Heart of Barkness Read online

  “Clint told me he couldn’t wait till we could be together,” Adele was saying.

  “What was stopping him?” Bernie said.

  “His work.”

  “Which was?”

  “Artist management, of course,” Adele said. “I thought you knew him.”

  “I knew he had something to do with the music business,” said Bernie.

  Adele nodded. “Clint was totally into the music business, country music especially. He’d even owned a bar in Nashville—that’s how he met Lotty Pilgrim.”

  “What was the name of the bar?”

  “I don’t know. The point is that’s how he got involved with her. Musically, I mean.”

  “Naturally,” Bernie said. “When did you meet Clint?”

  “Last year,” said Adele, “when they moved here from Nashville. At the time I was pitching a whole bunch of musical acts, all over the southwest.”

  “Pitching what?”

  “My services.”

  “Ah.”

  Adele gave Bernie a funny look. “I’m an influencer.”

  “Oh?”

  “A social media influencer. I promote things on the Internet.”

  “You get paid for that?”

  “There’s a sliding scale, depending on what click levels are reached according to agreed-on metrics,” Adele said. Or something along those lines. I can’t be counted on when it comes to talk like that. “In Lotty Pilgrim’s case even the lowest level turned out to be a fantasy.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Have you ever seen her?”

  Bernie nodded.

  “Then you know that she’s way way over the hill,” Adele said. “If she was even on the hill in the first place.”

  “So what was Clint hoping to gain?” Bernie said.

  Adele bit her lip again. “What are you saying?”

  “If she was a has-been that never-was what was he hoping to accomplish?”

  “That’s what I asked him. Clint said she’d been cheated out of her whole career and he was going to make it right.”

  “Cheated how?” said Bernie. “By who?”

  “He was still working on that when … when…” She came to a stop, and just gazed into the fountain. That was the moment I realized that I myself seemed to be actually in the fountain, standing motionless, the water just touching my belly, a very nice feeling. What a stroke of luck!

  “What did he tell you about Lotty getting cheated?” Bernie said.

  “Nothing. He was still gathering facts. But it happened a long time ago.”

  “He told you that?”

  Adele shook her head. “I figured it out. If she was cheated out of her whole career then it must have happened way in the past. She doesn’t tell her age, but Wikipedia says it’s either sixty-five or sixty-eight.” Adele shivered. “Christ,” she said. “An old crone but quote, ‘still hot-blooded.’”

  “Who are you quoting?”

  “The sheriff—Gamble, or Gumble or something,” Adele said. There was a slight change in Bernie, not a movement or anything like that, but inside him. You’d have to know him well to spot it, and I do. “I may have to testify if there’s a trial.”

  “How did the sheriff find out about you?”

  “From Clint’s family. I told you—they hate me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they thought I was a home-wrecker.”

  “What home are we talking about?”

  “Clint and Lotty were living together, down at her crummy ranch,” Adele said. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “No,” Bernie said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Bernie, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “He never mentioned a Bernie.”

  “Not surprising,” Bernie said. “I always had the impression he was going pretty fast.”

  “You got that right,” Adele said. “But that didn’t mean he was sleeping with her.”

  Bernie didn’t say anything, just waited. Standing in the nice cool water, I waited, too. Waiting was one of our best techniques at the Little Detective Agency.

  “The sheriff says it was a crime of passion,” Adele said at last. “Lotty found out about me and … did what she did. But I hope he’s wrong. I hope she’s innocent.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She gazed at Bernie. “Maybe not to a man.”

  “Walk me through it,” he said.

  “It’s simple logic,” said Adele. “If she’s innocent that means she wasn’t jealous, and if she wasn’t jealous they weren’t involved. And if they weren’t involved, then Clint didn’t lie to me.”

  That was simple? But Bernie seemed to get it. “I’m with you,” he said. “I hope she’s innocent.”

