Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (15 page)

-- ==+== --

"What's for supper?" Earl asked in his friendliest voice. "I was hoping you might make your special chicken and dumplings, but if you've got another idea, why, that's mighty fine with me."

"Heat up a can of chili," Eilene said, and not by a long shot in her friendliest voice. "I'm too worried about Kevin to cook."

"You know how he is, honey -- too dumb to find his way home or to even realize how he's got you all worried. When he does drag his sorry excuse for a tail home, I'll take him out to the workshop and give him a horse dose of education with my belt. But there's no point in making ourselves sick by eating stuff out of cans. You're the best cook in the county. My mouth waters every time I think about your fluffy dumplings."

"Don't try to butter me up with that sweet talk. You can eat canned stuff or eat nothing at all. It matters not one whit to me, Earl Buchanon. My days of leaping to my feet when you say boo are over, and over for good. If you want a slave, go buy yourself one. I ain't for sale."

Eilene turned on her heel and walked right out of the room, leaving Earl standing there dumbstruck. He figured she would have gotten back to normal by now, since that smarmy feminist had caused the bank to burn and had therefore been obliged to slink away in disgrace and to leave all the women to act like wives instead of loud-mouthed Communists.

He called Jeremiah McIlhaney on the pretext of talking deer season and slyly asked how things were over there. Jeremiah seemed real proud of the fact Millicent was baking bread, but then admitted he'd had to promise to take her to the picture show all the way in Farberville and have gussied-up ice cream sundaes afterward. Earl curled his lip but didn't say anything to Jeremiah except it sounded like fun. He called Larry Joe and tried the same routine. Larry Joe's voice got squirmy, and he finally said Joyce was still ticked off so bad she was refusing to do laundry or cook or much of anything except announce she was going to watch some movie on the television set that night, right when Roy had planned to settle down in front of a football game with a six-pack and a bag of nacho-flavored Doritos he'd bought for the occasion.

Earl made some more calls, but the reports were pretty much the same. The women were still acting screwy and showing no signs of easing up. As far as he could tell, Eilene was going to stand at the living room window until Kevin came home. She didn't care if Earl starved to death, or ran out of clean underwear, or had to match his socks himself.

"What the hell is the world comin' to?" he muttered out loud.

In the living room Eilene heard his plaintive remark but she saw no reason to enlighten him.

-- ==+== --

Carolyn came into the bar just as Staci Ellen was reaching the best part of her story about Bruno's bowling team's so-called picnic, when one of the boys had flung a Frisbee at a wasp nest just to show how tough he was. Ruby Bee and Estelle both sighed as Carolyn said, "Good, you're here. Give me a rundown on what's been happening at the office, then you can take the suitcases around back to our rooms."

Staci Ellen thought of all sorts of barbed remarks but decided there was something to the business about discretion and the better part of valor. "The mail's on the table. There were no visitors and only two telephone messages. I wrote them down exactly how they were dictated."

"I'm glad you're learning," Carolyn said as she riffled the mail. "Just tell me who called and the essence of the messages."

"The caller's name was Monty. He said an anonymous person sent his wife a letter detailing your affair with him, and also called the hotel in Las Vegas last night and left a lengthy message with the desk clerk. Then this Monty started cussing up a storm and calling you all sorts of nasty names like -- "

"Never mind, Staci Ellen," Carolyn said abruptly, looking a little warm despite the fact she was below a vent. She gave Ruby Bee and Estelle a strangled smile and suggested Staci Ellen take the suitcases to their rooms. Immediately.

Ruby Bee dived in. "Is Monty your boyfriend?"

"No, he's merely a colleague who's delusional at times. He really ought to be disbarred and committed to a nice quiet place with padded walls and designer straitjackets," Carolyn said, regaining some if not all of her poise as she imagined Staci Ellen with her lips stitched up in a zigzag pattern. "Have you heard anything new from Arly?"

Ruby Bee poured Carolyn a glass of iced tea and one for herself. "There hasn't been a peep from Arly, but Elsie McMay said she saw Arly driving out of town, and that Johnna Mae Nookim was sitting in the front seat looking despondent."

"We think Arly was taking Johnna Mae to the county jail," Estelle contributed. There wasn't any reason Ruby Bee deserved all the fun, so she added, "This Monty fellow sounds crazier than a loon, but I'll bet you've got all sorts of boyfriends down there in Little Rock."

