Spencer Quinn’s A Farewell to Arfs is a return to the adventurous New York Times and USA Today bestselling series that Stephen King calls “without a doubt the most original mystery series currently available.”
Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe) and his human partner PI Bernie Little are back again, and this time they’re entangled in a web of crime unlike anything they’ve ever seen before.
Their next door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, thought he was doing the right thing by loaning his ne’er do well son, Billy, some money to help get himself settled. But days later, Mr. Parsons has discovered that his entire life savings is gone. Valley PD is certain this is an impersonation scam, but Bernie isn’t so sure.
With Mrs. Parsons in the hospital and Billy nowhere to be found, it’s up to Chet and Bernie to track Billy down and get to the bottom of things—before it’s too late.
A Farewell to Arfs will be available on August 6th, 2024. Please enjoy the following excerpt!
CHAPTER ONE
Who wouldn’t love my job? You see new things every day! Here, for example, we had a perp clinging to a branch high up in a cottonwood tree. That wasn’t the new part. Please don’t get ahead of me—although that’s unlikely to happen, your foot speed and mine being . . . very different, let’s leave it at that with no hurt feelings.
Where were we? Perp in a cottonwood tree, nothing new? Right. Nothing new, not even the little detail of how this particular perp, namely Donnie the Docent Donnegan, was styling his shirt and tie with pajama bottoms. Seen that look once, seen it a . . . well, many times, just how many I couldn’t tell you since I don’t go past two. Not quite true. I have gotten past two the odd time, all the way to whatever comes next, but not today. No biggie. Two’s enough. We’re the proof, me and Bernie. Together we’re the Little Detective Agency, the most successful detective agency in the whole Valley, except for the finances part. Bernie’s last name is Little. I’m Chet, pure and simple.
We stood side by side, as we often do, and gazed up at Donnie. “Donnie?” Bernie said. “No wild ideas.”
Donnie said something that sounded annoyed, the exact words hard to understand, most likely on account of the thick gold coin, called a doubloon unless I was missing something, that he was holding between his teeth. Donnie the Docent, an old pal, was an art lover with an MO that was all about museums. On this particular occasion our client was Katherine Cornwall who runs the Sonoran Museum of Art, also an old pal but not a perp, who we met way back on a complicated case of which I remembered nothing except that it ended well, perhaps only slightly marred by an incident in the gift shop involving something that hadn’t turned out to be an actual chewy, strictly speaking. Katherine Cornwall was a woman of the gray-haired no-nonsense type. They don’t miss much. You have to keep that in mind, which can turn out to be on the iffy side.
I should mention first that the gold coin between the teeth was also not the new part of this little scene, and second that this was the time of year when the cottonwoods are all fluffy white and give off a wonderful smell, a sort of combo of thick damp paper, sweet syrup, and fresh laundry. There’s really nothing like rolling around in a pile a fresh laundry, possibly a subject for later. Also our cottonwood, standing on the bank of an arroyo, wasn’t the only cottonwood in the picture. On the other side of the arroyo rose a second cottonwood, just as big and fresh laundryish or maybe even more so. In between, down in the arroyo, we had flowing water, blue and rising almost to the tops of the banks. That was the new part! Water! I’d seen water in some of our arroyos before but only in tiny puddles, drying up fast under the sun. I’m a good swimmer, in case you were wondering. There are many ways of swimming, but I’m partial to the dog paddle, probably goes without mentioning.
Meanwhile, high above, Donnie seemed to be inching his way toward the end of the branch, which hung over the arroyo. As did, by the way, a big branch on the far side cottonwood, the two branches almost touching. Below the far side cottonwood sat Donnie’s ATV, engine running. How exactly we’d gotten to this point wasn’t clear to me, even while it was happening, and was less clear now.
“Donnie?” Bernie said. “It’s a fantasy.”
Donnie said nothing, just kept inching along the branch, the gold coin glinting in the sunshine. His eyes were glinting, too, glinting with a look I’d often seen before, the look in the eyes of a perp in the grip of a sudden and fabulous idea. There’s no stopping them after that.
“Donnie! Middle-aged, knock-kneed, potbellied? Is that the acrobat look?”
Donnie glanced down, shot Bernie a nasty glance. Then— and this is hard to describe—he coiled his body in a writhing way and launched himself into the air, his hands grasping at the branch of the other cottonwood. Wow! He came oh so close. I couldn’t help but admire Donnie as he went pinwheeling down and down, landing in the arroyo with a big splash and vanishing beneath the surface. Also showing no sign of coming back up.
Bernie ran toward the water, but of course I was way ahead of him. I dove down, spotted Donnie at the bottom, flailing in slow motion, grabbed him by the pant leg and hauled him up out of there. Cottonwoody white fluffy things came whirligigging down and drifted away on the current. Case closed.
