Dog On It (13 page)

I got up, started barking.

“Chet?”

I hurried to the front door.

“Chet? What is it? Is something out there?”

Bernie got a flashlight and opened the door. I ran out, down the street. I remembered Mr. Gulagov’s ranch, with the mine and the old barn across from it, Madison in the window. But where
was it? I trotted this way and that, sniffing for a scent trail to lead me back—Mr. Gulagov’s scent, Boris’s, Harold the driver’s, Madison’s, my own. Nothing. I slowed down, walked in a circle, came to a halt.

“What’s on your mind, boy?”

In the morning we got right to work on the Madison Chambliss case, me and Bernie. First off, we drove down to Donut Heaven, me riding shotgun, not a cloud in the sky, everything tip-top. A cruiser was waiting in the lot. Bernie parked beside it in typical cop style, driver’s-side doors facing each other. The cruiser window slid down, and there was Rick Torres, Bernie’s friend in Missing Persons. He handed Bernie coffee and a doughnut and said, “Hey, Chet, how ya doin’?”

No complaints.

“Got an extra cruller here,” Rick said, holding it up.

I wagged my tail.

“Chet’s had his breakfast,” Bernie said. “And he’s never been big on sweets.”

Oh?

“Empty calories,” Bernie said.

“Huh?” said Rick.

“It’s true. I’ve been reading up on nutrition. Check out what’s happening to this country.”

Rick glanced around.

“I’m talking about the way we look now and the way we used to look,” Bernie said.

“I get you,” said Rick. “Like William Howard Taft.”

Bernie gave Rick a long stare. Then he took a big bite of his doughnut and with his mouth full, said, “Where are we?”

Rick bit into his cruller. I could smell it from where I was, easy. “Don’t know where you are,” he said, also talking with his mouth full. “But we’ve got
nada
.” He took out a notebook, flipped through the pages. “I interviewed the parents, Cynthia Chambliss and Damon . . .” Rick paused, squinted at the notebook. Squinting was one of those human expressions best kept to a minimum, in my opinion. “. . . can’t read my own writing—looks like Keller.”

“Keefer,” Bernie said.

“Yeah?” Rick found a pen behind the visor, made a mark on the page. “A fun pair, Cynthia and Damon. He thinks the kid’s run off to Vegas, and she thinks it’s a snatch.”

“Any evidence for either?”

“Nope. No ransom demand, no sightings. Checked the school, her teachers, friends—everybody says she was a normal kid, smarter than most.”

“Was?” said Bernie.

Rick turned the page. “Oh yeah—there’s just maybe one little thing here.”

“What’s that?”

“Some suggestion she was hanging out with a pothead or possibly pot dealer.”

“Ruben Ramirez?”

Rick looked up; his eyebrows rose, too.

“Forget him,” Bernie said. “He alibis out.”

“Okeydoke. So what we’ve done is put her on the wire, sent
her picture and description to every department in the state, checked Valley hospitals, the usual.”

Bernie nodded. “One other thing,” he said, taking another bite. “We might be looking for a BMW, probably blue, with a blond male driver.”

I barked. They both turned to me. “He wants that cruller,” Rick said.

Bernie sighed. “All right.”

The cruller went from Rick to Bernie to me. I used my two-bite technique for managing big things, jerking my head back on the second. All gone. Delicious. Rick Torres was growing on me. But I hadn’t been barking about the cruller, had I? I’d barked about . . . What was it again?

“Year and model?” Rick said.

Bernie shook his head. “And even the BMW part isn’t completely reliable, but I think you should add it to what you’ve got.”

“Go public with the car stuff?”

Bernie thought. When he was thinking, really thinking hard like this, things always seemed to get quiet around him. “Not yet,” he said.

“But you’re betting it’s a snatch?”

“Yes.”

“A snatch and no ransom demand?” Rick said. “Bad news.” He ate the last of the cruller, then licked the tips of his fingers. I licked around my whole mouth, found a few sweet crumbs.

“He’s right about one thing,” Bernie said. We were gassing up at pumps across the street from Donut Heaven. I started zoning out on the smell of gas. “No ransom demand is bad news.” He screwed the gas cap back in place. I took one last big sniff, felt funny, in a good way. “You know what I’m wondering?”

Why we hadn’t picked up a bag of crullers to take home?

“I’m wondering why Damon Keefer keeps saying she’s run off to Vegas.” He got in the car, turned the key. “Let’s find out.”

