Spencer Quinn - To Fetch a Thief: A Chet and Bernie Mystery

Also by Spencer Quinn

Dog on It

Thereby Hangs a Tail

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Spencer Quinn

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First Atria Books hardcover edition September 2010

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Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Quinn, Spencer.
To fetch a thief : a Chet and Bernie mystery / Spencer Quinn.1st
Atria Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.
1. DogsFiction. 2. Private investigatorsFiction. I. Title.
PS3617.U584T6 2010
813'.6dc22
2010021384

ISBN 978-1-4391-5707-7
ISBN 978-1-4391-6306-1 (ebook)

This book is dedicated to Diana

TO FETCH A THIEF

I smell trouble, Bernie said.

Better stop right there. Not that I doubt Bernie. The truth is, I believe everything he says. And he has a nice big nose for a human. But whats that saying? Not much.

Its a fact that trouble has a smellhuman trouble especially, sour and penetratingbut Bernie had never smelled trouble before, or if so he hadnt mentioned it, and Bernie mentioned all kinds of things to me. Were partners in the Little Detective Agency, me and Bernie, Bernies last name being Little. Im Chet, pure and simple.

I took a quick sniff, smelled no trouble whatsoever, just as Id expected, but did smell lots of other stuff, including burgers cooking on a grill. I looked around: no grill in sight, and this wasnt the time to go searching, although all at once I was a bit hungry, maybe even more than a bit. We were on the job, trailing some woman whose name Id forgotten. Shed led us out of the Valley to a motel in a flea-bitten desert town. That was what Bernie called itflea-bittenbut I felt no fleas at all, hadnt been bothered by them in ages, not since I started on the drops. But the funny thing was, even though I didnt have fleas, just the thought of them suddenly made me itchy. I started scratching, first behind my ear, soon along my side, then both at once, really digging in with my claws, faster and

Chet, for Gods sake.

I went still, one of my back paws frozen in midair. Bernie gave me a close look. Dont tell me I forgot the drops? I gave him a close look right back. Bernie has these faint lines on his forehead. When he worries, they get deeper, like now. I dont like it when Bernie worries. I pushed all thoughts about scratching clear out of my mind and sat straight up in the shotgun seatmy very favorite spotalert and flealess.

We were in the Porsche. There are fancy Porsches out therewe see them on the freeways; weve got freeways out the yingyang in the Valleybut ours isnt one of them. Its very old, brown with yellow doors, and theres a bullet hole in the back license plate. How that happened is a story for another time.

There was one palm tree on the street in front of the motel, a small one with dusty leaves, and we were parked behind it. That was part of our stakeout technique, hiding behind trees. Maybe it was our whole technique: I couldnt think of any other parts at the moment. Beyond the palm tree stood the motel, horseshoe-shapedjust one of the many strange things about horses, that they wore shoeswith parking in between. Two cars in the lot, parked far from each other. One, a red convertible, belonged to the woman we were tailing. The other, a dark sedan, had been there when we arrived.

We gazed at the motel door closest to the red convertible. The womanshort, blond, curvyhad jumped out of the car and gone straight inside. Since thennothing. That was one of the problems with divorce work: no action. We hated divorce work, me and Bernieour specialty was missing personsbut with the state of our finances we couldnt turn down anything. How our finances got this way is a long story, hard to keep straight in my head. Early on, thered been the Hawaiian pants. Bernie loves Hawaiian shirtsright now he was wearing the one with the trumpet patternand he got the idea that people would snap up Hawaiian pants. In the end, they got snapped up by us. Weve got a closet full of them, plus lots more at our self-storage in Pedroia. Later on came the tin futures. The tin futures looked good after some find in Bolivia, but then an earthquake buried everything, so here we were, back on the divorce beat.

Our client was a sad-eyed little guy named Marvin Winkleman who owned a ticket agency downtown. Dont ask me what a ticket agency is. Whats important is that he thought his wife was cheating, and coughed up the $500 retainer. Dont ask me about the cheating part, either. Its a human thing; we operate differently in my world. Just find out, one way or another, Winkleman said. Ive got to know.

Later, driving away, Bernie said, Why do they always have to know? Whats wrong with ignorance is bliss? I had no idea.

We sat. Nothing happened. The dusty palm leaves hung motionless. Bernie got fidgety. He opened the glove box, checked behind the visor, patted his pockets. Poor Bernie. He never bought cigarettes anymore, was trying to quit. After a while he gave up, sat back, folded his arms. Bernie has nice strong arms. I kept my eyes on them. Time passed. Then I heard a faint metallic sound and looked out. The motel door opened and out came the blond woman, patting her hair. I glanced at Bernie. Hey! His eyes were closed. I barked, not a loud bark but the soft kind I swallow in my throat. Bernies eyelids flew open. He put his hand on me, sat up straight, reached for the camera, and took her picture.

The blond woman got in the convertible and checked herself in the mirror. Bernie took another picture. She put on lipstick, gave her mouth a nice stretch. I gave my mouth a nice stretch, too, for no reason. Looks pretty happy, doesnt she? Bernie said. She backed out of her space, drove out of the lot and down the street, away from us. Bernie took pictures of the motel, the blinking sign outside, the palm tree, and me. Then we went back to watching the motel room door. Maybe theres no one in there, Bernie said. Like she just enjoys a solitary little nap out in the desert now and then, making this a wild goose chase.

Wild goose chase? Id heard that one before, wanted to go on a wild goose chase very badly, but there were no geese in sight. Oncewas this back when the Hawaiian pants returns started coming in?Id heard Bernie say, Our goose is cooked. But no cooked goose ever appeared. Meanwhile, I was hungry. The smell of burgers on the grill, while not as strong as