• • •
We crossed the river and soon were back in the world of office parks. Maryland? Was that it? And all this around me was about elephants and donkeys? I couldn’t pick up a single sniff of either one, meaning the case was going well so far.
In the front seat, Bernie reached over and patted Suzie’s hand. “This is fun,” he said, “working with you.”
What? Working with Suzie? And just like that, things took a real bad turn for the worse.
“Chet?” Bernie said. “A little space, big guy.”
Space? With just my head poking through between the seats, I was giving them plenty, much more than enough. Any possibility of squeezing my shoulder through? Took some doing, but—
“CHET!”
And maybe a sharp swerve, plus a screamlike sound from Suzie, and some loud honking, not necessarily in that order. I got myself back on the shelf, twisted around like I was much more interested in the goings-on in the next lane, and spotted a big member of the nation within hanging out the window of a pickup. I let him have it full blast. He let me have it back, the same way. I felt better.
Bernie turned off the highway and parked in front of a brassy-colored office building that looked familiar. Before we got out of the car, I remembered the whole visit from before, the smell and taste of Eben’s briefcase most of all. Hey! I was on fire! Who wouldn’t want to work with me, first and only?
• • •
A man in a yellow uniform and yellow cap stood outside Eben’s office, scraping the sign off the door.
“Anything I can help you with?” he said. And what was this? He gave off a strong scent of hair gel, a smell that reminded me of bubble gum? It got me thinking.
“Are you a cop?” Bernie said.
In a yellow uniform? I didn’t get that. Neither did the dude with the scraper, unless I was missing something. “Me? A cop?”
“I thought there’d be a cop on guard,” Bernie said. “And crime scene tape.”
“They were just leaving when I got here. All done, apparently. Maybe you can reach them at the station.” He turned to the door, raised the scraper. Meanwhile, I was still thinking, hoping for an actual thought sometime soon.
“We don’t want to reach the cops,” Bernie said. “We’re friends of Eben St. John’s.”
The man turned back to us, looked blank. His face was kind of like slabs put together, if that makes any sense, but it was hard to tell on account of the shadow under the bill of his baseball cap. A thought came to me at last: I’d like to see him without that cap on his head. I waited for follow-up, but none came.
“This was his office,” Suzie said.
“Ah,” said the man. He glanced at what remained of the sign. “World Wide Consulting, was it? I’m doing the renovation.”
“World Wide Solutions,” Suzie said.
“Right,” said the renovation man. “By lunchtime, it will be—” He took out his phone, read from the screen. “—Terrapin Exports.”
“You don’t waste time,” Bernie said.
“The early bird catches the worm.”
The renovation dude was right about that. I’d seen it so many times, the poor worm struggling to stay in the ground, the bird with its weird skinny bird feet firmly planted, tugging away. Then another bird comes gliding down, way too late. I’ve often encountered worms—like anyone else whose job requires digging now and then—and eaten my share, but I would never bother to hunt them down. Just between you and me, they’re not that tasty.
“. . . quick look around,” Suzie said.
“Look around?” said the renovation dude. “Afraid I’m not authorized to—”
A woman called from inside the office. “Mr. York? Is someone there?”
The renovation dude opened the door. I glimpsed a tall older woman standing at the desk, putting papers in a box. She had swept-back wings of white-and-black hair—a very nice color combo, in my opinion, and not just on account of it being mine, too, although mostly—but what really jumped out at me were the glasses she wore, glasses of the kind they call cat’s-eye. I’m sure the name alone gives you the chills. If this was a case—but how could it be? Was anyone paying?—then we were suddenly in trouble.
“Associates of . . . of the previous tenant,” said the renovation dude, Mr. York, if I was getting this right.
The woman gazed out at us. Not us, exactly: her eyes went to Bernie, then to Suzie, and back to Bernie, somehow missing me.
“What can I do for you?” she said. “I assume you’ve heard the sad news?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Suzie said. “We’re trying to find out what happened.”
