Of Mutts and Men

by Spencer Quinn

  “Sit, please,” Pepita said.

  Bernie sat on the one remaining card table chair. Pepita sat on the end of the bed.

  “Explain, please,” Pepita said.

  “I don’t know what Juana told you.”

  “Just you can be trusted.”

  Bernie nodded. “I’m Bernie Little and this is Chet.” He handed her our card. “Wendell Nero wanted to meet with us. He didn’t say why.”

  “You don’t have to speak so soft,” Pepita said. “When my husband sleeps like this—and thank god for it—he hears nothing.”

  Bernie raised his voice a little. “We brought in the suspect but I don’t think he’s guilty, not of the murder. Something complicated is going on and I think maybe Tildy can help.”

  “Me?” Tildy said. She sounded very scared. Poor kid. I went over and sat beside her.

  “I understand you were helping Wendell with his work,” Bernie said.

  The kid nodded. She was trembling. I sat on her feet, the only move I could think of. The trembling eased up a bit. Did the fact that I’m a hundred-plus pounder have something to do with it? The thought crossed my mind.

  “He was such a nice man,” Tildy said. Tears rose in those deep dark eyes and overflowed. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and didn’t make a sound.

  “He was teaching you?” Bernie said.

  “Yes,” said Tildy. “About hydrology.”

  “The hydrology of Dollhouse Canyon?”

  “Not just that. The whole Southwest.”

  Bernie smiled a quick smile, there and gone. “Tell me something he taught you.”

  Tildy spread her hands, beautifully shaped hands, hard not to stare at. “There were so many things.”

  “Just one,” Bernie said. “Maybe a fact that would surprise an ordinary person.”

  Tildy thought for a moment. “Earthquakes, even far away, can change the aquifer.”

  “That’s news to me,” Bernie said.

  “You know about aquifers?” said Tildy.

  “Not nearly enough.” Bernie rose, took a photo from his pocket, held it so Tildy could see. I saw, too: the picture of Wendell and Tildy standing together, the rolled-up papers under her arm. Tildy gazed at the photo. Her eyes got misty again. I gave her knee a quick lick. This time there was no teary overflow.

  Bernie pointed to the picture. “What are those papers?” he said, his voice gentle.

  “Diagrams,” said Tildy.

  At that point I saw how closely Pepita was watching Tildy. There was love in that look, plus a kind of amazement. Her husband’s eyes remained closed. He went on sleeping, filling the little room with his sick breath.

  “Diagrams of what?” Bernie said.

  “Not accurate diagrams based on tests,” Tildy said. “They were really just Dr. Wendy’s thoughts about the rain clouds below.”

  “The rain clouds below?”

  “That was what he called the aquifers.”

  “Where are the papers now?” Bernie said.

  “I don’t know,” said Tildy. “He kept them in the RV.”

  Bernie sat back down. He was quiet for a bit, his gaze on the sleeping man. “All right, Tildy,” he said at last. “You be Dr. Wendy and I’ll be you. Teach me about the rain cloud under Dollhouse Canyon.”

  “Rain clouds,” said Tildy. “Little C and Big C.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither did he at first! That was the whole problem. How come the grapes were still good when the aquifer was almost dried up? Dr. Wendy cudgeled his brain.”

  “Cudgeled his brain?”

  “That’s what he said. It means he thought and thought until he wore out his poor brain. But finally it came to him. The earthquake shifted the aquitard! Eureka!”

  “Whoa,” said Bernie. “What earthquake?”

  “The big California one—from Fullerton.”

  “But that was years ago.”

  “Slow and huge,” Tildy said. “The forces are slow and huge.”

  Bernie gave her a long look. She rested a hand on my neck. I felt her pulse, surprisingly strong for such a skinny little person.

  “What’s an aquitard?” Bernie said.

  “Any formation that blocks an aquifer,” said Tildy.

  “Keeping the water from getting to the surface?”

  “You’re a good student,” Tildy said.

  “Tildy!” said Pepita.

  Bernie just laughed. Then he dug a pencil from his pocket and said, “Can you draw me those rain clouds?”

