Madness In Maggody (20 page)

"And that was yesterday," Kevin said slowly. His eyes were slightly crossed as he tried to think things over without getting more confused than usual. "Kinda late in the afternoon, you said."

"You ain't gonna tell Arly, are you? I don't want her to get all riled at me for looking at pictures of..." Hammet couldn't find the appropriate words, so he settled for rolling his eyes and twisting up his mouth. He wasn't real sure about Kevin, who didn't appear to be much smarter than a possum heading for certain death on the highway. Hammet had been sitting on the top step outside the apartment and hadn't noticed Kevin until he heard a gasp and realized he'd been caught red-handed with the magazines. Now he figured he was at this dumbshit's mercy. "You ain't gonna tell Arly?" he repeated urgently.

"I ain't gonna tell Arly."

"You ain't gonna tell nobody, right?"

After a moment of silence, Kevin smiled just a tad and said, "I think I'd like to buy those magazines off you, Hammet. How much do you reckon it'll cost me?"

"Why do you want to buy them? They ain't nothing but a lot of..." Again, words failed him and he made a face.

"How much?"

"Gosh, I dunno. It ain't like I bought them myself. I jest saw 'em flying out the window. Here, you kin have 'em for free. I don't want 'em anymore."

"Thanks. I'll buy you a tamale and a soda pop one of these days, okay?" Kevin rolled up the magazines and stuck them in his back pocket. "See you later. I got to talk to someone."

Hammet watched Kevin go down the stairs and pedal away, wondering all the while what he wanted nasty magazines for, anyway. He then turned on the television and settled down for thirty minutes of animated mayhem, which was a helluva lot more entertaining than pictures of folks poking their puds in funny places.

*****

Lissie and Saralee
were in the Lambertinos' front yard. I told Lissie where we were going, and Saralee promised to relay the information to Joyce, who reportedly was in the den being kinda quiet and not even watching television or anything.

"Martin's coming home tomorrow," I told Lissie as we drove toward Farberville. "He's going to stay with Hammet and me."

"What about Pa?"

"He's going to be fine, but they want to keep him at the hospital for a few more days."

"That's good," she said, brightening. "Is Martin gonna play ball at the game tomorrow?"

We were passing the airport on the right, and therefore the Airport Arms Apartments on the left. Everything looked calm there; I didn't know if Plover had attempted to charm the fingernails off Crate yet, but he'd promised to report back to me when he knew something.

"Yes, we need everyone tomorrow," I said. We discussed our chances of beating the SuperSavers, which took no time at all, then rode in silence to the hospital. "Martin will be excited to see you," I said as I parked in the flat expanse of concrete. "Let me ask you something, Lissie. Does your pa ever spank you or Martin?"

She shook her head. "All he does is yell sometimes, especially if we don't get our chores done or come in late for supper. Once he made me stay in my room all afternoon 'cause the television was too loud and woke him up. I didn't know it was too loud."

"What about Gran?"

"She just talked about how hard it was on account of her heart and all that junk. She said we gave her headaches."

"But she never spanked either of you?"

"No, she just talked and talked. It was worse. Can we go see Martin and Pa now?"

"In one second," I said, watching her closely. "Martin had some bruises on his behind, and he said he fell out of a tree in the yard. Did he tell you about it?"

"When he was chasing that gimpy squirrel? It sure is hot in the car, Miss Arly. It's making me dizzy and my stomach's feeling like it's full of lumpy oatmeal."

We went into the hospital and took the elevator to Martin's floor. He was watching cartoons, which suited Lissie, so I left her there and went to the basement floor and the intensive-care ward. Buzz had fewer wires and tubes attached, and he was breathing without visible assistance. The nurse grudgingly allowed me a few minutes with our patient, as long as I promised not to tire us out.

"Hi," I said softly.

His eyes fluttered open, and when he saw me, his mouth curled into a faint smile. "Howdy," he said in a hoarse voice.

"I brought Lissie to visit Martin. He's to be released tomorrow and I'll keep him with me until you can come home."

"Thanks." He coughed in a low wheeze, then gave me an apologetic look. "Sorry, but they had these damn tubes down my throat. They told me what happened to Lillith. Did you find the person who did it?"

"Not yet," I admitted. "I'm hoping you can help. The poison seems to have been in the coconut-covered cakes. I had half a dozen reports of tampering that day, although everyone else experienced only mild reactions."

"I bought the cakes on my way out of the store. I just picked 'em up off the rack."