“I didn’t know . . . the deceased,” the woman said. “I represent the building owners.”
“Who must want this to go as smoothly as possible,” Bernie said.
There was a long pause, Bernie and the woman eyeing each other. Then the woman spread her hands in that gesture humans make to show you’re going to get zilch out of them. “I don’t see how I can help,” she said. “But please come in.”
By that time, I was pretty much inside the office anyway; actually completely inside. Bernie and Suzie followed. Several boxes lay on the floor, packed with papers, folders, framed photos, plus pens and pencils and other desk stuff. I sniffed out that guinea pig smell right away, weaker than before but still hanging around.
“You’re packing up Eben’s stuff?” Suzie said.
“At the request of his head office,” said the woman.
“The police gave you the okay?” Suzie said.
“Would I be doing this otherwise?”
And maybe a bit more chatter along those lines, whatever they happened to be, but meanwhile Bernie was pacing off the distance between the desk and the flowerpot where Ferretti had found our gun. I hadn’t seen Bernie’s pacing-off thing in way too long! I trotted over and pitched in, pacing in my own way. Did the woman at the desk glance over in alarm? Maybe, but I’m too busy concentrating on my job to be sure.
“. . . head office of World Wide Solutions?” Suzie was saying.
The woman nodded. “Somewhere overseas, I believe,” she said.
“Did they give you a shipping address?” Suzie said.
There was another pause, this one much shorter, before the woman said, “My instructions were to leave everything with the building superintendent for pickup.”
Bernie and Suzie exchanged a look. I got the feeling he was telling her something in a silent sort of way. That was bothersome. Why not me? I liked Suzie just fine, but didn’t she have somewhere to go?
Suzie turned to the woman at the desk. “Maybe we could help you.”
“Help me?”
“Sort through things. We knew Eben personally, as I mentioned.”
The woman shook her head. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I’m not authorized. It could cost me my job.”
“How about getting authorized?” Bernie said.
“I don’t understand.”
“By your boss,” Bernie said.
“That would never happen,” the woman said. “He’s a strictly by-the-book type. The whole company’s that way.”
Bernie and Suzie exchanged another look. Meanwhile, Mr. York, the renovation dude, was kind of lingering in the doorway, scraper in hand.
Suzie turned to the woman again. “What’s the name of the company?”
The woman handed Suzie a card.
Suzie examined it. “Preakness Development?” she said.
The woman nodded.
“We’re having a real Maryland-themed day,” Bernie said, losing me completely.
“I’m sorry?” said the woman, showing she and I had something in common, kind of a surprise.
“Terrapin Exports,” Bernie said. “Preakness Development.”
Some quick
blinking went on behind those cat’s-eye glasses. Mr. York was inside the room now.
“Not important,” Bernie said. “We won’t take any more of your time.”
“Nice, ah, meeting you,” the woman said. “Sorry I couldn’t . . .”
“Good luck with the assignment,” Bernie said.
Mr. York stepped aside to let us pass, raising his cap in a polite sort of way, and when he did that, I saw that his hair was of the slicked-back kind. At the very moment I ran smack into the thought I’d been waiting and waiting for: namely that I’d seen Mr. York once before, in fact, the day Bernie and I had first driven up to Suzie’s house. Mr. York had also driven up—at the wheel of a taxi, if that mattered—and he’d taken a long look at a blue minivan parked nearby. Then there’d been that little scene of Eben coming out of Suzie’s house and meeting Bernie, a meeting that maybe hadn’t gone well, and . . . But I couldn’t take it any further, most likely had already taken it too far. I started barking my head off.
Mr. York jumped back. “What’s with him?”
“Do you have a cat?” Bernie said.
“No way,” said Mr. York. “I’d have a dog if my building allowed it.”
“Come on, big guy,” Bernie said to me. “Ease up.”
Ease up? I did the exact opposite!
“What the heck?” said Mr. York. “Dogs usually like me.”
Bernie! Do a so therefore!
