Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (20 page)

"This isn't the time for social amenities," my friend muttered.

"Oh, yes it," I muttered right back. "Smile at the loony lady, damn it. She's got a lighter in her hand and a house soaked with kerosene."

Miss Una was studying Plover. "I don't believe we've ever been introduced, but I've seen him somewhere. Why, isn't he a policeman of some kind, or a fire marshal?"

All this time Staci Ellen was waving frantically at us, gesturing at the gutter, shushing Kevin, and creeping toward the edge of the roof. What she intended to do when she got there was way beyond me, but I wasn't in top-notch form at the moment. Estelle would have said both of my porch lights were out.

"I used to be a fire marshal," Plover called to Miss Una, "but that was last week. Now I'm ... I'm an insurance adjuster."

"Isn't that nice," she said. Her thumb danced above the top of the lighter, then eased away, thus allowing others of us to release a breath. "If you're finished with all these questions, I'll go back inside now."

"So Bernswallow was dead when you went to the bank," I said in a conversational tone.

"He certainly was. In order to look through his drawers, I tilted his chair until he slid to the floor, and he didn't say one word. I didn't touch him, of course, since that would have been most presumptuous, but I did ask him several times if he could hear me. Johnna Mae was correct when she said he had compiled a list of my little depository charges, but she was quite wrong when she said he was alive. You don't think I would have started such a big fire if he hadn't already been dead and therefore wouldn't mind?"

"Not for a minute," Plover called, giving her a genial grin. He nudged me and I did the same, although without much sincerity.

We were making progress of a kind: she hadn't torched her house yet. Wow. I was about to ask Plover if he had any ideas how next to proceed when Staci Ellen slipped. She grabbed for Kevin, and at the last second caught his hand and managed to regain her balance a good centimeter from the edge of the roof and a ten-foot drop.

At which point the biggest, blackest, loudest motorcycle I'd ever seen roared up in a veritable cloud of dust and gravel. The driver cut the ignition, yanked off his helmet, and, his eyes bulging like balloons, shouted, "What the fuck are you doing up there -- and where are your fucking clothes, you little whore?"

"Bruno!" Staci Ellen screamed, throwing her arms around Kevin so wildly that they both began to stagger forward.

Miss Una's head shot back and she blinked at the porch ceiling. "Goodness gracious," she murmured as she flicked her Bic.

The porch disappeared in a sheet of flames.

-- ==+== --

Carolyn came into the bar and flopped down in the booth across from me. "I just talked to the county prosecutor. Johnna Mae's going to face a truckload of charges, but not murder. The autopsy report came in this morning; Bernswallow died of smoke inhalation. She admitted to me that she did go into the branch to try to reason with him. When he refused to back down on his blackmail demand, she lost her temper and bashed him on the head. She swears he was alive when she panicked and ran to Miss Una's house to tell her that Bernswallow in tended to blackmail all three of them."

I nodded. "Then we have the second player -- Putter. He saw her run out the back of the bank and head for Miss Una's house for help. He went in and found both the unconscious banker and the blackmail note, burned the note in the metal wastebasket, and went home, convinced Johnna Mae had killed Bernswallow. Johnna Mae assumed he had killed Bernswallow and then started the fire to cover it up. They may not communicate well with each other, but they're damn loyal."

Carolyn frowned and shook her head. "In retrospect, I shouldn't have taken the complaint to begin with. I was upset about a different matter and not thinking rationally. I thought it might be a way to get even with that prick after all these years." She closed her eyes for a moment, then gave me a forced smile. "I was the victim of a gang rape at the fraternity house. I let myself get talked into going to a childish party, where a drunken brute dragged me upstairs and invited all his buddies to join in the fun. Brother Bernswallow's father had enough money and influence to have my charge dismissed as the rantings of a promiscuous, drunken slut who'd participated willingly and then changed her tune in the morning. The administration seized the chance to banish the fraternity, but they refused to pursue it any farther. Brandon didn't even recognize me."

I looked away to let her regain her composure. "You couldn't have known all the craziness that would happen," I said. "I still have a hard time picturing Miss Una calling Lottie Estes to suggest a jaunt to the bank to visit with their friends. While Lottie was engrossed in recipes, Miss Una took a can of kerosene, slipped inside to start the fire, and then ran into Kevin on her way out. Only Kevin would fall for the story she gave him. Lord, what a moron he is."

