Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (11 page)

Within a matter of seconds Merganser stumbled out, his face an unattractive green reminiscent of Ruby Bee's split pea soup. "You better call the sheriff and the coroner's office. We got us a body in there."

"Oh my God," Ruby Bee said, clutching my arm for support.

Estelle grabbed my other arm. "Is it ... is it Kevin?"

"Couldn't say ma'am," he said. "All I know is we found a Caucasian male in there who's about as dead as you get from being roasted. Plover's checking to see if there's anybody else in there, but in the meantime we need backup."

I managed to get myself into the police car, and for once the radio worked. I told the dispatcher at the sheriff's office to relay the messages to the appropriate people, then sank back and dug my teeth into my lower lip to stop it from trembling. When I could trust my knees, I got out of the car and informed Merganser that everybody was coming.

Ruby Bee and Estelle were at the edge of the lot, talking to Raz in his rusted blue truck. As I watched, cars and pickup trucks began to pull up across the road and park. Gawkers wandered out of the pool hall and barbershop. The hippies drifted onto the Emporium porch. Brother Verber and Mrs. Jim Bob came out of the Assembly Hall and stopped halfway down the sidewalk. The women who'd been swapping recipes in the name of sexual equality the night before began to materialize, along with Hizzoner and Larry Joe Lambertino in Larry Joe's four-wheel wagon. Joyce sat in the back seat. Miss Una and Lottie Estes rolled up in the ancient Crosley and found a slot among the trucks. Johnna Mae, Putter, and the little Nookims stood on the corner next to the defunct feed store.

Pretty soon most of the town was there. A shudder went through the crowd when Earl and Eilene drove up, but for the most part nobody said a word. Merganser mumbled something to me and went back into the bank. When Harvey Dorf, the Stump County sheriff, arrived, he took me aside to get an explanation, then groaned and headed for the lopsided doorway.

I couldn't make myself follow him. Kevin Buchanon had always been a royal pain in the ass, and I'd been on the verge of ripping his ears off his head on more than one occasion. But despite all his infuriating idiocy, he was a local boy, an essential part of the crazy goings-on in Maggody. I was rubbing my eyes and trying to brace myself for the awful reality when the sheriff came back out and joined me. He was as pea green as the sergeant had been, but he had a puzzled look on his face.

"It's not the Buchanon boy," he told me in a low rumble.

"Are you sure?"

Harve ran a finger around his collar and gazed upward. "It's real hard to make a positive identification, Arly. The lower body's badly burned, but he fell under the desk and a section of the ceiling collapsed on that, so the upper torso was partially protected. I'm not sure who the fellow is. But I remember that Buchanon boy from last year when he stole my jeep and got hisself involved in that marijuana murder case. I had him to my office for a couple of hours to lecture him about playing policeman and hampering the rest of us. The fellow that's in there isn't the Buchanon boy."

I loosed a major sigh of relief and flapped my hand at Ruby Bee and Estelle. "Harve says it's not Kevin," I called loudly enough to be heard all the way across the road.

There was a visible release of tension on every face. Earl slapped Jeremiah McIlhaney on the back, and Eilene collapsed into Elsie McMay's arms and cried. Everybody blinked wisely and informed everybody else they hadn't believed for one minute that Kevin Buchanon was so all-fired dumb as to get himself trapped inside a burning building.

In the midst of all this owlish buzzing, an ambulance pulled into the parking lot. Harve asked me if I'd try to identify the body, in that I knew the residents better than he did, and I reluctantly nodded. We wound through the mess and stepped across a pile of bricks. I figured we were heading for Brandon Bernswallow's office, and indeed we were. I nudged Plover aside and took a very quick look at the body almost hidden under the charred desk.

"It's Brandon Bernswallow. He was the head teller," I said, fighting an urge to disgrace myself by tossing the honey bun on someone's foot.

Harve scratched his head. "The bank most likely closed at five o'clock yesterday evening. What in tarnation was he doing here last night?"

