Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 (6 page)

Putter Nookim opened the door. He stared at me as he wiped his hands on a dingy dish towel. A television blared from behind him, and somewhere in a back room a baby began to cry. "Hey, Arly, you looking for Johnna Mae?" he said without visible or vocal enthusiasm. "She ain't here."

The tennis ball made a thwacking sound near my ear, but I held back a wince and said, "Do you have any idea when she'll be back?"

Thwack. "No, she's off with those women at Ruby Bee's. She been there all the time for most of a week now and I don't know when she'll come home." Thwack. "She says it's real important what they're a-doing. She says it's for the cause." Thwack. "I jest wish she'd come home."

"I'm sure you do," I murmured, eyeing the stained apron he wore over his jeans. "How's your back, Putter?" Thwack. "Any chance you can go back to work soon?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. We looked at each other for a moment -- thwack -- and then I said I'd try to catch Johnna Mae at Ruby Bee's -- thwack. He closed the door. I went to the future major league pitcher and offered him a dollar for his ball. He snatched the ball out of the air and hightailed it around the mobile home, no doubt to commence his game on the other side.

Although it was late in the afternoon, the sun was still blistering the road and doing its best to peel a couple of layers off everybody and everything. The upholstery in the police car crackled as I eased onto it, and I could feel it through my clothes. I decided I could put off a confrontation with the conspirators long enough to stop by the Dairee Dee-Lishus for a cherry lime ade, but as I reached the intersection with the highway, I saw that which is not seen in Maggody more than once a decade.

Two of them, actually. One was a boxy white wagon with a television station logo painted on its door. The other was a cream-colored van with a television station logo painted on its side, and they were parked in front of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. A man and a woman were chatting at the edge of the lawn, while two men armed with portable cameras were fiddling with their equipment on an individual basis.

The lawn was otherwise uninhabited. As I sat at the intersection, blinking like a toad in a hailstorm and wondering if the Goodyear blimp would show up shortly, Brother Verber and Mrs. Jim Bob came out of the white frame building and joined the man and woman. Much gesturing ensued. At one point Mrs. Jim Bob shaded her eyes with her hand to peer down the highway. Brother Verber took out a handkerchief, blotted his glistening forehead, gustily blew his nose, and stuck it back in his pocket, all the while talking and frothing at the two unknowns, who seemed bemused but not impressed. Mrs. Jim Bob stalked back into the Assembly Hall, her buttocks aswish with indignation.

Things got even more intriguing when a sheriff's deputy drove into the bank's parking lot and pulled in beside me. He gave me a little wave and got out of the car as yet another deputy appeared from the opposite direction and pulled into the lot. The two walked to the edge of the highway and began to talk.

Fascinating, I told myself, wishing I'd purchased the tennis ball so I could throw it at them to get their attention. I was about to flip on the siren just for the hell of it (it hardly ever works, but you never know) when another car pulled up behind the television van and a man with a camera around his neck got out, accompanied by a dowdy woman with a notebook. They joined the circle on the lawn.

Sweat was dribbling down my back and dripping off the end of my nose, but I couldn't seem to snap into action, mostly because I wasn't sure which action to snap into. I had about to decided to ignore the whole thing in favor of a cherry limeade when I heard shrill voices in the distance. I inched the car forward until I could see around the corner of the old drugstore.

Parade time in Maggody. Estelle's station wagon was coming right up the yellow line in the middle of the highway, creeping along at a turtlish pace. Crepe paper streamers flapped from the roof and the door handles; a poster was taped on the door, but I couldn't read it from my vantage point. Following behind it was a wall of women, their arms linked and their mouths moving in unison, twice as fast as Estelle's station wagon. Some of them were decorated with sandwich boards and crepe paper, while others carried signs. They were all familiar.

I cut off the engine and scrambled out of the car. The television people had whipped to attention and were aiming cameras at the protesters. The newspaper photographer was in the middle of the road, snapping away. The two deputies had moved into the shade under a wilting crab apple tree beside the bank, but they were watching intently.

