Weekday at Bernie's: A Mike Dodge Mystery

YOU CAN’T RUN.

“The thing is,” I said, examining the note on the patio table.

Yu looked up from Bernie, as if the world’s largest, longest-lived mosquito had lighted upon his regulation shaved cop’s head. “What?” he breathed across three syllables.

I wish Jesus had been with him. That’s not a plea for the Gilbert detective’s eternal soul. His partner viewed me as a curiosity, Yu as a curse – a sort of reverse-spin, gender-flipped Jessica Fletcher who brought Midwest provinciality, Cubs fever, and murder with him every winter. Without thanking me for the Tempe Portillo’s and the Lou Malnati’s at Dana Park and the idiot snowbirds who drove like it was the Lake Shore before Roe Conn abdicated the throne of late afternoon AM and signed on with the Cook County Sheriff’s carjacking squad. You can’t even make that kind of thing up, and certainly not at 5:20 on a gaper’s block when you could use a chuckle instead of an aneurysm behind the wheel.

Not that we fly the W, here or at home. We might get up to Wrigley once every few seasons with Melanie and Ella, if we can catch the Sycamore-Loop Metra and the Red Line and the Cubbies have even a shot. Even then, I’m going mostly for a Vienna Beef Chicago-style with a second one for the walk back to the inevitably cheap seats.

Bernie’s discreet porch banner two doors down sported natty pinstripes and a nifty “NY” monogram. Bernie was relatively new to Palm Shadows – that is, he could have arrived any time after April 28, after we beat it back to Illinois ahead of the Arizona summer. The little dude was personable enough, when confronted on the walkway we shared or whilst unloading supplies under the carport, our Palisade and his Escalade separated by a white Camry buffer, but like many newer owners or renters, he usually cut a direct and brisk path between tailgate and front door.

I leaned on the gate. “The thing is, Bernie wasn’t a mobster.”

**

The crazy talk had gotten around after I asked about the man in black. The one who’d pop around Bernie’s every Thursday or Friday. The classic Penney’s sudden funeral suit tends to draw attention around these parts. Every conversation Sarah and I ever spotted from porch or bike was terse and confined to the porch. And when I stepped out for the SRP bill and the possibility of Arby’s coupons, and Bernie and Reservoir Dog turned as one toward me before scurrying inside, well, the ex-reporter and caffeine in me begin to percolate, if that’s a thing any more.

“He shows up here all of a sudden last summer, like a week after Pat decided to move to Flagstaff,” Ruth with the psycho yorkie told me as I dumped bottles and stripped-out mailers. “I know it’s a seller’s market, but it was unreal how quick they turned the unit. I’d thought about it for my niece, but it was just gone.”

“Like they had it move-in ready,” Hank the HOA president continued when I was lucky enough to catch him sizing up the latest palm for eradication. Hank was 79, old-school Seattle Teamsters, had through 15 years of non-concurrent leadership negotiated us out of six management companies and twice as many landscape/pool maintenance firms, and theorized the entire race was involved in some form of “racket.” “Almost like the ‘realtor,’ who I never heard of, had him ready to move in, like it or not. You get me?”

“Not really at all,” I’d unwisely responded. He adjusted his Mariners cap and snorted once disgustedly either at the statuesque Mexican Blue or the fat Midwest rube. Probably the rube.

“Jesus.” Yeah, the rube. “East Coast, no wife or family ever comes to visit, always real cagey about his background, what he did for a living, everything.”

“A real mug, huh?”

Hank examined me, then sauntered off to see what he might napalm over by the pool house.

“And get a load of that tank,” Scotty from 146 declared as he reached the sidewalk with a length of metal tape. “2024 Escalade, baby. The V. That’s six figures with just the basics. Black, fully tinted. Like Tony Soprano on steroids. I think Hank’s onto something. You ever seen that suit comes around about once a week to talk with Bernie?”

“You think he’s mobbed up, and Suit Guy’s Big Pussy or something?”

