The Arly Hanks Mysteries Volume One

by Joan Hess

  “Bubba?” she whispered. “Are you nasty little bastards playing hide-and-seek? You’re going to be real sorry if I find you.”

  She did some seeking, and determined that they were gone. Where, she couldn’t begin to imagine, but she didn’t waste a lot of time on it, either. Mr. Jim Bob had said, albeit with more snarling than anything else, that he’d better not find those bastards in his house if she knew what was good for her. She didn’t believe some of his threats, partly because she was a good Christian woman who would never listen to that kind of language, and partly because he was so angry he was incoherent. It was pretty clear, though, that he didn’t want to run a makeshift orphanage.

  Neither did she. In fact, after giving him a couple of hours to calm down, she’d tried to call him back to tell him she’d think of some way to get rid of the bastards. A snooty desk clerk had informed her that Mr. Buchanon had checked out. No, he hadn’t left any messages, and good day, madam. It had turned her blood to chilled tomato aspic.

  Now, as she considered it, it came to her that she’d done the kind, generous, pious thing by seeing that the bastards were brought down to town and given food and shelter. That had been her Christian duty. She’d pointed out their sinful ways and instructed them in the path of righteousness. In fact, she’d set them on the path and given them a swift pat on the fanny to start them on their way. She’d done her duty and then some.

  There was a dreadful mess on the kitchen floor, but she stepped over it and put on the kettle for a nice cup of tea. More than her duty, she thought as she took out a cup and saucer, a box of tea bags, and her nicest creamer and sugar bowl, the ones with the lavender rosebuds that had belonged to her grandmother.

  Arly had taken advantage of her kindhearted soul, Mrs. Jim Bob told herself. Arly was the one who should have disinfected the bastards and seen to their basic needs. Arly was the chief of police, which meant she was in charge when the mayor and town council were out of pocket. Arly could have put the bastards in a jail cell, where they couldn’t destroy someone’s lovely home with new beige carpeting.

  She poured boiling water into the cup, then took the tray into the dining room and sat down at the table. It was becoming increasingly clear that this whole disaster was Arly’s fault. Everybody knew Arly had lived in New York City, which was filled with perverts and muggers and book editors. Not to mention society women, who ran around in skin-tight dresses and miniskirts that were the devil’s own designer fashions. They painted their faces and drank martinis all day and slept with each other’s husbands all night. Now that she thought about it, Mrs. Jim Bob realized it was no wonder at all that Arly’d been able to trick her like she did. Good Christian women didn’t know all the big-city dirty tricks, much less how to avoid being mistreated and abused by them that did.

  “Jim Bob’s going to have a word with her,” she said aloud, practicing just a tad. “He’s going to tell her that she’s responsible for all the damage done to our home and carpet. What’s more, he’s going to make her pay to shampoo the carpet and reupholster the sofa.”

  There was a navy-blue print fabric over in Farberville that would look real nice. It had peacocks with their tails all swooped up, and some flecks of beige. The current plaid was dingy, and she’d happened to glance through the fabric samples one day, purely out of idle interest. The peacocks would look fine. And those heathen bastards had probably wiped their filthy hands on the wing chairs, which would look better if they were recovered in something brighter, maybe rose to counter the navy.

  Feeling much better, much better indeed, Mrs. Jim Bob went to the telephone book and looked up a number. When a voice answered, she briskly said, “Perkins, let me speak to your eldest. I’m going to need her to clean today.”

  She was in the middle of negotiations (Perkins’ eldest thought cleaning houses was as delicate a job as brain surgery, and therefore expected to be paid about the same hourly rate) when the doorbell rang.

  She told Perkins’ eldest to hold her horses, then hurried to the door and threw it open. “I am on the telephone.”

  David Allen tried a smile meant to reassure her that his intentions were good, if not his timing. “I came by to talk to the children. Shall I wait here while you fetch them?” he said, trying to ignore the rain dripping down his collar.

  “They’re gone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t have time to visit with you at the moment.” Mrs. Jim Bob started to close the door, her mind toying with the possibility of paying minimum wage just this once. It was something of an emergency, what with Jim Bob most likely roaring up the highway.

