Arf

by Spencer Quinn

  “The line of duty?”

  “Yeah,” Birdie said. “The line of duty. We have his medal of honor at home.”

  “Is that any … comfort at all?” said Drea. I thought I saw her eyes tear up, but by then I was too far away to be sure.

  “Kind of,” Birdie said.

  “In a better-than-nothing sort of way?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “Do you know much about how it happened?” Drea said.

  “He was working on a case. That’s pretty much all I know.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “Murder,” Birdie said.

  Drea’s gaze shifted to the pond again, where I seemed to be paws deep at the moment. “Any idea who got murdered?”

  “No,” Birdie said.

  “Or whether the case ended up getting solved?”

  “I know it didn’t—my grammy calls down to New Orleans every year.”

  “Meaning it’s a cold case,” said Drea.

  Birdie nodded. Her mouth opened like she was going to say something, but she stayed silent.

  “Go ahead,” said Drea, her voice softening again, almost like faraway music.

  “I just heard that expression the other day, is all,” Birdie said.

  “Cold case?”

  “Yeah. The sheriff—Sheriff Cannon—is kind of a friend of the family. He knew my dad and mentioned something my dad once said about cold cases.”

  “Which was?”

  Birdie licked her lips. “ ‘You warm up cold cases by caring about the survivors.’ ”

  Now there were tears in Drea’s eyes, no question. Even from where I was by then—out in the pond, pretty much up to my chest—I could see those tears, wobbling bubbles in the sun. Too big and wobbly not to overflow, which they did. Drea dabbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  “Is something wrong?” Birdie said.

  Now Drea did reach for Birdie’s hand. She took it in her own. “We’re survivors, you and me.”

  Birdie gazed down at their two hands together. Drea was watching Birdie’s face. Things felt peaceful down at Mr. Santini’s pond. That was around when my paws stopped touching the bottom and I went from walking to swimming.

  Meanwhile, Drea had let go of Birdie’s hand. “Ever heard of Kramer’s Kold Kases?”

  “No,” Birdie said. “What is it?”

  “A blog,” said Drea. “All Ks where the Cs should be.”

  “What about it?”

  “There’s a lot of crazy stuff online. But … but not all of it, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Birdie said.

  Ah, swimming! Swimming is simply trotting underwater. What could be better than that? How about swimming directly at an annoying frog poised on a lily pad that was now real close by? What a life I was living! The frog gazed at me like I was a nobody, throat bulging in that annoying way. Get ready for some big life changes, Mr. Frog.

  Meanwhile, from the shore, still well within range of hearing like mine, I heard more talk. Birdie said, “What happened to your dad?”

  Before Drea could answer, I was distracted by a bright glare on the far side of the pond. I looked that way and saw a man, mostly hidden by a tree trunk, watching us through binoculars. More accurately, from how the binoculars were pointing, the man was watching Birdie and Drea. That bothered me. Then I noticed the man’s hair—thick, golden, puffy. And his mustache, somewhat darker. Had I seen this man before? Oh, yes, driving slowly down Gentilly Lane in a sporty two-seater, a cat with a coat similar in color to the man’s golden dome curled up on the back shelf. That bothered me some more. I barked, a very loud and sharp bark I have for when sneaky things are going on.

  That bark got everyone’s attention. The frog turned out to have the fastest reaction time, springing off the lily pad and disappearing beneath the scummy surface of the pond. The man was second-fastest, darting into the trees on the far side and vanishing from sight. Then came Birdie. “Bowser? What is it? What’s going on?”

  “Could there be gators in this pond?” Drea said.

  “Bowser can smell them,” Birdie said. “He wouldn’t go in.”

  Wow! Was that true? I felt very good about myself, although this was not the time for too much of that, not with the man running away through the trees. I barked louder and sharper.

  “Are you sure?” Drea said.

  “Yes,” Birdie said. “But—Bowser, come!”

  Come? Now? With the golden-domed dude running away? I didn’t like him, not one little bit, and—

  “Bowser! Come! Treat!”