I started to tell him about the demonstration, but Harve cut me off with a guffaw. "I already heard about that. Shit, it was all over the county five minutes after it started. That doesn't explain why this boy came back to the bank after dark."

Merganser gave me a hooded look. "Or why he didn't get his ass out the door when the fire broke out."

"Or where the fire originated," Plover contributed.

I could only shrug in response. Harve put a hand on my shoulder and guided me back to the parking lot, stepping aside as the ambulance attendants came past with a body bag. He kept hold of me while he told his deputies what to do, and after a minute I came to my senses and started acting like a cop. I did so under the watchful eyes of most of the citizens of Maggody, since no one had left -- or had even indicated he or she might at any time soon.

-- ==+== --

Truda Oliver put down the receiver and went to find her husband, who was scraping off whiskers in front of the bathroom mirror. "That was Miss Una on the telephone," she said. "It seems they found a body in what's left of the bank."

The razor clattered into the sink. Sherman met her eyes in the mirror. "That Buchanon boy who cleaned up every night? I told Brandon when he hired him that the boy didn't know which end of a mop was up, but I feel badly for the family."

"No, it wasn't the Buchanon boy. It was Brandon." Truda waited for a minute as her husband turned paler than the shaving cream on his chin. "They need you to go down right now and sign a consent form," she told him. "Brandon's family will be notified by the authorities, so I guess you can wait until later to call them and express our condolences."

"Did they determine how the fire got started?" Sherman asked as he picked up the razor and began to ease it along his jaw. Despite his best efforts, his hand was trembling so hard he was likely to do some serious damage to his face. He tossed it back in the sink.

Truda handed him a towel. "Miss Una said she heard one of the sheriff's deputies telling another of them that the fire started in the area of Brandon's body, which was discovered in his office. She was downright perplexed, she said, because she'd assumed the fire was started by the faulty wiring in the back room.

"Do they know why Brandon was in his office last night?"

"I would imagine that's what they'd like you to explain."

Truda picked the towel up off the counter and neatly replaced it on the rack. She left her husband in the bathroom and went to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Her own hand was trembling so hard she couldn't get the cup to her mouth, however, and the coffee eventually turned cold, the nondairy creamer forming a delicate beige skin across the surface.

-- ==+== --

When Ruby Bee and Estelle got back to the bar and grill, they found Dahlia slumped in the booth closest to the jukebox. She looked up with a hangdog expression and said, "Tell me the unvarnished truth, Ruby Bee. I deserve to hear it, and I am ready."

"They found a body in the bank, but it wasn't Kevin. It was Brandon Bernswallow, that new head teller fellow what stole Johnna Mae's job and then fired her for no good cause."

Dahlia's jaw sunk low enough to produce a couple more chins. "Then where's my Kevin?"

"Nobody knows. Earl and Eilene haven't had a word from him, nor has anybody else come forward to say he's been spotted anywhere in the county." Ruby Bee went behind the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee, her mind racing faster than a snake going through a hollow log. "You know," she said softly to Estelle, who'd settled on a stool, "it's real hard to see this as an accident. I'd wager a month's worth of tips that someone killed Bernswallow and set the fire to cover it up."

Estelle pursed her lips. "I think you're on to something here, Ruby Bee. Bernswallow was not a popular figure, and he'd pissed off all sorts of people with his oily ways. Who do you suspect?"

Ruby Bee glanced at Dahlia, then leaned across the counter and whispered, "For starters, Kevin has disappeared. I find that mighty suspicious."

"You don't think Kevin Buchanon ... ?"

"I'd sure like to know what he saw last night and why he vanished like a preacher on the day of reckoning."

Dahlia interrupted all this most fascinating speculation with a bovine moan. "I got to find my Kevin," she said, struggling to slide out of the booth. "He may be out in the woods somewhere, dazed and hurt. We got to get a posse to search the ridge for him."

