Thereby Hangs a Tail (27 page)

Bernie thought. He stood very still, his face white in the moonlight, a face that could have been made of stone. I didn’t like that, gave him a little bump. He gave me a quick pat. We moved on, alongside the base of Red Butte, the flashlight beam sweeping back and forth even though we didn’t really need it with the moon so bright.

“Smell anything, Chet?”

Did I smell anything? Was that the question? Did it mean Bernie smelled nothing right now, not even the coyote piss? Every coyote in the desert must have been using Red Butte as a kind of giant fire hydrant. I checked out Bernie’s nose, a not-quite-straight little thing: what was it for?

We kept going, first in the shadow of the butte, then out in open moonlight, side by side with our own shadows. From time to time, Bernie muttered to himself. “Two guys like that— three guys—are they even capable of thinking up . . . ?” And: “Evidence—not even a confession, maybe especially not—beats solid . . .” I took a moment to lift my own leg against the butte, heard the trickle on rock, always a nice sound.

“One way of looking at it,” Bernie was saying. “But motive? Why no . . .” I caught up to him, listened to a bit more of this, and went on ahead.

We worked our way around Red Butte, Bernie muttering, me sniffing, shadows shifting in the moonlight. I felt great! We’d cleared a lot of cases, me and Bernie, some of them on nights just like this. Once there was this gangbanger, for example, who thought he could get away with—whoa. What was this? I sniffed, and sniffed again. Yes, the unmissable scent of biscuit, and not just any biscuit, but biscuit from Rover and Company. Rover and Company was run by a nice guy we knew from a recent case— his name escaping me at the moment, and also the details of the case—and I’d even gotten to do some tasting in their test kitchen. What a day! But no time to think of that now. I lowered my nose to the ground, followed the scent to a spot where the rock wall curved in a bit.

I sniffed at the ground, bare ground, kind of soft under my paws: a strong scent of Rover and Company biscuit, no doubt about it. But nothing to see, so I scratched at the ground. That brought more scent, coming in powerful waves. I started digging.

“Chet? What’s up?”

I kept digging. Love digging, of course. I’ve done some serious digging in my time, including once “halfway to goddamn China” according to old man Heydrich, although I wasn’t sure what that meant, just remembered something about the sudden appearance of a sinkhole, and his patio disappearing. This was back before the fence between our place and old man Heydrich’s, in the days when—

My paw hit something that gave a little. I stopped digging, stuck my head in, got whatever it was between my teeth. Then I backed out and dropped it at Bernie’s feet: a biscuit box from Rover and Company. I’d seen plenty of them, recognized it right away. This one was crushed and torn a bit, but when Bernie shook it I heard biscuits rattling around. I sat up nice and tall, the way I usually did when a treat was on the way. No treat this time. Bernie dropped the box in the evidence bag and said, “Wait right here.”

He hurried back the way we’d come, actually running pretty fast, and with no limp. I stayed exactly where I was, didn’t move a muscle. When Bernie returned, he was unfolding the fold-up shovel we carried in the trunk.

“Need some space, boy.”

Space? I backed a butt-wriggle or two away, then without quite knowing what I was doing, butt-wriggled forward to where I’d been sitting in the first place.

Bernie stuck the shovel—this was the spade kind, pointed at the end; has that come up already?—in the ground, started digging. Had I ever seen Bernie dig before? He wasn’t too bad at it, but why not pitch in, especially since digging was one of my specialties? I shoved in beside him, got to work.

“Careful, Chet.”

Careful digging? What did that mean? Go slow, maybe? I didn’t know how to do that, had only one speed for digging— pedal to the metal. Bernie worked with a steady rhythm, driving in the spade, tossing the dirt over his shoulder, chunk-a-thunk, chunk-a-thunk. Not bad at all. But with four paws going for me, it wasn’t really a contest. Did I send that dirt flying or what? Fountains of earth, baby, fountains of earth. We dug underneath the light of the moon, dug and dug until—

Clang.