  Treat? That was another story. I left off with the barking for the time being and swam for shore. Moments later I was munching on a tasty biscuit, the annoying frog and the golden-domed dude with the binoculars fading fast from my mind. We walked back to the tent, Drea on one side of me, Birdie on the other. Drea glanced over my head at Birdie.

  “Ever hear of people named Richelieu around here?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Birdie. “They were the other ones who got broken into.”

  Drea stopped in her tracks. “Broken into? I don’t understand.”

  Birdie got started on a long explanation about the break-ins and how nothing got taken from either place, including Mrs. Richelieu’s pearls—even if no one knew the truth about that, the whole story just about impossible to follow.

  “The truth about her pearls?” said Drea. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Birdie began, and then she paused and looked at Drea from a different angle, her head titled to the side. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Were you looking for the Richelieus this morning? When we met on the bridge?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because it was their boat—Cardinal—that had just gone through,” Birdie said. “And you asked if we’d seen a boat, me and Junior.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Drea said. And at that moment, Junior came running up with a small package in his hand. “To be continued,” Drea said softly, like she was talking to herself.

  “Grade A guitar strings,” Junior said. “Same kind as used by ZZ Top, whoever he is. Says right on ’em.”

  “Thanks, Junior,” Drea said, taking the package from him. She checked her watch. “But I’ve got to be somewhere. How about we meet here tomorrow, same time?”

  “Uh, sure,” Junior said. “Did Birdie tell you about ‘Stay Away, Friend’?”

  “What’s that?” said Drea.

  “My very latest song.”

  “Something to look forward to,” Drea said.

  Rory was standing outside our house when we got home. He was all sweaty and dusty, wore his baseball uniform, carried a bat over his shoulder, a baseball glove slung on the tip of the barrel. A leather baseball glove with rawhide laces: By far the most interesting object I’d run across in some time.

  “There you are,” he said.

  “Hi,” said Birdie.

  “I knocked but no one answered.”

  “No one’s home.”

  “You’re home now.”

  “Right.”

  “Had a game today. Second-last game of the season.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Oh-for-two. Only had two at bats on account of the slaughter rule.”

  “Who got slaughtered?” Birdie said. “You or them?”

  “Us,” said Rory. He looked down at the grass, kind of … pawed at it with one of his cleats. I couldn’t help liking Rory. “I think I’m seeing the ball, but maybe I’m not.”

  “Oh,” Birdie said.

  Rory looked up. “Oh? Just oh?”

  “It’s only a game, Rory.”

  “I hate when people say that.”

  Uh-oh. They weren’t getting along? I paused what I’d been doing, namely getting myself in position to spring up and make a play for that glove hanging off the end of the bat.

  “But maybe thinking about it like that would help you relax,” Birdie said.

  Rory raised his voice. “I am rela
xed!”

  “Good to hear,” said Birdie.

  Rory glared at her. “I came to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve been hanging out with Junior Tebbets, huh?”

  “That’s what you came to tell me?”

  Rory shook his head real fast and hard, like he was trying to shake things up in there. “Forget I said that.” He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his hand, leaving a reddish smear on his cheek, the color of the base paths down at the ball fields.

  “Okay,” Birdie said.

  “What I came to tell you was about the pearls.”

  “What about them?”

  “The pearls that got stolen from the Richelieus, that no one’s supposed to know about.”

  “Go on.”

  “You haven’t told anybody?”

  “Of course not.”

  “The thing is,” Rory said, “they’re worth a lot of money. Mrs. Richelieu put in a claim to her insurance company and they called my dad, which is how come I overheard, like on the police line in the kitchen. See what I’m saying? It’s kind of complicated.”

  “How much?” Birdie said.

  “Huh?”

  “How much are—were—the pearls worth?”

  “Twenty thousand dollars,” Rory said.

  “Wow,” said Birdie.

  Were they getting along better now? I thought so, and picked up where I’d left off, inching my way into position. I could practically taste those rawhide laces, rawhide being one of the tastiest things out there.

  “Why’s Bowser creeping along on his belly like that?” Rory said.

  Birdie gave me a close look. “Don’t even think about it,” she said. “Meaning you, Bowser.”

