The Dog Who Knew Too Much (26 page)

More tricky questions, not a good sign in my experience. Once we worked a case so tricky that Bernie lost his temper and ended up locking all these dudes into a small room until it got sorted out. The smells in that room when it was over: one of my favorite memories.

“Or,” said Suzie, “should we back up a bit, maybe hunt down …” She went silent, but I was already on board. Was hunting ever the wrong move?

Back in the Beetle, back in Anya’s neighborhood, back on her street, parked in our old spot across from her house. Was this part of hunting?

“Why do I think Guy won’t be here?” Suzie said.

Maybe because no lights were showing in the house? I couldn’t come up with another reason. And it turned out to be one of those nice times when I didn’t even have to, because almost right away a small sedan went past us and turned into Anya’s driveway. The driver’s door opened and Anya got out.

“Anya, maybe?” Suzie said. Her eyes narrowed. “The little curvy type, huh?”

Couldn’t get much past Suzie. She herself was not the little curvy type. She wasn’t without curves, not at all, but she was taller than Anya, more the coltish type. The coltish type: that was what Leda had said to Bernie, after meeting Suzie for the first time. “The coltish type, Bernie? I’m surprised.” The whole thing was confusing to me, since I was pretty sure that colts were a kind of horse. Bernie had looked a bit confused himself; we’re a lot alike in some ways, me and Bernie, don’t forget that.

Anya walked toward the front door of her house. Suzie got out of the car. I got out, too, on her side and possibly a little ahead of her, and we started across the street.

“Excuse me,” Suzie called.

Anya wheeled around, startled.

“Anya Vereen?” Suzie said.

Anya put her hand to her chest. “Who are you?” she said. She did something with her keys and the light over the front door
flashed on. A bad mistake: you never lit yourself up in a nighttime situation. That was basic. On the other hand, as humans say—and once at a bar Bernie made the point that if humans had only one hand they’d think a lot differently, but no one seemed interested, except me, of course—we hadn’t come to take Anya down. Or had we?

“How do you know my name?” Anya said.

We were in her driveway now. “It’s one of those long stories,” said Suzie.

“What the hell are you—” Anya began, and then she noticed me. “Is that Chet?”

Who else? Of course it was me. I trotted over to Anya, gave her a nice greeting.

“Easy, easy,” she said. She looked up at Suzie, now beside us. “How did you get him?”

Suzie waved that question away, one of my favorite human gestures. “Where’s Bernie?” she said.

“Um,” said Anya, looking down at the ground. “He’s, ah, still … up there. But who—”

“Doing what?” said Suzie. “I understood you hired him for bodyguard duty.”

Anya nodded.

“Bodyguarding you, specifically?” Suzie said. She pointed her finger at Anya; the human finger pointing like that makes me think of a gun every time.

Anya nodded again.

“And here you are, back in the Valley, and he’s not.”

“It got more complicated,” Anya said. “Are you, like, his girlfriend or something?”

“Why do you ask?” Suzie said, her voice sharpening, and her posture sharpening, too, if that made any sense.

“Didn’t mean to pry,” Anya said. “But if he is your boyfriend, you’re a lucky girl.”

Suzie gave Anya a long look, and then nodded herself, a very small, quick nod, there and gone. “How about we move this discussion inside?” she said.

Sometimes humans want to say no—you can see it on their faces—but they don’t, no idea why. This was one of those.

Inside Anya’s house, I picked up Devin’s scent right away, but it was old and weak. A lot of talk got going around the kitchen table, not always easy to follow. And maybe not easy for the humans either, at least not for Anya, because she was saying, “… and they’ve suspended the search, I’m not sure why—I’m so confused.” Tears rose up in her eyes but didn’t spill over.

Suzie wasn’t at all teary. “But Bernie must have explained the situation,” she said. “What did he say?”

“About what?” Anya said.

“Why they suspended the search, what he thinks is going on, the whole story,” Suzie said. “And didn’t he know Chet was missing? What’s going on with that?”

“We, uh, didn’t discuss any of those things,” Anya said.

“What about Chet?”

Anya bit her lip; I always watched for that one. “The paper seemed, you know, legitimate.”

