Dog On It (24 page)

“Gotta lose ten pounds,” he said. “Maybe fifteen.” I wasn’t sure how much that was, and anyway, Bernie looked fine to me; at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking that a little reduction on his part would make the hauling easier if we ever had to do this again.

The whole world was still, except for the faint hum of a far-off engine. We followed the sound and, on a distant road part way up another mountain, saw a moving blue dot. “At least I got the plate number.” That was Bernie, right there, way ahead of the other guy. He stroked my back. I laid my ears down flat. “I owe you, boy, big-time,” he said.

A ridiculous suggestion. We were partners.

We got up, went to the edge, gazed down at the smoking remains of the Porsche. “It was on its last legs anyway,” Bernie said. “We’ll get another one.” Last legs? What was he talking about? And where would we get another one as good, the coolest car on the road? Impossible. Plus, there was the question of money. Our finances were a mess. Bernie was a genius, so why couldn’t he remember that and accept that we would have to make do with the crummy old pickup? “Nevada plate on that Beemer,” said. He smiled at me. “C3P 2Z9—hang on to that.” Impossible to be mad at Bernie. We started walking.

Back at home, tired, hungry, and thirsty. Bernie paid off the taxi driver—we’d also hitched rides with a trucker and a missionary,
and ridden on two public buses—and we went inside. The message light was flashing. I went over to my water bowl and drank it dry. Bernie grabbed the bourbon bottle from the cupboard over the sink, pressed a button on the message machine.

“Cynthia Chambliss here.” She sounded excited. “I’ve had a call from Madison. She’s fine, says she’s coming home soon—just working out a few things. We shouldn’t worry, she says, and please don’t waste a lot of time and money looking for her. Um, thought you should know. Have you sent your bill to Damon yet? I want to tell you how grateful—”

Bernie picked up the phone, dialed a number. “Hello, Cynthia? Bernie Little. I got your message and—” He paused. I could hear her voice on the other end, high and kind of strange. “I’m fine,” Bernie said. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Another pause. “Who told you that?” Bernie said, putting the bourbon bottle down on the counter, unopened. “Cynthia?” he said. “Any chance you taped that call with Madison?” He listened. “That was smart. I’d like to hear it.” He paused again. I heard silence on the other end. “Won’t take long,” Bernie said. “We’ll be right over.” Cynthia started to say something that sounded like the beginning of “no,” but Bernie hung up.

He turned to me. “Damon told her I’d been killed in a wreck.” He reached for the pickup keys, hanging on a hook by the fridge. “What would make him think something like that?”

No clue. Did we have to get to the bottom of it now? What about dinner?

Light my fire,” said Cap’n Crunch in that horrible croak of his. Oh, brother, if only I could, like right under your scaly yellow feet. He stood on his perch—the cage on Cynthia’s kitchen counter now, not in Madison’s bedroom—and stared at me with his wicked little eyes. His weird spiky comb seemed to have grown since the last time I’d seen him, looked the size of his whole head or even bigger. He didn’t like me, was anything more obvious? Right back at ya, amigo.

“Coffee?” said Cynthia. She’d changed, too, looked older, thinner, more pinched up, with lines on her face I hadn’t noticed before; but humans, especially the females, were tricky that way—maybe I was noticing because she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wore no makeup.

“I’d like to get right to the call,” Bernie said.

“Of course,” Cynthia said, moving to a phone. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to hear her voice. We can get past this.”

“Past what?” said Bernie.

“Why, whatever’s troubling her,” said Cynthia. She bit her
lip—I’m always on the lookout for that one—and added, “Maddy was at such a vulnerable age—I see that now.”

“When was this?” Bernie said.

The pinched-up grooves between Cynthia’s eyes deepened. “When Damon and I got divorced. At the time she didn’t seem too affected—so many of her friends come from brok—from blended families, that kind of thing. But now I see—even though divorce is better for kids than a bad marriage, maybe for a girl like Maddy, so bright and sensitive . . .” She looked at the floor, her voice trailing off.

“How bad a marriage was it?” Bernie said.

“You don’t agree?” she said. “About divorce being better for kids than a bad marriage?”

A muscle jumped in the side of Bernie’s face. “I’m not agreeing or disagreeing,” he said. “I’m just asking about the marriage.”

Cynthia’s eyes went blurry. “Does it matter now?”

