Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 11 (15 page)

Estelle's eyes bulged with astonishment. "Jim Bob pushed Stormy off the balcony? Jim Bob Buchanon? Why would he go and do something like that? He didn't even know her."

"Not necessarily," said Chief Sanderson. "If he was in the habit of going to the club where Cherri Lucinda worked, he might well have met Stormy and become real interested in her ... assets. That negligee of hers wasn't much more than a lace hankie. He coaxed her out onto the balcony and tried to get fresh. She attempted to slap him, so he grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. She was kicking and spitting at him, and he got so angry that he went berserk. Before he knew what was happening, he'd pinned her against the railing and was ripping at her negligee. I ain't saying he deliberately shoved her over the railing. It could have been an accident, although if the prosecutor sees it as attempted rape, the charge might well be murder in the first or second."

"I can't believe Jim Bob was responsible," Estelle said mulishly.

"We're still looking into it. No charges have been filed, but we'll keep him in custody for the time being. He can enter a plea with the judge come Monday morning."

Estelle squeezed my shoulder so tightly I winced. "Arly, you tell this man that he's crazy as a june bug. You and I both know Jim Bob ain't gonna win any blue ribbons for husband of the year, but he's not the sort to push women off balconies. Why, even if he was drunk when I ran into him last night, he wouldn't -- "

"Drunk?" said Chief Sanderson. "What time would that have been?"

"I just saw him for a second, and he wasn't staggering or swaying or doing anything except being more than a might surprised to see me. His language was crude, but it most always is. You have no business accusing him of being drunk?"

"You brought it up, Miz Oppers," he said.

"I did not!" Estelle glanced at me, then stalked back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

I waited a moment, then said, "So Jim Bob's in custody. Are there any witnesses besides the jogger?"

"Cherri Lucinda's at the station, making a statement. Her story's pretty simple -- she came back from the casino with Jim Bob, took a shower, and was drying her hair when he busted into the bathroom and told her about the crowd gathering around the body in the parking lot. Cherri Lucinda said it never crossed her mind that it was her friend down there."

"Where did she think Stormy was?" I asked.

Sanderson tugged on his nose. "With a man she'd picked up in the casino or in the bar. Japonica said they acted real stunned when she went to the room in hopes there'd be a way to make a preliminary identification of the body. The driver's license photo is good enough for the time being, and it may take a long while to track down a next-of-kin, assuming there is one. Cherri Lucinda, will be asked to make a more formal identification before the body's packed off to the state lab for an autopsy. I don't reckon there's much question about the cause of death, but we play by the book when we can."

"The ladies from Tuscaloosa are positive no one came out of any of the rooms?" I said. "Could the man have jumped onto another balcony?"

"Anyone tip his hat as he came through your room?"

"No, but what about the balcony on the other side?"

"Jim Bob's room? Why would he risk breaking his neck when all he had to do was return the way he came?" He paused in case I had a brilliant comeback, then added, "We're checking all the possibilities and we'll even make sure nobody saw a hang glider sail across the parking lot. After twenty-seven years, I've learned that the most obvious answer is usually the right one. People do stupid things. Maybe your mayor got drunk and lost a lot of money at the craps table. He was too ornery to back off when Stormy wouldn't cooperate. A good lawyer can bargain him down to manslaughter, even get him off with a plea of diminished responsibility. Back before the casinos opened, I could handle anything that came along. These days we've got gangs, drugs, carjackings, and armed robberies. Folks get mugged in the hotel elevators. Sometimes they get killed. Husbands blow their paychecks, then go home and butcher their families."

He stood up and gave me a grim smile. "The only prosperity gambling's brought to the Delta is measured in court fines."

"Do you need a statement from Estelle?" I asked. "I don't think there's anything useful she can tell you. She was asleep when I came in around three this morning. The sliding glass door was closed and the drapes drawn, so neither of us heard a scream. The sirens woke us up."

"She didn't have any suspicion that Jim Bob was staying just down the hall?"

I shook my head. "Not unless Cherri Lucinda let something drop, and it sounds as though she had no idea of Jim Bob's little scheme for the weekend. I thought I caught a glimpse of him in the casino, but it seemed so ludicrous that I blamed it on fatigue. I only found out my mother was in the hospital last night, and ... " I swallowed several times, desperately struggling not to get teary. "Estelle was as preoccupied as I was. She doesn't know anything."

