We sat around the fire pit in the darkness. No one seemed to be making a fire. That was a first in my camping experience. Did no campfire wipe out the possibility of nibbling on roasted things in the near future? I feared that from the get-go and turned out to be right. Turk and Bernie ate sandwiches— peanut butter and jelly, the smell so much better than the taste, a strange disappointment I’d tested out more than once—and I had kibble. I was just about finished licking out the bowl—our traveling bowl, a little smaller than the kitchen bowl but nice and round at the bottom, the way I like—when Bernie said, “Tell me about the kids.”
“What kids?” said Turk, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“The kids in tent seven,” Bernie said. “The ones in your charge.”
Turk shrugged. “I take what they give me.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve guided hundreds of kids into the backcountry,” Turk said. “Maybe thousands. They all blur together after a while.”
“Understood,” said Bernie. “You’re only human.”
Hey! One of my favorite expressions—it made so much sense to me.
“Damn straight,” Turk said.
“But,” said Bernie, and he paused—Bernie’s a real good pauser, all part of his interviewing technique; I bring other things to the table, in case I haven’t mentioned that already—“of all these hundreds, maybe thousands, Turk, did you ever lose one before now?”
“Fucking well didn’t. And you’re startin’ to push me, pal.”
Uh-oh. Turk had a temper. I got my back paws under me. I’ve seen lots of trouble, comes with the job, and it often starts right about now.
“See, Turk,” Bernie said, “you just admitted you’ve never been in a situation like this. Chet and I have, more than once. The goal is to bring Devin back alive. Nothing else counts.”
Turk sat there, a dark shadow but sort of bulging, like a muscle loading up.
“So let’s talk about the kids in tent seven,” Bernie said. “How did they get along?”
I heard Turk taking a deep breath. The violence that had been building inside him escaped into the air; I could sort of feel it. “Didn’t give me problems,” he said.
“Glad to hear that,” said Bernie. “But it’s not what I asked.”
“Lost me,” Turk said.
“Yeah?” said Bernie.
When he said “yeah” like that it always meant he didn’t believe what had just been said, not one bit. Love Bernie’s little ways! We were on the job!
“Let’s narrow it down,” he went on. “How did the boys— meaning Preston, Tommy, Luke, and Keith—get along with Devin?”
“Pretty good, I guess.”
“Huh?”
“The four boys are all returning campers. Devin’s new. That can be tough.”
“Tough? None of them know shit about tough. They’re all rich kids from the city.”
“Bullies can be rich or poor, city or country,” Bernie said. “Preston’s a bully. Luke and Keith are followers. Tommy’s stand-up, but he’s still too young to know it. What about Devin? Is he the victim type?”
“Where are you getting all this info?” Turk said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Ranger Rob? I didn’t think—” Turk cut himself off. Sometimes the mouth gets ahead of the mind in humans. I watch for that one.
“You didn’t think what?”
“Nothin’,” Turk said.
There was a silence, except for the breeze rustling the trees, and an owl doing that hooting thing, but very distant, right at the edge of what I could hear.
“What kind of a kid were you?” Bernie said. “Bully, victim, follower, or stand-up?”
“Hell, stand-up for sure. Ask anyone who knew me.”
“If it comes to that, I will,” Bernie said. “The question now is did you stand up for Devin?”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Preston was bullying Devin. At the very least the others stood by. That left it up to you.”
“Didn’t notice any of what you’re talkin’ about.”
“No?” Bernie said. “You missed the fact that Devin wasn’t sleeping in the tent with the others?”
Turk leaned back, almost like he’d been pushed in the chest.
Bernie pointed back to where the kids’ tent had stood. “Four rectangular impressions on the ground, Turk. Faint, but there. The fifth one’s a good thirty feet from the others, way outside the tent. Means Devin slept in the open. Just like you—making it hard to miss.”
Another deep breath from Turk. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe they ragged on him some. Preston’s a fuckin’ monster.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Bernie said. “But see what this does to your theory.”
“What theory?” said Turk, a question I was glad to hear, a little lost myself.
“The theory we’ve been operating on,” Bernie said. “Devin leaves the tent to take a piss and can’t find his way back.”
That was the theory? Theories, whatever they happened to be, I always left to Bernie. But something about this particular theory made me leave our little circle for a moment or two, all the time it took to lift my leg against a nearby rock. When I returned, Turk was saying, “I’m a real heavy sleeper. Is that a crime?”
“Depending on the circumstances,” Bernie said. “A sentry who falls asleep on duty, for example. Or an airline pilot—maybe a closer analogy.”
“You threatening me?” Turk said. “Like I’m some criminal?”
“Why would there be any need for that?” said Bernie. “We’re on the same side. If you feel threatened, it’s just from the situation.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“People—starting with Devin’s parents—are going to find out you let the kid sleep in the open.”
“That’s what he wanted,” Turk said.
“That’s what Preston and the others made him want,” Bernie said, his voice growing sharper and quieter at the same time; we often get good results from that combo. “There’s a difference.”
Turk said nothing. The expression on his face, dark and shadowy, was hard to see. But a new smell was coming off him, a tangy smell a bit like this blue cheese Bernie likes, except mixed with pee: the smell of human fear.
