Madness In Maggody (17 page)

Mrs. Jim Bob
was madder than a coon in a poke. She had a list of grievances as long as her arm, and thus far hadn't had any success with any of them. For starters, Brother Verber had dropped off the face of the earth, and just when she wanted to find out if he'd properly chastised Dahlia O'Neill and Kevin Buchanon for their disgraceful behavior.

She'd been of a mind to discuss it with Eilene, but then Eilene had started making unsettling and distinctly un-Christian remarks about lawyers and Mrs. Jim Bob had allowed herself to be distracted. But that didn't give Brother Verber an excuse not to be in his mobile home or at the Assembly Hall in her hour of need.

Then Jim Bob had allowed Petrel to poison half the missionary society, and although everybody knew who was responsible, they were still acting funny about it and refusing her generous invitations for coffee and cake on the sun porch. What's more, no one had called all morning, and Mrs. Jim Bob was beginning to feel as though her fingers had slipped off the pulse of the town.

Furthermore, Jim Bob still hadn't called the sheriff to tell him about Petrel, and instead, he'd had a conversation with snippety Arly Hanks out in the yard, where you couldn't hear a single word, not even from behind the drape in the living room. He'd been downright odd afterward and wouldn't even explain it to his own wife, who deserved an explanation more than anyone else. Then he'd announced (announced, mind you) that he was going to the pool hall and just marched out the door.

To make things worse, Ruby Bee's baseball team was scheduled to play against the upstanding boys of the Jim Bob's SuperSavers, and for all she knew, there'd be an orgy on the field and somehow it would be her fault and she'd be obliged to resign from the presidency of the missionary society.

Perkins's eldest had skipped the top of the refrigerator, and from the looks of it, for several months. There wasn't any way to make a condolence call at the Milvins' house and find out the details of what had happened, because there wasn't anybody home to offer condolence to. Now that the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe had been torn down and the SuperSaver built in its place and then closed, Mrs. Jim Bob was going to have to go all the way into Farberville to buy a simple head of lettuce.

It was enough to drive even the most saintly woman to tears, and she was heading that way when the telephone rang. She jerked up the receiver. "What is it?"

Eula sounded breathless, and she was talking so fast, her dentures clicked like castanets. "Just lock your doors and windows and stay inside. He's in town; Joyce saw him."

Mrs. Jim Bob wasn't in the mood for silliness. "Stop blathering like an orphaned calf and calm yourself down, Eula. I'm in the middle of doing my shopping list, and I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Petrel," Eula said, getting control of herself and her upper plate. "He's already raped a dozen women, and now he's in Joyce Lambertino's backyard under the forsythia bushes, watching the house. She's scared witless, of course, but who wouldn't be?"

"She was born witless, and I'm beginning to wonder about certain other folks. We all know that Lamont Petrel poisoned everybody, but the last I heard, he disappeared and the state police can't find hide nor hair of him. You're saying he's been raping women and is hiding in Joyce's yard?" Even Mrs. Jim Bob was having trouble with that one, but she waited for Eula to elaborate.

Eula elaborated at length about Petrel's rampage and Joyce's terror.

"Then why doesn't she call the police?" Mrs. Jim Bob asked, still having trouble, She'd met Petrel on a few occasions, and he'd been right gentlemanly; she'd been surprised herself when she realized he was the poisoner and she was obliged to pass it along. Men that drove nice black Cadillacs were hardly the rapist sort. Embezzlement, maybe, or stealing from the country club's bank account, or even telling lies to widows to get their life savings—but not rape. Rape was—well, common.

Eula was still dithering. "Arly's off somewhere, and Joyce's husband's getting ready for school to start and is over there way back in the auto shop where he can't hear the telephone. Someone's got to go to Joyce's house and do something."

"Well, I'm not going over there," Mrs. Jim Bob snapped. "I've got to get salad for dinner, and since I have to drive all the way to Farberville, I thought I'd run by the mall and see if winter coats are on sale. My good wool coat's starting to look a little frayed at the cuffs; I thought I'd ask Perkins's eldest if she wanted to buy it from me cheap."

"But what about Joyce?" Eula wailed.

"Oh, all right. " Mrs. Jim Bob punched down the button to cut off the wailing, then dialed the operator and demanded to be put through to the sheriff's department. She briskly told LaBelle about the crazed madman in the act of breaking into the Lambertinos' house with rape on his perverted mind, then hung up and left the house.

