But I was already in the lake. Who could forget how to swim? All you had to do was trot through the water, nothing simpler. Bernie’s a fine swimmer, does the crawl, a very splashy kind of swimming. I did the trot right next to him, as close as close could be. Once he turned and said, “Are you trying to drown me?” He really does have the best sense of humor in the world.
We reached the boat in practically no time, one of those inflatables with long—what did they call them? Pontoons, maybe?—springy roll-like sides. We raised ourselves up on one of them and peered into the boat.
No Butchie. There was nothing on the deck but a box of worms, some of them wriggling their way out.
We treaded water, side by side, looking all around. Were we looking for Butchie? That was my guess. I waited for Bernie to call his name again, but he did not. Instead he put his face in the water. I did the same.
It was blurry down there, but the lake wasn’t very deep, not at all like a bay I’d once been in, down in bayou country, a bay with gators, including one particular gator name of Iko. But if we had gators here in the desert, I’d never seen one, and I didn’t see them now. There was nothing on the mossy bottom but a few beer cans and a whitish something, plus a pair of cargo shorts and a yellow T-shirt. For some reason I didn’t understand what I was seeing right away, namely that someone was wearing those shorts and that T-shirt, someone whitish. By that time Bernie was diving down to the bottom. I hurried to catch up. Together we got hold of this whitish person by the waistband of his shorts and hauled him toward the surface, Bernie doing the actual gripping of the waistband and hauling, and me helping as best I could.
We came up into air, took a few deep breaths. Just me and Bernie on the deep breathing part. This someone—in fact a man, a man I knew, namely Butchie, his handlebar mustache all droopy—wasn’t taking any kind of breaths. Bernie had Butchie in his arms now, almost like he was hugging him, with Butchie sort of looking over Bernie’s shoulder, his eyes empty, and facing me. That meant Bernie couldn’t see what I was seeing: Butchie’s throat was cut from ear to ear.
I barked.
Seventeen
A fish jumped, out in the middle of Geronimo Lake.
“Was that a fish?” said Captain Stine, our old buddy from Valley PD. He had a harsh, hoarse sort of voice, like he partied every night, but when you saw his face you knew he wasn’t the type. “Never used to be fish out here. My dad and I came up on Sundays when I was a kid. I learned how to swim in this lake.” He squinted out over the water. “Looks smaller to me now, like it shrank. Funny how that works.”
“It looks smaller because it is smaller,” Bernie said. “It’s drying up.”
“Try not to spoil my day,” said Stine.
I was happy to hear him say that. Didn’t it mean that the day was still unspoiled? I’d started to worry about that. The lake had been so peaceful when we’d first arrived, just the two of us. Now we had lots going on: a couple of PD dinghies out in the lake, with a PD diver in the water; squad cars parked by the shore; cops searching the woods; the ME and her assistants; an ambulance with Butchie’s body inside; and me, Bernie, and Stine on the dock, looking out at the lake, the surface now all choppy. But if Stine was right, we were still AOK. I considered plunging in for a quick dip, decided I didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel like a swim? That was odd. I lay down.
“You need to talk to Beasley,” Bernie said.
“Makes twice you’ve said that,” said Stine. “I’ve never understood why this isn’t county jurisdiction.”
“It was all about long ago real estate corruption, if you’re really interested,” Bernie said. “But in the here and now we have two murders, both throat cuttings, one Beasley’s and one yours. Connected, for sure, meaning they’ve got the wrong guy locked up, among other things.”
“Connected how?” said Stine.
“By a cell phone and a laptop I’m hoping we’re about to find down on the bottom.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we have to work harder.”
Stine looked at Bernie. “Here’s something you don’t know—there was an attempted murder last night, same MO, in Rio Vista.”
“Throat cutting?”
“That was the intent. A trainer from one of those cycling gyms, no suspects.”
Bernie shook his head. “Can’t be related.”
Stine gestured with his chin—a very good chin for gesturing, not the kind of chin you could miss—at the lake. “But this is?” he said.
Bernie didn’t reply.
“Do you ever think,” Stine went on, “that in our desire to impose order we see patterns that aren’t there?”
