Heart of Barkness Read online

  “None of your goddamn business,” Leticia said. “Who’s this supposed client of yours?”

  “I’m going to protect the client’s identity for now,” Bernie said.

  “Then we’re done.” Leticia walked past us toward the door.

  Bernie walked after her, not in an aggressive way. I did the same, also not aggressively, at least not very. Leticia whirled around.

  “You’re trespassing. Do I have to call the police?”

  “This is complicated enough already,” Bernie said. “You have nothing to fear from us. We’re on Lotty’s side. She’s not capable of murder.”

  Leticia gave Bernie a look, a little less angry but still unpleasant in other ways I didn’t understand. “Oh?” she said. “You can see into the human soul?”

  “No,” Bernie said, “but I’ve dealt with dozens of murderers. She just doesn’t fit. I think she’s protecting someone. Possibly you, but maybe Jordan.”

  Leticia’s eyes narrowed. She was a big, strong woman and now looked dangerous. “You stay away from him.”

  “He’s your son, isn’t he? Did Clint beat him up the other night, or hire someone to do it? And Jordan, already primed by how Clint treats his grandmother, finally boiled over?”

  Leticia pointed her finger at Bernie again and then did something I’d only seen once before. She jabbed him in the chest, good and hard, and not just once but twice, the second poke harder than the first. “Stay away.”

  Oh, what a terrible mistake she was making! But how could she know what had happened to the last chest jabber, an enormous dude who’d been flat on his back and eyes rolling up a single moment later? Would this be that sweet uppercut? The right cross was always a possibility, or what about the left hook? Poor Leticia!

  Except nothing happened, not in the punching department. In a quiet voice, Bernie said, “Let’s go, Chet.” We walked down to the street, got in the car, and pulled away. Jabbed in our chest and we were just going to take it? We were almost down at the bottom of the hill before it hit me that although we’d dealt with some bad women—poisoners! brakeline cutters! even a parachute rigger!—I’d never seen Bernie use the uppercut, right cross, or left hook on any of them. What was up with that?

  * * *

  At the bottom of the hill stood one of those boarded-up gas stations you see from time to time. We pulled in—a bit of a puzzler, since boarded-up means the pumps are empty—and parked in a weedy strip behind the building. Bernie glanced around the car, felt under his seat. “Did I really throw away that pack of smokes?” he said.

  Poor Bernie! There’s a gaze I have for making him feel better. I tried it out now, but he wasn’t looking my way.

  He sighed. “Do you think it’s true—some people really are incapable of murder, in any circumstance?”

  I didn’t know, although I sort of thought I understood the question.

  “Is it graphable? One of those curves with two little tails and a big fat part in the middle?”

  Uh-oh. Maybe I hadn’t understood after all. What was he talking about? Some strange creature with two tails? Did that mean no head? It sounded so awful.

  “At one end would be the murderous types, with an appetite for killing and no consciences at all. At the other end, the saints, no appetite, and consciences in command of all they do. And in the middle are the rest of us—no appetite, middling conscience, and therefore capable of murder in the right circumstance. No reason to believe that Lotty’s a saint. But I just don’t see—”

  The little yellow car appeared, making the turn at the bottom of Bluff Street and heading out of town. “That was quick,” Bernie said, turning the key.

  An eighteen-wheeler went by in the same direction, not far back of the yellow car. We’re real good at following cars without being spotted, me and Bernie. We can follow from way back, from different lanes, even from in front. Following from behind an eighteen-wheeler is as easy as it gets. We could do it with our eyes closed, a strange human expression since they’re helpless with their eyes closed. Meanwhile, my own eyes seemed to be closing. Was it just because the idea of closed eyes was suddenly in play? I was too sleepy to even think about it.