Carolyn and I sat for a few minutes longer. She finally said she needed to make a long-distance call and wandered away. I was still in the booth when Ruby Bee and Estelle came out of the kitchen.

"I told you it worked," Estelle said, poking Ruby Bee with a wineglass. "I think you owe someone an apology for being all snooty about it. The someone is waiting right next to you."

"Then I hope someone's ear hurts," Ruby Bee said. She came around the bar and over to my booth. "That's just awful about Carolyn and those fraternity boys. No wonder she was a might testy when she talked on and on about how men were no damn good. If I was in her shoes, I might feel the same way. The vents've been repaired and I'm going to take the Closed sign off the door. Do you want I should fix you a nice plate of pork chops and crowder peas?"

"I'm not hungry." As I crossed the dance floor, the topic of apologies and ears was renewed, and with a verbose vengeance. I kept on going.

-- ==+== --

Truda Oliver struggled toward the bus depot. The new suitcase holding her recent purchases -- and the metal box, naturally -- was heavier than she'd first realized, but the bus depot sign was in sight. She dropped the suitcase for a moment to catch her breath, then fluttered her hands over her hair and reached down for it again.

"Let me help you with that," said a man in a three-piece suit and muted red tie.

"No, thank you," Truda said firmly. "I can do it myself."

-- ==+== --

"And that's another reason why you ought to fire Arly," Mrs. Jim Bob said. "She's supposed to keep those unsavory Hell's Angels types from speeding down the middle of the highway and terrifying the good citizens of the community. I was so terrified that I just sat in the middle of the road waiting for my heart to stop pounding. I was absolutely speechless."

Jim Bob didn't believe that, but he had enough sense not to say so. In truth, he didn't have time to say anything, because she was off and running again, and liable to make him late getting to Cherri Lucinda's, who was less and less willing to listen to his excuses. The bitch.

-- ==+== --

"I sure could do with another beer," Earl Buchanon said, peeking at his wife out of the corner of his eye.

Eilene put down her needlework. "Then let's both hope you can find the way to the refrigerator. I think I'll ask Joyce Lambertino if she wants to go to a picture show in Farberville. We might even stop somewhere afterwards and have a drink."

"But, honey, it's a long way into town, and you and Joyce shouldn't drive all the way back home after dark. I don't want any wife of mine in a bar at night, especially with another woman. You two are liable to get yourselves in a bushel of trouble."

Eilene dialed Joyce's number.

-- ==+== --

In the booth next to the jukebox, Kevin gazed forlornly at the light of his life, the apple of his eye, the salt pork in his turnip greens. "But, honey," he said piteously, "I did it all for you."

"Ate chocolate cake and lemon meringue pie for me, you mean, while I was all by myself out in the woods to save you. If I'd of known you were sitting around on your behind with a catalogue for entertainment, I wouldn't have nearly starved to death or been scared out of my wits."

"But I was doing it for you. I told you how I came out of the rest room just as Miss Una was leaving. I'd been in there for a long time, partly because I didn't want Bernswallow to know I was there and partly because I started looking at the reels in the catalogue and lost track of time. They've got a new one with a magnetic cast control system -- "

"Kevin!"

Her cheeks were puffing in and out real fast, so he decided not to mention that it cost less than sixty dollars and was guaranteed for a year. "She told me that I had to hide or some of those men would do awful things. She said they'd already set the bank on fire because of the demonstration in the parking lot, and that if I'd stay at her house for a few days, you all would be safe because you wouldn't be able to yell at me and get everybody riled up."

"That's the dumbest thing I recollect you ever saying," Dahlia said mercilessly. "There I was on that rough old log, out of sandwiches and my throat so sore I couldn't hardly get out more than a croak, when this crazed madman comes creeping up on me."

Kevin gasped. "He didn't -- do anything to molest you?"

