Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [36]
“I’ll just have to deal with that.”
“Let’s say I spontaneously combust. Here’s a prisoner sitting on the side of I-90.”
“You’re not going to spontaneously combust.”
“Something bad, then. Same result. That’s why they send two, buddy. You can’t go over the hill on me. We got a responsibility in the backseat here?”
“If there’s anything I can do…” said Houser.
“Shaddup.”
“I’ve got to stay here,” said Odd. “This is bigger than me, or you, or this guy. How do I walk away and pretend it was…what? Deja vu?”
I looked back at the prisoner. He was leaning forward, the better to hear, and he was dying to ask.
That knot in my stomach took its first loop when the chief told us to take Houser. It looped again going back up the stairs, and pulled tighter still putting him into the car. Anything other than taking the prisoner right back to Spokane was indefensible.
“How do we do anything else?” I asked Odd. “Look, this other thing has been hanging for thirty-some years, you expect to settle it overnight?”
“At least give me that, overnight. We were supposed to have that long anyway, and it was fine with the lieutenant. Let’s stick to that.”
“That was before we were saddled with the custody of kissy-face here. You wanna shoot him and dump him in the Sound so we can solve a murder?”
“Not just a murder, my murder!”
“I beg your pardon?” said the prisoner.
“Shaddup!” said I.
“We have to go to Jeannie’s house. We have to talk to her parents. At least that much, we have to do. If nothing comes of that…if it doesn’t convince you…then, the hell with it.”
“Jeannie who?” asked Houser.
“Shut up, da frick!”
“Frick?”
“The lieutenant expects us to stay the night,” said Odd. “Didn’t he even tell you not to check in unless you had to? He doesn’t want to hear from us, all he wants is Houser when we bring him in, that’s all.”
“And what do we do with him in the meantime, take him to the Honeymoon Cottage, take him to Jeannie’s house?”
“Who’s Jeannie and why are we going to her house?”
“He’s Jeannie!” I screamed, jabbing a finger at Odd. “He’s Jeannie, all right? You understand now?”
Houser quietly slid back on the seat, as far away from me as he could get.
As we drove to the Tidewater Cottages I ran through my mind all the things that could go wrong, knowing they all would, and more besides, other things that I could not even anticipate. First of all, Frank and Angie. They see us leading a man in handcuffs into the Honeymoon Cottage and the whole island hears of the Spokane orgy. I drove past once, looking for them. The rain must have kept them indoors. It would also give us cover. I circled back and pulled up to our cottage, waited a moment for any welcome home committee, then turned off the ignition. Each of us grabbed a Houser elbow and hustled him up the porch and into the cottage.
Odd ran back to the car for Houser’s bag. I sat the rapist, or whatever he was now, roughly on a wicker rocker and went to the bathroom for a towel. I toweled my hair and looked around at our little cottage. A light had been left on, turned low. The Bee Gees were on the stereo. The bed was high and fluffy and just big enough for two. The davvy had a blue floral pattern. The walls were crowded with framed dried flowers or watercolors of lush live ones. The carpet was well worn.
“This is nice,” said Odd when he came back in and dropped Houser’s bag. He unlocked the cuffs and removed them, saying, “Can I do this? I mean, are you going to try anything funny?”
“Me…?”
“Because I will shoot you, and it will stand, believe me.”
“You don’t even have a gun.”
“I have a gun. It’s in the car.”
I sat on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, the towel over my head. This one was a killer. I imagined I had steam rising from my hair, my cheeks were full of glowing embers. Rivers of sweat ran over my ribs. I pushed off one shoe with the other, unlaced that one, pulled off my black service socks. I expected