“Anya? What the hell are you talking about?”

Anya started crying. She put her face in her hands and ramped up to the sobbing stage. That often upsets me, but it didn’t this time, on account of my noticing how hard Suzie’s face was. She and I were together on this, and that was what I had to keep in mind; and besides, at that moment, there wasn’t room for more.

Suzie let Anya cry for a moment or two. When she spoke, she didn’t say “there, there,” or any of that, and her voice was as hard as her face. “What goddamn paper?” she said.

“The one that Georgie person showed me,” Anya sobbed behind her hands.

“Georgie Malhouf?”

Anya nodded, got the sobbing under control but still kept her hands over her face. “And he called him the Chetster.”

The Chetster? I never wanted to hear that again.

“What about this paper?” Suzie said.

“I hope I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Anya.

Suzie’s voice rose. “What about the paper?”

“Oh, God. It said that if anything happened to Bernie—”

Suzie reached across the table, grabbed Anya’s hands, and tore them away from her face. And now Suzie’s voice filled the room. “Has something happened to Bernie?”

Anya’s features got all twisted up. “I’m not supposed to say—” and then the sobbing took over again.

Suzie rose and slapped Anya across the face, pretty hard. That shocked me, but in a good way, I admit it. It shocked Anya, too. The waterworks dried up just like that. She gazed open-mouthed at Suzie.

“He found this body in a mine way up there,” Anya said. “A dead body.”

“I get it. Go on.”

“It was the trip guide—from when Devin got lost. And they arrested him.”

“They arrested Bernie?”

Suzie was leaning over Anya now, so close their faces were almost touching.

“For murder,” Anya said. She was afraid of Suzie: I could see it and smell it. “But I’m not supposed to say,” Anya went on quickly. “So please—”

“You’re saying, Anya, and that’s that. Who told you not to talk?”

“The judge. At first, I thought he was horrible—the way he looked at me—but I think he’s really on Bernie’s side. Simpatico— that was the word he used. He met me before I left and said if we just let the excitement die down, he’d be inclined to set a low bail and we can work from there. He said ‘we,’ so—”

“Judge?” said Suzie. “What’s his name?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Describe him.”

“Sort of old. Dresses western—cowboy boots, string tie, that look. Oh, yeah—and he smokes these smelly cigars all the time.”

Suzie took out a device, the palm-sized kind. She held it up, pressed a button. And then we heard:

“Not a student of history? In that we differ. I find the study of history infinitely rewarding. Here are just two things I’ve learned. First: history only moves in one direction. Second: once it gets started, it has no brakes.”

Suzie hit the button again and the device went silent.

“That’s him,” said Anya.

“Sound simpatico to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe not. But where did you get that recording? I don’t understand.”

“I made it,” Suzie said. “An hour ago at the most.” She pressed the button. And now:

“For Christ sake. Give it to me in plain English.”

Suzie clicked it off. Meanwhile, I was watching Anya’s face lose all its color. Her skin turned an unhuman shade of whitest
white; even her blue eyes suddenly seemed white. “That’s—” For a moment she couldn’t get her breath, as though she’d been running a long race. “That’s Guy. My ex.” She raised her hands palms out, shook her head from side to side. I’d seen that one more than once in my career: it meant being out of ideas.

“He had a meeting with your judge friend tonight, on the grounds of Rancho Grande,” Suzie said. “The meeting seemed to be mostly about money. Your ex handed over ten thousand dollars, but the judge wanted more, much more.”

“I’m not following this at all,” Anya said. “Guy doesn’t have ten grand—he’s a year behind on child support.”

“The judge counted it,” Suzie said. “I trust him on that.”

“But—but what’s going on? How come you were even there in the first place?”

“We—meaning Chet and I—followed Guy from here to Rancho Grande.”

Anya’s voice shrank down to something very small. “Guy was here at the house?”

“In, actually,” Suzie said.

“Inside?”

Suzie nodded.

“But how? I changed the locks, and, and …” Anya rose very slowly and walked down a hall off the kitchen. We followed her. She led us to the back door. It was partway open, hanging from one hinge, and a big chunk of the doorjamb was missing.

