Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (3 page)

Johnna Mae may have loosed a remark as she stomped through the door, but it doesn't bear repeating. Miss Una gave me a twinkly smile and a little wave. I could almost smell the lavender water as I forced myself out the front door and into the swampy steam of Maggody.

I was working up the courage to touch the car door handle when yet another product of Buchanon inbreeding came around from the back of the building. Buchanons dot the county like ticks in a blackberry patch. Since very few folks are dumb enough to want to marry into the clan, they've been obliged to mate and consummate among themselves, until not one of them needs a costume on Halloween. Intelligence is out of the question; animal cunning is about all any of them can aspire to. This particular specimen, Kevin Buchanon, had no aspirations.

"Hot enough for ya, Arly?" he said, shuffling his feet in the dust until I almost choked. Although he had defied the laws of nature and graduated from high school a year or two back, he was still battling puberty. His voice cracked on every other word and his Adam's apple was enough to mesmerize the unwary. Had there been a breeze, his ears would have flapped like sheets on a clothesline. As it was, they sagged like the chickweed along the highway.

"Yes, it's hot, Kevin. It's so hot I'm afraid I'm going to get blisters if I try to open the car door."

"Yeah, it sure is hot. It must be hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, don'tcha think? 'Course we'd haft to go all the way to Farberville to try it, in that there ain't any sidewalks in Maggody." He guffawed at that bit of wit, then scratched his ear and frowned at me. "You been in the bank?"

"That's why my car is parked out here."

"I dint know you were a customer here. Did you know I'm an employee now?"

"I didn't know that, Kevin, but I'm pleased for you." From his expression I could see that more was expected of me, and that I wasn't going to escape until I bit the bullet and complied. "And what is it you do for the bank? Loan officer? Executive vice president in charge of bullion shipments from Fort Knox?"

He would have stuck his thumbs under his suspenders and popped them, had he been wearing any with his dirty white T-shirt and scruffy blue leans. "I'm the night security guard, Arly. Ever' night I come in at nine and don't set foot outside until Miss Una arrives the next morning."

Despite the heat (which was pretty tough to overlook), I felt a shiver run down my back. "You're the bank's security guard?"

"That's right. Once I've mopped down the floors and cleaned the rest rooms and emptied the trash cans and generally tidied up, I'm supposed to make sure no one sneaks in to steal any money. I have a special chair in the back room by the door so's I can hear any suspicious noises. Once I heard something that I thought was going to be a bank robber, but it turned out to be a couple of stray cats doing it with each other."

"Then you also have custodial duties," I said, returning to reality with a major sigh of relief.

"Yeah, and cleaning, too. But now that I have a regular job, I'm getting up my nerve to ask Dahlia if she wants to get married. Do you think I ought to ask her, Arly? I mean, we could get us a mobile home over at the Pot O' Gold and save all our money right here in this bank so we can have a little house some day with a garden and a porch swing and a washer-dryer. Why, we might even have children when we can afford it. What do you think, Arly? Do you think she'll have me?"

"If anyone will, she will," I said, retreating from his enthusiasm. I was steeling myself to open the car door when Johnna Mae marched out of the bank, slamming the door behind her in the process, and took off down the edge of the county road, her jaw flung so high she was in danger of slipping in the loose rocks and ending up in the ditch. Miss Una's shadow flitted across the door, then faded into the dimness.

"Wow," Kevin said, twisting his head to follow Johnna Mae's retreat. "She looks madder than a coon in a poke. Wonder what got her so all-fired hot under the collar?"

"She's been having problems with Mr. Bernswallow."

"Him? I think he's a right slick guy. He always compliments me on the shine on the commodes and the sinks, and one time he gave me a sack of shirts with crocodiles on 'em. Said they was real expensive."

"He sounds like a jewel, Kevin." I watched Johnna Mae swing through the rusty arch of the Pot O' Gold. I toyed with the idea of driving down to her mobile home to make sure she was okay but reminded myself that there wasn't anything I could do beyond making sympathetic noises and admiring the baby. I told Kevin to keep the bank safe from Bonnie and Clyde, opened the car door, wincing, and drove back to the PD to work on the sauna sign. If my crayons hadn't melted.

