murder@maggody.com

by Joan Hess

  “Well, last night I was sitting in the cubicle, reading an E-mail message from my sister-in-law over in Amarillo, when—” She put the handkerchief to her nose. “I don’t know if I can go on, Brother Verber. It was so awful.”

  He was well beyond the confines of simple bewilderment. “Your sister-in-law is consortin’ with demons?”

  “No, she was telling me about her oldest son’s new job when all of a sudden—”

  This time he clutched her hand. “Spit it out, Sister Barbara. We’re here in the glow of the Lord’s house. If you was to go to the window, you could see that neon cross above the door of the Assembly Hall, blinking day and night, telling all the lost lambs that there is sanctuary within the fold. ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.’”

  “Do you recall what I told you the other day about subliminal messages and how you can’t see ’em?”

  “Your sister-in-law was trying to trick you into buying popcorn?”

  “Not hardly. What I saw, or thought I saw, was a picture of Jim Bob. Before I could blink, it was gone. I sat there for another hour, staring at the screen, but the only thing I saw was the E-mail from Imogene telling how McCoy is working for some tractor company in Fort Worth.”

  He nodded as though this had been covered in one of the seminary brochures. “Why, all that means is you’re a virtuous Christian wife who never forgets the vows she took to love, honor, and obey. Even though you didn’t realize it, you were thinking about him, maybe wondering if he’d like fried chicken and mashed potatoes for supper, or maybe pork chops and black-eyed peas simmered with bacon rind, along with cornbread, turnip greens, and sliced tomatoes topped with a dollop of cream-style cottage cheese, which would make a fine feast for company if you ever were inclined. Your mind was playing a little joke on you.”

  “I didn’t see him wearing the suit and tie he had on for our wedding.”

  “Something more casual?”

  “You could say that,” she muttered.

  Brother Verber was beginning to put two and two together, although it wasn’t quite adding up to four (proficiency in arithmetic not having been a prerequisite of the seminary). “So you caught a glimpse of Jim Bob in his underwear, and—”

  “It wasn’t his underwear, I can assure you, unless he’s been leading a secret life. I know over the years he’s taken up with Jezebels, thinking he can deceive me with his bald-faced lies. Whenever I catch him, he’s always quick to repent and promise not to stray, but outside of taking him to a vet, I don’t see how I can stop him.”

  His hands involuntarily drifted to his lap. “Are you positive you saw this?”

  “I most certainly am, for the most part. I believe that when Satan found out we were all going to learn how to use the Internet, he took it upon himself to send these disgusting images so we’d all begin to feel filthy, even though we wouldn’t know why. He made the mistake of sending one to somebody who happens to be righteous and unafraid of confronting sin when she sees it. He picked the wrong person, Brother Verber. I’ve always had a Bible in one hand; now it’s time for me to take up the sword in the other.”

  Brother Verber felt a singular chill. “What do you aim to do with the sword? You wouldn’t do anything to Jim Bob, would you? You admitted you only saw this picture for a split second. It was at the end of a long day, and sometimes our eyes play tricks on us. Just the other night I could have sworn I saw an orangutan in the parking lot behind the old Emporium.”

  “In a lacy red garter and high-heeled shoes?” She stood up and headed for the door. “I am going to ask some of the others in the class if they’ve seen these missives from Satan. It’s not too early to start gathering kindling, Brother Verber.”

  “For a bonfire?”

  “To burn up the portable classroom before Satan can slither out the door and into our homes.”

  After the door closed, he went to the window and watched her drive away in her pink Cadillac. He had no idea if she was going to Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill, the high school, or to a pawnshop in search of a double-edged weapon. After scratching his head for a minute, he decided it was definitely time to stock up on sacramental wine from the wholesaler on the other side of Farberville.

  It would be worth the drive.

  Jim Bob sat back and rubbed his eyes. What he thought he’d seen, imagined he’d seen, had not really seen, couldn’t possibly have seen—well, it was nothing more than a hallucination. That’s all it could be. He’d never been one to drink before late afternoon, but now was the time, if ever there was, for a pint of bourbon. He was thinking about going out to his truck to get it, when Idalupino came into his office.