“In this place?” Scotty chortled. “But it’s a great place to lose a mobster, right, with the retired car dealers and bank managers and, what is it you did?”

“Reporter.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, you get my drift.”

I did indeed. “So you think he’s in witness protection, like In Plain Sight? And Suit Guy’s his keeper?”

“Handler,” Scotty corrected gravely. “See, thing is, the guy came around a few months back, asked us a lot of questions about what type of neighbor Big Bernie was, if we’d seen any strange people around the complex. Rog and Phil and that Mexican couple near the recycling said he called on them, too. Hank, too, but he told him to fuck off unless he had a warrant.”

“Always making friends. If Bernie’s on the run from the Mob, you really think he’d draw attention by buying a parade float like that? Maybe suit guy’s his parole officer or something.”

He might know – his 38-year-old son was in the rehab after about his third drug arrest. “I suggested something like that to Hank, and he said he’s looking into it. You weren’t at the last board meeting. Bernie and Hank got into it about taking out all the bougainvillea and banning the rock decorations, and Bernie said it was time they put Hank in an assisted living and get somebody competent. Give me my Yankees flag or give me death. Why I’m checking to see if I’m far enough off the street to justify my palmetto. You know, election’s in March, and I’m hearing Hank may be in for some stiff competition.” 

“I heard Bernie threatened Hank if he doesn’t quit the board, said he’d put him in a nursing home or worse,” Vivian said as I wrestled the last of her five water palettes into her guest room walk-in.

“Or something,” I muttered, slumping into our neighbor’s dinette chair. Viv deftly slipped a towel behind my broad, sweaty back. “I don’t imagine Bernie would rub Hank out just to be King of the Old People. Now, where’s this Netflix situation I’m supposed to fix?”

“SHIT!”

We both pivoted at the banshee’s shriek outside Viv’s storm door. We found Bernie hisself on the lawn beside the walk. Bottles of Aquafina were rolling down toward the end of the row, and a jar of something almost neon blue-green lay at his feet. I got to work chasing down bottles, and wrangled an invite into Bernie’s compound as Viv disappeared into her condo.

**

“I’ve told that bastard Hank about that crack in the walk, but he’s got it out for me,” Bernie explained. “Thanks, by the way.”

“No biggie,” I said, accepting one of the errant Aquafinas. “Maybe, someday, and the day may never come, I might ask for a favor in return.”

He fixed me with a look. Then Bernie cackled as he placed his Diet Pepper on the granite counter. “Almost got carjacked in Tempe about a month after I came out, and Hank immediately started throwing his weight around when I asked for a new parking spot. So I found the Escalade at a cop auction and asked my nephew Gordy to come around once in a while and pretend I was somebody not to mess with. All I want is some peace and quiet, come out to the patio after everybody else is in for the evening.”

“Chicago, right?”

“Well, Naperville. New York seemed tougher. How’d you know?”

I nudged the jar we’d retrieved from the grass. “You know, out here, they have a Sonoran dog, wrapped in bacon, topped with pinto beans and jalapeno salsa and mayo. Not bad, but give me a Chicago dog any day. Now, I’d think a Yankees fan would go strictly New York-style – kraut and mustard – but there’s only one place I’ve ever seen this weird-ass alien green relish, and that’s on a Chicago-style, ‘dragged through the garden’ Cubs dog. Surprised you didn’t buy the Vienna.”

“Didn’t want to blow my cover,” Bernie grinned. “I was an accountant.”

“For the Mob?”

“H&R Block.”    

**

“I can think of three alternatives offhand,” I offered modestly. Yu sat back with his Great Value AA, suppressing body language.

 “One: Mob hit, and they got the wrong dude. Bernie’s tough guy act backfired and the killer got the wrong unit. ’Monna say no to that. They left the note on the door, right next to the six-inch condo number. I wouldn’t think a professional would half-ass something like that.

