Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (30 page)

Sterling squared his shoulders as if awaiting presentation of the Congressional Medal of Honor. “It was the least we could do, Chief Hanks. We do not despise the government, but merely resent the perverted direction it has taken since its original founders took it upon themselves to-“

“Can it,” I said, “and market it as chicken noodle shit.”

This, for obvious reasons, was not well received and the three climbed into the Hummer and drove away. I went into the emergency room, where Earl, Eileen, Estelle, and Ruby Bee were standing in a corner, conversing in low voices.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Eileen stepped forward and said, “Dahlia’s been admitted to the maternity ward, and Kevin’s being seen to down here. I’m sure he’ll be allowed to join her once his cut has been stitched up. I think he just banged his head when he hit the Hummer.”

I took in the paleness of their faces. “You all go to the cafeteria and get some coffee, then go up to the waiting room on the maternity floor. I’ll make sure Kevin gets to Dahlia’s bedside.”

Once they’d departed in the elevator, I went through another set of doors and down a corridor, poking my head into curtained cubicles in search of my quarry.

He was sitting on the gurney, wan but gaining color and holding a gauze pad to his forehead. He waved at me as I came around the corner, and said, “How’s Dahlia doing?”

“She’s okay now-no thanks to you. Last night she went to Cotter’s Ridge to find you, and ended up at Robin’s cabin. If Ruby Bee, Estelle, and Kayleen hadn’t shown up, she might have given birth alone and terrified. Where the hell have you been?”

“I went back there on account of doing the right thing. Dylan was like my best buddy, exceptin’ I’d only met him, and I dint think you cared about who shot him. I went into Robin’s cabin to dry off, but then I got real scared and … well, fainted. The next thing I knew, I woke up and there was the murder weapon staring me in the face.”

“And?” I said, wondering if he’d had a concussion.

“As sure as I’m sitting here,” he said grandly, “Diesel done it.”

“Diesel done-I mean, did it?”

“Well, it must have been him. I mean, who else is livin’ in a cave on the ridge? It was fixed up real nice, considering, with some oddments of furniture and a whole shelf of books. A lot of them was poetry. I dint know what to make of that.”

“I can imagine you didn’t,” I said. “You saw a rifle?”

“Bigger’n life, and one of them blowguns, too. Kin I go to Dahlia now? I’m what they call her coach, and I haft to pant with her and give her ice chips and massages and things.”

I climbed up on the other end of the gurney. “In a minute, Kevin. I truly am trying to find out what happened to Dylan, and you’re the best witness I have. Yesterday you gave me an abbreviated version. I need a few specifics.” I immediately regretted the polysyllabic words, but he grinned at me, so I forged ahead. “What happened right before Dylan was shot in the shoulder?”

Kevin gnawed on his lip for a moment. “He yelped. I was so bumfuzzled that I jumped up, but I hit my head and fell down. The next thing, he was gone and I crawled out and saw him on the ground.”

“He yelped?” I echoed.

“Like he got stung by a yellow jacket, I ‘spose,” Kevin said, his hand drifting to the back of his neck. “It must have hurt something awful.”

“Did he touch his neck?”

“I disremember exactly,” he said apologetically. “I’d really like to be with Dahlia. She’s gonna need her tape, and I got it in my pocket here. It’s this smarmy woman saying how to breathe so the pain won’t be so bad. I don’t rightly know why makin’ funny noises is gonna help, but the folks at the clinic-“

“You don’t have that cassette,” I said, coming out of a trance. “It’s in the overnight bag that your mother brought to the hospital.”

“It is?” he asked as if I’d pulled something worthy of Houdini. “I don’t know how it got there, but I had it in my pocket yesterday.” He rooted around for a moment, then gave me an abashed look. “Mebbe not.”

“Let’s move on so you can go upstairs. You went back to the site of the shooting, took refuge in Robin’s shack, and ended up in Diesel’s cave, where you saw a rifle. Then what happened?”

He cleared his throat as if preparing to offer a narrative rife with complexity and profundity, although in my experience, such a thing was well beyond his repertoire. “I figured out right away that Diesel wasn’t there, so I took off like a bat outta hell on account of being sure he was a cold-blooded murderer. I went for the longest while, praying I’d find a road, and then, jest when I was so tuckered out I was about to drop, I saw Mrs. Jim Bob.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was not among the possibilities. “Mrs. Jim Bob?”