  “Where’d they go?”

  “Now how would I know? I certainly can’t read their pornographic little minds, not that I’d want to even if I could. Why don’t you ask Madam Celeste?” She again tried to close the door, but someone’s foot was in the way.

  “When did they leave?” David Allen persisted, despite the pain.

  “They left a while back, and they didn’t say where they were going. They are not my responsibility, David Allen, and I don’t keep track of everybody’s comings and goings like I was some spinster at an attic window. Arly’s the one who’d better do that, especially if she has a mind to keep her job.”

  The door closed in the guidance counselor’s face. He blinked, then turned and looked as far as he could see in all directions for Buchanon children. When that didn’t do any good, he drove over to the Bar and Grill to see if Ruby Bee had any theories. When that didn’t do any good because nobody was there, he drove on home and got a beer out of the refrigerator. That did some good.

  It may occur to you that a lot of people were lost—and it’s undeniably true. For all intents and purposes, Kevin and Dahlia had dropped off the face of the earth. Four Buchanon bastards had taken off for parts unknown. Mr. Jim Bob had checked out of the hotel and was no longer snarling threats from his hotel room. Baby Buchanon wasn’t goo-gooing in the station wagon when Estelle and Ruby Bee came out of Madam Celeste’s house, which set off a goodly amount of screechings and wild accusations and indignant rebuttals. Mason Dickerson wasn’t available to ask if he’d seen anyone on the road, and his sleek silver car wasn’t parked in the driveway. Madam Celeste was in the house, one supposed, but she wouldn’t come to the door despite a lot of banging and pleading to do so.

  Other people were where they were supposed to be. Nate was still napping on the sofa in the back room of the Emporium, waiting for a call he hoped would liberate him. Poppy and Rainbow were out in the front, sounding off like kazoos. Zachery, the fourth partner, was in the loading area in the back, smoking a joint and enjoying the rain that misted his hair and beard with tiny crystals. David Allen was fiddling with his toys and on his third beer. Perkins’ eldest was trudging up the driveway to the mayor’s manor, a bottle of ammonia in her purse, while inside same manor Mrs. Jim Bob sat at the dining room table and sipped tea from a porcelain cup. Brother Verber was scribbling away, his face flushed with inspiration as he thought up increasingly pious expressions that would knock the socks off ’em the following morning at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall.

  The minor players were doing minor things of no great import. Kevin Buchanon’s mother was hunting for a recipe for sweet potato pie, because her last hadn’t been quite spicy enough and she prided herself on the perfect combination of cinnamon and nutmeg. Her husband, Earl, was wondering where the hell Kevin was, but he wasn’t worrying all that much since boys will be boys and at least Kevin wasn’t in the sweet gum tree peeking at naked hippies. He’d checked first thing, but the tree was uninhabited.

  Elsie McMay was hovering near the telephone, just in case the filthy pervert called. Merle Hardcock stood on the north bank of Boone Creek, trying to refigure the angles. Carol Alice and Heather were cross-legged on Carol Alice’s bed, thumbing through fashion magazines for ideas for bridesmaids’ dresses, Heather being steadfastly opposed to
both puffy sleeves and high waistlines, since neither flattered her and she knew it. Carol Alice’s fiancé was over in the National Forest with a couple of his buddies, drinking beer, telling risqué stories, and arguing about the best location for a deer stand whenever they chanced to remember the purpose of the jaunt. Gladys Buchanon was squinting at her grocery list, since she couldn’t find her glasses again and wasn’t about to pay fifteen dollars for psychic revelations. LaBelle was in the little girls’ room, cursing that doctor in Farberville who wasn’t a day older than her nephew and therefore hardly qualified to prescribe medicine and prod at people’s privates. Harve was grumbling over reports that looked like they’d been written by third graders. Decidedly minor things.

  The drizzle was not making me happy. It was making me clammy and cold. It was making my blanket squishy. It was making my coffee watery and my cornflakes droopy. It was making my mood bleaker than that of a bag lady who’d lost her baggage.