***
It turned out Donnie didn’t know how to swim, so you could say we’d saved his life, but he forgot to say thanks. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that he’d gotten the gold coin stuck in his throat, although he’d soon swallowed it, but after X-rays at the hospital had established to Katherine Cornwall’s satisfaction that it was still inside him but would appear in a day or two, she cut us our check—a woman of the no-nonsense type, as perhaps I didn’t stress enough already.
“Very generous, Katherine.” Bernie said. “It’s way too much.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Katherine said. I found myself in a very strange place, namely not on Bernie’s side. “There’s evidence that this particular doubloon was once in Coronado’s personal possession.”
Bernie’s eyebrows—the best you’ll ever see and there’s no missing them—have a language of their own. Now they rose in a way that said so much even if I couldn’t tell you what, and he tucked the check in his pocket, unfortunately the chest pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. The Hawaiian shirt, with the tiny drink umbrella pattern, was not the problem, in fact was one of my favorites. The chest pocket was my problem. The check belonged in the front pocket of his pants, the front pocket with the zipper. I pressed my head against that pocket, sending a message. Bernie had great balance and didn’t even stumble, hardly at all.
“He’s so affectionate for such a formidable looking fellow,” Katherine said.
“True,” said Bernie, dusting himself off, “but this is more about chow time.”
Chow time? It had nothing to do with chow time. But then, what do you know? It was about chow time! Chow time and nothing but! When had I last eaten? I was too hungry to even think about it. I eased Bernie toward the Beast. That’s our ride, a Porsche in a long line of Porsches, all old and gone now, one or two actually up in smoke. The Beast—painted in black and white stripes in a rippling pattern, like a squad car showing off its muscles—was the oldest of all. We roared out of the museum parking lot, Bernie behind the wheel, me sitting tall in the shotgun seat, our usual set up, although once down in Mexico we’d ended up having to pull a switcheroo. This is a fun business, in case that’s not clear by now.
***
Back at our place on Mesquite Road—best street in the Valley although far from the fanciest, which suits us just fine—we ate a whole lot in that quick and quiet businesslike way of two hombres after a long working day, and then went out back to the patio for drinks, beer for Bernie and water for me. He stretched out, his feet on a footstool, the check poking annoyingly from his chest pocket, like it was playing games with me. I was working on a plan for that check when Bernie said, “All those atmospheric river storms off the Pacific turned out to be good luck for Donnie.” A complete puzzler. I waited for some sort of explanation but none came. Instead, without getting up, Bernie reached out and turned the tap at the base of the swan fountain. Then came a little sputter sputter, followed by a small bright stream flowing from the swan’s mouth and splashing down into the dry pool with a lovely cooling sound. For me and my kind—the nation within the nation, as Bernie calls us—sounds can be cooling. Same for you? I won’t even guess, the subject of human hearing turning out to be complicated but disappointing in the end. The fountain itself—and how nice to have it finally back on! Had Bernie forgotten to worry about the aquifer?—was all that Leda, Bernie’s ex, left behind. Now she lived in High Chaparral Estates with her new husband Malcolm who had long toes and money to burn, although he wasn’t the money burning type. Money burners in my experience—lighting up a smoke with a C-note, for example—never had much of it except for a sudden and nice little bundle, here and gone. But forget all that. I’ve left out the most important detail, namely Charlie, Bernie and Leda’s kid, now living with Leda and Malcolm except for some weekends and every second Christmas and Thanksgiving, or maybe the other way around. At first, we’d left the mattress in his bedroom stripped bare, but now it’s made up and Bernie even folds down one of the top corners so it’s all set for getting into. I even sometimes get into it myself, who knows why.
On the other side of the patio fence that separates our place from Mr. and Mrs. Parsons next door, Iggy started barking. This is the time of year when old timers like the Parsonses keep their windows open, but there’s no missing Iggy’s bark, even if he’s deep inside a trash truck, just to pick one instance out of many. A tiny guy but a mighty yip-yip-yipper. With an amazingly long and floppy tongue, by the way.
“Iggy,” said Mr. Parsons, in his scratchy old voice. “Easy there. I can’t hear.”
Easy there does not work with Iggy. He dialed it up a notch.
“Billy?” Mr. Parsons said, also dialing it up, although only the scratchy part got louder. “Say again?”
Billy? We knew Billy, me and Bernie. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, a grown up son, unlike Charlie, and also unlike Charlie in other ways. An actual perp? I wasn’t sure about that, but he’d been involved in the stolen saguaro case, one of our worst. Bernie had ended up in the hospital, the most terrible thing that had ever happened to me. I glanced over to make sure he was all right, and there he was, eyes closed, chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm, the best chest rising and falling rhythm I’d ever seen, and a bit more of the check peeking out from his pocket. My Bernie!
“Slow down a little, please, Billy,” Mr. Parsons said. “I don’t understand.”