"And there was nothing suspicious about the cellophane wrapper?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I didn't think to examine it. I was going to give them to the kids, but I forgot I had them in my pocket until later in the day. Lillith's got a sweet tooth, and we decided to have ourselves a little treat on the sly. I took it and a beer into the living room, opened a magazine, and the next thing I know some nurse is hovering over me and I've got enough needles in me to be a voodoo doll."

He began to cough in harsh spasms that shook his shoulders and brought tears to his eyes. The nurse came to the door of the cubicle, shot me a dirty look, and said, "How are we doing, Mr. Milvin? Would we like a sip of water?"

"I'm okay," he said, waving her away. "Anything else?"

"One quick question. On Monday night, Jim Bob sent you to Starley City to make the deposit. Do you know why he did that?"

"Some woman called the store and asked to speak to him. He hunkered over the receiver and tried to keep it down, but his ears were redder'n raspberries and he was breathing pretty hard by the time he hung up. He told me to take the bags, that he wanted to stay at the store. When I got back, he was gone."

"But Kevin Buchanon was there the entire time?"

"He was supposed to be," Buzz said with a grimace. "But even when he's there, he's not quite there, if you know what I mean."

I assured him that I did indeed, told him I'd come back to visit, and left before the nurse booted me out. I went back to Martin's room, turned off the television, and stood beside the bed. "Are you sure you didn't have a bite of your pa's or your grandmother's coconut cake?" I pleaded. "One little bite?"

"Is that what poisoned them?"

"And you, too," I said with as much control as I could rally in my seriously frustrated frame of mind. He shook his head. "I don't like coconut. It gets stuck between my teeth."

I told him I'd see him in the morning, and took Lissie out to the car.

"One short errand on the way back to Maggody," I told her as we headed down the highway.

She nodded, uninterested in the foolish vagaries of adults, and was humming to herself as I parked next to the dumpster at the Airport Arms Apartments. I went upstairs and along the balcony to the last door. My knock was as officious as I could make it, and the door opened within seconds.

This time Cherri Lucinda's curly blond hair was not hidden, and I was fairly sure she was the woman who'd been sent sprawling into the van during the ceremonies outside the SuperSaver. In fact, her scowl was strikingly similar to the one she'd had that day.

"I'm sick and tired of you people," she said angrily. "I mean, I've had it up to here with cops and spies and crazy women. I'm in the middle of packing my bags, and with luck I'll be in the next state by sunset."

"Wait a minute," I said as she tried to close the door. "I need to ask you some questions."

"I don't give a damn what you need. I am sick, sick, sick of this whole stupid nonsense! Screw the gold Le Baron convertible, screw Jim Bob Buchanon, and screw you!"

The door slammed in my face.

Lissie didn't glance up as I got back in the car, started the engine, and drove out of the lot in a cloud of dust. I dropped her at Joyce's, pulled back onto the highway, and was considering the idea of driving to France when I spotted Kevin pedaling along the side of the road in front of the pool hall. I pulled in front of him and stopped.

"I want to talk to you," I said as I got out of the car. "And if you so much as sniffle, I'm going to put your head between the spokes of that bicycle and pedal like hell to the East Coast."

"Hi, Arly," he said cheerfully.

"Don't 'hi' me, Kevin Buchanon," I continued. I was aware I wasn't at my coolest, professionally speaking, but I was as sick as Crate of all the gossip and evasions of the last five days, and he was a prime evader. "What happened Monday night at the SuperSaver?"

He swallowed several times, glanced over his shoulder, then rolled his bicycle forward until the front tire went over my foot. "Dahlia came by at ten to talk to me," he said in a whisper, although there was no one in sight except for Roy Stiver sitting in front of his store and therefore a block away. "Buzz told me to git back to work, but we—Dahlia and me, not Buzz and me—had some more talking to do, so she went to the break room and waited there."

"And then?"

His eyes darted like minnows and he began to play with a pimple on his chin. "Well, Jim Bob came in and went to the office. I was shelving boxes of dried potatoes when I heard Jim Bob tell Buzz to go to Starley City. Then Jim Bob ups and leaves, too, so I went back to the break room to talk to my betrothed. You do know Dahlia and I are betrothed, don't you?"

"Yes, Kevin, I do know that. Then what happened?"

"Golly, Arly, that's kind of personal," he stammered, his Adam's apple bouncing.

"I do not—repeat, do not—want to hear what transpired between you and Dahlia. Did the two of you remain in the break room until Buzz returned?"