  No one had approached the pot patch, which meant I hadn’t nabbed a single criminal as of yet. I doubted my perps were foolish enough to appear on a miserable, wet, cold day, harvesttime or not. Perps weren’t notoriously clever (or they wouldn’t be perps-they’d be investment bankers or Mercedes salesmen), but even the dumbest ole boys had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Squirrels and blue jays and mosquitoes had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Only chiefs of police were devoid of sense. Not to mention cold and wet and bored and lonesome and apt to come down with pneumonia.

  I pulled my jacket more tightly around my shoulders and tried very hard not to succumb to selfpity. I didn’t have a whole lot of success. At two o’clock I plodded through the wet leaves to the jeep and called LaBelle. Once we’d gotten through the preliminaries-no, I hadn’t seen or heard anything; yes, I was dandy and having a wonderful time; yes, I’d remember rain or sleet to check in-she casually mentioned a telephone call from one Ruby Bee Hanks. “What’d she say?” I asked without enthusiasm.

  “Well, she wanted to know where you were and when you’d be back. I told her in no uncertain terms that the information was as confidential as it’d been the first time she asked, and there wasn’t any point in badgering me. Then she asked me something I found right peculiar, if you know what I mean.”

  “I have no idea what you mean, LaBelle.”

  “She wanted to know if we’d had anything unusual turn up in the lost-and-found department this morning. I told her about the dentures, the pompom, the three-legged hound, and the pair of spectacles, but she said never mind and hung up afore I could find out what she was looking for.” LaBelle moistened her lips, then added, “She sounded kind of worried, although she was trying not to.”

  A particularly icy drip of rain found its way down my collar. “You don’t have any idea what she might have lost?”

  “I am not a mind reader, Arly. You ought to ask Madam Celeste about that sort of thing; she’s real uncanny.”

  “Did you check with school about Kevin?” I asked, too discouraged to pursue my mother’s latest bit of nonsense.

  “He did not come to work yesterday, and Earl and Eilene haven’t seen him since the night before that. And don’t bother to interrupt, because I asked Ruby Bee if she’d heard from Dahlia and she hadn’t. Do you want to file a missing persons report?”

  “Not if that means someone might find them.” I rogered over and out, then went back to my post, which had a puddle in the middle middle of it. I dug through the box of cornflakes for a wishbone, aware that it indicated a deterioration of my mental faculties, and came up with a soggy yellow flake. I decided that I would remain on the job until six o’clock, when it would start getting dark. Then, without telling LaBelle or anyone else, I would slither back to Maggody, take a hot shower, and spend the night in my dry, warm bed. I could be back at the patch by seven the next morning. Since the dopers had no idea the patch was under surveillance, they had no reason to risk a broken axle or a broken ankle by harvesting in the dark.

  Once I talked myself into that minor dereliction of duty, I felt a little bit better and a good deal saner. I even managed not to snarl at a squirrel too stupid to stay in out of the rain. Almost pegged him with a walnut, but I figured I was merely assisting him in his nut collection. Damn bushy-tailed rat.

  “Arly’s going to hit the ceiling,” Ruby Bee moaned. “She’ll never stop talking about how irresponsible we were to lose that precious little baby. The poor little thing’s probably been kidnapped by some degenerate pervert who’ll demand money for ransom. I’m going to hate to turn over my life savings to a degenerate pervert, but I suppose we’ll have to if he calls.”

  Estelle looked in the opposite direction. “Let’s not cross the Brooklyn Bridge until we come to it. Between the two of us we don’t have near enough money to resemble a ransom payment, and I for one don’t intend to end up in the county old folks’ home. Besides, maybe we’ll find Baby before Arly comes back from wherever she is and starts getting all haughty about how you lost the baby.”

  “How I lost the baby? It seems to me that you put the baby out in the car and said he’d be just fine by his little self. You were so all-fired sure there weren’t any Gypsies on the road. You were plumb full of confidence that Madam Celeste would identify the father. You were-”

  “What do you think she meant?” Estelle interrupted, not enjoying the drift of Ruby Bee’s remarks.

