Homicide My Own (23 page)

“Makin’ tacos,” Calvin told him.

“Yeah,” I said, “We went back to see if we could buy some…Odd’s still back there trying to strike a bargain…but here’s the thing, they don’t look like any tacos I ever saw before.”

That’s when Calvin gave me the recipe for Navajo tacos, and when Deputy Nascine ditched me and started walking, a little unsteadily in his cowboy boots across the crushed rock, to the camper.

The kids packed my fireworks into recycled grocery bags. The bill came to $285, which entitled me to a free Rocketman’s t-shirt. I handed Calvin my Visa. No way would the lieutenant reimburse this one, and Connors was going to have a conniption when he saw the bill next month, but what could I do? Messing with people can cost you.

I dumped the stupid fireworks in the trunk of our Lumina. It was just then the yelling started.

18.

I was driving again, but I didn’t know where or what we would do next.. We were cooling down. We had, after all, just assaulted a police officer, which is a serious offense everywhere in the world, unless it is committed by another police officer and it’s personal. Those assaults rarely reach a court of law, and I was hoping this one would not be an exception.

Deputy Nascine had rounded that fireworks stand to find Odd on one knee, as though proposing, and Camilia Two Trees Nascine sitting on the camper step with her arms resting on his shoulders and in her eyes a look of such quiet joy that it had Nascine all but spitting. He had not seen that look since shortly after she had graduated from high school, when he married her. Now it offended him. Everything about her offended him. He started yelling, ugly words, accusations, insults. Odd stood up and backed away, and though he towered over Nascine, outweighed him by forty pounds, and had youth on his side, he appeared frightened…until Nascine backhanded his wife and called her a fat whore squaw. Then Odd grabbed the back of Nascine’s collar, yanked him off her, and pinned him to the side of the camper, his forearm hard under Nascine’s throat, the deputy high on his tippy-toes.

“Don’t you ever hit her!” Odd hissed at his face.

I saw the deputy’s arm flailing for his weapon, so I got to it first, unholstering the nine, popping the clip, clearing the chamber, all while Odd was choking the man. I threw the clip in one direction and tossed the nine under the camper. This was kind of serious too, disarming a peace officer. I would build my defense later, if I had to, but at the moment, I was more worried about Nascine shooting somebody, me maybe.

“You don’t care about anything, do you?” Odd said to him, nose to nose.

If he expected an answer, he was going to have to let up on the guy’s windpipe, because he was letting the deputy have just about enough air to stay conscious, and not for very long, either.

I put a hand on Odd’s shoulder and said softly that we should go now, and with all deliberate speed. He released the deputy, who fell to his hands and knees, gasping. Those nicotine coated lungs were very slow to fill. Camilia waved us back with the palm of her hand and indicated she could deal with all of this. So we motored.

“Where would you like to go, Odd?”

He didn’t hear me. He was off somewhere, not in himself. We drove past the boatyard, past the
Northern Comfort
, on which James had earned his Ford pick-up. I asked him again.

“Back to Jimmy Coyote’s house,” he said.

“Okay…” I waited for him to tell me why, or to tell me something, because I knew he had something to tell, but he sat silently. “Any particular reason?” Nothing. I waited a minute, then said, “Something happened back there, didn’t it? I mean, besides you strong-arming the deputy.”

He nodded.

He wasn’t going to tell me. A cop is used to people not telling him everything. A cop has to fill in the spaces. I was doing that, beginning with the autopsy report. Inside of her was semen.

I took a detour to the Honeymoon Cottage. I wanted to check on that crowd to see what had gone wrong in our absence, because surely everything had, but more than that I had to pee and I did not want to show up at the Coyotes’ house asking to use the can.

Our three were sitting on the porch, just enjoying the nice day, Gwen sitting between the other two and keeping them at a safe distance, as she was sworn to do. I had a sudden, and in some ways an alarming sense of well-being. I parked the car and we walked to the porch. I was trying to read their faces and I was drawing a blank, which could be a good thing.

“Welcome back, you two,” said Gwen. “We were wondering if we’d been abandoned.”

“Everything okay here?” I asked, on my way up the steps.

“Everything is hunky-dory.”

I was passing them on my way into the cottage and to the bathroom, with what was by now was an urgent need, when Gwen added, “Your lieutenant called from Spokane.”

Oh, shit. Not a good thing, not nearly. I stopped, came back out onto the porch.

“Who gave you the message?” I asked, cautiously, hopefully.

“Oh, I took the call.”

All hope gone, caution useless. “You took the call?”

“Angie yelled there was a phone call, so I went and took it.”

“Don’t worry about us,” said Stacey. “We didn’t do anything while she was gone. Hardly anything.”

“You took the call?” I said again, and tried to get Odd’s eyes, but who knew where he was? “You spoke to the lieutenant?”