“Did you light a fire that night?” Bernie said.
“Sure.”
“Douse it out when you turned in, or just let it die down?”
“Die down,” Turk said. “This fire pit’s safe—you can see for yourself—and there was no wind.”
“I trust your judgment on that,” Bernie said. “What’s puzzling me is that the coals would have glowed most of the night, so if Devin, already outside the tent, did get up for some reason, it’s hard to imagine how he couldn’t find his way back.”
“Know something?” said Turk. “I’m gettin’ tired of all your questions.”
“That last one wasn’t a question,” Bernie said.
Turk rose. “The hell with you,” he said. “Who says I need to take this shit? I was just doin’ my job.” He grabbed his pack.
I could feel Bernie about to say something but he did not.
We own two tents, the big one that fits Bernie, Charlie, and Suzie, and the little one Bernie set up on the edge of the shadowy grove of trees. The little one’s called the pup tent. I’ve done a lot of thinking about that and pretty much gotten nowhere. Has a puppy ever been inside the little tent? No. So therefore? I just don’t know: the way we have things arranged at the Little Detective Agency, Bernie handles the so therefores.
Bernie lay down in the pup tent. There was maybe just enough room for me to squeeze in, but I preferred to stretch out on the ground in front of the flap. By that time, Turk had already unrolled his sleeping bag by the fire pit and climbed in. His eyes were silvery and open in the starlight. I kept my own eyes open until his closed. Then I closed mine and listened to Bernie’s breathing from inside the tent as it got slower and more peaceful, if that makes any sense, and soon I knew he was asleep. For a while I just lay on the ground—mossy ground, very comfortable—and enjoyed the feeling of being the only one awake in the night, one of my favorite feelings. Then a delicious kind of fuzziness came rolling into my mind. I never fight that.
Some humans—Charlie’s amazing at this!—are totally zonked out when they’re asleep, almost impossible to wake. That’s not the way it works in the nation within the nation. I get plenty of rest, no complaints, but I’m never totally zonked out, which was why sometime later I was suddenly wide awake.
The breeze had strengthened, blowing from the direction of the white-streaked mountaintop, now just a jagged lightless shape blocking out the stars. I got the impression that the stars had moved, weren’t where they’d been when I’d gone to sleep. That was a little trick of the night that I’d noticed before but almost forgotten. But that wasn’t the important part. Eye on the ball: that was an expression of Bernie’s and I loved playing ball, goes without mentioning; but better to mention, just in case. There are many kinds of balls in the world: tennis balls, soccer balls, baseballs—will I ever forget the first time I discovered how complicated they were inside?—but lacrosse balls are my favorite, what with their crazy bounces, and especially the way they felt in my mouth when—
Eye on the ball, Chet. Something was not right. The night was silent, except for the breeze, but it was one of those strange silences you get after something has just happened, if you know what I mean, and I’m actually not sure I even do. First thing, I listened for Bernie, heard his slow, regular breathing right away, meaning he was safe, so if something had in fact just happened, it couldn’t have been all that bad.
I rose. Nighttime security was part of my job. Grabbing perps by the pant leg is another. That’s how we know the case is closed here at the Little Detective Agency, but this case didn’t feel closed. Was it even a case? I didn’t know. A case meant someone was paying. Anya was paying Bernie to be her friend. Now her kid was missing. I couldn’t take it past that, so I started sniffing around. When it comes to nighttime security, you can’t go wrong by sniffing around.
Nothing new to pick up, the scents of the boys still all over the place—although growing fainter—plus Bernie’s scent, Turk’s, and my own, the most familiar smell in the world: old leather, salt and pepper, mink coats, and just a soupçon of tomato; and to be honest, a healthy dash of something male and funky. My smell: yes, sir. Chet the Jet was in the vicinity, wherever that was, exactly.
Bernie: safe in the tent. Me: on the job, checking things out. That left no one to check out except Turk. I moved toward the fire pit, picked up a faint smell of mold coming from Turk’s sleeping bag. That happened with sleeping bags, nothing unusual. The only unusual thing was the way Turk’s bag seemed kind of flat.
I went closer, didn’t see Turk’s head sticking through the opening at the top. I pawed at the sleeping bag, felt the ground underneath. Turk wasn’t inside.
I looked around, saw a few dark forms around the campsite that had vaguely human shapes, and examined every one, finding only rocks and bushes. Lots of Turk’s scent around, some of it old, some fresh. I followed a few scent trails, all of them leading round and round in circles. Whenever that happens I start getting frustrated, just can’t help it. I went over to the tent and barked this soft muffled bark meant not to attract attention from anyone except Bernie.
“Chet?” he said, his voice soft, just like mine. Bernie’s a deep sleeper, but when it’s important he’s wide awake right away. You could always rely on Bernie.
He crawled out of the tent with the headlamp in his hand, switched it on, and followed me over to Turk’s sleeping bag. The beam moved back and forth over the empty bag, then swept around the campsite.
“I screwed up the whole goddamn case, big guy,” he said.
So it was a case, after all. As for Bernie screwing it up: impossible.