy of his license?”

“Of course, but—”

Bernie handed her our card. “I’d like to see it.”

The woman eyed the card and then eyed Bernie. “What’s going on? You said you were a neighbor.”

“And that’s true,” Bernie said. “But we’re also working on a case, and this blond guy is involved.”

“I really don’t—”

“A missing-persons case,” Bernie said. “Her name is Madison Chambliss. She’s fifteen years old.”

The woman gave Bernie a long look, then started digging in her briefcase. She took out a sheaf of papers, stapled together, and gave them to Bernie. He leafed through.

“Cleon Maxwell, 14303 North Coronado, Rosa Vista,” Bernie said.

Cleon Maxwell? But the perp’s name was Boris. What sense did that make? Bernie angled a page so I could see the black-and-white photo of a driver’s license.

“You’re showing the picture to your dog?” the woman said, her eyes opening wide.

I didn’t like her tone, but neither could I put her in her place. Truth is, I’m not too good with photos, even in black and white. The man in the photo had blond hair and kind of looked like how I remembered Boris, but I couldn’t be sure. A different story, listing queen, if driver’s licenses came with smell samples instead of pictures, you’d better believe it.