Ruby Bee rolled her eyes for Estelle's benefit and went over to the booth to help Dahlia. It took a good ten minutes to get her out, in that she'd wedged herself in tighter than bark on a tree and the table had been bolted to the concrete floor years back, after it had been utilized in a spirited debate about the high school football team's chances for the conference title.

-- ==+== --

"Thank you for calling the Women Aligned Against Chauvinism in the Office office," Staci Ellen said in a monotone.

"This is Ms. McCoy-Grunders, Staci Ellen. Things have become incredibly complex, and it seems necessary for me to remain here for several more days. I need you to run by my condo and pick up some clothes. Bring my navy slacks, my khaki outfit, a few blouses, and that gray Cardin suit with appropriate accessories. If you don't get stuck behind a chicken truck going twenty miles an hour, you should be here in five hours. Bring whatever correspondence has come in and the stack of telephone messages. I'll set up a temporary office in my motel room and make arrangements for you to spend the night in one of the units. I may need you to stay here for a few days. I'll let you know when you arrive."

She spouted off some directions and hung up without bothering to say good-bye. Staci Ellen banged down the receiver. "Well, fiddle-dee-dee, Ms. Hotshot. What happened to 'How are you, Staci Ellen?' and 'Is it convenient for you to drive all the way up to Maggody because I need my gray Cardin suit and appropriate accessories? How's your personal life, Staci Ellen? How's the damn weather, Staci Ellen?' "

She broke off with a gasp, having never used a word like damn out loud except once when she was helping her little cousin Angelette snap together a plastic dollhouse and she pinched her finger so hard it bled. Bruno used that kind of language all the time, of course, and she didn't even want to think what he'd say when she called to cancel their date to go watch stinky old drag races out on a county road. She'd wanted to go to the drive-in and cuddle up with popcorn, but Bruno wanted to time one of the boys from the body shop and see if his Camaro was as fast as he was all the time bragging it was.

It was just tough luck for Bruno and his big plans. She went into Carolyn's office and took the condo key from the desk drawer, gathered up a stack of mail and the lone telephone message, took her romance novel from her desk, and left, locking the office door with a vicious click. Maybe, she thought as she went onto the steamy Little Rock sidewalk and headed for the bus stop, maybe she just wouldn't bother to call Bruno. Maybe she'd just borrow her father's car and drive away without so much as a word to Bruno. Let him wonder where she was, for once. After all, he sometimes stood her up and then got mad if she dared mention it.

Staci Ellen had a heretofore unfamiliar look about her as she sat down on the bench to wait for the bus. By midafternoon Sergeants Merganser and Plover were finished, and there wasn't any doubt in their minds or in anybody else's that we were looking at arson on top of murder. The misshapen kerosene can was hard to overlook, and it wasn't standard issue in bankers' offices. Papers had been wadded up, soaked with kerosene, and set alight. The perp would have had to hustle to the office door, but once it was closed he or she had plenty of time to exit the building in the orderly fashion of a grade school fire drill. Merganser was as proud as a new papa as he showed us the sharply delineated burn marks on the floor and the V-shaped mark up the side of the desk. I was almost surprised he didn't pass out cigars.

The body had been somewhat preserved because of the desk and a hefty chunk of the ceiling on top of that. It might take as much as week to get the results of the autopsy, depending on how badly backed up the medical examiner was, but we'd all seen the crescent-shaped bruise on the back of the corpse's head. A blackened trophy nearby was selected as the most likely culprit and carefully added to the pile of evidence, which would be delivered to the lab by a state trooper. Harvey and I agreed that we would conduct the investigation as if we already had the autopsy report in hand.

Most of the locals had departed in the wake of the ambulance, and the sheriff's deputies had run the more persistent spectators off with a few idle threats. Sherman Oliver had shown up and been properly appalled, although without any idea why Bernswallow returned to the bank after closing time, which had been about two seconds after the demonstrators pitched camp.

Plover gave me a wry look and said he'd get back to us when he could. He and Merganser loaded their equipment in the Chevy and drove off.

