Homicide My Own Page 6

  “Or with themselves!” chortled Frank.

  We did wind up taking a kind of random tour of the island, in a light rain, down a little winding country road lined with tall cedars. We passed the Tribal Headquarters, the most imposing edifice on the island, and a few intersections of small commerce: a grocery store and video rental joint combined, an auto repair shop, a small nursery, the sheriff’s sub-station.

  “Can you believe those two? I wonder what their story is,” I said.

  “I’m sure we’ll find out,” said Odd.

  “Not if I can help it. They give me the creeps. How could they believe you and I...came in uniform...looking to shack up...you, your age, and...me?”

  “You’re a good-looking woman, Quinn, you’d have no trouble finding a guy in his thirties.”

  I flushed. My ears were about to blow off. He had no idea. “What would I do with one?”

  “The usual stuff.”

  “I’m gonna slap you silly.”

  “You never thought about it?”

  “I’m a married woman, da frick.”

  “Well, that’s a tribute to Connors.”

  How does he know what I’ve thought about or what I haven’t thought about? And I loved the way he attributed everything to Connors.

  “A thirty-year old man,” I told him, “is about twice as mature as a fifteen-year old boy, which puts him at about eighteen. Don’t need one, don’t want one.”

  “I was only paying you a compliment.”

  “Save it for someone who’ll believe it.”

  We found ourselves on the back edge of a boatyard, and a haphazard arrangement of boats on stands, some tarped over. Suddenly Odd said, “Stop the car! Stop! Here!”

  I pulled over. “What’s wrong?”

  “That boat....” he said. We were looking at a derelict of a fishing boat, blistered and broken, no longer seaworthy. He got out of the car and looked at it through the chain link fence. I killed the engine and joined him there. The boat was called Northern Comfort.

  “Yeah, it’s an old boat. What about it?”

  “I know this boat. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Then, after a moment, he said, “I know who owns this boat, who skippered it for a living.”

  “Who?”

  “This was Frank’s boat.”

  “Frank from Frank and Angie?”

  “He made his living on this boat, crabbing.”

  “Frank, the weird innkeeper? The man’s half-crippled.”

  “Yeah, he got that way working on this boat...the Northern Comfort. It was a good boat in its day.”

  “When did he say anything about a crabbing boat?”

  I knew the answer. He never did. Odd was not hearing me. He went off in his dreamy way and said, “The money was good. Crabbing was profitable. James Coyote crewed for him one summer. That’s how he was able to buy the pick-up. But Frank was a hard skipper and the work was too dangerous.”

  My nipples went hard. They damn near pulled me through the windshield. Lately, my body was not my own, but this was ridiculous.

  “Odd, you’re giving me the willies. How the hell do you know that?”

  We sat there looking at each other with blank eyes, two scared cops, and neither one of us scared easily.

  “Ever since we came on this island,” he said, “I’ve been feeling...unsettled, and then seeing that picture of those two kids, something clicked. Now, looking at that boat....don’t ask me how, but I know this stuff.”

  “How can you?”

  “I just do.”

  “Anything like this ever happen before?”

  “Never.”

  “Psychics don’t run in your family or anything....?”

  “My family? In my family, you have a vision, you get an enema.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “You had a vision?”

  “No, just a strong sense...a knowledge, of something I know, about this place and these people, but I don’t know why I know it, or even what I know. This is freaking me out, Quinn.”

  “Let’s just go sit in the car for a minute, okay? Let’s take a quiet look at all this. No visions, no voices.”

  “I’m going crazy, ain’t I?”

  “Look, you haven’t slept all night and you don’t sleep well anyway. You’ve got major sleep disorders. You take the bed. Let’s go back, get you to bed, sleep all day. We got nothing to do but wait for Houser to stop puking.”

  “But I’m not sleepy, not at all. I feel...urged...pushed on by something. There’s something we gotta do here, Quinn, there’s a reason why we came to this island. And we don’t have much time.”

  Time? I looked at my watch. Connors was expecting me home by now.I tried to call him on my cell, but of course there was no reception out there in the deep water hard against Canada.

  We found a Jiffy Mart with a public phone. I used my AT&T card to make the call. Through the front window, I could see Odd chatting up the Indian woman behind the counter.

  Pharmacy,” answered Esther, all pert and a pain in the ass.

  “I need to talk to Connors, Esther.”

  “Hi, girlfriend, wuzzup?”

