And now, with no warning, came the tears. Lotty sobbed and shook. She covered her face with her hands but tears and even some snot leaked out between her fingers. The sound, the sight, the smells: all terrible.
“I killed him, too,” she cried. “I kill what I love. I’m a monster.”
I knew monsters from movies that Bernie and I were too scared to watch. Lotty didn’t look or sound like any of those monsters. I changed positions and pressed against her leg, not hard, just barely touching. The shaking in her leg—in her whole body, in fact, ramped down a bit.
“What knife did you use on Hector?” Bernie said, his voice calm, like we were discussing something interesting but not particularly important.
Lotty ran her hands slowly down her face, somehow changing it into a simple face, like a kid’s. It didn’t get any younger, just simpler—and kind of beautiful. “Hector’s own knife. He always carried a knife.”
Bernie nodded, a nod that said, Got it. “And that just leaves the question of why you did it, and then we’re about done.”
“I already told you,” said Lotty. “I’m a monster.”
“That doesn’t answer the question of why Hector specifically. Did he hurt you? Threaten you? Was there an argument about the writing credit for ‘How You Hung the Moon’?”
“None of those things,” Lotty said. “Hector loved me. He built me up. He showed me what I had inside.”
“Did he think a monster was there?”
Lotty’s eyes shifted. She thought for what seemed like a long time. “No,” she said.
“Maybe he was right.”
“Obviously not,” Lotty said.
“What about the song credit? Why is it in your name only?”
“That … that was just how it played out.”
“But the publishing rights are owned by QB Inc. Is that you?”
Lotty shook her head.
“Who is it?”
“These things get bought and sold. Michael Jackson bought the Beatles catalog.”
“Should I be looking into Michael Jackson?”
Then came a surprise. Lotty laughed, just a short laugh, a sort of bark. The combination of that bark and her teary face made me press a little harder on her leg. Some humans are capable of a convincing sort of bark and Lotty was clearly one of them. As for Michael Jackson—a new one on me. A perp, perhaps? If so I hoped he looked good in orange. Most humans didn’t, but maybe he was one of the lucky ones that way.
After the barking episode, things got quiet in this unpleasant room. Their eyes met. Bernie’s still had that detached expression. Lotty looked like she was steeling herself for one more round.
“What led up to Hector’s death?” Bernie said.
“I stabbed him. Isn’t that enough?”
“When did you stab him?”
“Sometime in the night. When I woke up in the morning he was dead beside me.”
“Just like Clint.”
“I haven’t missed that point,” Lotty said.
“And just like with Clint, you have no memory of the actual stabbing?” Bernie said. “Were you drunk that night, too?”
Lotty shook her head. “Hector loathed alcohol. Much too crude for what he had in mind.”
“Which was?”
“Luring out the inner song—that’s how he put it. Peyote was one of the tools, and toward the end mixed with some of Wellington’s drugs as well.” I felt her body sag. “What got lured out of me should have stayed inside.”
“I’m not convinced,” Bernie said. “How did you get Wellington to falsify the death certificate?”
“Who cares now?” Lotty said. “Are you going to tell the DA about Hector or should I?”
“Neither of us,” Bernie said. “It would be bearing false witness. Also don’t plead guilty tomorrow, no matter what.”
Lotty shook her head. “I want my punishment.”
“Your punishment, no problem,” Bernie said. “But not the punishment due to others.”
Lotty blinked. “Others like who?”
“I can’t answer that,” Bernie said. “That’s why I need time. And your help.”
“Help with what?”
“Facts.” Bernie leaned forward, all that detachment popping away like a bubble. “Who was Leticia’s father?”
I felt Lotty’s hand in the fur of my neck, gripping it hard. That was fine with me, didn’t hurt at all.
“How can that possibly matter?”
“I’m sure it matters to Leticia,” Bernie said.
Lotty started crying again, but soundlessly this time, tears wetting her face.
“Was it Hector?” Bernie said.
“That would have been nice,” Lotty said quietly, almost like she’d fallen into a quick dream.
