The Dog Who Knew Too Much (18 page)

There was a silence. Ranger Rob said, “Justice?”

“Yeah,” said Mack. “That’s it.” Anya turned a stony-faced expression on him, gave Ranger Rob a dose of it, too. Mack reached for another fry, popped it in his mouth as he rose. “This-away,” he said.

We followed him toward a door at the back of the room. Now I was in no hurry to be first, happy, in fact to lag far behind. Not to worry: I caught up real quick. Snagging a mouthful of Mack’s fries took no time at all.

Mack knocked on the door. Voices speaking fast and low came from the other side. Mack knocked again. The talking stopped, and I heard Sheriff Laidlaw call, “Yeah?”

“Visitors,” said Mack. “Civilians.”

“The voting kind?” the sheriff said.

Mack eyed us. “Don’ know. Want me to ask?”

The sheriff laughed. “Naw,” he said. “Send ’em in.”

Mack opened the door. We were in a small office that smelled
of cigars. Sheriff Laidlaw sat at a desk, a shotgun rack on the wall behind him. On a couch along the side wall lay the cigar smoker, an old dude—string tie, cowboy boots, longish white hair—with his legs stretched out, feet resting on a pillow. Mack went out, closing the door behind him.

The old dude nodded to Ranger Rob. “Rob,” he said.

“Judge,” said Ranger Rob.

The old dude was a judge? There was only one judge I knew well—Judge Jaramillo, down in the Valley. I’d been Exhibit A, Exhibit B being a .44 Magnum I’d dug up out of some perp’s flower bed. Judge Jaramillo had invited me up to sit beside him. Also he’d given me one of those nice pats that let me know he liked me and my kind. Plus, down under his big judging desk where no one could see, there’d been a quick handing over of a biscuit. So: nothing wrong with judges, in my opinion, and I was all set to like the old dude on the couch.

“Judge Stringer meet Ms. Vereen,” Ranger Rob said. “Ms. Vereen’s the mother of the missing boy.”

The judge looked her up and down, real quick, but I caught it. Suzie had a thing about that, and I’d picked it up from her. Why she had a thing about it, and what the whole up-and-down thing meant was a mystery, but I loved Suzie, so it had to be important.

“My very best wishes to you, ma’am,” the judge said. “You can be sure that the public servants of our beautiful county will not rest until little David is brought back safe and sound.”

“Devin,” said Anya.

“Devin?” said the judge. “Interesting name.” He took a drag from his cigar, blew out a narrow stream of wonderful-smelling smoke.

Anya gazed at the judge, eyes narrowing. “Right now I’m not at all sure about your public servants,” she said.

“Oh?” said the judge, tapping cigar ash into a coffee mug.

Anya turned to the sheriff. “Is it true you arrested Bernie Little?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Suspicion of murder,” the sheriff said. “Specifically of the wilderness guide, Turk Rendell.”

“That makes no sense,” Anya said. “Why would Bernie do that? He didn’t know Turk Rendell, hadn’t ever been here in his life before Friday.”

“If so,” the sheriff said, “his attorney will have the opportunity to enter it into the record at the bail hearing.”

“Speaking of which,” said the judge, getting off the couch with a grunt, “since I’m presiding, I’d best not be participating further in this conversation.” He nodded to Anya and Ranger Rob, stuck the cigar in his mouth, and went out through a side door, closing it behind him.

“When is this bail hearing?” Anya said.

“Tuesday, nine a.m.,” said the sheriff. “In our small but historic courtroom upstairs.”

“Who’s Bernie’s lawyer?”

“I believe he’ll be represented by one of our fine public defenders.”

“Are you telling us that Bernie hasn’t called his own lawyer?” Anya said.

“Us?” said the sheriff. “That would be you and Rob, here?”

“Um,” said Ranger Rob, looking down at the floor. I looked down, too, and spotted a popcorn kernel. Popcorn’s not my favorite on account of the way it gets caught between my teeth, but I scarfed up this popcorn kernel anyway, realizing again how hungry
I was. Square meal was one of my favorite human expressions. It had been way too long.

“… information on that score,” the sheriff was saying.

