Oh, really? Not to my way of thinking. In fact, for a dude his size, his ears were on the small side. They probably didn’t even work very well. I felt a bit sorry for Officer Perkins and spent most of the trip into Baie LaRouche keeping close watch on his ears. Meanwhile, Birdie launched into a story about leaping onto a moss-green pickup, and Brock Stovall, the pirate dude, and Snoozy, and a camp on Little Flamingo Island, and lots of other stuff, all of it kind of familiar but at the same time impossible to keep up with. All I really learned was that wallowing makes you sleepy.
The water patrol had a building at one end of the Baie LaRouche dock. There was an office in the back, away from the water, and that’s where we all sat—Sheriff Cannon and Officer Perkins at one end of the table, and Grammy, Birdie, and me at the other. Mr. Longstreet sat by himself on one side.
“Drove Bayou Girl straight at those boats?” Grammy was saying.
“At full speed,” said the sheriff. “We have multiple reports. And there was nothing accidental about it. Officer Perkins, will you read for Miz Gaux what Mr. Longstreet said regarding his actions?”
Perkins took out his notebook and read aloud in his rumbly voice: “‘Don’t regret it—not one single bit.’”
The sheriff turned to Mr. Longstreet. A bandage now covered his forehead cut and there was more life in that eagle face. “Do you deny making that statement?”
“No,” said Mr. Longstreet.
“Do you deny the dangerous operation of Bayou Girl?”
“I do not.”
“Henry,” Grammy said. “Look at me and say that again.”
Mr. Longstreet turned to her and held her gaze. “I’m sorry, Claire. My intention was only to observe and maybe try to reason with those bounty hunters. But when I saw what was going on I’m afraid I lost my head.”
Losing your head would make anyone afraid, of course, so my inclination was to cut Mr. Longstreet a little slack. Just one problem—there was his head, still attached to his neck like always. Right then, I stopped trusting Mr. Longstreet for good.
“Does that happen to you a lot?” the sheriff said. “Losing your head?”
Whoa! Did the sheriff not notice Mr. Longstreet’s head sitting there in its proper place? Or … or did he mean that sometimes Mr. Longstreet lost his head and then found it again? How was that possible? Wouldn’t you need your head to find your head? I was confused.
“Bowser!” Birdie hissed at me. Did I detect a slight whimpering going on, perhaps caused by someone around the table? Couldn’t have been me! And if by some crazy chance it was, I put a stop to it right away.
Now Mr. Longstreet turned to the sheriff and there was a flash of an eagle-type glare. “It does not mean that,” he said.
“But sometimes?” said the sheriff.
“I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“Just asking questions. But if they’re pointed somewhere, it’s to the disappearance—the possible disappearance—of Snoozy LaChance.”
“I keep hearing that name,” Mr. Longstreet said. “I have yet to meet the man.”
“Really?” said the sheriff. “I’m pretty sure Snoozy would interest you. He’s what you might call a fish whisperer, has a flat-out gift when it comes to finding fish in these parts.”
“When he’s awake,” said Perkins.
The sheriff shot Perkins a sharp glance. Perkins looked down.
“Word is that Snoozy got himself hired to one of the bounty hunters,” the sheriff continued. “We have evidence that Snoozy and that particular bounty hunter—”
Grammy leaned forward. “What particular bounty hunter are we talking about?”
“That would be Brock Stovall,” the sheriff said.
Grammy snorted.
“Uh,” said the sheriff, “anything you can tell us about him, ma’am?”
“Screw loose,” said Grammy, “which I’d be surprised if you didn’t know already.”
The sheriff nodded. “Is it a surprise to you that Snoozy would hook up with someone like him?”
“Snoozy’s a good man,” Grammy told him, “but there’s some in these parts that have a knack when it comes to manipulating good men. Especially good men like Snoozy.”
“Thanks for that, Miz Gaux,” the sheriff said. “Maybe I haven’t appreciated how much you must know about our parish.”
“We should put her on retainer,” Perkins said.
“Pah,” said Grammy.
I was totally with Grammy on that one. Nola wore a retainer, no problem, but it wouldn’t have been a good look on Grammy.
