Homicide My Own (8 page)

Angie suggested we take a tour of the island, have lunch at the cafe, which she could recommend, and come back around one o’clock. By that time our cottage would be ready. We made a move to get back into the car, but Frank said, “Not so fast.”

Angie pulled out a clipboard from the side of her wheelchair and clicked open a ballpoint pen. “There’s a few things we have to know first,” she said. “Like, do you prefer white wine or red?”

Odd and I looked at each other. “We prefer beer,” I said.

Angie did not break stride.

“Canadian or American?” she asked.

Da frick. Canadian, okay?

“Would you like flannel sheets or plain cotton?”

I looked at Odd and thankfully he jumped in and said, “Look, how many beds are in that cottage?”

“How many beds?” said Frank. “It’s the honeymoon cottage! There’s only the one.”

“You take the bed, Quinn. You decide what sheets.”

“Do you have a rollaway bed?” I asked them.

“You don’t even wanna sleep in the same bed?” asked Frank.

“We’re not lovers,” I said. “Look at us, I’m old enough to be his mother.”

“Not
that
old,” said Odd.

“I have a twenty-two year old son in the Navy, for cripessake. Look, we’re working partners. We had no plans to stay over, it just turned out that way.”

“I still have to know what kind of sheets you want,” said Angie.

Flannel sheets were so nice to the touch but they might make me hot. And what was I going to sleep in? I’d have to wash out my skivvies overnight, which put me in that bed in the buff, and Odd in the same room. What if I got hot and kicked away the flannel sheets? Why does everything get so complicated as we get older?

“Just plain cotton,” I said, finally.

“Really? Most people prefer flannel.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Plain sheets it is.”

We tried to make our escape, but she had one more preference to nail down. “What about music? Country? Soft rock…”

I shut the door, started up the car. “Forget about the music, we brought our own,” I said through the open window, thinking about Odd’s tapes.

Angie smiled knowingly. “Brought your own music, hey?” she said, looking up to her husband. “I believe someone is not being entirely honest with us.”

“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.”