Thereby Hangs a Tail (33 page)

“Let’s go pick him up,” Bernie said.

Earl Ford driving, his good arm now handcuffed to the wheel; Bernie riding shotgun; me in back, and the moon hanging low in the sky. The sight made me want to do some howling, no idea why, but I knew this wasn’t the time, and so sat absolutely still, except for a bit of picking at the seat upholstery.

“How much money’s in the envelope?” Bernie said.

“Didn’t finish counting,” the sheriff said.

“Humor’s tricky, Earl. I’d lay off it.”

Silence. I can feel things about humans sometimes. For example, whenever I’m with Bernie and Suzie I’m pretty sure they like each other a lot. And Bernie’s feelings for Charlie are huge, all good except for some sadness mixed in. Right now in the SUV I could feel hate, and plenty of it, going back and forth between Earl Ford and Bernie. Hadn’t often felt such powerful hate between men, and those times I did, violence broke out soon after. I shifted slightly, giving myself a clear shot through the space separating the two front seats.

“Seeing some patterns here,” Bernie said after a while.

“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

I was totally with the sheriff on that one. Patterns: I’d heard Bernie talking about them before, but what were they? Something you could see? I looked around, saw no patterns that I knew of.

“Here’s one pattern,” Bernie said. “This repetition of unexpected burials.”

“Don’t get you.”

“No? We dig up Suzie’s car and find Adelina. Then where you tell us Suzie’s supposed to be, we find Princess’s tags. There’s a pattern, kind of a sick one, so my guess is we’re looking for someone sick. See what I mean?”

“No.”

“Then maybe you weren’t much of a cop.”

“I am,” the sheriff said, his voice low. “I’m a good cop.”

“You’re not a cop, Earl.”

The sheriff turned to Bernie and his voice rose. “I was, then, you bastard. I was a good cop.”

Did I like hearing people calling Bernie names? No. But I knew this was a kind of interview, and Bernie’s interviews were one of the best things we had going. Also I didn’t have a clear idea of what was bad about bastard.

“I accept that,” Bernie said. “You were a good cop. And then what happened?”

The sheriff didn’t answer. He faced front, eyes on the road, his face—the side of it I could see—green from the dash, with a deep groove in the cheek I hadn’t noticed before.

“Possible answer,” Bernie said. “Your cousin Les happened. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

The sheriff said nothing.

“Les came back from the army, dishonorably discharged and all fucked up,” Bernie said.

“He was already fucked up,” said Earl Ford.

“But you hired him anyway.”

“Military guys make good cops—you know that.”

“Not military guys like him.”

“Hindsight,” the sheriff said.

“Always this easy on yourself ?”

More silence. Soon lights appeared, the moon got dimmer, and we rolled into Nowhereville, the town quiet, no one around.

“You know Cedric Booker?” Bernie said.

“The Valley DA? Talked to him once or twice.”

“That was him on the phone, the call about Les. He’s done some digging—backs up that idea of yours.”

“What idea?”

“About Les being fucked up even before the service. Wouldn’t mind hearing the story in your own words.” The sheriff turned up a side street, a street with a few lamps at first and then none. “Talk,” Bernie said. “Chet and I are in a hurry.”

We were?

The houses got smaller and farther apart and soon we were in open country. The ground rose and the road began to curve, back and forth. Trees appeared. Eucalyptus: I could smell them— almost taste them, in fact, eucalyptus twigs being my favorite.

“I want a deal,” the sheriff said.

“You’re not alone,” said Bernie.

“He’s my cousin. Our mothers were sisters, very close. They died in a wreck.”

“I’m listening.”

Glad someone was; way too complicated for me, all this talk, plus I had no idea where it was headed.

“You could put in a word,” the sheriff said.

“Depending on how it all plays out.”

“Fair enough,” said the sheriff. “The fucked-up part was behind why Les went in the service in the first place.”

“Judge gave him an ultimatum?” Bernie said.

The sheriff shot Bernie a quick glance. “Cedric tell you that?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then how’d you know?”

No answer from Bernie.

“Yeah, that’s what happened. First offense—first real offense— and he was only twenty-three.”

“Not a kid.”

“No.”

“And the offense?”

“Some girl,” the sheriff said. “But he didn’t do anything to her, not really.”