*****

I drove to
the Satterings' produce stand and parked in the shade. Jackie was in the yard, tossing up a ball and attempting to catch it if it came down in his vicinity.

"Where's your ma?" I asked as I walked into the yard.

"She and Pa are down by the apple trees," he said. He threw the ball up; it came down hard on his shoulder and rolled under the side of the house. He was standing there with a puzzled look as I went around the house, past several good-sized vegetable beds, and through the gate to the orchard that sloped away from the house. I caught sight of a figure toward the back row of gnarly trees, and as I approached, I heard what sounded like an argument. I halted, of course, being a professional and all. "Then you shouldn't have opened the package," Ivy said. She was not visible, and after a moment I realized she was on a ladder and hidden by the foliage. "What you don't know can't hurt you."

"But I thought it was my ladybugs," Alex said, his back to me. "For all I knew, they might suffocate. You can't use that stuff, damn it! All our produce is organically grown and guaranteed to be free from pesticides. Just because they haven't proved it doesn't mean that stuff can't cause cancer or even build up in your system and kill you."

"Balderdash," came Ivy's voice from above his head. "Starvation's going to kill us first, if we can't get productivity up. The SuperSaver was selling lettuce for less than a dollar a pound, and if they bring in apples from the West Coast, they'll undercut us with those, too."

He grabbed the ladder and began to shake it fiercely. "You've already used some of that pesticide," he said with sudden venom. "What'd you use it on? The squash? The last of the turnips? Whatever it is, I'm going to pull it up and throw it away."

"I used it on everything, Alex. You'd better get an ax and start chopping down the trees. Get a bulldozer and level all the gardens. And don't think about the vegetable soup we had last night. I thought the organophosphates gave it a nice flavor."

I brushed past him and grabbed the ladder to steady it. Ignoring his gurgle of surprise, I called, "Ivy, it's Arly Hanks. I came by to ask you all a few questions."

She came down the ladder, her expression supremely unruffled, and gave me a smile. "Howdy, Arly. I was inspecting the tree for damage from that late frost last spring. Looks okay to me. Alex, take the ladder back to the barn and then set the sprinkler on the yellow squash. Go on, take the ladder to the barn."

He hesitated, regarding her with a flat expression, then nodded to me, took the ladder, and trudged up the slope. Ivy ran her fingers through her hair, sighed, and said, "He'll leave the ladder in the middle of the yard and set the sprinkler on the tomatoes." She frowned. "But I shouldn't underestimate him. Might be dangerous one of these days."

"I happened to overhear some of the conversation," I said cautiously. "You're using pesticides now?"

"I got tired of catering to the insect world. The stuff's used very commonly, and all you have to do is wash the produce before you eat it. Alex is still having flashbacks to the sixties, I'm afraid. He thinks organic is groovy. He thinks ladybugs are the hottest thing since the Beatles."

"I wanted to ask you about Monday evening," I said. "I guess you heard about the pins and so forth?"

She started for the house, forcing me to trail after her. "I heard about Lillith Smew, too. I don't reckon I ever met her, but it's a damn shame."

"I'm talking to everyone who was in the SuperSaver Monday evening," I said to her back. "Someone said you were there for a time, Ivy. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously—returning items to the display, for instance, or looking worried about being observed?"

She glanced over her shoulder but continued walking briskly up the slope. "Can't say I did. I just went to compare prices, then left when I realized that every last one of them was a damn sight less than what we can sell for."

"When did the pesticide package come?"

"Monday morning. I was way down at the end of the orchard, and Alex happened to have gone to the house for a minute. He was so excited about his box of ladybugs that he didn't stop to look at the return address. His box came the next morning, and he spent the day sprinkling the orange polka-dotted things on what's left of the late-summer crop. He was surprised when they bellied-up, but I wasn't. The pesticide worked real well."

We'd reached the gate, but I was seriously out of breath and my shirt was glued to my back. "Wait a minute," I said. "One more question, Ivy. Do you keep syrup of ipecac in the house?"