"It's kind of funny," he said, reattacking the pimple, "but just as Dahlia was gitting ready to slip out the door, we heard Jim Bob come back for a minute. I guess he forgot his notebook or something. We stayed in the break room till he left again, then I hustled Dahlia out and went back to the dried potatoes. There's a new kind with cheddar cheese that—"

"Did you see Jim Bob?" I inserted.

"No, but it wasn't Buzz 'cause he was gone for more than an hour and stayed once he came back. We figured it was Jim Bob."

"And how did you reach that conclusion, Sherlock?"

"He had a key. Otherwise, how would he get back inside the Store?"

I stared at him. "I wish you'd mentioned this earlier, Kevin. Did you and your betrothed work out your problems?"

"Oh, yeah, everything's gonna be just swell. I got something to show her that'll make her brighten up like the Christmas lights on the square in Farberville." He stopped abruptly, then finished off the pimple and said, "Mebbe I'll just tell her about it, rather than show it to her. Dahlia's got a real delicate constitution."

And so do Sherman tanks, I thought. I left Kevin sitting on his bicycle and in imminent peril of being run down by a chicken truck (one of the more imminent perils in Maggody). A few of the threads were beginning to come together. As tedious as it sounded, I needed to hear all the gossip floating around town, so I drove briskly to headquarters, aka Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill.

It was still closed.

I turned around in the parking lot and drove back to the PD just as Plover pulled up. He had a peculiar look on his face, so peculiar it was impossible to define or even take a stab at. But thirty minutes later, after hearing his story, I had the same expression on my own face.

The next morning
I ambled down to Ruby Bee's, found my favorite bar stool, and warned myself to tread very carefully if I ever again wanted to savor a square of lemon icebox pie. "Anybody home?" I called to the kitchen.

Ruby Bee came out to the bar. Her expression reeked of danger, although I'm relieved to report she no longer reeked of more tangible things. "What do you want?"

"I came to talk to you."

"What about? I got to get lunch started. The potatoes need to be peeled and the pies are awaitin' to go in the oven. If you want to talk, why don't you call somebody long distance?"

"I heard you did some of that yourself," I murmured, keeping one foot on the floor just in case.

"Did you?" she said, then wheeled around and started shifting glasses on the back counter. "Where'd you hear that?"

"From Sergeant Plover. He told me the whole story, from the calls to the...unpleasant situation in the apartment parking lot yesterday afternoon." My chin started twitching, and I realized I was, as Hammet would say, in a shitload of trouble. I covered the lower part of my face with my hands and feigned a coughing fit, all the while watching her back. It was rigid enough to withstand a bullet.

When she turned around, her stare was enough to stop said bullet in midair. "You getting a summer cold?" she said challengingly. "Is that your problem, missy?"

I nodded helplessly and coughed until I could trust myself as much as I ever would be able to. "But at least we learned where Petrel has been hiding out," I said. "It's unfortunate that he slipped away during the...ah, the situation. Plover's confident the state police will be able to run him down today. He couldn't have gone too far on foot."

"The airport's not too far. It's across the street."

"I don't think he'll make a run for Brazil. He didn't commit a crime; he simply chose to hole up in a crummy apartment for the best part of a week."

"With that woman," Ruby Bee said with a growl that would have intimidated a grizzly bear. "I could use another word if I were a mind to, but I won't. She was right uppity when I politely asked to use her bathroom to freshen up. You'd have thought I asked to use her toothbrush or prance around in her black lace underwear."

I was overcome with another fit of coughing. I finally wiped my eyes and said, "According to what I heard, you had a noticeable aroma about you that may have put her off."

"Like a cesspool being dredged after fifty years," Estelle contributed as she came across the room. "Not to mention the coffee grounds in your hair, and that curlicue of apple peel hanging off your ear, and the big ol' brown splotch on your dress, and—"

"Thank you so much for not mentioning any of that," Ruby Bee snapped. "Do you happen to recollect whose brilliant idea it was for me to climb into that nasty thing? Do you?"

Estelle tilted her head and pretended to think. "It seems to me it was a matter of height and who was going to be able to boost the other one over the side and help her out, Miss Five Foot Three On Her Tiptoes."

"Why did you climb in the dumpster?" I asked. "Plover said you claimed that you were going after evidence, but he wasn't clear what it was or why it would be in the dumpster, or even whether or not you found it."

"I was merely investigating. I was hoping to find proof that Petrel was hiding in that awful woman's apartment. I didn't, but she admitted he had been there, so it doesn't matter, does it?"

"What kind of proof?" I said, not buying a word of it.

"I really couldn't say. You realize the big game's this afternoon, doncha? I got your pink Flamingo shirt in the kitchen; wait and I'll fetch it for you."

