Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [58]
I glanced over the exotic rainbow array of Chinese imports, everything from little hand-held poppers to diversionary concussion bombs, stuff I had never seen up close and had always regarded as slightly insane, just another way to split a tranquil night with ear-whacking discomfort. What possible satisfaction or joy could come by putting a match to these things? On the other hand, there are people who liked to be peed upon. No one can account for another one’s pleasures.
“Is Cammy here?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s in the camper making tacos,” said the kid. “Just go on in.”
The camper door was open and we could see the back of a woman half as wide as the camper itself. Like the boys outside, her hair hung down in pigtails. A few flies buzzed around her, but summer had not yet come with any real heat, so the bug population was sparse.
“Cammy?” said Odd, and it was a real question. More like, you can’t be Cammy, my beautiful friend. If that’s what Odd was thinking, what do you suppose Camilia was thinking, when she turned and saw a big Swede addressing her so familiarly.
What Rap Boy hadn’t told me, but would be explained to me some time later, was that the tacos she was making were, more specifically, Navajo tacos. You take a bag of Frito corn chips, slit it along the long edge and puff it open like an envelope. Then you cover the chips with refried beans, grated cheddar, some salsa over the top. I couldn’t wait to get home and try it myself. I was going to add diced kielbasa.
I wasn’t sure Nascine had talked to her about Odd. I wasn’t sure he ever talked to her at all, he might be that kind of husband. Indians, I was learning, unless they talked to you, didn’t tell you much of anything, and even then sometimes left a lot to the imagination.
“Cammy,” he said again, “is it you? Is it really you?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“When you were in fifth grade,” said Odd, “you had this idea for a very exclusive club. You found the perfect cedar, and your idea was to build a treehouse in that cedar…”
Camilia took a step or two toward Odd. Her hands were trembling.
“It would be our club house. You wanted to call it the Tree Top Club. But it was to be exclusive and secret so you said we should use just the initials and call it the T.T. Club, so that no one could guess where our clubhouse was. And I said, ‘Think about it, Cammy…the T.T. Club? The Titty Club.’ You were so embarrassed, and then we laughed and laughed, and that was the beginning and the end of the famous Titty Club.”
Gripping the doorframe, she eased her bulk down to the step and sat there, benumbed, staring up at the big Swede.
“No one else ever knew about that,” she said.
Earlier, the chief had asked me if I ever saw an Indian cry. I was seeing one now. Odd squatted down on the gravel before her and took her hand. He didn’t say anything. She cried for a long time, then leaned forward and put her arms on Odd’s shoulders and drew him to her. She pressed her face next to his.
“Jeannie,” she wept, “Jeannie… I’m so sorry….”
The rear of the camper was set back behind the fireworks stand, so the two kids working there could not see us, nor we them. At least there was that. I heard a car pull onto the lot. We were pretty well out of the sight of any customers, too, unless they decided to come back there and blow up a few Kamikazes. Unlikely as that might be, I thought I’d better head it off anyway. Besides, I wanted to give Odd and Cammy a moment alone.
I slipped away without the two old girlfriends noticing.
“Hello, Sheriff,” I said. Nascine was just getting out of his car.
“Deputy,” he said.
“Right. I shot the Sheriff.”
He stopped in his tracks and knitted up his brow.
“It’s a song, Bob. I shot the Sheriff, but I did not shoot the Deputy…”
I sang it loud, loud enough for Odd to hear and wonder what the hell. I circled Nascine and turned him around, so that I was looking past him, at the front end of the camper, waiting for Odd to appear. I wished he would.
“You’re a real smart ass, ain’t you?” Nascine