I finally had her attention. She turned back, scratching her chin with dirt-caked fingernails, and said, "I have a bottle in the medicine cabinet. I also have pins in the sewing box. I was real perturbed when the SuperSaver opened, and real relieved when it was closed down. I've got no fondness for Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon or his self-righteous wife, and I'd just as soon take a tablespoon of ipecac as give either of them the time of day. The brand of organophosphates I'm using is deadly in small doses, and the container's been opened. Any more questions, Arly?"

"That pretty well covers it," I said, blinking at her. "Anything you'd like to add?"

"I hope you nail the person who sabotaged the supermarket. When you find out who it is, let me know so I can send him a bushel of apples."

She stepped over the ladder in the yard and went through the back door into the house. Alex and Jackie had vanished, so there was nothing for me to do but get in my car and leave. All the exertion had left my mouth dry, so I headed for the Dairee Dee-Lishus for a cherry limeade and a conversation.

*****

"This is
out-and-out crazy," Ruby Bee whispered. "What's more, the stink is making me sick to my stomach. It's worse here than it was in the picnic pavilion."

"Stakeouts aren't supposed to be Tupperware parties," Estelle whispered back, not real pleased with the overpowering miasma of rotting garbage and stale whiskey emanating from the rusty green dumpster. "Just because some private eye on television sits in his car for two seconds and along comes the suspect doesn't mean that's what really happens. If you ain't interested in staking out this rude woman, then you can run along home and watch television by yourself."

Ruby Bee turned up her nose at a moldy orange peel covered with flies and a thread of little black ants. "We don't even know if she's in there. What if she goes to work every day and comes home after dark? We're not even going to see her face when she drives up and goes into her apartment."

A yellow jacket zoomed down on a lopsided aluminum soda can. Estelle scooted back as far as she could without risking being visible from the upstairs apartment, then said, "We agreed that her name didn't ring a bell and we were going to have to look at her to figure out how she fits into all this."

"It seems to me we could have found a nicer place to watch from," Ruby Bee said rebelliously. "We could have parked the car across the highway and sat there, you know."

"And not had a decent look at the woman. Unless your eyesight's improved mightily, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was a him or a her, much less what he or she looked like."

"And you don't wear reading glasses when you think I'm not looking?"

"So do you. That doctor's appointment last week wasn't with a baby doctor, was it? You had to get your prescription checked, Miss Twenty-Twenty, My Eye!"

Ruby Bee snorted, but she didn't say anything because Estelle was right and she wasn't about to say so. The yellow jackets were coming down by the dozens, buzzing every which way and threatening to fly in her hair. She flapped at them as she moved back and tried to get comfortable on the gravel.

*****

I was driving
toward the Dairee Dee-Lishus when a sheriff's department vehicle came careening up the highway, the blue lights flashing and the siren going full blast. I was still thinking about it when a second car did the same, followed by a third, with the sheriff himself at the wheel.

Never one to pass up a promising social occasion, I put the pedal to the metal, so to speak. They'd turned onto a back road and the dust was blinding as I bounced along behind them. I prudently slowed down, and when I came around the curve, they were already stopped in front of the Lambertino house.

The deputies were crouched behind the cars, with .38s and sawedoff shotguns pointed at the house.

Harve pulled out a bullhorn and flipped the switch. His voice boomed as he said, "Testing, one, two, three. Okay, buddy boy, we know you're in there. Come out with your hands up and nobody'll get hurt."

I parked behind the last car and ran to Harve's side. "What the holy hell is going on?"

"We got us a—" He realized he was still broadcasting to the next county and lowered the bullhorn. "We got us a rapist in there, according to an anonymous report."

"In Joyce's house? A rapist? An anonymous report?" I realized I was on the disjointed side, but I couldn't help it.

"The call could have been from the Lambertino woman. According to the dispatcher, the caller just said there was a rapist breaking in and then slammed down the phone. We're presuming she was interrupted. The line's been busy ever since, so it's probably off the hook."

"Are the children in there?"

"No way of knowing." He raised the bullhorn to his mouth. "Listen up, we've got the house surrounded and there ain't no way you can get away. Let the woman and the children come out and then you and I'll have ourselves a talk. How does that sound?"

Joyce appeared at a window, waved frantically at us, and then ducked out of sight. After a moment, Lissie and Saralee came to the same window and stood there talking to each other as they watched Harve, the deputies, and me all watching them.