Was Mr. Parsons on the phone? When folks are on the phone I can often hear the voice of who they’re talking to, but not this time, not with Iggy. But I could see Billy in my mind: shoulder-length fair hair, vague sort of eyes, that snakehead tattoo on his cheek. Plus, he had lots of ink on his arms as well. You see that arm ink on dudes that had done time although usually their arms are bulkier than Billy’s. Northern State Correctional, if I remembered right, but not for the saguaro case. On the saguaro case we’d cut him a break and he’d split for Matamoros. Now you know all I know about Billy Parsons and possibly more.
“Refund?” Mr. Parsons said. That was followed by a long silence, if we’re leaving Iggy out of it, and then Mr. Parsons said, “Payroll? But I—”
After that came another long silence. I could feel Mr. Parsons listening very hard, could even sort of see him holding the phone real tight. Mr. Parsons was a nice old guy.
“Two thousand?” he said at last. “Two thousand even? Well, Billy, I—I don’t see why not. How do you want me to . . . yes, I’ve got a pencil. Hang on. Just need to . . . Okay. Shoot.” Then more silence, again except for Iggy. Yip yip yip, yip yip yip. He doesn’t even stop to breathe. You have to admire Iggy in some ways.
“Yup,” said Mr. Parsons. “Got it. Love you, son. Bye.”
***
“You know what we should do first thing?” Bernie said the next morning at breakfast. “Zip on down to the bank and make a deposit.” He waved the check in the air. Had a day ever gotten off to a better start? I was already at the door. Bernie laughed. “Got to shave first.” We went into the bathroom. Bernie lathered up and shaved his beautiful face. I helped by pacing back and forth. You might say, beautiful face? Hadn’t that nose been broken once or twice? Maybe, and Bernie had plans to get it fixed, but only after he was sure there won’t be more dust ups in his life. Which I hope is never. No dust ups would mean no more chances to see that sweet, sweet uppercut of his. It lands on perp chins with just a click, like it’s nothing at all, but then their eyes roll up. There’s all kinds of beauty. That’s one of my core beliefs.
We hurried out the door, me first, which is our system for going in and out of doors. It’s actually my door system with everyone and even if they don’t know at first they soon do. Humans are great at learning things, or certainly some things, a big subject I’d go into it now if it wasn’t for the fact that over at the Parsonses’ house a kind of a show got going.
All the world’s a stage, Bernie says, just one more example of his brilliance. First out of the door was Iggy in full flight, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. That part didn’t last long, what with Iggy being on the leash. He came to a sudden stop in midair, his stubby legs still sprinting in a full speed blur. Then came the walker and finally Mr. Parsons, staggering a bit, trying to grip the leash and the walker with one hand and knot his tie with the other. Leash, tie, walker, Iggy, Mr. Parsons: for a moment they all seemed like parts to a single contraption, a contraption that was starting to tilt in a way that didn’t look promising. But by that time we were there, Bernie steadying Mr. Parsons and me grabbing Iggy by the scruff of the neck. Iggy didn’t like that. His eyes got wild and he tried to do who knows what to me with one of his tiny paws. You had to love Iggy and I do.
“You all right, Daniel?” Bernie said.
“Yes, thank you, Bernie. Well, no actually.”
“How about we go inside and sit down?”
“No time for that,” Mr. Parsons said. “I have to go to the bank.” “With Iggy?”
Mr. Parsons licked his lips, lips that were cracked and dry, and so was his tongue. “That wasn’t the original plan.”
“Then should we get the little fella back inside?”
“I’d appreciate that, Bernie.”
“Chet?” Bernie made a little motion with his chin. It’s not only his eyebrows that talk. The chin can jump in too, from time to time. There’s no one like Bernie, in case you didn’t know that already. I trotted into the house, dumped Iggy in the kitchen, and trotted back out. Bernie closed the door.
“Is Edna inside?” he said.
“Back in the hospital, I’m afraid.” Mr. Parsons fished in his pockets. “Oh, dear.”
“What’s wrong?” Bernie said.
“I don’t seem to have my car keys.”
“What bank do you use?”
“Valley Trust, the Rio Seco branch.”
“We’ll drive you,” Bernie said.
“Very nice of you, but—”
“Not a problem. We were actually headed there—it’s our bank, too.”
We got into the Beast. Normally the shotgun seat is mine, but in this case, I didn’t mind letting Mr. Parsons have it while I squeezed onto the little shelf in back. Well, I did mind, but I did it anyway. I can do things I don’t want to but not often, so please don’t ask.
We rode in silence for a while, Mr. Parsons breathing in shallow little breaths, his twisted fingers busy with the tie, but having trouble. Finally, he gave up and lowered his hands to his lap.
“Where’s our money?” he said.
Click below to pre-order your copy of A Farewell to Arfs, available August 6th, 2024!
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