  “Thanks,” said Adele. “But don’t hold your breath. The sheriff thinks she’s going to plead guilty.”

  Sixteen

  “Logically,” Bernie said as we drove away from the church, the shotgun seat possibly a little on the damp side, “we should be looking into Adele’s whereabouts on the night of the murder. But I’m just not feeling it, Chet. Is that the feminine side of me?”

  What was this? Feminine side of Bernie? I’d never been so baffled. Feminine Bernie? Was it possible we’d been partners all this time and I’d missed something like that? I gave him a real good sniff and—

  “Hey, Chet, knock it off!”

  —and detected not a trace of feminine. He was one hundred percent male, practically as male as me. So what was going on? I thought about that my very hardest, right to the edge of making my head hurt, and came up with not just one but two possibilities, a new record. First possibility: this was one of Bernie’s jokes, Bernie being quite the jokester at times. Second possibility: he was tired and needed a nap. Human beings sometimes have a way of getting so wound up they don’t know what’s good for them. For example: a nap. To give Bernie a hint, I turned to him and yawned the biggest yawn I could.

  “Yikes!” said Bernie. “What’s up?”

  Wasn’t it obvious?

  “Tired? Or are you fixing to take a bite out of somebody?”

  What? No, no, no. This wasn’t about me. Was I the problem? Not that Bernie could ever be the problem. So maybe there was no problem.

  “Curl up, Chet. Take a load off. No pressure.”

  I did not want to curl up. In fact, all at once, I sort of did want to take a bite out of someone. Bad of me, I know. I stuck my head out the window and right away spotted … a dog walker? I’ve never had a dog walker, of course, but that didn’t stop me from not liking them. This particular dog walker was walking a mob of tiny members of the nation within. The whole scene was very bothersome. As we rolled by, I barked the kind of bark that gets your attention. Some of those tiny dudes flipped right over, like they’d been hit by a strong wind, and a leash or two, or maybe all of them, slipped out of the dog walker’s hand. I felt better immediately, sat up tall in my seat, facing forward, nice and still.

  “What gets into you?” Bernie said.

  Nothing. Nothing gets into me. We were good.

  * * *

  We drove downtown, through the campus where the college kids seemed to be having a busy day, what with playing Frisbee, smoking weed, and downing beers—how did they ever fit in all that activity?—and past the office towers, their tops vanishing in the brassy haze we had downtown, not a subject you want to touch on with Bernie, and into the research park. We’d worked a case in the research park, all about stolen DNA and twin sisters, a case about which I’d understood nothing. And then we’d gotten paid by the wrong twin, which Bernie discovered when her check bounced, although I’d known from the get-go on account of their smells being very slightly different. And now we were back in the research park? I got ready for anything.

  Bernie parked in front of a coppery-colored building—not a tower, but not small—with coppery windows I couldn’t see through. We sat in the car for a bit, me because that was what Bernie was doing, and Bernie for reasons
of his own.

  “Does this case go all the way back to high school?” he said after a while. “Maybe not surprising in theory—high school has a kind of power that college just doesn’t.”

  Whatever that was it had to be brilliant. I loved when Bernie got into these moods, and we wrestled with the big questions in life, just the two of us. Did high school kids play more Frisbee than college kids, smoke more weed, throw down more cold ones? That was as far as I could go on my own.

  “Take baseball,” Bernie said. “High school was where I really fell in love with the game.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “And then there was Annie Roberts.”

  Annie Roberts? A new one on me. A teammate, maybe? Possibly the catcher, catchers being very important to pitchers, with that big mitt of theirs, swallowing up the ball? I waited to hear more, but there was no more.

  “Let’s take a trip back to Lotty’s high school days,” Bernie said, opening the door.

  Fine with me! We walked to the entrance of the coppery building. Bernie read the sign. “‘Western Solutions’—not very descriptive, is it, big guy?”

  I had nothing to offer on that, whatever it might have been. Was Lotty inside this building? Annie Roberts? I was a bit confused.