"The little girls seem okay," one of the deputies said out of the corner of his mouth. "The woman looked frightened, though. You want me to see if I can sneak up on the porch and take down the perp through a window?"

"Hold on," I said to Harve, pulling down his bullhorn. "Are we very, very sure there's a perp in there?"

He looked at the two girls, then at me. He sucked on his lips for a minute, shook his head, and said, "Nope. Let's not start taking down any perps just yet, Bertie. Let's just sit tight for a few minutes and see what all happens." He put the bullhorn on the hood of his car and took a cigar butt out of his shirt pocket. The deputies looked disappointed as they lowered their weapons and straightened up.

I smiled and waved at the girls, who replied in kind. They exchanged a few words, then Saralee unlocked the window, yanked it open, and yelled, "Hi, Miss Arly. What are you and all those fellows with guns doing? Are they gonna shoot us?"

"Is there anyone in there with you?"

"Yeah," Saralee yelled, nodding. "Do you want us to come out with our hands up like that fat man said to do?"

The deputies were nudging each other and chuckling. Harve got the cigar going, then picked up the bullhorn. "Who all's in there?"

"Lissie and me," Saralee answered. "Aunt Joyce, Cousin Larry junior, Cousin Traci, and the baby. Uncle Larry Joe went to the high school earlier, but he said he'd be back for lunch. We're not coming out until you swear you ain't gonna shoot us."

Harve ordered the deputies to search the yard and adjoining pasture, and gestured at me to follow him as he walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the door.

"Hi, Miss Arly," Lissie said through the window. "This is better'n television, ain't it?"

"Much better," I said.

Joyce opened the door and threw her arms around Harve. "Thank God you're here," she said brokenly. "You, too, Arly."

Harve disengaged her from his neck and checked his pocket to make sure she hadn't smashed his stash. "Where's the rapist, ma'am?"

"I thought I saw him out back under the forsythia bushes."

"Someone called and said he was in the act of breaking into your house. Was it you?" When she shook her head mutely, he continued. "Is your phone off the hook?"

"I was talking to someone when y'all drove up. It liked to have scared me to death, the sirens and lights and that booming voice and those guns aimed at the house."

The deputies came around to the front yard, none of them dragging a rapist, and reported that the only thing under the forsythia was an ugly yellow dog and a chewed-up plastic truck missing a wheel. Harve brusquely ordered them to wait out by the cars, then gave Joyce a mean look.

"So how'd this rapist story get all the way to my office in Starley City?" he asked.

Joyce twisted her hands and looked at me for help, but I was fresh out. "My second cousin Barbie Buteo called this morning and said that Lamont Petrel had raped a dozen women in the county, escaped from the police, and was likely to be hiding in Maggody. I guess my imagination got loose from me, huh?"

"And where did this Buteo woman hear that?" he asked, still pissed at having had to drive all the way over and make an ass out of himself with the bullhorn and the display of firepower.

"I don't know."

"Who do ya think called my office?"

"I don't know," she repeated meekly.

"But you were on the phone?" I said, fighting back a grin because I figured Harve wouldn't appreciate it one bit. "Who all did you call, Joyce?"

"I felt obliged to warn some of my friends. I called Ruby Bee, Eula, Elsie, and Millicent McIlhaney—but she wasn't home, so I left a message with Darla Jean. I was talking to Lottie when I heard the sirens. She said she'd let everybody else know what was happening."

"So now," I said to Harve, unable to hold back my grin, "threequarters of the locals are convinced our missing person is in the act of raping Joyce while making a list of his next dozen potential victims. If you listen real carefully, you can hear those telephone wires humming across the county, and by tomorrow, they'll be barricading the doors in Texarkana."

Harve harrumphed at Joyce, then stalked across the porch and down the sidewalk to his car. I caught up with him before he could drive away, and said, "Somebody'd better find Petrel before a lynch mob of husbands, uncles, and brothers beats us to him. Every last one of them will be a hundred percent convinced Petrel raped some woman someplace."

"Think you can run the rumor back to its source?"

"Sure, Harve, sure. I don't have anything to do for the next year or two. I was going to keep working on the poisoning investigation, but if you want me to start calling the roster of the missionary society, I'll be delighted to oblige."

"You know what? Sometimes you got a real smart mouth."

Harve left me standing in a cloud of dust, but I hardly noticed.