But Bernie didn’t. He took me by the collar in that gentle Bernie-like way—and eased me out the door. I knocked off with the barking way before we got to the elevator, or possibly on the ride down, or maybe when we got out on the ground floor.
• • •
We drove toward the city, same seating arrangement as before. Maybe we’d soon be dropping Suzie off, getting back to normal. You could always hope, and I always do. It was quiet in the car, no talking, no music. I was in the mood for music! “The Road Goes on Forever,” for example, or “Delta Momma Blues.” “Don’t kid yourself, Chet,” Bernie always says, “that one’s about codeine and nothing but.” Whatever kidding yourself means, exactly, it’s not me. I’m not a kid, and also helped take down Twitchy Tim, a pharmacist gone bad who ran a side business in codeine popsicles, as I’m sure Bernie remembered.
“That was weird,” Suzie said after a while.
“Oh, yes,” said Bernie.
“Meaning?”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Try.”
The guinea pig smell! Begin with the guinea pig smell! But Bernie did not. Instead, he said, “She never asked for our names.”
“So?”
“So maybe she didn’t have to.”
“You’re saying . . . she knew who we were?”
Bernie nodded, just one simple brief movement. I knew that nod very well. It only happened when Bernie was certain he was right.
“Come on, Bernie,” Suzie said. “There are much likelier explanations than that. We said we were friends of Eben’s. Why wasn’t that enough?”
“How about we ask her?” Bernie said.
“Ask her why she didn’t want our names?”
“Yeah,” Bernie said. “Call Preakness Development and see if they can put you through.”
“And then just say, ‘Hi, us again—we’re hurt that you didn’t card us?’ ”
Bernie laughed. “Why not?” he said. “If it goes that far.”
“If it goes that far?” Suzie said.
Bernie didn’t answer. Suzie started up on her phone, tapping at the screen with the look on her face that humans get when they’re deep into their gadgets, a look like maybe they’re starting to turn into a gadget themselves. Doesn’t show them at their best, in my opinion. No offense.
“Bernie?” Suzie said. “There doesn’t seem to be a listing for Preakness Development.”
“No?” Bernie said, not sounding surprised.
“Not only that—there are no hits at all for them, not a single hit of any kind!”
“Uh-huh.”
More tapping. “What’s more,” Suzie said, “that building is owned by an outfit called Treetop Properties.” She looked up, turned to him. “What the hell? Next you’ll be telling me that—” She bent over the phone. “But there is a Terrapin Exports.”
“Try them.”
Suzie made a call. “Hello, Terrapin Exports? I had a question about the new office you’re opening at 1643 Ellington Parkway.” She listened for moment. “Any plans to?” She listened again, then clicked off. “They know nothing about it, Bernie.”
“What bothers me the most,” Bernie said, swinging onto an off-ramp, circling around, and heading back on the highway in the direction we’d come from, “is how she came up zip on the Maryland references. That’s kind of worrisome.”
“More worrisome than the rest of it? How?”
“Not sure,” Bernie said. “Did you notice her accent?”
“Accent?”
“Very faint,” Bernie said. “I couldn’t place it.” He pulled off the road, parked again in front of the brassy-colored office building. We were back? Hadn’t we just left? A puzzler. But if it was okay with Bernie, it was okay with me.
TWELVE
* * *
In the elevator again! Way too much elevator work on this case already. I’m no fan of elevators, couldn’t tell you how often they’d made me puke. But not this time: the doors opened just as I was getting the first hints of pukiness. I stepped into the hall, a pukey air bubble rising up through my throat and into the air. Right away I went from feeling not quite tip-top to my tip-toppest. We walked down the hall to the World Wide Solutions office, all systems go, and go is how I roll, if that makes any sense.
No sign of Mr. York, the renovation dude, or taxi driver dude, or whatever he was, but he’d left scrapings on the carpet and there were still some letters on the door.
“He got to ‘World Wi’ and took a break?” Suzie said.
“Damn it,” said Bernie.
