Bark to the Future--A Chet & Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn

Author:Spencer Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Seventeen

Weatherly called as we were pulling out of the Central State visitor parking lot.

“How’s your day going?” she said.

“I feel like I need a shower,” said Bernie.

Which made no sense to me since Bernie had already taken a shower after his morning coffee, and although it was warmish outside they keep it cool inside Central State—and all the prisons I’d ever been in, by the way. An inmate buddy of ours name of Clarence “Upside” Downing, who’d once made a lot of money selling fish that hadn’t been born yet, the trouble coming when they ended up not getting born, had even explained why: “Folks get tetchy in the heat,” he’d said.

Bernie started in on some explanation, but at that moment I happened to spot a big red SUV parked at the side of the road, engine running. If you’re on the road a lot, like we are, you see plenty of big red SUVs, so many you kind of stop noticing them. But noticing is part of the job here at the Little Detective Agency, and so I watched the driver of this particular big red SUV as we went by. And what do you know? He was watching us. I don’t always take kindly to being watched, so I amped up my watching of him, as I’m sure you would have done in my place—something that will never happen, this shotgun seat being mine forever—and in this state of amped-up watching I saw his face clearly: dark-eyed with thick dark eyebrows. Had I seen him before? At first I didn’t think so but then I noticed how strong his jaw was, and that brought back a memory of a broad-brimmed hat and a face mostly in shadow. But not the whole face, not completely. And on one side of his big chin there’d been a thin, downward curving scar. This dude, his big strong arm resting on the door, seemed to be growing a beard, but I could still make out a trace of that scar, like a tiny road in a tiny forest. Plus I caught—not as we passed by but very soon after, the way these things work—a faint scent of minty mouthwash.

That did it. I barked in no uncertain terms.

“Whoa!” said Weatherly over the phone. “What’s with the big guy?”

Bernie glanced at me, then checked the rearview mirror. At the sound of Weatherly’s voice I’d taken my eyes off the big red SUV, and now when I looked back, it was on the move, sliding into traffic and immediately slipping in behind a huge RV and out of sight. Out of sight but almost right on our tail! A very bothersome situation. I barked again, really letting that big red SUV have it.

Bernie gave me another look. “I don’t know. Is Trixie there with you?”

“On my foot.”

“I think Chet senses that.”

“So he’s sending her a message over the phone?”

“I believe so.”

No! That wasn’t it at all! It was all about the big red SUV, and

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