We drove into High Chaparral Estates and parked in front of Leda’s house, a real big one, but there were lots of even bigger ones on the same street. In case you’re interested, I was riding shotgun, with Shooter on the little shelf in back, although at the beginning he’d actually made a play to reverse our seating arrangement.
A bunch of kids were leaving the house, clutching party bags and climbing into shiny new cars idling on the street. Charlie, Leda, and Malcolm stood on the front step, waving good-bye. We went up the path and all their mouths changed, Leda’s lips turning down, Malcolm’s sort of disappearing, and Charlie’s opening in a nice happy smile.
“Sorry we’re late,” Bernie said. “Happy birthday.” He gave Charlie a hug. Charlie hugged him back. “I’ve brought you a present,” Bernie went on. “His name’s Shooter.”
Then all eyes were on the little fella, who’d chosen that moment to lift his leg in front of what looked to me like a rosebush.
“You what?” Leda said. “Without consulting me? Absolutely no way. Where in hell do you get off—”
Shooter finished up at the rosebush and . . . and trotted over to Malcolm, a bit of a surprise. Malcolm has a very long face, but also very long feet with very long toes, and he was wearing flip-flops. Shooter went right to those long feet and without the slightest hesitation began licking those very long toes in a thorough fashion.
“Heh heh,” said Malcolm. “Heh heh. Have to admit he’s kind of cute, huh, Leda?”
“What?” said Leda. “What?”
“Shooter, you said?” said Malcolm.
“That’s right,” Bernie told him.
Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “Has he had his shots?”
“Tag’s right on his collar,” Bernie said.
Charlie was jumping up and down. “I can have him? I can have him?”
“What?” said Leda. “What? And how come he looks so much like Chet?”
“That is interesting,” Bernie said.
“Can I have him? Can I have him?”
Shooter kept working on Malcolm’s toes.
“Heh heh, heh heh.”
“He won’t be any trouble,” Bernie said.
“And who cares about a little trouble?” said Malcolm.
“What? What?”
We split soon after that, just me and Bernie, Shooter remaining in High Chaparral Estates. He was in Charlie’s arms, last I saw, licking Charlie’s face. Licking Charlie’s face after licking Malcolm’s toes? I went back and forth on that, but in the end it didn’t bother me. I found myself wondering about the taste of Malcolm’s toes and made another of those mental notes.
• • •
We met up with Captain Stine at Donut Heaven, parking cop-style, driver’s-side door to driver’s-side door. He passed Bernie a cruller.
“They changed the recipe.”
“Why?” said Bernie, taking a bite, also tearing off a piece and handing it to me.
“New baker. Also illegal, but he believes in the war against obesity.”
Bernie did some chewing, a thoughtful look on his face. I did some chewing, too, with no clue about the look on my face, my only thought being, Ah, cruller.
“Not as good,” Bernie said.
Then send some more my way. I had no complaints about this new cruller, or whatever the hell they were talking about. Hey! I was feeling kind of feisty all of a sudden: just one of those private moments of enjoyment that come around from time to time.
“Change is the only constant,” Stine said.
“So I’ve heard,” Bernie said. He glanced at me waiting somewhat patiently for more cruller. “But I don’t believe it.” He flipped me most of what was left. Sometimes in life you can feel when things start to break your way.
“What happened to you, by the way?” Stine said. “You look like shit.”
“Wasn’t put on earth for my looks,” Bernie said, or something like that: hard to tell with his mouth full. Plus Bernie was the best-looking human you’ll ever see, so what I thought I’d heard didn’t even make sense.
Stine sipped his coffee. “Anything on Ellie Newburg?”
“Why would I have anything? You’re the cop.”
“Don’t start. We’ve got zip so far.”
“Take Mickles off it and see what happens,” Bernie said.
“What are you trying to tell me in your charmless way?”
“And reopen the Summer Ronich kidnapping.”
The furrows on Stine’s forehead deepened. “I got your email. The file’s lost somewhere in the changeover—one of thousands, so don’t even go there. Meaning you’ll need to give me a hint, Bernie. Throw me a bone.”
I went on high alert, eyes glued to Bernie’s throwing arm. He raised it, but only to swallow some coffee. Coffee scent filled the air. I’d have smelled a bone if one was anywhere nearby or even somewhat distant, and I did not. Humans can be puzzling.
“Mickles ran that case,” Bernie said. “The file would have been lost, changeover or not.”
“Is this some kind of obsession?” Stine said. He glanced at Bernie, saw the expression on his face, then looked away. “Care to fill me in on the backstory, you and him?”
