The Arly Hanks Mysteries Volume One

by Joan Hess

  “She wasn’t referring to a grocery list, for Pete’s sake. That’s got to be what she was referring to.” Ruby Bee’s face fell. “Of course, that’s assuming Robin Buchanon had a family Bible, which is a stretch of the imagination.”

  “Or that she bothered to write down the names of the ole boys who fathered her bastards.”

  “Or that she could write down names or anything else.”

  “That she had a pencil in the cabin.”

  “That she knew the names of the fathers.”

  They both slumped down on the stools and propped their elbows on the bar and engaged in a lot of sighs. At last Ruby Bee pulled herself together, squared her shoulders, and said, “It’s the only clue we have, especially since the other Buchanons have run off. We don’t have anything else to go on except the possibility that Robin Buchanon kept a list in a family Bible.”

  “If we find the list, we’ll know the identities of the fathers. Maybe Baby was kidnapped by his own father,” Estelle added.

  “Then we wouldn’t have to tell Arly how we lost the little sweetums, or even where we were and what we were doing at the time. Assuming there is a Bible, for one thing, and for another that it has a list.” Ruby Bee tried to keep her sense of optimism, but it wasn’t easy. “And that we can get our hands on it. Robin didn’t live in a condominium on the highway, you know. It’s not all that simple to just run up there and pick up this Bible off the coffee table for a look-see.”

  They finally agreed that there wasn’t much choice, and once Ruby Bee’d put up the Closed sign for not the first time, they got into Estelle’s station wagon. After all, they told each other several times, they’d been there before on that other distasteful matter. There wasn’t any reason why two full-grown intelligent women couldn’t remember a few turns here and there. They were still engaged in the pep talk as they turned off the pavement and bounced up a rough trail that led toward Cotter’s Ridge.

  Hammet made sandwiches and told everybody not to be gettin’ crumbs all over everywhere like they was uncivilized animals. They sat in the dim room, watching the soundless antics on the television set. Hammet tried to explain the finer points of the football game, based on observation alone since he’d never seen anything quite so all-fired dumb in his short lifetime, but he could tell not even Sukie believed his theories. “If they’s tryin’ to kill each other to win that ball, why don’t they have shotguns?” she asked.

  “They wants it to last for hours and hours, so all those other people screaming and jumping up and down can watch ’em,” he said. “They puts up those numbers to show how many they’ve kilt.”

  “Why don’t those people jest shoot ’em and put ’em out of their misery?” Sissie asked, equally enthralled by the violence.

  “He don’ know shit,” Bubba inserted.

  Hammet settled for an eloquent shrug, since he didn’t know shit about it anyway.

  At six o’clock (or maybe a few scant seconds earlier), I stored my blanket and thermos in the tent, then slipped and slid through the sodden leaves to the jeep. The beeper was clipped to my belt, so I would be alerted instantly if LaBelle found some obscure reason to desire communication with me. No one would know I wasn’t expiring of pneumonia in a damp sleeping bag on the ridge all night; I would tuck the beeper under my pillow (the soft, warm, dry pillow on my soft, warm, dry bed) and if it beeped, I could go down to the jeep and radio in.

  As I drove down the back side of the ridge, I told myself over and over that it wasn’t a deadly sin, or even a dereliction of any significance. No, not at all. It was the intelligent thing to do. It was not evidence of weakness or self-indulgence to avoid a slow, miserable death by freezation and ennui. The mythology of superheroes was immature. Television cop shows were aimed at viewers with IQs in the single-digit range. Besides, no one would ever know. So there.

  I felt a flicker of guilt as I drove past the abandoned jeep. Maybe Kevin and Dahlia were out there in the woods, as wet and miserable as I’d been for a solid twenty-four hours. They’d taken the jeep late Thursday afternoon; Merle had happened across them toward dark. That worked out without much effort to forty-eight hours. And no one had bothered with a missing persons report, or a search party, or dogs, or helicopters, or anything. No one had informed either set of parents that said twosome were lost somewhere on the ridge.