"Down with the Maggody branch!" came the battle cry.

The door of the pool hall opened and the neckless wonders wandered out to stare as the procession moved regally past them. Roy Stivers came to the door of the antique store, his thumbs hooked in the straps of his overalls. His cheek puffed out with a wad of tobacco, Perkins could be seen staring through the window of the barbershop, as could Earl Buchanon and Jeremiah McIlhaney. Lottie Estes scowled from the porch of the Assembly Hall.

"Sherman Oliver discriminates against women!"

The accused and Brandon Bernswallow came out of the bank. Bernswallow tapped one of the deputies on the shoulder and began to talk insistently into his ear. Sherman Oliver folded his arms and waited impassively, although I could see his eyelid twitching and his face getting redder by the second. His foot was tapping hard enough to eradicate an entire colony of ants.

"We shall stand together!"

Mrs. Jim Bob scurried across the lawn, her jaw leading the way, and took her position next to Brother Verber, who was mopping his face and working on a full-scale expression of righteous outrage.

"Down with the Maggody branch!"

The protesters passed the Emporium and stopped long enough for the television cameras to catch them in their finest hour. Estelle flashed a smile for all those unseen viewers, wiggled her fingers at me, and began to drive slowly toward the bank parking lot. There were at least three dozen women in three rows, and I didn't even have to squint to find Rubella Belinda Hanks smack dab in the middle of the first row, with Johnna Mae on her left and the WAACO woman on her right. Where else would the chief of police's mother be -- home baking cookies?

"We shall overcome!"

I wasn't sure what they intended to overcome, although it was probable we would all be overcome with heat before too long. Or tension, which was as smothering as the humidity and twice as thick. In that the women were squarely in the middle of the road, we were developing a small problem with traffic flow. We don't normally have a steady stream through town, but we have a smattering of pickup trucks and your occasional tourists out in search of bucolic bliss and cheap antiques. By this time, we had collected several of each species both coming and going, although obviously nobody was doing much of either at the moment. Some of them were, however, beeping their horns or shouting out the windows of their vehicles.

"Unity for all women!"

One of the deputies was scratching his head, the other his ass. Neither one seemed to have any idea what to do, understandably enough. The television people were still filming away and the reporter was trying to elicit a few words from the outer edge of the row.

"Sisterhood forever!"

Mrs. Jim Bob jabbed Brother Verber, who sucked in a breath and strode out to the yellow line. Everybody swung around to see if Estelle would brake, and from her expression I could tell it was on the iffy side. With no more than two or three inches to spare, she did, causing a collective sigh of relief to stir the air.

Her head popped out the window of the station wagon. "Git yourself out of the way."

"What you're doing is sinful, Estelle Oppers, and all the rest of you women," he intoned, clasping his hands in the classic supplicative pose and half closing his eyes. "I want all of you to go home to your husbands, get down on your knees, and beg, yes, I say beg their forgiveness for the terrible thing you're doing this very minute."

"Old fart!" Johnna Mae called. She freed her arm long enough to shake her fist at him, then slipped it back through Ruby Bee's and added, "Paternalistic pig! Who does he think he is anyway? Moses?"

"Pride goeth before a fall," he shouted back, earning a moment of puzzled silence from the crowd. "A woman's place is in the home. The Bible says you're supposed to glean and reap in your husband's field, not block traffic and make spectacles of yourselves."

"Go reap yourself up a tree!" came a comment from within the ranks.

This elicited responses from the crowd, which was swelling like a pregnant sow's belly. Those in the cars and trucks were scrambling out now, either to escape the sun or to hope for a chance to appear on the nightly news. The spectators along the street had gathered too. The deputies were looking decidedly unhappy, but neither had moved out of the shade.