  “There’s this man out front,” she said. “He sez he’s the distributor that handles paper products. I told him you might be gone, but he—”

  “You did good, Idalupino, ’cause I left an hour ago, and you don’t know where I went. Tell him to call next week.”

  “You left an hour ago?”

  “Yeah, explain how I went over to visit my granny at the old folks’ home. She’s been chewing on her extremities, and the doctors don’t know what to do. She’s down to seven fingers and six toes.”

  “That’s awful!”

  Jim Bob closed down the computer and grabbed his cap. “You tell the guy to call and make an appointment. I cannot ignore my obligations to my granny. A baker’s dozen tonight, but who can say how many in the morning? Her ability to do simple addition is drying up faster than Boone Creek in August.”

  He went out the door to the loading dock, tottered unsteadily down the steps, and climbed into his truck. His hand shook as he found the bottle underneath the seat and took a gulp. A second gulp eased his nerves, and a third came close to calming him down.

  He wasn’t even sure if anything had actually happened. There he’d been, sending an E-mail to Ldesiree@hotbody.com> when all of a sudden, across his screen, not more than for a fly’s fart of a second …

  The bottle was damn near empty before he allowed himself to give serious consideration to what he’d seen, which was an image of Mrs. Jim Bob, naked as the day she was born, but a sight older. A flicker of thigh, a flash of unfettered breast, the unmistakable self-righteous smirk surrounded by a helmet of hair.

  Could a guilty conscience create such a thing?

  Problem was, Jim Bob thought as he finished off the bottle and tossed it out into the parking lot, he didn’t have a conscience, as Arly had said, guilty or otherwise. There were times he felt kinda bad about lying to Mrs. Jim Bob, but he couldn’t up and say he was going over to Tonya’s apartment at lunchtime or spending the afternoon with Cherri Lucinda.

  What the hell was he supposed to say?

  Lottie Estes knocked on the door of Justin Bailey’s trailer, then sat down on the aluminum chair on the patio. There was something so wrong, so evil, going on. She knew darn well that her eyesight was less than perfect, but at the same time she knew what she’d seen at the computer lab.

  She let her head fall back. No, she reminded herself as she took cleansing breaths like she’d learned to do when Perkins eldest taught the class in yoga, she didn’t know what she’d seen. It had come and gone so fast that all she could think was that she was protein-deficient. Hadn’t her nephew been nagging her about calcium and iron tablets? She’d fully intended to eat an apple a day and all that, but it was hard to get fired up about spinach and calf’s liver.

  A pack of filthy children ran by, screeching at each other. Lottie, temporary mistress of her universe, willed them to go away. Only Justin could assure her that she had not seen a fleeting image of Brother Verber engaged in a sexual encounter with …

  She stood up. She couldn’t have seen it, and therefore she hadn’t. As soon as Justin reappeared, he would offer reassurance that the image had not—never could have—flashed across the monitor.

  Seth Smitherman came close to tugging on his forelock as he came into the PD. “Hope I’m not bothering you, Ms. Hanks.�
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  I looked up from the cosmetics catalog Estelle had forced on me, but thus far had not left me dithering over the elusive subtleties of blue, black, and blue-black shades of mascara, followed by several pages of mink brown, auburn, dark brown, and blue-black-brown. It was making me feel inadequate, at best, as if I had failed in my responsibility to the mascara manufacturers of the world. I did not bat my pathetically unadorned eyelashes. “You here about the rifle?”

  “Kyle’s been asking about it. Can I sit down?”

  “Suit yourself. The rifle’s at the sheriff’s department, duly tagged and awaiting the owner to claim it. Changed your name since I last saw you?”

  “Yeah, well, I’m just trying for a clean start. I got a job, I’m paying the bills, I ain’t stealing anything from anybody. I guess you could say I am ree-habilitated.”