Anya’s voice rose. “What’s going on around here? My son is missing and instead of finding him you’ve arrested the only person who seems interested in bringing him home.”

Sheriff Laidlaw sat back in his chair. “Gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to think bad of anyone for how they acted in a moment of distress. Bail hearing’s public, and you’re welcome to attend. Meanwhile, Rob, I’m suggestin’ you escort your friend back to wherever she’s stayin’.”

“I’m not leaving until I see Bernie,” Anya said, folding her arms across her chest. I always watched for that in humans. Dust-ups often came next.

“’Fraid that’s not possible under county regulations,” Sheriff Laidlaw said.

“Fuck county regulations,” said Anya.

Pink spots appeared on the sheriff’s face, or at least on the nonhairy parts. Ranger Rob turned to Anya. She looked ready to say more, more and louder. Ranger Rob touched her elbow, very lightly. “Ms. Vereen?” he said.

She glared at him. He shuffled around and looked sheepish. That certainly described Ranger Rob’s face at the moment, although I actually ran into an angry and unsheepish sheep once, resulting in a bit of trouble, perhaps a story for another time. Anya paused and took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. She gave Sheriff Laidlaw the dagger look—another great expression of Bernie’s—and turned to me. “Come on, Chet. Let’s go.”

“Not the dog,” the sheriff said.

“Not the dog?” said Anya. “What does that mean?”

“Interest of being humane, believe it or not,” said the sheriff. “No reason the dog can’t share a cell with his master. Be a comfort, like.”

Anya peered at Sheriff Laidlaw, head tilted to one side, like she was trying to see him from a new angle. We do the same thing in the nation within.

“That’s a nice gesture, Sheriff,” said Ranger Rob, who still had Anya’s elbow. He began leading her toward the door.

I followed. Anya stopped and knelt beside me. “Stay, Chet,” she said, laying her hand softly on my head. “There’s a good boy.” She and Ranger Rob headed again for the door. I followed.

Anya turned. “Chet? Stay. You’re going to see Bernie.”

I was? I didn’t smell Bernie, not the least bit. Neither did I hear him. All I heard was a toilet flushing on the other side of the door the judge had gone through. While all that was on my mind—Bernie, toilet, Bernie, Bernie—Anya and Ranger Rob went out the main door. Hey! I bolted after them. The door closed in my face. Behind me, the sheriff laughed.

I turned my head, looked back at him, my paws still pointed to the door.

“Want to see Bernie?” the sheriff said.

Oh, yes, and very badly. But for some reason my tail wasn’t wagging.

The side door opened and the judge came out, zipping up his pants. “Rid of them?” he said.

“Yup,” said the sheriff. “But this dog here’s got me a bit worried.”

The judge glanced at me. “Think he’s a biter?”

“It’s not that,” the sheriff said. “More like he’s up to something.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Like he’s plotting against us.”

“Laidlaw?” said the judge. “Don’t be such a goddamn moron. It’s a dog.”

“I know that, but—”

“Try to concentrate. Your job is to make sure everything goes smoothly Tuesday morning.”

“You can count on me.”

“Can I?” the judge said. “Is the prisoner going to look presentable, for example?”

The sheriff’s eyes shifted. “No problem there,” he said. “What kind of bail you got in mind?”

The judge smiled. He had just about the yellowest teeth I’d ever seen, almost brown. “High,” he said. “Sky fucking high.”

“What if—” the sheriff began.

The judge cut him off. “Don’t want to hear your what-ifs,” he said. “I’ll do the thinking.” He moved toward the door, saw I was in the way. “Here, boy,” he said. I stayed where he was. The judge turned to the sheriff. “Got some kind of treat?”

“Treat?”

“Dog treat, for Christ sake.”

“Why would I have a dog treat?” said the sheriff. “I’m a cat person—thought you knew that.”

Cat person? I got the feeling, unusual for me, that things were growing worse and worse.

“Some snack then,” the judge said. “A cookie, a doughnut.”

“How about a Slim Jim?”

“Worth a try.”

