Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (18 page)

-- ==+== --

It wasn't getting any darker in the motel room, in that all the curtains were drawn and the only light came from a flashlight on the bed.

"I still don't hear anything," Ruby Bee hissed. She stood next to the wall that adjoined unit #2, her ear pressed to the bottom of a wineglass, the mouth of which was pressed against the wall. "I don't even think this works, if you want my honest to goodness opinion."

Estelle, who had been sitting on the chair, got up and rubbed her buttocks to encourage some circulation. "It does so work, Miss Doubting Thomas. They do it all the time on television when they want to hear what's being said in the next room. Maybe nothing's being said."

"Maybe not," Ruby Bee allowed, although she still had her doubts. "Go make sure she hasn't gone out. This thing's hurting my ear something awful; I'm not about to keep doing it if Carolyn's on her way to Little Rock."

Estelle made a face, but she went to the door of the unit and opened it a few inches. "Her car and Staci Ellen's car are right where they were five minutes ago," she whispered sourly. "The curtain's drawn, but there's a light on in there. Staci Ellen's bound to be in there with her, because we're in her room and it's as plain as the nose on your face that she's not in here."

"And you're convinced that any minute now Staci Ellen's going to ask Carolyn why she underlined Brandon Bernswallow's name in red ink, and Carolyn's going to stand right next to the wall and broadcast all her secrets in a loud, clear voice?"

"There is no need to get sarcastic."

"You'd feel a might sarcastic if your ear was flattened against the side of your head, maybe permanently, and all for no good reason."

"Nobody said surveillance was supposed to be fun. But if you want to be Miss Quitter, you go right ahead. Just go sit in your unit or at the bar and wait for Arly, who's no doubt got a real fine lecture written and rehearsed for when she finds you. You can explain why you told that butler fellow that we were undercover police detectives and would arrest everybody in the whole darn house if we didn't get to visit with the Bernswallows." Estelle eased the door closed, took a deep breath, and took off again like a teapot on a back burner. "We go to all the trouble of leaving my car in Lottie Estes's driveway simply so we can continue the investigation, and now you want to quit just because your ear hurts."

Ruby Bee had been imagining what-all Arly would say, and the prospect struck a real sour chord. "I guess we can do this a while longer. I got five minutes left on my shift, and then it'll be your turn." Smirking under cover of darkness, she put the glass back against the wall and leaned into it. "Wait! I hear something. I think she's getting ready to do something, because she's walking across the room. Maybe she's going to call someone Estelle cupped her ear against the wall, wishing they'd brought two wineglasses. Just her luck to be on break when things got interesting.

-- ==+== --

It was getting dark as Carolyn opened the door and peered into the motel parking lot. She'd thought moments earlier that she'd heard voices, but the parking lot was empty and the units on either side were dark. Which was of small comfort, because it meant either the room was haunted or she was losing her mind. A few months back her therapist had listed symptoms of stress disorder, but she hadn't mentioned hearing whispers emanating from walls.

She took a final look at the lot, then closed the door and sat back on the chair to scribble more thoughts about Johnna Mae's defense.

-- ==+== --

It was getting dark and the sandwiches were gone. Dahlia's rear end ached something awful, and her stomach was growling like an earthquake. Her throat was strained so bad from howling for Kevin that all she could do was croak his name every now and then.

Big tears rolled down her cheeks. If she ever found him, she thought with a sigh, she was going to wring his scrawny neck. Here she was, sitting for nearly two days on a rotten log in order to rescue him, and he hadn't shown the decency to come forward and get hisself rescued.

Mebbe the woman lawyer was right. Men were no damn good. Oh, they strutted around and bragged about all the fish they almost caught and said how they'd hang the moon for their girlfriends, but in the end they were nothing but ungrateful brutes who wanted slam-bam sex all the time. Dahlia's brow wrinkled like a bloodhound's as she considered her last thought. Kevin wasn't like that, not by a long shot. He was gentle and tender, just like in the movies.

"Kevvvin," she tried to say, but it came out sounding like the plaintive call of a lonely bullfrog deep in the swamp.

-- ==+== --

It was getting real dark when the blue flashing light came on behind him. Bruno snarled under his breath, but he knew enough to pull over and jerk the helmet off his head before the pig walked up to him.

"Driver's license and registration," the trooper said, resting one hand on his gun. "Are you aware you were going eighty-three miles per hour in a fifty-five zone?"

