The Dog Who Knew Too Much (33 page)

We followed the lane, a winding sort of lane with some ups and downs, but mostly downs as the lane took us away from the top of the ridge. Sometimes the undergrowth disappeared and old tire-track ruts appeared, making for easy going, but mostly the lane was all about burrs and nettles and spiky things. I hardly noticed. The noticing part of me was more busy with smells. In a place like this, of course, there were more smells than you could shake a stick at—no time to get to the bottom of that, or even break through at the top—so the trick was to ignore all but the important ones. I smelled two. The first was coffee. The second, and maybe not important—more just interesting that I was picking it up again—was that strange locker-room-laundry-hamper smell. I ramped up the pace. Almost right away, I heard Suzie lose her footing. Bernie made a soft little noise he has, kind of like:
fffft.
It meant slow down. So I did, a bit.

We came over a rise and there lay a clearing, not far away. In the remaining light, still plenty for me, I could see a line of tall trees, and standing in front of them a log house, even bigger than Judge Stringer’s back in Big Bear, but in bad shape, with some big gaps between the walls, cracked windows, many with vines growing
through them, and a tall chimney leaning so far over it had to fall the very next moment. What had Miss Rendell said? Something about … about an old hunting lodge? Yes! Got it! Chet the Jet, totally in the picture.

No cars were parked in front of the old hunting lodge and no sounds came from it, but a light, low and unsteady, shone in an upstairs window. We approached the lodge, real slow, real careful, and were almost at the front door, or rather, doorway, the door itself being gone, when I heard something. I stopped, went still.

Oh, yeah, no doubt. A car, and coming from back down the lane. I turned that way, head up, tail up, completely rigid; but also quiet—Bernie had mentioned something about being quiet, and at times like this I always followed his wishes completely, just about.

Bernie came up beside me and tilted his head. Oh, Bernie, come on. You’re not hearing it? But then he did. He motioned quickly to Suzie, then led us to some thick bushes, wild and overgrown, beside the door. We got between them and the lodge and watched the lane through this one tiny gap, all of us crowding in.

A pair of headlights blinked into view, vanished, blinked again, and then shone steady: in our eyes and on the lodge. A car bumped up and parked right beside the bushes that hid us. The headlights went off but those other little ones at the front, name escaping me at the moment, stayed on, casting a pool of light that made for easy viewing, but I’d already seen what was what, namely that this car was a black-and-white, Sheriff Laidlaw in the passenger seat, closest to us, Deputy Mack beside him at the wheel, windows down.

Deputy Mack shut off the engine. It got real quiet. I could hear the sheriff breathing.

“What are you waiting for?” he said. “Go on up there and get them.”

“I’m not feelin’ too good about this,” Mack said.

“What are you?” said the sheriff. “Some kind of pansy? This ain’t about feelings. It’s about makin’ the right move.”

“How come this is the right move?” Mack said.

“I’m not walkin’ you through it again, shit-for-brains,” Sheriff Laidlaw said. “The kid’s not an asset anymore. If you don’t get that, you’re hopeless.”

“But—”

“Move!”

Mack got out of the car, tied a bandanna around the lower part of his face, and headed for the lodge, switching on a flashlight as he went in. I caught a glimpse of a wide, lopsided staircase rising into the darkness. The sound of Mack’s footsteps faded away.

Bernie can move fast for real short distances, and from behind the bushes to the side of that black-and-white was a real short distance. Zoom. He sprang around the bushes and rushed the car. The sheriff heard him coming and turned; turned just at the same time Bernie was throwing a tremendous punch through the open window, meaning Sheriff Laidlaw was turning his chin right into the blow. Which proved the sheriff was no boxer, on account of boxers knew never to do that, in fact, to roll with the punch, as I’d learned during that period after Leda left when we’d watched lots of fight videos—the Thrilla in Manila! Shut up!

One punch. Bernie clobbered him. The sound was thrilling. Sheriff Laidlaw slumped right over, eyelids fluttering down. Bernie opened the door, fast but quiet, yanked the sheriff out of the car, and dragged him behind the bushes. Did I get in a nip or two along the way? Possibly.

