by Anne Argula
“For that matter, why even Spokane? I’ve lived there my whole life and hated it. Why didn’t I ever move somewhere else?”
“Hey, I married into it. Compared to Shenandoah, though, it’s the Ritz. I always knew I would leave that place. I had to go, just felt pulled away, to the west. Never thought I’d wind up so far away. Where we sit right now? I couldn’t be any farther away from home and still be in the continental U.S. You said barrel.”
“What?”
“You said you looked down the barrel of the shotgun. Odd?”
“I said that?”
“You said barrel. So it wasn’t a double-barrel?”
“No...it was a single barrel shotgun.”
“You can see that. Who do you see behind the shotgun?”
“Karl, maybe, I don’t know.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it.”
“I doubt it too,” he said.
“You gotta try to remember your secret lover.”
“Please, Quinn, don’t put it that way. I’m having a hard enough time here...can this possibly be happening? Am I trying to solve my own murder?”
And was I trying to help him? Da frick.
“Jeannie can’t wait to give up her virginity. Her boyfriend, for whatever reasons....let’s take him at his word...won’t deliver. If she went to another boy, everybody would know it before the end of the seventh period. I think she’d go to an older man, someone who could teach her and keep his mouth shut.”
“Yes,” he said. “She used him, thinking that would be all right with him, with any older man. Have you ever used a man just for sex, Quinn?”
Why deny it, there were a lot of men in the late sixties, early seventies, just because I could, the right had finally been seized, including one memorable one-night stand with a Japanese akido instructor, but I had always had some mutual connection beneath the skin. Maybe not the things sonnets are made from, but nothing so simple as using someone to satisfy a need.
“No,” I told him. “I never have.”
“Being used, that could be a motive for murder.”
“If he, you know, fell in love, or something. If he lost his mind.”
“Like Houser,” said Odd.
“Good example.”
“She never expected that would happen. How could that happen? She thought she was choosing someone safe, someone older, someone who would walk away and keep his mouth shut, someone who would have to keep his mouth shut.”
“Someone married?”
“Yes. Or a friend of the family...a teacher...someone who had something to lose if he talked about it.”
“A teacher makes sense, married or not. If he’s discovered, he loses his career. A teacher, because what was she after, really, besides knowledge? Carnal knowledge, the great mystery explored with a seasoned guide.”
“Is that what you did?” he asked.
“I wish. Me and ‘Our Johnny,’ both of us stumbling terrifed sixteen year olds in the back of his father’s station wagon, scared to death. I didn’t know it would hurt so much, when he started. After, the condom was wet when he took it off—duh?— and he made us both terrified it had broken on us. Other than that, it wasn’t half bad.”
“What happened after that?”
“We didn’t do it again for two months, and then we did it again, and after that we didn’t do it anymore ever.”
“We’re all pretty stupid, aren’t we? I mean, that first time.”
“Then I don’t want to be smart. At least there was passion, loss of control, eyes closed and labored breathing, sighs and cries and tingles, and I miss it all, I miss it so much, skin, sopping wetness, handfuls of tightly clutched ass.”
Odd’s head came forward, then turned toward me. I looked him right in the eye and confessed, “The last time I got off was a date-rape with myself. That’s when I gave it the nickname, ‘Little Sahara.’”
11.
The wipers were on intermittent because it started to drizzle again. The radio was off, the digital clock read 2:48 At the fireworks stands a slow but building trade was gathering.
We were on our way to the Tribal Headquarters, to check with Shining Pony on the condition of our boy Houser.
“I don’t know what made me say all that, Odd.”
“Maybe you thought we were having a girl gabfest,” he said.
Sometimes you just have to laugh, ain’t?
“Do you know why?” he asked me.
“Why what?”
“Why that suddenly happened to you.”
“It wasn’t all that sudden.”
“You ought to know, Quinn, all the guys think you’re pretty hot.”
“All the guys... I’m used up, buddy.”
“That’s not true. A woman doesn’t get used up, I don’t care what age she is. How old are you?”
“I’m forty-nine.”
“Forty-nine. That’s not even old. That’s only...that’s how old Jeannie would be if she lived.”
“So she never knew what she was missing,” I said, the bitch back in my voice.
“Forty-nine is not old, not even,” he said.
“There’s no reason in God’s world for any man to come into me again.”
“It’s not God’s world, it’s yours.” For Odd this bordered on irreverent outrage. For the moment, he was like the rest of us. “He may have made it but He doesn’t live here any more. Quinn, I’m disappointed in you, man, you’re a tough chick. I can’t believe you’re caving in like this.”
