their case…" I said.
"We'd be up the creek without a paddle. Yeah. One way or another, they'd connect Dog to that safety deposit box, and that would be that. Even if they couldn't pin Bettis's murder on him, the boy's committed enough other crimes to get himself put away for fifteen years. And us about half that for covering up for him."
He let me think that over for a while, knowing I could sit there for an hour and never come up with any line of discussion to counter his reasoning. He was right. Dog had put us all in a very precarious position, and there was no greater evidence of that than the photographs and line drawing I held in my hands. The longer they were in our possession, the longer they represented a threat to our freedom; rather than pore over them like Sherlock Holmes inspecting a heel print, I should have lowered a side window thirty miles back and tossed the whole works Onto the highway.
And yet…
"What are you thinking?" Big Joe asked. I'd been silent for several minutes now, and he'd apparently seen something in my expression he didn't like.
I turned to face him. "What?"
"I said, what are you thinking? I can see and hear the wheels turnin' from here."
"What wheels?"
"We've gotta get rid of that stuff, Dottie. Soon as we get into Flagstaff. You understand? We should've never kept it around this long."
"I thought you wanted to know what I was thinking."
"I've reconsidered. J\Ien can do that too, you know."
"I was just thinking that maybe there's a way to insure ourselves against prosecution if worse comes to worse and, God forbid, they do come looking for us."
"Yeah? And what way is that?"
"Well, by finding out what this means." I lifted the photos and drawing off my lap to gesture with. "How it's important."
"Nobody said it was important but you, Dottie."
"I know, I know. But if I'm right, and it did turn out to be important, and they were slapping the handcuffs on us… well, I just thought it might be a point for our side if we could tell them how this all fits in. You know, how it points to Bettis's murderer."
'They already have Bettis's murderer," Joe said.
"Do they? They have a man who was driving around in his car, yes, and a gun that mayor may not have been the one used on Bettis. But that doesn't mean they have Bettis's murderer. Does it?"
"Dottie—"
"Look, baby," I said, raising my voice to be heard above the din of Bad Dog's snoring. "All I'm saying is, we're going to be down there in Flagstaff anyway, right? What can it hurt for us to look up Bettis's address in the phone book so we can pay our respects to his widow?"
Big Joe gave me a long, thoroughly disapproving look, and then stopped talking to me altogether.
I took that to mean okay.
* * * *
Naturally, less than an hour later, Joe found something about Lucille to complain about.
As one might have predicted, the Coconino County Sheriff's Department forensics team had decided to start their dismantling work in our trailer's bathroom, since that, after all, was where Geoffry Bettis had died. Joe and I had been relieved to learn that the bathroom was as far as they had had time to get, but that turned out to be small consolation to Joe the first time he tried to flush Lucille's chemical toilet. It seemed the lab technicians who dismantled it had reinstalled a rubber seal improperly, so that the bowl was leaking water from something Joe kept referring to as "the mechanism." No one, including myself, had noticed the leak but him. Which was typical.
It was well after one in the afternoon before he was happy with Lucille's condition. While Bad Dog and I sat around drinking coffee and assorted canned sodas, Joe reassembled the toilet bowl himself before proceeding to inspect every inch of our trailer for similar nerve-grating flaws, paying no heed at all to the lab boys' constant assurances that nothing outside of Lucille's bathroom had been touched.
Throughout this ordeal, Detectives Crowe and
"We'd be up the creek without a paddle. Yeah. One way or another, they'd connect Dog to that safety deposit box, and that would be that. Even if they couldn't pin Bettis's murder on him, the boy's committed enough other crimes to get himself put away for fifteen years. And us about half that for covering up for him."
He let me think that over for a while, knowing I could sit there for an hour and never come up with any line of discussion to counter his reasoning. He was right. Dog had put us all in a very precarious position, and there was no greater evidence of that than the photographs and line drawing I held in my hands. The longer they were in our possession, the longer they represented a threat to our freedom; rather than pore over them like Sherlock Holmes inspecting a heel print, I should have lowered a side window thirty miles back and tossed the whole works Onto the highway.
And yet…
"What are you thinking?" Big Joe asked. I'd been silent for several minutes now, and he'd apparently seen something in my expression he didn't like.
I turned to face him. "What?"
"I said, what are you thinking? I can see and hear the wheels turnin' from here."
"What wheels?"
"We've gotta get rid of that stuff, Dottie. Soon as we get into Flagstaff. You understand? We should've never kept it around this long."
"I thought you wanted to know what I was thinking."
"I've reconsidered. J\Ien can do that too, you know."
"I was just thinking that maybe there's a way to insure ourselves against prosecution if worse comes to worse and, God forbid, they do come looking for us."
"Yeah? And what way is that?"
"Well, by finding out what this means." I lifted the photos and drawing off my lap to gesture with. "How it's important."
"Nobody said it was important but you, Dottie."
"I know, I know. But if I'm right, and it did turn out to be important, and they were slapping the handcuffs on us… well, I just thought it might be a point for our side if we could tell them how this all fits in. You know, how it points to Bettis's murderer."
'They already have Bettis's murderer," Joe said.
"Do they? They have a man who was driving around in his car, yes, and a gun that mayor may not have been the one used on Bettis. But that doesn't mean they have Bettis's murderer. Does it?"
"Dottie—"
"Look, baby," I said, raising my voice to be heard above the din of Bad Dog's snoring. "All I'm saying is, we're going to be down there in Flagstaff anyway, right? What can it hurt for us to look up Bettis's address in the phone book so we can pay our respects to his widow?"
Big Joe gave me a long, thoroughly disapproving look, and then stopped talking to me altogether.
I took that to mean okay.
* * * *
Naturally, less than an hour later, Joe found something about Lucille to complain about.
As one might have predicted, the Coconino County Sheriff's Department forensics team had decided to start their dismantling work in our trailer's bathroom, since that, after all, was where Geoffry Bettis had died. Joe and I had been relieved to learn that the bathroom was as far as they had had time to get, but that turned out to be small consolation to Joe the first time he tried to flush Lucille's chemical toilet. It seemed the lab technicians who dismantled it had reinstalled a rubber seal improperly, so that the bowl was leaking water from something Joe kept referring to as "the mechanism." No one, including myself, had noticed the leak but him. Which was typical.
It was well after one in the afternoon before he was happy with Lucille's condition. While Bad Dog and I sat around drinking coffee and assorted canned sodas, Joe reassembled the toilet bowl himself before proceeding to inspect every inch of our trailer for similar nerve-grating flaws, paying no heed at all to the lab boys' constant assurances that nothing outside of Lucille's bathroom had been touched.
Throughout this ordeal, Detectives Crowe and
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