Dahlia folded her arms and put them on the table, where they spread out like Virginia hams. "You'd better get it in your thick skull that I can take care of myself, Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon. There I am, sitting, in the pitch black, minding my own business, and thinking I might ought to just let the bears eat you, when this madman starts trying to pile up rocks like they was wood blocks. Then he prances around and mumbles all kind of foolish nonsense in what sounded like a foreign language. After a while, I got wearied of it and got up and asked him what in tarnation he was doing. Well, that's when I realized how plumb crazy he was, because he jumped so high he banged his head on a limb and then ran off into the woods, astumbling every which way and spouting out more gibberish. It was the funniest darn thing I've ever seen. Mebbe I ought to send it in to Reader's Digest. I reckon they'd pay me money."

"You don't need to worry your precious head about money," Kevin said with all the tenderness he could find within his being. "I told you I'd always take care of you, my dumpling."

"Then why don't you explain one more time how come you were clinging on to some skinny-minnie girl dressed in nothing but her underwear?"

-- ==+== --

"I had to take off my dress to climb out the window, " Staci Ellen said, and not for the first time. "Once I'd wiggled free of the clothesline, I saw Miss Una out on the porch with that cigarette lighter in her hand and heard her saying all that crazy stuff. I was scared she'd see me if went to the kitchen, so I crept upstairs. I couldn't let that peculiar fellow in the bedroom get burned up, so I let him out and told him to shut up and let me think for a minute. I finally decided to get above Miss Una and then jump down on her and grab the lighter right out of her hand."

"You couldn't grab a lollipop out of a baby's hand," Bruno said, sneering at her. "Not even if the baby was sleeping."

"You might be surprised what-all I can do. Anyway, I was about to leap on her when you showed up and ruined everything. If I hadn't shoved that fellow off the side of the roof and then jumped after him, both of us would have been burned up along with Miss Una and -- " Staci Ellen stopped to wipe a tear. "And sweet little Martin."

"Who the fuck is Martin?" Bruno growled.

Staci Ellen gazed across the table. "That's none of your business. Furthermore, I don't care for your tone of voice and I don't like the way you use bad language around me. I'm real sorry that you got that speeding ticket and had your motorcycle run over by the fire truck, but nobody invited you to Maggody, so it's your fault. From now on you're going to treat me with respect. I'm going to say where we go on dates at least some of the time, and I'm going to wear whatever kind of perfume I choose. If I want a cocktail instead of a Dr Pepper, you're going to order it and you're going to pay for it."

Bruno's eyes bulged but finally receded back into their sockets without exploding. "So whaddaya want to drink?"

In that Staci Ellen had never ordered a cocktail in her life, she was stumped for a minute. "I know," she said at last, "I want something sophisticated, not one of those sissy girl's drinks with an umbrella and a fruit salad on the rim of the glass. I think I'll have a Perrier and soda, thank you." Remembering a scene from a movie, she flipped her hair back and put his cigarette between her lips. "Make it a double."

-- ==+== --

Sherman Oliver sat in the den, drinking whiskey and wondering when Truda would get home so he could tell her about the burglary. And getting fired. And how he'd come real close to making a par on seventeen, and would have if the ball hadn't stopped one inch from the cup.

-- ==+== --

Brother Verber sat in the darkest corner of his closet, the witchcraft manual in his hand. He'd heard the demon pounding on his door a while back. Just remembering how the hulking creature had risen from the ground and croaked something vile was enough to put him right smack back in a cold sweat. When the demon had persisted trying to get into the mobile home, Brother Verber had cowered so hard he'd ended up with a crick in his neck, which fit in real well with the lump on his head and the soreness in his ankle from sprawling in the dark. He figured the demon would be back for him, and the only thing between him and true evil was the manual and the mayonnaise jar.

There had to be a section on how to send demons back where they belonged, but he hadn't been able to find it, mostly because it was real dark in the closet and he didn't want to risk opening the door. Somehow, requesting a little assistance from the Almighty seemed inappropriate, considering the awful truth that he'd raised the demon all by hisself.

But for a good and righteous cause, he amended as he let the manual slip out of his hand. Everything he'd done was to save the mortal souls of his flock, to prepare himself to meet their impending depravities and do battle with the devil, if and when he was called on to do so. He'd been real convinced the women were going to get naked and do all those wicked, lustful, depraved things.

Brother Verber opened the closet door to let in a small ribbon of light. By positioning the book just right, he could take one more look at the drawings of all that depravity. You never knew.