Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (23 page)

Jules took my other arm. "She was behaving normally a few minutes ago," he said to Hayden.

"You monster!" squealed Dahlia.

I wrenched myself free. "We've got to get in the room!"

Hayden took a key from his pocket and handed it to me. "Try this," he suggested.

My whole arm was throbbing as I jabbed the key in the lock, twisted it, and yanked open the door. "Dahlia?" I called as I checked behind the door, then dashed for the bathroom. As I came out, I heard Sageman say, "I want you to relax now. Let the image slide away from you."

The problem was that he hadn't moved his lips or anything else and appeared to have slept right through the commotion. A green light flickered on the tape recorder on the bedside table as Dahlia moaned uneasily. Jules and Hayden were watching me from the doorway, their expressions carefully neutral despite the fact I was behaving like someone with a bee in her bonnet -- or someplace a sight more uncomfortable.

I turned off the tape recorder and bent down to have a closer look at Sageman. I then stood up, sighed, and left the room, collecting my would-be keepers along the way. "Sageman's dead," I said flatly. "Both of you wait in your rooms. I need to make a call."

"Dead?" croaked McMasterson. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, and this time we're not going to worry about hostile aliens, unless one got hold of a gun." I locked the door and went across the lot to call Harve from Ruby Bee's unit.

Mrs. Jim Bob drove toward Cotter's Ridge, her chin stuck out so far she could barely see the road. Jim Bob's truck had already turned off by the time she came around a curve and spotted the county line sign. It was the exact same place she'd lost him a few nights back, which had to mean something.

She pulled over. Right across from her was a road of sorts, more of a trail than anything else. Even though it was getting dark, she could see that the weeds were flattened. Someone had driven that way -- and Jim Bob was the obvious candidate.

There could be only one reason for him to be up on the ridge after dark, she decided as she rolled down her window and strained to hear the sounds of a truck engine back in the woods. He was on his way to Raz's still to load up jars of Satan's poison. It was only a matter of time before Arly caught him in the act of committing a felony; she wouldn't hesitate for a second before bringing in the federal agents, who'd indict Jim Bob and seize everything that wasn't nailed down, then come back for everything that was.

There was only one way to save herself from poverty, disgrace, and the terrifying specter of knowing she'd be the laughingstock of the Missionary Society and the Extension Club (for starters). She was going to have to catch him in the very act of loading his truck, force him to see the wickedness of his ways, and order him to destroy the still and whatever jars of moonshine Raz had amassed.

Mrs. Jim Bob had a pretty good idea where the still was on account of an incident awhile back. What had happened had been Brother Verber's fault, naturally, and she herself had been nothing but an innocent victim of circumstance.

The thought of making Jim Bob destroy the still brought a thin smile to her face. Once he was done, all covered with sweat and panting from the exertion, his mouth dry, his hands blistered, why, she'd tell him in no uncertain terms to sink to his knees to beg her forgiveness and pray for mercy. By the time she was satisfied with hearing his confession, his knee would ache so bad he'd limp for a month of Sundays. He'd also think twice before sneaking off to do loathsome things with a hussy.

She eased her car over the rutted shoulder, wincing as something scraped, and slowly drove down the poor excuse for a road. Branches clawed the car and slapped at the windshield. The increasing darkness seemed to fit her mood.

"Jim Bob Buchanon," she said aloud, "you're gonna pay for this particular transgression like you've never paid before -- or my name isn't Barbara Anne Buchanon Buchanon."

Tightening her grip on the steering wheel, she continued into the woods.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"So, should we put out an APB for Bigfoot?" asked Harve as we watched the paramedics carry out a body bag. "Larry Joe Lambertino swore he came callin' this very morning."

The parking lot was crowded with official vehicles, but we had only a few spectators thus far. The media appeared to be taking the day off; tomorrow they'd come slithering onto the scene to interview the likes of Saralee Lambertino and Raz Buchanon.

