Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (16 page)

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Brother Verber licked his finger and turned the page of the witchcraft manual. It still was possible, if only remotely so, that the women of Maggody had formed a secret coven and intended to engage in their evil rituals once all the furor over the bank fire died down. After all, they'd clearly lost their minds because of that home-wrecking feminist woman from Little Rock, who'd had no problem converting heretofore obedient wives into wicked, defiant, sinful women's libbers one inch away from burning their brassieres. He'd said as much in his sermon, and he'd seen the stubbornness flash across their faces.

They were still up to something. The most obvious thing was magic, and not the sort of magic where pumpkins were changed into cartridges, either. Black magic. Devil worships. Evil.

Brother Verber found himself increasingly interested in how one went about all those depravities, but he reminded himself he was doing it only to protect those members of his flock who'd strayed right off the path of righteousness and were down in the ditch of despair. It occurred to him that it might be real prudent to familiarize himself with all the details, just in case they somehow managed to call up some demon from hell so as to have a disgusting, lustful orgy.

He stopped for a minute to ponder if he was having wicked thoughts by admitting there might be demons on call. No, it was all right because the Catholic Church had exorcism rituals, which meant they worried about it, and although Brother Verber was a far cry from being a papist, he had to respect them. Why, everybody knew the Vatican was wallpapered in gold and the pope flew all over the world in a private airplane. He concluded that it was not only proper but also real important to test some of the instructions in the book.

"A cloak of patchwork," he read aloud. He decided he could get by with his plaid shirt, which kind of looked like patches. "Thirty days of fasting." This was more of a poser. After some heavy breathing, he told himself he was only shooting for a little demon and therefore would fast the rest of the day and wouldn't touch the two pieces of fried chicken in the cardboard bucket until he had conducted his experiment. The book went on to say he had to meditate and pray for a hundred days, but Verber figured he did that all the time anyway and could count that.

The rest of it was a piece of cake. A dark, secluded valley, seven stones stacked up around which he was ordered to circumambulate, some mumbo jumbo he was supposed to memorize but would write on a little crib sheet, and a glass bottle with a cork to put his demon in. Brother Verber wondered if a mayonnaise jar might work just as well.

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"Truda says she and Sherman might move to Florida," Mrs. Jim Bob said as she delicately scooped up a forkful of mashed potatoes. "I was a little bit surprised, I must say. They must be a lot better off than they let on."

Jim Bob eyed the piece of fried chicken, but he didn't have the nerve to pick it up under his wife's beady scrutiny. The lecture on table manners wasn't worth it. God knew she all the time screeched at the damn brats about not eating like wild animals, and it didn't matter, since they always ate in the kitchen where nobody had to look at them except for Perkins's eldest. Sighing, he picked up his fork. "He's a banker. Maybe he takes home a little extra every night."

"I don't care to hear such remarks, even if you're joking. Sherman and Truda are my dear friends, and I don't imagine they go around saying you steal money from the town bank account." She put down her fork to consider the Olivers' financial situation. "Truda has always run her home on a real tight budget. I know for a fact she buys her clothes at a discount house, because once I happened to open the closet door by mistake and saw the labels. Their house is ... well, even Truda would admit their house doesn't hold a candle to ours. It has one and a half bathrooms, and the carpet's so stained in the living room that I'd be embarrassed to let anyone even see it. They haven't been on a vacation in years, except for that one time they went to Eureka Springs for the Passion Play and stayed in one of those bed-and-breakfast places instead of a real hotel. How much do you reckon bankers get paid?"

Jim Bob tried to anchor the chicken breast with his finger, but caught his wife's disapproving look and glumly let it slide into the peas. "Why don't you ask them to send over a financial statement and a copy of last year's income tax return? That way you'd know exactly how much money they have. Maybe you can sneak a peek at the mortgage."

"Don't be vulgar -- and stop playing with your food. I have no desire to offend my friends by taking an unhealthy interest in their personal finances. I was merely wondering, that's all. If you're bored, we can discuss the sermon this morning. I found it a shade peculiar myself."

"Verber's sure got a bee in his bonnet about this devil worship," Jim Bob muttered. "He looked disappointed when none of the women in the congregation ripped off their clothes during the closing hymn."

