Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [52]
“There are rumors that this prisoner’s been mistreated,” said the deputy.
“Not true,” called Houser. “I’m my own worst enemy.”
“Not while I’m around,” I muttered.
“They’ve been nothing but considerate with me,” Houser testified.
“You can turn him over now, or we can all hang fire while I call for backup.”
Having given us our selections, the deputy leaned into the Honeymoon Cottage, bracing himself against the door frame with both hands, and waited for our answer.
Odd turned to me and said, “You know what? Let’s turn him over and get him off our hands.”
“I don’t want to be turned over,” moaned Houser. “I want to stay with you guys.”
I saw something in Odd’s eyes and played along. “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “He’s been a pain in the ass, and he’ll probably beat the rap anyway…and we still have things to do on this island.”
“What things?” asked the deputy.
“Oh, we got a project,” said Odd.
“Didn’t the rumors…your information…tell you about the project, deputy? What’s your first name, by the way?”
“Robert,” he said.
“Jeez Louise, not another one,” I said.
“What?” he said, distracted.
“This island is full of Roberts. Every other person is a Robert, I don’t get it. Either that or infirm or fat or missing digits.”
“Who are these two?” the deputy asked, nodding toward Stacey and her mother.
“Not Roberts,” said Stacey.
I had to hand it to the sassy little cocksucker.
“It gets complicated, but they are part of the package here,” I said. “Look, you want him, give us a minute to get dressed, we’ll clean him up and hand him over to you and God bless, because he’s kind of high maintenance.”
“If he goes, I go,” said Stacey.
“If she goes, I go,” said Gwen. “I’m her mother.”
“Definitely. There you are, deputy, three for the price of one.”
Odd was fighting back his half-crooked smile.
Deputy Robert was taking in Stacey.
“I’m the ‘victim’,” Stacey volunteered. “Can you believe that? Victim of what?”
“We got nowhere else to go but here or with you, sir,” said Gwen.
“Welcome to the lot of ‘em, deputy, with our compliments.”
He pushed back from the doorframe, shook another cigarette out of a pack of Camels, and lit up. He looked again at his watch. “There’s a 9:45 ferry to America. All of you, including you back there, you’re gonna be on it. Get off my island and go back to Spokane.”
“Fine,” said Houser. “I want to. I don’t like this island one bit.”
Odd and I dummied up. We had already sold it, we weren’t going to buy it back again.
The deputy went away acting as though he had carried out the law as he interpreted it. Big man, little island.
We slapped off a hi-five, like a couple of kids who had pulled a fast one on the face of authority, but we still had nowhere to go, nowhere but back to Spokane with our chewed-up fugitive. We still had Stacey and her mother, waiting for Karl Gutshall to fix their Civic. We still had Connors back home doing God knows what with Esther. And we still had hot flashes by the bushels, at least one of us did. We still had Jeannie piggy-backing on the big Swede. What we didn’t have was whoever murdered her and her boyfriend, James Coyote.
My eyes dropped again to Odd’s legs. I’d forgotten that a man can have such nice legs. He was standing in the open doorway watching the Sheriff’s patrol car pull away. I focused in on that birthmark on the back of his knee, and I felt myself falling into it, the way you do when you lean out over a balcony from the sixteenth floor of a building that somebody’s jumped off. I had already seen Odd pulled out of his body a couple of times in the past twenty-four hours, and now the same thing was happening to me. To tell you the truth, I half-enjoyed it, because I could have used a little vacation from that burning body.
I didn’t know what yet, but suddenly that birthmark meant something to me.
“How long have you had that?” I asked.
“What?”
“That thing behind your knee.”
“I was born with