"I'm too involved in my work to waste time engaging in sexist mating rituals. If I wish to have a male companion for dinner or an evening at the theater, I simply invite him. All expenses are divided evenly."

"Isn't that nice?" Ruby Bee said, thinking it was the silliest thing she'd heard in all her born days. "Is that what you did back in college too?"

"I've never allowed a man to think he's entitled to sexual gratification because he's invested money in me."

"But things were different back in college, weren't they?" Ruby Bee persisted (to Estelle's disgust, since she couldn't get a word in). "Didn't you say you attended the state college?"

Carolyn's eyes narrowed. "I don't think I mentioned where I attended undergraduate school or law school. In the face of the complexity of organizing the demonstration and coordinating the media, it didn't seem relevant."

"So where did you go?" Estelle said briskly.

"I went to the state university."

Ruby Bee jabbed Estelle. "What an amazing coincidence! Isn't that where Brandon Bernswallow said he went?" She put on her most amazed expression. "Wouldn't it be something if you two had known each other? It'd just go to prove it's a small world."

"A real small world," Estelle said, rubbing her arm.

Carolyn looked thoughtfully at them for a long while. "Then I suppose the world is a little bigger than you imagine it is," she said. "If Bernswallow was at school when I was, I never met him. He would hardly have been my type. Those fraternity boys are obsessed with alcohol and sex. I spent my time in the law library or in my apartment. I preferred lectures to toga parties. I think I'll call the jail and find out if Johnna Mae has been booked. If she has, I'll take Staci Ellen with me and go there for a conference with the county prosecutor. I still feel some responsibility for Johnna Mae, so I will offer to represent her gratis. I would imagine the level of legal expertise around here is well below the low-tide mark."

When Carolyn was gone, Estelle glared at Ruby Bee and said, "Well, that didn't accomplish anything, did it? You might have tried to be a little bit subtle, Miss Bulldozer. She was real suspicious after you started chirping your head off about small worlds."

"And you don't think they're a might suspicious in the registrar's office? First you hold your nose and talk like a June bug flew up it, and then you start spouting off all that foolish stuff. The attorney general doesn't put people in jail and throw away the key on his own say-so."

"Then just what does he do?" Estelle countered, seizing the offense.

Ruby Bee regretted her remark, but it was too late now. "Everybody knows what the attorney general does, for pity's sake. He's sort of like the head of all the attorneys in the state. Now, how are we going to figure out why Carolyn underlined Brandon Bernswallow's name in Johnna Mae's letter?"

"She's not going to tell us and Bernswallow couldn't if he wanted to," Estelle said, putting her elbows on the bar and cupping her chin in her hands. "Staci Ellen doesn't know. That woman at the registrar's office was as tight-lipped as Mrs. Jim Bob at a temperance meeting. I don't -- "

"Wait a minute. You said Bernswallow couldn't tell us if he wanted to," Ruby Bee said excitedly.

"That's because he's dead. You don't think you can converse with the dead, do you? I remember you acted pretty strange when the psychic set up shop and rambled on and on about how sensitive and perceptive you were, but I presumed you were over that nonsense. Maybe I'm wrong."

"I acted strange? Who wore nothing but aquamarine for five months in hopes of meeting a foreigner with a mustache?"

Ruby Bee gave Estelle a moment to huff and puff, then said, "What I meant was that we could go to the Bernswallow house to offer our condolences."

"You mean make an innocent neighborly call?"

"I'll bake something for us to take," Ruby Bee said, her eyes glazing over, "and they'll have to invite us in to visit. One of us can drop Carolyn's name and see if Brandon's parents recognize it. They might say Brandon and Carolyn used to date or have classes together."

Estelle nibbled her lip while she thought it over. "You know what? You ought to make Elsie's green bean casserole with the water chestnuts." They started a grocery list.

-- ==+== --

"Kevvvin!" Dahlia called, staring so hard at the undergrowth her eyeballs hurt. "Where are yoooo?"

A turkey vulture who'd been watching her flapped away with a disappointed squawk.

Dahlia unwrapped another sandwich. Even late in the afternoon it was hot as it could be, and it wasn't any picnic having to sit on a hard, bumpy log and holler every few minutes. To make things worse, she'd seriously underestimated the number of sandwiches she needed to sustain her on her search for Kevin. She was already out of bananas, and she hadn't even been in the woods more than a couple of hours.