“Two: Smokescreen. Bernie created this whole witness protection scenario, and the killer took advantage of it to misdirect you. Beyond the sheer stupidity of framing the Mob for a violent homicide, the average owner of tenant here is somewhere between a wobbly 70 and 137. I’m not sure any of them could open a stubborn jar of Vlasics, much less jump the rail or patio gate, get the upper hand and cut Bernie’s throat, and jump the rail again or get through a front door locked from the outside.”

“Three: The inside man. Bernie’s faux-deral marshal-slash-nephew, who likely has keys to the unit. The classic Carr locked house/locked gate murder kinda falls apart if you’re the only guy who can lock the house and the gate. Isn’t that right, Marshal?”

The man in black — now the man in work Carhartts and a fashionably grimy black tee — froze dead on the walk.

“You?” The distraught imposter demanded.

“Me?” I asked before realizing I was instigating an Abbott and Costello schtick. “Yeah, this is Detective Yu, Gordon. We were just talking about your uncle. Coffee?”

“I’m good,” he said, dropping into a patio chair and turning to Yu. “The cop at Uncle Bernie’s house said somebody cut Uncle Bernie’s throat, and left him a threatening note.”

“What you said just now, I was about to explain to the detective. Why would the killer simultaneously inform Bernie that he couldn’t run from the Mob and kill him? If the purpose of the note was to torment your uncle, why immediately kill him? If you murder Bernie without witnesses, without complications, why leave a potentially incriminating note that no longer serves any purpose?

“Gordon, you know the feud your uncle was having with our HOA president, Hank? Your uncle told anybody – besides me – that you two had dreamed up this whole lame witness protection scheme?”

“Well, lame…”

“Lame’s stipulated,” Yu stated. “You or your uncle tell anybody else in the complex?”

“No,” Gordon drawled. “You think this Hank guy killed him?”

I took a sip of my now-cold Walmart brew. “While Hank might not have bought the Witness Protection BS, he may have still believed you were law enforcement, maybe a parole officer. In Arizona, HOAs have the power to include a lot of arbitrary, unethical, even borderline unconstitutional restrictions in owner agreements. Bernie threatened to nominate himself or get somebody to nominate him for president. Wait up a sec.”

Sarah was still at the dining room table, and as she looked up from her chattering iPad, she turned the screen momentarily to the side, aimed a virtual gun, and unloaded an imaginary bullet into her temple. I shook my head, rifling the desk/entertainment center until I found the sheet we’d found taped to the door the morning before. I waggled bye-bye; Sarah flipped me off.

I placed the note on the table between Gordon and Yu.

“NO STATUARY IN THE ROCKS,” Yu read. “Good to know.”

“Sarah wanted to know if we could put some monstrosity of a concrete cactus out front, to replace the real cactus the board took out. She’s on the monthly board Zoom meeting right now – it’s been going on close to two hours now. You recognize the writing?”

Yu squinted at the sheet, then at me.

“Yup. Hank apparently didn’t want it to come up at the meeting today. He likes to head off ‘trouble’ if he can. My guess is, Hank in his uniquely blustering, buffaloing manner wanted to let Bernie know convicted felons couldn’t run for the board, and that maybe he’d rat Bernie out to the other members if he tried. Not realizing Bernie was an upstanding if paranoid and imaginative citizen. Arrogant and ignorant is no way to go through life, son.

“So then, once we separate the note from the crime… Gordon, you think you’d be OK to go back to your uncle’s unit?”

“Yeah, I guess, if it helps clear this thing up.”

“Then, to the scene of the crime.”

Yu’s sigh could be heard in Scottsdale.

**

“You know, really, it’s not much of an impossible crime,” Gordon mumbled as we approached the patio. “Anybody in halfway decent shape can get over that rail. Maybe some kid was trying to rob the place, maybe break into the ‘shed,’ and Uncle Bernie caught him.”