He charged forward, turned the knob, turned it so hard it twisted right off. Had I seen that before? Never. But that was Bernie: just when you think he’s done amazing you, he amazes you again. The door—what was it left of it—swung open.
No sign of the cat’s-eye woman. No sign of much of anything. All the boxes, all the papers: gone.
“Chet was on to something,” Bernie said.
“I’d wondered about that,” said Suzie.
While I waited to find out what I’d been on to—what an interesting subject!—Bernie said, “And I’m an idiot.” That had to be his sense of humor popping up, which could happen just about any time. He went through the office, yanking at the desk and file cabinet drawers. Empty, empty, empty. But that didn’t make Bernie an idiot. Nothing could.
“This means they didn’t have permission from the cops?” Suzie said.
Bernie slammed a drawer shut and shook his head.
“So therefore,” Suzie went on, but I stopped right there. I mean, whoa! Bernie handles the so therefores at the Little Detective Agency, and I bring other things to the table. Didn’t Suzie have somewhere to go? And meanwhile, Bernie was listening to whatever she had to say with total interest, like he couldn’t look at anyone else if he tried. Try, Bernie, try.
But he didn’t. The next thing I knew we were back in the hall. Bernie hurried from door-to-door, flinging open the ones that would open, glancing in. I caught glimpses of different sorts of humans surprised at work. Then at the end of the hall, we came to a door that wasn’t like the others, just a plain gray door with no writing on it. Bernie rattled the knob. From the other side of the door came sound, faint and low. Call it a moan.
Bernie lowered his shoulder to the door. In a flash, I was pretty much beside myself: I loved breaking down doors more than anything! And what’s more natural when you love somethi
ng than to pitch in and help get it done? We’re a team, me and Bernie, in case that’s not clear yet. We broke down that door together, side by side, broke it practically to smithereens, smithereens turning up in this job from time to time, just another one of the great things about it. I was so excited about breaking down doors and smithereens and Bernie that I didn’t quite see what we’d found on the other side of the door, which turned out to be a sort of storage closet, full of brooms and mops and buckets and other stuff you’d expect. But how about something you wouldn’t expect, namely a uniformed cop all tied up in a tight little bundle, his head completely hidden in crime scene tape, wrapped around and around? That’s what we found in the storage closet, me and Bernie. Suzie was there, too, wouldn’t be right to leave that out. And another thing about her: a lot of people not in our business tend to look shocked when they see a sight like we were seeing, covering their mouths, saying “Oh, my God,” that kind of thing. There’s something scary about it after all, a face that’s crime scene tape and nothing else. But there was none of that with Suzie. Her eyes were as hard as Bernie’s eyes at that moment, which means like stone. The crime-scene face man moaned again. I backed up just the tiniest bit, for no particular reason. Don’t think for a second that I myself was scared. Not possible. I’m a pro. Please keep that in mind.
• • •
“That’s it, Nevins?” said Lieutenant Soares. “That’s all you’ve got?”
We were back in the emptied-out World Wide Solutions office, all of us—me, Bernie, Suzie, Soares—on our feet, except for the man from the storage closet, now untied and unwrapped, sitting on the couch for office visitors. He was turning out to be just a normal cop who’d screwed up, name of Nevins, unless I was off the track. That can happen, especially if it’s the kind of track that doesn’t involve my nose. If my nose is in the picture, you can bet the ranch.
Some people, when they screw up, get what’s called a hangdog look, maybe the strangest human expression there is. But that wasn’t where I was going with this. Where was I going? I was going . . . cops! Yes, cops, screw-up cops specifically. Screw-up cops don’t get that look, the name of which we can do without. Instead, they get the high school screw-up kid look, kind of up from under and mulish. Don’t get me started on mules—no way I’ll ever forget that mule called Rummy—because there’s just no time. The point is that Nevins, the cop from the storage closet, had that look on his face. And did he even smell a bit like Rummy? I thought so. In fact, I was sure of it! What a life!
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