Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 11 (11 page)

"Don't you use that sort of language with me, Jim Bob. Didn't I hear that you were going to some kind of meeting in Hot Springs, and paying your expenses out of the town treasury?" She was going to elaborate when she heard a shriek from behind her.

She looked back. Cherri Lucinda and Stormy were on their knees next to a body sprawled on the diamond-patterned carpet. There was no mistaking the rubber soles of Ruby Bee's orthopedic shoes.

Dahlia was rattling pots and pans in the kitchen when Kevin got home from work. The babies were in a playpen in the middle of the living room; Kevvie Junior was staring at the light fixture on the ceiling, and Rose Marie was sucking on her fist with fierce determination and kicking her tiny legs.

Kevin stopped for a moment to watch them, wondering if Kevvie Junior'd grow up to be an electrician and Rose Marie a ballet dancer, then went on into the kitchen. He was thinking he might sneak up behind his beloved and nuzzle her neck, but she hunched her shoulders and said, "Cain't you see I'm busy? Why doncha do something useful for a change?"

"Like what?"

"I swear, when the Lord was passing out the brains, you were under the porch licking your balls with the dawgs. Bring in a couple of loads of firewood -- and make sure you don't track up the floor while you're at it."

"Whatever you say," he mumbled, hanging his head.

Dahlia wiped her hands on her apron as she came over to him. "Aw, I dint mean anything, Kevin. You're a real fine husband and father. Your ma was telling me how your pa never once changed a diaper. You work long hours and still do what you can to help me with the babies." She leaned toward him and stroked his cheek with a damp, prunish fingertip. "I'm sorry I snapped at you like that."

Kevin was painfully aware of the closeness of the pendulous bosoms that had provided him with so many hours of bliss. They'd been declared off-limits for the time being, but his palms tingled as he recalled the overflowing handfuls of softness, downy hair, and nipples as big and pink and sweet as rosebuds.

"That's okay," he managed to say, sticking his hands in his pockets before he lost control and lunged at her. "I know you're tired all the time. The doctor sez the babies'll be sleeping through the night afore too long. That means you and me can go back to doing the things a married couple is supposed to do. Remember how we used to sneak into the storage room at the Kwik-Stoppe Shoppe?"

"And end up with more babies? We can't afford the two we have right now, and before you know it, we'll have to be buying shoes and bicycles and band instruments and party clothes and -- " She sank onto a chair, her chins quivering and her face crumpled with misery. "We can't hardly afford vitamins and medicine, Kevin. What'll we do down the road when Rose Marie needs braces on her teeth?"

"Why, I'll be the manager at the supermarket by then," Kevin said heroically. "Jim Bob came near leaving me in charge while he's in Hot Springs, but then that dadburned Idalupino had to go and tell him that I took a nap in the lounge when I was supposed to be mopping the floor. From the way he carried on, you'd have thought I knocked over the display of canned pineapple again."

"Jim Bob ain't never gonna pay you more than minimum wage," she said, shaking her head. "All we can do is sell this house my granny gave us and move into a cramped trailer at the Pot O' Gold. Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie will grow up with a ditch for a yard. They'll start cussin' and lyin' and stealin' candy bars at the supermarket, and then drop out of school and take to selling drugs behind the pool hall. They'll be arrested and sent to prison, and when they get out, they'll have earrings all over their bodies. It's gonna kill your ma, Kevin. Then your pa'll have to move into the trailer with us, even though we won't have but one bedroom, and spend his days in a dirty undershirt, peeking through widows' bathroom windows and stealing their brassieres off the clothesline."

Kevin struck a manly, home-from-the-hunt pose. "We're not that bad off, my dimpled dumpling. According to the budget we made up, we can make ends meet as long as we don't waste money on extras like going to the picture show in Farberville or eating supper at the Dairee Dee-Lishus. It may get a little tight from time to time, but there's plenty of money in our bank account to pay all the bills."

If he'd been watching his wife instead of puzzling over what his pa was gonna do with stolen brassieres, he might have noticed the flush on her cheeks. He finally gave up (his pa having never shown much interest in underwear, including his own) and added, "So don't you fret about money. When we got married, I promised to see after you, and I'm gonna do it. What's for supper?"