  Me? Suddenly I was center stage? I stopped what I was doing, opened my mouth wide and let my tongue flap way, way out. It was all I could think to do.

  “Maybe we can catch them on the way back in,” Birdie said, opening a kitchen drawer and taking out a small black camera.

  Sounded like a plan to me, although I had no idea what she was talking about. Did Birdie ever go wrong? That thought didn’t even make sense. Next thing I knew we were out the door, and not long after that we were back on the Lucinda Street Bridge. The sun was lower in the sky now and everything looked different from before, the bayou no longer blue, but a kind of red gold, crisscrossed with the long shadows of trees that grew on the banks. Birdie watched in silence, those shadows growing longer and longer.

  “You see the plan, Bowser?” she said.

  And of course I did. My plan was to stay here on the bridge with Birdie for as long as she wanted.

  “The sheriff needs to know those pearls weren’t stolen,” Birdie went on. “But he has to find out in a way that doesn’t lead back to Rory. So what if a time-stamped photo of Mrs. Richelieu with the pearls shows up in his mail?”

  Sounded good to me, whatever it was. I was familiar with mailboxes, of course, had marked just about every one of them in town.

  Birdie gazed down the bayou. Were we waiting for something? I got that impression, but couldn’t think what. After a while I heard engine sounds on the way. Right around then was when Birdie sighed. “I guess we’re too late, Bowser. We’ll have to come up with another idea.”

  Too late? Too late for what? She couldn’t mean too late for a boat, because one would clearly be along in no time. Or was it possible she wasn’t picking up those engine sounds, practically a din by now? I stared at her ears and felt bad for her.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Which was just when a boat rounded a bend down the bayou and came into view. Birdie was already taking a first step or two the other way, headed off the bridge. I barked a low rumbly bark, just making myself useful. Birdie stopped, turned, looked in the direction I wanted her to look.

  “Good boy,” she said, taking out the camera.

  My tail started up in a cheerful way, unfortunately knocking the camera from Birdie’s hand. It bounced across the pavement, skittered to the very edge of the bridge and—and came to rest right there. Birdie scooped it up, so no harm, no foul.

  The boat turned out to be a boat I’d seen before, namely the cabin cruiser that belonged to the Richelieus, red with black trim. Cardinal, if I was remembering right—something you shouldn’t count on for one second. It was still pretty far away. Miranda stood at the controls, at this distance her face just a shape with no features. No sign of Merv. Birdie leaned over the rail, peering into the camera.

  “Too far away to see much, Bowser. Maybe if I turn this gizmo, I’ll be able to—oh my god! She’s wearing them!”

  Birdie snapped a picture. At that moment, Merv came out of the cabin and approached Miranda. He waved something at her. A purse? Maybe. Then they seemed to have a conversation, brief but unpleasant. Miranda took something off her neck. The pearls? Had to be. She dropped them into the purse. Merv took the purse into the cabin. Cardinal came chugging toward the bridge.

  “Let’s go, Bowser!”

  We started off the bridge and were almost on the street when Miranda looked up and saw us. Her eyes opened wide. Dark and unfriendly eyes, and real smart. They found the camera in Birdie’s hand right away. Cardinal glided under the bridge and out of sight.

  WE WALKED OFF THE LUCINDA STREET Bridge, Birdie moving so fast I had to trot to keep up with her. Were we in a hurry? I didn’t know and didn’t care, speed always a good thing, in my opinion. Speed clears your mind like nothing else! We crossed the street, Birdie glancing back when we reached the other side. Cardinal was somewhat distant now, motoring slowly up the bayou, more like a dark shadow in the low light.

  “Do you think she recognized us?” Birdie said. “She scares me, Bowser.”

  Who were we talking about? I waited to find out but Birdie didn’t say.

  Grammy was setting the table in the kitchen when we got home.

  “Something smells good,” Birdie said, sniffing the air with her puny nose. What a great kid! As for the smells, where to actually begin breaking them down? It would take forever.

  “Crawfish casserole,” Grammy said.

