Free Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn

heard the no ifs, ands, or buts thing since the very end of the Chins Malone case, Bernie telling Chins he was going down no ifs, ands, or buts about it and Chins pushing on the detonator handle anyway, a wild look in his eyes. After that came wilder things, too wild to remember.
    â€œStep two,” Bernie went on, “short and simple. I’m going to tell her I love her and want to marry her and spend the rest of our lives together. Finding the right words will be the problem.” He slowed down, came to a stop, gazed into the distance. “What would be the right way to put that? Some guys have got the silver tongue, Chet, would knock it out of the park. Eben, for example.” Bernie smacked his forehead. “Oh, my God—did I just say that?”
    I had no idea what he was talking about. All I knew was that I’d never seen him smack his head before and never wanted to see it again. Normally, when someone smacks Bernie in the head, they’ve got to deal with me. That didn’t seem the way to go. But why not? And what about those guys with silver tongues? There were scary things in this life. I was trying to forget all about them as we came to Lizette’s house and headed down the driveway to the carriage house.
    â€œThink it could be this, Chet? That I’ve never cared for another person—Charlie excepted, of course, but that’s different—the way I—”
    Whatever that was about—way too complicated already—I never got to hear the end of it, because at that moment Lieutenant Soares stepped out from behind some bushes, a big cop on either side of him.
    â€œBernie Little?” Soares said.
    â€œYou know it’s me,” Bernie said.
    â€œJust a formality,” said Soares. “Got a minute?”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œThe Eben St. John murder case.”
    â€œGo on.”
    The sun dipped down beyond the bottom edge of everything, as I’d seen many times, and it got much darker, as it always did. I could barely make out Lizette, sitting motionless in her screened porch. Most of the remaining light seemed to have gotten caught in the eyes of Soares and the other cops. Not Bernie’s, for some reason, which had gone very dark.
    â€œThe murder weapon was a .22 automatic,” Soares said. “Or did you know that already?”
    â€œI knew it was a .22.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œMs. Sanchez told me.”
    Soares nodded. “Did she describe the weapon at all?”
    â€œIn what sense?”
    â€œAny sense, really,” Soares said. “But I was thinking visually.”
    â€œYou’re losing me.”
    â€œMy apologies. Specifically, the gun we found at the scene, the .22 automatic, which forensics now tells us is the murder weapon beyond any reasonable doubt, has an imitation pearl handle, pink in color.” There was a long pause. All the humans on the scene, the cops and Bernie, began to smell different. “Unlikely as it seems,” Soares went on, “you being a big macho guy and all, but do you happen to own a gun that fits the description?”
    â€œNo,” Bernie said. “I’m in possession of a gun that fits the description, but I don’t own it.”
    â€œYou’re saying it’s unlicensed?”
    â€œI’m saying what I said.”
    â€œAnd how did that come to be,” Soares said, “you in possession of a gun not your own?”
    â€œSomeone was using it to threaten the public safety,” Bernie said. “I relieved that person of the gun.”
    â€œWhere and when was this?”
    â€œRecently and not in your jurisdiction.”
    Soares gave Bernie a long look. Now his eyes, and the eyes of the other cops, had darkened like Bernie’s. “I’m not sensing a high level of cooperation,” he said.
    â€œWhy not?” Bernie said. “I don’t even have to talk to you.”
    â€œThen you’re either just a nice guy, or