Woof Page 16

  “Here’s the only other article I can find,” Mr. Savoy said. “From January of 1946. Looks like, uh …” He sat back, turned away from the screen.

  But Birdie did not. “ ‘Tragedy at Sea. Two St. Roch men well known in local sport fishing circles died on Saturday off Grande Isle. Maurice Gaux and Frank Straker were fishing for tuna about ten miles offshore on Mr. Gaux’s twenty-two-foot whaler when they were apparently …’ ” Birdie’s voice got thick. “ ‘… caught in the freak storm that blew up over the weekend. The Coast Guard recovered the body of Mr. Gaux on Sunday. The search for Mr. Straker’s body was suspended on account of the weather.’ ” Birdie gazed at the screen. Mr. Savoy gazed at her. He raised his hand like he was going to touch her shoulder, but then seemed to change his mind.

  “That must have been hard on your grandmother,” he said.

  Birdie nodded, turned from the screen. “She was about my age.”

  “A … a remarkable woman,” Mr. Savoy said. “Would you like a copy of the song?”

  “Yeah. I would.”

  Mr. Savoy got busy on the computer. “And if there’s anything else I can help you with, don’t hesitate.”

  “No, thanks,” Birdie said. “Actually, maybe.”

  “Say the word.”

  “Well, kind of hard to explain, but I’d like to know more about a person who … who …” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Does this person have a name?”

  “Donald Spires,” Birdie said. “Donald L. Spires, to be precise.”

  Mr. Savoy went back to tapping at the computer. “Several Donald Spires, but only one Donald L. Looks to be a casino developer, operating out of Biloxi.”

  “Biloxi?” said Birdie, real quick.

  “In Mississippi, down on the Gulf. A casino town, so it’s not surprising that—”

  Birdie leaned forward toward the screen. “That’s him?”

  “Yup. Standing outside what looks to be an office building with his name on it.”

  Hey! I knew the dude on the screen. Bad business to forget a paying customer, that was basic. It was Donny.

  “Is something wrong, Birdie?”

  Birdie shook her head but didn’t look at Mr. Savoy. “One more thing, if it’s okay.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you see if him and Mr. Straker were at Tulane at the same time?”

  There was a long pause. Then Mr. Savoy said, “Steve Straker, present owner of the emporium?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “Is this for your grandmother?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to help.”

  “This is a big help already,” Birdie said. “Thanks.”

  “I don’t really …” Mr. Savoy fell silent. His big, strong hands went to the keyboard, started tapping. Birdie got more and more nervous. I could smell it. Mr. Savoy got nervous, too. And finally me. I rose, walked around in a circle, lay down, rose, walked around in a circle again.

  Mr. Savoy’s hands went still. “Yeah, they were classmates,” he said. “Members of the same fraternity, in fact.” He turned to Birdie. “I hope your grandmother’s not doing anything to upset herself.”

  Birdie had a faraway look in her eyes, maybe didn’t hear him.

  “Birdie?”

  She turned to him.

  Mr. Savoy said, “I know your mom’s not—” He stopped, started again. “Here’s my card. Call anytime.”

  Birdie nodded, but again I got the feeling she didn’t hear.

  WELL, THAT DIDN’T HELP,” BIRDIE said as we walked away from the library. A tiny breeze sprang up, started some of the pinwheels spinning—a very nice sight, although Birdie wasn’t looking. “Now I’m more messed up than ever.”

  Oh, no! I couldn’t have that. I pressed against her, giving her all the support I had in me. The next thing I knew she was falling down, but maybe not quite all the way. No more than a stumble, really—what good balance she had! Loving Birdie was the easiest job in the world. I could do it with my eyes closed, a human expression I’ve never understood because, with my sense of smell and hearing, I can do just about anything with my eyes closed.

  “Bowser! What are you doing? And what’s up with your eyes? Whoa! Are you all right?”

  Better than all right! I was at the top of my game, or even higher. I found that my eyes seemed to be closed, and snapped them right open. There was Birdie’s beautiful face, beautiful but worried, and possibly even a little annoyed. I wondered for a moment what she might be annoyed about and then moved onto something else, namely a good, strong tail wag, the kind where the whole back half of me gets into the action.