Brandon Bernswallow came at me, his forehead so deeply creased the lines might have been etched with an ax. "You have to stop this right now, Chief Hanks," he barked. "This is illegal, and you damn well better do something immediately. This kind of publicity can do permanent damage to the bank's image in the community. God knows my father'll have a stroke when he sees this on the news. He'll have some crazy idea that this whole thing is my fault. Now do something, and do it now!"

I was about to point out that I would have more than a small amount of difficulty doing much of anything when I heard a thud. I looked over Bernswallow's shoulder. Brother Verber was now spreadeagled across the hood of the station wagon, roaring at Estelle through the windshield and splattering it with spittle. She rolled up her window and turned on the windshield wipers. Mrs. Jim Bob was clinging to Lottie Estes, who was fanning her with a tissue and screeching at the protesters.

The television cameras descended on me. A woman with immaculate hair stuck a microphone under my chin and said, "We're talking with Arly Hanks, chief of police in Maggody. Chief Hanks, how do you intend to deal with this escalating crisis? Do you feel you and these two deputies will be able to prevent violence as more and more people gather here on the road to seek equality for women?"

I flapped my jaw, but before I could respond, Bernswallow nudged me aside and said, "The Bank of Farberville is deeply concerned about this minor yet distressing incident. We have always dedicated ourselves to -- "

Carolyn McCoy-Grunders nudged him aside. "I'm the official spokesperson for Women Aligned Against Chauvinism in the Office, and we'd like to go on record as -- "

Brother Verber nudged her aside. "The Bible admonishes women to cleanse the temple and honor and obey, not carry on like common sluts. Furthermore, in my experience as pastor of -- " Johnna Mae nudged him aside. "I was employed at this branch for eleven years. Just because I had a C section and had to stay home for six weeks while the scar healed up is no reason -- "

Even the television people were getting tired of the nudging and interrupting. The lights went off and they headed toward the women milling about in the parking lot. The deputies rallied themselves and began ordering the crowd to disperse and get back in their cars or go inside or whatever if they didn't want citations for blocking the road.

"Just who do you think you are?" Bernswallow snapped at the woman from WAACO. "Around these parts we don't think real highly of tight-assed women who're too damn big for their britches and come into town to stir up trouble."

That set off a conversation I preferred to pass up, at least for the moment. I left them snarling at each other and went to Sherman Oliver's side. "Johnna Mae must have changed her mind," I said with a shrug.

"So she did, so she did. I'm sorely disappointed, and I suppose I should have heeded Brandon's advice and filed the complaint against her." His already red face turned a deeper hue. "Now what in tarnation are those damn fool women doing?"

What in tarnation they were doing was unloading the station wagon in the middle of the parking lot. We're talking aluminum patio chairs, coolers, grocery bags, casserole dishes covered with plastic wrap, and gallon jugs. Some of them, anyway. Other busy little bees were propping up posterboard signs, none of which was complimentary to the branch bank or its manager. The television crews were delighted with this display of industriousness and centered on someone's mother as she taped a particularly offensive sign to the crab apple tree.

Brother Verber, Mrs. Jim Bob, and a whole passel of husbands were observing from the lawn of the Assembly Hall. The deputies had the traffic moving, but those on the far side of the road were motionless. Grim. I'd never seen so many clenched jaws, rigid lips, and narrowed eyes in my life -- and I used to take the subway in Manhattan when it rained.

"Arrest those women," Sherman Oliver said, his law pretty damn clenched itself. "They are trespassing on private property.

Brandon snorted a final I insult at Carolyn and stalked over to us. "That's right, Chief Hanks. The parking lot is private property. I don't know what the hell they think they're doing, acting like they're settling in for a little picnic over there, but we won't stand for it."

Carolyn joined our jolly group. "Oh, yes, please arrest all those grayhaired, middle-aged housewives and throw them in jail. Won't the bank look just dandy when the story hits the news? What a wonderful way to express all that dedication to serving the community, by locking up half the population in some filthy jail cell. Do you have enough handcuffs to go around? You'll most likely have to drag them into the police wagon, since we've all agreed to react with passive resistance."