I waited, and when she returned, tried my damnedest to badger a straight story out of her and/or Estelle. It paled after a while, so I switched to the less threatening topic of current gossip. What I heard was enough to peel the paint off a '57 Chevy. "Do you believe any of this?" I demanded.

Ruby Bee shook her head. "To tell the truth, I don't rightly know what to believe. I know Petrel wasn't breaking into Joyce's house, and I can't figure out why he'd tamper with the little cakes at his own store, much less put enough poison in one to kill Lillith Smew. But Elsie told Estelle that the Riley girl now claims he raped her—but that doesn't fit in with what Lottie said happened." She frowned at Estelle. "Do you think there were two different cheerleader tryouts?"

Estelle chewed on her lip. "Doesn't make an ounce of sense that there would be. Why would that girl go back after what happened between her and Jim Bob?"

"It's puzzling," Ruby Bee admitted, "but no more so than imagining Kevin and Dahlia carrying on like everybody said they was, and doing it right there on the porch swing, with Eilene and Earl watching television in the living room. I don't think the swing's all that wide."

"Not as wide as Dahlia," Estelle said. "But that's what Johnna Mae Nookim heard when she was buying a broom at the Emporium. She said Perkins's eldest heard all about it while she was cleaning at Mrs. Jim Bob's last week."

"But she told Elsie that she heard it from a woman in the Homemakers' Extension in Hasty not one day ago," Ruby Bee said doubtfully.

"They serve sherry after the meetings."

"During, from what I hear."

I couldn't take any more of it. I left them debating the relative merits of their sources and drove to the hospital in Farberville to pick up my shortstop. As I passed the Airport Arms, I couldn't keep from staring at the dumpster. I was still chuckling when I reached the hospital. To this day, I get a little smirky when I see one. Ruby Bee, on the other hand, gets very grim.

*****

"The missionary society
will be selling canned sodas and cookies," Mrs. Jim Bob said to herself. She made a checkmark by that item and moved on. "Brother Verber will make the opening invocation about playing baseball for Jesus. If he should happen to add a comment or two about the immorality of the other team, I think it might be appropriate, don't you?"

Jim Bob glanced up from the paperwork spread out in front of him on the dining room table. "Yeah, what the"—he caught himself—"heck, let him blast into Ruby Bee and Arly. Might be amusing."

"We are speaking of a religious invocation, not a stand-up comedian's routine."

"Right." He looked back down at the papers, wondering how the bankers could generate such quantities of small print without going blind, fer chrissake. He'd managed to appease the wholesale grocer with a partial payment and the promise of the rest of it that afternoon, 'cause now he knew where Lamont was, or figured he had a pretty damn good idea, anyways. He also figured Lamont was going to be a sight more cooperative about putting up his share of the cash. The loan closing wasn't until after the game, and Jim Bob had scraped together his share. Now that Lamont was back (sort of), there'd be enough money to pay the goddamn points, pay off the wholesaler, and maybe pay off the health inspectors and get Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less open again.

He realized, however, he was going to have trouble with Arly Hanks, who'd run whining to the sheriff and her pet trooper. Not being employees of his, they might be less inclined to take orders from him.

"Then Lottie Estes leads the singing of the national anthem," Mrs. Jim Bob said, making yet another checkmark. She was in a much better mood now that she was running the show again, which of course was only fitting since she was the mayor's wife and the president of the missionary society—and was more than prepared to tackle the tricky passage from Corinthians II when the moment arose.

"Is the band playing?" Jim Bob asked, wrinkling his nose.

"I've already explained that we shall use a tape player. I do not trust that group of pimply pubescents to play the sacred strains of the national anthem. I shall hold the flag, and all the players will line up with their caps on their chests as a sign of respect."

"Yeah, I forgot."

"Then I throw out the first ball and we get this game over and done with as quickly as possible. Afterward, there'll be a nice buffet supper at the Assembly Hall for the players and their parents. Perkins's eldest has fixed several quarts of chicken salad and her fair-to-middlin' homemade cinnamon rolls. You will present the trophy, which will then be displayed in the front window of the SuperSaver—if it ever reopens, that is."

"It'll reopen," Jim Bob said in a cold voice. "Just you wait. Lamont'll show up this afternoon and we'll hustle ourselves to the bank to close the loan. Then Arly can arrest him for tampering with the cakes and maybe even for murdering the Smew woman, if he did it on purpose. When he disappears this time, it'll be to a lice-infested cell with a bunch of fags the size of gorillas. They'll learn him a thing or two about trying to pull a quick one on his partner."

