Bonnie Lamb did a poor job of masking her doubt. Skink peered sternly. “I didn’t kill that fellow, Mrs Lamb. But I damn sure wouldn’t tell you if I had.”
“I believe you. I do.”
The governor finished the coffee and asked for another cup. He told Bonnie it was the best he’d ever tasted. “And I like your boy,” he said, gesturing toward the wall of skulls. “I like what he’s done with the place.”
Bonnie said: “He’s not my boy. Just a friend.”
Skink nodded. “We all need one of those.” With difficulty he rolled out of bed and began stripping off his wet clothes. Jim Tile led him to the shower and started the water. When the trooper returned, carrying the governor’s plastic cap, he asked Bonnie Lamb what her husband intended to do.
“He wants to prosecute.” She sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the shower run.
Augustine came into the room and said, “Well?”
“I can arrest him tonight,” Jim Tile told Bonnie, “if your husband comes to the substation and files charges. What happens then is up to the State Attorney.”
“You’d do that-arrest your own friend?”
“Better me than a stranger,” the trooper said. “Don’t feel bad about this, Mrs Lamb. Your husband’s got every right.”
“Yes, I know.” Prosecuting the governor was the right thing-a person couldn’t be allowed to run around kidnapping tourists, no matter how offensively they behaved. Yet Bonnie was saddened by the idea of Skink’s going to jail. It was naive, she knew, but that’s how she felt.
Jim Tile was questioning Augustine about the skulls on the wall. “Cuban voodoo?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Nineteen is what I count,” the trooper said. “I won’t ask where you got ’em. They’re too clean for homicides.”
Bonnie Lamb said, “They’re medical specimens.”
“Whatever you say.” After twenty years of attending head-on collisions, Jim Tile had a well-earned aversion to human body parts. “Specimens it is,” he said.
Augustine removed five of the skulls from the shelves and lined them up on the hardwood floor, at his feet. Then he picked up three and began to juggle.
The trooper said, “I’ll be damned.”
As he juggled, Augustine thought about the drunken young fool who tried to shoot his uncle’s Cape buffalo. What a sad, dumb way to die. Fluidly he snatched a fourth skull off the floor and put it in rotation; then the fifth.
Bonnie Lamb found herself smiling at the performance in spite of its creepiness. The governor emerged from the shower in a cloud of steam, naked except for a sky-blue towel around his neck. His thick silver hair sent snaky tails of water down his chest. He used a corner of the towel to dab the condensation off his glass eye. He beamed when he saw Augustine’s juggling.
Jim Tile felt dizzy, watching the skulls fly. Max Lamb appeared in the doorway. His expression instantly changed from curiosity to revulsion, as if a switch had
been flipped inside his head. Bonnie knew what he was going to say before the words left his lips: “You think this is funny?”
Augustine continued juggling. It was unclear whether he, or the governor’s nudity, was the object of Max / Lamb’s disapproval.
The trooper said, “It’s been a long night, man.”
“Bonnie, we’re leaving.” Max’s tone was patronizing and snarky. “Did you hear me? Playtime is over.”
She was infuriated that her husband would speak to her that way in front of strangers. She stormed from the room.
“Oh, Max?” Skink, wearing a sly smile, touched a finger to his own throat. Max Lamb’s neck tingled the old Tri-Tronics tingle. He jumped reflexively, banging against the door.
From the backpack Skink retrieved Max’s billfold and the keys to the rental car. He dropped them in Max’s hand. Max mumbled a thank-you and went after Bonnie.
Augustine stopped juggling, catching the skulls one by one. Carefully he returned them to their place on the wall.
The governor tugged the towel from his neck and began drying his arms and legs. “I like that girl,” he said to Augustine. “How about you?”
“What’s not to like.”
“You’ve got a big decision to make.”