"Why not?" I said. "He's probably a hit man for the Martian Mafia."

McBeen came out of No. 5 and joined us. "Right offhand I'd say death is a result of the nasty hole in his right temple. A smallcaliber bullet, almost no external bleeding but lots of damage inside the cranium. It's still in there somewhere. All I can say at this point is that he died several hours ago." He glared at my blood-speckled arm. "I suppose you want me to patch you up, but I'm not gonna do it. Take two aspirin and call somebody else in the morning."

I waited until he got in his truck and drove away. "He's not exactly a kindly old country doctor, is he?" I said to Harve, who was trying to fire up a wet cigar stub. Once he did, I ran through everything I'd found out during the day, which didn't amount to squat. "I briefly questioned everybody before you arrived. No one admits having spoken to Sageman after I brought him back here in the middle of the afternoon. He must have settled down in his room to work and was listening to Dahlia's tape when someone dropped by. Estelle's disappearance may be related."

"Uh, Harve," said one of the deputies, pointing at Cotter's Ridge and gulping, "you might want to take a look up there."

My stomach filled with undiluted acid as I turned around. This time there were four orange lights above the tree line, aligned and bobbing merrily.

Harve yanked the cigar out of his mouth. "What the hell are those?"

"Obviously they are some kind of spacecraft piloted by a whole gang of seven-foot silver aliens. They probably dropped off Bigfoot when he started stinking up the ship or forgetting his table manners. Don't forget the ones coming out of the ground from Atlantis to make swirls in the corn and cut up cows. At this rate we're going to have so many aliens in Maggody that we'll have to start looking into public housing. The Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall will have to put in some more pews and order some extra hymnals. Any more questions, Harve?"

He gasped as the lights disappeared, then got his cigar back in place and slapped me on the back. "Glad to know you've got everything under control. Be sure and give me a call when you've rounded 'em up."

"I'll be sure and do that. In the meantime, why don't you give me some help with the investigation, dammit?" I paused as I saw Ruby Bee arguing with a deputy who was brash enough to think he could dissuade her from entering her own parking lot. The sight was more unnerving than a bunch of stupid orange lights. "Maybe we'd better try to get a dog from the Farberville PD to search for Estelle," I said in a more reasonable voice. "It's late now, but I'll call first thing in the morning."

Harve had seen Ruby Bee, too. "Tell ya what," he said hurriedly, "one of the boys will stay here the rest of the night, just to keep all these aliens from tampering with the scene. I should have a report in the morning about the weapon and whatever fingerprints were found."

He scuttled away before I could express my dissatisfaction with his offering, which was so meager even Brother Verber would have turned up his nose at it. I made a dash for the door of No. 5, but Ruby Bee cut me off.

"What is going on now?" she said, her fingernails biting into my arm. "Is it true that Dr. Sageman was murdered in his room? And what about Estelle? Why aren't you doing something to find her before she's murdered, too?"

I told the deputy I'd be back, then hustled Ruby Bee to her unit and sat her down on the sofa. She finally quit barking at me, accepted a glass of water, and slumped back into the upholstery. I returned to the tiny kitchenette and washed off the blood.

"I bet I know why Dr. Sageman was murdered," Ruby Bee said from the other room. "He worked for a top secret government intelligence agency that collects evidence from crashed flying saucers. They're holding live aliens in an underground laboratory somewhere in the desert."

I stayed at the sink, letting the water run over my hands. The damage appeared to be superficial, but a few of the Punctures were still oozing tiny beads of blood. I had a feeling my heroinism wasn't going to win me any citations. "Gee, that's good to know. Did you read this in the Probe or the Weekly Examiner?"

"It's the honest to God truth, and the proof is inside Dr. Sageman's computer files. All you have to do is find the right one and read it for yourself. This conspiracy is putting the entire human race in danger. Maybe Dr. Sageman decided to tell what he knew, and someone killed him to silence him."

"Then you don't think Bigfoot did it?"

