Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (13 page)

It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. The fact that I could figure it out was more than a little disturbing, but I put it aside for later analysis. "Listen, Dahlia, I'm not here because of anything you came up with while you were hypnotized. I need to find Dr. Sageman and Rosemary Tant. Did one of them bring you home?"

"That fellow with the ponytail gave me a lift. The whole way he kept pestering me with questions, when it was all I could do not to burst into tears on account of the awfulness that happened to me."

"Are Dr. Sageman and Ms. Tant at the Flamingo?"

"They were when I left ten minutes ago," she said, beginning to quiver. "For once I'm glad Kevvie has to work late. I don't know how I'm gonna tell him -- "

"I have to go," I said quickly. I patted her on the shoulder, let myself out, and drove back to the motel. There were lights on in all of the units except for Ruby Bee's. Having no idea where to find anyone, I knocked on the door of No. 2 and hoped for the best.

Rosemary Tant opened the door. "Has something happened to Cynthia?" she asked before I could get out a word. "She took my car earlier this evening, but I expected her back by now. Something's wrong -- I can feel it!"

Omitting the where and the why, I told her that Cynthia'd had a heart attack and was at the hospital. She was frantic to be taken there, but I told her I had to stay in town and suggested she make arrangements with Dr. Sageman. I left her twisting her hands in the doorway and drove back to the low-water bridge just as Harve climbed out of his four-wheel.

"So what have we got this time?" he asked. "Little green corpses?"

It was not the time for flippancy. "No," I said as I turned on my flashlight. As we walked down the path, I told him everything that had happened, then added, "The medical examiner is the one to make the call, but it looks as though the victim died of carbon monoxide poisoning. His skin's bright red."

"Is his car parked down there?"

"I wish it were, Harve, but it's not."

"So where'd the carbon monoxide come from?"

"That," I said grimly, "is a damn good question."

Eilene Buchanon had been watching the light flitter around the pasture out back for more than half an hour. Earl was upstairs, snuffling and snoring like a rusty chain saw, and she hadn't thought twice about waking him. He'd just tell her to mind her own business, then flop back over and bury his head under the pillow. She had to admit he was a steady provider and a God-fearing Christian, but no one had ever complimented him on his perceptiveness. If he had an imagination, he'd hidden it under a bushel basket since the night she met him at the county fair.

She took his heavy jacket from a peg, slipped it on, and went out to the back porch for a better look at the light. There was something fancy-free about it. It was hard to track when it shot upward against the stars, but each time she thought it was gone for good, it would come swooping down and start cutting wide circles above the alfalfa.

On the far side of the pasture, Estelle's house was dark. Eilene wondered if Estelle was standing on her back porch, watching the light and wondering what it would be like to have such freedom. She recalled Dahlia's remark about being invited to climb inside the mysterious black limousine. There was something inviting about the light, too.

Eilene reminded herself she was a good wife, a dedicated mother, and, most recently, an exemplary mother-in-law. She fixed biscuits every morning and clipped coupons as if they were original works of art. She wrote weekly to Earl's mother in Hot Springs. She turned the mattresses every spring, canned tomatoes every summer, and resigned herself to football every fall. But there was one thing she couldn't deny: This little light wanted her to come out into the night.

Dawn came and went without fanfare. I was slumped at my desk when Jules Channel tapped on the PD door and let himself in. He tried to dazzle me with a smile, but I was way too tired to be dazzled by anything short of the Hope diamond. Sleep deprivation will do that to me every time.

"Coffee's in the back," I said ungraciously.

"No, thanks. I just heard some really X-Files over at the deli in the supermarket. Is it true that Cynthia Dodder had a heart attack last night by the creek, and later Brian was found dead there?"

"It's all true." I went into the back room and refilled my cup. I stalled for a minute, hoping I'd hear the front door close, then reluctantly returned to my desk. "I'd just as soon you didn't write this up for your tabloid. No one deserves to have his or her obituary next to a story about killer parakeets."

