We walked out of the cabin, me, Bernie, Anya. “This is so horrible,” Anya said.
Bernie didn’t say anything.
“I was against the whole idea right from the start,” she said.
Bernie nodded.
“Everything Guy does turns out so—” She made an angry gesture with her hand, sort of like smacking the air. Then her eyes got damp and a tear or two came spilling over her lower lids. “Just tell me it’s going to be all right,” she said.
Bernie shifted on his feet, looked real uncomfortable. Even though I knew she was a bit uneasy around me and my kind, I moved closer to Anya and stood beside her, just touching. I felt her hand on my back. Sometimes humans pat you without knowing they’re doing it. This had the feeling of one of those, as though the hand was acting on its own. Nothing crazy about that: my tail does the same thing.
Anya wiped away her tears on her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it’s stupid to ask that.”
“It’s not stupid,” Bernie said. “And we’ve got a lot going for us.” He glanced at the sky. “Weather’s good. And it’s unlikely Devin’s far from the campsite—when they get lost in the woods, most people end up walking in circles.”
Anya perked up a little. “Is that true?”
Bernie nodded, but was there a slight hesitation? We’d been on plenty of search-and-rescues, and I didn’t remember that walking-in-circles thing. “Plus we’ve got Chet,” he added. And we had Bernie, too. His brain was one of our most important assets. So maybe I had heard the walking-in-circles thing before.
Anya looked down at me. Our gazes met. Her eyes dampened again. “Please,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear, meaning real softly. No worries: that was my thought. We’d bring her boy back and that was that. I gave myself a good shake. What were we waiting for?
“Have you got a picture of Devin?” Bernie said.
“Why do you want that?” said Anya.
“Standard procedure.”
“But aren’t I coming with you?”
“The picture’s to show any hikers we might run into,” Bernie said.
“I want to come.”
“Do you have any backcountry experience?”
“None.”
“Then you’d only slow us down,” Bernie said.
“But—” Anya began.
Bernie interrupted her. “And wouldn’t it be better if you’re here when your ex-husband arrives?”
Anya gave him a long look. “That’s pretty acute of you,” she said.
Didn’t quite get that one. Bernie shrugged. Maybe he didn’t get it either.
Anya took out her cell phone, pressed some buttons, held up the screen. “Here’s Devin,” she said.
Hard to see from my angle, but I glimpsed a long-haired, round-faced, unsmiling kid. What else? One of those snub noses. I knew that expression from a snubnose .32 I’d taken off some perp, name escaping me at the moment, but we’ve still got that little gun in the office safe.
“A nice-looking kid,” Bernie said. Anya’s lower lip trembled. “The camp will have a computer and a printer.”
Anya nodded and walked toward the office.
Bernie and I went the other way, toward the tents, big tents, and each one flying a flag. We stopped in front of one of them, stood before the closed flap. Bernie checked the flag, and then called out, “Number seven? Anybody home?”
No answer. But I could hear breathing inside. I moved closer to the flap. Bernie raised it, letting in a flood of daylight. The boys inside—same ones who’d returned with Turk—looked at us, all of them squinting against the light.
“Boys?” said Bernie. “I’m Bernie Little, and this is Chet. We’re headed out to find Devin, but first we could use some help from you.”
The tent was real messy, clothes and gear all over the place. The boys lay on cots. One cot was empty. None of them spoke.
We stepped inside. Bernie smiled. “What are your names?” he said.
They remained silent. Humans have a right to remain silent. You hear a lot of talk about it in my job. No offense, but this is a right humans hardly ever take advantage of.
The smile stayed on Bernie’s face. “Well, let’s see. We know we’ve got Tommy and Preston.” We did? But that was Bernie for you, every time. “So which one’s Tommy?” Bernie scanned their faces. “That would be you,” he said, pointing with his chin at a dark-haired kid with braces on his teeth. The other kids might have had braces, too, but Tommy was the only one with his mouth open.
The kid nodded.
“Nice meeting you, Tommy,” Bernie said. “And Preston?” His gaze swept over the others, stopped on a red-haired kid with a sharp-featured face. “Hey, there, Preston,” he said. How did he know that? Not my concern: if Bernie said this red-haired kid was Preston, then question period was over.
No nod from Preston. No reaction of any kind.
“So that just leaves you two,” Bernie said, turning to the remaining boys. Bernie was still smiling, but not as broadly. The two boys sat up.