  * * *

  I chased javelinas for a while, always fun, especially if you knew how to fly, which I did. It was actually more of a gliding since I had no wings to flap. I glided over the desert, taking my time, glancing around: and what was this? Way down below a tiny car, all alone, was moving along an endless strip of two-lane blacktop. Something familiar about that car, and a moment later I was hovering right above it. A Porsche? Yes, and more specifically, our Porsche. With Bernie at the wheel, smoking a huge cigar, almost the size of a baseball bat. And beside him, sitting up straight and tall, was … was a member of the nation within … who looked … looked a lot like.… Shooter. And was! It was Shooter, for sure, riding shotgun in the Porsche! Oh, no.

  “Chet? Hey, big guy, you all right? Wake up.”

  I opened my eyes and saw I was in the Porsche, in the Porsche with Bernie and curled up in the shotgun seat. No sign of … any other party. Bernie was patting my shoulder.

  “A nightmare?” he said. “You were whimpering pretty good there for a while.”

  Whimpering? How embarrassing! But … but another party in the shotgun seat! Not me! Then came a sound a lot like—oh, no—a whimper!

  “Chet. What’s wrong?”

  I sat up. All these strange pictures in my mind faded away. I gave myself a little shake, the best I could do in a small space.

  “Back to normal?” Bernie gave me a big smile. “Reason’s a thing we dimly see in sleep, as they say.”

  That one—which I’m pretty sure I’d never heard from nobody—zipped right by me.

  Bernie opened his door. “Come on, Chet. Let’s get to work.”

  I hopped out of the car. We were somewhere new! Somewhere that smelled of the open desert and also sounded like the open desert, a still and empty sound I loved, although this particular spot wasn’t empty. We seemed to be parked a little way off a dirt track, behind a big cottonwood on the bank of a dry wash. Bernie headed up a steep, rocky slope, and therefore so did I, following him in this way I have of getting wherever we were going—in this case, the top of the hill—first.

  “Down,” said Bernie, in a low voice.

  I crouched behind a row of prickly pears, and so did Bernie, as soon as he caught up. Together we took in the scene below. The dry wash made a long curve, widening a bit, and at the widest spot even had a glint of water in it. We have mirages out in the desert, but not when it comes to smell, and I smelled water. On each bank by the watery part was a grove of cottonwoods, and in the grove on our side of the wash stood an RV, not the real big kind. Parked nearby, at the end of a dirt track leading back toward the base of the hill, was the little yellow car.

  Hey! We were on the job, and doing well! What a team!

  Time passed. A big black bird circled over the cottonwoods, then spread its wings and drifted higher and higher, drifting in a gliding sort of way that … that reminded me of Shooter? What a strange thought! Where had it come from? It made no sense.

  The back door of the RV opened and a person stepped out. We were too far away to make out the face of this person, but men and women move differently, and this was a woman. She moved between the cottonwoods, sunshine lighting up her hair, black and glossy. Had to be Leticia! Wow! Was I on fire or what?

  Leticia got in the yellow car, drove out of the cottonwood grove and up onto the dirt track. It led her to the bottom of the hill—she was leaning forward, both hands on the wheel—and then veered into the desert, headed toward a low black smear on the horizon, possibly a town. We jumped up, ran down to the Porsche, swung onto the dirt track, and followed—

  But no. None of that—none of the usual things we do at a moment like this—happened. We just stayed where we were. I watched Bernie. His gaze was on the RV, but after a while he looked my way. “I’m getting a funny feeling.”

 
That sounded interesting. I waited for more, and when more didn’t come, made a quick check for funny feelings of my own. Nope, not a one, from nose to tail and back again. All of me felt tip-top.

  By that time, the yellow car was just a tiny speck, the only movement in all there was to see—except for the black bird, now circling over the RV. Bernie rose, and so did I. After he looked all around, we made our way back down the hill—side by side with me in front—and got in the car. Bernie steered us out from behind the big cottonwood, around a clump of jumping cholla—I once had a problem with jumping cholla, and had learned to keep my distance, learned that lesson very well and many times—and onto the dirt track. Then came a bit of a surprise. We didn’t go zooming after the yellow car, but headed the other way, toward the RV.