  She smiled, not a big or long-lasting smile, but still the best thing I’d seen all day. Have I described Birdie’s smile already? I hope so, because there’s really no time at the moment. The best thing I’d seen all day: Let’s leave it at that.

  “What would I do without you?” she said.

  Wow! Maybe the toughest question I’d ever heard. Lucky for me, no answer was necessary, on account of the plain fact that Birdie didn’t have to do anything without me and never would. We kept walking, were soon alongside the bayou.

  “Want to know what I’m thinking?” Birdie said.

  Yes! More than anything!

  “Easy, Bowser! A little space, please.”

  Space was what again? I took a swing at figuring it out, came up empty.

  “For one thing, Donny and old man Straker are old friends. Close enough friends so that when Straker found out what Maybelline told Des, it was Donny who came to check. Am I off base, Bowser?”

  No way! For one thing we weren’t even playing baseball.

  “And here’s something else—why would my great-granddaddy and Frank Straker go fishing together if they didn’t like each other? Plus what about my great-granddaddy’s trips into the swamp when he came home? What was he doing? So many questions! But here’s one solid fact: Donny wasn’t the one who tried to pull me into the pickup. I’d have recognized his voice on the boat.”

  What a great thinker Birdie was turning out to be! How amazing that she could come up with all that! She was the smartest human I’d ever met, no one else even close. With her brains and my—how would you put it? Everything else? That sounded right. With her brains and my everything else we were going places.

  Right now we seemed to be going toward the Lucinda Street Bridge. Across the bayou, old man Straker was out on his deck again, smoking a cigar.

  “Just look at him!” Birdie said. “I’d like to … to …”

  At that moment, Fun ’n Games came steaming down the bayou, Donny at the controls up in the tuna tower. He turned to old man Straker and raised that hat of his with the feather in the brim. Hard to see from this distance, but it looked like Mr. Straker gave Donny a thumbs-up. Fun ’n Games went under the bridge and picked up speed, water churning in its wake as it headed away down the bayou.

  Meanwhile, there was activity up on the bridge. A cruiser was blocking the entrance and a huge cop was up on a ladder trying to attach something to a pole and doing a lot of grunting. The sheriff stood beneath him, steadying the ladder.

  “Perkins?” he said. “How about we change places.”

  The huge cop glanced down. “Don’t worry ’bout a thing, Sheriff.” I remembered Perkins’s deep rumbly voice from the night Birdie and I had jumped off this very same bridge. The fun we had, me and Birdie! “I’ve got it totally under—” Right then he lost control of some shiny cone-shaped gizmo and it spun down and splashed in the bayou, sinking from sight. Perkins called the gizmo a name I’m sure he didn’t mean and climbed down the ladder. He and the sheriff walked around toward the bank of the bayou, which was when they noticed us, me and Birdie. They seemed to give us an extra-long look.

  “Oh, hello, Birdie,” the sheriff said. “Did, uh, you happen to see where the camera went in?”

  “Camera?” said Birdie.

 
“We’re installing—” He gave Perkins a displeased sort of glance. “We’re trying to install video monitoring on the bridge. Officer Perkins is convinced—”

  “No doubt in my mind whatsoever, Sheriff.”

  “—he saw a coyote jumping off the other night, and if that kind of thing is going on we need to know. And more important, there happens to be money in the budget.”

  The sheriff might have gone on some more about money and budgets, but I missed all that completely because of a sudden bubbling up from down in the bayou, and all at once some small object bobbed up to the surface. My first thought was video camera, or whatever the gizmo was that Officer Perkins had dropped. I headed right into the water. Soon everyone would be saying, “Good Bowser!” and “Can you believe that dog?” and “Bowser saves the day!” and all sorts of other things that would make me feel great. I swam over to the bobbing thing, got it into my mouth—a somewhat softer thing than I’d expected, but not my job to think things through to the very end, that kind of time-wasting not in my nature—and turned back toward shore.