The spade struck something hard. Bernie paused; me, too. He laid the spade aside, got the flashlight, and down on his knees leaned into the hole and started clearing dirt with his hand. The other hand aimed the flashlight, and in the beam something hard and curved and yellow appeared. Hard and curved and yellow? I had no idea. Bernie went still and said, “Oh, God.”

He took a few steps back, balanced the flashlight on a rock, and began another hole, working not just fast but kind of wildly, sweat gleaming silver on his skin. And his face: the look on it scared me. I sat still.

The hole got bigger and bigger. I saw new things in the flash-light beam: a glass window, a windshield wiper, a stubby rounded hood. Hey! A car. A car was buried down there. And not just any car, but a Beetle, a yellow Beetle: this was Suzie’s car. What was going on? I looked at Bernie. His eyes had gone all liquid, and tears were making tracks through the dirt on his face. He tossed the spade aside, lowered himself onto the hood of the car, swept away dirt with his hands, faster and faster, grunting with the effort. Then he shone the flashlight through the windshield.

The beam was all wobbly and unsteady, but I could make out a person in the driver’s seat, a dead person, as I knew already from the smell. I watched from the edge of the hole, over Bernie’s shoulder. A dead woman; behind the wheel of Suzie’s car; but not Suzie. It was Adelina.

TWENTY-FIVE

E
arly the next morning we drove to Rio Loco Ranch, following Lieutenant Stine’s cruiser. We hadn’t caught any sleep, me and Bernie, not with how busy things got at Red Butte, cops and heavy machinery showing up from all over the place. Not getting enough sleep hardly ever happens to me. I like to have a nap every morning and afternoon, plus a long night of shut-eye—goes without saying—and sometimes an evening nap as well, especially after a big steak dinner, for example. When I haven’t had enough sleep, a funny feeling comes over me, like something very strong is pulling my eyelids down. I was feeling it now, in the shotgun seat, maybe not sitting as tall as usual.

We went past the corral—empty today, couldn’t smell the white horse anywhere—and came to a putting green I hadn’t noticed before. Putting green grass is just about my favorite surface, as I may have mentioned before. All of a sudden, I felt peppier. And not so much because of how my paws couldn’t wait to feel that putting green, but on account of who I saw there: Princess! She was on the leash and running, head up high. Nance held the leash and ran along beside her—walked, really, on account of Princess’s legs being so short. The count sat in a chair with a clipboard on his lap and a steaming cup in the cup holder, smiling and clapping. He wore his gleaming riding boots; that short whip thing—his riding crop—lay on the ground beside him. We parked and walked over to them—me, Bernie, Lieutenant Stine.

They turned toward us, stopped what they were doing. Princess saw me and started barking. You might have thought she was angry if you didn’t know her; Princess had turned out to be kind of fierce, just as fierce as some of my huge bruiser buddies, like Spike and General Beauregard, or even fiercer, but I knew she liked me.

“Yes?” said the count, his quick dark eyes scanning us. “What is it?”

We moved to the edge of the putting green. The lieutenant and Bernie stopped there, so I did, too. “Prepare yourself for bad news,” Lieutenant Stine said.

Nance covered her mouth with her hand. The count said, “What bad news?”

The lieutenant glanced at Bernie, maybe thinking Bernie would say something, but he didn’t. Lieutenant Stine faced the count. “Your wife is dead.”

Borghese rose from his chair, slow and unsteady, almost lost his footing. The cup toppled out of its holder and spilled on the green.

“She was murdered,” the lieutenant said. “I’m sorry.”

Borghese lowered his head, put his hand over his eyes. He wore a thick gold watch; it gleamed in the sun. I sat. Princess sat, too. No one moved. A horse neighed, not far away. The count lowered his hand, turned toward the sound. In a low voice, Nance said, “Come,” and she and Princess walked toward Borghese. Nance touched his shoulder. The count gazed into the distance. Nance was taller than the count, and stronger-looking. She took her hand away. His eyes closed for a long moment. Princess’s eyes, huge and dark, were on me.

“We have three suspects in custody,” Lieutenant Stine said, “thanks to Bernie here. Bernie and Chet.”