Bruno couldn't believe the pig was so fucking dumb as not to see the speedometer in plain sight on the bike's handlebars. He decided not to say as much, and fumbled for his wallet in his back pocket. His hand slid in and out real quick because his pocket was fucking empty of anything, including wallet, which contained both license and registration. "Gee, I must have left it at home, sir," Bruno said through clenched teeth.

"Is that so? Will you please debike and come with me?"

-- ==+== --

It was dark enough to require a light, but Truda Oliver was enjoying the gloomy ambiance as she wandered through her house. In her hands she carried a metal box. It had once been locked, but a brief session with a hammer and a screwdriver had taken care of that minor annoyance. How chauvinistic to think women couldn't handle tools, she thought with a smile.

She went into the living room and shook her head. The stain on the carpet was still visible. Grape juice was impossible to get out. She'd tried to keep Mrs. Jim Bob's brat from running through the room with a glassful of potential disaster, but her lack of success was right there on the carpet. She'd hoped Mrs. Jim Bob would offer to have the carpet cleaned, but she might as well have hoped for Mrs. Jim Bob to engage in spontaneous combustion.

Truda opened the lid and stroked the tidy stacks of twenty-dollar bills. It was so fortunate that Johnna Mae had warned her that Brandon intended to blackmail Sherman, if he wasn't already doing so. Johnna Mae had suggested there might be a box of cash somewhere in the house. Truda had gone straight to the den, and now she had this lovely box of money. There was enough to recarpet the entire house. There was enough to put in a dishwasher so her hands wouldn't look so red and chapped all the time. There was even enough to have Perkins's eldest clean, and for years to come. But Sherman wouldn't like that. He probably planned to use the money for a golf cart or a trip to one of those fancy golf resorts. He'd disappear every morning and not return until it was so dark he couldn't find his golf ball on the fairway, much less in the rough or in a sand trap. From what he said, he spent plenty of time in the last two places. Sherman was a duffer, and she was nothing but an aging golf widow.

Truda told herself she deserved better. Carolyn had told her that she had every right to finish her college degree, or to find a remote place and write the children's books she'd dreamed about for years. Carolyn had said all kinds of things in that vein, until Truda started believing them herself.

And now, as if via divine interference, she had the money to follow her dreams, to seek her destiny, to find total fulfillment. Divine in that somehow she'd known to search every nook and cranny of Sherman's den. Human in that he'd hidden the box where anyone with a crowbar could find it.

Truda went into the bedroom to pack her suitcase but turned right around and went back through the living room, detouring through the kitchen to get her purse and keys, and meticulously locked the front door on her way out. Who needed a bunch of poorly made dresses and cheap plastic accessories from a discount house? Truda Longspur-Oliver, as she decided on the spot to call herself in the future, was going to wear designer dresses and a full-length mink coat.

-- ==+== --

It was so dark that Sherman Oliver tripped over a branch and went sprawling face first in the rough. As he pushed himself up, his hand brushed something smooth and hard.

"I found my ball," he called to the other members of the foursome, who were almost invisible out on the fairway. "I'll play it from here."

"It's blacker than the inside of a Baptist church, old man. You wouldn't be able to see it if you made a hole in one. We're going back to the clubhouse for a drink. You coming.

"Hell no." Sherman stood over the golf ball, which was as likely to be his as the last damn fool's, and swung back the club. Bunch of damn sissies, he thought as he chopped down on the ball. He moved a few inches to where the ball had bounced and chopped again at it. They were on the seventeenth hole, for Pete's sake. Bunch of sissies wouldn't even finish out the round.

-- ==+== --

It was dim in the basement. Plover beckoned to the waiter and asked Mrs. Gadwall if she wanted another martini. When she nodded he instructed the waiter, smiling across the table.

"You certainly know a lot about junk bonds," he said, turning on the dimples until his cheeks hurt. "I'm very, very impressed."

Mrs. Gadwall giggled.

-- ==+== --

It was seriously dark as Staci Ellen walked down the alley, the tiny kitty cradled in her arms. The moonlight helped, of course, and she was not some goofy girl who was afraid of the dark, or of a bunch of dilapidated fences and smelly garbage cans.

The sweet little thing mewed, and she scratched its little head. "I'll find your mama," she said gently so's not to startle the kitty. "You're too little to have come very far, and I can't just let you stay lost out here where some mean old dog might gobble you up in one bite. Gosh, though, I don't know how I'm going to find your mama out here with nothing but garbage cans.