“Back to Snoozy,” said the sheriff. “We have evidence that he and Stovall had a camp set up on Little Flamingo Island. Evidently, there was a period of time when Snoozy was by himself at the camp. That period”—Sheriff Cannon swung around and faced Mr. Longstreet—“coincides with Mr. Longstreet’s nearby presence in a pirogue he’d rented out of Baie LaRouche. Mr. Longstreet ended up in possession of a distinctive set of sunglasses that belonged to Snoozy. In this job, we look for motive, means, and opportunity. We’ve got motive—Mr. Longstreet’s hatred of the bounty hunters. We’ve got opportunity—the two men alone on an island. Means? When we talk about means we’re talking how the crime was done, with a weapon, for example. Any help you can give us on that, Mr. Longstreet?”
“I was on the island,” said Mr. Longstreet. “I found the sunglasses—exactly how I explained to the child and the large gentleman who was with her—Len, I believe—”
“Lem,” said Birdie, but maybe too quiet for anyone but me to hear.
“—on the island,” Mr. Longstreet went on. “All the rest of what you’ve said is absurd speculation. If this Snoozy fellow is indeed in trouble, you’re now wasting valuable time.”
The sheriff’s face got hard, and a vein jumped in the side of Perkins’s neck. I got the idea they weren’t liking Mr. Longstreet a whole lot. I’d already gotten there myself. “How about we take a short break?” the sheriff said. “Give Mr. Longstreet a few minutes to think things over.”
“What is there to think over?” said Mr. Longstreet. “The conclusion’s obvious. You have no idea how to conduct an investigation. Here’s a suggestion: Go question the bounty hunter.”
“Brock Stovall?”
“Exactly.”
“In fact, we’ve done that, but he was never a serious suspect. No motive, Mr. Longstreet. Taking good care of Snoozy was in his best interest, Snoozy being his only shot at winning the bounty. Plus he’s been out there searching high and low for Snoozy. Stovall’s not clever enough to fake something like that.” Sheriff Cannon took a small, shiny machine from his pocket and laid it on the table. “And we’re looking for someone clever, no doubt about that. Someone clever enough to throw us off the scent.”
Us? Was I included? I’d been thrown off a scent? Wow! That had to be the cleverest human ever to walk the planet! But the truth was I didn’t believe it, not for a second.
“We sent the recording of the reassuring call that came in from Snoozy to the lab in Baton Rouge.” The sheriff glanced at Birdie. “On account of questions raised by Birdie, here. She wondered if maybe there was some muffled language we were missing. This is the cleaned-up version the lab sent back.”
The sheriff pressed a button and then came Snoozy’s voice: “Hello? Hey? Anybody home? This is Snoozy. Snoozy LaChance? From St. Roch? Hi there. The thing is—” Then came a muffled part I remembered, a muffled part with a strange, metallic click, very faint, that I’d missed the first time, followed by Snoozy saying “Don’t”—now surely clear to anyone with ears. I took a quick scan around the table. Everyone heard that “Don’t,” no doubt about it. And it scared Birdie and Grammy: I could see it on their faces. Meanwhile, Snoozy was finishing up. “So don’t worry ’bout me. Back just as soon as I get done with this here project. Bye now.”
“Thank you, Birdie, for being so thorough,” the sheriff said. “‘Don’t’ comes through, loud and clear. Did you catch that click sound r
ight before?”
Birdie nodded.
“What do you think it was?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pistol getting cocked,” Grammy said. She gave Mr. Longstreet a cold look. “Someone had a gun to Snoozy’s head.”
“Claire!” he said. “You can’t believe I’d do anything like that.”
“The Henry Longstreet I knew way back when could not,” Grammy said.
The sheriff gazed at Mr. Longstreet. “What about this Henry Longstreet, right here?”
“You’re making one mistake after another,” Mr. Longstreet said.
Sheriff Cannon and Officer Perkins rose. The sheriff motioned for Birdie and Grammy. They followed him to the door, and I followed Birdie, somehow getting out first. The sheriff was last. He turned back to Mr. Longstreet.
“Think about your future.”
“Am I under arrest?” Mr. Longstreet said.