-- ==+== --

"Ain't this amazing, just amazing?" Estelle demanded, shoving the letter across the bar to Ruby Bee. "You could have knocked me over with a snake feather when I opened the envelope this morning just before Elsie came in for a shampoo and set."

"Is her hair natural?"

"What transpires between a cosmetologist and her client is confidential, as you well know. How'd you like to lie in bed every night wondering if half the town knew the truth about your hair color? You'd be deeply offended if I went around telling folks how your hair's grayer than seasoned barn wood, wouldn't you?"

Ruby Bee went over to the cash register and punched a key or two while she tried to grab hold of her temper, which was as riled as a swarm of hornets. "My hair may have a silver tint to it," she said, avoiding Estelle's eyes, "but you have no call to say it's the color of barn wood."

"How would you know? You haven't seen it natural since before Hiram Buchanon's barn burned, and that was twenty years if it was a day. But I don't have the time to squabble with you, not with Perkins's eldest coming in for a perm in a while. Just unruffle your tail feathers and read this letter."

Ruby Bee relented and took the proffered piece of paper. Once she'd read it, she gave Estelle a bewildered look. "I don't recollect you mentioning that you borrowed money from the bank."

"That's because I never did. I considered it once when Jaylee was planning to study cosmetology, thinking I might expand the salon so she could have her own station right there with me. I was going to knock out that wall above the hydrangeas. But I haven't even thought one second about it since Jaylee was murdered a couple couple of years back." She stopped to wipe a smudge of mascara from under her eye, then cleared her throat and added, "What do you think this means, this letter?"

"I haven't got a glimmer," Ruby Bee admitted.

"Well, those folks at the bank in Farberville are riding mighty high to say that I'm late making a payment on a loan I never took out. I've got a mind to march right in their fancy bank and slap this letter down on some snippy banker's desk and demand to know what in tarnation they think they're doing."

"It might do some good," Ruby Bee said, smiling to herself as she envisioned the scene. "What'll you wear?"

"What difference does it make? The point is that they've got no cause to send innocent folks nasty letters, and I'm going to tell them so. I'm going to give them a piece of my mind like they've never heard in their fancy bank. Let me tell you, they'll be mighty sorry when I'm done with them!"

"I reckon they will." This time Ruby Bee had to turn around, aware that any trace of amusement would not sit well with Estelle. All that stuff about red hair and hot temperament was the gospel truth, she thought smugly, although she had sense enough not to say it out loud.

"If I didn't have Perkins's eldest in less than ten minutes, I'd do it right this minute," Estelle continued. She narrowed her eyes as Ruby Bee turned back. "I'd like to hope you're not making that smirky face because you think this is funny. It ain't funny."

"I never thought it was funny, Estelle. I was making that face because of this bodacious heat. In fact, I think I'll call that good-for-nothing repairman again so he can tell me how he's busier than an ant at a Sunday school picnic and I can tell him how my brain bubbles every time I have to stand over the grill in the kitchen. We know the conversation by heart, but at least it passes the time of day."

Estelle wasn't convinced, but it was time to give Perkins's eldest a perm. She curled her lip to let Ruby Bee know she wasn't anybody's fool and sailed out of the bar without so much as a see you later.

Ruby Bee picked up the letter and reread it. It was a puzzlement, to be sure. But everybody knew that the bank was always right, so Estelle must have slipped up somewhere and forgotten about taking out her loan. Still, Ruby Bee thought, sticking the letter in a cabinet under the bar where it'd be safe, it wasn't like Estelle to do something more befitting one of those dumb Buchanons. Not like her at all.

-- ==+== --

"Not now, Staci Ellen," Carolyn McCoy-Grunders said, covering the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver with one hand. "I told you to hold all my calls. If you would bother to move that mane of hair from your face, you would see that I'm still on the telephone."

