Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (26 page)

I went around the desk and settled her on the chair. "Why would anyone kidnap them?" I asked reasonably. "Maybe they decided to sneak away to a fancy motel for the night and forgot about the plans for this morning."

"Kevin had to work until midnight. He wouldn't agree to go off to a motel when he got home, not at that hour. Anyway, his car's parked in the driveway. How could they have gone off anywhere?" She blotted her eyes, blew her nose again, and attempted to smile. "Earl says I'm being silly, but I can't help worrying about them, what with all the crazy things happening and the way Dahlia's been carrying on since that doctor hypnotized her. Maybe you ought to find out what kind of ideas he put in her mind."

I told her about Sageman's murder, which didn't much improve the situation, and promised to do what I could to find the errant couple. After she left, I added their names to the list, wondering how the dog handler would react when I mentioned how many residents I'd misplaced in less than twenty-four hours.

I waited a minute in case anyone else wanted to barge in, then dialed the number of the one establishment in Farberville that provided limousine service. When a woman answered, I identified myself and asked who had arranged for a limo several weeks earlier.

"I'll have to hunt through the files," she said lugubriously, as if their files extended back to the advent of the horseless buggy. "We're busier than you'd think. It'd be easier if you knew what day it was."

I'd already tried, but I could think of nothing memorable that had happened beyond the gossip concerning the mysterious limo itself. I couldn't even remember what had been the blue plate special. "It would have been during the day," I said, "and you can't have too many customers wanting to come to Maggody."

"Is it true y'all are being overrun with flying saucers? My brother-in-law saw one back some years ago, when he and his eldest boy was out fishing over near Hog Scald Holler. They was -- "

"The limo?" I said.

Papers shuffled in the background. I was about to give up when she came back on. "Yeah, this is likely to be the one you want. It was a fellow from California. Mervine fetched him at the airport in the morning and took him back later that same day. It doesn't say where they went, though."

"What was the name?"

"The name on the credit card receipt is kinda smeary, but it looks like Andrew Sageman. Wait -- Arthur, now that I look at it. Visa, if you're interested."

I rubbed my forehead. "A tall man with white hair and an accent?"

"How should I know, honey? Mervine was the one that drove him. It must have been while I had that recurrence of the shingles and thought I'd die."

"Did Mervine also pick him up out here two days ago?"

"Lemme ask her." She covered the receiver and had a lengthy conversation with the unseen Mervine. "Naw," she reported, "Mervine thought it was odd on account of it being the same name, and she's real sure it wasn't the same feller. She was right miffed at the feller from two days ago. She was supposed to take him back to some motel, but he dismissed her at the airport and only paid for half a day. Here I'd scheduled the car for the whole day like he asked. What if someone else -- "

"Can Mervine describe the first man she picked up at the airport?"

"Lemme ask her."

I waited an interminably long time, straining to understand the muffled exchange. I was reduced to gnawing on the pencil and spitting out bits of painted wood when the woman said, "Mervine ain't real positive, but she thinks he was young and sickly, like he had tuberculosis. She thinks he had blond hair. She drove him all over Maggody, up and down dirt roads till she liked to overheat the engine, and finally over to a café in Hasty. She came back for him in an hour, then took him back to the airport. He gave her a nice tip, though."

"Thanks," I murmured.

"Glad to be of help. Next time you need a limousine, just call us and we'll give you the best deal in town, ya hear?"

I thanked her again and replaced the receiver. So Brian Quint had come to Maggody several weeks ago. He'd cruised around town in the slinky black car for most of the day, then quietly flown back to California.

Before I could concoct any explanations for his visit, the telephone rang. I let the machine answer it, listened long enough to determine that Ruby Bee was still worried about Estelle, and dashed out to my car, where I'd cleverly left my umbrella. As I drove toward the north end of town, I remembered that I had the surveillance equipment in my trunk that I'd planned to return to Sageman. Now I'd have to sort through his papers and find a contact at his foundation to advise me about his and Brian's effects. I may have slept through that class, too.

The rental car appeared undisturbed. I unlocked the door and searched through the clutter for a note or map that might have lured Brian to the low-water bridge. My posterior was thoroughly soaked by the time I crawled out, empty-handed and irritated.

Rain slithered under my jacket collar and streamed down the sides of my face as I opened the trunk, but what I saw was responsible for the chill that seized me. Neatly folded was a bundle of shimmery material. Next to it was a portable blowtorch with a bright red propane tank and a blackened nozzle; its label proclaimed it to be a Wonder Weeder (patent pending). A silver motorcycle helmet had rolled toward the back of the trunk. Someone had done a meticulous job painting oversize almond eyes and a round mouth.

Here I'd been searching the unfriendly skies for our alien when he'd been in the trunk all along. It was a little late to be fastidious about fingerprints, so I pushed the fabric aside and found boots that had been spray-painted to match the rest of the costume. They were of an unremarkable size and had no discernible tread. Under them was some kind of flat flashlight pack and, more ominously, a length of garden hose and roll of electric tape.

I knelt at the back of the rental car. The scratches on the tailpipe were barely visible, but the accumulation of crusty grime had been disturbed. It seemed I'd found the murder weapon. Now all I needed was to put it at the scene of the crime. Brian Quint could have driven it to the low-water bridge, but he'd been in no condition to drive it back to the Esso station.

Someone else had done that.

After some more thinking, I drove back to the PD and called Harve to tell him about the likely source of carbon monoxide. He put me on hold while he arranged for the rental car to be examined, and I was doodling on the margin of my missing persons' list (and wishing I could add myself) when the door opened and Reggie Pellitory shuffled in.

When Harve came back on the line, I told him I'd call him later and gestured at Reggie to sit down.

