Free The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn Page B

wide awake right away. You could always rely on Bernie.
    He crawled out of the tent with the headlamp in his hand, switched it on, and followed me over to Turk’s sleeping bag. The beam moved back and forth over the empty bag, then swept around the campsite.
    “I screwed up the whole goddamn case, big guy,” he said.
    So it was a case, after all. As for Bernie screwing it up: impossible.

NINE

    B ernie strapped on the headlamp. I growled at him and felt bad right away, but I couldn’t help it: that headlamp on his forehead makes him look like some kind of machine, and there’s more than enough machine in humans to begin with, no offense.
    “For God’s sake, Chet—you do that every time.”
    I do? News to me. But I got most of my news from Bernie, so no problem.
    We took a recon or recoy or whatever it was of the whole campsite, ended back at the fire pit. Bernie sniffed the air. That caught my attention: Bernie has a nice big nose for a human, but what’s that saying? Not much.
    “Smell anything, big guy?” he said.
    Did I smell anything? Was that the question? Where was I supposed to begin?
    “I do,” he said, “and it stinks.”
    Wow. That Bernie! I smelled so many things at the moment— the boys, Turk, Bernie, me, a female coyote, some squirrels, different flowers, tree sap, another mushroom like the one Bernie had pulled out of the ground, name gone from my mind, the dirtylocker-room-hamper thing, and lots more if I took the time to sort them all out—but nothing that qualified as actual stinking. I waited to hear.
    “For example,” said Bernie, “his backpack’s gone but not the sleeping bag.”
    The sleeping bag? Was Bernie saying it stank? I went over and gave it a sniff or two. It smelled strongly of Turk, no surprise, but did it stink? Not to my way of thinking.
    Bernie started taking down the tent. I helped by pawing at it a bit. Soon we had it all folded up and stuck inside the pack. Bernie hoisted it on his back.
    “Okay, Chet, where did he go?”
    That was the problem. There was so much of Turk’s scent around, old and new, that I started going in circles again, frustration building inside me. Had to produce in this business, Bernie said so.
    “Take your time,” Bernie said. “No rush.”
    Bernie had the nicest voice, if I haven’t made that clear by now. I felt calmer right away, and just then picked up a new trail, a little fresher than any of the others. It led over a mossy patch, so soft under my paws, and down to the stream, where it kind of petered out. I crossed over, sniffed around on the other side, came up with zip.
    “He walked in the stream,” Bernie said.
    I knew that one. A perp name of Flyhead Malone had tried to lose me once by doing the same thing; he was now wearing an orange jumpsuit up at Northern State. The warden, a pal of ours, invited us to the inmate rodeo a while back. What a day! It ended a bit early, but if we’re ever invited again I’ll handle the excitement much better. Those bulls, snorting and pawing! What got into me? But perhaps a story for another day.
    Bernie gazed at the flowing water, mostly black but a little silvery here and there. I glanced at the sky, and over in one direction it was turning milky. Bernie switched off the headlamp and put it away. Way better.
    “The question is,” he said, “upstream or down?”
    Bernie thought. Upstream or down, a tough one: I could tell by the look on his face. I sat beside him. We did our best thinking that way. When Bernie’s brain is really working, you can feel it, like breezes springing up in the air, dying down, springing up again—not a bad feeling at all. The milky part of the sky turned red and then orange, and day spread around us.
    “Upstream’s the contrarian answer,” Bernie said. “But that’s the way I’m feeling right now.” He gave me a pat. “How about you?”
    Me? I felt tip-top.
    We walked beside Stiller’s Creek. Sometimes there was a path, sometimes not, and once or