“Who’s we?” said Bernie.
“Anyone with half a brain.”
Whoa! Did that include me? Why hadn’t I been paying more attention? Sometimes you can reel a conversation back in. Well, maybe I’d done it once or twice. What were they talking about? Desire? Order? Patterns? Desire I understood no problem, but the rest slipped away. Some of our work at the Little Detective Agency was hard on the brain. You had to be cut out for it, and of course I must have been. Otherwise how could we have been so successful, if you leave out the finances part? I ended up feeling included. I had half a brain and then some.
The diver surfaced beside one of the dinghies. She took out her mouthpiece, slipped off her hood, shook out her hair.
“Anything?” Stine called out over the water.
She turned her thumb down.
Stine and Bernie exchanged a look, sort of a silent argument, if that makes any sense.
“What’s stupider,” Stine said, “moron or cretin?”
“Not sure,” said Bernie. “Why?”
“Just trying to place Beasley on the scale.” Stine took out his phone, paused. “In return you get to tell Butchie’s mom the news.”
“In return for you doing your job?”
“Don’t push me, Bernie.”
Wait! This was interesting. Was it possible? Why not? Push him, Bernie, push him right into the drink! Which would be just the beginning of all sorts of fun. We’d all of us get nice and wet and start feeling a whole lot better.
But for whatever reason, Bernie did not push Captain Stine into the drink. We got in the car and hit the road. As we drove up to Butchie and Mom’s Tuxedo World, Bernie took a deep breath and sat very straight and still. That meant he was steeling himself. For what? I had no idea. I took a crack at steeling myself, but just like all the other times I’d tried, I didn’t seem to have the knack.
* * *
Mrs. D. had another frilly-shirted boy in front of the mirror, this one not quite as tall or pimply as Wesley.
“But I don’t know how to dance,” he was saying.
“Do you know how to walk?” said Mrs. D.
“Uh, sure.”
“Then you know how to dance. Put your arms around her and walk her to the music. That’s all you have to do.”
Mrs. D. saw us from the corner of her eye and turned.
“We’ll wait,” Bernie said.
She studied his face, then slowly and carefully, suddenly like an old person, she stepped down off the stool. “Tell me now.”
Bernie told her.
I went right over and stood next to Mrs. D. It was all I could think of to do. Bernie came, too, arriving just in time to catch Mrs. D. when her legs gave way beneath her.
* * *
We drove downtown, Bernie silent the whole time, and parked in front of the bronze tower. Then we just sat there. After a while, a security guard walked up.
“Hey! You can’t—Bernie? That you? And the Chetster?”
“Ruben? You’re working security?”
“Yessir.”
“But how is that possible?”
Ruben—who’d hijacked a beer truck that had turned out to be full of empties—leaned in closer. “The powers that be in these parts don’t actually know me as Ruben.”
“What did you change it to?”
&nbs
p; “Rube. Makes it easy to remember. Plan on sittin’ here for a spell?”
“Maybe.”
Ruben stuck a red card under the windshield wiper. “So’s no one’ll bother you.”
“Thanks, Rube.”
“Least I could do. What goes around comes around.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Ruben tapped the hood and moved back to the entrance of the bronze tower. Right about then was when the huge doors slid open and Gudrun Burr walked out, Mason, her bearded receptionist with the cauliflower ear, beside her.
“Growling again? You stay here for the time being, big guy.”
Growling? Uh-oh. But … but Gudrun! When I have issues with someone I never forget, even if I end up forgiving them later, and I was nowhere near that with Gudrun. Meanwhile Bernie was headed toward the small plaza in front of the bronze tower. What was “time being” again? I wrestled with that for a while and—
“Chet?”
—in the course of my wrestling somehow found myself out of the car and on the plaza, right beside Bernie. I got the feeling Bernie had a little more to say to me—something nice, I’m sure—but before he could Mason spotted us and tapped Gudrun on the arm. She turned her head, saw us, and raised her eyebrows, at the same time possibly losing her footing the smallest bit. We went over to them.
