Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [11]
“Who did that?” I asked.
“They never caught the killer,” said Odd, transfixed before the photo of the young doomed couple.
“Nope. That’s why their picture is still up there. Oldest unsolved crime on the island. The only murder unsolved.”
“You have lots of murder out here?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. Mostly from drunk fights or domestic squabbles, though. Jimmie ‘n Jeannie was the last real murder.”
“C’mere and have a look, Quinn.”
“That’s all right.” I didn’t need to have a look.
“She was a real heartbreaker.”
“The old-timers say she was the most beautiful girl on the island,” Robert said. “Most beautiful girl there ever was on the island. That’s what they all say.”
“No good suspects?” I asked.
“Lots of suspects. Nearly a thousand. Everybody who lived on the island. Only they could never figure out which one done it. Check it out, I have the only iron-clad alibi.”
“You weren’t born yet.”
“Right.”
Odd continued to stare at the photo. He was into it. Everybody loves a mystery, right? Wrong. I don’t love a mystery. People get killed, other people either get caught for it or get away with it.
“Quinn, when were you born?”
“Why?”
“Can’t you ever answer a simple question?”
“One-eleven. Okay?”
“What year?”
“None of your business.”
“This girl was born on January 11…1951.”
My birthday. Did I make anything out of this? I put my head back and fell asleep, that’s what I made out of it. It is a statistical fact that at any random gathering of twelve people, two of them will be found to have the same birthday. I don’t know how that can be, but they say it is. Coincidences in life abound. People accept them.
The chief took his own sweet time. I had most of an hour’s nap before Odd woke me saying, “This must be him.”
“That’s him,” said Robert.
Chief Shining Pony was a serious man in his mid-forties, putting on a little weight. His long black hair, tied in two braids, was already turning silver at the temples. He was not in uniform. He wore jeans and cowboy boots and a fringed leather jacket over an Ex-Officio shirt. He led us into his tiny office in a corner of the back half of the double-wide and asked us to sit down.
“Did you lose him?” I asked, right out, which apparently was strike two on me.
“No, ma’am, we didn’t lose him.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He tried to commit suicide.”
“Aw, shit. How close did he get?”
“Not very. If you open up that door…”
Odd opened the door he indicated and we saw a ratty cell, just a cot, no sink or toilet, with the cell door now swung open. Blood all over the floor.
“That door was open, and I was here,” said Seth Shining Pony, “so I caught him at it before he could finish. But if he was only makin’ a gesture, it was one fine dramatic gesture.”
“How so?”
“He tried to chew open a vein in his wrist.”
“Woi Yesus.”
“That’s how he was going to remove the stain,” said Odd. “With his own teeth.”
“What stain?” asked the chief.
“Of his actions.”
“We’re no strangers to suicide around here,” said the chief. “I’ve seen Drano drinkers and plastic bag heads, but your boy takes the cake.”
“Where is he now?”
“Laid up in bed, in my house. Some might say we should have ferried him or airlifted him to the hospital in Bellingham, and some might say we shouldn’t have had him here in the first place. I was doing your boss a favor, and we did, after all, make the arrest. If I have to, I can debate it. But I’m hoping I won’t have to. I’m hoping you two can carry him home tomorrow and when the time is right give us a little credit for a job well done.”
“Fine by me, but what kind of shape is he in?”
“He didn’t lose all that much blood. It’s an uglyass wound but it’s superficial. Problem is, now he’s got a fever, chills, and the shakes. I’m guessing he might have poisoned himself with his own bite.”
“When are we gonna know?”
“By tomorrow. If he did poison himself, then the cat is pretty much out of the bag and I’ll have to turn