“Was it Boomer Riggs?”
Lotty didn’t answer. She lowered her head. A tear or two fell on my muzzle. I raised my own head and licked the rest of her tears off Lotty’s face.
A guard opened the far door. “Time,” she said.
* * *
We were barely back in the car before Nixon called.
“Did you check the left rear wheel well?” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Bernie—you’re supposed to be sharp. You told me there was no VIN on that jeep. Did you check the left rear wheel well? The days of VINs only on engine blocks and dashes are over. They hide them all over the place these days.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Luckily you got me in your corner. And I sure hope it’s … what’s the word?”
“Reciprocal.”
“Bingo,” Nixon said. “The jeep’s registered to some outfit called Western Solutions. I’m guessing you still want me to keep it under wraps? Literally and … what’s the other one?”
“Figuratively,” Bernie said.
“You’re a smart guy, Bernie.” Nixon laughed and hung up. Bernie was a smart guy, of course, so no surprise Nixon knew that. But his laugh sounded a bit like the mocking kind. Maybe he had some perpiness left inside. That was as far as I could take it on my own.
Thirty-one
Nighttime. A moon, but smaller than the night before. What was with the moon? Bernie knew. There he was, walking the Hanging Moon trail beside me. Maybe he’d turn and explain about the moon, maybe not. It didn’t matter. I could feel him, full of life, strong—and dangerous, if he needed to be. He was all the way back to being the real Bernie. Or even more so! More Bernie than ever—can you imagine? This was living.
And when you’re really living you don’t ask a lot of questions. Like, what were we actually doing out here? How come we’d left the Porsche parked behind some bushes just outside the gate to Rancho de la Luna? Was this work or play, either one fine by me? Although play paid nothing, and our finances were a bit of a mess, so maybe work would be the best choice. What was a third mortgage? I remembered a hard-to-follow discussion about that while Bernie was still in the hospital, Suzie saying, “When should we tell him?” and Ms. Pernick, our accountant, saying, “There’s no good time.”
The one-armed saguaro rose up ahead of us. Even though I can see much better in the darkness than you, no offense, the night can do strange things. In the daytime, this would have been just one more saguaro—all of them oddballs if you look closely—but at night it was something else: a cop with his hand raised in the stop sign, for example.
Bernie glanced at it. “Only the moon hanging in the sky, or a nice moon for a hanging?” he said.
We kept going. I got the feeling that we were on the same page, as humans often say. As for hanging, I hoped nothing like that was in the cards. It reminded me of the broom closet case, how we’d gotten there too late, and what had happened after that. We’ve solved every missing kid case we ever took, except that one. The little girl’s name was Gail. Later that night, we’d been the law, me and Bernie. “Lock it in a deep dark place, throw away the key, and never think about it again,” he’d told me. I’d had
some success with that, but why was it cropping up now?
Not long past the one-armed saguaro, Flaco’s casita appeared at the top of a slope, no lights showing but separating itself from the night by being squarish. Bernie gave me the quiet sign, finger crosswise over his lips, but of course I was already quiet, certainly more quiet than him. Did he think I was about to let loose with a round of barking or something crazy like that? A round of barking at a time like this would never have occurred to me … but now that it actually sort of had occurred to me, was there any reason why a bark or two wouldn’t—
Bernie laid his hand on my neck, just the gentlest touch. We moved soundlessly on, across a pebbly wash and slanting up a ridge. When I looked back, there was nothing squarish to see.
Some time later—it felt longish but maybe not—I smelled the kind of tea Bernie’s mom likes to pour her bourbon into. I’m no expert on time, bringing other things to the table, but on a night like this, just me and Bernie on the move—and the .38 Special, better get that in here while I have the chance—I become even more of a non-expert on time. What if the whole world was only this—me, Bernie, .38 Special? Ah.
But back to that tea smell. With it came something lemony and woody. We headed down a gentle slope and into the eucalyptus grove. A peaceful spot, especially since we had it to ourselves, no other beings around, especially not Mingo. The gravestone stood nice and straight, just the way we’d left it. Who was buried under it at the moment? Almost right away, I remembered. Was I on top of this case or what?