“She was driving Jim Bob’s four-wheel and acting mighty peculiar. I dunno why she thought I knew the whereabouts of Brother Verber, or Jim Bob, for that matter, but I swore up and down I dint, and she finally took me back to my car by the low-water bridge. I drove home to make amends to Dahlia, found a note from my ma, and came here as fast as I could.” He wiped his face with the gauze pad, leaving streaks of blood that resembled war paint. “I got to be with her, Arly. Dahlia, that is-not my ma.”

“One last question,” I said, “and then I’ll help you find the right floor. You told me that when you were shot with the paint pellet, it wasn’t fair. Why not?”

“Because he used a dadburned blowgun. What’s the point of packing pistols if you don’t use them? Kin I go now?”

The nurses we passed voiced objections, but I propelled Kevin back to the waiting room, held onto his arm as we took the elevator to the maternity floor, and then steered him down the hall to the sacred hallows of the delivery wing. Earl, Eileen, Ruby Bee, and Estelle were seated on benches in the hall, but we breezed by them and I found a dewy-faced nursing student who promised to patch up Kevin and escort him to Dahlia’s room.

“Everything’s under control,” I said mendaciously as I rejoined the group. “Dahlia’s in the care of doctors and has her devoted husband husband at her side. I, however, need to get back to Maggody and I don’t have transportation.” I held out my hand to Earl, who looked as if he’d rather be most anyplace else, including a dungeon, and added, “Key to your truck, please?”

He wasn’t especially delighted, but he forked it over and I left them for the duration.

As I drove into Maggody, I looked up at Cotter’s Ridge, speculating about my chances of finding Diesel’s cave. Kevin might have been wrong about the rifle he’d seen, or even hallucinating. The cassette he’d discovered in his pocket was intriguing. Dylan certainly could have stashed it there; he’d only just met Kevin and would not necessarily have realized he was dealing with a congenital bumbler.

I reminded myself of the number of times I’d unsuccessfully tried to locate Raz’s still. An idea, albeit iffy, came to mind. I drove to Raz’s shack, took a deep breath, and knocked on his door.

As soon as he appeared, I said, “I ought to cuff you this minute and take you to the county jail.”

“Now what’d I do?” he whined.

“You failed to tell me that you drove Dahlia to the low-water bridge last night.”

“Ye didn’t ask me. Listen, I got Marjorie in a washtub so’s I can scrub off the paint, and I need to git back to her.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “She’ll be a whole lot less happy if I drag you out to the car and she spends the next seventy-two hours shriveling shriveling up like a great white prune. Are you going to cooperate or not?”

Raz stared at me. “It ain’t against the law to fergit something, particularly seeing as I was frettin’ about Marjorie. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you.”

“Well, you didn’t. You endangered Dahlia and impeded my investigation. I may not be able to make the charges stick, but you’ll be seriously inconvenienced if you don’t agree to do something for me.”

“I ain’t got a still and I ain’t gonna tell you where it is,” he said, wiping spittle off his lips.

Sensing victory, I allowed myself a wry smile. “I’m not going to bother. I want you to go to Diesel’s cave, ask him where he found the rifle, and also if he’s found a cassette. Bring them both back here to your place and wait for me.”

Raz looked at me as if I’d suggested he enroll in college. “Diesel ain’t about to let me git within spittin’ distance of him. Iff’n he hears the truck, he’ll be in the next county afore I turn off the engine. That, or he’ll blow my brains out.”

“If he’s there, it’s time for you two to kiss and make up. If not, look around for the cassette and the rifle. If he blows your brains out, then your chances of a Nobel prize are diminished, but you can always try. I’ll expect to see you in one hour.”

“Marjorie ain’t a-gonna like this.”

“One hour,” I said flatly. “Otherwise, seventy-two hours in the county jail.” I hurried back to Earl’s truck and drove away before permitting myself to smirk. My next destination was the motel, where I found Les in his cop car and all the militia vehicles in a tidy row. Les was so engrossed in his book that he failed to notice my arrival.

“What’re you reading?” I asked.

He flung the book into the back seat. “Nothing much. Everybody came back half an hour ago and went into their rooms. Kayleen said you all had found Dahlia and got her to the hospital. Is she having the baby?”

“I guess so,” I said, taking a look at the book on the back seat. “Constructing Homemade Grenade Launchers: The Ultimate Hobby? Geez, Les, why are you reading crap like that?”