“Should you be?”
Grammy gave Mr. Longstreet a hard look. “I know my answer to that question.”
The sheriff closed the door.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: THAT’S ONE OF THE best human ideas going. I thought of it as we all strolled out to the dock in Baie LaRouche, possibly giving Mr. Longstreet a chance to think things over, if I’d understood right. In this case, first things first meant sidling up to Officer Perkins. Here’s a tip: When you sidle up to someone, get as close as you can to the pocket where the treats are stashed.
“Hey there, Bowser.” Officer Perkins reached down and gave me a pat. “What’s doin’?”
Treats. Treats were what’s doin’. I nosed up to Officer Perkins’s pocket, perhaps shifting his sidearm out of the way. There were biscuits in that pocket, biscuits I liked. They came in that beautiful gold box. We were all out at home, which made this present moment all the more urgent.
“Heh, heh,” Perkins said. “I do believe you’ve sniffed out a biscuit. That correct?”
I wagged my tail. Yes, correct, well done, Officer Perkins. Now can we get on with it?
He gave me a big smile. “How about you do a trick or two, earn your biscuit the honest way?”
Excuse me? Earn my biscuit? Do … do a trick? Like roll over, shake, or play dead? I hate doing stupid tricks like that. Wouldn’t you? A very bad thought entered my head, something about a trick Officer Perkins and I could perform together, namely knocking him clear off the dock and into the drink. But that wasn’t me. Would I ever do a thing like that? No. So … it must have been someone else. I wondered who.
Meanwhile, Perkins was laughing his low, rumbly laugh and reaching into his pocket. “Got a real funny look on your mug, pal.” He held out the biscuit—yes, the gold-box kind, and not only that but the giant size as well, my favorite biscuit size. I took it in one gentle little motion, nothing greedy about it, and—
“Ow!” said Perkins for some reason.
—and trotted ahead, catching up with Birdie, Grammy, and the sheriff.
“What I’d like to do now is take Birdie over to Little Flamingo Island and have her walk me through the visit she and Lem had there with Longstreet,” the sheriff said.
“I’ll be coming, too,” said Grammy. “But first I’d like a word with Birdie.”
“Of course,” the sheriff said, and he dropped back, joining Officer Perkins.
I thought Perkins said something like, “Got a bandage on you, Sheriff?” But I might have misheard.
A flagpole stood at the end of the dock, a flag fluttering in the breeze. It happened to be that flag you often see in these parts, with the stars and stripes. Not sure what it’s about, but I’ve always liked the look of it. We stood under the fluttering flag.
There wasn’t much height difference between Grammy and Birdie anymore, with Birdie growing so fast, and Grammy not growing at all; in fact, maybe shrinking a bit. Other than the height similarity, they didn’t look at all like each other, but the way they stood, so straight, was identical.
“Anything you want to say to me, child?” Grammy said.
“Sorry.”
“Can’t have you jumping onto trucks and going who knows where.”
“You’re right, Grammy. But I was so worried about Snoozy.”
“I am, too. But you’re a kid. Maybe you have too much freedom for a kid.” For a moment, she gazed over the water, as though looking for something far away. “On the other hand, I had lots of freedom when I was a kid. Were things so different then?”
“I don’t know.”
“But the both of us know what your mama would think.”
Birdie nodded.
“Meaning I should ground you.”
“If you say so, Grammy.”
“’Course then I’d have to be grounding myself in the bargain.”
“Grammy?”
Grammy gave Birdie a close look. Did her old, washed-out blue eyes grow kind of misty? Didn’t see that every day. Grammy quickly dabbed her eyes with the back of her arm, a thin, sinewy arm that was still pretty strong.
“I’m sorry, too, Birdie,” she said.
“I don’t understand. What for?”
“For … for what’s happened with Henry Longstreet.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Oh, but I did. Like a fool—like an old fool—I let him into our lives.”
“But he seemed all right, Grammy. And we actually don’t know if he’s done anything wrong.”
“Not true,” said Grammy. “What he did on Bayou Girl was as wrong as wrong can be.”
“Steering it at those boats?”