"She says it's long distance," Staci Ellen said, not bothering.

"And I told you to hold my calls." Carolyn glared until Staci Ellen closed the door, then sank back in her chair and said, "So what, Monty? You may stay in Las Vegas until hell freezes over, but I'm not going to be there with my snowshoes. Why don't you invite poor Elizabeth to go with you? That way you won't have to worry about her."

She sat and listened while he argued, but she felt no flicker of remorse. Monty had had his chance, but he'd blown it. He was nothing but pond scum. He -- and all the other pompous pricks in the world, including her ex-husband and his flat-bellied, sorority girl bride -- could rot in hell, for all she cared.

When Monty stopped to take a breath, she told him as much and banged down the receiver with a venomous frown. Men wanted only one thing. As soon as they got it, they started looking over the fence to see if the grass was greener and the asses tighter. Chauvinist pigs, every last one of them. And lawyers were the worst of the miserable lot. She'd survived the asshole professors in law school, but she'd discovered immediately that she couldn't stomach the genial condescension of a paternalistic law firm.

Thank God she'd applied for the position at Women Aligned Against Chauvinism in the Office. It paid a pittance, but at least she wasn't forced to simper at some disgusting old man simply to be assigned a case. Here she was her own boss and could pick her cases as she pleased.

She was comtemplating a wedding present for the little couple -- and wondering if there were a postal regulation concerning the interstate mailing of coral snakes -- when Staci Ellen tapped on the door.

"What is it now?"

"That same woman called again," Staci Ellen said cautiously (and wondering if her boss was in the throes of PMS and therefore unlikely to allow an early departure on Friday afternoon). "She keeps saying she went to one of your seminars last year, and that you're the only one who can help her."

Carolyn snatched up the nearest file and opened it. "Tell her I'm too busy to talk to her. If she wishes, she can give you her address and you can mail her the initial complaint forms. I'll look them over when I have time, but it may not be for several months. Doesn't she know we're absolutely swamped with complaints?"

Staci Ellen dutifully went away to repeat the instructions from high. Carolyn shoved the file away and took out the telephone directory. "Pet stores," she said under her breath as her fingers did the walking.

3

Toward the end of the week I was still sitting around the PD, although I'd roused myself long enough to run into Farberville to a travel agency in order to pick up a handful of brochures for Alaskan cruises. I had them spread across my desk so I could see glaciers from every perspective. The heat had pretty well sautéed my brain, and I was idly considering the wisdom of knocking off the branch bank to finance my cruise. With Kevin Buchanon as the security guard, I figured I could be in and out in a matter of minutes. No one would be the wiser -- especially Kevin.

I was having such a fine time that I was a little irked when I heard footsteps outside the door. Irk turned to out-and-out irritation when Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon opened the door and actually set foot in my office. Mrs. Jim Bob is my least favorite resident. She's prim and self-righteous, even when she's preparing to screw somebody with a ten-inch screwdriver and a twelve-inch screw. Her beady yellow eyes glitter, and her tight little mouth snakes up at the corners in a pretense of a smile. I know better; I've seen the expression on cats playing with half dead chipmunks or bloodied bunnies.

She is, however, the mayor's wife, and the mayor controls the police department purse strings -- and my salary comes from within that purse. A while back we'd had an amusing incident in Maggody in which Hizzoner the Moron was shown to be the hypocritical hypocritical sleaze I'd always known him to be. But it was too hot for witty repartee, so I settled for a flip of my hand and a bright, "What do you want, Mrs. Jim Bob? Looking for a place to bake buttermilk biscuits?"

She blinked at me for a moment, then decided I was being a smart aleck and perched on the chair across from my desk. Once she'd crossed her ankles, settled her purse squarely on her lap, and folded her hands neatly across it, she said, "This place is disgraceful, Arly. I don't know how you expect citizens to file complaints when it's so hot in here." She pulled a church bulletin from her purse and began to fan herself with ladylike fury.