"Beans and cornbread, just like every Friday night. Why doncha play with the babies till it's ready?"

He went back into the living room and began to prattle in a goofy, high-pitched voice. Dahlia poured the cornbread batter into a pan, stuck it in the oven, and sat down to rest for a few minutes. There wasn't any reason to ruin his good mood, she decided. There'd be plenty of time later to tell him that she needed the car the following afternoon. With any luck, she'd end up with cash to cover the payment to the hospital, and even leave enough for groceries till his next paycheck.

With any luck at all.

LaBelle was back at her desk when I came into the sheriff's department, but she was banging on a typewriter with enough fervor to bend the keys. Although she must have felt a gust of cold air as I opened the door, she kept her face down.

"I need to see Harve," I said.

"Well, he doesn't need to see you. Call next week and make an appointment like everybody else. This is not a convenience store where you can drop in and microwave a burrito whenever you please."

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Harve asked me to come by this afternoon and brief him on a case. Is he in his office?"

"Where do you think he is -- Paris?" she said, at last giving me a hostile stare. "Of course he's in his office, but he told me that he doesn't want to be disturbed. I know for a fact that he locked the door as soon as I left. If a fire starts and he passes out from the smoke, he's gonna be in real trouble because there's no way anybody can get in to rescue him. My cousin Magenta always locked the bathroom door when she took a bath. When she slipped getting out of the tub, her husband called the ambulance and the paramedics had to break down the door. There she was, naked as the day she was born, with these two strange men ogling her every wart, scar, and stretch mark. To this day she claims she doesn't remember any of it, but that ain't what her husband says."

She resumed her assault on the typewriter. I went down the hall to Harve's office and knocked on the door.

"I tol' you to leave me alone, LaBelle!" he boomed. "I don't want to hear any more complaints about the dirty coffee cups in the break room. And stop calling it a 'war room,' fer chrissake?"

I identified myself and assured him I was alone in the hall. He unlocked the door, dragged me inside, and relocked it.

"LaBelle's getting on my nerves," he said, running his fingers through what hair he had as he sat down behind his desk. "She's so crazy these days that she thinks I put a bath tub in here. Now you tell me -- why in blazes would I have gone and done a fool thing like that?"

"Shall I assume the task force is still in operation?" I asked.

"Does a bear shit in the woods? Yeah, there are about a dozen of 'em on loan from various agencies in the county. They report to the prosecutor, so half the time I don't even know what they're doing -- besides eating doughnuts and pizza." He took a cigar butt out of his pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. "One of the fellows that was on the critical list died last night. The other one is on a respirator in the intensive care unit. A DEA agent's staying by his bedside, but I don't think we're going to be hearing a confession anytime soon."

"Why's this such a big deal, Harve? It's not exactly a secret that illegal drugs are cheap and plentiful in Stump County. Marijuana's more common than cocaine, but everything's available in the bars on Thurber Street."

"It seems we're smack in the middle of a new route from Mexico to Chicago. The DEA's been onto it for several months, but they've been waiting for a good-sized shipment so they can get publicity. They sure would like to know what happened at the Dew Drop Inn. The owner and bartender are in custody, but they seem to have been struck deaf and dumb. We're trying to find out who else might have been hanging around after the club closed." He took the cigar out of his mouth, studied it for a moment, and jammed it back in. He used a couple of matches to get it lit to his satisfaction, then leaned back and entwined his fingers on his belly. "Ain't your headache, though. You get anywhere in Scurgeton?"

"The only problem out there is a preacher with an overcharged imagination and too much free time," I said, trying not to squint as acrid smoke drifted across the desk. "There's nothing going on in Maggody, so I can keep driving over there to gaze wonderingly at whatever doohickey Reverend Hitebred finds under a chair. I may get bored with it sooner or later, however."

"Just keep him happy," Harve said with a chuckle that disintegrated into a spasm of coughing. When he regained control, he brushed ashes off his chest and said, "Or out of my hair, anyway."