“Is . . .” The count cleared his throat, started over. “Is one of them Sherman Ganz?” He didn’t turn to look at us.

“No,” the lieutenant said.

“Sherman Ganz had nothing to do with this,” Bernie said.

Now the count turned his face toward us, his eyes sweeping over me and the lieutenant, settling on Bernie. “You found Princess,” he said, “and I am grateful for that. But on other matters, no more opinions, please.”

Bernie’s face got that stony look. The lieutenant said, “We checked for a connection between Mr. Ganz and the suspects and found none. No phone calls, no texting, no emails, no canceled checks, never been seen together, zip.”

The count was silent for a moment or two, eyes still on Bernie. Then they shifted to the lieutenant. “Murdered how?” he said.

“Gunshot,” said the lieutenant. “We’re waiting on ballistics.” He flipped open his notebook. “Any of these names known to you? Herman T. Crandall, aka Crash; Wardell Krebs, aka Disco; Thurman Barger, aka Thurman Brown, aka Ted Brown.”

The count shook his head.

“You, ma’am?” said the lieutenant.

Nance shook her head, too. At that moment, Princess spotted something on the green and scarfed it up. Something edible? What could that have been?

“It’s possible they’ve used other names,” Lieutenant Stine said. “I’ve brought some photos, but if you’d prefer a later time . . .”

The count held out his hand. Lieutenant Stine reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and stepped onto the green. Bernie followed; and me, too.

The lieutenant showed Borghese the photos. “No,” said Bor-ghese. “Strangers to me.”

Bernie moved in closer, pointed at the photos. “These two have less hair now and this one’s beard is fuller. Also—”

“Hair or no hair,” the count said, leaning back a bit from Bernie, “beard or not—strangers, completely strangers.”

“And you, ma’am?” said the lieutenant, angling the photos toward Nance.

“So evil-looking,” Nance said. “I would remember faces like those if I’d ever seen them before.”

“And have you?” Bernie said.

Nance gave him an annoyed look. “Didn’t I just say?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then I’ll make it simple,” Nance said. “N.O.”

N.O.? I knew that one, had heard it many times.

“What about Suzie Sanchez?” Bernie said.

“Another unknown name,” the count said.

Nance touched his arm. “The reporter,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” the count said. “But we had no comment.”

“When was the last time you heard from her?” Bernie said.

The count made a shrugging gesture, hands spread, eyebrows raised; he had lots of big gestures, an interesting guy to watch, interesting in a way that somehow made me want to give him a quick nip.

“Think,” Bernie said, his voice not very pleasant; maybe he was feeling the same thing as me. Lieutenant Stine put his hand on Bernie’s arm.

The count tilted up his nose; a big bony nose, also interesting. “I beg your pardon?”

“I know this is a bad time,” Bernie said, sounding a little less harsh. “But we’ve got another open case out there.”

“Of this I know nothing,” said the count.

“And the last time we had any contact with the reporter— Suzie something?—was at the corral when you were here,” Nance said. “So now, if you don’t mind—”

“We wish to be alone,” Borghese said.

“Of course,” said the lieutenant. “We’ll be in touch about, uh, the delivery of the . . . of Mrs. Borghese.”

“Contessa,” said Borghese, his tone sharpening. “The Con-tessa di Borghese.”

Up there, up above my head, things went on that weren’t too clear. Down here on the putting green, Princess and I were close together, kind of by ourselves. I lowered my head to give her a friendly little bump. And what was this? She nipped me on the nose? And it hurt!

“Chet?”

“What does it mean?” Lieutenant Stine said. Later that morning: we met at a bench outside the sheriff ’s office in the town Bernie called Nowhereville. Bernie and the lieutenant sat on the bench; I lay in the shade underneath. Still no sleep, that force dragging down my eyelids getting stronger and stronger. I’m pretty strong myself, but because all my strength was concentrated on pulling my eyelids back up, I might have missed a bit of what was going on. I’m pretty sure I caught Bernie saying:

“What does what mean?”

And after that, the lieutenant said something about Adelina being in Suzie’s car.