"I do believe you're right," I said through a yawn. "Maybe Brother Verber can drag the congregation down here on Sunday to extol the perils of hell. Thirty minutes in here would put the fear of God in every last soul who survived."

"I do not care for that kind of talk. You'd better watch that mouth of yours if you plan to continue being chief of police."

"Okay, I quit. Just give me a minute to knock off the branch bank and I'll be on the road to Fairbanks and points north. Maybe I can meet a well-endowed Eskimo dressed in skintight sealskin, and we can rub noses until they fall off from all that exotic, erotic stimulation. You know, I've never before considered my nose as a sexual organ, but -- "

"That is quite enough, Arly Hanks. I did not come in here to listen to your trashy language or your pornographic carryings-on."

"That's mighty comforting to know, Mrs. Jim Bob. If that's all, I was getting ready to oil my gun and draw up a map of the bank. I don't suppose you have an old ski mask I could borrow, do you?"

Her eyes narrowed so much I was surprised they didn't implode. Her fingers twitched for a minute, as if feeling themselves wrapped around someone's neck, before returning to her purse. "Are you finished with all this mouthy talk, Arly? If so, I'd like you to do something about that disgraceful situation up at the bank -- and I mean right this instant. You are the chief of police. You have an obligation to the town council and the citizens of this community to get off your fanny and do something!"

"What did you have in mind, Mrs. Jim Bob?" I asked through another yawn. "I've already explained to Johnna Mae Nookim that there's nothing I can do. However, if you're going to get all huffy, I suppose I can run Sherman Oliver over to the county jail and have him locked up for a few hours."

"Sherman Oliver? I swear, this heat has addled you. Truda Oliver happens to be one of my dearest friends, not to mention president of the missionary society at the Voice of the Almighty Lord. Not that you'd know that, of course, since I don't believe I've ever seen you in the house of the Lord. Jim Bob and I haven't missed a service in twenty years, and that includes Wednesday prayer meetings, Sunday evening potlucks, and every single night of the annual revivals."

"Is that right? By the way, how are Jim Bob's illegitimate children doing these days? Did you ever decide what color to paint the nursery?"

"Perkins's eldest sees to them after Bible school every morning until bedtime, but it is none of your concern, Arly Hanks. What is your concern is that vulgar display going on at the bank this very moment. If you're not willing to do something, I'm going to have to telephone Jim Bob all the way in Starley City, where he's pricing some used washing machines for the launderette, and have a word with him about your aversion to doing your sworn duty."

"What's going on at the bank?" I asked, wearying of the lack of challenge. Baiting her was as difficult as finding a cab in Manhattanon -- on a pleasant, sunny day when you're not in any kind of hurry and really don't mind the chance to window-shop. The cabs swoop in like a flock of starlings.

"That Nookim woman is causing a ruckus. I want you to arrest her and lock her up tighter than new shoes on a heathen. She is an embarrassment to my dear friends, Sherman and Truda Oliver, not to mention that nice young man who's doing his best to carry on his family's upstanding tradition of service to the community, and all the God-fearing good people of Maggody." Mrs. Jim Bob stood up, brushed at a wrinkle in her skirt, and started for the door. I was holding my breath, but it didn't do one damn bit of good because she stopped and glowered back at me. "You are still sitting there, Chief of Police Hanks. I thought I just told you to go over to the bank and arrest that woman."

"I have no idea what she's doing."

"And you anticipate coming to a revelation by staying glued to that chair and looking at shiny pictures?"

I thought of a few diverting remarks but let them slither away. "I suppose I could mosey down to the bank," I said, losing the battle to yet another yawn, "but it's awfully hot. Why don't you tell me what Johnna Mae Nookim's doing?"

"Why don't you just mosey down there and have a look-see for yourself!''

The door slammed behind her. I waited for a minute, glued and ready for her to barge back in, but she didn't. I took the car keys out of the middle drawer and grudgingly forced myself out to the police car. I didn't have the energy to conjure up any theories about what Johnna Mae was doing, and I wasn't excited about taking anyone to the county jail, unless it was Hizzoner or Mizzoner -- or both, if I could get them a double cell. Twin bunks, however, so Hizzoner wouldn't get any filthy ideas.