Sweet boy, he didn’t have a clue. He thought it was something I could fight. “It’s got a name, Odd, it’s called menopause, and the tough and the weak stand about the same chances against it, and, frankly, they ain’t good.”
“I know about menopause.”
“Men don’t know shit, why should they?”
“Well, that’s pretty obvious. Every man has a woman, or wants one.”
“So what do you know about menopause?”
“I know you stop having periods, you get hot flashes...”
He knew more than I gave him credit for. Hell, he knew more than I did when it hit me.
“Phantom sweats,” I said, “so bad you want to rip off your clothes and run through the rain.”
“You can do that, who’s going to stop you?”
“Tell me what else you know?””
“That you get used to it, that it passes, and if you were sexy before you can be sexy after. Look at Tina Turner!”
Could he have any idea how often I have looked at Tina Turner, wondering if at the end of the show she slips between silk sheets with a stud muffin half her age and fucks his brains out, or is it all performance, and her reality is that off the stage she sits weary and alone with a cup of tea praying he doesn’t walk by and say something like, “Honey, you in the mood tonight?”
“No, look at me,” I said. “My hair is brittle, I’m tired all the time, I’m getting fat, I’m going bitchy...”
“You always were bitchy.”
“Fuck you.”
“See?”
“This is real life, Tina Turner is a dream, a man’s dream.”
“I had a dream about you once,” he said.
“I’m gonna slap you upside the head.”
He laughed. “I did, really.”
“What went on in this dream?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Don’t make me stop this car.”
At least we were smiling, laughing a little. That’s the only way to feel any better, ain’t?
“There’s got to be stuff you can take,” he said, “some medicine.”
“Oh, sure, there’s stuff you can take. There’s estrogen.”
“There you go.”
“But that boosts your odds for breast cancer. You can mix it with progestin, which really increases your chances. Or you can take testosterone.”
“The male hormone?”
“That’ll have you doing it again, like a mink. Only problem is, you’ll g
row a beard, fart a lot, and beat the shit out of any guy who accidentally bumps into you.”
“The beard thing could be a turn-off.”
I was glad to see the little double-wide Tribal Police Headquarters loom into sight. We pulled up in front and went inside. Instead of Robert there was another young man behind the counter who looked a lot like Robert. He looked at us like he should know us but didn’t.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“Chief in?”
“Chief!” he yelled to the back office. “Man and a woman, here.”
“Send them back, Robert.”
So it was another young man who looked like Robert and was also named Robert. Some island. We walked back to his little office. He was expecting to see us in uniform. He leaned forward on his chair, elbows to the desk, and looked us over, as though an unfamiliar pair like us could be trouble.
“You saw the Coyotes,” he said.
“How’d you know, smoke signals?” I asked, and, of course, that was strike three on me.
“It’s a small island.”
“Not so small I’d want to back-hoe it into the water,” I said, which is exactly what I would like to see someone else do. I was on a roll, and Odd had the good sense to throw himself in front of it.
“Do you mind?” he asked the chief. “We had time to kill and we can’t resist a mystery.”
Speak for yourself, Odd. I can’t resist chocolate. A mystery can wither and fade away while I dunk for Godivas.
“It’s a free country...except for the rez, where you answer to me. Which mystery is it you can’t resist?”
“There’s another?” I said.
“Old man Drinkwater is convinced Jeannie lives in your form,” he said, looking at Odd.
“Has he convinced you?” Odd asked.
“No. I’m a Christian.”
“Then we’re back down to only one mystery. Who killed two kids on a rainy night so long past? Could it be Karl Gutshall?”
“You saw Karl?”
“We shook his chain,” I said.
“Well put. The poor guy’s been in a trap all these years. A lot of people still think he’s guilty.”
“You?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll know,” said Odd, “before we leave this island.”
Under normal circumstances I don’t rattle, but normal circumstances had flown some time back and what we were into now was paranormality at its best. I was not used to anger in Odd, and I was not used to that resolute tone in his voice. Most of the time he could hold four opposing points of view simultaneously, which works against you as a cop. Often he seemed unsure of himself, of the path, and of the destination. Now I was impressed. And so was the chief, if not a bit worried about the steady equilibrium long enjoyed by his little island reservation.
I told him why we had dropped by, to see about the current health of our boy Houser. He got on the phone to his wife, speaking in Shalish, which I thought impolite, but considering my own mouth I could not object. I waited and watched his face for some reaction. Nada. He hung up and said, “Much improved.”
