The Dog Who Knew Too Much

by Spencer Quinn

  I rose. Nighttime security was part of my job. Grabbing perps by the pant leg is another. That’s how we know the case is closed here at the Little Detective Agency, but this case didn’t feel closed. Was it even a case? I didn’t know. A case meant someone was paying. Anya was paying Bernie to be her friend. Now her kid was missing. I couldn’t take it past that, so I started sniffing around. When it comes to nighttime security, you can’t go wrong by sniffing around.

  Nothing new to pick up, the scents of the boys still all over the place—although growing fainter—plus Bernie’s scent, Turk’s, and my own, the most familiar smell in the world: old leather, salt and pepper, mink coats, and just a soupçon of tomato; and to be honest, a healthy dash of something male and funky. My smell: yes, sir. Chet the Jet was in the vicinity, wherever that was, exactly.

  Bernie: safe in the tent. Me: on the job, checking things out. That left no one to check out except Turk. I moved toward the fire pit, picked up a faint smell of mold coming from Turk’s sleeping bag. That happened with sleeping bags, nothing unusual. The only unusual thing was the way Turk’s bag seemed kind of flat.

  I went closer, didn’t see Turk’s head sticking through the opening at the top. I pawed at the sleeping bag, felt the ground underneath. Turk wasn’t inside.

  I looked around, saw a few dark forms around the campsite that had vaguely human shapes, and examined every one, finding only rocks and bushes. Lots of Turk’s scent around, some of it old, some fresh. I followed a few scent trails, all of them leading round and round in circles. Whenever that happens I start getting frustrated, just can’t help it. I went over to the tent and barked this soft muffled bark meant not to attract attention from anyone except Bernie.

  “Chet?” he said, his voice soft, just like mine. Bernie’s a deep sleeper, but when it’s important he’s wide awake right away. You could always rely on Bernie.

  He crawled out of the tent with the headlamp in his hand, switched it on, and followed me over to Turk’s sleeping bag. The beam moved back and forth over the empty bag, then swept around the campsite.

  “I screwed up the whole goddamn case, big guy,” he said.

  So it was a case, after all. As for Bernie screwing it up: impossible.

  NINE

  Bernie strapped on the headlamp. I growled at him and felt bad right away, but I couldn’t help it: that headlamp on his forehead makes him look like some kind of machine, and there’s more than enough machine in humans to begin with, no offense.

  “For God’s sake, Chet—you do that every time.”

  I do? News to me. But I got most of my news from Bernie, so no problem.

  We took a recon or recoy or whatever it was of the whole campsite, ended back at the fire pit. Bernie sniffed the air. That caught my attention: Bernie has a nice big nose for a human, but what’s that saying? Not much.

  “Smell anything, big guy?” he said.

  Did I smell anything? Was that the question? Where was I supposed to begin?

  “I do,” he said, “and it stinks.”

  Wow. That Bernie! I smelled so many things at the moment— the boys, Turk, Bernie, me, a female coyote, some squirrels, different flowers, tree sap, another mushroom like the one Bernie had pulled out of the ground, name gone from my mind, the dirty locker-room-hamper thing, and lots more if I took the time to sort them all out—but nothing that qualified as actual stinking. I waited to hear.

  “For example,” said Bernie, “his backpack’s gone but not the sleeping bag.”

  The sleeping bag? Was Bernie saying it stank? I went over and gave it a sniff or two. It smelled strongly of Turk, no surprise, but did it stink? Not to my way of thinking.

  Bernie started taking down the tent. I helped by pawing at it a bit. Soon we had it all folded up and stuck inside the pack. Bernie hoisted it on his back.

  “Okay, Chet, where did he go?”

  That was the problem. There was so much of Turk’s scent around, old and new, that I started going in circles again, frustration building inside me. Had to produce in this business, Bernie said so.

  “Take your time,” Bernie said. “No rush.”

  Bernie had the nicest voice, if I haven’t made that clear by now. I felt calmer right away, and just then picked up a new trail, a little fresher than any of the others. It led over a mossy patch, so soft under my paws, and down to the stream, where it kind of petered out. I crossed over, sniffed around on the other side, came up with zip.

  “He walked in the stream,” Bernie said.