“Keith,” said one.
“Luke,” said the other.
“Hi, guys,” Bernie said. He moved toward the empty cot. “This one Devin’s?” he said.
There was a pause. The boys exchanged glances. Then Tommy sat up—now I could see he was a pretty big kid—and said, “Yeah.” Preston’s eyes narrowed.
Bernie sat on Devin’s cot. I took a spot on the floor beside him. They all checked me out for a moment. Tommy and Keith were comfortable with me and my kind; Preston and Luke were not. Never hurts to be aware of that.
“You guys made good time today,” Bernie said. “Must be wiped.”
They all shrugged, Tommy, Keith, and Luke sitting up, Preston still lying down.
“I understand you tried real hard to find Devin,” Bernie said.
Tommy nodded. Then Keith, then Luke. Not Preston.
“How did that go, exactly?” Bernie said.
Tommy, Keith, and Luke all turned to Preston. No one answered.
“My guess is you just followed Turk’s orders,” Bernie said.
Preston sat up. “Yeah,” he said. Hey! Preston wasn’t Tommy’s size, but he had the voice of a man. The others still talked like boys. Did I already know about that whole thing? Couldn’t remember. Then a strange thought zipped in: was Charlie’s voice going to change one day? Wow! I wasn’t used to having thoughts like that.
“And what were Turk’s orders?” Bernie said.
“Fan out with him in the middle, calling out every minute, then listening,” Preston said. “Kind of obvious.”
“You said it,” said Bernie. “Calling out what?”
“Deh-viiin, Deh-viiin,” Preston said. Something in the way he said the name bothered me.
“But no response of any kind?” Bernie said. “Wouldn’t have to be his voice, could be just the sound of a rock being thrown, for example.”
“Why wouldn’t it have to be his voice?” Tommy said.
“Punctured lung, windpipe damaged in a fall, lots of possibilities.”
Silence. Then Tommy said, “Turk didn’t mention any of that.”
“So what?” said Preston. “Did we hear any rocks or stuff? Not me.”
The other boys shook their heads.
Another silence. Bernie gave the cot a little pat. “What do you think happened to Devin?” he said.
They all shrugged.
“Tommy? Got a theory?”
“Um, theory?” said Tommy.
“Like where he is right now,” Bernie said. “And how he got there.”
“Where he is right now?” Tommy said.
“Yeah,” Bernie said.
“Lost,” said Tommy. “He’s lost.”
“And how did that happen?” Bernie said.
“Um,” said Tommy. “I don’t, uh …” He slowly turned toward Preston. They all did.
“He went out in the night to take a piss,” Preston said. “Then he got lost.”
“Did you hear him get up, Preston?”
Preston met Bernie’s gaze. “Who are you, again?”
Bernie still wore a bit of a smile on his face. He was the kind of guy who likes kids. But this particular smile was one I’d never want to see aimed at me. “Bernie Little,” he said. “I’m a friend of Devin’s family. I’m also a private detective, and Chet here is a great tracker. So we’re going to bring Devin back, and of course when we do we’ll hear his side of the story, too.” I thought he was going to say more, but he stopped right there, leaving a strange emptiness in the air, like someone just had to say something to fill it. Bernie was a great interviewer, if I haven’t mentioned that already. I bring other things to the table. We’re a team, me and Bernie.
Preston kept his eyes on Bernie. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “When I woke up the kid was gone.”
“And when you went to sleep?” Bernie said.
“When I went to sleep?” Preston said. “I don’t get it.”
“Where was Devin when you went to sleep?” Bernie said. “A simple question—especially for a smart kid like you.”
Preston’s eyes—very light colored, although I can’t be trusted when it comes to color, according to Bernie—narrowed. “He was asleep when I went to sleep. And gone in the morning.”
“Couldn’t be clearer,” Bernie said. He turned to the others. “Same story with you guys?” he said.
“Yup,” said Luke.
“Yeah,” said Keith.
Tommy nodded, just the tiniest movement.
Bernie started to rise, then sat back down as though he’d had a new thought. “What kind of kid is Devin, anyway?” he said.
“You know,” Tommy said. “A kid.”
“Normal?”
Tommy glanced at Preston. “Yeah, sure.”
“Was—is he enjoying camp?”
“I guess,” Tommy said.