She opened the garbage bag and stuck her head in it to find out just how sorry her predicament was. Low on bologna sandwiches and down to two of the ham salad. Only one of those chocolate cream-filled cupcakes with the squiggly line of white icing.

She didn't know how she could have made such a bad judgment call. She pulled her head out to holler Kevin's name, then glumly returned it and tried to see if there wasn't another cupcake hiding in the bottom or lost in the sandwiches. There wasn't even a spare crumb.

Kevin surely would have heard her by now and come stumbling out of the bushes to fling himself at her, his dear little eyes brimming with tears of gratitude for her faithful diligence. He'd fall right into her lap and try to express all that gratitude by showering her with kisses and compliments. It occurred to Dahlia that it might be prudent to set the garbage bag on the ground behind the log, since there wasn't any reason to smash perfectly good sandwiches and that last cupcake.

But she let the bag remain in her lap, considering the remote possibility that Kevin wasn't going to stumble and be grateful because he just might not be in the area. He sure hadn't answered thus far, and you'd think he would have. And if he wasn't around, then he wasn't going to fall on top of her and therefore there was no reason to worry about him smashing her provisions.

Feeling a good deal brighter, Dahlia left the bag in her lap and began groping around for the cupcake.

-- ==+== --

"Maggody? Where the fuck's Maggody? I've never fucking heard of Maggody," Bruno growled.

Mrs. Quittle shrank back into the foyer, wishing Mr. Quittle were home to deal with the situation instead of galavanting off to all the hardware stores in Little Rock to find some gadget for his car. "I don't know where it is, Bruno," she managed to reply calmly.

"What the fuck is she doing there?"

"I really couldn't say. I know it has something to do with her job. She mentioned that her boss called and asked her to bring some clothing or papers from the office."

Bruno began to pound his palm with a fist. "You're telling me Staci Ellen broke our date to go to this fucking little town because that lesbian bitch wanted some clothes? I fucking can't believe it."

"I wish you'd stop using that word," Mrs. Quittle said as loudly as she dared.

"What word?"

"The ... uh, the F word, Bruno. I realize I'm a bit of an old fuddy-duddy, but it disturbs me. That's not to say there's anything wrong with your use of it when you're with your contemporaries."

Bruno stopped pounding his palm and scratched his nose, trying to figure out which word was giving the old bag such a problem. It finally came to him. "Fuck? Is that the word? Hey, I don't mind, Mrs. Quittle. It's no big deal. I won't use any words that start with F if you don't want me to. Did Staci Ellen say when that fucking -- excuse me. When the goddamn bitch is going to send her home?"

"No, she didn't," Mrs. Quittle said, wishing she could slam the door in his face but lacking anywhere near enough gumption.

"You know what the fuck -- sorry -- I ought to do? I ought to just take a ride up to that crummy town and bring Staci Ellen home. She doesn't have any business up there when she was supposed to have a date with me. What am I supposed to do, for chrissake? Sit home and friggin' knit baby booties?"

Bruno strode down the walk to his bike, which was just shy of being the size of a Clydesdale. Letting out a sigh, Mrs. Quittle sagged against the doorframe and read the silver-studded message on the back of his black leather jacket. It encouraged her to have a nice fucking day. "Same to you, you little fuckhead," Mrs. Quittle said very, very softly.

11

In the ensuing day and a half, I plowed through my list dutifully, if not enthusiastically. As I'd predicted, Elsie's tea was iced, her furniture well arranged, and she hadn't seen anything suspicious. Joyce hadn't seen anything suspicious, nor had Larry Joe. Millicent, her daughter, and her husband hadn't seen anything suspicious. The hippies hadn't seen anything suspicious, although they had seen a lot of incredibly disgusting chauvinistic behavior from the pigs across the street. I didn't ask if they'd met Marjorie.

I must have covered every road in the area running down -- not literally -- those on my list, and I did so in a car with a nonfunctional air conditioner, which did little to lighten my mood. The mood in the households that I visited weren't much better; for the most part, the woman were pissed and the men so far off balance I was surprised they were able to walk and chew tobacco at the same time.