He hunched his shoulders. “General Pitts said I looked bored and loaned it to me. I don’t suppose Sheriff Dorfer would be real happy about me reading on duty.”

“I’ll never breathe a word,” I said solemnly, then went to Kayleen’s room and knocked on the door.

She gave me a startled look as she opened the door. “Is Dahlia doing okay?”

“She was when I left,” I said, continuing into the room. “What can you tell me about blowguns?”

“Blowguns?” She sat down on the bed and thought for a moment. “Well, they’re a fad, partly because they’re so new there are no restrictions. Some folks fool around with them, and others have taken to hunting with them. You can get one for less than thirty dollars. They come in lengths from eighteen inches to six feet.”

“Do you sell them?”

“I’ve special-ordered a few of them in the last few months. Reed asked me to get him one, then proceeded to shoot Sterling with a paint pellet on Friday afternoon. From what I heard, I kind of wish I’d been there.”

“Who else has one?” I said.

“I don’t really know,” she said slowly. “Jake said something about having a couple of them. I didn’t notice one in Dylan’s gear, but that doesn’t mean much. Same with Barry. I guess you’ll have to ask them.”

Wishing I had my handy-dandy notebook, I did the best I could to keep all this straight. “What about you? Do you have one?”

She shook her head. “Like I said, I ordered them as a favor. Down the road I may decide to stock them, but there’s not much profit selling a thirty-dollar item.”

“Let me ask you something else,” I said ever so adroitly. “What was said in Sterling’s room Friday night when you, Barry, and he were there?”

“The same old things, I’m afraid. How to recruit new members, who was in charge of distributing literature, and so on. I’m beginning to think I might just drop out of the group and get on with my life. This isn’t to say I’m not concerned about the possibility of a massive social upheaval, but at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on what might be the best years of my life. I’m not too old to remarry and feather another nest.”

I share a certain number of genes with my mother, alas. “With Brother Verber?”

Kayleen stood up and crossed to the mirror above the dresser to examine herself. “I don’t see why not,” she said with a trace of defiance. “He’s got a Christian heart and a gentle, trusting nature, and he seems to enjoy my companionship. That’s all I ask of a relationship.”

“Does he remind you of Maurice?” I asked dryly. “I met his daughter this morning, and she gave him a less than glowing testimonial. I believe she used the phrase ‘crotchety old coot’ to describe him. She said to give you her regards, by the way.”

“Lila resented her father because she believed he was responsible for her never getting married. Whatever took place was long before my time, so I don’t have any idea what really happened. Maurice was difficult, but a lot of his persnickety manner came from pain. He could also be real affectionate, and he loved to travel and meet young people. Every gun show we went to was like another honeymoon.”

I managed not to make any puns, although it wasn’t easy. “From what Miss Lila said, he was pretty frail.”

“He could get around with his walker, and he did a few laps in the pool every day. The doctor assured me that Maurice was recovering from the surgery and was as healthy as a horse. No heart trouble, no problems with cholesterol or high blood pressure, no nothing.” Her eyes began to water, and she brushed away a tear. “I honestly believed we’d have a lot of years together.”

“I have a question about that night,” I said. “If Maurice was all that infirm, how did he even get downstairs? I’d think the burglars could have looted the ground floor long before he reached the bottom step.”

Kayleen blushed and looked away. “I don’t like to talk about this, but Maurice and I weren’t sharing a bedroom. He slept on a rollaway bed in his office and used the guest bathroom. I stayed upstairs in one of the bedrooms. I know it’s wrong for a husband and wife not to … be together once they’ve taken their vows and been blessed by the Lord, and I was praying that Maurice might get strong enough to handle the stairs before too long.”

“Sheriff Flatchett didn’t mention that,” I said.

“I didn’t see any need to tell him about our private arrangement. I folded up the bed and put it in the closet in the hall. I feel so silly getting all upset in front of you, Arly, but I can’t help it. Maurice didn’t want anybody to know how feeble he was. I had no choice but to respect his wishes.”

“I understand,” I said softly, then gave her a minute to regain her composure. I did so not out of any great compassion, mind you, but out of a genuine distaste for emotional scenes. Divorce can do that to you. “You mentioned that Maurice left you enough to get by on and even buy property here in Maggody. Lila seemed to think all you received was the depleted gun collection, in her opinion worth no more than five thousand dollars. Did she lie about that out of spite, too?”