  I knew that one. A perp name of Flyhead Malone had tried to lose me once by doing the same thing; he was now wearing an orange jumpsuit up at Northern State. The warden, a pal of ours, invited us to the inmate rodeo a while back. What a day! It ended a bit early, but if we’re ever invited again I’ll handle the excitement much better. Those bulls, snorting and pawing! What got into me? But perhaps a story for another day.

  Bernie gazed at the flowing water, mostly black but a little silvery here and there. I glanced at the sky, and over in one direction it was turning milky. Bernie switched off the headlamp and put it away. Way better.

  “The question is,” he said, “upstream or down?”

  Bernie thought. Upstream or down, a tough one: I could tell by the look on his face. I sat beside him. We did our best thinking that way. When Bernie’s brain is really working, you can feel it, like breezes springing up in the air, dying down, springing up again—not a bad feeling at all. The milky part of the sky turned red and then orange, and day spread around us.

  “Upstream’s the contrarian answer,” Bernie said. “But that’s the way I’m feeling right now.” He gave me a pat. “How about you?”

  Me? I felt tip-top.

  We walked beside Stiller’s Creek. Sometimes there was a path, sometimes not, and once or twice we had to make inland detours when the going by the stream got too rocky. Too rocky for Bernie is what I meant: too rocky for me is hard to find. As for whether this was the right direction, I was picking up just faint scents of the kids—although never Devin—but there were stronger whiffs of Turk, plus the odd weak one, too. So, were we right or wrong? I didn’t know. Did I worry about that? Not a bit.

  I hadn’t spent much time around creeks—we have them, too, in the Valley, and even rivers, but they all run dry, although back in Indian times, Bernie says, things were different. Donny O’Donnell, an Indian pal of ours who heads up security at the Little Bighorn Casino, always tells Bernie his tribe is hiding all the water until the palefaces go back where they came from, and Bernie gets a big kick out of it every time, but who the palefaces are and what Donny’s talking about is anybody’s guess. And it doesn’t even matter—what matters was how much fun creeks with water in them turned out to be. I even saw a fish that jumped right into the air! I was after him in a flash, of course, almost got a paw on the little bugger, but he dove back in and sped away with a flick of his tail.

  “For God’s sake,” Bernie said from the side of the creek, his clothes kind of wet for some reason, “you don’t even like fish.”

  True, but only on account of this bad incident with a fish bone—that’s what they’re called despite not looking at all like bones. I climbed onto the bank, gave myself a good shake— “Chet!”—and headed up-country, focused, alert, professional.

  The creek grew twistier and narrower and flowed faster; at the same time our path steepened. I came so close to making—what would you call it? a connection?—yes, a connection, between all those things. Was I cooking or what?

  We passed through some woods—mostly more of those Christmas trees—and came to a small clearing, Bernie huffing and puffing a bit. He sat on a log. I sat beside him. The white-streaked mountain peak rose in the distance, maybe closer now. In between stood a series of ridges, growing bluish the farther away they got.

  “Did he really bring the kids all this way?” Bernie said. “And we haven’t even reached the mine yet.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first fing
er. I never liked seeing that, not sure why. “But it’s always possible that …” His voice trailed away, so I didn’t find out what was possible. Fine with me: one thing I’ve learned in this business is that lots and lots of things are possible. “Either that,” Bernie said, “or we’re on a wild goose chase.”

  Whoa right there. Did Bernie just say we were on a wild goose chase? I’d waited so long for this moment, wanted to go on a wild goose chase more than anything.

  “Chet! Knock it off!”

  Oops. Was that me standing up, my front paws on Bernie’s shoulders, almost pushing him off the log? Yes, my paws for sure, nice and big, one mostly black, one mostly white. A mistake, and I corrected it immediately.

  “What’s with you?” he said, tossing away a button that had somehow come loose from his shirt. “Did you hear something?”

  As a matter of fact, I did hear something at that moment, the unmistakable whap-whap-whap of chopper blades. I’d even been up in a chopper once, so I knew the sound from the inside out. Hey! Does that make any sense? Probably not.