  They were all waiting at the edge of the water: Birdie, the sheriff, Perkins. How nice of them! I walked onto the grass, gave myself a real good shake—the humans all shrinking back, maybe pretending they were afraid of water—and set the object at Birdie’s feet.

  But it was the sheriff who picked it up. “Well, well, well,” he said. “The glass slipper.”

  Glass slipper? It was a pretty hot day, and some humans didn’t think their best in the heat. That was my only explanation for the sheriff thinking the thing was a glass slipper when it was most clearly a flip-flop, and not just a flip-flop, but a flip-flop with a polka-dot pattern. Did I remember something about polka-dot flip-flops being important in some way or other? Almost! I came oh-so-close, and when you come oh-so-close to some goal you should feel good about yourself, which I did.

  “What you got there, Sheriff?” Perkins said.

  The sheriff held the flip-flop closer to Birdie. “What do you think?”

  “Me?” said Birdie.

  The sheriff nodded.

  Birdie shrugged. “It’s a flip-flop.”

  “Specifically,” added the sheriff, “a flip-flop with a polka-dot pattern.” He peered at it. “Size six, it says here, if I’m making that out right. My hunch is this is the match to the flip-flop we found inside Straker’s emporium.” He tapped the flip-flop on the palm of his hand. “You know what I’m thinking, Perkins?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m thinking there were two unauthorized entries into the emporium the other night. Person—or persons—number one was there for some purpose I can’t make out. Person—much more likely persons—number two were there to rummage around Mr. Straker’s private office.”

  “Explaining those knocked-over spray paint cans?” said Perkins.

  “Exactly,” the sheriff said. “And the carelessness of turning on the lights, which was seen and called in.”

  “Ah,” said Perkins.

  “How do you like the idea of person number one hiding in that hanging display boat when persons number two barged in?” the sheriff said.

  “Fits where we found the other flip-flop,” said Perkins. “I like it a lot.”

  “Your arrival on the scene, Perkins, preventing person number one from completing whatever the mission was. Which was how come old man Straker could find nothing missing, despite his best efforts.”

  “Gotcha,” said Perkins. “And my coyote, Sheriff?”

  “Was no coyote.” The sheriff, totally unexpectedly, was now focused on me. It felt a little awkward. All I could think of to do was grab that flip-flop right out of his hand, swim out in the bayou, and drop it back in. A crazy thought, perhaps, but no one was saying, “Bowser saves the day!” and all those other nice things, so maybe I’d done bad instead of good. I felt Birdie’s hand on my back and stayed put.

  “Birdie?” said the sheriff. He did that tap-tap of the flip-flop on his palm again. “Any thoughts?”

  There was so much to love about Birdie. Here was one thing: At certain tough moments—and I had the feeling one was happening right here, right now by the bayou—she stood up straighter than ever and I felt a stiffening within her, like she was gathering her strength. She was doing it now. “I don’t know what to think,” she said.

  “That happens to everyone,” the sheriff said, his voice softening. At the same time, Officer Perkins sort of sidled away, back toward the bridge. “And when it does, I’ve always found it good to talk to someone trustworthy.” He paused and gazed down at her. She gazed back at him, but couldn’t maintain it for long, ended up looking at the ground. “Anything you’d care to tell me?”

  “About what?”

  “The night in question—as we say in my line of work.”

  Was the sheriff waiting for Birdie to speak? She kept her mouth shut. But oh, no, what was this? Tears? Yes, but just one or two, and then Birdie gave her head that special angry shake and the tears dried up.

  “I’ll take that as a no?” the sheriff said. He took a deep breath, checked his watch. “Tell you what. I have to pick Rory up from baseball practice. How about you—and Bowser, of course—coming along for the ride?”

  “Well, I don’t really—”

  “I’m sure Rory would like to see you.”

  “Oh?” said Birdie.

  “And Bowser,” said the sheriff. “Rory could use some cheering up. He’s mired in a slump.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Baseball lingo. He’s hitless in his last who-knows-how-many at bats. Come on. I’ll drop you home on the way back.”