Bernie flipped the sheriff over, stripped off his belt. In what seemed like no time at all, he’d cuffed the sheriff with his own cuffs—behind the back, which was how we did our cuffing at the Little Detective Agency—stuck the sheriff’s gun in his own belt, and handed the sheriff’s nightstick to Suzie. Her eyes were wide and pearly, like they’d grabbed up the last of the evening light.

“If he makes a sound,” Bernie said, speaking real low, “or looks like he’s going to, whack him with this.”

“I don’t know if I can do that, Bernie,” Suzie whispered.

Bernie smiled, a quick little smile. “Then just wave it at him.” He turned to me. “Ready?”

What a question! We hurried into the lodge, Bernie in a sort of half run he has when we have to be quiet, me in a trot, although I can be quiet at any speed. I pulled slightly in front, which in low-light situations usually gave us better results. We went up the wide, lopsided staircase—no railings, but railings didn’t mean much to me, and came to the next floor.

A broad sort of gallery spread into the gloom in both directions. But not quite as gloomy in one of them: faint light glowed from around a distant corner. We headed that way, side by side, silent partners. Hey! I’d heard that expression so many times and now I understood it. And what a great expression it turned out to be! The silent partners crossed the gallery, entered a hall, came to the corner where the light showed, and peeked around it.

Around the corner, the hall narrowed to a corridor that ended at a half-open door, which was where the light was leaking from. And also voices.

One was Mack’s: “Hurry it up.”

And then the other deputy, Claudie: “We have to tie him up?”

Mack said, “Just do it.”

And after that, a new voice, one I’d never heard, the voice of a kid: “Where are you taking me?”

I heard Bernie inhale a sharp little breath and at the same time my fur rose up from the back of my neck to the tip of my tail. We crept along the corridor, quiet and controlled, but I could hear Bernie’s pounding heart, and mine, too. What was our plan? I didn’t worry about that the slightest bit.

We reached the doorway, most of our view blocked by the door. I saw part of a small room, a gas lantern standing on a table, a backpack lying at the foot of a metal bed frame with just a bare mattress, and sitting on that mattress: a kid, and not just a kid, but the missing kid, Devin. I recognized him from Anya’s photo, although his face seemed thinner than I remembered, and he also looked older.

Devin had his eyes on something across the room, where we couldn’t see. Claudie, wearing a black Halloween mask, came in view, a roll of duct tape in his hand. Halloween is the only human holiday I can do without. In fact, I hate it. And all of a sudden that hatred surged through me. I saw red, whether I can do that or not.

Claudie tore off a strip of duct tape, and said, “Stick out your hands.”

Devin wriggled back against the wall. “Don’t,” he said.

“Do what I fuckin’ tole you,” Claudie said and he raised his hand like he was about to clip the boy.

A bit of a blur after that. Bernie hit that door so hard it sagged off its hinges. The looks on the faces of those deputies!

Bernie drew the sheriff’s gun. “You move, you die,” he said.

For some reason, they both moved. Claudie clutched at Devin, at the same time going for his gun.

BLAM!
Bernie fired, a huge sound in the small room. I was
aware of Claudie crying out after that, but then I got busy with Mack.

He’d been sitting in a chair, trying to sip coffee under his bandanna, but now the cup was in midair, coffee slopping over the rim, and he was rising, hand reaching for the gun on his hip. His fingers closed around the butt at about the same moment my mouth closed around his wrist. My jaws are strong. I let Mack know just how strong. He screamed and dropped the gun, tried to wrench his arm free, tried kicking me, tried everything, and ended up flat on his back with me standing over him, teeth at his throat, his bandanna ripped off and possibly a bit bloody. How fiercely I growled, actually thrilling myself, and if I was letting my teeth break through Mack’s skin a bit, that real thin skin at the human throat, well, no one’s perfect.

“Don’t let it kill me,” he cried. “Don’t let it kill me.”

