Bernie gave her an annoyed look. There was annoyance in his voice, too. “Nothing to do with the case,” he said. Was he annoyed with Anya? I couldn’t think why.
“Sorry,” Anya said. “I’m just so … I’m going crazy. My whole life is—” Her voice broke. She started crying again and turned away.
Bernie gazed at her shaking back. “It’s all right. You didn’t do …”
We all just stood there. The sun dropped behind the mountaintop and the air cooled down right away. Anya turned to us, tear tracks on her face but no longer crying. “What am I going to do?” she said.
“What we’re going to do,” Bernie said, “is start approaching things from a different angle.”
“What do you mean?” Anya said, and I was with her on that.
Bernie glanced at the mountain. We’d been up there, but none of what we’d seen, like the mine or the place where the kids had camped, was visible from here. “The story won’t hold up,” he said.
“What story?” said Anya.
“Devin wandering off in the night and getting lost,” Bernie said. “The facts we’ve been developing just don’t support it.”
Anya rubbed the side of her head. “What facts? I don’t understand anything you’re saying.”
“Do you know Turk Rendell in any other context?”
“Who’s he?”
Bernie’s voice, which had been getting a bit impatient, at least for him, meaning still pretty nice, softened. “The guide.”
“Oh, God, of course,” Anya said. “I can’t think straight. But no, he was a complete stranger.”
“What about your ex-husband? Any relationship with Turk?”
“Guy never mentioned him, not that I heard.”
“You said this camp was Guy’s idea,” Bernie said. “How did he know about it?”
“He’s from up this way originally,” Anya said.
“Yeah?” said Bernie. He ran his gaze over the cars in the parking lot. “I’d like to talk to him.”
Anya bit her lip, almost chewing on it. That’s something I can’t take my eyes off. “He’s not here yet.”
“How come?” Bernie said. “Haven’t you told him what’s going on?”
Anya shook her head. “I haven’t been able to reach him. I drove down to where the service is better and left messages at all his numbers, but he hasn’t called back.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be here Saturday morning?” Bernie said.
Anya nodded, bit her lip again.
“Anya?” Bernie said. “What’s the story?”
“Story?” she said.
“With Guy,” said Bernie. “Why isn’t he here?”
“I have no idea. Even when we were married, I didn’t get much information about his comings and goings.”
“You told us he runs an investment firm,” Bernie said.
“That’s right.”
“You also said some of his associates aren’t the kind of people you want around Devin—I believe those were your exact words.”
I loved when Bernie did the exact words thing, hadn’t heard it in way too long. Had we ever blown a case when the exact words thing happened? Not that I remembered.
“… but I also said I didn’t really know them,” Anya was saying, “so it wasn’t really fair.”
“What are the names of these investors?” Bernie said.
“I don’t know any names,” Anya said.
“What’s the company called?”
I knew from the looks on their faces that this was an important conversation, but that was it as far as I was concerned.
“Wenders Associates, but you’re way off base,” Anya was saying. I knew that one, of course: it meant you were about to get picked off. “None of them could ever be involved in hurting Devin in any way. Guy would kill them, for one thing.”
“How much killing has he done?”
“I didn’t mean literally.”
“Think carefully about that,” Bernie said. “Because real killing is happening.”
“What are you talking about? Is Devin—” Anya covered her mouth. Women sometimes did that, men never, just one of the differences between them. There were lots, something we can get into maybe later.
“I told you there’s still hope for Devin,” Bernie said. “Not so for Turk—someone put a bullet in his head.”
Anya, mouth still covered, shook her head from side to side, kind of wildly. I saw fear in her eyes, smelled it, of course, and even thought I heard her heart pounding, but that last part might have been my imagination. Bernie says the imagination can play tricks on you. Leave it to Bernie to figure out something as big as that.
“Any idea who might have done that?” Bernie said.
Anya kept shaking her head. Bernie surprised me a bit just then: he took her chin in his hand—not rough, but not namby-pamby either—and held her face still. I went still myself.