"I agree with you, and we don't run that kind of story a anyway. The downbeat stories are the exclusive property of the legitimate papers; we exist only to amuse. Besides, Brian was a nice kid. Just because I work for a sleazy outfit is no reason to assume I'm a sleazy person."

I considered apologizing but instead said, "Did you know him well?"

Jules shook his head. "Not really. We ran into each other when he and Sageman were investigating UFO sightings, but that's about all. Can't Sageman help you?"

"He and Rosemary stayed at the hospital until a couple of hours ago. I'm going to take their statements later this morning. It was a long night for everybody involved, and there's no reason to rush into this until I've got some idea of where I'm rushing." I yawned so broadly that my eyes watered. "And I need a lot of coffee before I produce any ideas whatsoever. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do ... "

Once he was gone, I drove to Reggie Pellitory's mobile home in a corner of the Pot o' Gold. This time I wasted no time with a timorous tap. About the time my fist was beginning to throb, the door opened.

"Who're you?" said a man in stained boxer shorts, acting as though we'd never met despite our encounters at the pool hall and one memorable night when I'd knocked him upside the head with my flashlight and booked him for drunk and disorderly. He'd done thirty days, and I'd enjoyed every one of them.

"You know who I am. Let me talk to Reggie."

"He ain't here."

I didn't bother to smile at the monosyllabic wonder. "Where is he?"

Pellitory leered at me. "I dunno why your tail's in the water. Reggie ain't done nothing. Last night about nine he came home, tossed some clothes in a sack, and then him and his cousin Herschel took off for Tulsa to see the tractor pull. The finals is today."

"Do you know where he's staying in Tulsa?"

"With his aunt Gwennie, like it's any of your business. You can call her if you like. She's an elementary school secretary, so she doesn't work on the weekends."

"Why do you know what time he left town last night?"

"I noticed on account of X-Files just came on. I was real curious to see if there'd be anything about Maggody. You see those jack-o'-lanterns over Cotter's Ridge a couple nights back? I hear tell they was flying saucers."

I asked for Aunt Gwennie's telephone number, although I had a feeling she would confirm Reggie's arrival. He was still part of the conspiracy, however, and I wanted names. I was convinced that whatever he and his friends had concocted, perhaps innocently in the beginning, had evolved into murder.

Or something. I went back to the PD, started another pot of coffee, and dialed the number Reggie's father had given me. A woman answered. After I'd identified myself and ascertained she was the aunt, I asked her when Reggie and his cousin had arrived the previous night.

"A few minutes before midnight," she said without hesitation. "I waited up for them because I didn't want to leave the front door unlocked. We've had some prowlers in the apartment complex."

"Was this a last-minute visit?"

"Initially they'd planned to come earlier so they could see more of the competition, but Reggie called yesterday afternoon and said he had to work late."

I asked to speak to him and waited several minutes, entertaining myself by imagining how I'd explain the size of the long-distance bill at the next town council meeting.

"Whatta ya want?" Reggie began with all of his father's eloquence.

"You delivered a note to Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill last night at nine o'clock. Who gave it to you?"

"I don't remember."

"You'll have to do better than that, Reggie. Otherwise, I'll call the Tulsa police and ask them to take you into custody as a material witness and hold you until I find time to come fetch you. You'll miss the finals of the tractor pull and at least two or three days of work."

"You cain't do that."

I probably couldn't, but neither one of us had gone to Harvard Law School. "Oh, but I can -- and I will, too. Maybe you weren't quite awake earlier. Has your memory improved?"

"Yesterday I was in the break room at the SuperSaver. Kevin Buchanon came in and gave me an envelope with my name on it. Inside it was another one with some guy's name, a note telling me to deliver it to him at the motel at exactly nine o'clock, and a fifty-dollar bill. The note said if I did it, I'd get another fifty in the mail."