  “Then welcome to Maggody,” I said, struggling for a hint of sincerity. Within the city limits were enough excons to form a Kiwanis breakfast club. One more was hardly noteworthy. “Why did you decide to move here?”

  “It’s cheap.”

  “Admittedly, but there’s not much action.”

  Seth gave me a wry smile. “You know damn well I just got out a month ago. The last thing I want is action. I’ll do the six months of parole, then be on my way. Don’t worry that I’m gonna stick up the supermarket. Canned hams hardly stir my soul like an eighty-nine Grand Am.”

  “Is it safe to leave my keys in the car?”

  His composure wavered, and then collapsed. “I was eighteen, and I did something stupid. I’ve paid in more ways than you’ll ever know. While I was in prison, this preacher came by every week to pray with me and help me find my way. I’m holding my head up now, determined to do what’s right.”

  “Firing a weapon inside the city limits is likely to be a parole violation.”

  “Kyle brought out a case of beer to celebrate his birthday. Are you gonna report me?”

  “No,” I said, “as long as what happened the other day doesn’t happen again. It might be better if Kyle stays away for the time being.”

  To my dismay, his eyes welled with tears. “I know that. My parents hate me, and Kyle’s damn near the only family I have left. I came to learn in prison to take responsibility, and that’s what I aim to do. You can leave the keys in the car, Chief Hanks; I got more important matters to deal with.”

  “In Maggody?”

  “I reckon. By the way, your mother and that red-haired friend of hers are hiding under Lazarus’s trailer. You might want to look into it.”

  “What?” I said as he walked out of the PD.

  “This has to be the most gawdawful position you’ve ever put me in, Ruby Bee,” Estelle whispered. “Here we are, trapped like a couple of mudpuppies that—”

  Ruby Bee wiggled back to her side. “Hush up, for pity’s sake. He ain’t gonna sit out there forever. As soon as he goes back to the launderette, we can be on our way.”

  “Do we know he went to the launderette, or did a voice inside your head tell you that?”

  “I believe you came up with that idea.”

  “I never,” Estelle said, hoping the trailers in the Pot O’ Gold were hooked up to septic tanks.

  “Then it must have been that voice. Right now it’s saying that you’d better keep still.”

  “Ask it if it has any bright ideas how to get out of here.”

  Ruby Bee sucked in a breath as she watched Lazarus, or his boots, anyway, move toward the door. “This is promising. The minute he goes inside, we’ll bolt for the station wagon.”

  “And get shot in the back?”

  “What makes you think he has a gun?”

  Estelle squirmed into a somewhat more comfortable position, if such a thing could be had in cold, slimy mud. “Well, he ain’t dirt poor. There’s a computer on the dinette, with all kinds of oddments and cables that we ain’t seeing in the lab. What’s more, if you’d ever tried to talk to him in the supermarket, you’d know.”

  Ruby Bee sniffed. “Have you ever tried to talk to Alcatras Buchanon? Now there’s someone who can’t tell which end of the zucchini is up.”

  “Oh my gawd!” screamed Eula from across the road. “Somebody’s gotta help me!”

  Lazarus’s boots stopped. “What’s the matter with you, old lady?”

  “I am having a heart attack! The pain’s enough to make me fall off my porch! I can’t catch my breath! You got to take me to the emergency room before I die right here in the Pot O’ Gold! They say on television that every minute counts.”

  “So call an ambulance,” said Lazarus.

  Estelle grabbed Ruby Bee’s shoulder. “We’d better do something!”

  “I don’t think so,” she responded dryly.

  Eula turned up her intensity. “There’s no time to wait until they get all the way out here. I’m going to lie in the backseat of the station wagon. If you don’t know how to find the hospital in Farberville, I can give you directions. You got to drive me there!”

  The boots shuffled for only a few seconds. “Okay,” he called.

  Less than a minute later, the station wagon careened down the road toward the gate. A babble of low voices implied an audience had appeared for the latest display of melodrama, then faded along with the sound of the station wagon. High crimes played better than misdemeanors.

  “You reckon Eula was faking?” asked Estelle.