  “Do we have any paper, Momma?” Tildy said.

  Pepita turned to Bernie. “Is cardboard okay?”

  “Sure,” said Bernie.

  Pepita went into a back room. I heard a ripping sound. She returned with a big piece of cardboard with one rough edge.

  “Perfect,” Bernie said.

  They pulled their chairs up to the table. Tildy took the pencil. “Here is the surface. Down below—this is not to scale—we have…” She stuck her tongue between her teeth, did some drawing.

  “That’s the aquifer?” Bernie said.

  “Little C,” said Tildy. “A perched aquifer at four hundred and eighty feet. Perched means it’s resting on a bed of hard rock, and don’t think of it as a pool of water—it’s more like a damp sponge. Or in the case of Little C, an almost dry sponge. And now comes the big surprise.” Tildy did some more drawing, the pencil moving all the way to the edge of the cardboard and even off it.

  “What’s that?” Bernie said.

  One interesting human expression is the look of triumph. It’s not always a pleasant sight, but now on Tildy’s face it was one of the nicest I’d ever seen. “Big C!” she said.

  “Another aquifer?” said Bernie. “I don’t get it.”

  “Right! And we didn’t either until—” Tildy blushed, glanced at her mom, started over. “Dr. Wendy didn’t either, not at first, not even after he studied the bore hole maps all the way to the Arkansas River. But it’s true! And do you see this shape here?”

  Bernie leaned closer. “Kind of like a spout?”

  “Yes! A spout! That’s exactly what Dr. Wendy said. A spout squeezing up between these two granite aquitards. You see them?”

  “Kind of,” said Bernie.

  Tildy made some rapid movements with the pencil. “Is this better? See the granite formations, blocking off almost the whole of Big C? Except for the spout?”

  Bernie pulled his chair in closer, bent over the drawing. Their heads, his and Tildy’s, were almost touching. In the dim glow of the floor lamp, he suddenly looked much younger to me, and I also thought I saw how Tildy would look as a woman.

  “Is the spout pouring into the bottom of Little C?” Bernie said.

  “Not pouring,” said Tildy. “We can’t say pouring. But there is contact.”

  “And before there wasn’t?”

  Tildy nodded, a lock of glossy black hair falling over her face. “The earthquake shifted things around. There may not even have been a spout before, and Dr. Wendy thinks—he thought—that the whole formation with Big C inside got carried west for miles and up for hundreds of feet.”

  “Does that mean nobody knew about Big C before this?”

  “It was all blocked off.”

  Bernie sat up, turned to her. There was a real intense look on his face, but he smoothed it out, made it gentle. “So who knows about this?”

  “Me and now you,” said Tildy. “And my mom.”

  “I don’t know,” said Pepita.

  “But I told you.”

  “And I still don’t know.”

  “Oh, Momma.”

  Bernie took another look at the drawing and pointed. “The vineyard is here?”

  “Yes,” said Tildy.

  “Wendell didn’t tell Diego about all this?”

  “Diego?” Tildy said.

  “Señor Diego,” said Pepita.

  Tildy shook her head. “First he wanted to do more research, map out the size and sh
ape of Big C. But then…” She looked down.

  The lamplight flickered, went brownish, then brightened. Over on the bed, Pepita’s husband made a quiet little groan. Pepita walked over and laid her hand on his.

  Tildy turned to Bernie. “This man, the one you arrested, is he a pilot?”

  Bernie got that intense look again. This time it didn’t go away. “A pilot?”

  “A helicopter pilot.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “A helicopter landed near the trailer,” Tildy said. “The pilot talked to Dr. Wendy. He sounded mean.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know. Dr. Wendy sent me back over the hill. But I watched from up on top. The pilot had a loud voice. I could hear the sound.”

  “Did Wendell talk about it after?”

  “There was no after,” Tildy said. “The next day I was with the goats and the day after that was when he … got killed. The day after that I was back here.”

  Bernie went to the window, parted the curtain, gazed out. “What kind of markings were on the helicopter?”

  “I don’t know,” Tildy said. “It was dark gray.”