  Then again, there wasn’t a bear or a wildcat mean enough to tackle Dahlia O’Neill. With any success, anyway.

  I pulled over and cut off the engine. I fiddled with the radio until I got through to LaBelle, who hopped right in with the time. I waited until she ran down, then told her to check with the parents to make sure the prodigal pair hadn’t returned. If they hadn’t, I instructed her to put out an APB on Kevin and Dahlia.

  “You want I should book a posse to comb the ridge?” she asked.

  “Not yet. If we bring in a posse, our dope growers won’t dare to come back to their pot patch, which means we’ll never catch them,” I said, sighing. “The dopers committed murder, and I’ll be damned if they’re going to get away with it because Kevin and Dahlia are snuggled up in a cave somewhere. Maybe Dahlia’ll shed a couple of pounds. If they haven’t turned up by tomorrow night, we’ll do the posse thing.”

  “Whatever you say, Arly. Have a nice night.”

  “I fully intend to,” I said earnestly. Boy, did I get that wrong.

  12

  It was dark by the time I hit the highway to Maggody, which was just fine with me since I intended to sneak into town like the cowardly wimp I was. Everything looked dead (normal), but as I braked for a possum in front of the Emporium, the dark-haired distaff hippie came dashing out the door to the side of the road. She gestured for me to pull over, and I obliged, albeit reluctantly.

  “Oh, thank God,” she gasped, clinging to the jeep. “Poppy’s gone into labor, and we have no way to fetch the midwife.”

  “How far along is she?” I asked, albeit more reluctantly.

  “According to the manual we ordered from the feminists’ commune near Bugscuffle, she could have the baby anytime now. Unless you know how to deliver babies, we’ve got to get the midwife!”

  “We certainly do,” I said briskly (and without a trace of reluctance). “Tell me where to find her, and I’ll run out there while you…ah…read the manual and time the contractions and boil the water.”

  “Don’t you think you’d better come inside for a minute? Poppy’s in the back room on the sofa. She’s white and in a lot of pain.”

  I wasn’t going to fall for that one. “I’ll go for the midwife. Your friend might be better off at home in bed, you know, or on the way to the hospital.”

  “Poppy doesn’t want to have our baby in a sterile environment with a bunch of strangers poking and prodding her,” Rainbow said in a shocked voice. “Hospital delivery rooms are politically and morally incorrect, and symptomatic of the exploitation of women by male doctors concerned with their own convenience and their ill-disguised need to subjugate women. Natural childbirth is a step in the cyclical cosmic framework that carries us from birth to death and beyond to our next life. Birth should be a joyous family experience in the woman’s own bed, where the child was first conceived.” When I raised my eyebrows, she added, “Nate left in the truck, and it’s too late to move her.”

  “Where does the midwife live?”

  She gave me convoluted directions that began at the edge of town, continued along the county road, and ended on some narrow, unpaved lane that would take me to the top of the hill and the midwife’s house. I was informed that I couldn’t possibly miss the turnoff, even though it was your basic dark and stormy night. It wasn’t the time to suggest a small wager, so I said I’d be back as soon as humanly possible and drove down the county road.

  Estelle’s house was dark. I’d hoped that I might spot Estelle and Ruby Bee inside, doing so
mething perfectly innocent in the front room. It was not written in the stars (and no doubt they were at the Bar and Grill, since it was Saturday night). The psychic’s house was dark, too, but there was a dim glow in what I presumed was the solarium. I idly considered stopping for a bit of astrophysical advice about the turnoff, but drove on like an unenlightened innocent abroad.

  For the next two hours I drove up and down every narrow, unpaved lane north of Boone Creek. I knocked on doors and talked to people with more interest in television sitcoms than in the imminent delivery of babies on the sofa of the Emporium office. Nobody had any idea where any midwife lived. It made for some interesting exchanges on rainy porches, but it didn’t get me any closer to the midwife.

  I finally gave up and drove back toward the Emporium. Once I was on pavement, I realized it was time for a bulletin, so I took one hand off the steering wheel to fiddle with the radio.