“Don’t worry, I played it cool,” she said.

“Tell me what he said, and tell me what you said.” My voice had the calm of death.

“He said where’s his officers, and I said which one, and he said either one, and I said they were off, and he said where, and I said, both off trying to solve the murder of the young guy—I forgot your name, I’m sorry—the young guy who used to be the young girl who was actually the one murdered but this was in a previous life.”

“You said all that?”

“Was it supposed to be a secret?”

“Go on,” I said, seeing my career thrown out with yesterday’s coffee grounds. You play it careful your whole life and then something runs over you like you weren’t even there.

“Well, he asked what kind of shape the prisoner was in, and I said it looked like pretty good shape ‘cause he’s right over there on the porch of the Honeymoon Cottage, and he said,
What
?”

“He said what.”

“He said,
What
? He was a little surprised.”

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I was doing the wee-wee dance.

“Don’t anybody say another word! Don’t anybody move an inch! Not until I come back from the bathroom.”

“Your Royal Highness…,” said the brat.

“Not a word!”

What control can you hold over a situation when your back teeth are swimming? I made it to the bathroom, did my thing, and went into one of those hot flashes where I was sure my very duppa would ignite the toilet paper and I would go up in smoke.

I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the shower, setting the lever full right. This place, like the rest of the island, was on a well, and that deep ground water came out cold as ice picks. A minute of that did the trick. I toweled off, got my clothes back on, and went skidding back to the porch.

“The lieutenant was a little surprised,” I prompted. “Don’t tell me he was a little surprised, tell me what he said, and tell me what you said.”

“I already told you. He said,
What!
Surprised, like.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him not to worry because ‘The Prisoner’ was under house arrest, under guard.”

“Did you, and this is very important, did you tell him Stacey was here too?”

“Of course not, I told you I played it cool.”

“Did he ask who you were?”

“Oh, yes, he wanted to know who I was.”

“And did you tell him?”

“Yes…”

My hands were going for her throat. She saved her own life when she added, “I told him I was the deputy.”

“Did he ask for your name?”

“No, he seemed satisfied.”

“You told him you were a deputy, and he seemed satisfied?”

“Normally, it’s not this hard for me to communicate with people, even if I do stand all day with a sign in my hand. People normally seem to understand me when I talk to them.”

“The lieutenant was satisfied, okay. What did he say?”

“He said good-bye.”

“Did he say anything else? Before he hung up?”

“Yes…one other thing.”

“I want the exact words.”

She took a moment, either reluctant to repeat it or careful to make sure she had it verbatim. “He said, tell those two nimrods to get their asses home, with the prisoner.”

I paced the porch, talking to myself now. “This could be okay…this might still work out…prioritize…” but when I tried to get my priorities right in my head, Jeannie’s murder and that prick Nascine kept coming out in the first position, in spite of myself. The lieutenant, however, must not call again and find us still here, and I knew Nascine was not going to take his roughing up without some form of retaliation. And if he believed what his wife was sure to tell him, that her long gone girlfriend was back, it might be enough to rattle him into something quite desperate.

We had to get out of the Honeymoon Cottage. We were legally stuck with Houser, but we had to get rid of the other two and make ourselves a moving target, preferably on soil sovereign to the Shalish Indian Tribe.

“Odd? Odd, you still want to see the Coyotes?”

“Yes,” he said. “We have to.”

“Good. Let’s do that. Okay, girls, pack up, we’re checking out.”

We were back in our uniforms, our weapons and gear strapped back on our hips.

Frank and Angie were sorry to see us go, and a bit put out a bit by our staying past the check-out time, which complicated their scheduling and clean-up. They hoped we had a good time and that we would come again. I had no energy left for convincing them we were not on vacation, not a family, not even friends.

Stacey and her mom would keep us in enemy territory just until we could drop them at Karl Gutshall’s garage. Then we would go on to the Coyotes, for reasons still unknown to me.

I was driving again. It gave an outlet to my nervous energy, and I couldn’t trust Odd to be in the same reality as the rest of us. We pulled up to the open bay and Karl came out from under their Honda Civic in his coveralls and his complimentary cap.

He leaned into Odd’s open window and said, “Afternoon.”

“Karl,” I said, “they’re gonna wait here for their car, if that’s okay with you.”

“Okay with me, but they might have to wait some time.”

“How long?”

“A week…two.”

My heart dropped.

“The transmission needs a complete rebuild and finding the gears is gonna take a while, even if you’re willing to go new, and I would recommend against that. I can always find used parts somewheres, but it takes time.”

“Mr. Gutshall,” said Gwen, “how much will this repair cost?”

“Oh, you’re looking at about eighteen-hundred dollars.”

Houser, apparently, wanted to analyze this, because he jumped in and asked, “How much is the car worth?”