“And he cut your uncle’s throat with surgical skill? Over a power tool or a bike? And, let’s face it, Bernie wasn’t a Liam Neeson-level threat.”

“What are you trying to say?” Yu blurted, finally exasperated, a half-hour before I would have had in the pool. “That the killer was waiting for him?”

“The killer couldn’t afford to wait. Bernie came out here about the same time every afternoon. And today, half the complex – well, the tenth of the complex that gives a rat’s ass -- has a perfect alibi.” I pulled my iPhone and displayed the Zoom screen. It looked like the Brady Bunch 60^th Reunion Special credits, with Hank subbing for Alice in the center square. One neighbor was filibustering on behalf of the palmettos. “With all the snowbirds and absentee renters and COVID, they started doing virtual monthly. The killer counted on Bernie stepping out for an afternoon cup about a half-hour into the call. Hey, Yu, where you think Bernie was attacked?”

Yu shrugged, then pointed to the largest blood pool about a foot beyond the patio slider. I tracked up from the concrete to a spot I assumed to be roughly chin-height on the victim, and resisted the impulse to cry “Eureka” or some-such.

“What is that? Nail-hole?” the cop peered. “You old guys hang all kinds of goofy shit on your houses.”

“Uncle Bernie wasn’t real, um, decorative,” Gordon protested.

“And it’s a fresh hole,” I observed. “And not real deep, either. If I’m right, just deep enough to stay in place ‘til the right pressure was applied. Bernie’s pressure. My guess is one of those eyelet screws, with a circle you can tie wire too. Razor wire, probably.

“Now, if you drew a line from this hole straight across Bernie’s throat – sorry, Gordon – where does it lead?”

Yu and Gordon followed that imaginary line across about 10 yards of too-green turf to another patio, and beyond that, to an open doorway and a hodge-podge of tools, clubs, and pool paraphernalia. Yu frowned, then examined the top of Bernie’s rail. “Yup,” he said with a modicum of excitement. He held us off with his left arm, and stooped to study the grass along the invisible path. “You can barely see it, but it looks sorta like high-velocity blood spatter.”

The detective did a virtual duck walk to the gate of the opposite patio. Yu again craned to inspect the top of the railing, then the patio floor, and looked back with a nod before trying to plumb the depths of the storage shed. He jumped as I joined him.

“The weapon’s in plain sight, and I’d say you’ve got just cause,” I murmured.

 “Which one?”

“See what looks like a square metal box on the second shelf of the rack on the back wall? I can just make out the Steelcraft logo on the casing. Vintage automatic retractable metal tape measure. You unscrew the case, pull out the metal tape, and rig the razor wire to retract when a retired accountant trips the boobytrap. The wire snaps back so quickly it doesn’t leave much blood, and disappears into the case. But there have to be a few drops on the patio and probably the lip of the casing. I think, yep, the eyelet’s still attached.

Yu considered, then pulled his weapon and stiff-armed me as he reached for the gate latch. I judiciously stiff-armed him back, and indicated the high-tech globe atop the tile roof, aimed at the patio entry.

“It wasn’t a misdirected mob hit or an aborted burglary or complex politics,” I said. “Bernie didn’t even have much to do with it. It was the unit the killer wanted. A place close enough to keep an eye on; a place to keep his addicted son close to him. It’s why he’s doing a Senate stump speech on the complex flora – to nail his solid alibi.

I looked up and waved at the patio cam, and then rattled the gate loudly. The slider was open on the screen, and I heard a curse and a clatter inside.

In the Valley of Contracts and Covenants and Complacency and Creaky Cartilage, we don’t think as well on our swollen and arch-sprung feet. The killer crashed full-on into the patio screen, then scrambled to his feet trying to beat us to the gaping shed door before he lost equilibrium and collided with the door. Yu went for the tape measure while I checked to see if Scotty had broken his neck or brain. To paraphrase an old journalistic saw, better to apologize after fucking up a crime scene than to ask permission first.