"He is concerned about the subject. He has a moral obligation to warn everyone of their wickedness, even if they're not actually engaging in it as of yet." Mrs. Jim Bob's face turned the color of the tomato aspic on her salad plate. "I do wish he'd stop talking about bared bosoms and blood running down bellies to -- ah, to vile places."

Jim Bob had enjoyed that part, although he'd dozed off toward the middle of the sermon and had himself a nice dream about Cherri Lucinda's vile place, which might well be the vilest of them all.

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After a few wrong turns and dead ends, I found the street that curled up the mountain to the large homes overlooking Farberville. When I came around the corner, I stopped to stare at all the cars parked on both sides of the street and choking the long driveway. The Bernswallows had visitors. It would make things more awkward, but I presumed we could find a room somewhere for a quiet talk.

I parked behind a chocolate brown Jaguar, walked past four pastel Mercedes in a row, and turned at a lemon yellow BMW to trudge past a rainbow of Audis and an honest-to-goodness silver RollsRoyce. Beyond the house was a four-door garage, and beyond that a clump of mundane battered little cars. The help, no doubt.

A couple came up behind me, the man in a dark suit and stiffly starched shirt and the woman in a mink coat. It wasn't more than a hundred degrees in the shade; I took a small yet simple pleasure in noting the flush on her cheeks. The man nodded soberly at me and rang the doorbell.

We were admitted by what I assumed was a butler, who took in my police uniform with a subdued wince. In a properly mournful murmur, he announced that Mr. and Mrs. Bernswallow were receiving callers in the living room and would we be so kind as to follow him and would madam prefer him to see to her wrap. She whipped it off and tossed it to him, and we trooped down a corridor to a vast living room packed sardine-style with people. Most of them had wineglasses in hand and mortuary voices.

I caught the butler's arm and asked how to find Mr. and Mrs. Bernswallow. He gazed at my hand until I removed it, then murmured that Mr. and Mrs. Bernswallow were seeing only a select few of their closest friends in the library. It was pretty clear he didn't place me in that category, so I told him I was there on official police business.

He clamped his lips together and led me through the crowd to a closed door. "I shall let master and madam know you're here and ascertain if they will speak with you." He tapped on the door and slipped inside.

I smiled at those staring at my uniform with varying degrees of curiosity and disdain. About the time I was going to offer one particularly sniffy woman the chance to find out if my gun was loaded (it wasn't), the butler came out to the living room, a bizarre expression on his face. What I saw over his shoulder propelled me into the library. With a bizarre expression on my face. A silver-haired woman dressed in black was gaping in horror at a casserole dish on the table in front of her. A silver-haired man in a dark blue suit was sputtering wordlessly, his nose bright red and his chin dotted with spittle. His hands cut through the air, but he couldn't seem to find any words. At least not for Ruby Bee Hanks and Estelle Oppers, who were perched on a brocade sofa, their purses in their laps and their expressions as bright as children on Christmas morning.

When they saw me, the eagerness blinked out like a lightning bug's tail. "Why, Arly," Ruby Bee said, gulping, "whatever are you doing here?"

Bernswallow found a few words, to wit: "You -- you rude, outrageous, pushy -- I saw your faces on the local news, you -- "

"My God," Mrs. Bernswallow moaned, "why is it such a ghastly shade of green? It looks like dog vomit. Oh, Charles, make them take it away. Call Perkins at once and tell him to remove this from my sight."

"Is Perkins the butler?" Estelle said. "I know a fellow out in Maggody named Perkins. Do you think they could be any relation?"

"Do something, Charles," the woman commanded in the same agonized voice.

"Now you see here," Bernswallow said, finding more words, "I don't know who you are" -- he spun around and jabbed a finger at me -- "or you either, but I demand that all three of you leave immediately. It is totally outrageous for you to come into this house under patently false pretenses and upset Mrs. Bernswallow like this. If you do not leave this instant, I shall have you arrested for trespassing and impersonating police officers. Furthermore, when our period of mourning is over, I shall instruct my legal firm to file a multimillion-dollar civil suit against all of you for harassment and emotional distress."