Bernie shook his head.
“Matter of fact,” Stine said, still not looking at Bernie, “I’ve done some digging on my own.”
Captain Stine a digger? No dirt under his fingernails, and even if he’d used a shovel, there’d be traces of fresh earth scents on his clothes—especially if he wore cuffs on his pants—and there were not. Once I’d discovered a Cheeto in the cuff of a dude’s pant leg. What a day! Actually, the same day I was Exhibit A, down at the courthouse, and the dude with the Cheeto in his pant cuff was the judge. There’d been a short recess after that, although I myself hadn’t returned.
“Managed to locate a source,” Stine went on.
“Oh?” said Bernie.
“Hector ‘Kid’ Infante.”
“He’s a lifer.”
“Does that rule out anything he says?”
“Not necessarily,” Bernie said.
“The Kid’s got fourth-stage prostate cancer,” Stine said. “Not that that’s dispositive about anything. He told me the story of his arrest. More like a summary execution, actually, until you happened along. Who threw the first punch, you or Mickles?”
“Check with Internal Affairs.”
“I did. The Kid told IA that you threw the first punch and that Mickles hadn’t been abusing him, all those cuts and bruises coming from a brawl he was in earlier that evening. Then came your demotion, et cetera, et cetera. Now he’s saying Mickles cuffed him and beat the crap out of him, you pulled Mickles off, Mickles slugged you and you . . . you did what you do. What’s the truth?”
“What do you think?”
“And why would the Kid lie to IA?”
“What do you think?” Bernie said again.
“Don’t know,” Stine said. “But here’s a theory—Mickles made a deal to go easy on the Kid in exchange for his IA testimony and then double-crossed him.”
“It’s a theory,” Bernie said.
“Funny thing about Mickles,” Stine said. “He’s got his little fiefdom all right, but after the thing with the two of you, his trajectory stalled, even though you were the one who crashed out. There’d been talk about him as chief of D’s, maybe chief of the whole department. All that ended. You know why?”
Bernie shook his head.
“It wasn’t that people had suspicions about what had really gone down between the two of you, a white-hat–black-hat deal. It’s that everyone had been a little afraid of him, and then you beat him to a pulp. He lost his mojo. A chief needs mojo.”
This was hard to follow. Neither of them was wearing a hat. I’d never seen Stine with a hat on; Bernie does have a sombrero that comes out at parties—not often but at the same time too often. The only hat that came to mind was the porkpie worn by Clay Winners. That got me thinking about his pal Vroman, at which moment my teeth sent me a message, just a sort of hi, we’re here.
“There was no beating to any kind of pulp,” Bernie said.
“Suit yourself.” Stine crumpled his coffee cup, wiped his hands. Tiny cruller crumbs caught the sunlight. “Anything else I can enlighten you on?” he said.
“Like?”
“Like, for example, there was a double homicide out in El Monte two days ago, along that stretch where all the subprime loans went down. The victims were twins—the only twin double homicide in the whole history of Valley crime. I looked it up. Only identical twin double homicide, I should’ve said—there’ve been three fraternal twin doubles. First report from the scene came from a corporal name of Garwood Mickles. Nephew of Brick, which was news to me.”
Bernie said nothing, but his thoughts came my way, fast, deep, dark.
“Both shot in the head at close range with a .45. You’ve always been partial to a .38, as I recall.”
“Still am,” Bernie said.
“Good to know.”
“But we actually don’t have one at the moment.”
“No?”
“On the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico—a long story.”
“I believe it. So what’s in the arsenal these days?”
“A .45.”
“Ah,” said Stine.
Bernie checked his watch.
“Nice seeing you,” said Stine. “One other thing—Carl Conte from Agriculture called me. More saguaro thefts out past Rincon City, twenty or thirty. All within three or four square miles of the first one.”
Bernie turned the key. “How’s the baby?”
“Cries at the sight of me.”
“He’ll go far.”
• • •
Bernie was quiet as we rode away. His eyes had an inward look and his hands seemed to be doing all the driving. Didn’t worry me one bit: those were the best hands in the world.
After a while, he glanced my way. “You okay, big guy?”
What was this? Why wouldn’t I be? I started panting a bit.
Bernie nodded. “Something bothering you, huh? Thought so.”
Nothing was bothering me. Where was he getting this? I panted a little harder.
“Amy’s a smart woman,” Bernie went on. “Also afraid of nobody. So how about the rightness or wrongness of putting you in dangerous situations?”