We drove there in two cars, again. Odd was deep into himself and I left him wherever that was, wondering only about what Connors did for lunch and was he alone or with Esther. Did he bring a sandwich from home and eat it quickly in the break room, or did he and Esther go to Pizza Hut and urge the last piece upon each other?
We pulled up next to the chief’s car in front of his house. The first thing I noticed was that Stacey and her mom had decamped from his front porch.
“Where’s your wailing little friend?” I asked, when we got out of the car.
“Half way to Spokane, I hope,” he said.
We followed him up the stairs to the room where they were keeping Houser. He was sitting up in bed, taking broth without assistance. The window was open and the cool air cleansed the sick room. He gave the empty bowl to Mrs. Shining Pony and thanked her. I asked her what his temperature was.
“Ninety-nine, point six,” she said.
“That’s not bad,” I said.
“It’s dropping.”
She took his tray and left the room.
“How’re you feeling, Houser?” I asked.
“Better,” he said. “Much better. I thought I heard Stacey...”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. I think they heard her in Bellingham.”
“Is she still here?”
“She’s a little girl, what do you care? She’s with her mother, where she belongs.”
“Houser...?” The patient turned to the sound of Odd’s voice and found him sitting by the window. “How did it start? With Stacey.”
“What do you mean?”
I interrupted. “Houser, do you remember me reading you your rights?”
“No.”
“Then I’m gonna do it again,” and I did, and we all waited until he told us he understood.
“You know we’re cops, ain’t? Him and me? From Spokane? And we’ll be taking you back there for booking?”
He understood all that.
“All right, so if you want to talk to Odd, or anybody else, without a lawyer present, be my guest.”
“What did you want?” asked Houser of Odd.
“I want to know how it started, with Stacey. She’s fourteen, you’re thirty-something. Did she come to you? Was she looking for a guide? A sexual guide? Was she a virgin at the time?”
“She still is,” said Houser.
What?
12.
I wondered if Houser was clever enough to be laying down a defense, that being that the crime in question never occurred. Or at least not the crime of penetration. But if that was the case, what was he doing with a fourteen-year-old girl clear across state on a little island hard against Canada? Nature walks? And besides, if he was lying, one quick peek with a professional eye would catch him.
“We were running away from rumors and hatred and intolerance.”
Pul-leeze! He was running away from the law that keeps grown men out of the pants of little girls. I wanted to cover his face with the pillow, snuff the sucker out, but Odd was gentle with him, wanting to hear the whole story.
“How did you meet?” he asked.
“In church,” said Houser.
I wanted to puke.
He was in the row behind her and across. She was sitting with her mother, and she kept turning to look at him, until their eyes met. He smiled at her, thinking no more than she was a teen-ager bored to death. She smiled back, a mischievous grin. They did things with their eyes, silent sarcastic commentary to whatever was going on in the Sunday ritual. He was there alone, a shaky believer, half out of habit, half out of fear. She was there because her mother dragged her along, though she shared some of the devotion, and a little of the fear. It was a harmless game they played, an adult and a child in an amusing conspiracy.
A week passed. He thought about her as he worked on computer systems. He was experienced with UNIX, AIX, HPUX, LINUX, all those things. He had a girlfriend, Clare, a tenured middle school Spanish teacher, who wanted to get married. She was twenty-nine and not at all unattractive, with rich red hair and a soft plump body and a sense of humor and a big heart and a good head on her shoulders. Houser was anxious that he would eventually marry her.
The next Sunday, in church, he changed his seat so that he better would be in that funny teen-age girl’s line of vision and they could play their game of smiles and looks. Each Sunday after, he made sure to arrive just at the start of the processional hymn and to find a seat close to hers.
One Sunday, after the service, while her mother was chatting on the steps of the church with the pastor, and Houser was standing at a distance watching, the girl came to him, and her walk was girlish and enchanting, and her yellow hair was in the breeze, and her lips were curled in a conspiratorial grin, and all she said was, “Hi,” and all he said back was, “Hi,” and he was gone, in her control, captured by her youth and beauty and innocenc
e. It was a moment he had never imagined and had no defenses against. He adored her.
Before long, she was visiting him at his apartment, in the evenings and on weekends, and that is where Clare discovered them together and was outraged, first confronting Charles, who admitted he was powerless against the charms of this young girl, and soon after filing a report with the police. He was arrested and released on five-thousand dollars bail, put up by his parents. Stacey was at his apartment when he returned, telling him she could not live without him. They ran.