She was still talking to the kitty when a bobbing light came across one of the backyards. She almost screamed before remembering she wasn't a scaredy-cat, no offense intended to her companion. It took her a minute to catch her breath and say, "Hello, there. Are you looking for a lost kitty?"

Miss Una gasped. It took her a minute to catch her breath, too, and say, "How ever did you know the purpose of my mission?"

"I found her back that way," Staci Ellen said. She joined the elderly woman at the gate and passed over the kitty. "I was worried sick about what to do with her. I knew I couldn't leave her out here by her lonesome, where some nasty dog might hurt her, but I didn't want to go across people's backyards and right up to their kitchen doors to ask."

"Oh, you are an angel. I've scolded Martin so many times about straying from the yard, but he is just as stubborn as he can be. Aren't you, you runaway rascal?" Miss Una rubbed her cheek against the kitty's head.

"So she's a he and his name is Martin? My father's name is Martin, Martin Quittle. He's not a kitty, though; he's more of a sign painter."

"Isn't that something? My Martin is named after President Martin Van Buren. There is a familiar connection, although it's convoluted after all these generations. Miss Quittle, I'd like to repay you for your kindness and courage. I would be honored if you would join Martin and me for a cup of tea. That way you can meet all my kitties."

Staci Ellen hesitated for a moment, wondering if Ms. Hotshot With a Hyphen was worried about her by now. She decided that she didn't care. "That would be very nice, thank you. Can I carry Martin? You know, the way his whiskers shoot out sort of reminds me of my father. Isn't that hysterical?"

Miss Una agreed as they went into the house.

-- ==+== --

Raz Buchanon squinted at the much creased bank statement, but for the life of him he couldn't find the damn fool charges listed anywhere. It seemed to him that if'n they took his money, they ought to have to say so right on the paper instead of just telling him about it to his face. He considered the wisdom of approaching Miss Una one more time and asking where the damn fool charges were, then threw the paper down and reached for his tobacco can. Weren't much sense in that, he thought as he scratched Marjorie behind the left ear, which she loved most of all.

Marjorie was ecstatic.

13

I called the sheriff Monday morning and we decided to hold off on any further charges against Johnna Mae, mostly because we didn't have any evidence and the DA was a stickler about such things. All we knew about prints on the metal wastebasket was that they hadn't been made by Johnna Mae, Sherman Oliver, or Brandon Bernswallow. Plover and I had compared the partial from the kerosene can with the prints of the above mentioned printees, and we hadn't found any promising similarities. I admitted that Kevin and Dahlia were still missing and I was becoming increasingly worried about them. I declined to discuss Ruby Bee's and Estelle's latest caper, because I knew how Harve would respond and the guffaws were more than I could face on an empty stomach. He said to hang on until we got some more goodies from the state lab, told me to have a nice day, and rang off.

I decided to play fast and loose with the PD budget and called the lab in Little Rock. I was transferred to four different departments and spent a total of nine minutes on hold, listening to saccharinized old Beatles melodies. When I finally got the medical examiner on the line, he told me he was up to his goddamn neck in corpses and I was going to have to wait my turn.

I was grinning at the image when Raz Buchanon stomped into the PD. His cheek bulged dangerously, so I hastily went into the back room and found a coffee can kept for such emergencies.

"Much obliged," Raz said as he let a golden thread of amber dribble into the can. "I want to ask you something, Arly. You may not know the answer, and I'd be mighty surprised if you did." He flashed his sparse brown teeth at me so I'd know my abysmal ignorance wouldn't offend him none.

"I'll give it my best shot, Raz. But if it has anything to do with show sows, you might have better luck at the co-op in Starley City."

"I don't reckon it does. It has to do with bankin' practices."

"Again, Raz, it's not my field of expertise. Why don't you take it up with Miss Una, or better yet, Sherman Oliver?" I gave him a smile meant to send him away, in that the growing redolence in the PD was affecting me in the same manner as Harve's brayish laughter. It was obvious to those with noses that Raz and Marjorie had been watching a lot of television together.

"Miss Una's got a sharp tongue these days. I dun tried over and over for her to explain things to me, but I never could make out what she was saying. And I don't care for that Oliver fellow. The sight of his knees in those baggy shorts is enough to make a growed man cry." He took a grubby piece of paper from somewhere in his denim overalls and put it on my desk. "I just want you to take a gander at this, Arly. You see if you can find where it says I paid a depository charge."

"There's no point in me looking at it. I wouldn't recognize a depository charge if it bit me on the ankle. My bank charges a service fee if my account drops below a certain level, and they go berserk with overdraft charges if I screw up and write a few bad checks, but they don't have anything called a depository charge. Are you sure that's the right term?"