"Calm down," I said before he found an entire dictionary. "I am the chief of police in Maggody, and I'm here on official business."

"I heard one of them call you by name. Do you know these two trespassers?"

I shook my head, but Ruby Bee waggled her finger at me and said, "You know perfectly well who we are, Miss Officious Business. We just came by to offer our condolences and to drop off a little something for supper. You have no call to act like we're a couple of burglars here to steal the family silverware."

Mrs. Bernswallow shuddered. "Charles, I do believe I shall be ill if you do not remove this dreadful thing from my sight. I had the carpet cleaned only yesterday."

"Don't be silly," Estelle said. "You just take green beans, cream of mushroom soup, canned onion -- "

"Charles! Do something right now!"

Mr. Bernswallow snatched up the casserole dish and shoved it at Estelle. "Mrs. Bernswallow is not interested in whatever may comprise the contents of this unappetizing mess. Please take it with you on your way out the door!"

Ruby Bee and Estelle marched over to the door, their noses bent so far out of shape I was amazed they could see where they were going. As they went through the door, Estelle looked back over her shoulder. "And water chestnuts," she advised. "They give it a nice crunch."

"And pimentos for a festive air," Ruby Bee added.

I sat on the sofa while Mrs. Bernswallow coughed and gagged and Mr. Bernswallow patted her back and muttered rather colorful remarks at the closed door. Once she'd regained her composure, he glared at me. "This is a most difficult time for us. What do you want?"

"I am very sorry about your son's death. I'm working with the sheriff's department and the state police to determine who was responsible, and I need to ask you a few questions."

His eyes bulged dangerously. "About that McCoy woman? Don't you people ever give up? That was five or six years ago, and I see no relevance to the tragic death of my son." Mrs. Bernswallow hid her face in her hands and began to sob.

The McCoy woman? I flapped my lips for a minute. "No," I said slowly, "I wanted to ask you if Brandon had any enemies. I also would like a list of any of his close friends who might have knowledge of anyone with a grudge." The McCoy woman? Carolyn McCoy-Grunders? I was dying to ask, but I didn't want to deal with hysterics from Mrs. Bernswallow and a fatal apoplectic fit from her husband.

Mr. Bernswallow relaxed. "No enemies that I can think of. After Brandon completed his degree, I arranged for him to take a position as a teller at a bank in a different locale. I subsequently arranged the head teller position for him at the branch, in order to diversify his experience and increase his skills in management. I had hoped to bring him into the main bank in a year or two, perhaps as a loan officer."

"Did he live in this house?"

"Recently, yes. He's only been back a short time, and he's been putting in hard hours at the branch. I don't think he's even talked to any of his old friends." Bernswallow looked away for a minute. "I was very proud of his diligence, especially in the last few weeks. He returned to the branch on numerous evenings to familiarize himself with the idiosyncrasies peculiar to this particular branch."

"I was concerned that he was working too hard," Mrs. Bernswallow said in a quavering voice.

"Nonsense," Bernswallow said firmly. "There's no such thing as working too hard. I've never wasted my afternoons playing golf or having martinis with my friends, which is why I'm the chairman of the board rather than a petty tyrant in the boondocks. If you want to succeed, you've got to put your nose to the grindstone and run it at full speed."

"You've had a report about the embezzlement," I said. "If Brandon had been working on the accounts at the branch, don't you think he would have caught on immediately?"

Bernswallow harrumphed. "The employee was very devious, and Brandon was only beginning to familiarize himself with the customers and their individual accounts. He hinted to me that there were several problems at the branch, but I felt it would do him good to handle them himself and therefore refused to discuss them with him. I wanted him to learn how to take charge, how to handle sloppiness and petty theft. That's what builds character."

I nodded and asked if I might look at Brandon's room. Mrs. Bernswallow promptly burst into tears. Bernswallow rang for the butler, ordered him to take me wherever I wanted, and sat down to console her wife. I trailed Perkins (surely no relation) down a back hallway, up an imposing flight of stairs, down a corridor lined with oil paintings of grim-visaged ancestors, and into a bedroom.