“Got to step up now, Anya,” Bernie said. “Ever comes a time you have to look back at this, you’ll want to know you did your best.”
Tears welled up in her eyes but didn’t overflow. She uncovered her mouth. “Tell me what to do,” she said.
“Point us in the right direction.”
Whoa. Pointing was my job. I was sitting at the moment, and I stayed sitting, but I moved kind of between them the littlest bit, dragging my butt along the ground.
“I have no idea what that is,” Anya said. “I dropped Devin off in this godforsaken place and now he’s gone. That’s all I know.”
Bernie stared at her. There was something in his eyes that I’d never want aimed at me, and of course it never would be.
“You don’t believe me,” Anya said.
Bernie was silent.
“You think Guy not being here has something to do with this?” Anya said.
“You said you had custody?”
“Guy didn’t even contest it—whatever else he may be, he’s a good father and knows what’s best for Devin, meaning living in my house.”
“But you said he wanted to rekindle things with you,” Bernie said. “The ostensible reason for my being here in the first place.”
“Ostensible?” Anya said.
I was right with her on that one, too. Anya and I were turning out to think along the same lines. A good sign? I had no idea.
“It didn’t sound kosher from the get-go,” Bernie said, and then he added something I missed, on account of: kosher! That took me back in a flash to the Teitelbaum divorce and the chicken at the celebration dinner, best I’ve ever tasted, although the celebration might have been a little premature, coming just before Mrs. Teitelbaum drove the earthmover into the garage where Mr. Teitelbaum kept his antique car collection. He had a bunch of Porsches, all of them way nicer than ours, and then not.
“… ulterior motive,” Anya was saying, “none whatsoever. I told you the truth.”
“Some of it, maybe,” Bernie said. “What was Guy’s motive for wanting to get back with you?”
“Is it so hard to imagine he might still be interested?” Anya said.
Bernie got this expression I hadn’t seen on his face since the Leda days. “Don’t know him, so I can’t answer that,” Bernie said. “What I’m searching for is something that will lead us to Devin. Maybe Guy decided he wasn’t happy with the custody arrangement, for example.”
“He never said a word about it, and he’s not the kind to stew in silence.”
A distant look appeared in Bernie’s eyes. I felt his thoughts, zooming back and forth at amazing speed.
“Oh, no,” Anya said. “You’re going to drop the case, aren’t you? I can feel it. Please don’t. Please. I’ll pay anything.”
“We’re not dropping the case,” Bernie said. “And we can worry about the fee later.”
Bernie: lock it in now!
But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Has Devin had much trouble from bullies?”
“Some little monster at school teased him for a while about being—about his
weight,” Anya said. “The teacher put a stop to it. That’s how I found out—Devin hadn’t breathed a word. The whole camp thing came out of that episode—Guy thought it would toughen him up.”
“And what about bullying here?” Bernie said.
“None that I know of,” Anya said. “The kids are supposed to write once a week, so I’ve just had the one card.”
“Saying what?”
“You can see for yourself,” Anya said. She dug a postcard from her purse, handed it to Bernie.
Bernie held it up to the fading light. “‘Hi, Mom,’” he read. “‘I’m at camp. Getting lots of exercise and not having seconds. The food’s crappy anyway. I saw a real fox! I sleep in a tent with other kids. It’s all right. Can’t wait to get home. Love, Dev.’”
Bernie’s face got real hard. Was that about the fox? I couldn’t think of any other reason.
“Are you saying he’s been bullied here at camp?” Anya said. Silence from Bernie. “Should I have known? How could I have?”
Bernie gave the postcard back. “C’mon, Chet. Let’s get to work.”
We met with Ranger Rob in his office in the big cabin. Ranger Rob sat on one side of his desk, us on the other.
“This is just a nightmare,” Ranger Rob said. “What am I going to tell the campers? They loved Turk.”
“They did?” Bernie said.
