by Joan Hess
"Yes?" I said frigidly.
"That your room?"
"That any of your business?"
He flicked his cigarette over the rail. "Might be, considering I'm investigating a crime. It's a little early for me to leap over there like a comic-book superhero, so I'll take the more routine approach and come around to your door."
I arrived at the door just as he knocked. Rather than usher him in, however, I said, "May I see some identification?"
"I left my badge at home on account of not being used to phone calls at the crack of dawn. My wife damn near whacked me to death when I told her to start some coffee, and I wasn't about to go back in the bedroom and grab my wallet. My name's Floyd Sanderson, and I'm the chief of police. If you want, call down to the desk and ask for Loretta. She's my niece. She don't know the particulars about my freckles and warts, but she can give you a general description."
He was unappealing enough without delving into the specific whereabouts of his freckles and warts. His belly was nearly the size of a beer keg, and his gray hair was cut so short it resembled the stubble on his jowls. His smile may have been good-natured, but his eyes were small and so deeply imbedded in his fleshy face that it was hard to imagine how light found its way to them. His shirt was stained. Much of what he'd had to eat for the last several days was memorialized on his tie.
"I suppose you can come in," I said.
"I thank you kindly," he said, brushing past me. "I don't recollect you telling me your name, missy. Would it be Estelle Oppers or Ruby Bee Hanks?"
"Arly Hanks." I followed him out to the balcony, not pleased with the need to address his broad backside. "Ruby Bee's my mother. She's in the local hospital, so I'm staying here for the moment."
"In the hospital? You be sure and give her my wishes for a fast recovery, you hear? We all feel real bad when someone comes to visit our little of town and fails to have a chance to partake of our hospitality. If our budget wasn't so skimpy, I'd send her a real nice bouquet of flowers."
"You're a prince, Floyd," I said as I put my elbows on the railing. "What can I do to reciprocate this generous, if empty, gesture?"
"We got us a problem, Arly. This morning we had a call that a body'd been found down there and over to your left a tad. Now this body was in real sorry shape. I don't remember much from high school, but I seem to think the formula for a falling body is sixteen feet per second squared." He looked down at the parking lot. "Or per second per second. I was too busy trying to figure out how get into Mary Joleen Wanson's panties to pay much attention. Anyway, it's same as if you'd thrown a concrete block off a balcony, or a golf ball, for that matter. In this particular case, it was a young woman name of Stormy Zimmerman."
"I was aware that something took place," I said. "Why are you convinced it wasn't a suicide?"
"Are you from this town called Maggody?" he asked, going back into the room. He picked up a bobby pin off the chair in which Estelle had been sitting, studied it for a moment, and carefully placed it on the table before sitting down.
Wondering if he and Reverend Hitebred read the same tabloids, I closed the sliding door and sat down across from him. "Why are you convinced it wasn't a suicide?" I repeated.
Chief Sanderson gave me a discouraged look. "Thing is, we got the list of everybody on this Elvis tour, and the two ladies registered for this room are from Maggody. A couple of other witnesses admit to a connection with Maggody, and I ain't gonna pop a suspender if you're from there, too. I'd be in my bed, nice and cozy, if it weren't for all you folks."
"I'll pass that on to the Chamber of Commerce," I said, "but I'd appreciate some candor from you."
"Well, it's like this," he said in a drawl that was almost a Hollywood parody (but then again, he might have ambled off the set of The Dukes of Hazzard). "The deceased was sharing a room with a woman named"-he took out a notebook and flipped it open-"Cherri Lucinda Crate. She just happens to know the fellow in the next room, who just happens to be the mayor of Maggody. First off, he said he didn't know her from Adam-or Eve, anyway, that he'd met her in the casino and they'd hit if off real fine. When I said that didn't exactly agree with what she'd told us, he conceded that maybe he'd visited with her a time or two at the club where she works in Farberville, but of course he never dreamed she'd be within a hundred miles of Mississippi. Then I mentioned that the desk clerk had admitted to taking a ten-dollar bill to put him in the room adjoining hers, and he remembered that possibly she might have let drop something real vague about the Elvis Presley Pilgrimage."