  Which was how we found ourselves in the front seat of the cruiser, the sheriff behind the wheel, Birdie by the passenger-side door, and me in the middle. The sheriff turned my way once or twice, sort of like he was trying to see past me and maybe start up some conversation with Birdie, but there I was! Right in his face! No getting past me, pal. Finally, he just tried speaking right through me.

  “Birdie,” he said, “my guess is you think Mr. Straker stole that fish. And maybe you took it into your head to … to repossess it. Not many would blame you. But I checked out Mr. Straker’s whereabouts during the time of the theft. He was at his golf club, down in Abbeville. And Stevie Junior—who doesn’t have the brains to pull off something like this in the first place—was with him. So is there anything you want to tell me?”

  The very next thing I knew, I seemed to have put one of my paws on the steering wheel. What had come over me?

  “Whoa there, buddy!” said the sheriff, straightening out the car, which may have gone off course a bit.

  “Bowser!” Birdie said.

  I turned toward her. What? What? Had I done something wrong? Not that I could remember. I don’t know if you’re the same way, but the whole sequence of events was growing pleasantly blurry in my mind. Since there was now no more talk—a rather pleasant silence, to my way of thinking—I had nothing to do except enjoy the ride. What fun, especially when you’re in front! We could have gone on forever or even longer as far as I was concerned. Instead, way too soon, we pulled over at a baseball field. Kids in dirt-streaked uniforms were getting picked up. The most dirt-streaked kid of them all came toward us, dragging his feet. It was Rory, his rumply hair now plastered down with sweat. The sheriff popped the trunk, got out of the car.

  “Hey, Rory,” he said, a bright smile on his face.

  “Oh-for-four,” Rory said.

  “Keep swinging,” the sheriff said, dumping Rory’s bat and glove in the trunk. “The hits’ll come.”

  “I K’d four times, Dad. So don’t say the hits’ll come. They’re never—” At that moment he noticed me and Birdie.

  “Ran into these two characters in town,” the sheriff said. “We’re giving them a ride home.”

  Then came some complicated position changes, which ended with Birdie and Rory in the backseat and me and the sheriff up front.

  “Um, Birdie?” the she
riff said. “Bowser seems to have a baseball in his mouth.”

  “Bowser!” she said. “Where’d you get that?”

  I had no idea. Birdie took the baseball—what was left of it—out of my mouth and winged it out the open window toward some kids still on the field.

  “Well, well,” said the sheriff. “You’ve got a good arm. Play any sports, Birdie?”

  “Is fishing a sport?”

  The sheriff laughed. “More like a way of life.” We hit the road, made a few turns, were soon rolling through country that seemed a bit familiar, with green fields on one side and a big lake on the other, bright orange flares rising above whitish buildings on the far side. The sheriff said something about how the oil refineries were hiring these days, or maybe not hiring, but I was losing the thread because now we were driving by a canal and up ahead rose a little humpbacked bridge that I remembered well. The black pickup and the dude in the back throwing some very long and stiff—

  Whoa! And what was this, lying in the water by the bank of the canal? Not the very long and stiff thing with the tail on the end? But yes!

  “Bowser!” Birdie said. “Stop that barking!”

  But how could I? This was too important, although I couldn’t have explained why at the time and probably couldn’t now. I barked my head off. The sheriff gave me a look, far from friendly, and kept driving. Wait! Wait! No one was seeing what I was seeing? We weren’t even going to stop?

  I jumped right out the window.

  THE LONG, STIFF THING TURNED OUT TO taste of plastic. You run into the taste of plastic a lot in the human world, but no time to go into that now. In moments I had one edge of the thing securely between my teeth and was dragging it up the bank of the canal. Easy work for me: It didn’t weigh very much and I was feeling stronger than ever in my life. How nice to be eating my fill! Or at least close to it.

  Meanwhile, the cruiser had pulled over to the side of the road and Birdie, the sheriff, and Rory were walking toward me. My tail went right into wagging mode. The next thing I’d be hearing would be “What would we do without ol’ Bowser?” and more of that good stuff.