  I got your girlfriend, bitch. Put my husband on the phone or I’ll break your jaw. That’s the inner dialog. What I said was, “I can’t talk to you now, Esther, this is kind of an emergency.”

  “Oh...”

  She quickly buzzed or nodded or gave Connors a look, because in a second he came on with a worried tone. I explained I was still on Geronimo Acres, waiting out a sick prisoner, and would have to spend the night. I didn’t get into what was happening with Odd, figuring it would be something we could talk about tomorrow night over a couple of Rolling Rocks.

  “You sound out of breath,” he said.

  “I do? No, I’m fine.”

  “Do you have a number?” he asked.

  “A number?”

  “Where you’ll be staying.”

  “Oh, where we’ll be staying...I doubt there’s even a phone in that place.”

  I didn’t tell him it was the Honeymoon Cottage or about the goofy couple there were encouraging me to hop into bed with Odd.

  “Listen, Connors, they only have the one cabin, so we got to share. Odd volunteered for the davvy, gave me the bed, but I might have to insist, ‘cause he hasn’t slept in I don’t know how long...but either way, don’t worry, ‘cause, you know, there won’t be any funny business going on.”

  I was coming unglued, but he laughed and said, “I know that.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be so happy about it.”

  “You think I’m happy? I’d be happy if you did find someone who could light your fire. Lord knows, I can’t.”

  “It’s not you, Connors, how many times do I have to explain that? It has nothing to do with you. You’re my man, I love you. But I’ve lost it. No man in the world can bring it back. I’m sorry.”

  “This is probably not a good time for this conversation.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed.

  “You should have the bed. Odd is young, he’ll be fine on the sofa. You get that numbness in your legs, you don’t sleep right.”

  I wanted him to express some...what, jealousy? He didn’t care at all that for the first time in our marriage I would be sharing a room with another man. Why should he? I’d be safe with Harrison Ford, da frick. But he was wishing something would happen, wishing that an attractive younger man might awaken what died in me. I was there for him, I’d be a good sport once a month, but that part of me was gone and not he or anyone else was ever going to bring it back. It was just how life would be from now on. I loved him, I just didn’t want him anymore, sexually.

  “Well, whatever,” I said. “I know you’re busy, so...”

  “You know what you should do? You should get out of that uniform, buy yourself something comfortable to wear.”

  It’s not what I wanted to hear. More and more, with each
year, he was saying things I didn’t want to here, and not saying the things I did want to hear.

  “I will,” I said. “It is getting a little gamey by now, and while we’re waiting, we’re not on duty, not officially.”

  “What are you going to do with yourself, stuck out there?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Get some rest. Take a one day vacation.”

  “Sure. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he said.

  He was sleeping with Esther. I was sure of it. He would sleep with her tonight.

  I hung up with that little bit lost feeling, orphaned inside. I tried to shake it off. I hated that feeling. I’d rather be shot, which I was once, and it felt not near as bad.

  Odd came out of the Jiffy Mart and we both walked to the car.

  “How’s Connors?” he asked.

  “Fine. Anything happen in the Jiffy Mart?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you saw stuff that you knew.”

  “Go into any Jiffy Mart, you’re gonna see stuff that you know.”

  “Don’t get wise with me.”

  “The place has only been here twelve years.”

  “What difference would that make?”

  “I seem to be going back further than that.”

  “Like to the time of the murders?”

  “I think so.”

  We drove back to the white part of the island and found a horsey shop that also sold clothes. All I wanted was a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and something heavier against the chill that would come with evening. They had a draped off corner for a changing room, and we took turns in it. The jeans were all Wranglers, which I hadn’t seen since I was a kid back in Pennsylvania. My service shoes were black Rockports which went fine with the jeans. I got a t-shirt with a tribal bear on it and a hooded sweatshirt. I put it all on the Visa. I knew the Lieutenant would trash it as an expense item, but he was going to get it anyway. He could have the clothes too, if he wanted them. Odd also got jeans and a Shalish Island t-shirt and a light Eddie Bauer windbreaker that folded up into its own pocket. It was a great relief to get out of the uniforms, which we put on hangers and laid neatly in the trunk of the Lumina. We stashed our belts and pistols, flashlights and batons. I felt a ton lighter.

  The cafe was across the street. I was thinking I might treat myself to pie. Odd was two steps behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw him taking it in, the cafe, in his dreamy way of having seen it all before. It wasn’t much to look at. Exposed to the salt air, it needed paint, like most of the structures we’d seen. There were a couple old-timey soda signs in the windows, like, “Moxie.”

