Read Online Scents and Sensibility by Spencer Quinn - Free Book Online Page B

others?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThat’s the latest. But it’s hard to say exactly when. Never rains out here, so marks can last a long time.”
    We followed the tracks across easy ground, not too rough or steep, even for a kid. This particular kid marched on ahead of us, but I had him in sight every moment, no worries about that. There was a little rise not far distant, with some saguaros growing on its slope. It was nice and quiet, not a trace of the whole big world of human noise.
    â€œWhat if this was olden days and we were the Spanish?” Charlie said.
    â€œBe pretty exciting.”
    â€œDid the Native—did the Indians have dogs?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œBut not horses.”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œWhat if some of them came over that hill with their bows and arrows?”
    â€œAnd we were the conquistadors?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI’d say, ‘Hi, Native Americans or Indians or whatever you want us to call you. Now we’re getting back on our boats and going home. Nice meeting you.’ ”
    Charlie laughed.
    We crossed the little plain and started up the slope.
    â€œSee that hole in the ground, up near the top?” Bernie said. “Means we’ve come to the right place.”
    â€œWhere someone dug up the saguaro?” said Charlie.
    â€œYeah.”
    It got steeper. All at once this was going way too slow for me. I ran on ahead—“Wow—look at him go!”—and came to the hole. A pretty big hole, about the size of the one left in the Parsonses’ yard after they’d taken the saguaro away. I scrambled over the dug-up rocks and dirt around the hole and looked down into it. Then I went still.
    â€œChet?” Bernie called up to me.
    Right away I knew what to do. I turned and ran down the slope, barking my head off.
    â€œChet. Sit.”
    I sat.
    â€œCharlie, I want you to stay right here with Chet. Don’t move. I’ll be right back. Okay, son?”
    Charlie nodded. His eyes were open real wide. I could hear his little heart. Nothing to be afraid of. Chet’s beside you.
    Bernie scrambled up the hill, reached the hole, gazed down. He went still, just like me. Ellie Newburg was down at the bottom of that hole, all twisted up, a round red hole in her forehead. As for holes in the earth, there were more of them on the next slope over. I picked up Shooter’s scent, but he wasn’t around.

SEVEN
----
    Y ou took him on a case?” Leda said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
    We were back in Leda’s front yard, same people as before, except Malcolm was down here with her, and the face in the upstairs window was Charlie’s. Maybe just a small switch up, but it made me uneasy, hard to say why. And what was this? My tail starting to droop? I got it right back up there, stiff and straight, the tail of a total pro. As for Leda’s question, wasn’t the answer pretty clear? Nothing was wrong with Bernie, not a damn thing. Not now, not yesterday, not tomorrow. I got ready for the satisfaction of hearing him say all that to Leda, and in no uncertain terms, whatever those might be.
    But that’s not what Bernie did. He took a deep breath and said, “It wasn’t really taking him on a case. Well, sort of, except it was more or less an excuse for a nice drive in the desert. Um, a little picnic.”
    â€œA little picnic?” Leda said. “Toasting marshmallows around a dead body?”
    Bernie stopped shuffling around. Not that he’d been shuffling—that could never happen—but he hadn’t looked Leda in the eye. Now he did. A little muscle jumped in the side of his jaw. You didn’t see that often. “The case was about a stolen cactus. Do you think I had the slightest inkling of what we’d find out there?”
    Leda started to say something, but Malcolm beat her to it. He was a tall dude—taller than Bernie, although a lot thinner,