murder@maggody.com

by Joan Hess

  “You got no call to say that, Arly,” he whined. “I was jest asking for your advice. You’re the chief of police, ain’t ye?”

  “Thirty seconds, starting now.”

  “So like I said, Marjorie and me watched this show and she took to mopin’ around the house, wishin’ she had a companion animal like those fancy horses. I could tell right off what was ailing her, so I went into Farberville and bought her a gerbil. You know about gerbils, Arly? They look like—”

  “I know what gerbils look like.”

  “Well,” he said, puffing up his cheek and then wincing when I glowered, “ye might say it dint work out.”

  “Why not?”

  His squinty eyes shifted away from me. “There ain’t no reason to go into that. Lately I’ve been thinkin’ about gittin’ Marjorie a mule. Perkins owns one that ain’t no good for much of anything, but he sez if I so much as drive onto his place, he’ll greet me on his porch with a shotgun.” He glanced at me, then spat on the floorboard of his truck. “Perkins got hisself a real bad attitude.”

  Sweat was beginning to dribble down my face, and I suspected it resembled tar. Every inch of my body itched so intensely that I wanted to rip off my clothes and attack myself with a toilet bowl brush.

  “Raz,” I said, “this is a terrible dilemma. If you’ll tell me where your still is, I will personally intervene with Perkins so that Marjorie can have her very own pet mule.”

  “I ain’t got a still, and there’s no way of knowin’ if Marjorie’ll fancy Perkins’s mule. They might not be compatible.”

  “You most certainly do have a still, you devious sumbitch, and one of these days I’ll put you not only out of business, but also behind bars at the state pen. When that happens, Marjorie will find herself with a butcher for a companion—but not for long.”

  Raz gave me a deeply insulted look, slammed his truck into gear, and took off with a squeal of rubber that almost, but not quite, roused the nappers out in front of the barber shop. Dahlia waved a fist at him and mouthed what most likely were not endearments. Two boys on bicycles went down in the gravel in front of the defunct New Age hardware store, but they undoubtedly were already dotted with scabs and scratches. Growing up in Maggody will do that.

  I hurried up the rickety wooden staircase on the side of the antiques store and into my apartment. The cockroaches skedaddled, the hot water heater obliged, and half an hour later, I was feeling much better. I left my hair down until it dried and I could pin it back up into a schoolmarmish bun intended to discourage unwanted attention from good ol’ boys named Bubba, Bo, and Jellybelly.

  I’d just started a fresh pot of coffee when Duluth Buchanon came into the PD. He was short, thick-necked, and cursed with the infamous Buchanon yellow eyes and simian brow. We’d had a couple of encounters, once when he’d driven his truck off the low-water bridge and I’d been obliged to transport him to the county drunk tank, and another occasion at the supermarket when he’d tried to shoplift a canned ham by stuffing it down his trousers, but he did better than most of his kinfolk. Some members of the clan, including the aforementioned Raz and Mayor Jim Bob, can stare down bobcats and rattlesnakes. Others, such as Dahlia’s husband, lose the contest to bullfrogs, chipmunks, and broken glass glinting in the weeds. Buchanons run the gamut—if and when they can find it.

  “Coffee?” I asked Duluth.

  “Reckon so,” he said as he dropped into the chair across from my desk. “Ruby Bee all right?”

  “She put out the fire in the kitchen, but not before a lot of damage was done. It’s a real mess.”

  “You want I should go by and take a look at it? I can clean up, scrub the walls and ceiling, paint, replace cabinet doors, that kind of thing. I got no control over the cost of materials, but I’ll give her a discount on labor.”

  I brought him a mug of coffee. “That’d be great, Duluth, and I know Ruby Bee will appreciate it. I was told you were upset earlier. Is there something you want to talk about?”

  He took a thoughtful slurp. “Well, I suppose there is. My ex-wife, Norella, done run off.”

  “Norella’s not from Maggody, is she?”