Fine with me. I forgot all about the crullers. We drove up into some hills, housing developments on both sides, one after the other, and lots of construction going on.

“Guess how many people move to the Valley each and every day,” Bernie said. “And that’s only counting the legal ones.”

No clue. Plus who cared, anyway? Sometimes Bernie worried for no reason.

“For thousands of years, this was open country,” he said. “Rivers flowed. Where’s all that water now?”

I glanced to the side, spotted water right away, making beautiful rainbows over a putting green. What was the problem? Enjoy the day, Bernie. I gave him a nudge with the top of my head. He laughed and said, “Glad you’re back.”

Back, and on the job. We went past the golf course and turned at the next road. A big sign stood on the corner. “‘Welcome to Pinnacle Peak Homes at Puma Wells,’” Bernie read. “‘The Number One Gated Prestige Luxury Development in the North Valley.’” The road led up a winding canyon. “I prefer my prestige ungated,” Bernie said, a remark that zipped by me in complete mystery. We followed a truck that was painting a yellow line down the middle. Was that fun to watch or what? I wanted to jump out and lick that glistening yellow line so bad I could hardly sit still.

“Chet, for God’s sake, sit still.”

Houses went by, not all of them finished, clustered together with tiny spaces in between. A big palm tree lay flat down beside a hole in someone’s yard. “Funny,” Bernie said. “Midmorning on a workday and no workers around.” We parked in front of one of the finished houses. It had a sign in the window. “‘Model home
and office,’” Bernie read. We hopped out and went to the door. Bernie knocked.

“Come in,” called a woman.

We went in, found ourselves in a room with a cool tile floor and a fountain in the middle, water splashing in a small pool. What was Bernie talking about? There was water out the ying-yang.

A woman sat at a desk by the fountain, tapping at a computer keyboard. “Dr. Avery?” she said, rising. She was tall, Bernie’s height, with long fair hair in a ponytail and tiny ears. And beautiful: I knew that from how Bernie stumbled the tiniest bit on his next step. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“Who’s Dr. Avery?” said Bernie.

The woman blinked. Bernie was good at causing those confused blinks in people, did I mention that already? “You are not here to see the Phase Two Red Rock Garden Casita designs?” she said.

“Sure,” said Bernie. “We’ll take a look at them. But first I’d like to see Mr. Keefer.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“Not exactly, Ms. . ..“

“Larapova. Elena Larapova, VP marketing.”

“. . . Ms. Larapova, but I know he’ll see us.”

Ms. Larapova’s eyes went to me. She made a friendly clucking sound, a sound I liked. I wagged back. “Mr. Keefer is on site at the moment,” she said.

“Can you call him?”

“Perhaps. Who shall I say . . . ?”

Bernie handed her our card. She read it, then looked at me again, quickly, her eyes widening. “Something the matter?” said Bernie.

“Oh, no, no, Mr. Little. It’s just—I’ve never met a detective before.”

Bernie smiled. “We don’t bite,” he said.

Speak for yourself, was my thought.

Ms. Larapova took a phone off the desk. “Hello, Da—Mr. Keefer,” she said. “There’s a Bernie Little to see you.” She listened for a moment and hung up. “Come,” she said.

We went outside, climbed into a golf cart, Ms. Larapova behind the wheel, Bernie beside her, me in back. I’d ridden in golf carts before, loved them.

“Your dog is coming?” she said.

“You object?”

“No. Well-behaved pets are always welcome at Puma Wells.”

“Then please make an exception for Chet.”

“Excuse me?”

“On both counts—well behaved and pet.” Bernie laughed to himself. What the hell was he talking about?

“Explain, please?”

I was on her side, all the way.

“Sorry,” Bernie said. “Just a joke.”

Ms. Larapova gave him a quick glance, the corners of her mouth turned down, a look often appearing on women’s faces after one of Bernie’s jokes. She shifted away from him on the bench seat and drove onto a cart path.

We bumped up a fairway, headed toward a big building in the distance. I didn’t see anyone playing, but all of a sudden a golf ball came soaring over a hill, hit the ground right beside us, and bounced up. I snatched it right out of the air before I even knew what I’d done. Looking back, I saw another golf cart topping the crest of the hill far behind us. I lay down on the backseat, chewing quietly.

“So,” said Bernie, “what brings you here?”

The puzzled human face is one of my favorites. That was what Ms. Larapova showed Bernie now.