“Oh?” said Bernie. I’d heard that kind of oh from him before, an oh that sounded not very interested, but after all the cases we’d worked I now knew better.

“Didn’t hurt her is what I mean,” said Earl Ford. “Barely touched her.”

“But?”

“A very pretty girl—met her in Vegas, I think it was. Didn’t have any interest in Les, but he thought all she needed was time to get to know him.”

“Is that a euphemism for locking her up in his basement?”

“Wouldn’t call it locking up, but he kept her for a weekend.

Unharmed—hope Cedric mentioned that part.”

“Cedric didn’t have much in the way of details,” Bernie said.

I saw a low light up ahead, twinkling through the trees. “How did you hook up with the count?” Bernie said.

“That was Les, too. He met the trainer—”

“Nance?”

“—yeah, Nance—at the Rio Loco Gun Club. She was the instructor.”

Then came a long silence. I could feel Bernie thinking, a heavy pressure in the air, pushing and pushing. The low light grew brighter, and I made out a house, a garage, and maybe a barn in back.

“Nance killed Adelina?” Bernie said.

The sheriff nodded. “Wasn’t supposed to be that way, not from what she told us. The idea was just to stir up some publicity about the dog show.”

“You believed that?” Bernie said.

No answer.

The sheriff slowed down, turned up a long dirt driveway. “Crazy thing was the dog ended up running away. We looked everywhere. The count was bullshit.”

“Cut the lights,” Bernie said.

The sheriff cut the lights. I looked around, could see just fine with the moonlight: big trees; a tipped-over tractor and some other machinery; a small house with a glow in one window.

“Les has a front-end loader?” Bernie said.

“Had a little construction business at one time.”

“Handy,” Bernie said.

The driveway went over a rise that led to the garage. Bernie pointed. “Pull in.” The sheriff parked on the far side of the garage, away from the house. Bernie took the keys from the ignition, grabbed the flashlight. “You’re staying here,” he said.

“Like I have a choice?” said the sheriff, clanking the handcuffs softly against the wheel.

Bernie and I got out of the SUV. The first thing Bernie did was pop the hood. Uh-ho. Did that ever lead to anything good? Bernie reached in and yanked out a wire. “In case he thinks of honking the horn.” Bernie held the wire up, shone the flash so the sheriff could see. Wow. That was Bernie, smartest guy in the room.

We walked around the garage, stopped at the corner, and gazed across the yard at the house. The glow came from the front. We headed for the back, the moonlight glinting on the .38 Special in Bernie’s belt, and my ears up, high and stiff.

THIRTY-ONE

W
e’d done this kind of thing before, me and Bernie, sneaking up on a perp’s house in the night. Bernie always liked to do a little recon first, so I did, too. That meant crossing this crummy yard, all weeds and stone, getting out of the open real quick, then standing in the shadows at the back of the house, just listening.

Didn’t know what Bernie heard, but I heard TV voices, very faint, coming through the wall. I could even make out a few words, like “red zone blitz,” which meant football. We watched a lot of football at home. Bernie preferred college football to pro football, had once gotten into this big argument about it with a perp we had tied up in the back of a beer truck. Kind of strange, and maybe a story for some other time.

We moved along the back of the house, rounded the corner to the far side. Bernie put his ear to the wall. Did he hear anything? Maybe not. I still heard the TV voices, but fainter now. Bernie took another step or two, peered into a dark window. It was too high up for me, so I peered into another dark window, down on ground level.

At first I saw nothing, just a lot of darkness behind dusty glass. But then I got the feeling—does this ever happen to you?—that someone was watching me. An uncomfortable kind of feeling: I twisted my head to make it go away, but it wouldn’t so I kept staring through the ground-level window and pretty soon the darkness on the other side wasn’t quite as dark. I realized I was gazing down into a basement. Moonlight shone faintly on this and that: the handle of a paint can; the teeth of a rake; and what was this? A pair of eyes? Yes, a pair of eyes, silvery in the moonlight, and round the way human eyes are round. The hair on the back of my neck went up.