  We went in, came to a security gate, sort of what you might see in cattle country, but nicer. The guy behind the desk said, “Help you?”

  “Here to see Boomer Riggs,” Bernie said.

  “Is Mr. Riggs expecting you?”

  “No.”

  “Name?”

  “Bernie Little.”

  “One moment.”

  The guy tapped at a keyboard, gazed at a screen we couldn’t see. His eyebrows rose slightly. He looked up. “Elevator three,” he said. The gate swung open and we walked through.

  “Is that a service dog?” the guy called after us.

  “Very much so,” said Bernie.

  “He’s not on a leash.”

  “No.”

  We came to some elevators. One opened by itself. We went in, Bernie first and then, not quickly, me, elevators not being my best thing. He rested his hand on my head, very lightly. The door closed. There were no buttons to push. The elevator rose—I guess that’s one way to put it. But the truth was I felt like I was getting pushed down. Wouldn’t that make anyone pukey? I felt a bit pukey right away, and soon more and more and then we came to a stop and the door opened.

  “Good boy,” said Bernie.

  My pukiness vanished, so fast I could hardly remember it. We stepped out of the elevator and into an enormous office with an enormous desk at the far end. A big man with a full head of white hair and a deep tan rose from behind the desk and waved us over.

  “Well, well,” he said. He had a strong, deep voice. “Bernie Little. And this must be the famous Chet.”

  Whoever this was, I liked him already. We headed toward him, my claws clicking on the polished wooden floor. The idea of doing some serious floor scratching rose up in my mind. I made one of my quick decisions: maybe later.

  The man came around the desk, a big man, as tall as Bernie, and wider. Softer, too, but not that soft. They shook hands. “Wilder J. Riggs,” the man said. “But my friends call me Boomer, and I’m friends with everybody.” The shaking part of the hand shaking was over, but Boomer Riggs was one of those guys who doesn’t let go right away. “Friends with everybody,” he went on, “although you’re the very first person who ever got in to see me without an appointment. Know why that is?”

  “You were having a boring day?” Bernie said.

  Boomer Riggs went still, his smile frozen, but that frozen moment went by so fast you had to be watching closely to catch it, which I was. Then his face came alive and he started to laugh, a big, booming laugh—hey! just like his name!—and he clapped Bernie on the shoulder.

  “Heard a lot about you, Bernie Little,” he said. “And now I know it’s true. Damn good thing, because I just hate being disappointed.” He let go of Bernie’s hand.

  “What have you heard?” Bernie said.

  “That you’re a son of a bitch,” said Boomer, “who’d be a real big asset if we could ever get you on the Western Solutions payroll. Even though your pardner here”—he gestured toward me—“is the brains of the outfit.”

  Bernie laughed. “They’re right about that part.”

  Whoa! I was the brains of the outfit? What did that mean, exactly? I went around on it, and around again, and then began to lose the thread, in a way that makes me nice and peaceful inside.

  “Which is why I had them send you right up,” Boomer said. “Name your price.”

  “I’m not here about a job,” Bernie said.

  “Even after I just said I hate being disappointed?”

  “So does everybody.”

  Boomer shook his head. “Not true. Most people get used to being disappointed and finally just accept it. I’ve always hated it and still do, more than ever.”

  “My guess is you haven’t dealt with a whole lot of it,” Bernie said.

  “That’s the point!” Boomer said. “Cause and effect, Bernie. They work both ways for some people—and now that guessing is on the table, my guess is you’re one of those people. Just like yours truly.”

  “Someone who hates being disappointed so much that others will do anything to not disappoint him?”

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Boomer said. “Hatred is a tool, one of the best tools in the box, as every successful man on earth could tell you.” He gestured at a chair. “Take a pew. Something cold?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Bourbon your drink, by any chance? I’ve got some twenty-year-old bottled special by an old buddy in Bardstown, Kentucky.”