Ranger Rob looked up sharply. Hey! He was older than I’d thought. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Turk’s conduct up on the mountain was negligent at the very least,” Bernie said. “And sneaking off in the middle of the night the way he did speaks of guilty knowledge.”
“Guilty knowledge? What are you saying?”
“I suspect that Turk had inside information regarding Devin’s disappearance,” Bernie said, “may even have been an accomplice.”
“Accomplice to what?” said Ranger Rob. “This is crazy.”
“The nature of the crime—meaning the exact charges that will be filed when this is all over …” Bernie paused right there and looked Ranger Rob directly in the eye. Ranger Rob tried to meet his gaze but gave up pretty damn quick, maybe the quickest I’d seen. Loved when Bernie did that pausing and gazing thing, although what was going on could have been clearer to me. “… is what we’re working on right now. Anything you can do to help will be appreciated by me, by law enforcement, and by the judge when this all comes to court.”
Ranger Rob sat back in his chair. “You seem to be bullying me for some reason. I don’t like being bullied.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Bernie said. “Some of the boys bullied Devin so badly that he slept outside the tent on the hike, up above thirteen thousand feet.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s a fact,” Bernie said. “There’ll be more like it, and coming in fast, so your best move now is to stop fighting them.”
Ranger Rob opened his mouth in a way that made me think he wasn’t at all ready to stop fighting, but at that moment a big clunky phone rang on his desk.
“I thought you didn’t have a sat phone,” Bernie said.
“Do you question everything?” Ranger Rob said. “Park Service gave it to me this morning.” He picked up the phone, said, “Big Bear,” and listened. “All right,” he said, and hung up. He turned to Bernie, the fight leaking out of him fast. “That was search and rescue, up on the mountain. No trace of the boy, and they’re suspending operations for the night. Sheriff Laidlaw’s coming back down in the chopper and … and he hopes that you stick around to help.”
Bernie nodded.
“You can bunk in the guest cabin,” said Ranger Rob.
“Thanks,” said Bernie. “Right now I want to talk to Tommy, the boy from tent seven.”
“What about?”
“Finding Devin.”
“You think Tommy knows where Devin is?”
“There are leads that need following up,” Bernie said. “That’s what we do. And in missing kids’ cases, time is always against us.”
“Well, I suppose if I’m in the room—” Ranger Rob began.
“Nope,” Bernie said.
“But I haven’t even made the announcement about Turk yet.”
“And you’re not going to until we get done with Tommy.”
Ranger Rob gave Bernie an angry look. “You’d better know what you’re doing,” he said.
Bernie said nothing. Of course we knew what we were doing. It went without saying, a favorite expression of Bernie’s, and mine, too. Missing kids were our specialty. We’d worked a zillion cases—and if not a zillion, then at least many—and found every single kid. Every single kid, but once we were too late: can’t leave that out. It was a case we thought about a lot, me and Bernie. First, I licked the little girl’s face and then Bernie lifted her out of the broom closet and tried and tried to get her breathing again. Those parents when we brought the bad news: you don’t forget things like that.
FOURTEEN
Night fell. Bernie and I sat in the dining hall, which was called the chuckwagon here at Big Bear Wilderness Camp. We have a wagon at home, and when Charlie was younger I’d pull him around on it. “Chet the Jet!” he’d be shouting. “Faster, faster, Chet the Jet!” Did we zoom around or what? This was back in the days when Iggy was still roaming outside. And guess what: Iggy didn’t race along with us, oh, no. Instead he liked to jump on the wagon, crowd in with Charlie, and steal a free ride. That Iggy!
Nice and quiet in the dining hall, just the two of us. Bernie sat at the end of long old wooden table, eating a bowl of chili. I stood beside him on the floor—a floor made of wide boards worn down smooth, soft and comfortable—eating a bowl of kibble. All kinds of kibble out there on the market, but this one from Rover and Company was the best. The owner, Simon Berg, is a buddy of ours, sometimes sends over samples from the test kitchen. We were living the dream, me and Bernie.
