Drawn Into Darkness(56)

Even with a handheld metal detector and a forceps it was no easy matter finding the bullets. Bernie was just dropping the third one into an evidence bag when the Leppo boys came back in.

“The well’s in the backyard,” Forrest said, “so we guess we should put Schweitzer up front.”

“Keeping it simple,” Quinn added, “we can put him where the car headlights are already pointed.”

“Okay.” Bernie put the evidence bag into his shoe box and took out a utility knife, with which he began to slice into the carpet beside the dog’s corpse. Focusing on the task, he sensed more than saw how the two brothers stiffened, looked question marks at each other, then relaxed in understanding. Their mother’s carpet was ruined anyway; what did it matter if Bernie cut a hole in it? He freed up a neat rectangle of carpet around Schweitzer so that they could pick it up like a stretcher to carry the dog’s corpse without touching it and in one piece.

“Okay,” he said when he finished, standing up and flexing his aching knees—damn, arthritis starting already. “Shovels are in the trunk of the toilet.”

“Huh?” both Leppos said.

“My vehicle.”

Bernie’s aged cruiser made no fuss about shining its headlights and depleting its battery. The rental car needed to be turned on and left with the motor running to do the same. In a place under the mimosa trees where the two cars’ headlights intersected, Quinn and Forrest started to dig. Bernie had made sure to bring three shovels; he helped. He observed that Forrest knew how to tackle manual labor but Quinn not so much. Quinn stopped first.

“Deeper,” Bernie instructed gently, “or the coyotes will get him. You have blisters? You want some work gloves?”

Quinn shook his head and resumed shoveling.

“This isn’t so bad,” Forrest remarked. “Sandy soil, no shale, no need for a pickax.”

Quinn muttered, “Go to it, Grunge.”

For a while there was silence except for the scrape and spatter of shoveling. Then Forrest asked, “Deep enough?”

Bernie nodded in agreement. “Let me stay here while you get the dog.” He sensed that these two had little experience of death and they needed him to guide them, but also they needed some small time alone. He waited until they had returned, each of them holding two corners of the piece of carpet with the dead dog on top. He stood aside while they lowered the deceased into the grave.

“Is there anything else that should go in?” he asked after they had stood up again. “A blanket, a toy?”

Forrest and Quinn looked at each other for a few moments before Quinn replied, “We don’t really know. I guess not.”

“Anything to say, then?” Bernie asked. “A prayer? What would your mother want?”

“We don’t really know that either,” said Quinn bleakly.

Forrest blurted, “We don’t know what Mom would do. We never talked with our own mother enough to have a clue!” His voice shredded more with each word. “And now she’s gone.”

“You’ll get her back,” said Bernie with unreasoning certainty. He had been raised to have faith. “She will come back. I know it.” He took a shovelful of sandy dirt, let it fall, and saw both young men wince as they heard the thud of soil in the grave, that saddest of all sounds. But they said no more as they joined him in the task of shoveling until the earth formed a mound over the buried body.

After they had finished, he put his borrowed tools back into the trunk of his cruiser, then joined Quinn and Forrest in the house. “You stay here now?”

“No way.” Quinn seemed shocked. “The smell, and the dirty dishes, and the place is so small—”

“What he really means,” said Forrest with an effort at a grin, “is there’s no way he’s either sleeping on the sofa or sharing a bed with his brother.”

“Damn right,” Quinn retorted, then told Bernie more gently, “We’ll find a motel out by the interstate.”

“The Econo Lodge has the best rates. Come to the office in the morning any time after eight, ask for the chief, and he can put you in touch with detectives who work for the state.”

He helped them turn off lights and lock the front door.

“Thanks, man,” Forrest told him, shaking hands as they stood beside their cars ready to leave.

“Yes, thank you,” Quinn concurred. “Above and beyond.”

Bernie shrugged. “I wish you sleep good tonight.”

“I sure hope we get some sleep. Where’s the best place to stay?”

Bernie gave Quinn a puzzled look.

“I know you said the Econo Lodge, but we want a place with nice rooms, a good restaurant, a swimming pool—”