Homicide My Own - Anne Argula [63]
It was Jeannie’s secret notebook, just as Odd had described it. A blue spiral notebook with stick-ons of the Beatles and psychedelic flowers, and the name Jeannie on the cover in silver ink and on the bottom printed in block letters: PRIVATE PROPERTY!!!! Cammy handed it to Odd, returning it after all these years to its rightful owner, sort of.
“He found it back then, when they searched Jeannie’s room, and he stole it out of evidence, and he kept it ever since. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy it, because to him it was proof that Jeannie once loved him, and as old as the old fool is, he had to hold on to that. Why do you think he married me? I was the next best thing. Why did he stay with me? ‘Cause I knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That for one moment in time, Jeannie might have loved him.”
“Did he kill her?”
“I can’t ask myself that question.”
“I asked it.”
“Leave it,” said Odd, turning my own words back on me. “Get into the car, Cammy.”
She got into the back seat, leaving room for only one additional person of any size. We were going to have to jettison somebody, and it wasn’t going to be me, not with Nascine on the prowl. Odd got behind the wheel, the rest of us apparently expendable.
“Okay,” I said, taking charge. “Karl, you’re going to have to wait here.”
“No,” said Odd, “we need Karl.”
“Why?”
“He’s got to get the pick-up running again.”
Huh? It was either discuss it and run the risk of getting busted by the county or making some kind of forward progress. I put Karl in the back next to Cammy, and I put Houser on Karl’s lap, over his protests, of course. Stacey and her mom, who were not our problem, who were never our problem, I abandoned on the side of the road and could care less if I cared at all, which I didn’t.
Gwen, who probably wished she were dead anyway, accepted her fate, but Stacey went off on a rant, describing the nature of the lawsuit, which would go into the multi-millions should anything happen to either one of them as a result of my callous disregard for their safety. We left them in the dust.
Old man Drinkwater was sitting on the porch with the Coyotes. They were not surprised to see us. It seemed they were waiting for us. If not for us, then for something, because Deputy Nascine had already been there.
And why?
“He wanted to make an offer on James’s old pickup,” said Drinkwater.
“Nascine wanted to buy the truck?” I asked. “After thirty-three years?”
“And at a pretty good price, too.”
I looked at the Coyotes, wondering.
“We didn’t sell it,” said Mr. Coyote.
“When the deputy saw he wasn’t gonna be able to buy the four-by, he started up saying how he could confiscate it, by law. He demanded to know where it was. He was pretty hot about it.”
“Did he confiscate it?” Odd asked, worried.
“I ain’t there yet,” said Drinkwater.
“Then where are you?” said I.
“Deputy was wanting to know where it was. To keep my friends from having to lie, I said it was towed away to the Tribal Headquarters garage, long ago these many years now.”
“Which was a lie,” I pointed out.
“The Coyotes are respected for their honesty. I am respected for my lies.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“I was one step ahead of him. I knew he would want to know why the truck was at Tribal Headquarters garage.”
“Did he?”
“He did. I told him for the rite of purification.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“No, but he does not know that. Here is the funny thing.”
“It was very funny,” said Mr. Coyote, dead-pan.
“What?” I asked
“The Tribal Headquarters,” said Drinkwater, “don’t have no garage, never did.”
No one on the porch cracked a smile, though I could sense all three of them thought it was hilarious.
“So the skinny deputy went off mad,” Drinkwater continued, “and we have been sitting here waiting to see who showed up next. Cammy, did your husband do that to you?”
Cammy went up onto the porch and sat down with them, and didn’t say a word, but apparently didn’t have to.