"Will that be all, miss? I really must attend to my duties downstairs," Perkins said, peering down his nose at me.

"I'll ring for you if I want a snack," I said, and waited until he was gone before turning to study the room. It had all the warmth and personal touches of a bank vault. The walk-in closets were stuffed with clothes, and the drawers with ironed underwear and socks rolled into perfect eggs. In the drawer beside the bed I found a half pint of bourbon, which I decided was as likely as anything to have fingerprints on its shiny surface. I eased it into a plastic bag and tucked it in my purse.

I went back into the closet, marveling at its size, and ran my hand along the top shelf. I felt a flat, rectangular shape, and pretty soon I was sitting cross-legged on the bed with Brandon's college scrapbook.

It was a truly tasteless journey down memory lane. There was an extensive collection of snapshots, some of snickering boys draped over each other's shoulders and clutching beer cans, but the majority were of women in various degrees of undress. Under each was an editorial about her sexual prowess or certain skills. Exclamations marks abounded. I studied each face as best I could and couldn't find Carolyn. However, some poses focused on areas of anatomy I wouldn't recognize her by in any case.

The fraternity had thrown elaborate parties on a monthly basis; the invitations ranged from formal to lewd. The accompanying snapshots proved that even formal could degenerate into lewd, that chiffon could be removed if eyes were crossed enough. There were a few newspaper clippings that described the arrival of campus security and the reprimands and threats doled out by the fraternity council and the administration. The fraternity had been disbanded when a coed brought charges of a gang rape in the billiard room. What a charming bunch of guys, I thought as I flipped through the pages.

The final photograph was of Brandon beside his loving cup, his mouth curled in a sardonic grin and his hand raised in a crude gesture. I found it ironic, to say the least. I replaced the scrapbook, made sure the half pint bottle was secure in my purse, and slipped down the back steps and through the kitchen. Outside, the breeze was hot, but it smelled fresh.

12

I went by the state police barracks to see how many fingers had been smudged in the name of comparing prints. Plover said Sherman Oliver had come and gone, and that Miss Una hadn't shown up yet. I said that on the highway she was apt to peak at a maximum speed of twenty miles an hour, which meant it might take her well over an hour and a half to cover the seventeen miles (yes, I know, but we have to take into consideration chicken trucks, railroad crossings, red lights, and pit stops).

"Did Oliver's prints match?" I asked.

"Our office expert is off today. I put them on a transparency and stuck them on the overhead projector with prints from the state lab. I wasn't positive about the handle of the kerosene can, but I'm confident they don't match the full set from the wastebasket. Of course, I would never accuse a branch manager of emptying the trash."

"Let's see if head tellers work any harder." I produced the bottle of bourbon I'd taken from Brandon's bedside table so we could dust it. It was covered with lovely prints, and we transferred the loveliest ones to a plastic sheet. Neither one of us could find a swirl of similarity.

"So I went through the ordeal with his parents for nothing," I said, sighing, and related what had happened at the Bernswallow mansion. Once Plover stopped laughing, I asked him if he had any idea how to uncover this murky connection between the Bernswallow family and Carolyn McCoy, who must have hyphenated at a later date.

"What's odd is that Bernswallow Senior brought it up," I continued. "One would hate to be petty-minded and suspicious, but one wonders if the name had been first mentioned by a blood relative of mine."

He threw up his hands in mock surprise. "What's this? Are you accusing your own mother of meddling in an official police investigation while keeping secrets from you, her only child?"

I dialed the number of the bar and grill, but no one answered, thus averting for the time being what promised to be a tiresome conversation. I resettled in my chair and said, "Once I find Ruby Bee, I'll get out my shiniest cattle prod and elicit everything she knows in no time flat. Bernswallow made another odd remark about how he was chairman of the board rather than a golf-playing petty tyrant in the boondocks. I wonder if it was in reference to Sherman Oliver?"

"If it was, does it have any significance?"

"Well, it wasn't a particularly friendly characterization. He also said Brandon had mentioned several problems at the bank. I'm convinced Brandon knew about Johnna Mae's minor embezzlement and intended to blackmail her, but we've got two fires. and two sets of fingerprints. Do you think we could have two candidates for blackmail?"