Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [13]
“We’re supposed to go over there, to the chief’s house. We’ve been promised breakfast.”
“Very nice. I’d rather be promised the prisoner. Why do I have this growing sense of dread, like things are going to go, oh, so wrong and someone’s gonna have to be blamed and a turd will find its way into my folder?”
“Eat a banana. You’re probably low on potassium.”
Low on estrogen, more like it. As cool and as crisp as Odd looked, that’s how hot and sticky I felt. I wanted to rip off my shirt. I’m sure I was smelling ripe. I went into their little bathroom and took a standing bath with wet paper towels. All I had was lipstick, so I did my lips and let the rest go to hell.
Odd talked to me through the closed door.
“Seventy percent of this island is tribal land, all but the northeastern part, which is unincorporated county, with a sheriff’s station.”
That would be the top part of the Chevy logo that the island looked like on the map.
“The tribe runs the ferry and the casino and six weeks out of the year, right now, as a matter of fact, they can sell fireworks. They also sell cigarettes, tax-free, but they’re supposed to be smoked on Indian land. Right. The school, K through 12, is on the white part of the island, but kids have been going there for generations, white and Indian, without any problems.”
“Is this a tour? Are we on vacation here?”
“It’s an interesting place, Quinn. They never had any real problem before so they couldn’t accept it might have been racial.”
“This is what you’ve been doing, all night long, instead of sleeping?”
“Now, you’d never know it, ‘cause Indian kids and white kids pair off all the time and nobody thinks anything of it, but back then it was different. The sixties came and old restrictions were being tested.”
“Odd, listen to me, you ain’t a detective. You’re a cop, and not even a cop from around here. We issue citations, we quell domestic disputes, we roust hookers and dope smokers, and we are sent on shit details like this that no one else wants.”
“I know that.”
I had to laugh. I packed the twins into my sports bra, put on my shirt and buttoned it up. I put on my pistol belt and shook it into the familiar fit on my hips, noticing lately how the rig seemed to be getting heavier.
I opened the door, took the last sip of coffee and handed him the empty cup.
“So it’s off to evaluate our prisoner?” I said.
“Right. At the chief’s house.”
“You got the directions?”
“Sure.” He looked at me, his lower lip jutting out ever so slightly, like an irresistible little boy.
“But it’s right on the way and would only take a minute and what’s the harm,” I said, pretending to be him.
“What’s that?”
“The scene of the crime.”
This time, I got a full-tilt smile out of him.
“I got a feeling, Quinn. A very strong feeling.”
“You could just sit quiet until it goes away,” I said.
“I tried that,” said he.
He drove. The road was lined with fireworks stands, put together with plywood and scrap lumber, with hinged wooden shut-downs over counters packed high with brightly wrapped pyrotechnics from China. Hand lettered signs identified each stand. They seemed to be family enterprises. We later learned that the teen-aged son of each family was obliged to sleep in the shuttered stand with a .357 magnum tucked under his pillow to protect the investment from vandals and thieves. According to law, the fireworks purchased on the reservation must be set off on the reservation, but of course mainlanders came over and filled up their trunks, turning their own quiet neighborhoods into war zones, terrifying the family pets and invariably blowing off some of the little digits of their own children. Don’t get me started on fireworks. More distractions for the dumb. Fireworks have killed and maimed more people than marijuana, which to date hovers around zero, but one is legal and encouraged, the other one can get you hard time. Don’t get me started.
Odd pulled to the side of the road. A narrow rutted dirt road went up a hill and disappeared into the