“Chet?” Bernie spoke very low, so low I almost couldn’t hear him. He crouched down, looked at me. I have this kind of muffled bark I can do, soft and quick, a sound that doesn’t even leave my throat. I did it now. “Shh,” said Bernie. He aimed the flashlight at the low window, flicked it on and off real quick.

But what I saw in that basement, frozen like a photo in the sudden light and then gone: oh, boy. Suzie. Yes, Suzie, her eyes dark and shiny like the countertops in the kitchen—no one had eyes like Suzie—and maybe blinded now by the sudden light. Suzie, beyond doubt, sitting with her back to a wall. And one other thing: she was chained there, the metal links easy to see. Oh, and one more: she had a strip of duct tape over her mouth.

Bernie made a hissing sound; had I ever heard him do that before? And maybe I made a sound of my own—an angry growl— because Bernie again said, “Shh.”

He got down on his knees, pressed on the window, not hard. Nothing happened. There were all sorts of windows out there; I’d never opened any of them—never even tried. Screens: a different story, although you couldn’t exactly say I’d opened any of the ones I’d gotten through.

Bernie pressed harder on the window, then gave the frame a tap with the palm of his hand. The window remained closed. He took off his shirt, folded it up small, laid it against the glass. Then he raised the flashlight, and swung it like a hammer, butt end first. Behind the shirt, glass shattered, but not loudly, and after a silent pause, tinkled down on the hard floor below. We stayed still, listening. A TV voice said, “Fourth and goal from the Aggie three.” Bernie reached through the hole in the glass—it was mostly hole now, with a few jagged shards still stuck in the frame—fiddled with something out of sight inside, a look of concentration on his face. Then he pushed again on the frame. This time the window swung open.

“No, Chet,” Bernie said, not loud but kind of urgent. And also too late: I’d already jumped through.

Always been a pretty good lander, in case you haven’t guessed. Maybe a bit more light would have helped, but I hit the floor the way I like—front paws first, then bunching up my body real quick before my back paws touched—coming down with hardly any bump at all. And the truth is all that stuff—front paws, back paws—I don’t think about; it just happens.

Behind me I heard Bernie clambering through the hole. I went right to Suzie, nuzzled against her. She made a sound, not crying, kind of complicated and hard to describe, but I knew she knew who I was: Chet! Chet the Jet! And Suzie was alive! Were we expecting that? Didn’t think so, but maybe I’d gotten it wrong.

Bernie’s light flashed on. He hurried over and knelt by Suzie, including her in the circle of light without shining it in her eyes. No bruises, no blood, but she didn’t look good. That was easy to see, and so were those chains, hanging from a ceiling pipe and fastened to clamps on both wrists. Bernie knelt in front of her—actually more to the side since I was in front of her, sort of partly on her lap—and very gently, slowly working his thumb and first finger under one corner—peeled the duct tape off Suzie’s mouth. Their gazes met and even though Bernie wasn’t a crier and I was pretty sure the same went for Suzie, I expected crying to come next.

But it didn’t. Instead Suzie licked her lips—all dry and cracked—and in a rough, scratchy voice said, “What took you so long?”

“I’m an idiot,” Bernie said.

Bernie an idiot? No way. He touched her hair, smoothed it out. Then he glanced around. Not much to see: a mostly empty basement with rough stairs, no railing, leading up to a closed door at the top. Bernie rose and gazed at where the chains were attached to the ceiling pipes. Copper pipes: copper had a special smell I knew from a case we’d worked once in copper-mining country. Bernie raised his hands, got a good grip on a copper pipe, and started to pull. At that moment, a car horn went off outside. Honk honk—honk honk honk— honk honk.

“Christ,” Bernie said. “Did I pull the wrong wire?” The smartest guy in the room, except maybe when it came to what’s under the hood. But no time to think about that, even if I knew where to start, because right away heavy footsteps pounded up above. A door slammed. Honk honk—honk honk honk—honk honk. Bernie tugged at the pipe. It bent but didn’t give. The pounding footsteps returned. Bernie gave the pipe a huge yank, tearing it out of the wall. Water sprayed down. The door at the top of the stairs burst open. Lights flashed on. And there, gazing down, stood the deputy sheriff, Lester Ford, his crooked nose throwing a strange shadow across his face. He had a baseball bat in his hand and a gun on his hip. His eyes got real narrow and he reached for the gun.