Homicide My Own by Anne Argula Page A

who they were talking to. The killer stood on that side. They talked to him. Then Jeannie clutched Jimmy’s arm, so hard she left bruises there.”
    Jimmy?
    Odd’s hands seemed to clutch at an imaginary arm, and they trembled. They were out of his control, shaking in the air, clutching to nothing. His eyes glazed over. There was a terror on his face I had never seen before. In fact, it was no longer his face. That expression of fear did not, could not, come from Odd Gunderson. I was standing where the killer would have been, and so he was looking at me, and never in my life have I engendered such fear in another human being, but, of course, it wasn’t me. It was whoever Odd was seeing where I was standing.
    “Who are you looking at? “ I asked him. “What’s his name? Odd? Odd? Who is it?”
    When I said his name, his head jerked sideways in an involuntary spasm, and he was back. The face was Odd’s again.
    “Something’s wrong,” he said.
    Across the hood of the car, I looked at the old Indian who had brought us here, Drinkwater, and I thought I saw in him the flash of recognition.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    10.
 
 
    I made the decision I was in the better condition to drive, and so I did, back to the part of the island under county jurisdiction. Our old Indian guide wanted to show take us himself to Karl’s Auto Repair, but I settled for directions instead. I told him, politely, to get on with the rest of his day.
    The garage was easy to find. Seven cars were parked outside and two were up on lifts, a mechanic under each of them.
    “Which one is Karl?” I asked Odd, as we approached, half-testing, half already believing that of course he’d know.
    “How should I know?” he said.
    “Karl Gutshall?” I asked, when we got to the open bays.
    The tall one on the right turned and came out from under the lift, looking us over. He wore greasy coveralls baggy in the butt and a gimme cap backwards on his head. He was my age. I noticed both the little and ring fingers of his left hand were missing. I wondered if anyone around here was still in one piece, and if we would be by the time we got off this damn island.
    “What can I do for you?” he asked.
    “We’re from out of town.”
    “From the looks of your vehicle I would guess you’re also cops.”
    “Oh, yeah, that too.”
    “Where’re you from?”
    “Spokane,” I said.
    He took off the cap and crumpled it into his back pocket. His hair was long, unkempt, and black. He was tall and stooped a bit and sad.
    “But we’re not here as cops,” I said.
    “Or maybe we are,” said Odd.
    “Odd, you got something you want to ask this man, as a police officer?”
    “No, Quinn, you go ahead.”
    “Or otherwise?”
    “Not just yet.”
    Odd might have needed to stand back and look at him for awhile. After all, it was possible that this grease monkey had been his boyfriend in another life, thirtysome years ago. Something like that happened to me once, in the real world, when I went back to Pennsylvania to bury my mother and met up again with my high school boyfriend, “Our Johnny.” Let me tell you, it was a major jolt. How’d he get so heavy? Where did all that rich wavy hair go? What were those gin blossoms doing on his nose? In Karl’s case, I’d be wondering, how’d he lose those two fingers?
    “We’ve just come from the Coyotes, you know them?” I asked him.
    “Know them all. Which ones?”
    “The old ones, David and his wife.”
    “Sure, I know them. Jimmy’s folks.”
    “Jimmy’s folks, right. We talked about this and that, sitting on their porch, threw a ball for the dog, and then we looked at Jimmy’s old four-by…they still have it, you know.”
    “Yeah, tribals can’t sell a car somebody’s died in.”
    “Anyway, we bounced around a couple ideas about how Jimmy and Jeannie wound up murdered…”
    “You’re here for that ?”
    “No, we’re here on an entirely different matter, but since we