  “Her family’s mostly over in Splaid County. Her pa owned a feed store till he died of some sort of disease of a personal nature. Her and me was living at the Pot O’ Gold in a real fine double-wide. Dishwasher, garbage-disposal, mini-blinds, shag carpeting, everything I could give her. We had three boys in five years. I was still hoping for a little girl, but Norella went and had some operation after Jakob was born. I wasn’t happy, but I sure as hell didn’t make an effort to talk her out of it. When I came home from work, the trailer was always stinking of dirty diapers and vomit.”

  I tried to dredge up gossip that had been of minimal interest. “But you got divorced last year?”

  “More like two years ago, come August. In the settlement, she was ordered to let me have the boys every other weekend and half the summer. Last fall she took to keeping them from me, saying they had doctor appointments or sleepovers with their cousins. I finally had to call my lawyer and have him file contempt charges. She countered with charges that I’d been hitting her and got a restraining order.” He paused to swallow, and his eyes filled with tears from either the injustice of the accusation or the aftertaste of what I passed off as coffee. “I never laid a hand on her, Arly, not even when I found out she was sneaking around with her sister’s husband. I just moved out and filed for divorce.”

  “This should be resolved in court.”

  “It would have been if she hadn’t disappeared with my boys. Is there anything you can do?”

  I opened a notebook and made a few notes. “Any idea what might have caused her to disappear like this?”

  “Josie and me got married at Christmas. A month later, someone threw a rock through the living-room window. Two weeks back I found a pile of manure on the front porch. Right after that is when I learned she’d packed up everything and run off.”

  “Did you ask her family if anyone knows where they might be?”

  He shook his head. “Her mother’s called everybody she can think of, on account of she’s as worried as I am about the boys. If you want to talk to her, she’ll tell you same as I did, that I ain’t ever done anything bad to Norella. I paid child support on the first of every month like the judge ordered, even when she wouldn’t let me see the boys. I might not have been the best husband, but ain’t nobody can accuse me of being a bad father.”

  “I understand, Duluth,” I said, “but this is a family court matter. Norella has custody. She may have violated the visitation decree, but technically she hasn’t kidnapped the boys.”

  “I suppose not,” he said as he stood up and put the mug on the corner of my desk. “Thanks for hearing me out. Soon as I finish waiting around to talk to my lawyer in Farberville and trying to track down Norella, I’ll go by Ruby Bee’s and see what all I can do. I’m liable to be tied up for the time being, so you might ought to find somebody else.”

  I sprinted to the door. “Okay, Duluth, let me see what I can find out. Here’s the key to the bar and grill. Assess the damage and get back to me.”

  “Norella’s ma said she didn’t think Norella had more than twenty or thirty dollars. None of the rest of the family’s seen hide nor hair of her. I called the battered women’s shelter in Farberville, but they were real tight-lipped. You might start there.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I vowed sincerely, “and talk to you later this afternoon.”

  His eyes may have been yellowish, but they were also shrewd as he nodded and left.

  I was thumbing through the directory for the number of the shelter when yet another Buchanon intruded, confirming my view that there are entirely too many Buchanons in Stump County—or anywhere else on the planet.

  “Arly,” said Mrs. Jim Bob (aka Barbara Ann Buchanon Buchanon) as she came inside and sat down, making certain to smooth down her skirt and cross her ankles. Her white blouse was so brittle with starch that it crinkle
d like aluminum foil when she moved.

  I propped my feet on the corner of my desk. “That’s my name. Need my rank and serial number?”

  “No, I need a favor.”

  “You want I should shoot Jim Bob? I’ll have to bill you for the bullet, you know, but it will be worth it. Not one soul in Maggody will skip the funeral. Afterward, we can all enjoy Ruby Bee’s green bean casserole and Estelle’s special snowflake salad and—”

  “Don’t be impertinent, missy. We are going to need your assistance for the next … few days. I was under the impression that it was all under control, then Eula came down with a head cold and Elsie had the audacity to announce she was going to her niece’s wedding in Texarkana. Millicent’s rheumatism is flaring up and she can hardly be expected to come to our aid.”

  “As in?” I asked.

  “The youth group at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall is scheduled to spend a week at Camp Pearly Gates down in the south part of the county, just past Dunkicker. I need a chaperon.”

