The front door banged, and George was in the room. All I could see were his shoes. Becker hauled me to my feet by my arm, none too gently, giving me an angry little shake when I pulled away from him.
“Polly! What’s going on?” George said. “Detective Becker. What are you doing?”
“Pauline Deacon, you are under arrest for assaulting a police officer,” Becker said. Finally, he was smiling.
Twenty-Three
She plays his love
like a practice violin,
cold precision, some small art in
her continual adjustment of his tension.
—Shepherd’s Pie
It took some negotiating to get Becker to remove the handcuffs. George was diplomatic, but it was obvious that he was as pissed with me as Becker was. They both treated me as if I wasn’t there. Beckers eyebrow-cut had opened up again. I guess that was my fault. The handcuffs pinched, and I stared at the ceiling, thinking about how wicked they made me feel. I was a criminal. A dangerous offender. A police officer had needed to restrain me. They made me feel ashamed and oddly exultant at the same time. It was very weird.
“…can overlook it because she was reacting to shock,” George was saying.
“She knew damn well what she was doing when she hit me,” Becker said.
“It was perhaps a reaction to the sedative,” George said.
“It’s a reaction to the police acting like fucking idiots,” I said.
“Polly, be quiet!” George almost never raised his voice. I shut up.
“I can release her into your custody,” Becker said, “but you’ve got to make sure she behaves herself. No more sticking her nose into police business.” I was outraged. What was I? A child? George had no jurisdiction over me, and he knew it, but there he was, nodding and looking sorrowful, like I was a kid caught shoplifting. I swallowed my anger and looked at the floor.
“Turn around, please, Polly.” I did as I was told, and Becker removed the cuffs. I massaged my wrists, just like they do in the movies. It’s not because the handcuffs cut off the circulation, I discovered. You massage your wrists because you can.
“You will be doing an autopsy, yes?” George said, as Becker headed for the door.
Becker turned and glared. “Whether or not we do an autopsy is our business, Mr. Hoito.” He paused, and then took a step towards me. Involuntarily, I took a step back.
He spoke very quietly. “I am willing, for now, to overlook this incident, but I won’t forget it. If I hear anything, anything at all about you doing any more nosing around this case, I will assume that you are willing to face the consequences of your actions in their entirety. With drug-possession and assault charges, you could face a prison sentence. Remember that, Polly.” Then he left, ignoring Lug-nut on the porch, who had missed the excitement and still wanted to be his friend.
George stared at me, his eyes wide. “Drug possession?”
I blushed. “I offered him a toke last night,” I said. George burst out laughing.
“Polly, Polly, Polly,” he said.
“I thought it was okay,” I said. “He freaked out.”
“There are times when I must seriously question your sanity,” he said.
“Me too.”
“So. How are we going to discover who killed John and Francy Travers?” George said. I hugged him, hard. Poe cawed, flapped his wings and landed with a thump on my shoulder. I gasped and felt immediately taller, more important. I held out a finger, and by God, he nibbled it. My eyes teared up. Animals. They can do magic, sometimes.
We sat down at the kitchen table and started making a list. Poe stayed on my shoulder like a new guardian angel, and his sudden acceptance made my heart hurt.
“Here,” George said, handing me a pencil and a scrap of paper. “You must write things down as we think of them. I shall make the tea and be Hercule Poirot.”
“Who do I get to be?”
George looked me over.
“Miss Marple?”
“Hardly. She was terribly proper.”
“Reid Bennett?” (He’s the Ted Wood cop-character who owns Sam, the Wonder-dog. George reads whodunits too.)
“George, I didn’t shoot Becker or break his jaw. I only hit him a couple of times. Anyway, Lug-nut will never be a Sam.”
“Nancy Drew, then. No. Nancy Druid.”
“That’s better.”
“Good,” George said. “Now, how is this to start? Number one. Somebody shot John after Eddie and Francy left the Travers’ house, some time after eight o’clock.”
“Right,” I said, writing it down. “And the weapon may or may not have been John’s own gun.”
“You saw it in John’s truck, yes?”
“I saw what I thought might have been a gun barrel. There’s no proof, because someone removed it before the cops got there.”
“What does that tell us?”
“That whoever took the gun away knew that I had found the truck, I guess.”
“Maybe, but that is only speculation. It may have been a coincidence.”
“True. Anyway, Eddie saw me coming out of the garage and told everyone at that holy rollers meeting that I was there, so anybody could have known.”
“Do you think the holy rollers are involved?”
“I don’t think so. They’re a weird bunch, for sure. Otis and Donna-Lou especially. And the Schreiers. But murder? I hardly think so. But people gossip around here, eh? The news about me was out.”
George brought tea to the table and pulled up a chair. “We know that the killer took John’s body to the dump, because we found it the next morning,” he said.
“Well, we don’t know that it was the killer who moved the body,” I said. “It could have been an accomplice.”
“And it might have been someone working with Freddy, because Freddy hit Spit Morton on the head to get him out of the way,” George said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said. “Freddy and Spit could just have had an argument that had nothing to do with the murder at all.”
“We are not getting very far,” George said. “What do we know for certain?”
“Somebody hid John’s truck in his garage. We know that for sure. And covered it up so it would be hard to find. And there was blood in the truck, so we sort of know that John’s body was in there at some point.”
“Good. Put that down.”
“And I’m also going to put down what I know for sure. That Francy didn’t kill John, or herself.”
George put his hand on my arm. “How can you be sure, child?” he said. “I know you have always had trust in her, but she was unstable, was she not?”
“I