Bernie gazed across the clearing, over at the eucalyptus trees on the other side. Somewhere beyond them ran the dirt track that led to two-lane blacktop and another sort of world. Nothing moved out there, and the only sound was Bernie’s breathing, slow and even. We made our way between two trees and up a short rise. A fat barrel cactus grew at the top.
“Let’s look like cactuses,” Bernie said, very softly.
Wow! That was a first. I had no idea where to even start.
“Sit,” Bernie said.
I sat beside the barrel cactus, close but not too close—I’d had an experience with a barrel cactus, and later with an even nastier one. Bernie sat beside me.
He smiled, his teeth the color of the moon. “Now we hunt,” he said.
Now? Just when we’d taken a seat? I got ready for Bernie to rise, but he did not. We stayed where we were. Would whatever we were hunting come to us? That had to be it. Just when you think Bernie’s done amazing you, he amazes you again.
The moon drifted across the sky. The stars, too, were on the move. Other than that, the night was still, except once when Bernie’s head lowered itself to his chest. His sleep breathing rhythm started up, like music to me. We’d done this kind of thing before. It’s called keeping watch, and never gets old.
* * *
Have you noticed how the mind can wander while the body stays still? That was happening to me while I kept watch by the barrel cactus overlooking the eucalyptus grove. When my mind wanders, it often tends to revisit a certain night down Mexico way, featuring some interesting she-barking behind a little cantina, and the events that followed. The mind part of me was kind of lost in all that when from somewhere above I heard HOO HOO. Not somewhere above in Mexico, but somewhere above right here, near the gravestone. I knew that HOO HOO, of course—the call of an owl. Once on a night not too different from this one, I’d seen an owl glide down, snare a snake in its talons, and fly off into the night. Not a big snake, but still. Since that night, although I’m no fan of birds in general, I’ve made an exception for owls.
And there was this particular owl, not swooping down, but soaring high above, silvery in the moonlight and then suddenly turning black as it crossed the face of the actual moon. No snakes around tonight, my owly friend? I was sniffing the air—and picking up a slight snaky aroma, not recent—when a faint sound reached my ears, a human sound, specifically the thrum thrum of a car on the move. The thrum thrum grew louder, and not long after that, headlights shone behind the trees on the far side of the grove, over where the hair-gel dude had parked his jeep. I glanced at Bernie, deep in dreamland, and barked my low rumbly bark, a bark so quiet you have to be almost next to me to hear it.
Bernie’s eyes opened. His head jerked up, and fast. Bernie can change from sleep to full go in no time flat. He saw what there was to see and drew the .38 Special from his pocket. Moonlight gleamed on the barrel, a lovely sight. Were we going to shoot somebody? I wondered who.
The headlight glow came closer and closer, quickly getting through what I remembered as being rough ground, and entering the grove itself: not a car, but a very big ATV. We’re not fans of ATVs in the desert, me and Bernie, although we’d never shot any of the drivers.
The big ATV stopped at the inner edge of the trees. The engine kept running and the headlights stayed on. A door opened and thumped closed. The glare of the headlights blocked my view of what was going on, but I heard the crunch crunch of hard shoes on the desert floor. Then the silhouette of a man appeared in the beams, a man entering the clearing. He changed direction slightly and I saw he was carrying a spade and a shovel over his shoulder. Hey! Just like us. In fact, he appeared to resemble Bernie, just as tall and broad-shouldered, and also somewhat wider—not the soft kind of wider you see on a lot of dudes, but the hard type that means strength. His head suddenly turned in our direction. We weren’t in the headlights—which I was pretty sure meant he couldn’t see us—but I got a real good look at him. He had a full head of white hair and a deeply tanned face, a face of the powerful type, and not kindly. It was Boomer Riggs.