  “And what about the pilot?”

  “He had a beard. And he was big. A real big guy, bigger than you.”

  “Anything else?” Bernie said.

  Tildy squeezed her eyes shut. “He had one of those damaged ears—like they get in MMA.”

  “A cauliflower ear?” Bernie said.

  Tildy opened her eyes and nodded. “Does that help?”

  “Very much,” said Bernie. Good news! I hadn’t been sure where we were going with this. “Can we take the drawing?”

  “Sure,” said Tildy. “But it’s not very good.”

  * * *

  We went outside, Bernie motioning Pepita to follow. Out on the street he said, “What’s wrong with your husband?”

  “They don’t know.”

  Bernie took out his wallet, gave her all the money inside. Pepita’s face seemed to be saying no but her hands had other ideas.

  Twenty-nine

  Back in the car, I was thinking along the lines of whether there was a cantina in Los Pozos, and if so would it have an alley in back, where … where certain encounters might take place? Bernie looked very thoughtful. Was he also thinking cantina thoughts? I couldn’t tell, but very soon we were out of Los Pozos so that was that.

  “When Charlie’s twelve, I wonder if he’ll be…” Bernie began. That was followed by a quiet spell and then he laughed and said, “No way.”

  Meanwhile the moon was sliding down the sky. From time to time, Bernie tapped the brakes, cut the headlights, and peered all around. Why? I had no idea. All I really knew was that our wallet was empty, although on the plus side we had Tildy’s piece of cardboard. I sat up nice and tall, like the kind of dude who knows exactly what’s going on and why. And all at once I was that dude. Or just about. Was that how it worked? How nice to learn new things!

  Bernie got on the phone.

  “Hey, Lou. It’s me.”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” said Captain Stine.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Bernie said.

  “What’s good for you,” said Stine.

  Then came a long silence. We were bumping along on this bad road but somehow Bernie was sitting very still, his eyes greenish in the glow from the dash. The sight reminded me of Gudrun’s eyes, and that led—funny how the mind works—to Bernie and Gudrun and that kiss on her deck, high over the Valley. Gudrun was no friend of mine. Bernie was … well, Bernie. So we had a big problem, except the kissing had stopped mid-kiss and pronto for some reason, and the next thing I knew we were out of there. Problem or no problem? I had no answer. Sometimes the mind is no help at all.

  “Bernie? Still there? Disturbed my sleep just to give me the silent treatment?”

  “There must be a list of licensed helo pilots in the state,” Bernie said.

  “Are you musing out loud or asking a question?” said Stine.

  “I need to know if a man named Mason Venatti is on it. And if he is I want the full CV.”

  We were back where those cliffs rose on both sides of the road.

  “Any point in me asking why?” said Stine.

  “First let’s see—”

  “Not hearing you—”

  “First—”

  “You’ve gone all—”

  Bernie glanced up at the cliffs. “Lost him,” he said. We drove on, came to where the cliffs ended in softly rounded hills, and there, again parked across the road, stood the black roofless pickup with the roll bar.

  “A two-way toll?” Bernie stopped the car.

  We sat. Were we waiting for the two dudes to come over and collect more money? That wasn’t going to be easy, what with Pepita now having all our cash. Would we have to return to Los Pozos and ask for it back? This was turning out to be a complicated night. Plus I was getting hungry. And not just getting—I was all the way there, big time. Was there any food at all in the car? Even a stale biscuit would have been a start. One quick sniff and I had the answer, not a good one.

  We waited. The dudes seemed in no hurry. I could see their silhouettes in the moonlight, one sitting up straight in the passenger seat, the driver slumped a bit, possibly napping. Napping? Good grief. I was famished. Bernie! Do something!

  Then came a surprise, and a welcome one: Bernie opened the car door and said, “Let’s move these guys along.”

