Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [39]
“Why in the world would you feel we’re obliged to take you in?” I asked Gwen.
“I was kind of hopin’ Spokaneans would stick together,” she said.
“We don’t even like Spokane…or Spokaneans.”
Odd laughed. I went to the reefer, pushed Houser aside and got a Molsons. I popped the top and took some down.
“That can’t be true,” said Gwen. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be cops there, takin’ an oath and everything.”
“By this time tomorrow we probably won’t be cops.”
“Oh, sure you will, ‘cause we’re all gonna cooperate. Now, listen, I’m a good cook,” argued Gwen. “I could make us a nice dinner here. And don’t think that I would want to take your bed away from you, you two can have that…”
“We’re partners,” I said, “we don’t sleep together, doesn’t anybody understand that?”
“Well, whatever…. I only meant, we can work something out, it’s just for the one night.”
“This man is our prisoner,” I tried to explain. “He will be charged with statutory rape, and that one,” nodding toward Stacey, “is his victim…”
“I’m not a victim!” she hissed. “How can you charge him with anything if there’s no victim? You think I’ll testify? As if!”
“…and whatever his sentence turns out to be,” I continued, ignoring her for the moment, because it would be impossible to ignore her for much longer, “it will include the order to never again come in contact with her.”
“Try and stop us,” said Stacey.
“And you expect me, as an officer of the law, to allow a rapist and his victim to share the same room for an overnighter? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not a rapist,” whispered Houser, ashamed.
Stacey was too outraged to spit, that I should label their love with such crass and negative name-calling. I got all that from her eyes, and in spite of myself I envied the passion I saw in them.
“I don’t think anyone would fault us, Quinn, considering the circumstances. We can let Houser sleep on the kitchen floor, cuffed. Gwen and Stacey can have the bed, you can sleep on the sofa, and I’ll sit on the rocker with my weapon in hand. Anyone tries anything, I’ll shoot them.”
“You’re just dying to shoot someone, aren’t you?” said Houser.
Odd smiled.
“Are you enjoying this?” I asked.
“Compared to everything else,” he said, “it’s a relief.”
14.
Odd drove to the little island grocery store and persuaded them to stay open a few minutes longer so that he could buy the things on Gwen’s shopping list. They stayed open even longer, long enough to tell him what they remembered, that Jeannie was a rare beauty, jewel of the island. Everybody had a crush on her, but there was one particular boy, only twelve, who followed her around like a puppy. Who? They couldn’t remember. They remembered only that for a time he was her shadow.
Gwen, true to her word, gathered up my clothes and some of their own and took them to the laundromat. I was left with Houser and Stacey and my second bottle of Molsons. I moved Houser from the reefer to the rocker and cuffed him to the arm of it. He was no great risk and I was thinking seriously of bagging the cuffs, but the presence of Stacey made me uneasy. Individually, they were harmless. Together, I didn’t want to know.
I made her stay on the bed and the inactivity was driving her nuts.
“No TV in this dump, no magazines even. Charlie, don’t this suck?”
“Don’t talk to him,” I ordered.
“I can’t talk to him?”
“What did I just say?”
“Well, then, can I talk to you?”
“Only if you have something big to say?”
“How do I know if it’s big?”
“If you don’t know, don’t say it?”
She was in bare feet. She yanked at a ragged toenail, then said, “Your boyfriend’s a real babe.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, and that wasn’t a big thing to say.”
“You have to tell Charlie not to get jealous, ‘cause he gets jealous when I say somebody else is a babe, even though I might be teasing. Your guy really is, though. What’s his name?”
“None of your