  Going into that cafe, we looked like mother and son in spanking new jeans, mom with a hooded sweatshirt. Which I quickly pulled off because the place was overheated. The T-shirt tried to come off with it, exposing my belly, and suddenly a dozen limp dicks at the counter were interested. Da frick. Half of them were old Indians, the other half maybe fishermen who didn’t go out that day.

  Free of the sweatshirt, I saw Odd sitting down at a booth at the window. I followed him. We sat on opposite sides of the table. He gripped the edge of it and leaned toward me and whispered, “You’re not going to believe this, Quinn.”

  “I’m ready to believe anything.”

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “On the island?”

  “In this cafe, in this booth.”

  My nipples popped again. Sweat trickled down my cleavage. I took a fingerful of T-shirt and pulled it away, fanning some air down over my chest.

  The waitress was a woman in her thirties, but they were hard years. She asked us first if we wanted coffee.

  “Iced tea,” I said. I was burning up.

  “And for you?”

  Odd shook his head, lost his voice.

  I watched him until she came back with the iced tea, but he never said anything. Soon, a pleasantness came over his features. They softened, relaxed.

  “So...what will you have?” asked the waitress.

  “You bake your own pie?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said proudly.

  “Apple?”

  “Fresh today.”

  “That’s for me, a la mode.”

  “I’ll have a black ‘n tan,” said Odd.

  Both the waitress and I looked at him and huh?

  “A what?” she asked.

  “A black ‘n tan.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “He’ll know,” said Odd.

  “Joey,” she called to the kitchen. “Do you have a black ‘n tan?”

  Joey, a recovering alcoholic in his late twenties, poked his head through the pass-through window. His head was covered with a Harley Davidson wrap. He yelled back, “Say what?”

  “A black ‘n tan.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  An old Indian man at the counter said, “They used to make them here. Long ago. The Stauffers owned this place then.”

  “Right,” said Odd, “like when the Stauffers had it.”

  “A black ‘n tan,” said the old Indian, “is an ice cream sundae. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce on the bottom. Then carmel. Crushed up peanuts. A blossom of whipped cream. A cherry on the top.”

  “That’s it! Thank you, sir,” said Odd.

  My nipples had not gone down. On the contrary, the rest of me was straining to pop out as well, like my whole body was on a countdown to explode. I wanted to go screaming through the rain.

  “I’d like to try that,” said the waitress, and for a second I thought she had read my mind. No, Odd had inspired her. She was like a cynical bartender who had discovered a new drink.

  After she left, I said, “Odd,” and there was a quaver to my voice, “what the hell is going on here?”

  “You know how something happens and you say, whoa, all this has all happened before?”

  “Yeah, it’s called deja-vu, which is about all the French I know.”

  “This isn’t like that. I know this place. I know these people.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. I used to sit in this booth. How can that be, unless...?”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless I was one of them once.”

  “So, who’s the old guy, then?”

  I nodded to the old Indian who had remembered the ice cream sundae. Odd looked at him hard. I was about to tell him he didn’t know shit, when he called out, “Mr. Drinkwater!”

  The old man turned on his counter stool. “Yes, sir?”

  “Thank you very much!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I held my head in my hands, much like Stacey’s mother had when I first saw her, like events had overtaken her, and now me, and things were spinning out of control, and maybe if I squeezed my head very hard everything would get forced back to normal. I felt columns of sweat worming over my ribs.

  “I had a life before this one,” Odd said, “and I spent it here on this island.”

  “That ain’t the way it works,” I said, “not where we come from.” Meaning basically, I guess, from good Catholic and Lutheran families.

  “When I was a kid, I was told a lot of stuff about life and death that turned out to be lies.”

  “Yeah, well, me too,” I admitted, “but you’re talking...” I could hardly bring myself to say it. “...reincarnation. Are you really ready to believe that stuff?”

  “I never thought about it before, but one life does sound like kind of a short deal, doesn’t it? Just about the time you get your poop in a group, it’s over. Why shouldn’t we get another crack at it, keep trying 'til we get it right? That would make some sense.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. What would be the point of living?”

  “No, otherwise, what would be the point of dying?”

  Woi Yesus. Was this ever a conversation I didn’t want to have.

&nbs
p; “I knew this place before we ever landed on it. I knew about Frank’s boat, Jimmy crewing...”