"Jim Bob Buchanon?" I said with a grimace.
"Guess you know him, then."
"I know him, and his relationship with Cherri Lucinda is somewhat more intimate than he suggested. I was pretty sure I'd seen her before. I should have recognized her, but she had a towel wrapped around her hair when I went to her apartment to question her about a business swindle. Ruby Bee and Estelle caught a glimpse of her about the same time." I could see no reason to add that Ruby Bee's vantage point had been from the inside of a Dumpster; some things don't invite elaboration.
Chief Sanderson scanned the tray from room service, found a half-eaten triangle of toast, and jammed it in his mouth. "This is where it gets complicated," he went on, spewing whole wheat crumbs with each word. "She swears she wasn't expecting him, which may or may not be true. They went down to the casino and shot craps till dawn, then came upstairs to his room. She told him to go into her room and fetch her bag, then got into the shower. He says her room was empty, but a group of ladies on their way to breakfast heard an argument from inside. They stopped, not sure if they ought to do something. After a few minutes, everything got quiet and they went on toward the elevator. All of a sudden, they heard a scream. One of the ladies was so startled that she fell and twisted her ankle. While one went back to her room to call for a doctor, the rest of 'em stayed out in the hallway, fussing over their friend. They all swear nobody went in or out of any of the rooms between that moment and when a hotel employee showed up. He helped them get the accident victim back to her room, but they were still hobbling along the hall when my deputy got there."
"So," I said in an amazingly reasonable voice, considering I was in the unpalatable position of defending Hizzoner the Moron, "Stormy'd already jumped when Jim Bob went into the room to get Cherri Lucinda's bag. There certainly could be a short lapse between the time she jumped and when the woman in the parking lot saw the body and screamed. That would explain why he said the room was empty."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he said.
"Yeah," I countered.
"Lots of folks would go leaping to that conclusion, Arly. My deputy did, but she ain't been on the job more than a month. Japonica's a good girl, mind you, and doin' her level best to prove herself. She just didn't think to wait until the witness stopped throwing up in the hydrangeas and started remembering more of what she'd seen."
"Which was?" I said.
"Two people on the balcony. One was the black-haired woman in a negligee. The other was a man. She couldn't make out much about him-about all she saw was an arm-but the ladies from Tuscaloosa are real sure no one left any of the rooms on this wing of the eighth floor. We're a backwoods operation, but we would have found someone hiding in a closet or lying under a bed. The only man who could have been arguing on that balcony hustled his butt back into the adjoining room, flopped down on the bed, and lit a cigar."
"I guess it has gotten complicated," I admitted. I thought for a moment, then said, "What if she was arguing with someone on the telephone? I was told that she'd had a fight with her boyfriend. She called him, and he said something that devastated her so much that she decided to kill herself. The ladies mistakenly assumed there were two people in the room.
"That doesn't explain why the witness saw a man on the balcony."
"With coaching, the witness might be convinced she saw Elvis on the balcony. Why was she looking up at the eighth floor anyway? Wasn't she more concerned with stepping in a pot
hole?"
Chief Sanderson blinked at me. "I hope you're not suggesting I coached the witness, Arly. I've been on the force for twenty-seven years. I may have been accused of being a little too rough with the local boys, but I ain't never been accused of playing fast and loose with a witness to a homicide. All I did was hold her hand till she calmed down, then encourage her to think more carefully about what she'd seen. As soon as she got outside, she stopped to tie her shoe and heard voices from above her. She did what any of us would do, which is look up. She saw a man on the balcony, and the only man she could have seen was Jim Bob Buchanon."
"Arly?" said Estelle as she came out of the bathroom. "Who're you talking to?"
"Chief of Police Sanderson," I said to Estelle, then gestured at her to keep quiet. "I have no problem with Jim Bob coming here to surprise Cherri Lucinda, and I'm sure he wasn't planning to give her a lesson in blackjack strategy after she finished taking a shower. But what's his motive for pushing a stranger off a balcony?"
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.