“How about you guys—like it here?”
More shrugging.
“First time for all of you?”
They all shook their heads.
“For any of you?”
More head shaking.
“So you knew each other from past summers?”
Nods.
Bernie got up. “All we’ll need now—what Chet needs, actually—is something of Devin’s, something with his scent on it.”
Laughter is the best human sound except for a kind of laugh that’s called the snicker. The snicker is one of the worst. Preston snickered and said, “Like his dirty underwear?”
Luke and Keith laughed—more like the nice kind, but far from the nicest I’d heard—and then tried to stop, their faces swelling up and reddening. What was funny? They were all wearing dirty underwear, a fact I’d known the moment we’d stepped inside the tent.
“A T-shirt will do,” Bernie said.
Luke and Keith went on another laughing spasm. Preston watched them, looking amused. Tommy didn’t look amused.
“Devin’s laundry sack is under the cot,” he said.
Preston turned to Tommy. Tommy looked away. The tent was pretty big—way bigger than the tent we had at home—but I was beginning to feel closed in. Bernie reached under the cot, pulled out a canvas bag, fished around inside and found a sock. One of those white sports socks: perfect.
“Perfect,” Bernie said. “With a name tag, no less. Chet?”
I moved closer. Bernie held out the sock. I took a quick sniff or two. It’s really quite easy. From that moment I had Devin’s smell locked in forever.
Bernie took a plastic bag from his pocket and sealed the sock inside. He always did that, in case I needed a refresher somewhere along the way. I never did, but Bernie didn’t know that.
“Chet’s smart, huh?” said Tommy.
Bernie smiled. “Do you have a dog at home?” he said.
“My mom’s allergic.”
Allergic: I’d heard that one before. Once at a party this woman had wanted me to go wait in the car. Bernie and I left immediately, of course: parties are supposed to be fun. But what was up with the allergy thing? Humans could be funny inside.
“Too bad,” Bernie said. We turned to go. “Thanks, guys,” he said. “You’ve been a big help.”
Luke and Keith seemed surprised to hear that. The expression on Preston’s face was complicated. Only Tommy looked pleased.
Bernie and I went back to the parking lot. He took the small backpack he’d brought for the trip out of the trunk and then unlocked the glove box. There was the .38 Special, always a pleasant sight. Did I have a faint memory of Bernie telling Anya we weren’t carrying this weekend? Bernie could still surprise me sometimes. He tucked the .38 Special in his backpack and was slinging the backpack over his shoulder when Anya came up.
“Here are the prints,” she said, handing them over. I caught another sight of that unsmiling, round-faced, long-haired kid. The smell on the white sports sock fit him nicely, hard to explain.
“The SAR team’ll want copies, too,” Bernie said.
“When are they getting here?” Anya’s voice was high and tight, like she was trying to keep something inside from bursting out.
“As soon as they can,” Bernie said. “They’ll have a satellite phone, so I’ll be able to report back to you when they reach us.”
“And I haven’t been able to contact Guy.” Her face was strange, almost like it was frozen stiff. I got the feeling she wasn’t listening.
“The service is spotty,” Bernie told her.
“But Guy said he’d be here by midmorning at the latest.”
Bernie put a hand on Anya’s shoulder. “What you can do,” he said, “is study the maps, get familiar with the whole area, so you’ll be up to speed when I call you.”
Anya nodded, one of those puzzled kinds of nods. What was Bernie saying? I didn’t get it either.
Up in the clearing where the cabins stood, Turk appeared, carrying a pack. He saw us and made the waving motion for come.
“Got to go,” Bernie said, slipping his hand from her shoulder. Anya grabbed Bernie’s hand in both of hers and squeezed tight.
“He means everything to me,” she said. “He’s the only decent thing I’ve done in my—” Her face unfroze and she began sobbing.
Bernie tugged his hand free. “Um,” he said. “Just, ah, familiarize yourself with …” He gazed down at her. Bernie can handle just about anything. Of the things he can’t handle, sobbing women probably come first.
We headed up toward the cabins. “Waiting is the hardest part,” Bernie said quietly. “You always give them something to do, even if it’s bogus.”
Bogus? Didn’t know that one. But did I let it worry me? Not for a second or even shorter, and I know a second’s a short time. Missing persons was our specialty at the Little Detective Agency, kids especially. This was what we did, me and Bernie. We were on the job.