Luckily, she'd stopped listening to him. "Does Arly know when she's supposed to arrest him?" she asked as she frowned at her list. There was no reference to Lamont's impending arrest and she wasn't quite sure where it best fit into her schedule. If it took place before the game, it might distract the players, but if it took place afterward, she'd be obliged to make small talk with a criminal for all those dreary innings.

"After the closing. It has to be after the closing, which is set for four o'clock. Arly'd better not so much as look cross-eyed at him until we've closed the loan." Jim Bob realized he sounded a shade frantic, and warned himself to settle down. "We can't accuse him until everything's settled at the bank. I've got my share, but I need his. If the loan folks get spooked, gawd knows what they'll do."

"We do not take the Lord's name in vain in this house," she said mechanically, still wishing she could make a note about the arrest, if only for her own peace of mind. "Perhaps we might plan on having him arrested after you award the trophy," she suggested. "Then we'll have the players clean up the plates and forks and we can all go home knowing justice was served, along with chicken salad and cinnamon rolls." The telephone rang. Confident that it was for her, Mrs. Jim Bob answered with a curt "Yes?" Fifteen minutes later when she sat back down on the newly re-covered divan, she looked as bumfuzzled as he'd ever seen her. Her eyes were zipping back and forth, and her normally tight mouth was nigh onto invisible. It was rare that she needed to think things over, since she pretty much always had her mind made up in advance.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"That was Millicent. She said she'd just heard an amazing story from Darla Jean, and I must say it takes the cake. Darla Jean and another girl were driving into Farberville to shop for school clothes, and they had the misfortune to have a flat tire right by the airport. They were struggling with the spare when they saw someone they knew across the road at that derelict apartment building. Do you know which one I mean?"

He certainly did, but he prudently hesitated for a moment and scratched his head. "Yeah, the one that should have been torn down a decade ago."

Mrs. Jim Bob went on to relate the rescue of Ruby Bee and the ensuing scene with a blond woman on the balcony. "Darla Jean and her little friend couldn't hear anything, of course, and they were about to walk across the street when a truckload of Maggody boys drove up and fixed the flat for them. The girls went on to the mall. I can't begin to imagine what in tarnation Ruby Bee Hanks was doing in a dumpster. And Darla Jean swears Estelle Oppers came out of an upstairs apartment—and she wasn't alone. I find this most peculiar."

"Which apartment?" Jim Bob said, doing his level best not to break out in a telltale sweat, despite the fact his bowels had iced over like a sump hole in January.

"I couldn't say, but the point is that she was in a half-naked man's apartment and Ruby Bee was in a dumpster. I would like very much to find out what those two were up to, but my first duty is to report this to Brother Verber. I'm sure he will share my outrage at this immoral behavior."

Brother Verber had the decency to answer the telephone, and she plunged in briskly.

"This is Sister Barbara. Now you'd best sit down and take notes concerning what I'm about to tell you. It has all the makin's of a splendid sermon."

"Why, certainly, Sister Barbara. I'm sure what you have to tell me is very important, very important indeed. Let me get a pencil and a piece of paper."

She could hear his heavy footsteps and a good deal of huffing and puffing as he fetched his supplies, but he sounded fine when he came back on the line to assure her of his readiness.

"Are you familiar with the Airport Arms Apartments?" she began.

"I don't reckon I am, but I devote all my time to saving souls in our little community. I can't remember when I last had call to leave my trailer parked right here in the righteous shade of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall."

"I know where your trailer is parked, Brother Verber. The apartment house is that disreputable place across from the airport in Farberville." She waited for him to say something, but all she heard was his breathing, which suddenly sounded right raspy. He didn't say anything, though, so she went on. "What I have to tell you concerns the dumpster."

His breathing took a turn for the worse, wanting to get to the gist of her story, Mrs. Jim Bob was beginning to lose her saintly patience. "Are you having a seizure? You haven't even heard the half of it yet."

"I haven't?" he croaked.

"Millicent McIlhaney said her daughter Darla Jean saw one of our citizens in the dumpster and another come out of an upstairs apartment with a half-naked man with a beer can in his hand."

She was quite pleased that he grasped the implications so readily. She could tell from the gurgly noises he made that he was as outraged as she, if not more so. It was most satisfying.

*****

Martin was waiting
in the hospital lobby. The pallor of his face was accented by dark smudges beneath his eyes, but he managed a smile for me. He didn't look like an energetic shortstop; then again, it didn't much matter, because we didn't have the proverbial bat's chance.