Oh, I got it. He had to be talking about letting his hands do the driving while his mind was someplace else. And I had no problem with it, as you know. The panting stopped at once.
“What are you telling me? Okay? Not okay?”
Poor Bernie. He looked so worried. I put a paw on his knee, and we lurched forward in a way that never gets old.
“Chet! How many times do I—” And then he started laughing. Life couldn’t be any better than this. So why not just keep driving and never ever stop? I tried to think of a good reason.
And was still trying, maybe not very hard, when Bernie said, “Need to understand the sequence back in Subprimoville. Vroman—whoever the hell he turns out to be—had already shot the twins when we arrived. Actually can’t say he was the gunman for sure, because there was another person in the house, namely whoever stepped out from behind the door and coldcocked me. Any chance you know who that was?”
Me? I wasn’t following this at all.
“But one thing’s practically for sure—Vroman and whoever was behind that door killed Ellie Newburg. Shooter’s the proof.”
Whoa! Shooter had done something good? What about the big guy? Luckily enough, my tail was in easy gnawing reach.
“Stop that.”
I paused, which can look a lot like stopping, if done right.
“Billy Parsons and his buddy Travis Baca kidnapped Billy’s girlfriend, who at the very least went along with it. They were clumsy almost beyond belief, and Mickles busted them. The ransom was never found. Billy does his time, gives his parents a stolen cactus, hits them up for money. Then he hires his girlfriend’s twin ’roid-head buddies. What for? Something about the securities recovery sector, according to Daniel. What were they up to? Whatever it was, Vroman and whoever else was in on the murder of Ellie Newburg didn’t like it, not one little bit.” Bernie glanced at me. “Fair summary so far?”
More than fair. The best summary possible, whatever summaries might be.
“Also fair to say there’s something in the case file that Mickles couldn’t live with?”
I had no idea. But how nice to be riding in the Porsche! Was the engine running a little rough? I heard a faint chewhee chewhee, that took me back to some major repairs a while back, although the chewhee chewhee had grown to a kerchunk kerchunk that even Bernie could hear long before the engine had actually fallen out, so we were A-okay for now.
• • •
Sometime later, we were out in the desert. I’d seen this stretch before, got the feeling we were not far from where we’d found Ellie. Bernie turned off the blacktop, followed a dirt track that led around some big rocks, and ended at the base of a big hill. Lots of saguaros grew on the hill, making it look green even though it wasn’t. A small tent stood by the only tree in sight. We parked at some distance from it and made our way up the hill, coming to a hole in the ground after not too long.
We gazed down into it. No one there. After that, we climbed a little higher, came to another hole and then another. Bernie was taking pictures when the tent flap opened down below and a woman came out. She stared up at us.
We walked back down and approached the tent. “Hi,” Bernie said.
“Hi,” said the woman, a very young woman, possibly of high school age. I’d had some experience with high school kids, all good. “That your dog?” she said.
Bernie nodded. “His name’s Chet.”
“He’s beautiful.”
Nothing wrong with high school kids, possibly the very best human type! Something must happen later in life that . . . I couldn’t take it any further.
Meanwhile, the tent flap opened and a couple more kids came out, pushing a wave of pot smell through the air.
“Dogs can go to the festival?” one said. “Wish I’d known.”
“Festival?” Bernie said.
“Cactus Man,” said the kid. “We’re hopin’ to sneak in before it opens.”
“Shut up, you moron,” said the last kid who’d come out. “What if he’s security?”
“I’m not security,” Bernie said. He glanced up the hill. “I’m interested in cactuses. Someone’s been stealing them.”
“You work for conservation?”
“Kind of,” Bernie said. Then he nodded a decisive kind of nod. “Yeah, we do.”
“Cool,” said one of the kids.
“We’re big on conservation,” said another.
“So why not tell him?” said the girl who’d first come out of the tent.
“Tell me what?” said Bernie.
The kids exchanged a look.
“It’ll stay within this circle,” Bernie said.
“Circle?” said a kid.
“The three of you and the two of us,” said Bernie.
“Chet’s part of the circle?”
“Certainly.”
The kids nodded to one another.
“Well,” said the girl, “when we got here, they were driving away with a saguaro.”
“In the back.”
“Like, of the pickup.”
“Yeah?” said Bernie. “Who’s they?”
“The festival people.”
“It said ‘Cactus Man.’ ”
“Like, on the door of the pickup.”
“So what does this even mean?” the girl said.
“It means the Cactus Man men are stealing cactuses,” said a kid.
“Looks that way,” Bernie said.
“I meant the deeper meaning,” said the girl.