The Dog Who Knew Too Much (28 page)

We turned onto the main drag. “Never been so scared in my whole life,” Suzie said. Then she sniffed under one of her arms. Was that fascinating or what? Suzie was full of surprises, all good. She glanced to the side. “There’s a hotel, but somehow I don’t think …” We kept going. As we passed the office building with the blue light hanging over the door, another light went on inside. “I slept in a car once, back in high school,” Suzie said. “Supposed boyfriend. What the hell was I doing?”

Couldn’t help her with that, high school being a bit of a puzzle to me. We’d worked a case once, me and Bernie—something about prom limo scams, never clear in my mind—and I’d bumped up
against high school kids. They weren’t happy. How come? College kids were another story.

We drove out of town, headed up the road to the camp, soon came to a lookout with a couple of benches. “How’s this?” said Suzie. She swung in, parked, switched off the engine. Then she switched it back on, turned the car around, and reparked, this time facing the road.

We got out, walked to the edge, and checked out the view, dark mountains rising against a dark sky.

“Thirsty?” Suzie said.

I was. She had a bottle of water in the car but no bowl. I sipped from her cupped hand. A car started up somewhere in the distance, and another.

“Better grab some shut-eye,” Suzie said. She curled up on the backseat; I took the front. I was conscious of Suzie being restless and wide-awake, and then I wasn’t.

“Eight fifty-five,” said Suzie, checking her watch as we parked on the main drag. A nice morning, sunny and bright. She opened the door under the blue light and we went inside.

The first person we saw was Mack, leaning against a desk, belly hanging over his belt and nightstick hanging from it. The hair on my back rose up. Mack paused in midbite—he was eating a cupcake with sprinkles on top—and gave us a hard stare.

“Morning, Officer,” Suzie said. “We’re looking for the courtroom.”

Mack pointed toward an elevator with the remains of his cupcake. We crossed the lobby and got to the elevator just as the door slid open. Claudie, an open box of cupcakes in his hand, started to step out, stopped when he saw me. We moved around him.
He got out, turning his head to watch us. Things seemed tense to me, but Suzie was cheerful. “Have a nice day,” she said to Claudie as the door closed. Then came a thump. Had Claudie kicked the door? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t like elevators at any time. Suzie smiled at me and pressed a button. The elevator, small and old with lots of brass work and mirrored walls that had gone all milky so you couldn’t really see yourself, shuddered and started going up.

“You’re not a popular guy here, Chet,” Suzie said. “Why is that?”

A complicated story, and some of the details were already unclear to me, kind of like those milky mirrors, but one thing I knew for sure: Bernie had been in this elevator, and not long ago.

The elevator shuddered again and stopped. The door opened and I saw we actually hadn’t quite reached the floor, were about a half step short. “If I ever write this up,” Suzie said, “that’s where I’ll start—this place isn’t on the level.”

What did that mean? No idea. We got off the elevator, found ourselves at the back of a courtroom. I’d been in courtrooms before, even been Exhibit A for my buddy Judge Jaramillo, down in the Valley, but never one this small. It had only two benches on either side of a narrow aisle, then two long desks, and in front of that and raised up on a dais another desk, at which Judge Stringer was sitting. He wore a black robe and looked real tired. At each of the two desks sat a group of two people, their backs to us. One of those people was Bernie. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit! This was the worst moment of my life.

Suzie put her hand on my neck, actually sort of around my collar. We took a seat—the only spectators—Suzie on the end of the bench, me in the aisle. It was kind of a nice Old West–type room—all the furniture polished dark wood with lots of curlicues, pictures of long-ago soldiers on the wall behind the judge. Bernie
loved the Old West. That was my only thought and it made me feel a bit better. The judge checked his watch and rapped the gavel.

“Court is now in session,” he said. “File number C-6319, bail hearing, the State versus Little.”

A woman in a business suit at one of the tables—not the one where Bernie was sitting—rose and said, “Your Honor?”

Judge Stringer nodded.