“Aren’t you from Russia?” he went on.

She nodded. “But I have been in this country for many years, am now a citizen like you.”

“Even better, I’m sure.”

Russian? Wait a minute. That triggered something in my mind, but what? I mulled it over, meanwhile working my way through the golf-ball covering. Underneath lay all kinds of interesting stuff; I knew from experience.

“. . . and I love the wide-open spaces,” Ms. Larapova was saying.

“Aren’t there wide-open spaces in Siberia?”

“You have such a sense of humor.” But not enough to make Ms. Larapova laugh. She drove up to the big building. “The clubhouse,” she said. “Gourmet restaurant and bar, indoor and outdoor pools with Jacuzzis, five-thousand-square-foot gym with personal-trainer service, Japanese steam and Finnish sauna, full-service spa.”

“What’s it cost?”

“Membership is restricted to residents only.”

“And then it’s free?”

For the first time, Ms. Larapova laughed. Human laughter: usually one of the best sounds there is, as I might have mentioned, but not Ms. Larapova’s, which was booming and strange, kind of like an explosion. “Free?” she said. “Introductory-rate initiation is one hundred fifty K, and that is for three-bedroom units and above.”

“Introductory-rate?” said Bernie.

“Until Labor Day. After that—two hundred. Plus greens fees, of course.”

“Goes without saying,” said Bernie.

We got off the cart, followed Ms. Larapova around the clubhouse. “What’s in your mouth, Chet?” Bernie said.

I swallowed what was left, looked innocent. Way back on the fairway, two golfers were walking in little circles, heads down. Golf was a game I didn’t get at all.

There was a big swimming pool behind the clubhouse. I trotted over to the edge. Hey. No water. Not that I’d have jumped in—almost certainly not—but I liked gazing at water. A man in a dark suit sat under an umbrella at a poolside table spread with a white cloth; I’d pulled on an overhanging end of one of those once, with bad results; but for some reason, my mouth suddenly wanted to get hold of this one. The man was talking on a phone. I smelled cat on him, saw his goatee, and recognized him: Damon Keefer. “It’ll clear, for Christ’s sake,” he was saying. One of his feet was tapping under the table, very fast, out of sight, although not out of my sight, down here. “Don’t be such a—” He saw us, said, “Gotta go,” and clicked off.

Bernie and Ms. Larapova approached the table. I stayed where I was, poolside, hit by a surprising attack of indigestion. Keefer motioned with his hand, and Bernie and Ms. Larapova started to sit down.

“I’ll take it from here, Elena,” Keefer said.

Ms. Larapova, in the act of pulling out her chair, went still. “As you wish, Mr. Keefer,” she said. She gave me a quick glance, then turned and walked away. I turned, too, and gagged what was left of the golf ball into the empty pool. Ah, much better: at the top of my game once more, and the slightest bit hungry, believe it or not. I sniffed the air in hope of scraps; poolsides were usually good for a potato chip or two, or even one of those mini hot dogs—had to be careful about the toothpicks they came on,
I’d learned that the hard way—but I smelled nothing except cat, the odor coming from Keefer. I thought of mountain lions right away, and then a faint memory of Madison in the window came and went.

Bernie sat opposite Keefer, hands folded on the table. I always got a good feeling when Bernie’s hands were folded like that, couldn’t say why.

“Any news?” Keefer said. Under the table, his foot was tapping away—in fact, his whole lower body was jittery, although the top part of him was still.

“I’m afraid not,” Bernie said. “We followed up on one or two leads, but they ended nowhere.”

“So what are you saying? Your involvement in this is over?”

“Far from it.”

“Don’t tell me you want more money.”

“Money’s not the issue now, Mr. Keefer. The retainer will take us through to the end, and we’ll send you a bill then. But the point, what we’ve got to focus on, is making sure that end’s a good end.”

Keefer took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “Think I don’t know that?” He blew smoke through his nostrils, something Bernie liked doing. In fact, Bernie’s gaze was locked on those smoke trails. Keefer noticed. “Smoke?”

“No, thanks,” Bernie said, even though I could tell he wanted one bad. “I’ve been in touch with Rick Torres over at Missing Persons. He says you told him you think Madison’s run off to Las Vegas.”

Keefer shrugged.

“You told me the same thing.”

Keefer took a deep drag. All that lower-body twitchiness lessened a bit. “Vegas is just an example.”

“Of what?”

“The kind of place she might have taken off for.”