  “It’s a good thing you called when you did,” LaBelle chirped. “I was on my way home, and the second shift’s not supposed to know what all you’re up to. Harvey says not to check in until tomorrow morning.”

  I noticed that she didn’t bother to ask if I’d nabbed the perps as of yet. I agreed not to harass the second-shift dispatcher and was about to ask if she’d heard from Ruby Bee when I almost ran into a pickup truck just before Estelle’s house. For a moment it seemed as if we’d end up in our respective ditches, but the other driver squeaked past me. I braked to gulp down a breath and mutter a few caustic comments about fools who drove in the rain without headlights. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back to the Emporium, I’d have chased the fool all the way to the far side of hell in order to escort him to the county jail in Farberville (Maggody lacks overnight accommodations).

  “Why’d you gasp?” LaBelle demanded. She let her voice drop to a throaty whisper, and I could almost see her licking her lips in anticipation of some wonderfully dramatic spate of gunfire to which she would be an earwitness. “Oh, my Lord, Arly—did you see something suspicious? Are they sneaking up on you? How many are there of them? Are they armed? Are you in some kind of danger?”

  In that I was supposed to be on the ridge in a parked jeep, I couldn’t explain the traffic situation. “A rabid squirrel,” I said, and then went on to say I’d report the next morning, and cut her off. Estelle still wasn’t home, I noticed as I drove past her house on my way back to the Emporium to report failure.

  The front door was unlocked, and light shone through the curtain that covered the doorway to the office. It blocked the view, but did nothing to muffle the shriek of pain that greeted me. I reverted to reluctant mode as I squared my shoulders and pushed aside the curtain.

  Poppy was on the couch, her eyes closed and sweat dotting her face like early morning frost. Every few seconds she moaned and twitched. Rainbow stood over her with a washcloth in her hand. Sitting cross-legged on the desk was a man with a wispy beard, a ponytail, and a broad smile. “Like wow,” he murmured, watching Poppy as if waiting for her to levitate or glow. She opted for a more prosaic shriek.

  I took a step back. “I couldn’t find the midwife. Don’t you think we’d better find someone who knows how to do this sort of thing? Anyone who knows how to—”

  “No strangers!” Poppy cried. “Please, no strangers.”

  Rainbow gave her an approving smile. “No strangers; I promise. Arly, Zachery, and I will help you. You just go with the flow, as though you were adrift in a current of love and sharing.”

  “Where’s the manual?” I said grimly.

  “I don’t think we ought to abandon the station wagon out here,” Estelle said. She stood in front of the raised hood, glaring at the steam that curled out of the radiator.

  “Nobody’s going to steal it,” Ruby Bee pointed out as levelly as possible, considering. “We’re smackdab in the middle of nowhere and there’s not another living soul within miles of here. Even if someone wanted to steal it, it won’t run. Thieves don’t drive tow trucks.”

  “I just don’t like to leave it.”

  “Then get yourself around to the back and start pushing. I am about to freeze to death standing here in the rain while you pretend you know something about station wagon engines. I already told you I am not going to sit in this thing all night long, while bears and wildcats claw at the windows and we turn bluer than a pair of birdfoot violets.”

  Estelle started to argue, but nothing much came to mind, so she settled for an unenthusiastic nod. “I guess it’ll be all right until morning. But are you sure we ought to go up the road? We don’t know how far Robin’s cabin is, and I’d hate to find out it’s ten more miles.”

  “We know how far it is back to the highway,” Ruby Bee said through clenched teeth, having clenched them so they wouldn’t chatter, or so she told herself. “We know that a couple of those creek beds behind us are full of water. We know that the longer we stand here arguing, the colder and wetter we’re going to get.” She came around to the front of the station wagon and shook her finger at Estelle. “If you want to stand here all night and study the spark plugs, you go right ahead. I am seeking shelter, myself. Robin’s cabin isn’t all that far. It may not be the Flamingo Motel, but it has a roof and some protection from wild animals. She’s dead and the children are down in town somewhere, so no one’s going to bother us. Now, are you coming or not?”