I'd been past the remains of the branch bank a dozen times, but as I came up the county road from the Pot O' Gold and a futile conversation with Eula Lemoy, I saw the Crosley parked in the lot. Miss Una was stepping cautiously through the scattered glass and charred rafters, her hands up by her shoulders to avoid any inadvertent contamination. I parked and went to what had been the entrance. "You looking for anything in particular?"

Her head jerked around. "Goodness, Arly, you startled me. I was just seeing if any of my little personal effects might have survived the fire. I kept a photograph of my kitties in a little gold frame in my money drawer. It's silly of me to think it might be intact, but I thought I'd look. And I had a postcard from my deceased brother, a real pretty scene of a garden in Germany that he sent to me, oh, it must have been more than forty years ago.

I offered to help. We moved a blackened board and a stack of gunky ledgers, and eventually reached the drawer below what had been her teller's window. Although the pseudomarble counter was unbroken, the fire had eaten through the bottom of the cheap cabinetry and we found only ashes and a melted picture frame.

"What happened to all the money?" I asked.

"Heavens, we don't keep cash in the drawers at night. We don't have much cash in general, but we lock it in the safe each day when we close. Mr. Oliver had the safe transported to the main bank as soon as the fire was out and the security men could get to it. It would have been terribly irresponsible not to have done so."

"What will all the branch customers do now?"

"They'll be obliged to do their business in Farberville for the time being, I suppose. I'm not sure what the tellers there will make of Raz and Perkins and some of the more trying customers. Raz, in particular, refuses to grasp the concept of depository charges." She picked up the corner of the picture frame, then let it drop. "This fire has made me realize it's time for me to retire and spend more time with my kitties. They get so lonesome during the day, the poor dears. I've managed to put aside a little money each month, and I may take a trip to visit my niece in El Dorado or perhaps take a bus trip this fall to admire the foliage. Do they allow pets?"

"They may. I suppose you've heard about Johnna Mae?"

Miss Una blinked mistily. "Such a terrible thing. Johnna Mae could be on the zealous side at times, but I always believed she had a good heart. She doted on her children and was a homeroom mother for I don't know how many years. All those homemade cupcakes and party favors."

"She's not on death row yet," I said irritably. "The embezzlement charges are filed, but she took such a small amount that the bank may allow her to make restitution and let it go at that."

"But she murdered Mr. Bernswallow."

"We don't know that for sure. I'm still tracking down witnesses, and we should have a report from the state crime lab by late this afternoon or early tomorrow. The kerosene can may have fingerprints on it. Some of the burned papers may be restored, so maybe we can find out what it was that someone felt obliged to do murder over. In any case, Johnna Mae hasn't even been charged with anything except embezzlement."

"I thought she had been," Miss Una said, sounding confused. As we walked back to the parking lot, she gave me a conspiratorial smile. "I must say this lab sounds so very mysterious. Imagine being able to find fingerprints on something burned, or to read charred papers. I do hope they'll succeed. How nice it would be for all concerned if Johnna Mae could return to her family and occupy herself with cupcakes and party favors once again."

I didn't point out that Johnna Mae would be more likely to occupy herself with chicken gizzards at a poultry plant in Starley City, with lots of overtime to pay back the bank. When we reached our cars, I asked Miss Una to call me if she thought of anything that might be relevant. She promised to do so and drove away at all of fifteen miles an hour.

I went back into the bank and found the corner where Merganser said the second fire had started. The can and its contents were at the lab, but the black vee on the wall was there if one squinted just a bit and leaned to one side like a well-known tower. Two points of origin. Two fires. Two arsonists? That didn't make much sense, but nothing had lately. I mentally replayed what Johnna Mae had said to me. She hadn't denied being blackmailed, and she hadn't denied going into the bank. On the other hand, she'd vehemently denied killing Bernswallow and torching the bank. If she was telling the truth -- or at least not telling any lies, since she wasn't actually telling much of anything -- then a second perp was involved. Putter, for instance.

I wasn't real pleased with my thoughts. As I started for the police car and my list, Estelle's station wagon cruised by in the direction of Farberville. She and Ruby Bee managed not to see me, but I saw them long enough to realize they were wearing Sunday dresses and hats. Which wasn't the most peculiar thing imaginable, since it was Sunday. Then again, the Baptist church was in the opposite direction and services had been over a good hour or so. They might have been going to eat Sunday dinner at the cafeteria in Farberville, I told myself as I glowered at the tailgate. I didn't buy it, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could do about it, so I found my list and checked off Eula's name in that she, as she so succintly phrased it, hadn't seen spit.