“I thought I might be seeing you again,” Gudrun said. “If not quite so soon.”
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” Bernie said.
Gudrun studied Bernie’s face, her eyes bright green in the sunshine. Was she about to say, About what? or Anything wrong with right here? which was what we usually got in this kind of situation. Instead she nodded and said, “How about I buy you a drink?”
Bernie nodded. We walked across the plaza and entered another tower, this one silver. Seeing Bernie and Mason side by side, I realized something I’d missed, namely the size of Mason—a little taller than Bernie but much wider, especially across the shoulders and chest.
Inside the tower, we entered a small, dark bar on the first floor. Me, Bernie, and Gudrun sat at a table in an alcove at the back, me more or less under the table—and absolutely not growling, no way I’d make a mistake like that, not if it meant I’d have to wait in the car—and Mason took a spot at the bar.
The waiter came over.
“Welcome, Ms. Burr,” he said. “Your usual?”
“Thank you.”
“And you, sir?”
“Mourvèdre,” said Bernie.
Have I mentioned that the tabletop was made of glass, meaning I could see through it? Right now, seeing through it, I had a good view of Gudrun’s face. Some human faces are often in motion. Others are mostly still. Gudrun had the still kind of face. Now it was even stiller.
“Excuse me?” said the waiter. “You’re talking about the varietal? I’ll bring you the wine list.”
“That’s all right,” Bernie said. “Make it a beer.”
“Any special kind? We’ve got—” And the waiter got started on a long, long list.
“That last one,” Bernie said.
The waiter smiled a smile that was anything but and went away. Gudrun gave Bernie a different sort of smile, maybe amused although mixed with other things I had no clue about.
“I’m beginning to think you’re the type who’s full of surprises,” she said.
“Like?” said Bernie.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a wine geek.”
“I’m not.”
“But Mourvèdre—isn’t that somewhat obscure?”
“I just happened to sample some yesterday,” Bernie said. “A little too much, in fact.”
“So you just blurted it out?”
Bernie nodded.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a blurter either,” Gudrun said.
Bernie shrugged. The drinks came. Gudrun’s was a deep golden color, smelling of champagne, sugar, oranges, and some kind of plant. She and Bernie clinked glasses. They sipped their drinks. From my spot under the table I could see they relaxed a little, the way humans do after a drink or two, although more than two can lead to non-relaxing problems. Bernie stretched out his legs a bit. Gudrun slipped off one shoe—the high-heeled kind—and flexed her foot. Her toenails were painted bright red, always an interesting sight, but way more interesting was the smell that arose from her foot. It was a fresh smell—unusual for a human foot except after a shower—a fresh and clean watery smell, and not the watery smell that comes with tap water. Not at all. This was the watery smell that comes from fresh outdoor water, say a lake, for example. Also interesting was the fact that her old smell—dying flowers—was almost completely gone, like … like … that was as far as I could take it on my own. I gazed up at her through the glass tabletop. She happened to glance down. Our eyes met. Gudrun slipped her shoe back on.
“So what are we doing here, Bernie?” Gudrun said. “Don’t tell me this is a social visit.”
Over at the bar, Mason shot us a quick glance.
Bernie put down his glass. “You wanted evidence,” he said. “I have some.”
Gudrun took another sip, this time a big one. “Let’s hear it.”
And Bernie told a whole big story, all about Wendell Nero, Florian, cell phones, laptops, Butchie Dykstra, and Geronimo Lake. How could he possibly hold all that in his head? But that’s Bernie, every time. I got completely lost, but in the nicest way, by the time he came to the end.
Gudrun sat back and shook her head. “What’s your IQ, Bernie?”
“I have no idea,” Bernie said.
No surprise there. IQ, whatever it was, had never come up before. If I had to guess, it was probably something to do with the Porsche, specifically the mysterious part under the hood.
“That was a high IQ way of telling me your little story,” Gudrun said. “Suggesting a narrative but not spelling it out. More than that—arousing the desire.”
“Arousing the desire?” Bernie said.