  Ruby Bee made a rude little noise to let Estelle know just what she thought of the diversionary tactic, then shook her head. “Lordy, I don’t know. Celeste claimed she saw a list, but she couldn’t come up with any idea where in tarnation there’d be such a thing. We both agree that the hospital’s out, and the welfare office hasn’t sent anyone to Robin’s cabin in a coon’s age. So who has a list?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Estelle said. “I was wondering if we ought to go back out there and ask the madam if she has any visions of where to find Baby, but most likely she still won’t answer the door.”

  They sat in silence for a while, considering options and lists and what to say to Arly when she showed up-which she would, sooner or later. They almost leaped out of their respective skins when the jukebox blared into life and David Allen Wainright joined them at the bar.

  “Any word from Arly?” he asked, once he had a beer in front of him and a bowl of popcorn within reach.

  “Not recently,” Ruby Bee said cagily. “How about you? Did you have any luck interviewing the Buchanon children today?”

  He explained how they’d gone off somewhere, and how Mrs. Jim Bob wasn’t exactly chewing her fingernails or sweating bullets over their disappearance. He then went on to say that in a way he felt responsible, but he couldn’t figure out anything to do about it except have another beer.

  Not quite willing to admit the whole truth, Ruby Bee told him how she and Estelle had consulted Madam Celeste concerning the delicate issue of paternity-not that she’d doubted David Allen’s professional abilities, mind you, but it never hurt to cover all the bases. Estelle butted in to repeat Celeste’s murky pronouncement about a list, and how it didn’t make a whit of sense. David Allen was forced to agree.

  They had a companionable beer, and then he wandered off. Once the door closed, Estelle jabbed her finger in the air.

  “Arly shouldn’t have turned over those poor orphans to Mrs. Jim Bob in the first place,” she said. “It’s no wonder they ran off when they had the opportunity, what with her Bible-thumping and selfrighteous sermonettes and all. Not to mention her pie crust, which personally I find soggy.”

  “Arly’s not going to be pleased,” Ruby Bee said with a sigh. “Now all five of the orphans are lost. She’ll be fit to be tied when she finds out. She may have my good looks, but she sure does have her daddy’s temperament. She’ll go on and on about how we wouldn’t have lost Baby if we hadn’t consulted Madam Celeste, and she’ll also claim we were interf
ering in her investigation by doing so-even though we weren’t.”

  Estelle let out a sigh of her own. “Are you sure LaBelle won’t give you any hints about when Arly gets back? I might feel the need to go into Farberville and buy an aqua uniform.”

  “You’re not running out on me, you coward! It was your idea to begin with.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on keeping Baby,” Estelle pointed out. “If you’d let him go to Mrs. Jim Bob’s house with the others-”

  “What’d you say earlier about Mrs. Jim Bob?”

  “I said her pie crust was soggy. Now, if you’d let Baby go-”

  “Something else,” Ruby Bee said excitedly. “You said something about Mrs. Jim Bob thumping her Bible, remember?”

  Estelle was tiring of not getting out a single sentence without all the time being cut off. “I may have made such a remark, but I don’t see why that gives you the right to blurt out anything that comes into your head.”

  “What’s in a Bible?”

  “The Old Testament and the New Testament, Miz Feathers-for-Brains. Chapters and verses like ‘Thou shall not interrupt thy friends when thy friends is making a point.”

  “What else is in a Bible?” Ruby Bee continued, her eyes bright enough to compete with the jukebox. “Right in the beginning?”

  “I’m not sure I remember my Sunday-school lessons perfectly, but there’s Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and so forth.”

  “Before that-right on the first page?”

  “I am finding this most tedious,” Estelle said. “If you want to see if you qualify for one of those TV game shows where you shout out the answers, that is your business.”

  “Right on the first page of everybody’s family Bible is a record of births, marriages, and deaths. It’s a list.”

  Estelle’s jaw dropped so hard it almost hit her chest. “You’re right, Ruby Bee. A list of births, marriages, and deaths. We ain’t interested in the last two, but we are in the first. Do you think that’s what Madam Celeste was referring to?”