Pink couldn’t understand how she could see anything in Elmer. They were different as a beaver and boll weevil. “I was in Louden’s office the other day and I didn’t see you there.”
“Yeah, I know. Elmer called me from the squad car and told me they were bringing you into the station,” she said. “I . . . I didn’t want to see you.”
“Why?”
“Too many bad memories . . . you know, with Isabelle and all. Then there was all the talk about . . . you know, incest and all, and all the looks at the damn grocery store. And Kenny, he rode me all the time about fucking my own brother. He’d try to use it against me. He’d say, ‘Well, hell, Claire, why not try some anal? Christ, you slept with your own damn brother. I’d think you’d be up for some experimentation.’ The way Kenny talked to me was just . . . cruel. But Elmer didn’t care about any of the talk and rumors and bullshit.”
Claire wiped her eyes, and Pink felt like he was caught up in one of them reality shows he hated so much.
“But when the call came in today that they found a skeleton up at your old place, I knew there was going to be trouble.”
“What?” Pink said. “A damn skeleton? Well, I’ll be damned.” What was even more disturbing than the thought of a skeleton at his old cabin was the look of fear on Claire’s face.
“Pink, you said they’d never find her.”
Pink jerked back like he’d been slapped. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Don’t do this, Pink! You know what I’m talking about. Isabelle’s body. You said you put it where no one would ever find it! Well they did . . . and . . .”
“This is crazy shit . . . Claire . . . what is everybody drinking around here? Lulu told me the same damn thing. I never killed Isabelle . . . and I never did anything with her body!”
Claire’s face registered shock, then disbelief. “You really don’t remember, do you?” she said.
“No, that’s what I been trying to tell you, for Christ’s sake. This is all apeshit crazy talk. I never killed Isabelle!”
Claire paused a moment before she spoke. “I know you didn’t, Pink. I did. You just said you’d hide the body.”
Pink felt himself swirling on some lopsided axis, as if it could spin right off into the lake. “What do you mean you killed Isabelle? Why? I don’t understand any of this.” Pink said.
Claire tried to explain about the night Isabelle had called her into the bedroom, yelling at her about sleeping with Pink, about Pink’s birth and Ida, how they were siblings.
“It crushed me hearing her say those things,” Claire said. “I was so ashamed. Then Isabelle lit into me again, commenced to calling me a whore and a tramp, and she said, ‘If Pink turns you into a family woman, you’ll give birth to a bastard double-cousin. Then where will you be?’ And, Pink, I was so hurt and so angry, and Isabelle sat there with her damn sickly eyes and that smug face, judging me, demeaning me . . . and . . . and all the while she knew, Pink, she knew and never said a word . . . never said a word about you being my brother . . . just let me carry on and I . . . I just lost control . . . I went into her room after she fell asleep with her potions and her oils and her high-brow-better-than-anyone-else bullshit, and I pushed that damn pillow into her ugly face until she stopped moving.”
Claire fell against the steering wheel crying, pounding the dashboard with her fist. Pink tried to console her, but she wasn’t the same person he had been with only a week earlier. After several minutes, Claire regained composure. She sniffled and looked at Pink, her eyes so red Pink couldn’t find the color there anymore. “You came back to the house that night,” she said, sniffling, wiping her nose. “I have no idea why. The next morning when I woke up, Isabelle’s body was gone. Some of that is still a blur, but a couple of days after that, you told me to call Louden and tell him that Isabelle was missing. You told me to tell Louden that you and Isabelle had a huge row the night before, and that I hadn’t seen Isabelle since. I don’t know why you were so willing to take the blame for what I’d done, but I loved you for being there for me. And I’ve never forgotten.” She reached across and touched Pink’s cheek. Tears came again.
Pink placed his hand over hers.
“They’re coming for you now, Pink, and I don’t want you punished for what I done. So you need to go to the station with me, and we’ll tell them I killed Isabelle and hid her body at your cabin.”
Pink was trying to parse all this information, all of it so foreign to his ears his mind was going cattywompus on him. He recalled everything Lulu had told him, all of it sounding like the rant of the criminally insane a few nights ago. Now he wasn’t so sure. Claire was convinced that these events had taken place. Maybe they had. Maybe Isabelle was dead. Was that her skeleton they’d found at his cabin? He thought about Michelle Stage, her troublesome questions about Isabelle. Her accusations about him killing Isabelle. Where had she gotten that notion? Things were adding up but made no sense. Something was off-kilter, that was for sure. But Claire’s fear was real and serious, and there was no doubt there.
“That will never work, Claire. Nobody’s ever gonna believe you could haul Isabelle’s body to my cabin and bury it,” Pink said. “Besides, you don’t even know where I put her. Hell, if you don’t know that, they’re never gonna buy one word of your story.”
“Elmer’ll tell me where they found the body, Pink. He’ll believe me.”
“No, Claire. I’ll tell Elmer exactly where the body was found, before you even have a chance to ask him, and your story won’t amount to a hill of beans. And if you tell him you killed Isabelle, well, that’s just stupid—there’s no reason for both of us going down for her murder. They’ll arrest me anyway for—I don’t know what they call it—but for burying the body. I’d be an accomplice. Besides, Isabelle’s deception was eating her alive. Hell, you probably done her a favor,” Pink said, then kissed her cheek. “I love you, Cuddle Cakes.”
“You know I still hate that name, don’t you?” Claire said, showing a faint smile and wiping her cheek.
“I know,“ Pink said. Pink wasn’t sure about much of anything anymore, but one thing was sure—he loved her.
“Pink, you can’t . . .”
“Claire, now don’t grab the wrong end of the poker on this, I mean it. You let Louden and his boys try to hunt me down. Hell, I know Louden, he’s a terrible damn hunter—no instincts—he ain’t never gonna catch up to me.”
Pink opened the door and got out of the car. “I mean it, Claire. You take care of that baby and keep your mouth shut. If you have guilt over Isabelle’s death, you’re just gonna have to bear it. Can you do that, Claire? Can you just bear it? For Elmer? For that baby inside you?”