  We parked right where the yellow car had been and walked up to the RV. Sometimes Bernie speaks in this low voice that means he’s talking to himself. I love when he does that, and always listen in.

  “What if I’d said, ‘Suzie, let’s sell everything, take off in an RV, and just live?’”

  What a brilliant idea! As long as we towed the Porsche behind the RV, of course. Was this the RV? I was all set to take possession, when Bernie called through the door.

  “Lotty? We need to talk.”

  Fourteen

  Silence from inside. Then came footsteps, very soft, but there’s no such thing as footsteps too soft for my ears. Also I could hear breathing on the other side of the door. Plus there were smells of cigarette smoke, coffee, and perfume—and the specific smell of Lotty Pilgrim, which had an interesting milky quality. The door might as well not have been there.

  At least in my case. Did Bernie realize Lotty was standing pretty much right in front of us? He raised his voice. “Lotty? Lotty?” Raised it to a level that meant the answer to my question was no.

  No answer from Lotty. The milky smell changed, went the tiniest bit sour. I’ve tasted milk both sour and not, don’t like either kind. Water’s my drink. The best I ever tasted came right out of a rock, but no time to go into that now.

  Bernie raised his voice even more. “You’re headed in the wrong direction. You know that.”

  Silence.

  “And if you’d let us help before, maybe—”

  The door opened. “Stop shouting,” said Lotty, although for a moment I hardly recognized her face; it looked so old. Plus she’d been doing a lot of crying. Crying signs stay on a woman’s face for some time after the crying’s over.

  She stepped aside. We walked in. She looked past us, into the distance, then closed the door.

  We were in a tiny kitchen. Lotty sat at the tiny table, a cup of coffee in front of her. We sat, too. She wore pink sweats and pink slippers. In case you’re interested, Bernie wore jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, the one with the laughing pineapples, hard to describe, and I wore my everyday collar, the one made of gator skin, a long story, even longer than the one about the water from the rock.

  She gave Bernie a look. “Proud of yourself?”

  “For what?” Bernie said.

  “Being such a sneak. Following Leticia out here. God knows what else.”

  “She’s your daughter?”

  “That’s no secret,” Lotty said.

  “And Jordan’s your grandson?”

  “That’s not a secret either.”

  “There’s a difference between not a secret and common knowledge,” Bernie said. “For example, I’m guessing Clint didn’t know about Jordan, maybe didn’t know about Leticia either. Is that true?”

  “Stop interrogating me,” Lotty said, her eyes tearing up. “Is that what I need? Where’s this help you keep promising? You want up-front money? Is that it? I have none.”

  “I don’t want your money,” Bernie said. “But how is it possible you don’t have any?”

  “Nothing’s more possible.” Lotty wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. “Most folks have no money.”

  “But most folks haven’t had a long career in the music business. Most folks didn’t write ‘How You Hung the Moon.’”

  “You want me to explain the goddamn music industry?” Lotty said. “How’s that going to help?”

  “You never know what will help—that’s something you learn in our business.”

  Lotty’s eyes shifted my way. “When you say ‘our’ you mean Chet and yourself?”

  “I do,” said Bernie.

  Well, of course! What could be more obvious? I had the feeling, a bit disturbing, that we weren’t getting anywhere. What was this case about? A whole strange back-and-forth with a C-note. And Clint, the boyfriend or manager or whatever he was, laid out in Lotty’s bed. Was there anything else? Not that I could think of. I felt a little better about the case. C-notes and dead bodies were our bread and butter. All at once, I was hungry. Does that ever happen to you, out of nowhere and for no reason? I sniffed the air for scraps, came up with zip.

  Lotty stuck her finger in her coffee, stirred it around, seemed to calm down a little. “I had a dog named Patsy once.”

  “Named after Patsy Cline?” Bernie said.

  Lotty tilted her head, checked Bernie out from that angle. “Well, well,” she said. “I even formed a company with her—Lotty and Patsy Songs, Limited.”

  “Is it still in existence?”

  Lotty shook her head.

  “What happened to it?”