Harvey took me out of earshot of his deputies, whose tongues were notoriously waggly, and said, "So who -- all had it in for Bernswallow?"

"Lord, Harve, half the women in town, for starters, including my nearest and dearest. A wonderful pool of suspects, all of whom were milling around a dark parking lot. I suppose any one of them could have picked up a can of kerosene, slipped inside the bank, bashed Bernswallow, doused a hill of paper, and struck a match. Since the door was closed, it took a while for anyone to notice the fire. The perp may have had a solid ten minutes before things started hopping.

"I find it hard to see Ruby Bee in that role," Harvey said. "How 'bout the Nookim, woman who was the most outraged? Think she might have gotten herself so worked up that she went bonkers?"

I considered the distasteful theory. "She spouted off some, but I can't imagine her committing a homicide over a bank teller job. The WAACO woman had an ingenious scheme afoot and was liable to win at least some concessions from the bank. It doesn't make any sense for Johnna Mae to have crept into the bank and taken such a risk when she had Oliver between a rock and a hard place."

"How 'bout the WAACO woman?"

"I don't see that she had any motive whatsoever. She was relishing every moment of the demonstration. She'd gotten superb media coverage, and everything was progressing perfectly. Before the confrontation on the sidewalk, she'd never met Bernswallow. They didn't hit it off real well, but that doesn't mean she murdered him a few hours later."

"Tell you what, Arly, I'll send someone to sort through the bank records from the main bank in Farberville. Maybe Bernswallow turned down a loan application or threatened to foreclose a farm in the area." He made a great production of lighting a foul-smelling cigar, all the while shooting sly looks in my direction. Once he'd elicited a noxious haze of smoke, he added, "Why don't you start interviewing the witnesses, Arly? We might get lucky and find somebody who noticed Bernswallow creeping back into the bank or wondered where somebody else was a few minutes before the fire broke out."

My look was not sly. "And conduct the interviews by myself, I suppose? When I drove by on my way to Farberville, there were three dozen women in the parking lot, and almost that many honorable citizens glaring from across the road. The ambiance in a lot of households is on the cool side these days, as in January on Jupiter. If I pop in and start asking questions, I'm apt to find myself in the yard with a boot imprint on my fanny."

"I know, I know," Harvey said, sighing. "But you know how stretched we are in terms of manpower. I've got a whole dang roomful of outstanding warrants, subpoenas, and contempt citations for fathers who can't be bothered to pay their child support. While we're standing here right now, there are liquor store holdups, convenience store holdups, hunters blowing each other to smithereens four months before deer season opens -- "

"This is a homicide. We're not talking about a goddamn heist or a jerk who can't remember to mail his two-hundred-dollar child support checks by the fifth of the month. Come on, Harve. For once in your stellar career, do something smart."

"I said I'll assign someone to tackle the bank end."

The argument went on in this vein, but eventually I conceded defeat and agreed to interview as many of the witnesses as I could. Harve had a trace of smugness on his face as he drove away. As I stood there mindlessly staring at the bank, Miss Una's Crosley chugged into the lot and spewed forth its operator.

"I heard about poor dear Brandon," she said in a hushed voice. "I'm horrified to think something like this could happen in our cozy little community. I must say I did not approve of the way some of our citizens took it upon themselves to act in an undignified fashion."

It occurred to me that the local grapevine might provide insight for those studying superconductivity. I mumbled something vague about the tragedy and asked her when she'd left the bank the previous evening.

"Why, it would have been around six o'clock," she said. "Mr. Oliver and Mr. Bernswallow decided to close early because of the unpleasantness outside. We balanced our drawers as quickly as possible and left through the back door."

"All three of you?"

"Now that I think about it, Mr. Oliver left first. He really has little to do with the daily operation of the bank. Once I'd tracked down a minor error on a deposit slip, I turned in my drawer and said I was leaving. Mr. Bernswallow was in his office at the time."

"Did he say anything that implied he might remain at the bank for the evening, or that he had a reason to return later?"