The sheriff opened his desk drawer and took out—yes!—a Slim Jim. He held it up. Who can resist a Slim Jim? I hurried over, barely aware of the judge moving behind me, leaving the office and closing the door. Oh, those wonderful Slim Jim smells.
I sat beside the desk, looking up at Sheriff Laidlaw, and waiting for him to come across with the Slim Jim. There were two ways of doing it, holding the Slim Jim close to my mouth where I could grab it, or simply dropping it at my feet. Both were fine with me but Sheriff Laidlaw did neither. Instead, he put the Slim Jim back in the drawer.

Whoa. Normally I liked surprises, but this was a bad one. I moved away from the sheriff, returned to the main door, and stood there doing nothing much. Soon the door would open and I’d be free. That was my only thought.

The sheriff reached for a folder and started leafing through papers. After a while he belched a couple times. That made me want to belch, too, but I had no belches inside me. The sheriff rose and went through the side door. I heard a toilet seat bang down. A moment or two later, a door at the back opened and Mack poked his head in. “Sheriff?” he said. He looked around and went away. But he didn’t quite close the door behind him.

The next thing I knew I was through that doorway and in a long, not very well lit corridor with bare cement walls and no one in sight. I walked to the end, turned a corner, and right away smelled the smell I wanted to smell most in the world: Bernie!

I sped up. Cells appeared on one side of the corridor. I knew cells, of course, had helped walk perps into them on plenty of occasions. No perps here: all these cells were empty except … except for the last one. And—oh, no!—there was Bernie.

EIGHTEEN

W
hat had they done to him? Bernie lay on his back on a hard metal bench, one arm over his face. That was a way he sometimes slept—just another nice thing about Bernie—but he wasn’t sleeping. I knew that on account of the uncovered eye being open, although just barely. It was so swollen that just a tiny whitish sliver of wet gleam showed, the wet gleam of an eyeball. Around the eye was a big purple bruise, plus dried blood on his cheek and all over his torn shirt.

That poor eye wasn’t looking my way. I stuck my head through the bars and tried to push through, but the space was too narrow for my shoulders. A whimpering started up. How terrible that was! I’d never heard Bernie whimper before, or anything close.
Oh, Bernie, please don’t—
And then I realized the whimpering was coming from me. I put a stop to that pronto, changing to this low muffly bark I have for getting Bernie’s attention but keeping quiet at the same time.

Bernie moved. He got a hand on the metal bench, pushed himself up to a sitting position, real slow. His other eye was even worse, but he saw me. He licked his lips—bloody and split—and
said my name in a way I’d never heard before, all cracked and faint like a radio station voice when we’re out in the desert and far away. Which was where I wanted to be at that moment, me and Bernie in the Porsche, free and easy.

“Chet.” And then, louder and stronger, “Good to see you. Real good.” He even gave me a little smile, his teeth so white in his bruised and bloody face. My tail started wagging. I was back with Bernie and that was the important thing.

He got off the bench, wincing hardly at all—but I caught it—and came to me. He gave me a nice pat between my ears. I pressed my head against his hand.

“You’re a good man,” he said.

My tail, still wagging, wagged more.

Bernie glanced down the corridor. “Did Anya bring you? Where is she?”

I kept wagging.

“Or was it Suzie?” His voice thickened. That happens some-times—I think when Bernie’s having deep feelings. At that moment I was having deep feelings myself. “You didn’t get here by yourself, did you?” He gave me a close look. I gave him a close look back. “No fair all these questions.” Bernie knelt in front of me. “Listen, Chet, this is important,” he said, and started talking about something, maybe keys. But my mind was elsewhere, on account of Bernie’s poor face, now within licking distance. I licked it, real, real gently.

Bernie laughed, just a tiny quiet laugh, but so nice to hear. “Okay, okay,” he said, giving me another pat, “but right now I need those keys.”

Keys? Right: he had been talking about keys. So maybe I hadn’t missed anything at all. Chet the Jet, on top of the situation and don’t you forget it.

“The keys, Chet. On the wall. Can you get them, big guy?”

Keys? Wall? The only keys I knew were the two on Bernie’s key ring—a real cool key ring with a tiny white seashell I’d found on our trip to San Diego hanging off it—one for the Porsche and one for the house. We’d surfed, me and Bernie! What a life we had. My tail, which had stopped wagging, started up again.