"That's a lot of money for a simple errand."

"No shit."

I wrote Kevin's name on a piece of paper and drew a circle of question marks around it. "Are you sure you weren't supposed to do anything else in order to get the second payment?"

"Yeah, I was supposed to get rid of the note."

"Did you,"' I asked, crossing my fingers, toes, and eyes. "If I see it for myself, I'll be a lot more inclined to believe your story, Reggie."

"It's in my car. I was gonna throw it away when we stopped for beer, but I forgot about it. I can bring it to you when we get back tomorrow."

I agreed and hung up, disappointed that I hadn't ended up with a tearful confession of pseudo-Martian malfeasance. Tulsa was a solid three-hour drive, and unless his aunt was lying, Reggie couldn't have been at Boone Creek at nine-thirty, when Ruby Bee and Estelle arrived, or during the ensuing hour and a half, when Brian Quint arrived. Kevin was incapable of the duplicity required to glow in the dark; he may well have had problems turning on a light switch. He would have to wait, however; I'd promised Harve that I'd return.

I drove down County 102 and parked among all the official vehicles. A deputy with a styrofoam cup of coffee and a doughnut watched me intently as I took off down the road.

Harve was puffing away on a cigar butt. He'd found time to shave and put on a fresh shirt, but his eyes were as red as mine and his face creased with exhaustion. "Hey, Arly," he said as I skirted the clearing. "Did everybody get home last night?"

"As far as I know, everyone is sleeping soundly in his or her assigned bed. I'll start taking statements shortly." I looked at the spot where the body had lain until the paramedics carted it away only a few hours before sunrise. "Any word from McBeen yet?"

"No, but it's early. Presuming he agrees with us that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, he's gonna have some tough questions about the logistics. You come up with any brilliant theories?"

I leaned against a tree and regarded the clearing through grainy, heavily lidded eyes. "We seem to be missing some of the more common elements in a carbon monoxide related death, like a garage or an enclosed room. You saw for yourself that no car has driven down the road recently. We'd be hard pressed to find an outlet for a faulty space heater. I suppose these burn marks have something to do with it, but damned if I know what. Did you get plenty of pictures of them?"

"Yep, we did. They're twelve inches long and twenty-four inches apart. The circle's not perfect, but it's close. We crawled over every inch of the area this morning. No one found anything more remarkable than footprints, and most of them are likely to belong to your mother, Estelle, Cynthia Dodder, the victim, and you."

I looked down at the nearest mark. "What could have made this, Harve? No, don't answer that. I'm knee-deep in speculation as it is." I went to the edge of the creek and tried to envision a silvery stalker. The width of the water varied, but the narrowest spot was four feet across and several inches deep. "Have you checked out the opposite bank?" I called.

"For extraterrestrial footprints on the gravel bar? Yeah, Les went over there and looked around, but he didn't find anything. Unlike this alien, he got kinda wet crossing the creek. I sent him home to change into dry shoes. One of the new boys found an illegal garbage dump up near where the white car is parked. He found all kinds of things like washing machines, tires, a toilet seat, odd lengths of lumber, beer cans, and so on. He made a list, but it doesn't make fascinating reading." He pushed back his hat and wiped his forehead. "We don't have shit to go on, Arly."

I told him about the light Roy Stiver had seen in the pasture alongside County 102. "First the crop circles," I said, bending back fingers as I went along, "then the bang and the bobbly light, the orange lights that even I saw, Roy's light, and finally whatever Ruby Bee, Estelle, and Cynthia saw last night."

"And Brian Quint. Either he saw it or it saw him first. And don't forget the cattle mutilations. I sent some tissue samples to the lab in Little Rock. I expect I'll hear from them in a week or so, and I'm gonna be surprised if they come up with any explanations."

"There is a straightforward explanation, dammit, and I'm going to find it and make sure the television station puts it on the air -- with updates at six and ten!"