  “You do hear something, don’t you?” Bernie said. He cocked his head, ear to the sky. I love when he does that. Bernie has very nicely shaped ears, not that small, so even if they can’t do much, they’re still nice to look at. “Don’t hear a thing, myself. There’s the creek of course, and maybe a bird was singing a minute ago, but—”

  WHAP-WHAP-WHAP. A chopper roared in at treetop level, zoomed over us, tilted a bit, and circled. WHAP-WHAP-WHAP. Bernie heard it now, no doubt about that. The human face does a sort of cringing thing when real loud noises start up, like someone’s going to hit them. Not that Bernie would ever cringe—and anyone who ever did hit him, and we’ve had a few who tried, got paid back good—but I could tell. He waved at the chopper. It tilted the other way and flew off.

  “Rescue,” Bernie said, “probably dropping a team at the campsite.” He checked his watch. “Should be more coming on foot, all experienced people. Plus other positives, like clear weather and plenty of drinking water. So why don’t I feel good about this?”

  Bernie didn’t feel good? That was a surprise. I gave him a little bump. We moved on.

  The sun was high overhead when we reached a slope where there were no more trees. The footing was all broken-up flat rocks, kind of tricky for Bernie. Also that strangeness about the air, like I couldn’t fill up even with my deepest breath, was getting stronger. What else? The creek had thinned out to a trickle. We followed it to the base of a cliff where it disappeared, or maybe not completely, since it seemed to be bubbling right out of a hole in the rock.

  “Pure spring water,” Bernie said, in between huffs and puffs. He gathered a double-handful and splashed his face. “Ah.” He looked around. “Imagine what life was like back then.”

  I didn’t quite get that. What about right now? Life was pretty good, no? But Bernie had reasons for everything, so I tried to imagine some other life. No other life came to mind. Bernie made a little shrugging motion, adjusting the pack. We started working our way along the base of the cliff, and soon, in a shadowy spot under an overhang, spotted some white stuff, white stuff that reminded me of the white streaks on the mountain.

  “Snow, big guy.”

  Snow? I’d heard of it, of course, seen it lots of times on TV during the divorce, when for some reason Bernie had really gotten into skiing videos. The snow sent coldness up into the air. I sniffed at it. Snow went right up my nose! I sneezed. Bernie laughed. I licked at the snow. It turned into water on my tongue, although not much water. Bernie picked some up and patted it—hey!— patted it into the shape of a ball. Yes! One thing about Bernie: just when you think he’s done with amazing you, he amazes you again. Now, after all this time, I was just finding out he could turn snow into a ball. I knew what was coming next, one of my favorite feelings.

  Bernie reared back to throw. He has a great arm—pitched for Army, in case that hasn’t come up yet—and can fling a ball a long, long way. Whoosh. The snowball rose high in the sky. I took off after it, this bounding run I have when quick starts are needed. The snowball, sparkling against the blue sky, came arcing down. I caught up to it at the last instant and snatched it out of the air. But what was this? It broke apart and kind of vanished, leaving me with a cold nose; very different from any other ball I’d fetched.

  I turned back toward Bernie, and as I did noticed a big dark hole in the face of the cliff. I could see some thick wooden beams inside, and beyond them just shadows and darkness. This was an old mine. We’d been in lots, me and Bernie. It was one of our hobbies, if hobbies meant things we did that made no money and annoyed Leda.

  Bernie came up, gazed at the mine. “No way Turk took them inside, is there?”

  Not sure where Bernie was coming from on that one, although I remembered Turk very well. In fact, his scent was strong at the moment; the scents of the kids were pretty much gone.

  Bernie went to the mouth of the mine. “Devin,” he shouted. “Devin.”

  No reply. I sniffed the air, smelled nothing of Devin at all. Bernie unslung the backpack and was taking out the headlamp when he spied something on the ground, maybe a tiny scrap of cloth. He picked it up. Yes, a tiny scrap of cloth. I’d seen something like it, and not long ago. It came to me: the name tag on Devin’s sock.

  I could see writing on this one, too. Bernie read it aloud. “Devin Vereen,” he said. “Oh, Christ.” He put on the headlamp. We entered the mine.

  TEN

  Careful, big guy,” Bernie said.

  That was rule one when it came to exploring old mines. There were other rules, too, but they didn’t come to mind at the moment.