"I wish you'd listen to me! One of the folks staying at the Flamingo Motel is a spy for the government. There's something real fishy about Lucy Fernclift. As for Rosemary, she could be putting on an act. For all we know, she could be a trained killer. She could even be in cahoots with someone else, like Dr. McMasterson."

I dried my hands and came to the doorway. "Do you remember when Doowadiddy Buchanon used to call me every other day to report that Nazi storm troopers were hiding in his root cellar? The term for that is 'paranoia.'"

"Don't get smart with me. You just go ask Jules Channel if you don't believe me. This very morning he told Estelle and me the whole story."

"Maybe I'll go get my thumbscrews and do just that," I said in a sinister voice. I left her glowering and went over to McMasterson's unit. It hadn't been all that long ago that I'd implied he would be the logical suspect if Sageman turned up dead; now seemed like as good a time as any to find out if I was right.

He looked downright ill as he let me in. "I tried to surround myself with a protective force field, but I still feel vulnerable to all this negativity. You feel it, don't you?"

"No," I said. "When I saw you this morning, you were going to examine the new crop circles. How long did you stay there?"

"Until three o'clock or so. There was such cosmic intensity that I found the experience as exhausting as it was exhilarating. There are half a dozen three-line leys, which means the circles are potent with powerful nodal energy. I'm confident we'll be able to establish a link with area tumuli." Before I realized what was happening, he put his arms around me and enveloped me in a warm, hairy hug. "I wish you'd come with me to the circles and allow yourself to absorb their healing powers. We'll be safe there, and our auras will be strengthened."

He was squeezing me so tightly I could barely breathe. The smell of musk oil was overpowering, and his ponytail was tickling my nose. I finally resorted to grinding my heel into his bare foot. Once he quit hopping around and yelping, I said, "Trust me when I say I am not a New Age person. I like my aura just the way it is, thank you, and prefer it to remain this way right into old age. You said you came back in the middle of the afternoon. Did you see or hear anything?"

He sat down and examined his foot. "I heard car doors slam, but I was so involved with my writing that I didn't even glance out the window. I'm composing a series of quatrains to celebrate the circles and welcome our intraterrestrial forefathers." He let his foot fall and gave me a sullen look. "Not that you'd be interested."

"Did you hear anyone in Sageman's room last night?"

"I don't think so." He fingered his crystal as if seeking a second opinion. "No, I didn't hear anything, but as I said, I was writing. Creativity produces an altered state of consciousness in which one's psychic energies -- "

"Jules Channel said he heard someone go into Sageman's room at eight o'clock. Were there any respites from your state of altered consciousness when you heard anything at all?"

"No," he said firmly.

I warned him not to leave town and went back outside, where the breeze smelled of nothing more cloying than fresh manure. Who could have been in Sageman's room? My eyes wandered down the row of units as I made a list. McMasterson claimed to have been in his room, Lucy Fernclift in hers. Brian was at the creek. If Jules was guilty, why had he told me? Sageman and Rosemary were busy with Dahlia. Cynthia had told Ruby Bee and Estelle that she'd sat in the car until the chill drove her into the bar and grill, and as best I could recall, that had been at eight o'clock. Someone had been waiting for her to leave.

I must have made a little noise because the deputy stepped out of the shadows.

"Deputy Whitbread here," he said, visibly disappointed I wasn't being ravaged by Bigfoot. "Is everything okay, ma'am?"

I waved at him, stuck my hands in my pockets, and leaned against the weathered wood while I mentally reconstructed the scene. Then, berating myself for not noticing the glitch earlier, I went back across the lot and knocked on the door of No. 2.

Rosemary yanked me inside and locked the door. "This is so terrible! I'm so upset that I don't know what to do. Arthur was such a dear man ... " She turned away and grabbed the edge of the dresser. "And I'm frightened," she admitted almost inaudibly, her shoulder blades jutting underneath the thin fabric of her robe. "First Brian and now Arthur ... "