"Can't see as she would. I'm gonna have Japonica get statements from everybody on the tour, but she can come here so you all won't have to bother going down to the police department. Will you make yourselves available?"

I nodded, then let him out and closed the door. There were way too many things happening all at once, I thought, my mind spinning like the tumblers on a slot machine. Instead of cherries and oranges, I was seeing free-falling bodies, and hearing a cry of terror that ended with a most emphatic thud.

Oh, to be in Maggody, where nothing ever happened.

Kevin had dialed the telephone number of the police department so many times his fingertip was beginning to throb. Every darn time he'd gotten the answering machine and left a message pleading for Arly to come to the supermarket, but it was finally sinking in that she wasn't there -- or if she was, she was ignoring him.

There was hardly any time left before his ma would go to his house to baby-sit, freeing Dahlia to disappear once more on one of her mysterious outings. Rather than going back into the main part of the store to stock the shelves, Kevin plopped down on the sofa in the lounge and stared blankly at his shoes. Where could she be going? Not shopping, since she never came back with anything more than a scowl. Her clinic appointments weren't more often than once a month. The doctor had suggested a support group for mothers of twins, but his beloved had turned up her nose at the idea of listening to snooty Farberville women discuss how to go about hiring a nanny. If all she was doing was going to a movie theater, why wouldn't she just 'fess up?

He picked at a scab on his arm as he tried to think where else she might go. It was like she drove into a long, dark tunnel and came out hours later. What happened inside the tunnel that left her meaner than a polecat in heat?

He dug out the last of the change in his pocket and found thirty-five cents. Even though it meant he couldn't buy a soda pop later in the afternoon, he put the coins into the pay phone and called his house. He'd expected to hear Dahlia's sweet voice, so he was dumbstruck for a moment when his ma answered the phone.

"This is me, Ma. Is Dahlia there?"

"She just this second drove off. I practically got down on my knees and begged her to tell me where she was going, but all she said was to put ointment on Kevvie Junior's bottom when I changed his diaper. I don't understand it, Kevin. She is the mother of two -- "

Kevin hung up the receiver and rubbed his eyes so ferociously he could see red and yellow splotches. His groan of despair seemed to fill the room like a particularly pungent fart. He was too late. She was gone again. All he could do was pray that she'd return. One of these days she wouldn't, and he'd have no idea where to even search for her. He took his wallet out of his pocket and gazed sadly at the photograph of Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie. Without their ma, their hearts would shrivel up like raisins.

Unless he could follow her.

Idalupino's handbag was on the shelf in the bathroom. Keeping his ears peeled, he took it down and dug through wadded tissues and empty cigarette packs until he found a key ring. He'd seen her drive up earlier in the day and park next to the Dumpster in the spot reserved for Jim Bob. She was up front, working one of the registers and telling everybody how she was the acting manager. There weren't no reason for her to come looking for him unless somebody dropped a bottle of ammonia or sent the apples rolling out of the produce display. That didn't seem likely, since business always slowed down, in the early afternoon.

There was a voice whispering in his ear that maybe he shouldn't do it, but the voice in his other ear was a sight louder and pointing out that he was gonna lose his soulmate if he didn't. What's more, he owed it to his children to find their mother and bring her home. If she was lost in the woods, he wouldn't hesitate to go after her even though there might be a bear behind every tree. Idalupino was hairy, but she was nowhere near as vicious as a bear.

He stuck his head out of the lounge to make sure she wasn't nearby, then hurried across the storage room to the loading dock. No one hollered when he got into the fourwheel drive, closed the door as quietly as he could, and put the key in the ignition. There were some things on the dashboard he couldn't make heads or tails of, but he'd been driving a stick shift since he was twelve. If the wimpy city boys in TV ads could drive these across rivers and up mountains, he could, too.

He wiggled the stick until he found reverse and pressed down on the accelerator. The vehicle shot backward in a spray of gravel and gray smoke. He jerked his foot off the pedal and sat until his heart quit thudding, eyeing the dashboard with a newly discovered respect.