"Sure," I said, waited a few seconds in case he had any more questions (or was going into respiratory failure), and then unlocked the door and went out to the hallway. Before I'd reached the reception area, I heard the lock click behind me, and from somewhere in the back of the building, brays of laughter and a phrase that sounded suspiciously like, "straight flush." LaBelle ignored me as I went by her desk.

I stopped at the edge of Farberville and picked up a hamburger and fries for dinner. When I arrived in Maggody, I parked behind the antiques store and climbed the steps to my apartment. No interior decorating elves had been there in my absence; the linoleum was still buckled and the walls looked, if anything, dingier than when I'd left that morning. If I didn't do laundry before too long, my sheets would be able to crawl over to the Suds O' Fun on their own.

While I ate, I watched the local news, curious to see if the county prosecutor had held a press conference. The news anchor, a woman whose hair must have been highly flammable, briefly mentioned the second death and then moved on to a freight-train derailment in the next county. Drug traffickers could not compete with toxic spills, especially steamy green ones.

I was reduced to watching sitcoms, when the phone rang. Hoping I wasn't about to be recruited to go undercover at a topless/bottomless club, I picked up the receiver.

"Arly? Thank God, I found you?" shrieked Estelle. "The most awful thing has happened?"

"You found proof that Elvis was abducted by aliens?"

"This is serious. Ruby Bee is in the hospital. I kept after the doctor and the nurses, but none of 'em would say what's wrong with her. They've got her stuck with needles and wearing this tube in her nose?"

I put down my coffee cup and rubbed my forehead. "What are you talking about, Estelle?"

"I just told you, for pity's sake? Ruby Bee's in the hospital. Since I ain't kin, they won't let me in to see her. I don't know what to do? Here I am, not -- "

"Calm down," I said, "and tell me what happened."

She gulped several times, then said in a voice slightly less likely to shatter crystal, "Not more than ten minutes after we got to the hotel with the casino -- "

"I thought you were supposed to be in Tupelo tonight."

"Will you hush up and listen? We're here on account of a change in the plans. While I was talking to Taylor about her wedding in the van -- "

"Someone got married in the van?" I said, increasingly bewildered.

"Are you gonna hear me out?"

"Go on," I said meekly.

"Like I said, while I was talking to Taylor, Ruby Bee went on inside the hotel with these two women in our group and went to the ladies room. I was on my way to find her when she came out, made a remark I won't bother to repeat, and then collapsed like a rag doll. Somebody called for an ambulance and they took her to the hospital."

"Are you there now?"

"I'm back at the hotel. The nurse made it clear that I couldn't even set foot inside the room where poor Ruby Bee's all trussed up. I'm supposed to call over there in the morning, but I'm afraid they won't tell me anything."

I was really glad I was sitting down. "And you have no idea what's wrong with her? Could it have been a heart attack?"

"I don't know what to tell you, Arly. She wasn't up to snuff these last two days, but she made it clear she didn't want to talk about it."

"She didn't mention any pain in her chest or shoulder?"

"I already told you what I know. Maybe I should have waited until the morning to call. It could be nothing more than a bad case of gas. She gets that when she's been eating cabbage, you know."

"
Had
she been eating cabbage?" I asked.

"No, but something else could have caused it. Chocolate, for instance, or that sandwich she ate last night at the motel. The bread looked a mite moldy."

"Give me the name of the hospital," I said. "I'll call and see what I can find out. If I don't get a decent answer, I can be there when Ruby Bee wakes up in the morning. Are you at the hotel on the brochure?"

I wrote down the information, told Estelle to try to get some rest, and hung up the receiver. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. Ruby Bee was strong, if not invincible. When my father had walked out on her, she'd knuckled down to earn a living and never once referred to him. She'd steered me through school, starched my underwear and sent me off to the police academy in Camden, and, for the most part, held her peace when I moved to New York City with the hairball formerly known as my husband.

It took me several tries to dial the number of the hospital, and my throat was decidedly tight as I asked for the intensive care unit. By the time someone there answered, I sounded like a laryngitic rooster.