Gudrun cocked her head to one side. “To have it spelled out, of course. So I’ll spell it out. Someone—let’s call him Person X—killed Wendell Nero. At some point after that, my client entered the RV, discovered the body, and stole a cell phone and a laptop, which he sold to a fence named—what was that name again?”
“Butchie Dykstra.”
“I love your milieu,” Gudrun said. “My client made this sale and went to bed in his landlocked boat, where you found him. Person X then murdered poor Butchie, presumably in a hunt for the missing cell phone and laptop, which X had for some reason neglected to take from the RV. Conclusion: my client is innocent of the murder of Wendell Nero, and oddly enough in the absence of the cell phone and laptop, quite possibly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the theft as well.” She gave Bernie a direct look, at the same time stirring her drink with her fingertip. “Did I miss anything?”
“No.”
“Leave anything out?”
“No.”
Gudrun stopped stirring her drink, licked her fingertip. “Then surely you see the problem.”
“I see lots of problems,” Bernie said. “But there’s enough here for you to drop the plea deal idea and go to trial.”
“Nice try,” Gudrun said. “Among other things that would mean putting Florian on the stand to testify about the cell phone and laptop, uncorroborated testimony that the DA would blow up before lunch time, day one. Try to imagine Florian in the witness box and a jury looking on.” Gudrun rose. “With that IQ you couldn’t possibly not know what I need, Bernie.” There was a slight pause before she continued. “Bring me the cell phone and the laptop. Then we’ll talk.”
Bernie rose, too, and so did I. When he moves, I move. Things work out better that way.
“Or,” Gudrun went on, “we could go out to dinner some time and not talk about any of this.”
Bernie gazed at her, said nothing.
“Your call,” said Gudrun.
Over at the bar, Mason was signing the check. His writing hand w
ent still for an instant, then moved on.
Eighteen
“Hoskin Phipps,” Bernie said. “Typecasting people by their names is something we need to stay away from in this job—and in life, big guy—but what are the odds his family came on the “Mayflower?”
What happens when the smartest human in the room raises his game? No one around him understands a thing. At least that was what happened to me. Other than the name Hoskin Phipps ringing the faintest of bells, I was clueless. There he was, my Bernie, not talking himself up in the slightest, steering us along with just two fingers on the wheel. Can you imagine? I gazed at him in awe. His eyes were on the road, golden in the late-afternoon light, both the road and his eyes. Were we crushing it? I thought so.
We drove through the East Valley, toward the huge wooden cowboy who stood over the Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon, six-guns in both hands. They had a patio out back where the nation within was always welcome. The scraps on that patio—don’t get me started. Slow down, Bernie, hit the turn signal. But he did not, and soon we were in Pottsdale, passing Livia’s Friendly Coffee and More, the more part having to do with the house of ill repute in back—where the goings-on were unclear to me, although I’d formed very positive opinions of the two employees I’d met, Autumn and Tulip, both excellent patters—and pulled into an office park on the next block.
Bernie parked in front of a small adobe building and read the sign on the glass door: “Phipps Consulting.” The glass was the dark-tinted kind, and just as Bernie started to open the door, a convertible driving by got reflected in the glass. Bernie whipped around and stared at the car, driven by a ponytailed woman and now turning onto a cross street and disappearing from sight.
“Was that Suzie?” he said. He gave his head a little shake. I loved when he did that and was pretty sure he’d learned it from me. “I must be losing my mind.” Which was impossible—a mind that big would be found immediately. Couldn’t have been Suzie, of course, since she was in London and London was far away, the distance maybe being the start of the whole problem between them. So Bernie wasn’t losing his mind. It was just playing tricks on him. At that moment, something funny happened: I smelled those little yellow flowers, the kind you sometimes see on the banks of a dry wash. There were no dry washes in sight, no little yellow flowers, but the smell of those little yellow flowers reminded me of Suzie’s smell. I had a thought I’d never had before, somewhat disturbing: Was my nose playing tricks on me, the same way Bernie’s mind was playing tricks on him? Could that even happen? One of my back paws slipped on the floor as we entered Phipps Consulting. A paw slipping? How embarrassing! But Bernie hadn’t noticed, so—
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