Time was wasting. Dahlia was most likely headed toward Farberville, with only a few minutes head start. He would follow her at a distance, even though there was no way she'd recognize him in this. Just to be extra safe, he took a scarf off the seat and tied it around his head, then found a pair of sunglasses in the glove compartment and put them on. After he'd checked his reflection in the mirror, he reopened the glove compartment, took out a tube of lipstick, and applied a thick red band over his lips. Now not even his ma would recognize him, he thought as he crammed the stick into first gear and eased down timidly on the pedal.

The car bucked across the parking lot but finally seemed to accept a stranger at the reins. Fully intending to bring bear meat home for supper, Kevin stuck out his chin and took off at a full gallop for Farberville.

Estelle was in no mood for breakfast, which was dandy, since I was in no mood for her company. I left her pacing around the hotel room and went down to the restaurant, determined to eat breakfast and read a newspaper in relative solitude.

I'd just ordered when a man approached the table. "May I join you?" he said as he pulled out a chair.

Recognizing him as the boorish blackjack player who'd attempted to banish me to the slot machines, I frowned and said, "I prefer to eat alone."

He sat down and filled his coffee cup from the pot on the table. "I hope I didn't offend you last night, or more accurately, this morning. I'm afraid I take my gambling too seriously, especially when I'm losing. The evening started so well, as it usually does. I am keenly aware of the percentages and play accordingly, but Lady Luck turned on me like an ungrateful mistress. It didn't matter what I did." He took the water glass in front of me and drank deeply. "There are moments when I feel like Prometheus, doomed by the gods to have my entrails ripped out at the gaming tables. In the wee hours, dealers take on an uncanny resemblance to predatory birds with razor-sharp talons."

"Perhaps you should take up needlepoint," I said without sympathy.

"Rex Malanac," he said, extending his hand. "You are, I believe, the daughter of Ruby Bee Hanks? I hope she's recovering."

I briefly touched his hand. "They're doing some tests at the hospital. She should be able to go home in a few days. Are you on the Elvis Tour?"

"Yes, but I must say it's been a disappointment. In Memphis, the driver did his best to convince us that we were staying in a motel where Elvis once slept, but of course everyone knows that he and his parents lived in public housing in the north part of Memphis. There is no documentation or reason to believe he ever stayed in any motels. One would almost suspect this was an economizing tactic on the part of C'Mon Tours."

"Estelle mentioned gunfire," I said.

"All of us were in abject terror that we would be killed by stray bullets. Only our little lovebirds had the courage to go out into the night, but they arranged to have taxis pick them up and deliver them to their motel-room door. Had your mother and her friend asked, I gladly would have taken up a post in their room in order to protect them. They're quite the innocents abroad, are they not?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said, stirring several spoonfuls of sugar into my coffee. "You heard about Stormy?"

"A terrible thing." He picked up the menu and beckoned to a waitress. "Be a dear and bring me scrambled eggs, two very crisp strips of bacon, and dry whole-wheat toast."

My appetite diminished, I ordered a bagel, then said, "What exactly did you hear, Mr. Malanac?"

"Please call me Rex. Otherwise, I'm apt to forget you're not a student and start lecturing you on the emergence of militaristic symbolism in the literature of prewar Germany. I'm sure you wouldn't care for that."

"What about Stormy?"

"All I know is that she fell to her death several hours ago. A rather uncouth police officer ordered me to remain in the hotel until I've given a statement. It will be a very short one, I'm afraid. I stayed in the casino until four, then went to my room and fell asleep immediately. I might still be in that condition had the police officer not banged on my door. I find it difficult to think kindly of him."

"Did you see Cherri Lucinda playing craps?"

"I do not allow my attention to wander when I'm at the blackjack table," he said primly. "I did see her enter the casino clinging to the arm of an unfamiliar man, and while on the way to the men's room, I noticed Stormy playing the quarter slots as if determined to win a kidney transplant for a kid sister or brother. Neither of them was of consequence to me, to be brutally honest. I came on the pilgrimage to do further investigation into Elvisian folklore, and divert myself with an evening at a casino. Calculating odds at blackjack makes a pleasant change from grading ill-written essays on Albert Camus and Günter Grass."