“There’s been a—” the woman began, then came to a halt. She glanced at the man beside her. He glanced at her and I saw who he was: Sheriff Laidlaw. The sheriff looked as tired as the judge, maybe more. He gave the woman an impatient kind of nod.

“The state wishes,” said the woman, “to direct Your Honor’s attention to a slight change in the supporting documentation concerning this hearing.”

The judge nodded again. This was not a judge I was fond of, like Judge Jaramillo, but you had to give him some credit for being able to follow all this.

“Specifically, Your Honor,” the woman went on, “the medical examiner, Dr. Laidlaw, has just this morning submitted a revised autopsy report, which, with permission, the state wishes to submit for the consideration of the court.”

Judge Stringer motioned for her to come forward. She handed him some papers and returned to her seat. The judge put on glasses and spent some time with the papers. I watched Bernie’s orange back. He was sitting up straight and motionless. I did the same.

The judge stopped reading, took off his glasses, arranged the papers in a neat little stack. Then, eyes straight ahead, looking at nobody, he said, “Case dismissed.”

Meaning what, exactly? I felt Suzie’s hand gripping my back in an excited sort of way, so it had to mean something. No one
moved for a moment, and then the man next to Bernie rose—a young man, I saw as he turned slightly sideways, with not much happening in the way of a chin—and said, “Your Honor? You’re dismissing the whole case against my client? Or does this ruling apply only to the terms of the bail, or—”

“Case dismissed,” Judge Stringer repeated, this time banging down the gavel.

“But—” began the young man.

“Are you intending to file an opposing motion to the dismissal of the case against your client?” the judge said.

“No, sir, of course not, it’s just that—”

“Then zip it, Counselor.”

The young man shut his mouth and sat down heavily, as though his legs had gotten weak.

“This hearing is adjourned,” the judge said. He turned to Bernie. “You—” he said. His voice shook a little, but he got it under control. “You are free to go. In the matter of the demise of Turk Rendell, the ME has returned a finding of death by suicide.”

Suzie shot to her feet, face shining. Death by suicide: one of those human expressions that could fool you. It turned out to be a great thing.

Bernie rose. The judge left quickly through a small door behind the dais. The woman in the suit came down the aisle—a puzzled look on her face—and got in the elevator. That left the sheriff and Bernie alone up front. The sheriff approached Bernie. Bernie turned to him, raising his arms, and I saw he was cuffed. The sheriff took out a key and Bernie turned a little more, and that was when he saw us.

He looked a little better, both eyes nice and open, at least.
The expression on his face didn’t change, but his eyes did, and in a beautiful way, hard to describe. He was happy to see me! And probably happy to see Suzie, too, no getting around that. She had her hand on my collar again, for some reason.

The sheriff unlocked Bernie’s cuffs, then bent down—what was this? they’d shackled his legs?—and got those leg cuffs off him. A nice sight, the sheriff down at Bernie’s feet, but Bernie wasn’t taking it in; his eyes never left us.

The sheriff stood up, spoke to Bernie for a few moments in a low voice. All I heard for sure was: “… set foot in these parts ever again.” Bernie gazed at the sheriff and didn’t say a word. The sheriff handed him a plastic garbage bag and an envelope, mounted the dais, and went out the back door.

Then there was just us in the courtroom: me, Bernie, Suzie. We came together in the aisle—I got to Bernie first, Suzie somehow losing her grip on my collar—and we all hugged. Oh, the smell of Bernie, and the touch of his hand! Suzie ran her own hand over Bernie’s poor face, very lightly.

“Good to see you,” she said, her voice sort of low and thick.

Bernie kissed the top of her head. I rose up, and put my front paws on his shoulder, maybe getting between them. My tail had— what’s that expression?—taken on a life of its own, although it sort of did have a life of its own anyway, so therefore … I didn’t know, but Bernie handled the so therefores, and now he was back! How that eased my mind, I can’t tell you.

Bernie opened the envelope, took out the keys to the Porsche, the ones with the seashell I found in San Diego on the ring. There was also a note. Bernie scanned it. “The car’s in the county lot,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Good idea, but in that orange jumpsuit? The next thing I
knew, I was kind of clawing at the orange jumpsuit, the idea of ripping it to shreds suddenly very powerful in my mind, leaving no room for anything else.