“I don’t know,” Bernie said. “I’m trying to put things together. We’ve got a lot of loose ends.”

“What do you mean?” Cynthia said.

We had nothing but loose ends, as far as I was concerned.

“We can get to that,” Bernie said. “First the call.”

Cynthia’s finger hovered over the buttons on the phone cradle. “It happened yesterday. So lucky not to miss it—I was halfway out the door, literally.” She pressed one of the buttons.

“Hello? Hello? Mom?”

I knew that voice, a voice I liked very much: Madison’s voice. She’d said, “Don’t you hurt that dog.” Hard to forget something like that, and I never would. You can take it to the bank, whatever that means.

“Mom? Are you there? It’s me, Maddy.”

Bernie’s face was very still. He had his head tilted a bit to one side. I realized that I did, too.

Then came a click, and in a breathless voice, Cynthia said, “Maddy? Maddy? Is that you?”

“Hi, Mom, it’s me.”

“Maddy! Sweetheart, oh my God! Are you all right? Where are—”

“I’m fine, Mom, just . . .” There was a pause, and in that pause I thought I heard her choking up, the way humans did when they were about to cry, but then she seemed to take a deep breath and went on. “. . . just working some things out, that’s all.”

“What kind of things? I’ve been worried sick. We’ve been looking all over, the police, a private detective, everybody. Where are—”

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m fine. That’s why I called. Don’t worry—and don’t waste a lot of time and money looking for me. I’ll be home soon, Mom.”

“How soon?”

“Soon.”

“But when?”

“Soon, Mom. And you know what?”

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking it might be nice to get a dog.”

“A dog?”

“A big funny-looking dog, maybe like one I saw the other day, with mismatched ears. Is there a ghost of a chance we could do that?”

Bernie’s face went pale, all the color draining out of it. Had I even seen that before?

“Of course, we can get a dog, but when—”

“Got to go, Mom. Love you.”

Click.

Bernie looked at Cynthia, then at me. His body was very still, a stillness I could feel. I knew he was thinking fast; about what, I had no idea. I had a thought of my own: Are mismatched ears necessarily a bad thing?

Bernie went to the machine, hit a button or two. Funny sounds of people talking way too fast started up, then slowed, and I heard again: “A big funny-looking dog, maybe like one I saw the other day, with mismatched ears. Is there a ghost of a chance we could do that?”

“We never had any fights about having a dog, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Cynthia said.

“I wasn’t,” Bernie said.

Cynthia didn’t seem to hear. “I mean, she wanted Cap’n Crunch, and I said yes right away.”

Big, big mistake.

Cap’n Crunch raised his wings in a way that reminded me of Count Dracula and said, “Make it a double.”

“Is a dog some sort of replacement?” Cynthia said. “Is that where you’re going with this—a consolation prize for the parents splitting up?”

Hard to follow, but “consolation prize” sounded offensive to me. And funny-looking? Where did that come from?

“That’s not where I’m going with this,” Bernie said. Color returned to his face, and he looked more like himself; for a moment or two I’d been worried.

“Then explain,” said Cynthia.

“Your daughter’s a very smart girl.”

Cynthia nodded. “But what’s that got to do with the call?” Bernie didn’t answer right away. He had a hard look on his face,
a look Cynthia couldn’t miss. “She’s telling the truth, isn’t she?” Cynthia said.

“About what?” Bernie said.

“About coming home soon. You agree on that, don’t you? Sergeant Torres does.”

“You played it for him?”

“He was here a couple hours ago. He agrees. She’s coming home.”

Bernie nodded, a nod Cynthia probably took for his own agreement, but I knew better: That slight nod of Bernie’s could mean anything, all part of his interviewing skill.

“Good,” said Cynthia. “Because why else would she call? She doesn’t want me to worry, even though I’ve been worried half to death.” Her eyes filled with tears; they overflowed and ran down her face.

“Um,” said Bernie, looking uncomfortable. “Uh.” He patted his pockets, hoping to find who knew what. Cynthia walked quickly from the room. Bernie turned to me. “You saw Madison, didn’t you, boy? You nailed the whole thing, and I didn’t even know.”

I wagged my tail. What else could I do? But had I nailed it, cracked the case? No, because we didn’t have her. So maybe I’d actually screwed up. My tail went still.