“Him,” said Bernie, and then came a hard and heavy thump and Claudie landed beside Mack on the floor. Claudie’s shoulder was bleeding, but there was way too much moaning for the amount of blood, in my opinion.

“Real good job, Chet,” said Bernie, standing behind me. “That’s enough. That’s enough, now. Really—plenty and then some. Let’s not gild the lily. Okay, that’ll do it. Chet? Big guy?”

All right, all right, I got the message, although that lily part was baffling. I let go of Mack, backed up half a step, or just about.

We stood over the deputies, me and Bernie. Devin was on his feet now by the bed, mouth open. Bernie still had the gun, pointed at the floor. Mack’s and Claudie’s eyes were glued to him.

“Help me find a reason not to shoot you,” Bernie said.

At that moment they both pissed themselves, no hiding that kind of detail from me. Mack took a deep breath, twisted his head toward the window, and shouted: “Sheriff! Sheriff!”

“Dream on,” Bernie said. Mack went quiet. Claudie kept on moaning, the bleeding down to a slow trickle, hardly noticeable. We’d dealt with plenty of perps tougher than Claudie.

“It’s all over,” Bernie said. “Either of you smart enough to realize that? Now is where one lucky guy gets to try for a deal, just one and only now.”

“What do you want to know?” Claudie said.

Mack turned to him. “Shut your yap.”

“Chet?” Bernie said.

I went closer to Mack, stuck my face right in his. He cringed and tried to writhe away.

“Freeze,” said Bernie.

Mack froze.

“What I want to know, Claudie,” Bernie began, “is who killed Turk—”

“The sheriff, I swear—”

“And who—” Bernie cut himself off. He glanced at Devin.

“You okay, Devin?”

Devin nodded, a very small movement. Did he look okay? I didn’t know. He wasn’t crying or anything like that, and I saw no marks on him.

“Come over here a sec,” Bernie said.

Devin came over. He wore shorts and a T-shirt; his eyes were blue, like Anya’s, but not so bright, and there were deep dark patches under them. Was he supposed to be fat? More like a bit pudgy, to my way of thinking, with a nice strong chest. I liked him right away.

“My name’s Bernie. This is Chet. Your mom asked us to find you, and now we’re going to take you back to her. Okay?”

Devin nodded, a little more vigorously this time.

“First, there’s something you can do for us. See that duct tape? Cut off some strips about yo big.”

Devin cut off some yo-big strips. I kept watch on Mack and Claudie. So did Bernie. He wanted to do something real bad to them: I could feel it.

Devin came over with the strips. “Good job,” Bernie said. He held out the gun. “Ever fired one of these before?”

Devin shook his head.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Bernie said.

“Jesus Christ,” said the deputies, both of them. They were trembling now.

Devin took the gun, real carefully. “Go stand by the door,” Bernie told him. “Keep us covered.”

Devin stood by the door.

“Maybe better if you just point it down at the floor for now,” Bernie said.

Then Bernie got to work with the duct tape. Did we need Devin to cover us? Not at all: covering was one of my specialties. But for some reason I didn’t mind, just this once.

Bernie started with Mack, duct-taping his arms behind his back from the shoulders down to the tips of his fingers, and then taping his legs together from above the knees to the ankles. Same thing to Claudie. Claudie made some noises, and Bernie told him to zip it. He zipped it.

After that—and this was one of those nice Bernie touches— he lay them on their sides, back to back, and wound duct tape around their two necks, round and round so they were taped together. You don’t see that every day.

He rose. “Thanks, Devin.” Bernie took the gun. “There’s a very nice woman named Suzie waiting outside. How about you
going down with Chet while I say good-bye to these gentlemen?”

“Okay,” said Devin.

“But first I want you to look at something.” Bernie pointed toward the pool of piss on the floor. “Whenever you think about all this, remember that part, too.”

Devin looked. “Okay,” he said.

I walked over beside him and wagged my tail. Bernie gave him Mack’s flashlight. We went downstairs. I had the boy, right there beside me.

THIRTY-TWO