IT’S NOT SO EASY TO SLEEP WITH LOTS of commotion going on, but I’m pretty good at it. Clinging to sleep is one of my best talents. Did that mix with a career in law enforcement? Why wouldn’t it? I wriggled around a bit on the warm grass, closed my eyes a little tighter, made my mind as fuzzy and foggy as I could. Which is plenty fuzzy and foggy. I’m kind of brilliant when it comes to mental fuzziness and fogginess.

“Lydia—you all right down there?”

Hmm. That sounded like Sheriff McKnight. He and I were pals of course, so I was happy to welcome him into my dreams. But then came a click and a pop and a bright light flashed on, way too bright, turning the insides of my eyelids red. It was too much even for a champion sleeper. I opened my eyes.

Uh-oh. So much to take in all at once. I prefer to take things in slowly, one every couple of days or so. How was I supposed to handle this?

First, it was still night, except around the wishing well, where it was as bright as day. Second, there were so many people: Mom, Harmony, Bro, Maxie Millipat, the sheriff and some of his other deputies, the hard-hatted crew headed by Lydia—the woman who’d been in charge of digging up the tomato patch—although there was no sign of Lydia herself right now. And let’s not leave out Queenie, perched on Harmony’s shoulders. She looked at me. I looked at her. I knew what I wanted: to be on Harmony’s other shoulder. I’d never been on Harmony’s shoulder, or anyone else’s. Why was that? As for what Queenie wanted, I had no clue.

Third, there was so much activity. One of the crew stood in the back of a truck, aiming a big spotlight on the wishing well. Another truck, of the cherry-picker type, was parked right next to the well. The sheriff stood by the cherry-picker platform, over the well, and a cable dangled down from the platform and out of sight.

“Lydia?” the sheriff said. “Say something.”

From down in the well came Lydia’s commanding voice. “Haul away.”

A crewman on the platform moved a lever. A sort of grinding machine noise started up and the cable began to rise. Up, up, and then another platform came into view, a small platform with Lydia crouched at one edge, the white ponytail dangling from under her hard hat. Taking up most of the space on this platform was a figure, motionless and muddy, who … who seemed to have a big red nose. And … and seemed to wearing the clothes of a clown. I barked. I didn’t know why. The bark, very high-pitched, nothing like my normal bark, just came out of me.

“Oh my god,” Harmony said.

“Cuthbert?” said Bro.

“Has to be,” said Harmony.

The sheriff glanced over at her and gave a quick, tiny nod. Mom stepped between the twins and put an arm over each of their shoulders. Everyone’s eyes seemed huge and black in the bright white light, like … like bits of the night no light could get rid of. Except for the eyes of the figure lying beside Lydia, which were closed.

More machine grinding and the small platform was lowered to the ground. Lydia stepped off and the sheriff went over to her. She looked at him and shook her head. They gazed down at the figure in the clown suit.

I found myself wandering over there, too, for no particular reason, and joined the sheriff and Lydia in gazing at the clown. A man, for sure, which I knew from his smell, human males and females smelling very different. There’s also a smell that comes when a creature stops being alive. I wasn’t picking that up, not exactly. Were his eyes open? No. Was his chest going up and down? No. I was about to have a thought or two about all that, but before those thoughts got started, I picked up the aroma of a certain kind of biscuit I like, coming from Lydia’s direction. Wow! My nose was on fire tonight! Not really on fire, of course, which would be terrible. I just meant my nose was stepping up big-time. Not really stepping, of course, since noses can’t just up and … and I forgot where I was going with this.

Sheriff McKnight knelt and placed his finger on the inside of the clown’s wrist, held it there for a bit, and sighed. Then, very gently, he removed the red ball from the clown’s nose. “Anyone here ever seen Cuthbert out of costume?”

People shook their heads.

The sheriff and Lydia’s crew got busy, making a sort of yellow tape fence around the small platform and the well. The bystanders backed away. And there I was, all by myself next to Cuthbert, if that was who he was. I sniffed at him, then again and again. I picked up all sorts of smells—watery smells, muddy smells, smeared makeup smells—but what I did not pick up was that one certain smell that means the end. That was confusing. Sometimes when I get confused, I bark an odd sort of squeaky bark that doesn’t even sound like me.

“Arthur?” said Harmony from the other side of the yellow tape. “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t know, which was why I was confused. Harmony ducked under the yellow tape and came over to me.

“Arthur? What are you doing?”

I seemed to be very close to Cuthbert, sniffing and sniffing.

“Arthur?” Harmony crouched beside me. She gazed at Cuthbert, then at me, and back to Cuthbert. I could feel her thinking, like something powerful was cranking up. She leaned forward so that her face was almost touching the end of Cuthbert’s nose. “No breath at all,” she said quietly. “So what are you trying to tell me, Arthur?”

I barked my squeaky bark.

“I read somewhere about this drowning where the cold water kept … ,” Harmony began, maybe finishing the thought inside her head. Then she reached out, placed a hand on Cuthbert’s chest, and pushed. Nothing happened. She tried again, pushing harder this time. Still nothing. Harmony tried once more, on her knees and with both hands, real real hard, hard enough to make her grunt and to hurt whoever’s chest was getting pushed like that.

Cuthbert groaned. A soft little groan, but no doubt about it.

“Sheriff!”