  “I love your crawfish casserole!” Birdie said, watching Grammy lay down some plates. “Four places, Grammy?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Grammy.

  “Who’s the fourth?”

  The only thought that came to me was: Hey! Ol’ Bowser’s sitting at the table tonight! But I’m not at my best with numbers, so I knew not to get my hopes up. The problem is that my hopes are always just sitting there waiting to get way, way up, like balloons. How do you keep balloons from happening?

  “Some work contact your mama’s bringing for dinner,” Grammy said. “There was a meeting for everybody who got fired.” Grammy gave Birdie a close look. “What are you doing with that camera?”

  “Um,” said Birdie, glancing down at the camera in her hand like it was a surprise. “Taking some pictures.”

  “Pictures? What pictures?”

  “You know. Pictures of stuff.”

  “Stuff?”

  “Stuff around town,” Birdie said.

  “Stuff around town, huh?” said Grammy. “School can’t start up too soon.”

  We went into Mama’s room. Mama had a printer at her desk. Birdie got busy with the camera and the printer, and soon held up a sheet of paper. “Not a very good picture, Bowser, but those pearls are clear and on her neck and that’s what counts. Plus there’s the date stamp.” She folded the sheet of paper, stuck it in an envelope, found a pen. “How about”—she started writing on the envelope—“Sheriff Cannon, Police Station, St. Roch, Louisiana?”

  Sounded good to me. Birdie licked the envelope and right away that was something I wanted to be doing, too. But before I could take even one step in that direction, Birdie had tucked the envelope under her T-shirt, out of my range. We left Mama’s room, went through the kitchen—

  “Where you going now, child?”

  “Be right back, Grammy!”

&nbs
p; —and out the door. A blue box stood a few doors down on the other side of the street. Birdie dropped the envelope inside.

  Birdie helped Grammy finish setting the table. I went to the corner by the fridge and lapped up some water from my bowl. Grammy checked her watch. I heard a car pulling into the driveway—Mama’s car, which I knew from a little tick-tick-tick sound it made—and just after that another car stopped out front, on the street. Car doors closed, thump-thump, and then came footsteps on the walk and onto the breezeway, two sets of footsteps, Mama’s and those of some man.

  The door opened and in walked Mama, carrying some folders. Behind her came a man, a bottle of wine in his hand and a smile on his face. The smell of limey aftershave flowed into our kitchen. The hair on my neck—on my whole back, all the way to the tip of my tail—went stiff, stiff like rows of iron spikes.

  “Grammy,” Mama said, “I’d like you to meet Mr. Pardo.”

  “Vin, please,” said Mr. Pardo.

  “Vin,” Mama went on, “this is my mother-in-law, Claire Gaux.”

  Grammy gave him a little nod. “Nice to meet you.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine, ma’am,” said Vin Pardo.

  “And this is my daughter, Birdie.”

  “What a great name! Hi, Birdie.”

  A growling started up in our kitchen, not loud, but as fierce as you’d ever want to hear.

  “Hi, Mr. Pardo,” Birdie said.

  “Vin was at the meeting,” Mama said.

  “You work at the company, too?” said Grammy.

  “No, ma’am,” said Vin Pardo. “But when word gets out that a lot of talented folks are suddenly available, I come runnin’.”

  “You’re a competitor?” said Grammy.

  “Not exactly,” said Vin Pardo. “I’m in—” He broke off, turned to me. “But who’s this handsome fella? He doesn’t appear to like me much.”

  By this time, I’d narrowed the gap between me and Pardo, down to the distance of an easy lunge.

  “This is Bowser,” Mama said. “And I’m sure he likes you.”

  Mama was wrong about that, as wrong as wrong could be. Where to begin? First of all, Vin Pardo was no stranger to me. I’d seen him driving slowly past our house in that sporty two-seater, seen him again watching Birdie and Drea through binoculars from across the scummy pond at Santini’s Campground. And that wasn’t all! After the break-in hadn’t I smelled limey aftershave all through the house? Now limey aftershave was back, back big-time. All that was new about this man with the thin, dark mustache and the puffy dome of golden hair was his name.