He took out his cell phone, called Suzie for the zillionth time, and that didn’t include the zillion times of not getting a signal. “Suzie? Suzie? If you’re there, pick up. Are you there? Suzie? Suzie?” He clicked off, looked at me. “How the hell did I forget she was coming up here? Took me by surprise. If I’d been prepared, I could have …” He didn’t tell me what he could have done, but he didn’t have to because I knew it would have been perfect. So maybe he didn’t have to tell Suzie either, because she too would just know? A confusing thought, and not my usual kind at all. It slipped away, and I licked the last bit of kibble dust from the bottom of my bowl. Since licking was on my mind, I licked all around my mouth, and then the tip of my nose. Why not? It was something I could do, so I did. Once this perp named Walter “Honey” Potts bet Bernie a C-note that he could touch his nose with the tip of his tongue. Bernie took the bet—“No human can do that,” he said. But maybe Honey Potts wasn’t human— although he smelled, very powerfully, of human—because it turned out he could do it no problem. “Double or nothing?” he said. He was still laughing when we turned him over to Central Booking.
Hey! Bernie was watching me, head tilted at an angle. “Something on your mind, big guy?”
Me? Nothing at all. I got my tongue under control, sat down, shifted closer to Bernie, waited for whatever came next. How were we doing on the case? Not bad, right?
A kid came through the far door of the hall. I remembered him—a biggish dark-haired kid, a kid I liked, although I couldn’t think of one I didn’t, and then all of a sudden I could: Preston. But this wasn’t Preston.
Bernie smiled and said, “Hi, Tommy.”
Tommy came over, walking slow, the way humans—and especially kids—walked when they actually wanted to be going in the other direction.
“It’s okay,” Bernie said. “I don’t bite.”
Of course he didn’t! What would be the point, with those little teeth of his, not little for a human, but still?
Tommy stood before us, shuffling from one foot to the other. At that moment, I drew my lips way, way back, expos
ing my teeth. I had not the least intention of biting anybody, but with the idea of biting somehow in the air, I just couldn’t help it. Funny how the mind works.
Tommy stepped back. “His teeth are huge!”
I tried to get my lips back to where they belonged, but for some reason could not. It occurred to me to try licking my nose again, sort of on the way to reining in the lips, if that makes any sense.
“That’s just because Chet’s a big guy, period,” Bernie said. The nose-licking method worked, and there I was: mouth closed, attitude professional. “He likes kids,” Bernie said, “might even let you pat him, if you want.”
What a joker Bernie is sometimes! Of course, Tommy could pat me. I turned my head to give him a nice, direct opening. He reached out, kind of cautious, and laid his hand on my head, went pat pat. Not a great patter, compared to Bernie, maybe, and nothing like Autumn or Tulip who worked at Livia’s house of ill-repute and were off the charts when it came to patting, but still: no complaints.
“He has a nice coat, huh?” said Tommy.
“Chet likes spending time with the groomer,” Bernie said. He could say that again—I waited for him saying it again to happen, but it did not. Janie’s my groomer. She comes to us in her silver truck: what a great business plan. Janie’s a strong woman with a broad face, big hands, and dirty fingernails: who wouldn’t love her?
“Some dogs do well with allergic people,” Bernie said.
“Yeah?” said Tommy.
“The Maltese, for one,” Bernie said. “And Portuguese water dogs, if you want something bigger.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Something bigger.”
“Maybe your mom could spend an hour or so with a Porty, see how she does,” Bernie said.
Tommy’s eyes lit up: a nice sight, especially in a kid. “That’s a good idea,” he said, still patting me. He looked into my eyes, like he was trying to see something. I looked right back, trying nothing particular. “Chet helps you in your work?” he said.
“More the other way,” said Bernie.
Tommy laughed. What was funny?
“What we’re working on now,” Bernie said, “is finding Devin and bringing him back safe.”
The Dog Who Knew Too Much Page 10