"I brung the note," he said, dropping it on my desk. "I got to be at work in an hour. Jim Bob'll have my ass in a sling if I'm late."

"Don't count on getting the second fifty-dollar payment," I said.

"It wasn't my fault I didn't deliver to the guy in person. That bitch at the bar grabbed it out of my hand and said she'd see to it. I deserved the rest of the money since I missed the semifinals of the tractor pull. I been waiting all year for that."

"I've learned how the note got to you, Reggie, but I don't know why. Who would expect you to cooperate?"

"How should I know?"

"Try to help me out here. Someone knew your name and where you worked, and the same someone assumed you'd do an errand for money. Who was it?"

"Like I said, how should I know?"

"Did you see that black limousine that drove all over town a few weeks ago?"

"I was over in Farberville bailing out my pa." He shifted a wad of tobacco from one cheek to the other and glanced around for a coffee can. The previous chief of police had provided several of them, but I'd unwisely insisted on a more classy ambiance. Hence the stains on the floor.

"You related to Raz Buchanon?" I asked idly.

"Hell, no -- and I'll beat the shit out of anyone who sez otherwise."

I decided not to offer any editorials about the Pellitory ancestry and let him leave while I nurtured a couple of novel notions. Harve would have to wait for my call until after I had a little talk with Raz. Unless I was on the wrong track (and I'd been on often enough to recognize every pothole), consanguinity wouldn't enter into it.

Conspiracy was a whole 'nother ball of wax.

"That's right," Ruby Bee said, glad she wasn't paying for the long-distance call. The man on the other end spoke so slowly that the words came out like tree sap. She reminded herself to be charitable, since he was so far south he was likely to slip off the tip of Florida, where he'd disappear forever into the Bermuda Triangle. She tried to match his tempo as she repeated, "A dinosaur ate my car."

"What kind?"

"A Chevrolet."

There was a moment of silence. "What kind of dinosaur?" he asked at last.

Ruby Bee racked her mind for fancy dinosaur names, but the only one she could think of was that fat purple one that sang sugary songs and was on every twin sheet at Kmart. "I was too terrified to notice," she said, opting for the offense. "You would have been, too, if you'd gone out in your backyard and seen this monster picking his teeth with your windshield wipers."

"I'm sure I would have. Can you describe the dinosaur for me? Color? Size? Was it alone or were there others in the yard? Did it attempt to attack you?"

Ruby Bee wished she'd chosen an easier premise, but it was too late now. "I thought maybe you'd want to send someone to interview me. I could do better if I was interviewed in person, and I wouldn't mind a bit if the reporter wanted to take my picture. In fact, I'd be real proud."

"The Weekly Examiner conducts its investigation by telephone, and we prefer actual artist's depictions to photographs. Just tell me about this astonishing ordeal with as much description as you can provide. If we use the story, you'll receive a check for fifty dollars ten days after publication."

"You never send reporters?"

"Never."

Ruby Bee hung up and went to the window to stare at the door of No. 4, where someone claiming to be a tabloid reporter was staying. Maybe he was the secret agent for the government, she thought as she clutched the collar of her robe more tightly. He'd tried to trick her and Estelle into helping him steal Dr. Sageman's files. When that had failed, had he crept into his room and killed him?

More important, what had he done with Estelle?

Saralee had to wait until Aunt Joyce went to lie down before she dared make the call. Traci and the baby were in the living room watching cartoons; she didn't know where Larry Junior was, but she hadn't seen him for more than an hour. Uncle Larry Joe had gone off to a town council meeting, even though Aunt Joyce had pitched a fit. When he insisted, she'd thrown a plate of French toast at him and called him a yellow-bellied coward. Traci and Larry Junior both had burst into tears, and the baby had choked on a Cheerio and turned blue. All in all, breakfast had been lively at the Lambertino house.

She closed the kitchen door and dialed the toll-free number. When a woman answered, Saralee got down to business. "Bigfoot tried to break into my house last night."

"How old are you?"

"Old enough. I was the one who saw him first. He was digging through the garbage out in the backyard. He looked right at me with these red eyes that glowed like they was on fire. I was so scared I wet my pants."

The woman sighed. "Sorry, but we've got enough Bigfoot stories for the rest of the year."

"He came in a flying saucer," Saralee added desperately. "They must have set him down in the pasture behind the house. Everybody in town saw the lights."

"I did half a dozen flying saucer stories last month. Now if your great-grandmother was pregnant, the Probe might be interested."

"But I saw Bigfoot myself! He was right on the patio, trying to get inside and kill me. My uncle shot at him last night. If you was to send a reporter, I could show him where it happened and let him take my picture." She paused, then gave it her best. "And pictures of the bloodstains. My uncle winged him and blood splattered everywhere. The dog's still missing, and the cat's nothing but clumps of fur and pink guts."

"We do all our interviews from right here in the office, and we have a great big file of photographs. You have an exuberant imagination, sweetie. Give us a call after you graduate from college."

Saralee banged down the receiver, checked to see that Traci was still staring at the television, and went to see if Larry Junior wanted to play Bigfoot Meets Barbie.

Raz was standing on his porch as I parked. From my perspective, the side yard appeared as empty as his expression -- and his pockets. His cheek was a different matter, but it would take full-scale military intervention to change his repugnant habit.

"Business trickled off?" I asked him in a touching display of neighborly concern.

"Reckon so."

"Maybe that's why Marjorie got bored and went wandering last night."

Something not unlike apprehension flashed across his face. He inched away from me and shook his mangy head. "I dunno what got into her. Most times she's real content to watch old movies, but long about midnight she turned restless and snuck out. Mebbe it was on account of the moon."