“Oh, my God,” Anya said. She gazed at the broken door and then all at once whirled around, so abruptly I couldn’t help barking. Anya pushed past us and ran back down the hall, darting into a room.

We went after her. The room turned out to be a bedroom: pink sheets on the bed; TV with a stack of DVDs beside it; a little
table with one of those mirrors with lights for putting on makeup. A typical sort of woman’s bedroom. Not so typical was the wall safe, but you do see them sometimes, although not like this one. The door was open and hanging in a lopsided way that reminded me of the back door of the house. Anya stood before it, mouth and eyes wide open. I picked up that dynamite smell—we’d spent a whole morning on it at K-9 school—much more obvious now.

“Goddamn it,” Anya said. She smacked that hanging safe door real hard. It banged against the wall and fell clanging to the floor.

“The ten grand?” Suzie said.

“Twelve,” Anya said, her voice harsh, like metal things were in her throat. “The bastard skimmed two. He’s the skimming champion of the fucking western world.” She staggered a bit, like she was about to fall, then sat heavily on the bed. “What am I going to do?”

“How about leveling with me, for starters?” Suzie said.

“What do you mean?” said Anya. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? I thought you were on my side.”

“What side is that?”

“They’ve suspended the search for my son. Do you know how that feels?”

Suzie gazed at Anya. “I’m on Bernie’s side,” she said. “Got it?”

Anya tried to meet Suzie’s gaze, gave up almost right away.

“Let’s start with the cash,” Suzie said. “Why did you have so much lying around?”

“It wasn’t lying around.”

“Or earning interest,” Suzie said. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an accountant by training,” Anya said.

“Where do you work?”

“I don’t see why I have to answer all these questions,” Anya said. “I feel like you’re attacking me.”

“Here’s some advice I learned from Bernie,” Suzie said. “In a situation where everyone’s going to cave eventually, you want to be first.”

Hey! Suzie had a good memory. I’d forgotten that one completely.

“Are you a detective, too?” Anya said.

“Something much worse,” said Suzie.

“I believe it,” Anya said. “You’re not nearly as nice as he is.”

“That’s the truest thing you’ve said so far,” Suzie said. “Try to keep it up. Where do you work?”

“Why is it important?”

“I need facts.”

“And I need to hold on to my crummy job.”

“I’m not looking to get you in trouble.”

Anya took a deep breath. “E-Z Tax,” she said. “It’s one of those strip mall tax places. We have the worst software in the business.”

“Why aren’t you someplace better?”

Anya shrugged.

“Did it have anything to do with Guy’s money-laundering bust?”

Anya made a little gasping sound. “How do you know about that?”

“Isn’t it a matter of public record?” Suzie said.

“But I wasn’t involved, and the DA believed me.”

“Cedric Booker?”

“Christ,” said Anya. “You know him?”

“Yes,” Suzie said. “But if you stick to the truth, I’ll have no reason to bring him in on this.”

And then came some more back-and-forth, but my mind was stuck on Cedric Booker, the tallest human I’d ever seen. Could have gone to the NBA, Bernie said, but he never learned to play with his back to the basket. That back-to-the-basket thing was a puzzle to me. I puzzled over it again, and when I’d had enough of that, Anya was saying,

“… Guy’s plea bargain, which was when I left him, but everything was all commingled, so the IRS cleans out any bank accounts, which is why—”

“—you keep cash in the safe.”

Anya nodded. “Anything else?” she said.

Suzie thought for a moment or two. “Just the Buffaloes,” she said.

“The Buffaloes?”

“Didn’t Guy play college football?”

“I didn’t know him then,” Anya said. “Something happened and he lost his scholarship. No surprise in hindsight.” She gazed at the open safe. “There was a boy who wanted to marry me in those days. I didn’t think he was exciting enough.” Anya shook her head. “I heard he ended up in Hong Kong, making millions.”

Suzie handed Anya her card. “If you need to get in touch with me.”

Anya checked the card. “You’re a reporter?”

“Not at the moment,” Suzie said. “Come on, Chet.”

“Where are you going?” Anya said.

Suzie started to say something, quickly cut herself off. “Get that door fixed tomorrow,” she said. “And sleep somewhere else tonight.”

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