After that came the most silent silence I’ve ever known. Then Suzie said, “Got your gun?”
“Couldn’t be located, according to the sheriff,” Bernie said.
Suzie gazed at where the Porsche had been. “He turns out to be a belt-and-suspenders guy,” she said.
Bernie laughed. Belt and suspenders? I didn’t worry about the meaning of that, not for a moment. For one thing, I was too busy worrying about the Porsche. I loved that Porsche—and I’d loved the Porsche before it, the one that had gone shooting off a cliff. What was life without a cool ride?
Bernie stopped laughing, touched Suzie’s shoulder. “This isn’t a good place for you right now,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“How about heading home?”
Suzie shrugged herself out from under his hand. “You can if you want. I’m not walking away from a story like this.”
Bernie gave her a long look—not hard, not at all, just long. “There’s a lot about journalism I don’t understand,” he said.
“But your job makes perfect sense,” said Suzie.
Of course it did: Suzie didn’t miss a beat, whatever that happened to be; different from a beat-down—I was pretty sure of that. What made more sense than rounding up perps? We had the best job in the world, me and Bernie. No worries at all on that score. But I was worried about something. What was it, again? Oh, yeah, the Porsche. Just as I remembered that, it was time to get in the Beetle, and in the … well, not struggle, really, more like a friendly contest, to see who would sit where—and amazingly I again found myself in the backseat!—I forgot whatever it was once more.
Ranger Rob was in his office, typing on his laptop, door open. We went in, just as he pressed a button and a printer in the corner started whirring. He looked up and saw us.
Sometimes with humans you get to see the face behind the face. Take Bernie, for example: when we’re alone that’s the only face I ever see. Back to Ranger Rob: his normal face, the one I’d seen before, was the kind of good-buddy, weather-beaten face you saw a lot, roaming around the West the way Bernie and I did. Now, for just an instant, like a camera had flashed at him in a dark room, out came the face behind the face of Ranger Rob. Whew! Way too complicated, and good buddy returned fast, but underneath was an unhappy dude—surprised, scared, even a little panicky. Humans were at their very worst when they got panicky. Take the time when that pet-store-robbing perp, name escaping me at the moment, thought the best way to get the python off his leg was to point his gun down there and pull the trigger. I got ready for anything.
“Well, hello,” said Ranger Rob. He rose, a little abruptly, his chair rolling away from him. “Well, hello, there. Take a seat. Caught me all on my lonesome. Annual Rodeo Day—bussed everyone over to Durango. But still, this is, uh, a nice surprise.”
“Is it?” Bernie said.
“Of course, I heard the good news—your exoneration, and all, and believe me I never even dreamed for a second that you, uh … but I just didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon, is all. Have the pleasure, I meant to …”
Bernie and Suzie sat on chairs opposite the desk. I stood between them. From a standing position to leaping across that desk would take no time at all.
“My friend, Suzie Sanchez,” Bernie said.
“Pleased to meet you, miss, ah, ma’am,” said Ranger Rob.
“I’m also a reporter for the Valley Tribune,” Suzie said.
“Oh,” said Ranger Rob.
You heard “oh” like that in this business from time to time, almost always a sign that things were going well. Ranger Rob pulled up his chair and sat down carefully, like maybe he’d stopped trusting it. His gaze went to Bernie’s face then quickly away. The worst bruise, the one around the eye, was starting to turn yellow.
“Some, ah, ice for that?” said Ranger Rob.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Bernie said. “You must have just found out about the hearing.”
“News travels fast up here.”
“Have you had time to think about the medical examiner’s finding?”
“What aspect of it, exactly?”
“The suicide aspect.”
Ranger Rob rubbed his hands together. They were on the small side for a guy his size. “Frankly, I was taken aback. But as for what goes on inside a man, can we ever really know?”
Bernie glanced at me, not sure why. Then he turned to Ranger Rob. “Sometimes we can,” he said. Ranger Rob’s eyes shifted. “But leaving aside philosophical questions for the moment,” Bernie went on, “I think the ME—what’s his name again?”
“Doc Laidlaw,” said Ranger Rob.
“Blood relation of the sheriff?”
“Great-uncle, I believe.”
Bernie smiled, just a small quick one. I loved to see him enjoying himself. “Doc Laidlaw,” he continued, “would have been better advised to have ruled it death by accident.”
Ranger Rob shook his head, kind of like he was getting buzzed by insects, which he wasn’t because I’d have heard them, even the smallest. “Lost me,” he said.