  “Now you’re in the weeds,” she said. “Sure you do this for a living?”

  “I can give you references.”

  “And then I’d call them? How smart would that be at the moment? But if you do it for a living, why aren’t you charging me?”

  “We have a client.”

  Lotty sat back. “Someone’s paying you to help me?”

  Bernie nodded.

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather keep that private for now.”

  “Then that’s the end of our powwow.”

  “It’s a friend.”

  “I have no friends.”

  “Sure you do—think of all the people who love your music.”

  “You’re very naïve,” Lotty said. “Those aren’t friends.”

  “Maybe not,” Bernie said. “But our client has your interests at heart.”

  “The name,” said Lotty.

  It got very quiet in the RV. For a moment I thought I heard a car, but far away. Lotty sat motionless, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Myron Siegel,” Bernie said at last.

  “Damn it to hell,” Lotty said. “Everything’s always about money. I never learn.”

  “Myron’s about money?”

  “Sure. With me—how would you put it?—on the run, his little book or whatever he’s got in mind suddenly gets a bump in value.” She sucked in her breath, started to rise. “Have you told him I’m here?”

  “No,” Bernie said. “That won’t happen. And you’re wrong about his motives. It goes back to high school.”

  Lotty’s face went pale. The sour milk smell got more sour. “High school?” she said.

  “Coronado High, down in Fort Kidder. Weren’t you and Myron there at the same time?”

  “So he says. I don’t remember him at all.”

  “But you made a big impression on him.”

  “How?”

  “When you sang ‘Are You Washed in the Blood.’”

  Her eyes shifted. For a moment or two she seemed not to be with us, just a feeling I had, hard to explain. Then she gave her head a tiny shake, like she was snapping herself out of something, and said, “The talent show? That’s the connection to high school?”

  “Yes,” Bernie said. He ran his thumb along the side of his chin. I’d never seen that before from Bernie. What did it mean? Something amazing, I knew that much. “What else could it be?”

  Lotty shrugged. Color came back to her face and the sour milk smell weakened down to almost nothing. She took a sip of coffee. “All right. Let’s hear your advice.”

  “First I need to know more,” sai
d Bernie. “Start with the last time you saw Clint.”

  She looked at Bernie over the rim of her cup, first a hard look, and then with no warning, tears were flowing down her face, although she made no sound. I eased myself over a little bit and sat on her foot. No idea why. Things happen in life. I felt her hand on my back, very gentle, but there was a tremor in it.

  “What if I told you I was guilty?” she said, her voice thick.

  “Of murdering Clint?” said Bernie.

  Lotty looked down, stroked my fur. “That, too,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. I have no meaning.”

  “Explain.”

  Lotty shook her head. “There’s no explanation. I killed Clint.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “No? Didn’t your pal Myron supply you with the motive?”

  “The girlfriend in Pottsdale?” Bernie said. “Maybe a motive for some, but not for you.”

  “Why not? You don’t believe I loved him?”

  Bernie just sat there.

  “I did,” Lotty said. “I do. I always will.”

  “That sounds like a bad lyric, Lotty. The kind you wouldn’t write.”

  Lotty’s hand went still. Some hands might have gripped my fur at that point, even in a too-strong grip, but hers did not. There are humans—not a whole lot—with no violence in them.

  “Do you treat all your clients like this?” she said.

  Bernie rose, lifted the coffeepot off the counter, filled her cup. “It’s nothing compared to what’s in the sheriff’s plans.”

  Lotty’s hand, still on my back, seemed to go colder. Bernie raised the pot in one of those little human gestures that sometimes—not often enough, in my opinion—take the place of talk.

  “Help yourself,” Lotty said.

  Bernie opened a cupboard, took out a mug with writing on it. Bernie checked out the writing. “Michigan State,” he said. “Who owns the RV, Lotty?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “It probably doesn’t.” Bernie sat down, set his mug on the tiny tabletop.

  “Friends of Leticia’s from up north,” Lotty said. “They won’t be back till November. Do you ever ask questions that matter?”