  Estelle had already decided she was, but she felt it wasn’t good politics to give in too easily. “There’s no cause to get all snippety, Ruby Bee Hanks. I was merely pointing out the possibility of going down instead of up. I always like to explore my options.”

  “You may explore options all night if you wish. Explore them to your heart’s content. I am chilled to the bone, and I am also sick and tired of standing here!” Ruby Bee marched up the road, the sole flashlight held snugly in her hand.

  Muttering under her breath, Estelle hurried after her and took the opportunity to bring up (and not for the first time) just whose fool scheme this was and who would have to take responsibility if they were eaten by a bear. Ruby Bee had a few opinions herself. They were still exploring the complex issue of causality and responsibility when they reached the clearing in front of the cabin.

  “So there,” Ruby Bee said triumphantly. “Didn’t I say it wasn’t all that far to the cabin? You wanted to walk all the way down to the highway, a good ten miles of creek beds and ruts and wild animals. I told you the cabin wasn’t all that far, didn’t I?”

  Estelle screeched, then caught her companion’s arm and jerked her to a halt. “I thought I saw something move.”

  “Are you going to start worrying about ghosts? Lordy, Estelle, I’d of thought you were a sight too old for that kind of childish squeamishness. We’re not over at Madam Celeste’s for a seance.”

  “I thought I saw something move,” she repeated in a low voice.

  “Really?” Ruby Bee sniffed. “Well, where’d you see this haint? I’ll shine the light so we both can see it’s a pig or a goat or a dish towel flapping on the clothesline. Will that satisfy you?”

  The hand that held the flashlight might have trembled a tad, but it failed to illuminate pig, goat, dish towel, or even the shade of Robin Buchanon flitting about in the weeds. The door to the cabin was slightly ajar. Ruby Bee knocked, just out of habit, then tiptoed in and shone the light all around in case a bear might have chosen the shack for purposes of hibernation. Or at least she told herself as much, in that she wasn’t a skittery child who fretted about ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the night. Not even in a dead woman’s cabin on a dark, rainy night.

  “You can come inside and close the door,” she said to Estelle, who was hovering prudently in the doorway and chewing a fingernail like it was made of milk chocolate. “You know darn well that you were seeing things a minute ago. This is going to be all right. We can light a lantern, and there’s a little pile of wood b
y the stove. We’re going to be just as snug as little bugs in a rug.”

  Estelle wasn’t all that convinced, but she closed the door anyway since there wasn’t any point in getting any wetter than she already was. She figured there were likely to be plenty of bugs in the rug, along with spiders in the corners and snakes under the rickety furniture. However, she and Ruby Bee managed to light the lantern, which helped dispel some of the shadows. Once they had a little fire going in the stove, the room got warm enough for her to stop shivering like a wet dog in a blizzard. But she was real sure she’d seen something flitting around the corner of the shack. Something or someone. She didn’t like it one bit. She was trying not to dwell on it too much when Ruby Bee announced she’d found Robin Buchanon’s family Bible. In fact, Estelle decided as she went to take a gander at the Good Book, she must have been crazy.

  “You are squishing me something dreadful,” Dahlia hissed. “You got your heel dug in my leg and your knee’s knocking my nose ever’ time you move. I don’t aim to end up with a bloody nose and blood all over my dress. It makes the worst stain of anything, even grape jelly.”

  “I’m sorry, my darling.” Kevin tried to peer through a knothole, but he still couldn’t tell exactly what was going on inside the cabin. Grumbling, he got down and wiggled around until he was facing Dahlia in the darkness of the cramped space. He squatted down so he could whisper right at her face. “We got to stay here until they’re gone. I couldn’t see who it was, but they might be dangerous or murderers. They might have guns, which would mean I couldn’t protect you if they decided to tie us up and then have their way with you—the filthy perverts!”

  “Why’d you let them sneak up on you like that?” she persisted, not especially distraught over Kevin’s bleak scenario. She couldn’t imagine the filthy perverts being able to overpower Kevin, not when he was so brave and cool that he ought to be on Friday-night television.