“Good work, boy,” Bernie said. “The best. But whatever you’re planning with this bird? Forget it.”

Whoa. What was that supposed to mean? Sure, the distance from me to the birdcage seemed to have shrunk quite a bit somehow; I was actually nearing striking range, if anything like that had been on my mind, instead of the furthest thing from it, which was the honest truth and nothing but.

“Chet?”

I sidled away from the counter, sat with my back to Cap’n Crunch. Cynthia returned, dabbing her face with a tissue. “My apologies,” she said.

“Nothing to apologize about,” said Bernie. “I’m assuming Damon knows about this call.”

“Oh yes. I told him right away.”

“Did he come over to listen to it?”

“No. But I gave him a description. We don’t have an especially good relationship, even for exes after all this time, but we trust each other in this one area.”

“What area is that?” Bernie said.

“Maddy and her welfare. She’s the best thing either of us has ever done. Non-parents might not understand that. Sorry, I don’t remember if you have kids.”

Bernie had that hard look again.

Did Cynthia seem a little scared? I’d seen Bernie do that to clients before. “That, uh, cut on your face seems to be bleeding a little,” she said.

“Dull razor,” said Bernie, dabbing at the cut with his sleeve. Dull razor? True, Bernie did get shaving cuts, plenty of times, but a shaving cut on the forehead? I realized he was deliberately saying nothing about our adventures on that high mountain road out of Sierra Verde. How come? No idea. I eased myself the tiniest bit closer to Cap’n Crunch. The Cap’n shifted nervously on his perch. “I’d like to get the time line straight,” Bernie said.

“What time line?”

“One,” said Bernie, “exactly when this call came through. Two—when you called Damon. Three—when you called me. Four—when Damon told you about my supposed death.”

Uh-oh. At times like this, when Bernie got going with one of those rapid-fire numbered lists of his, I couldn’t focus. Cynthia
gave some kind of answer. Bernie came back at her with more questions, this time counting them off on his fingers. The words all mushed together, became background noise, not particularly unpleasant. I found myself inching over toward the Cap’n, possibly entering bumping-the-cage territory. Cynthia’s countertop was kind of high. If I could just get my nose above the—

“Up yours,” Cap’n Crunch cried out in his wretched squawk, at the same time rising off his perch a bit, wings in the Dracula spread again. Up yours? I thought he could only say: Make it a double, light my fire, Madison rocks. Now he’d added “up yours”? Infuriating. I wanted to—

“Chet?”

I tried to look innocent, not so easy with one paw up on the counter. I lowered it in a subtle way. Bernie gave me a nice pat; at least that was what I thought, until I realized he had a good grip on my collar.

“One last thing,” he said. “Where did Damon get this idea I’d been killed in an accident?”

“He told me he’d heard it,” Cynthia said.

“Where?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Do me a favor,” Bernie said. “Let him keep thinking it’s true.”

“Too late,” Cynthia said. “I already told him. Did I do wrong?”

“No,” Bernie said.

“And why wouldn’t you want Damon to know? What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later,” Bernie said. “Got to go.”

“I don’t understand,” Cynthia said.

Me, neither, but it didn’t bother me: I was much more used to Bernie and his ways.

* * *

“What happened to you?” said Rick Torres.

“Dull razor,” said Bernie.

“Uh-huh,” said Rick.

We were in the Donut Heaven lot, parked cop-style, driver door to driver door. Bernie bit into a chocolate-glazed doughnut; Rick and I were working on crullers with a nice dusting of powdered sugar.

“You heard the tape?” Bernie said.

“Yup.”

“Pretty smart of Cynthia, thinking to record the call.”

“Your point?” said Rick.

“No point. Showed presence of mind, that’s all.”

“Your point?”

“No point.”

“Hey, Chet,” Rick said, looking past Bernie. “Got an extra cruller here, big guy.”

Yes, please. Regular meals didn’t seem to be happening lately, and I was famished.

“Empty calories,” Bernie said, holding up his hand. The extra cruller stayed in the cruiser. He stirred his coffee with his finger. “The tape.”

“Seemed kosher to me,” Rick said.

Kosher: I knew that word; it had something to do with chicken, specifically, the best chicken I’d ever tasted, at the celebration dinner after the final stakeout in the Teitelbaum divorce. I waited to hear how chickens were coming into the case.

“The girl just ran off to get her head straight?” Bernie said.