I was plotting my next brilliant move when Plover drove up and parked beside me. "I was looking for you," he said, giving me the benefit of his boyish grin.

"Everybody knows you can't escape the long arms of the law."

"Let's find someplace cool to talk. I had a conversation with one of the boys at the lab, and I think you'll find it fascinating." He gestured for me to get in his car and then had the decency to turn up the air conditioner, aim all the vents at me, and offer no comments about the sticky wet blotches all over my shirt. "I don't suppose the PD is cool, knowing what I do about your budget. How about a back booth at Ruby Bee's? Since we're not on duty, I'll spring for iced tea."

I mentioned that the place was still closed, but that I had no qualms about breaking and entering with the key so slyly hidden on the top of the doorsill. I tried to badger him into telling me all the fascinating stuff, but he insisted on a weather monologue until we had broken and entered, poured ourselves tea, and settled in the back booth.

"I called in an old marker from a guy at the lab," he began. "He worked yesterday and today on a couple of the samples we sent down, and he sent back some interesting tidbits." Plover paused so I could utter a breathless demand or a few choice words of flattery. I gazed stoically across the table. He sighed.

"He managed," he went on, "to pull up a partial print from the handle of the kerosene can, and a beautiful set from the metal wastebasket. They don't match."

"So? Kevin Buchanon emptied the trash every night. I have a hard time seeing him leave a beautiful set of anything, but it's likely he did this once out of perversity."

Plover made an exasperated noise. "Shit, I forgot about him. Pick him up and bring him in to be fingerprinted. That way we'll know if we've got something."

"He disappeared the night of the fire. No one's seen him since, including his beloved Dahlia." I wrinkled my nose. "Now that I think about it, she may have disappeared too. Ruby Bee and Estelle acted strange when I asked where she was."

"Well, ask them again."

"They've disappeared, although perhaps only for an innocent visit to the cafeteria in Farberville. The one person who hasn't disappeared is Johnna Mae Nookim, unless she crocheted a ladder and escaped from the county jail. What's more, her fingerprints are already on file."

"I thought of that," Plover said, his voice on the smug side. "Hers don't match the set or the partial from the kerosene can." I choked on a mouthful of tea. "They don't? Then whose are they?"

"An excellent question, Chief. I don't suppose everyone in town would line up and meekly submit to having their fingers rolled in ink."

"Things are still a bit tense," I said. "We could ask the other bank employees to be printed. What about Bernswallow? I can't see him dousing the office with kerosene, but he very well could have burned something in the wastebasket. No, save your breath; I have no theories why he would."

"We're not going to be able to lift any prints off the body. His upper torso was partially protected when the ceiling collapsed on the desk, but his arms and hands were severely damaged."

"The prints are probably courtesy of Kevin, but I suppose we'd better follow this up however we can. I'll ask Sherman Oliver and Miss Una to come by the barracks and have their prints taken for comparison. If you'll arrange for that, I'll go by the Bernswallow house and ask if there might be something I can borrow that has his prints on it. I need to drop by anyway to ask a bunch of awkward, painful, useless questions about his friends and enemies. Now I'll have to mumble something about why the medical examiner can't get prints during the autopsy. What an enchanting prospect."

"I'll arrange it immediately," he said. "Do you want me to issue an APB for Buchanon? I doubt I can talk the Mounties into galloping down from Canada to search the mountains, but I can have all the patrol cars keep an eye out for him. Do you have any ideas about why he vanished?"

"Probably as many as he has. We're talking about Kevin Buchanon, who's never been accused of having an ounce of brains. He's pulled so many goofy stunts in the past that I wouldn't be surprised if he'd upped and run away to join the circus. Or entered a monastery, or decided to be a pirate."

"And the girl?"

"Same scenario, I'm afraid."

He drove me back to my car. I stopped at the PD and called Oliver, who said he would go by the barracks on his way to the golf course, and Miss Una, who said it sounded utterly thrilling. I then squared my shoulders, kicked the air conditioner, and limped out to the police car to drive to Farberville.