  “I don’t—”

  Boomer pressed a button on the desk. “Two bourbons,” he said. “And a dog treat.”

  A voice came out of a speaker. “What kind of dog treat, sir?”

  “The best,” said Boomer.

  Boomer was making a very good impression on me so far. He pulled up a chair on our side of the desk. He and Bernie sat down. I sat, too, fairly close to Bernie but not too far from Boomer, in case the treat passed that way. You’ve got to think ahead in this life. All the more so if … if you happen to be the brains of the outfit! Wow! Could it be true? And if I was the brains, what was Bernie? My mind backed up to a more comfortable spot.

  “So if you’re not looking to get hired, what brings you here?” Boomer said.

  His eyes opened extra wide, bright blue eyes, very lively, except for the black circles in the middle, which seemed empty. Were everybody’s like that and I was just noticing now? Or … or … Or what? Nothing came to mind. I gazed at the door. Why the big holdup on my treat?

  “I get it,” Boomer was saying. “You’ve come to hire me!”

  “I’ve come for information,” Bernie said. “I’m prepared to pay.”

  “Well, well,” said Boomer. “Music to my ears.”

  Oh? I myself heard no music. I checked out Boomer’s ears. Not small for a human—actually not unlike Bernie’s—but in the end only human ears, and therefore low-end when it came to listening. Still, this case seemed to have something to do with music, so—

  The door opened and in stepped—oh, no. A robot. I knew robots from a visit I’d made to the science fair at Charlie’s school. “Let’s see if we can get Robie to scratch Chet between the ears,” some kid had said. And the next thing I knew I was back outside in the car.

  This particular robot was bigger, and walked instead of rolled. It smelled like our TV and had a hand like a platter. On the hand-platter rested two glasses of bourbon—a very familiar smell—and something that reminded me slightly of a Slim Jim, except it was bigger and had an aroma that made me sit up straight right away, even though I already was.

  “Say hello to the future,” Boomer said.

  “I’m not looking forward to it,” said Bernie, reaching for his glass.

  “Nice to meet you, too,” the robot said. />
  Bernie hardly spilled anything at all. The robot served Boomer, and then came my way, walking, yes, but in a slightly rolling way that reminded me of Nemo Sparks, a perp who lived on a boat and robbed banks across the seven seas, wherever those happened to be. How hard would it be to tip this … what would you call it? Contraption? Yes. How hard would it be to tip it over? I was trying to decide how happy that would make me—somewhere between delighted and out of my freakin’ mind—when the robot extended its platter hand in front of my face and I caught a real good whiff of that Slim Jim thing.

  “White truffle–infused Kobe beef jerky treat,” the robot said.

  By far the most interesting words I’d ever heard! And coming from a robot. Calmly and politely, I helped myself to what was being offered.

  “Enjoy the day,” said the robot, and left the room, the door closing behind it.

  Calmly and politely, I moved off a little way by myself. No sense in tormenting anyone with the sight of what I had and they did not, and sure as hell would never get. As for this job offer, when could we start?

  Bernie and Boomer clinked glasses and drank.

  “It’s very good,” Bernie said.

  “I’ll send you a bottle for Christmas.”

  “Thanks, but you don’t—”

  “Now how can I help you?”

  Bernie set his glass on the armrest. I tried my very hardest to chew slowly.

  “It’s about Lotty Pilgrim,” Bernie said.

  “I saw the news,” Boomer said, also setting down his glass. “Just terrible. I hadn’t thought of Lotty in years, but I knew her way back when—as I’m guessing you know.”

  “In high school, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. She made a big impression on me at the time, but the truth is I forgot all about her over the years. Honestly couldn’t have told you whether she was still alive, I’m ashamed to admit.” He picked up his drink, swirled it around, downed a nice, healthy slug. “Of course, as soon as I heard the news, I had Research dig for anything we had on her or this manager of hers, Clint somebody.”