"Hell, no, I ain't sure," he said, scratching his head. He spat into the can and shrugged. "It's not that this charge is so all-fired much. It's the principal of the thing. I can afford this twenty-five- or fifty-cent charge when I deposit my Social Security and my veteran's disability, but I think they should have to put it somewhere on this paper so I can balance my checkbook every month and figger my taxes at the end of the year."

"I wish I could help you, but I can't, especially in the middle of a murder investigation. If you can't understand Miss Una's explanations, why don't you go to the main bank in Farberville and let them have a turn? Ask to speak to a Mrs. Gadwall; she seemed pleasant."

Raz chawed over my suggestion, stuffed the paper back in his overalls, and asked if it was hot enough for me, or would be by noon, anyways. I assured him that it would be by noon, anyways, and sent him away before I dumped the vile contents of the coffee can over his head.

Having savaged the air conditioner until it produced a mild breeze, I sat in my shabby chair and once again played fast and loose with the budget by calling all seventeen miles to the barracks. I survived a round of "I'll see if he's in," and "He doesn't seem to be in his office," and "Please hold; I'll transfer you" with my customary grace and charm.

When Plover finally came on the line, I said, "Well?"

"Well what?" he drawled, clearly amused by his quick wit.

"Well, did you have a chance to talk to Mrs. Gadwall about the portfolio? This call's costing money, you know, and I'm saving up for a new radar gun that picks on European imports."

"I did indeed speak to the woman, and I now know more about junk bonds and grade B, double B, and even C bonds. She promised to study the portfolio this morning, if she could handle it. It seems martinis give her horrible hangovers, and she drank them straight through dinner and well into the night. The bartender was whelmed."

"I'm delighted to know you had an entertaining evening," I said coldly. "I had a marvelous time listening to Kevin Buchanon's parents squabble and then driving by Ruby Bee's a dozen times to gaze at an empty parking lot. And I mustn't forget a shower and a can of soup. The crackers were on the stale side, but they were passable. Anyway, I've got Kevin's prints on a plastic cup, so you can send someone to pick it up. As for Ruby Bee and Estelle, put out an APB and mention that the two are armed and dangerous. Maybe some weak-kneed rookie will shoot them, thus saving me the cost of the bullets."

"You'd better spend more time on border patrol, Chief; you're losing your residents at an alarming rate. Maybe I can find a roll of barbed wire and we can set up a blockade at both ends of the city limits. Only to keep folks from escaping, of course, since no one in his right mind would want to come in."

"Did I tell you how funny you are?" I waited a second, then said, "There's a reason," and hung up. I sighed, jabbed the back of my head trying to adjust a loose bobby pin, propelled myself up and out the door, and walked down the highway to Ruby Bee's mumbling under my breath every step of the way.

Estelle's station wagon wasn't parked out front-naturally, but I banged through the door and stomped across the dance floor, around the end of the bar, and into the kitchen, where I found Ruby Bee and a man in a grease-stained jumpsuit arguing about the estimate to fix the vent.

"Go away," I said to the repairman.

He looked at my expression and my badge and started for the back door. Ruby Bee grabbed his arm. "Don't take one more step, Peewee Thrasher. I've waited three darn weeks for you, and you ain't going anywhere."

"Yes, he is," I said, folding my arms and glaring.

"No, he ain't," Ruby Bee said, hanging on for dear life and glaring.

"Yes-he-is. You and I have important things to discuss. Had you been in residence last night, we could have conducted the discussion at that time. I not only drove by here several times, I also called your unit until well after midnight. You chose to lurk under a bush all night."

"This kitchen's hotter than a final-night revival sermon. I've waited three weeks to get the vents repaired, all the while slaving over a hot stove so folks like you wouldn't whine about how hungry you are. Peewee's here to fix the vents and he's gonna do it right now." Her face was turning redder by the word, and her voice was climbing toward double-digit decibels. The repairman's head was going back and forth as if he were at Wimbledon, and I suspected he wished he were anywhere but where he was, for that matter.

"We are going to talk about your presence in the Bernswallows' library yesterday," I said. "He'll have to come back later."

"It took three weeks to get him here and he is not going to leave without fixing the vents, even if he charges a poor widow woman an arm and a leg to do it!"

We were still snarling and glaring when the kitchen door swung open and Estelle hurried in. Ignoring the ambiance, she said, "Well, it's about time you showed your face, Arly. We've got a problem. I'd even say we've got us a tragedy in the simmering."