  Ruby Bee began to wiggle forward, mindful of the wires and pipes under the trailer. “You know darn well she was at the window before we set foot in the yard. She had a clear view when we dived under the trailer. Maybe she saw something on Lazarus’s face to make her think he was coming after us.”

  Estelle snuffled. “What’s this?” she said, holding up a sodden lump that had been caught in her cuff.

  “I’d guess it’s a dead rat.”

  Ignoring Estelle’s squeals, Ruby Bee maneuvered her way out to the patio. Several kids stood in a group, sniggering, but wisely took off after she growled at them. She was trying to scrape mud off her dress and knees when Estelle finally emerged.

  “Did it occur to you that I might be the one having a heart attack?” she said coldly.

  Ruby Bee studied her. “Is that a leech?”

  Estelle frantically rubbed her chin, then examined the mud on her palms. “I don’t see it. Is it still there?”

  “No, but neither is your station wagon. What say we go over to Eula’s and clean up before we walk back to the bar and grill? Otherwise, we’re gonna look like poster children for one of those third-world relief organizations. I am too old to be featured in an infomercial.”

  Estelle was gazing at Eula’s yard. “He took my station wagon. I spent two hundred dollars on the transmission not more than a month ago. I suppose it’s still under warranty.”

  “Let’s hope Eula is,” said Ruby Bee as she began to walk across the road. She didn’t have the heart to tell Estelle about her hair, which brought to mind the image of a hen caught on a fence post during an electric storm.

  It was worthy of a faint smile, but not a comment.

  “We got us a problem,” Raz said as he banged into the PD, accompanied by his omnipresent stench.

  I’d been hunting up my keys in order to drive over to the Pot O’ Gold yet again, this time to peer under Lazarus’s trailer. “I’m busy, Raz. Come back later and we’ll debate the scientific evidence concerning the validity of déjà vu.”

  “I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care. I found a body up at Robin Buchanon’s shack. It weren’t there yesterday. I would have said sumthin’ if it had been.”

  “Whose body?”

  “How in blazes would I know?” he said, spewing flecks of tobacco. “You got any hazelnut roast coffee? I’ve taken a fancy to it.”

  I wondered if I could yank the beard off his face. “Don’t think you can come in here and—”

  “She wasn’t very old, mebbe a sight more than twelve or thirteen, but far from nice and plump. Marry
in’ age, I suppose, if anybody would have had her. My cousin Joe Dean married one like her, and she upped and died while birthin’ their fifth child. There he was, burdened with—”

  “Shut up!” I said. “Let’s get this straight. You just now found the body of a young woman in Robin Buchanon’s shack? Is this what you’re saying?”

  “What I was saying was Joe Dean’s wife—”

  I stood up. “Don’t make me kill you, Raz. I only have four bullets, but I’m willing to waste one on you.”

  He had the nerve to turn surly on me. “I was just doin’ my civic duty. Iff’n you don’t care, neither do Marjorie or me. She’s been hintin’ she wants to snuffle for acorns down by Boone Creek.”

  “Are you sure the girl was dead?”

  “Deader’n a preacher come doomsday. Her eyes was vacant, her tongue hangin’ out, and she’d messed herself awful. Marjorie liked to have turned pea green. Thought about it myself, but I’ve seen worser. Not a month ago, a cat got caught under the house, and—”

  “Raz,” I said carefully, “did you see a child anywhere around?”

  “Doncha think I would have said so?”

  “What were you doing at Robin’s shack?”

  He shrugged. “I was thinkin’ Diesel might come back for more jars, in which case I was gonna blow his sorry ass into the next county. He had no call to steal my ’shine like he did. I got my rights like ever’body else.”

  “Go outside and sit in your truck,” I said. “I’ll have some more questions for you after. I’ve talked to Harve.”

  “Whatever you want,” he mumbled as he went out the door.

  I was reaching for the telephone when I heard his truck drive away. Having expected as much, I dialed the number of the sheriff’s department and snarled at LaBelle until she put me through to Harve.