The sky was a bleachy blue. The sun did its best to bake me as I drove down the highway. I braked to let a scruffy hound wander by, waved at a dust-streaked child in a saggy, baggy diaper, and wondered if a six-week cruise would be too brief. I had about decided that ten weeks would be dead minimum when I got my first view of the bank.

Johnna Mae was pacing along the edge of the highway, a sign propped on her shoulder. Bernswallow and Sherman Oliver stood in front of the bank, their arms crossed over their chests, and Miss Una's face could be seen hovering through the glass doors behind them, as if she were trapped in a murky aquarium. Milling nearby were several upstanding citizens, including Raz Buchanon, Elsie McMay, someone's mother, someone's mother's friendly cosmetologist, a few neckless hulks from the pool hall, and Mrs. Jim Bob herself.

I parked on the far side of the highway and tried to figure out what the hell was happening. As Johnna Mae reeled around, I caught a glimpse of the crude printing on her posterboard: SHERMAN OLIVER IS A CHAUVINIST PIG AND HATES WIMMEN.

Sherman Oliver certainly looked as if he hated one woman in particular. Under a shock of white hair, his eyes were slits. His nose was on the purple side, and his cheeks were blotchy. His jaw was quivering like molded gelatin. He seemed to be muttering to Bernswallow, who was also looking rather displeased. Everybody else, with the exception of Mrs. Jim Bob, was observing the spectacle with varying amounts of interest/amusement.

"Yo, Johnna Mae," I called as I walked across the road.

"The Bank of Farberville discriminates against women! Take your business elsewhere! Sherman Oliver hates women! Don't bank here -- take your money to another bank!" She broke off to catch her breath, then snapped her sign up and took off in the opposite direction. "This bank cheats women! Don't trust them with your hard-earned money!"

"About time you got here," Ruby Bee said out of the corner of her mouth. "This could turn right ugly."

"Elsie said that Johnna Mae said she was going to bash Sherman Oliver smack on the top of his head if he so much as laid a finger on her," Estelle added out of the corner of her mouth. The two of them watch way too many gangster movies, along with their daily diet of police and private eye shows.

"I can't see this crowd turning any uglier," I said out of the middle of my mouth. "How long has this been going on?"

Ruby Bee kept her eyes on Johnna Mae. "Estelle and I just heard about it ten minutes ago. Dahlia came in to work and said something about a commotion. I stuck the Closed sign on the door and we trotted right down here to see what was happening. What do you aim to do about it, Arly?"

"Why should I do anything about it?"

"I don't know. I just think there's gonna be trouble if you don't do something pretty quick."

"I doubt it," I said, glancing at the crowd. "Johnna Mae'll get tired of all this parading after a while, and everybody will wander off to get out of the heat. I don't want to hurt Johnna Mae's feelings, but this isn't all that exciting."

"Hussy!"

I looked over my shoulder at the character stomping across the street. Mizzoner held the number-one spot on my list of least popular, and now we had the first runner-up in our midst. Brother Verber, spiritual leader of his fuzzy flock, defender of the faith, and beacon of sanctimony carried a Bible in one hand as he charged into battle with the devil. His nose was aglow with righteous indignation, and droplets of spittle dotted his lips.

"Hussy," he panted, pointing the finger of retribution at Johnna Mae, who'd paused in mid step to stare at him. "Don't you know what the Bible says about women? It says they're supposed to be obedient, not loud-mouthed and vulgar."

Mrs. Jim Bob nodded. "That's right, Johnna Mae. You're supposed to stay home and take care of your family, not march up and down in the street and make accusations against good Christian folks like Sherman Oliver."

"Maybe she can't afford to stay home," Ruby Bee muttered. Mrs. Jim Bob spun around to glower, but Ruby Bee stood her ground and glowered right back. Estelle managed a glimmer herself. I settled for a comradely wink.