"What?" Ruby Bee gasped, loosening her grip on the repairman.

"I stopped by Carolyn's unit to see if she wanted a pot of coffee, and she told me that Staci Ellen's disappeared. She went for a walk late yesterday afternoon and never came back."

Ruby Bee released the repairman in order to point her finger at Estelle. "You swore she was in Carolyn's room, being quiet as a mouse. Would you like to see the red mark on my ear?"

"Staci Ellen's whereabouts are a tad more important than your sore ear," Estelle retorted. She looked at me. "Why are you just standing there like one of your porch lights is burned out? You've got to find Staci Ellen before something terrible happens to her."

I told Peewee to fix the vents. I then marched the merry pranksters out to the bar and said, "For starters, I have no idea who this mysterious Staci Ellen is. I gather she has some connection with Carolyn McCoy-Grunders, and that leads to yet another topic of discussion." Before I could elaborate, the front door opened.

"Good, you're here," Carolyn said as she came across the room. "Staci Ellen Quittle is my secretary. She's nineteen or twenty, short, bleached blond hair, blue eyes, not especially intelligent or articulate. She went for a walk around six o'clock. I didn't hear her return, but I did hear a noise in her room later in the evening and assumed she was there. When I went to wake her for breakfast, I realized her bed had not been slept in and the clothes she'd been wearing yesterday weren't there."

"Does she know anyone in Maggody?" I asked.

"She knows us," Estelle said, frowning. "Are you sure her hair is bleached, Carolyn? I happen to be in the profession, and I'd of said it was natural. Maybe a little lemon I juice, but -- "

"It doesn't matter," I said curtly. "Let's take a look at her room to see if she might have written down a name or a telephone number. Then Estelle and Ruby Bee can wait here" -- I gave them icy looks -- "in case the girl comes back, and you and I will drive around town and look for her."

We all went to Staci Ellen's room. I opened the drawers, but the only things I found were a battered romance novel, The Golden Ecstasy of Lady Beatrice, and half a pack of chewing gum, sugarfree spearmint. A few clothes were folded neatly on a chair, and the bedspread was slightly rumpled. A dry toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste were aligned by the sink.

As I came out of the bathroom, Carolyn pointed at a wineglass on the dresser. "Staci Ellen must have been back at some time last night, because this glass wasn't here yesterday. It's the most peculiar thing of all. I'm almost certain she doesn't drink, but even if she decided to have some wine, where would she get this glass? And where's the bottle?"

I bent over to sniff the glass. "There's no residue in the bottom and no odor. It's smudgy, as if someone held it and twisted it for a long time. "I agree with you; it's damn peculiar. A state trooper is coming to the PD this morning to pick up a plastic cup to be fingerprinted at the barracks. I'll send the glass along."

"Oh, you don't have any call to do that," Ruby Bee said. "Staci Ellen didn't arrive in Maggody until yesterday -- the day after the fire. There's no way this innocent glass could have anything to do with important matters like arson and murder."

"That's correct," Estelle added, nodding her head.

Carolyn frowned. "But something funny is going on. There is no rational explanation for the wineglass's being in Staci Ellen's room."

"Maybe she brought it along for you," Ruby Bee said with a bright smile. "Maybe she thought you'd want to have a glass of wine. She figured you would prefer a real glass to a plastic cup, so she popped it in her suitcase, just to be on the safe side."

"Wait a minute," I said. I looked so hard at Ruby Bee that she backed into the bed and sat down with a grunt of surprise. "Why did you say that Estelle swore Staci Ellen was in Carolyn's room being as quiet as a mouse? What's wrong with your ear?"

"I disremember saying any of that."

"No, you don't. Just where were you two last night?"

Ruby Bee looked at Estelle, who looked at the ceiling. "We were here and there, running errands and visiting folks. Nothing worth mentioning. We did come by here for a minute or so -- or would you say a tad longer, Estelle?" When Estelle didn't say anything whatsoever, Ruby Bee gulped and said, "We thought Staci Ellen might enjoy a little drive around the countryside, so we dropped by to invite her. She wasn't here."

I advanced until I was standing over her. "But Estelle thought Staci Ellen was in Carolyn's room. That was a reasonable theory. Why didn't you knock on the door and invite them both to go on this little drive?"

"We ... ah, we didn't want to disturb Carolyn. She's going to defend Johnna Mae, and she might have been concentrating on what kinds of legal shenanigans to pull."