  Bernie approached one of the support beams. “You just never know about these places.” He gave the beam a little shake. “Seems solid enough.” From somewhere up ahead came a thump, muffled but heavy, like part of the ceiling had collapsed. “Hmmm,” said Bernie. Hmmm was always a sign of Bernie doing some serious thinking. He gave the beam another shake. No surprise there: Bernie was a great thinker, always came up with the exact right idea. We listened, heard nothing this time, and kept going. That’s what being on the job’s all about.

  Some mines we’d explored were almost roomy, with rusted-out railroad tracks and lots of old equipment lying around. Others were so small we could barely squeeze through. This one was in between. We walked side by side, following the spreading light cone from Bernie’s headlamp. Dust came swirling by, almost like it was flowing out of the mine, and turned golden in the light, a beautiful thing to see.

  The floor, ceiling, and walls were solid rock, the surface rough, hacked-at, and reddish. I smelled copper, often the case in old mines, and some human scents, too, but faint and confused. Copper always made things difficult, one of the things you learn in this business. We passed the last support beam—Bernie stopped to read aloud something carved in wood: “Bonanza Bill, June seven, 1876, keep the hell out”—and right after that things began narrowing in around us. Bernie had to stoop a little, but not me, meaning I could go faster, which I did—always best to be in front, of course—and—

  “Hey, Chet—where are you?”

  Whoa. Had I gotten a little too far ahead of Bernie? I seemed to be beyond the cone of light. I waited. Beyond the cone of light, yes, but that didn’t mean I’d stopped seeing. A little way up the line, for example, the tunnel split in two, one of the openings looking real small.

  Light came wobbling up and found me. Bernie, stooping more on account of the ceiling getting lower, rested a hand on my back and peered ahead. “Left or right, big guy?”

  Left or right: not the first time I’d heard that question, but I hadn’t made much progress in figuring out the meaning. So, probably not important, our success rate being what it was at the Little Detective Agency. The cases we’d cleared! I could think of two without even trying.

  We moved forward, reached the split. Bernie aimed the beam at both openings, and we looked down two tunnels, one big, one small. Bernie reached i
nto his pocket, took out the baggie that contained Devin’s sock and held it open for me. Like I needed reminding! But I took a sniff or two: I’d never want to hurt Bernie’s feelings.

  “Chet?” he said.

  Sometimes I waited to see what Bernie would do. Sometimes he waited to see what I would do. This was one of those. The problem was the absence of Devin’s scent in either direction. If Bernie thought Devin was in here, then he was, but I couldn’t catch the slightest whiff. Coppery smells were stronger, confusing me more, plus there was now some watery smell, and on top of that, the way scents sometimes stacked up on one another, a real strange smell, kind of like the burned air thing you get after lightning strikes. All of a sudden my mind made itself up, just like that, and I ducked into the small tunnel.

  “Chet? Wait—there’s no way I can foll—”

  I moved on. That was my job. Bernie shone the light behind me. I followed my shadow. It stretched out, getting longer and bigger. I was huge! Then it disappeared. Why? I glanced back—I can twist my head far around if I have to, a real advantage in a place like this tunnel, with no room to turn my whole body— and saw the light, now shining on a side wall. I’d gone around a kind of bend, and was now in darkness again. The lightning-strike smell got stronger. I slowed down, not liking that smell one bit, even thinking about curling up in a ball. Not that I was afraid or anything like that, but I knew something was about to happen.

  And when it did, just a moment or two later, it turned out to be hardly anything at all. Just … what? A very tiny trembling of the ground under my feet? Something like that, here and gone in no time. Then, from not too far away, came a thud that reminded me of the time Bernie was building the patio out back and dropped one of the flagstones. He’d pulled his foot back in the nick of time—that expression comes from this real fleet-footed perp named Nick Beezer, but I really can’t go into that now, except to point out he was fleet-footed for a human, not the same thing as being fleet-footed period, no offense—and the flagstone had broken and the pieces had bounced around. I heard some of those rocky, bouncing-around sounds here in the small tunnel. And then, farther along, a shaft of light appeared, very much like what you see when you’re casing a house at night and some perp inside opens the door. Dust was boiling in that shaft of light. I closed in for a better look.