  My feet hit the floor so abruptly that I came damn close to falling out of my chair. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “The group is going the day after tomorrow. Six girls, four boys. It is imperative that they have constant supervision to prevent any sort of immoral interaction. I assume you know what that means. I’d hoped Lottie would accompany us, but she’s barricaded herself in her house and refuses to answer the door. To think she calls herself a good Christian!”

  “Cancel it.”

  “Camp Pearly Gates used to be a summer camp for children with asthma, cancer, and the like. Now church congregations all across the state have agreed to pitch in and restore it. Our youth group voted to go there instead of Branson for their spring break. I fell to my knees and thanked the Lord that all those years of Sunday school finally paid off and they’re willing to make the sacrifice and utilize their youthful energy to help the less fortunate.”

  I really, truly hated it when she had the moral high ground. “But I don’t see why you should need a second chaperon. Your presence ought to be more than adequate to keep them in line. Take hymnals and lots of marshmallows.”

  “Brother Verber will be accompanying us, naturally, but he and I will stay in the lodge, where we can supervise the work assignments, monitor supplies, see that kitchen chores are carried out, and lead nightly gatherings of a spiritual nature. Larry Joe Lambertino will be staying in the boys’ cabin. You’ll be with the girls. Between the four of us, we ought to be able to maintain discipline and prevent rampant promiscuity.” She gave me the sharp look of a crow perched on a mound of putrefying flesh. “You of all people should know what wickedness these teenagers get into around here. This very morning I found whiskey bottles in the ditch in front of my driveway, and Jim Bob swears they steal so many packs of cigarettes from the supermarket that he can barely keep the shelves stocked. Just imagine what they’d do without someone to ride herd on them. I feel faint thinking about it.”

  She did look a bit pale, but it might have been caused by her girdle rather than the vision of couples behaving with abandon under the whispering pines.

  “You’ll have to find someone else,” I said. “I already have a full-time job making sure the inmates don’t take over the institution. If Larry Joe’s agreed, why not ask Joyce to go, too?”

  “I suppose she might, as long as you’re willing to baby-sit their children. I happened to see them at the supermarket the other day, and it was all I could do not to rip open a box of tissue and wipe their disgusting noses. I’d be real surprised if they don’t all have head lice. Joyce has never struck me as the sort to pay much attention to hygiene or personal appearance. Larry Joe’s shirts look like he sleeps in them. I shudder to think what kind of example he’s setting for the impressionable youth in his shop classes. I was fully expecting the whole town to come down with food poisoning after Joyce passed out jars of that repulsive green slime.”

  I stared at the water stain on the ceiling. “What about Ruby Bee? She might enjoy a restful week at this camp.”

  “And go prowling in the woods with a flashlight? How are you going to feel when she’s bitten by a snake and dies? Why don’t you start writing the eulogy about how you sent your own mother to her death because you couldn’t be bothered? What kind of message will that send to our young people, who have volunteered to pass up waterslides and corndogs to help sick children deserving of a carefree week at camp? Some of those little children won’t be with us a year from now, you know. I don’t know if Jesus runs a summer camp up in heaven, but—”

  “I can’t take off for a week.”

  Her lips curled upward. “Yes, you can. The town council voted last night.”

  “In a secret meeting?”

  “As you well know, I am married to the mayor of Maggody, and I saw to it that you were given permission to take a week of vacation time to accompany us to Camp Pearly Gates. We’re meeting at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall on Saturday morning at six o’clock sharp. You’ll need clothing, personal items, a sleeping bag, insect repellent, and a reliable flashlight. The teenagers will be bringing their Bibles, but since everybody knows you’re an atheist, we won’t ask that of you.”

  I did not ask if it might be more expedient to bring a case of condoms.

  2

  Once Mrs. Jim Bob had swept out in an acidic haze of self-righteousness, I sat back and wondered how difficult it might be to provoke an appendicitis that would allow me the better part of a week of TLC in the Farberville hospital, where I could indulge in pudding, overcooked broccoli, and cable television.

  The specific organ failed to twinge.

  I did not give up hope of anything short of spontaneous combustion, but resigned myself to deal with the matters at hand. I found the number of the battered women’s shelter, dialed it, and was informed that no one named Norella Buchanon had been or currently was in residence. End of conversation, as in dial tone.