  Did this mean I could get Bernie to do things just by thinking them? Could I have been doing it all this time? I hopped out, trotted up beside him. Bernie? How about scratching between my ears in that spot I can’t get to? On the way home, let’s swing by Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon for steak tips. After that we can buy a new Frisbee—the old one’s getting ratty—and play some fetch. Then we’ll probably be hungry again—am I going too fast?—so we could head for—

  I glanced at Bernie. Was he getting all this? I couldn’t tell. His eyes were on the pickup and he was on high alert. Bernie has a high-alert smell I don’t miss. I was also picking up another smell, also of a kind I don’t miss, namely blood. We walked closer, reached the point where Bernie would usually say “Hey” or “Hi” or something else to let folks—especially trigger-happy types—know that we were in the area. But Bernie said nothing. We went right up to the pickup.

  Both our dudes had round holes right in the middle of their foreheads, round holes that had bled a little and stopped. Those bloody holes looked silvery in the moonlight. Then a line of clouds, like a lid, slid over the moon and the holes turned black.

  Bernie walked slowly around the pickup. “A cartel thing? I just don’t—”

  At that moment I picked up one more smell to go with the Bernie-on-high-alert smell and the drying-blood smell. I’d first learned this new smell way back in K-9 school. I’d flunked out on the very last day, in case you’ve forgotten, but that’s not the point. Oh, but if only …

  Never mind that. The point was this new smell, a very important smell, kind of like a mixture of Legos and wet clay. That smell means business. I ran right up to Bernie, faced him, looked him in the eye and barked a single bark, a bark that also means business.

  “What’s up, Chet?”

  I barked once more, not an especially loud bark, but very sharp. Bernie glanced around. As for what he was seeing, my guess was not much. With the moon gone it was very dark and humans are pretty much blind in the very dark. We do better in the nation within. I could make out the expression in Bernie’s eyes, a look he gets when he’s thinking real fast. Then, all at once, he said “Let’s go,” giving me a little push to get me started. Imagine that! And me, a self-starter if there ever was one!

  We ran—Bernie at top speed for him, me in what you might call a medium trot—across the road, up the slope that led to the cliff, toward a big boulder. I scrambled in behind it, just knowing that was what Bernie wanted me to do, and he threw himself on top of me. I struggled around, trying t
o get on top of him.

  And then: KABOOM!

  A tremendous kaboom that shook the air, the earth, and me and Bernie, too. The sky overhead caught fire, orange flames shooting out, some straight up, some sideways, some at us. Hard metal things zinged all around, thwacking into the ground and pinging off the face of our boulder.

  Then, just like that, almost a reverse kaboom, if that makes any sense, it was over. The flames died out, the zinging and pinging stopped, the night went still. There were smells, of course, smoke, hot metal, burned plastic, burned, well, meat, I’m sorry to mention, but that was it.

  “You okay, Chet?”

  Perfectly fine.

  “Good job. One of your very best.”

  I thumped my tail on the ground, maybe thumped it a few more times. I felt tip-top. Mess with us, my friends? Who’s next?

  Meanwhile there was nothing going on. Back home we’d be having sirens, and people running around, and lots of chatter, but none of that was happening. I peered out from behind the boulder, made out the twisted form of the remains of the pickup and the dark slope rising from the far side of the road.

  “Stay,” Bernie said, his voice very quiet. He had the .38 Special in his hand.

  “Stay” is a biggie in our lives. We stayed, me and Bernie. We don’t mess around with the biggies. And if we do, there has to be a real good reason. Slim Jims just out of reach, for example.

  But now, behind our boulder on this night that now seemed even quieter than silent, which can happen after a big boom, there were no Slim Jims, no reason at all not to stay. The wind came up. The clouds thinned out and moonlight shone through, although the moon itself remained hidden. Then the clouds thickened and the night darkened again. I’m a lover of the night. I love daytime, too, but isn’t there something about the night? You must have noticed.

  “If it’s the cartels,” Bernie said, “there won’t be anyone here till daylight. But if it’s…”

  How nice to hear Bernie’s thoughts, even just some of them. Or especially just some of them. All his thoughts would probably have been a little too much. There’s only so much brilliance us ordinary brains can handle at once. As for the cartels, we’d once had dealings with a guy called El Primo who offered to pay us big green if we’d—