“What’s certain,” Bernie said, “is that Turk died of a gunshot wound. I saw it myself. What I didn’t see was a gun. That’s rare in gun-suicide cases, for obvious reasons.” I tried to think of one and couldn’t, but I didn’t spend much time on it. “Whereas it’s possible to imagine Turk in the mine, gun in hand, maybe because he hears a sound of some kind, and all of a sudden the roof falls in, the gun goes off at the worst possible angle, and then it gets buried under tons of rock, lost forever.” Bernie glanced at Suzie. “Can you imagine that?” he said.
“Only if I close my eyes real tight,” said Suzie.
“I think I see what you’re saying,” Ranger Rob said.
“I’ll spell it out,” said Bernie. “Your employee, Turk Rendell, was murdered. I’m asking whether you have any idea who did it.”
“No,” said Ranger Rob.
“Just no?” Bernie said.
“That’s my honest answer. I don’t know.”
“Care to speculate?”
“Start with the two essential facts—Devin’s disappearance and Turk’s murder. How are they related?”
“I just—I … this is all … all out of my experience.”
“What is your experience, Ranger Rob?” Bernie said, his voice kind of gentle.
“I don’t understand your question,” Ranger Rob said.
Suzie piped up, her voice not gentle at all. “Bernie’s trying to find out what sort of man you are,” she said; and then, in her normal voice: “Is that right, Bernie?”
Bernie made a funny little shrug, a she’s-right-what-can-I-do? sort of thing.
Hey! Was this good-cop bad-cop? With Bernie as good and Suzie as bad? At first I thought, wow, are we cooking or what? But then came another, not thought, really, more a glimpse of a strange future where Suzie was grabbing perps by the pant leg. That was my job! I found myself inching sideways and forward a bit, maybe getting into the space between Suzie and what we called the interviewee in this business, lingo Suzie probably wasn’t familiar with.
“So,” said Suzie, kind of leaning around me, “information on your background might be useful.”
“I don’t see—” Ranger Rob began.
“Starting with how you got this damn job,” Suzie said.
Ranger Rob sat back in his chair. “I’m qualified. I’ve had a long career in the camping industry. You can check it out.”
Suzie pulled out her cell phone.
Ranger Rob looked at her in surprise, not the good kind. “Coverage is a bit spotty, I’m—” he began.
“Clear signal, thanks,” Suzie said. And then: “Carla? One more thing—can you run a quick search on Ranger Rob Town-shend, director of Big Bear Wilderness Camp? Work, marital, criminal, the usual. Thanks.” Click. “Where were we?”
Ranger Rob’s face had gotten kind of greenish. That can sometimes lead to puking in a human. I shifted back a bit. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said.
“Noted,” Bernie said. “Let’s move on to the ownership of the camp.”
“Why?” said Ranger Rob. “It’s a typical five-oh-one c three nonprofit.”
“But where did the money come from—land, buildings, equipment?” Bernie said. He rose, went to a window, looked out. “There must have been substantial start-up costs.”
“Before my time,” Ranger Rob said. “The board handled all that.”
“But you’re the director.”
“Correct.”
“Who’s the chairman of the board?” Bernie said.
I knew that one: Frank Sinatra; we’d gone through a period of listening to him nonstop, me and Bernie.
But that wasn’t Ranger Rob’s answer. “Judge Stringer,” he said.
Bernie nodded, that slight nod he did when he already knew. He wandered over toward the printer in the corner. Ranger Rob swiveled around, kept a close eye on Bernie. Human anxiety has a smell, not as sour or strong as fear, but in that line. It drifted over to me from across the desk.
“One last thing,” Bernie said. “Why was the search for Devin called off?”
“That had nothing to do with me,” said Ranger Rob. “The sheriff and the head of rescue made the decision, because of the bears.”
“Bears?” said Bernie, speaking exactly what was on my mind.
“A number of bears have been spotted up by Stiller’s Creek in the last few days. It was felt that most likely there’d be no, ah, remains. A sad, sad situation and—would you please not do that?”
Bernie had removed a sheet of paper from the printer and was reading it. “Sending out your résumé, Ranger Rob?”
“Just testing the waters, more or less.”
“I would in your place.”
At that moment, Suzie’s phone beeped with that special beep for a text, whatever that happened to be. She glanced at the screen. “Good old Carla,” she said. She walked over to the desk and held the phone so Ranger Rob could see.
He licked his lips. Tongue so white, face so green: I got a little pukey myself. “I suggest you talk to Turk’s mother in Jackrabbit Junction,” he said. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“That will depend on how this plays out,” Bernie said. “Where’s Jackrabbit Junction?”
“Actually not far from Stiller’s Creek,” Ranger Rob said. “But you have to come in from the back side, so it’s seventy miles by road. You need four-wheel drive for the last ten or so.”
“Can you hike in from the creek?” Bernie said.
“It’s doable,” said Ranger Rob.
“Christ,” Bernie said. He banged his fist into his open hand, real loud, almost like gunshot. Ranger Rob jumped. So did Suzie. Not me.
