Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [0]
Neither of these two cops had ever pulled that kind of duty before. One of them a man, the other a woman; one young and the other not so young; one dour and of few words, and the other more dour than he, but with a mouth when a mouth was needed. Why them?
The man was the young one, Odd Gunderson, and he hating living in Spokane, though he was born and raised there. He accepted the town of his father in the same way he accepted his father’s politics, as a given until taken, or worn away. The same way he accepted his father’s religion, an unsmiling Lutheranism. The woman was a transplant from the coal regions of Pennsylvania, via Los Angeles, where she had gone because of “Dragnet” reruns, and where she became a cop, and where she would still happily be a cop cruising Hollywodd Boulevard, if she hadn’t married a pharmacist from Spokane.
Odd had ready enthusiasm for an impromptu road trip out of town. All he needed was his tapes, which consisted, the older one regrettably found out, of “Leaving-town-music,” and “Rolling-into-town-music,” and “Driving-in-the-lonely-night-music.”
The older one, the woman, did not like music and had no tapes, nor any enth, for any trip at all. No method of transportation had yet been invented that could get this one willingly beyond city limits, though she had no more affection for Spokane than Odd did. And she suffered hot flashes, searing uncurlings beneath the skin.
Odd saw the detail as a reward for something done well; the other one saw it as a punishment for something done wrong. The other one was named Quinn, and that would be me.
In those days I was sweating constantly. I was told it would pass. Like, when? I wondered. On that particular Thursday it showed no signs of abating anytime soon. That day, I was removing, in a professional manner, a nuisance from Denny’s, a young man in a cheap suit who claimed to be running for President, nominated by Christ’s acclamation. This was the sort of thing I did well, reasoning with the unreasonable, though I also acquited myself honorably whenever it was necessary to wrestle down a runner, to fire off some pepper spray, or to wield a baton. I had never had the occasion to draw my service automatic, and I hoped every day I never would.
By me, Spokane was not a bad place to live. It wasn’t Los Angeles, but even LA wasn’t the place I had come to with big dreams. Not anymore. Spokane was okay. It was far enough away to escape the liberal influence of Seattle and establish its own identity. Unfortunately, that was as The Gateway to Idaho, a whole other kind of strangeness that included more rounds per minute, fired in a discriminate pattern, if you know what I mean. Swarthy folks were there few, and closely watched. Apple pickers from the Yakima Valley chose to strum their melancholy guitars on a Saturday night closer to their own bivouac. Even I, having never quite lost my Pennsylvania coal-cracker accent, was perceived as something disturbingly foreign, though I had lived there for twenty-five years, with a native son husband held in high regard.
I had two hours left on my watch, after I had set the candidate off on a different campaign trail, when I got the call to come in. Odd was already there, at the lieutenant’s desk. I looked at him, like, what’s up, but he just shrugged.
“Charlie and Stacey’s excellent adventure is over,” the lieutenant said.
Charlie and who? I don’t think Odd remembered either, though with him it’s hard to tell. Unless something truly amuses him, at which time he cracks half a crooked smile, his face remains a blank,
“A security guy at an Indian casino on Shalish Island nabbed them,” the lieutenant continued.
“Where’s Shalish Island?” I asked, the first of a few questions I needed answered. Like, who’s Charles and Stacey and what do they have to do with me?
“Damn near in Canada.”
On the wall map, the island looked a lot like a Chevy logo, slightly askew in relation to the mainland, as though the right side of the car, let’s say an ‘80 El Camino, were up on the Canadian