Free Homicide My Own by Anne Argula Page A

blown off his head.”
    Woi Yesus again. I was an abbreviated boo away from flinging off my clothes and running naked through the rain.
    I collected Odd at the end of the counter and told him we had to get outside or else I was going to disappear in a flash of flame. On the sidewalk I saw that he had the old Indian man in tow, his hand under his arm, half guiding, half supporting.
    “He says he knows me…from before.”
    Woi Yesus a third time.
    “Where are we taking him?”
    “He’s taking us.”
 
    The old man had to sit in the back, in the cage, but it seemed to make no great difference to him. He was secure in his cosmic innocence. To worry about him talking off your ear had to be another of Frank’s lame jokes, because he didn’t say anything, except to direct us, finally to one more dirt road that dipped into a wetlands, though the whole island seemed wetlands to me. When we got to where we were going, the drizzle stopped and the sun broke through. I put on my shades.
    A large black mongrel with wet matted hair barked menacingly at our arrival, out of a sense of duty, apparently, because he seemed happy to see us once we alit from the car, his tail wagging, his head down for a pat. A cat on the porch licked her paw. A rooster and his harem of hens scratched about within leaping distance of the cat but were unafraid.
    Old man Drinkwater asked us to wait while he went inside.
    It was a poor house, one tiny room added to another over the years, one shed of plywood and sheet metal constructed after another, as the need arose and the materials afforded. I had been measuring my breath ever since getting out of the car. Now standing there, looking at the house, waiting for its occupants, I was pretty much holding it in. In spite of the face I’d been putting on, I had all but bought into Odd’s experience. Maybe later I would be able to sort out some other explanation, but for the moment I was swept up into it and it was hard not to believe that Odd had led another life, and it had been on this ground.
    Earlier I warned him that he could have been the number one suspect. It never occurred to me, until that moment, at the Coyote house, that he might have been the victim. I watched him for any signs of recognition. I didn’t see any. The dog had certainly taken to him, rubbing up against his leg as Odd roughed up his ear, and he was an old dog, but he was not that old.
    “Odd? What are we supposed to say to these people?”
    “I was hoping you’d know. You’re senior.”
    Before I could smack him upside the head, Drinkwater came out with a couple almost as old as he. They were rail thin, the woman from wear, the man from disease. A hose connected his nostrils to a tank of oxygen he moved with a hand truck. This was an island of infirms, I thought. They looked at us from the porch and we looked at them from the yard until our host waved us feebly to join them on the porch, where there was enough seating to accommodate a small pow-wow: a rusty metal glider, several plastic molded chairs, chaise lounges made from rubber tubing, a few overturned milk crates, and a bench seat from an old pickup, the terrycloth seat covers still on it. This was the most comfortable spot and was offered to Odd and me. You had to lower yourself to one knee to get on it, then stretch your legs out in front.
    I don’t know what old Drinkwater had told them, I don’t know what he knew or what went on between him and Odd while I was hosing myself down in the ladies’ room. We sat on the porch and said nothing for some moments, watching the vapor rise from the back of the black dog as the newly emerged sun hit it.
    The old dog broke the ice by bringing a soggy tennis ball and dropping it at Odd’s feet. He threw it over the porch railing and the dog leaped after it.
    “Now you’re in for it,” said Mr. Coyote.
    “They’re from Spokane,” said our guide.
    “We used to go there, to dance,” said Mr. Coyote.
    I had decided, for once, I