“Hey, big guy,” Bernie said. Then he laughed, just a little quiet laugh, but nice to hear. He opened up the plastic bag and there were his real clothes. Bernie changed on the spot. The big purple bruises on his chest and stomach: I didn’t like those at all. Bernie left the orange jumpsuit on the judge’s desk.

We walked to the Beetle.

“Want to drive?” Suzie said.

“Yeah,” said Bernie. She gave him the keys. We got in the car—me maybe losing my concentration for a moment, because I ended up in the backseat—and headed out of town. Suzie started telling a long, complicated story. After a while I realized it was all about me, and Georgie Malhouf, and Anya, and Guy, and Rancho Grande and lots of other things. Bernie listened without making a sound. I didn’t make a sound, either, but I stopped listening early on. Did Suzie get out her device at one point and play it for Bernie? Quite possibly.

Meanwhile, we followed the road toward the camp for a while, before turning onto a gravel track. It took us around the back side of a steep hill, and came to an end in a big dirt parking lot, no one around. On one side, by a gas pump, stood some big trucks, a front-end loader, a couple backhoes. On the other side was the Porsche, looking the way it always did, brown with yellow doors, very old, no top, bullet hole in the rear plate, Maxwell’s Memphis Ribs bumper sticker; in short, it looked great. Bernie pulled in beside it, turned to Suzie, and finally spoke.

“Devin?” he said.

“They’ve suspended the search,” said Suzie. “The whole thing stinks, doesn’t it?”

Bernie nodded. Interesting, because I was detecting no strong smells whatsoever.

“How about we start with a quick visit to the camp?” he said.

“What about your promise to leave the county and never come back?” said Suzie.

“I didn’t say when.” Bernie smiled, but not a real one, more just showing teeth. I showed mine, too, even though no one was looking my way, stuck in the backseat. “You don’t have to come,” he said. “I already owe you more than—”

“Zip it, Counselor,” said Suzie.

Bernie smiled again, this time a real one. He opened the door, put a foot outside, and then paused. I—starting to squeeze between the seats on the off-chance of getting out first—paused, too.

Bernie was gazing at the Porsche. “I’ve had kind of a crazy thought,” he said. “Maybe a little paranoid.”

Lost me there, but that new scent I was picking up from outside? Very faint, but it worried me a bit, and—

Bernie closed the door, stayed in the car. I sniffed the air. That new scent had faded almost to nothing, not enough for me to work with. I hated when that happened.

“What?” said Suzie.

He pointed at the Porsche with his chin. “An old model like that—no one’s going to think it has a remote starter.”

“I don’t get it,” Suzie said.

“But Nixon”—our car guy, Nixon Panero, also a former perp we’d put away, a story maybe for another time—“installed one for free last month. Probably wants something, but he’ll let some
time pass before asking—that’s his way. Point is”—Bernie held up the Porsche keys—“we do have a remote starter.”

“So?” said Suzie.

Bernie turned the Beetle around, drove back across the parking lot to the other side. We got out.

“Stand over here,” Bernie said. We moved behind a backhoe.

“What’s going on?” Suzie said.

“I’m just being a wuss,” Bernie said.

Bernie a wuss? That was a good one.

He pointed the key ring in the direction of the Porsche and pressed some kind of button. Then came a flash from under the Porsche’s hood, a
BOOM,
a fireball, and smithereens.

TWENTY-EIGHT

A
fter that came the most silent silence I’ve ever known. Then Suzie said, “Got your gun?”

“Couldn’t be located, according to the sheriff,” Bernie said.

Suzie gazed at where the Porsche had been. “He turns out to be a belt-and-suspenders guy,” she said.

Bernie laughed. Belt and suspenders? I didn’t worry about the meaning of that, not for a moment. For one thing, I was too busy worrying about the Porsche. I loved that Porsche—and I’d loved the Porsche before it, the one that had gone shooting off a cliff. What was life without a cool ride?