Boomer Riggs crossed the clearing and approached the gravestone. He walked slowly around it, toeing at the ground here and there. Then he came closer, reached out and tapped the gravestone with his hand … the way a human checks to see if something is real. That was strange, but there was no time to get to the bottom of it, especially since I had the feeling it would remain bottomless to me no matter what.
Boomer laid down the spade and shovel and just as Bernie had done, put his shoulder to the stone and toppled it over. He had to be much older than Bernie, but toppling the stone had been no harder for him. Boomer dusted off his hands, picked up the spade and started digging. Dust and dirt swirled in the headlight beams. It got sort of intense in the eucalyptus grove, partly from the way Boomer worked, and partly from the way we watched him.
After not very long, Boomer switched to the shovel. He seemed to be working quickly now, down to knee-level in the hole. Holes are easier to dig if they’ve been dug before—as I knew very well—and Bernie had already dug this one. And had someone else also dug it, before Bernie? I had a feeling the answer was yes. This was an unusual hole.
Boomer dug, down and down. He grunted from time to time and huffed and puffed a bit. Sweat gleamed on his face. Flying dirt caught in that full head of snowy hair. Earth piled up around the hole. The moon still hung high above, but it seemed to have lost its brightness. That made me uneasy.
Now Boomer was almost down to shoulder level, where Bernie had found the scraps of wood. Were the scraps of wood still there? I thought so, but now they had something else down there with them. Boomer tossed out a shovelful of earth, and another, and then stopped all at once and peered down. He took a flashlight from his pocket, switched it on, peered again, and then cried out, a harsh and terrible cry that filled the night. Boomer dropped the shovel, scrambled out of the hole, looked around wildly, a big, frightened, dirty creature.
Bernie rose, and so did I. “Freeze,” he said, not loudly. “You move, you die.”
Boomer whipped around in our direction, but after that he froze as ordered. Good enough? Or was Bernie going to pull the trigger? He held the .38 Special, but pointed at the ground, so we were letting Boomer get away with one. Bernie’s perfect, as you must know by now, but sometimes he’s a little too nice.
We walked down from our spot by the barrel cactus and entered the clearing. Their eyes met, Bernie’s and Bo
omer’s. Boomer’s were full of hate. Bernie’s had that detached look we’d been seeing recently. It was growing on me, but I’d never want it aimed my way.
“You murdering bastard,” Boomer said. “You killed Ronny.”
“I never got his name,” said Bernie. “Hands up.”
Boomer raised his hands. Bernie had the gun pointed at him now. He stepped forward and patted Boomer down. I moved around Boomer and stood right behind him, which is how we handle this situation.
“What’s in that pocket?” Bernie said.
“Just my wallet and keys.”
“Turn it out.”
Boomer turned out one of his front pockets. A wallet and a keychain fell out, a keychain with a few keys and one of those fobby things on it.
“Start with Tesabe,” Bernie said.
“What about it?”
“The part where you stabbed Hector de Vargas in the head,” said Bernie.
Boomer gave Bernie an ugly sort of smile, possibly called a sneer. “You’re way off base,” he said.
Bernie shook his head. “Hector was a much better lover than you, at least in Lotty’s eyes. He took her places that Mr. High School Quarterback couldn’t go. You couldn’t stand that.”
Then came something amazing. Even with a .38 Special aimed right at him, Boomer took a huge swing at Bernie. Maybe a bit on the slow side. Bernie just tilted his head a bit and Boomer’s fist whizzed on by. This was a good moment for pulling the trigger, but instead Bernie punched Boomer in the gut with his free hand. Just one punch, and not Bernie’s hardest, although hard enough to bring some pleasure to Bernie’s eyes. Boomer fell, so fast his calf twisted clear out from between my teeth, even though they seemed to have gone ahead and locked that calf in a strongish and somewhat bloody grip. I shouldn’t leave out the sounds Boomer made, an “Oof,” an “Aiiee,” and another “Oof.”
“Sit up,” Bernie said.
Boomer groaned once or twice, but got himself in sitting position.
“Look at me,” Bernie said.
Heart of Barkness Page 26