“We’ll need a few things from you,” Bernie said. He placed the sheet of paper in the paper tray, but it got away from him and fluttered to the floor.
“You mad at me?” Suzie said.
“Nope,” said Bernie.
“You haven’t said a word in two hours.”
We were on the trail that led up to Stiller’s Creek, and the spot where Turk and the boys had camped, and the mine; me first, then Bernie, then Suzie. They carried packs given to us by Ranger Rob. Ranger Rob had also parked the Beetle in a shed behind one of the cabins, locked the door, and said something about some embezzlement that wasn’t really embezzlement, totally beyond me, to which Bernie only replied, “You haven’t seen us.”
And Ranger Rob had said, “I haven’t seen you.”
But he’d been seeing us at that very moment! I hadn’t gotten that at all, but I did know that humans sometimes didn’t think their best when they were feeling pukey.
We rounded a corner and saw those rocky mountaintops streaked with white—snow, I knew that now—for the first time. Suzie huffed and puffed and said, “How come?”
“How come what?” Bernie said.
“Is that nice, making me do a lot of explaining when I’m struggling for breath? How come you’re not talking, for Christ sake?”
“I’m struggling for breath, too,” Bernie said. “You’re not.”
It was true. Bernie had huffed and puffed pretty much nonstop our first time up this way, and now his breathing was real quiet. That was Bernie.
“So,” Suzie said, “explain.”
Bernie stopped and waited for Suzie to catch up. She was bent a little from the weight of the pack, her face shiny pink. We’d reached the place where the white-bark trees petered out and the Christmas trees began. I found myself sniffing around the last of the white-bark trees, a big one with strips of the bark hanging off. And what was this? That locker-room-laundry-hamper scent again? Yes, and lots of it.
Meanwhile, Bernie was handing Suzie a water bottle. “I’m mad at me, not you,” he said.
“But why?” said Suzie.
Yeah, why? When had Bernie ever done anything wrong?
“I blew the whole goddamn case,” he said. “Had it and dropped it.”
Huh? None of that made any sense. For one thing, Bernie had great hands—he’d played ball for Army, don’t forget that. I trotted over and gave him a little bump.
“What do you mean?” Suzie was saying.
Bernie recovered his balance and said, “I’ll show you in a while. Keep going, or do you want a breather?”
“Never say that again,” said Suzie.
We wound our way up and up through the Christmas trees, the trail shrinking down to a narrow crest, steep drops on either side, the snow-streaked mountaintops much closer now. I got this crazy impulse to leap into that deep blue sky, so beautiful. Not a good idea, of course. Way up high a big black bird was doing what I wanted to do. I’d never been fond of birds.
After a while the ground leveled out and gurgling water sounded through the trees. Moments later, I was on that broad flat rock in midstream, lapping up lovely cold water to my heart’s content.
“Stiller’s Creek,” Bernie said.
“Chet seems to like it,” said Suzie.
“He’s a connoisseur of water.”
Then we were all on the other side. “Campsite was up there,” Bernie said, pointing up the slope. “The mine’s this way.”
We headed upstream, Stiller’s Creek getting smaller and smaller, the trees disappearing, the footing turning to broken rocks, not so easy for Bernie and Suzie. I had to double back so many times I lost count, although I actually stopped trying when I got to two. Bernie and Suzie were both huffing and puffing by the time we reached the mine. Suzie gazed at the opening for a moment—those old timbers and darkness beyond—and then strapped on her headlamp and started inside.
“What are you doing?” Bernie said.
“I want a picture.”
“Why?”
She glanced back. “This is a story, Bernie.”
Bernie gave me a look. I gave him a look back. Not sure what that was about, but whatever it was, we were on the same side.
Bernie strapped on his headlamp. We went in. He gave her a little tour. “Here’s where some old-timer carved his name. There’s what’s left of the side tunnel where Chet found the nugget. Here’s the main tunnel, the one Moondog was working.” That kind of thing. And not long after that, we were standing over the rubble pile where we’d found Turk’s body. Suzie took out her camera. No body here now, of course, so—whoa.
I barked and barked.
“Chet?” Bernie said. “What’s up, big guy?”
“Do you think he’s upset, remembering what was in there or something?” Suzie said.
Bernie shook his head, although I couldn’t be sure of that, because by that time I was clawing at the rubble for all I was worth, which I now knew was twenty grand, by the way, not too shabby.
“What’s going on?” Suzie said, her voice echoing deep in the mine.
Bernie didn’t answer. He was down on his knees, digging alongside me to the best of his ability, which was pretty good for a human. Dust swirled in the light of the headlamps, and the air got thick and hard to breathe. We uncovered the chest first, worked our way up to the face. It was Guy.