“Exactly. And not just that. Perkins tells me that there was a struggle at the wheel. Anything to that?”
“A little.”
Grammy pointed to Birdie’s arm. “That looks like a bruise, a recent type of bruise.”
“It’s nothing,” Birdie said.
“Did he hit you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Or push you? Or get rough in any way?”
Birdie’s lower lip started to tremble. I hated seeing that, moved toward her. But Grammy beat me to it! Wow! She took Birdie in her arms before I could even get there.
“That’s unforgivable,” Grammy said.
Birdie cried a bit. “It’s like he’s two different people.”
“With folks like that, living with a bee in their bonnet, the good part ends up a total waste.” Grammy patted Birdie’s back. “So it’s like this. Either we both get grounded, you and me, or neither one. You pick.”
Birdie made a funny noise, part crying, part laughing. “Neither one,” she said. I polished off the last crumbs of my biscuit and circled back to see how Officer Perkins was getting along. As for living with a bee in your bonnet, I didn’t want to go there, not for a second.
The water-patrol launch—Sheriff Cannon at the wheel, with Officer Perkins staying behind to keep an eye on Mr. Longstreet—made a long, slow curve into the mostly ruined dock on Little Flamingo Island. No flamingos in the two trees at the center of the island this time. I kind of missed them.
Birdie helped the sheriff tie up and then led us along the overgrown path, me actually doing the leading. The scent of Snoozy’s Mr. Manly cologne was gone, but there was still a faint smell of gasoline and bait worms. I came oh-so-close to figuring out something very important. Wow! What a lovely feeling, to be at your very sharpest!
We reached the old tumbledown stone hut, roofless and covered in vines. “Here’s where Mr. Longstreet brought us,” Birdie said. “Lem thought it might go all the way back to the pirates.”
“Some people got pirates on the brain,” Grammy said.
“In more ways than one,” the sheriff said. “The pirate mentality’s still alive in these parts.”
Grammy turned to him. “Wearing you down, Sheriff?”
“No. Why would you say that?”
“Just wondering how long you plan on sticking with the job.”
“That’s a strange thought. I’ve got no plans to leave.”
“Birdie?” said the sheriff. “Something you wanted to say?”
“Um,” Birdie said. “Just that”—she gestured through the open doorway of the hut—“Mr. Longstreet told us he found Snoozy’s sunglasses in here.”
We entered the hut. Nothing much had changed, except there’d been some recent peeing on top of all the peeing that had gone on before. The broken bottles, empty cans, cigarette butts, and busted-up old wooden crate were all as we’d left them.
“He told us the sunglasses were right there,” Birdie said. “Beside the crate.”
The sheriff squatted down and eyed the crate.
“See the broken ends of those boards?” Birdie said.
“What about them?” said the sheriff.
“Well, the wood is fresh-looking. The rest of the crate’s all moldy. I—I think Snoozy was in some kind of fight.”
The sheriff nodded.
“But if it was with Mr. Longstreet, then why would he bring us out here to show us the evidence?”
“That kind of thing can happen in this line of work,” the sheriff said. “You get a certain type who’s … how to say it, exactly?”
“Too smart by half,” said Grammy.
The sheriff nodded. “That’s it. Thank you, ma’am.” He turned to Birdie.
“What happened next?”
“Mr. Longstreet showed us the display board out back.” We went outside and looked at the plank with the hooks set in it. No sharks hung on them today. “There were sharks on the hooks,” Birdie said. “But not bull sharks, and none of them real big.”
We gazed at the naked hooks. Everybody got very thoughtful. Well, not me. What was there to think about when it came to empty hooks? I wandered off in no particular direction, soon picked up the faintest possible scent of Mr. Manly, at the very edge of what I can do. I followed the scent down what might have been a path long ago, now mostly scrub. After just a few steps I came upon a red flip-flop. I sniffed it, caught a slightly stronger smell of Mr. Manly. Were red flip-flops important in some way? I tried to remember, my mind going red flip-flops, red flip-flops over and over, but nothing coming after that. Except that my mind got tired, and let me know right away that it had had enough thinking for the time being. So, without another thought, I picked up the red flip-flop and trotted back to the tumbledown hut.
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