  With reluctance, I called the sheriff’s office. The dispatcher, LaBelle, always interprets my calls as a threat to her despotic rule, but eventually transferred me to Sheriff Harve Dorfer, who presents himself as a good ol’ boy but can outwit the majority of the vermin in the county. Outwit them, but not necessarily outrun them; Harve’s never met a chicken-fried steak or cheap cigar not to his liking.

  “Coincidence you called,” he said genially. “We got this ol’ boy out in DeWatt, name of Ebie White-bread, who’s convinced communists are stealing his sheep.”

  “I’m not in the mood for sheep, Harve,” I said. I told him what Duluth had told me. “Any chance to track her down? She’s violating the court-ordered visitation.”

  “Norella Buchanon,” he mumbled under his breath. “Name’s ringing a bell. Hang on a minute; I reckon there’s more to the story.” Wheezing, he shuffled papers, then scritched a match to light a cigar and said, “Yep, she’s on the list of folks we’d like to talk to about a meth lab out in Emmett. We didn’t issue a warrant, but she was told to show up here ten days ago.”

  “And she didn’t.”

  “Hard to pull the wool over your eyes, ain’t it? Let me see what I can find out, then I’ll call you back.”

  I replaced the receiver, called Ruby Bee’s insurance agent and set all that in motion, then spent some time fooling with my hair. Thus far I had resisted Estelle’s offers to frost it, cut it, layer it, crimp it, curl it, or tint it auburn. I’d also resisted discounts on mascara, eyeliner, and lipstick. Beauty pageants in Branson were not on my agenda.

  Harve called back the next day to say that the shelter had referred Norella to a community outreach service in Farberville, and that they had been unable to help her beyond a fifteen-dollar voucher for gas and a few coupons for a fast-food chain. After some not especially subtle prodding from me, he agreed there might be something in the file on the meth lab bust that might persuade the county prosecutor to put out a warrant for her. Law enforcement agencies across the state would
not be searching for her, but if an officer pulled her over and checked the license plate, we might hear about it.

  I found Duluth, bless his soul, in the kitchen at Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill and told him what little I’d learned. I lamely added that I’d spend more time on it when I returned from a week at Camp Pearly Gates. His surly look implied that I might as well remain there for all eternity, or at least a goodly portion of the thereafter.

  And so I found myself shivering outside the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall at six o’clock on Saturday morning, my essentials crammed in a duffel bag, my eyes grainy, my lips a shade of blue that not even Estelle could match had it been bewitching, which it wasn’t. Various teenagers, including Darla Jean McIlhaney and Heather Riley, were deposited by parents who drove away with disturbingly gleeful expressions. The Dahlton twins were shoved out of a car that barely slowed down. Billy Dick MacNamara literally dove out of the back of a pickup truck as it raced past us.

  “What are you doing here?” Darla Jean asked me, her teeth chattering either from the frost forming on her braces or the proximity to a law enforcement agent.

  “I don’t know,” I answered sincerely.

  Heather, the blonde who possibly was responsible for all the jokes, frowned. “You don’t even attend this church. According to Brother Verber, you’re destined for eternal damnation. He said you were going to sizzle in Satan’s fiery furnace till the end of time.”

  “Did he?” I murmured as I glanced at the silver trailer that served as a rectory. “Sounds warm.”

  “Mrs. Jim Bob says you’re an atheist,” contributed one of the Dahlton twins.

  “What’s more,” said Parwell Haggard, whose face was dotted with glossy pustules, “we heard tell you was a prostitute when you lived in New York City. You painted your face and walked the streets in short skirts and see-through blouses.”

  I wished I could see through him.

  Larry Joe Lambertino arrived before I allowed myself to lapse into violence. He unfolded himself from the passenger’s seat of the station wagon, said something I’m sure was meant to be heartening to his wife, Joyce, and managed to grab his suitcase and a sleeping bag out of the back before she drove away. I couldn’t tell exactly how many children were crammed inside, but I had to agree with Mrs. Jim Bob’s assessment of their noses.