out of water? I love being in the water myself, but the fact is, I move
much faster on land. And so would a fish, unless I was missing something. Therefore:
nothing to worry about. We were going to crack this case—missing persons, if I remembered
correctly—crack it wide open!
“Easy, big guy!”
What was this? I seemed to be up on my hind legs, front paws on Bernie’s chest. Maybe
not the right time. But before pushing off, I gave those stitches on his forehead
a quick lick. They were right there in front of my face, after all; you’d have done
the same.
Bernie looked down at me, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand in the nicest
way. “Something—” His gaze rose beyond me, Bernie cutting himself off before saying
“bothering you, big guy?” which I’d heard many, many times and now heard again, just
inside my head. The answer was nothing was bothering me: nothing hardly ever did!
We had good times, me and Bernie.
Bernie moved toward a tree stump, not the kind smoothly cut by a tree guy with a chainsaw—and
it didn’t have to be a tree guy: how about Mrs. Teitelbaum cutting down Mr. Teitelbaum’s
prize tangerine tree while he watched helplessly from his chopper, just taking off
from the Teitelbaums’s private helipad? The Teitelbaum divorce: a nightmare. But forget
all that. The point was that this particular tree stump was the kind where the tree
just split off and fell with help from nobody. There it was, lying almost completely
hidden in the sawtooth grass. The stump itself was all soft and rotten, with small
white mushrooms growing inside and some interesting bugs wriggling around in there.
And what were those tiny glistening whitish things? Bug eggs of some kind? I couldn’t
help wondering how they’d ta—
“What have we here?” Bernie said. Caught on a piece of bark that stuck up from the
edge of the stump was a pair of glasses. Bernie took surgical gloves from his pocket,
put them on, and picked up the glasses: black-framed glasses that reminded me of some
long-ago singer Bernie liked, the name not coming to me at the moment.
“Buddy Holly–style glasses,” Bernie said. Wow! The very next moment and there it was!
Was I cooking or what? “Who else wears glasses like this?”
I had no idea. Bernie reached into his pocket again, this time taking out a photo.
We looked at it together. Was this the photo Vannah had given him? I remembered something
about that. “Ralph Boutette,” Bernie said, his voice quiet. Ralph had on glasses just
like those in Bernie’s hand. A ray of light shone down through the trees and caught
the lenses, glaring on a fingerprint or two. Fingerprints are big in our business,
which I’m sure you know. What you may not know is that sometimes they leave behind
a smell, like now. Ralph Boutette’s glasses gave off a very faint smell of garlic.
Bernie put the glasses in a baggie and tucked them away. Thenwe took a real close look at the stump and the area around it. After that, Bernie
went down to the pirogue and brought back the paddle. We went over the whole island,
Bernie using the paddle to hack away at the sawtooth grasses so we could see underneath.
At first all that paddle hacking was a bit too exciting for me. And even not just
at first! We spent what seemed like a long time, the sun, no hotter than back home
but so much heavier, if that makes any sense, sliding down the sky, and sweat dripping
off Bernie’s face. Mosquitoes arrived. I’d only seen them once before, on a case we’d
worked at a wilderness camp in the mountains, but not like this, in swarms. I hated
their sound and when they went for my nose, but otherwise they didn’t bother me. Bernie
was another story: he smacked at them, yelled goddamn bastards a few times, ended
up with bite bumps all over his arms and legs, plus bloody and sweaty little smears
here and there. As for our search we came up with
much faster on land. And so would a fish, unless I was missing something. Therefore:
nothing to worry about. We were going to crack this case—missing persons, if I remembered
correctly—crack it wide open!
“Easy, big guy!”
What was this? I seemed to be up on my hind legs, front paws on Bernie’s chest. Maybe
not the right time. But before pushing off, I gave those stitches on his forehead
a quick lick. They were right there in front of my face, after all; you’d have done
the same.
Bernie looked down at me, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand in the nicest
way. “Something—” His gaze rose beyond me, Bernie cutting himself off before saying
“bothering you, big guy?” which I’d heard many, many times and now heard again, just
inside my head. The answer was nothing was bothering me: nothing hardly ever did!
We had good times, me and Bernie.
Bernie moved toward a tree stump, not the kind smoothly cut by a tree guy with a chainsaw—and
it didn’t have to be a tree guy: how about Mrs. Teitelbaum cutting down Mr. Teitelbaum’s
prize tangerine tree while he watched helplessly from his chopper, just taking off
from the Teitelbaums’s private helipad? The Teitelbaum divorce: a nightmare. But forget
all that. The point was that this particular tree stump was the kind where the tree
just split off and fell with help from nobody. There it was, lying almost completely
hidden in the sawtooth grass. The stump itself was all soft and rotten, with small
white mushrooms growing inside and some interesting bugs wriggling around in there.
And what were those tiny glistening whitish things? Bug eggs of some kind? I couldn’t
help wondering how they’d ta—
“What have we here?” Bernie said. Caught on a piece of bark that stuck up from the
edge of the stump was a pair of glasses. Bernie took surgical gloves from his pocket,
put them on, and picked up the glasses: black-framed glasses that reminded me of some
long-ago singer Bernie liked, the name not coming to me at the moment.
“Buddy Holly–style glasses,” Bernie said. Wow! The very next moment and there it was!
Was I cooking or what? “Who else wears glasses like this?”
I had no idea. Bernie reached into his pocket again, this time taking out a photo.
We looked at it together. Was this the photo Vannah had given him? I remembered something
about that. “Ralph Boutette,” Bernie said, his voice quiet. Ralph had on glasses just
like those in Bernie’s hand. A ray of light shone down through the trees and caught
the lenses, glaring on a fingerprint or two. Fingerprints are big in our business,
which I’m sure you know. What you may not know is that sometimes they leave behind
a smell, like now. Ralph Boutette’s glasses gave off a very faint smell of garlic.
Bernie put the glasses in a baggie and tucked them away. Thenwe took a real close look at the stump and the area around it. After that, Bernie
went down to the pirogue and brought back the paddle. We went over the whole island,
Bernie using the paddle to hack away at the sawtooth grasses so we could see underneath.
At first all that paddle hacking was a bit too exciting for me. And even not just
at first! We spent what seemed like a long time, the sun, no hotter than back home
but so much heavier, if that makes any sense, sliding down the sky, and sweat dripping
off Bernie’s face. Mosquitoes arrived. I’d only seen them once before, on a case we’d
worked at a wilderness camp in the mountains, but not like this, in swarms. I hated
their sound and when they went for my nose, but otherwise they didn’t bother me. Bernie
was another story: he smacked at them, yelled goddamn bastards a few times, ended
up with bite bumps all over his arms and legs, plus bloody and sweaty little smears
here and there. As for our search we came up with
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