Malice in Maggody

by Joan Hess

  Ruby Bee’s, as I mentioned earlier, is on the north end of town just before the skeletal remains of Purtle’s Esso station. Once you pass that, there’s nothing worth looking at until you reach the Missouri line, unless you like staring at cows. Ruby Bee’s is a low concrete-block building painted a curious shade of pink and decorated with metal signs extolling the virtues of Pepsi-Cola, Royal Crown Cola, and something called Happy Daze Breads and Buns. There is a six-unit motel behind the bar, although no tourist has found the courage to actually stay there more than an hour. It’s called the Flamingo Motel; there’s still one solitary plastic flamingo posing under the sign that says V can y. Ruby Bee resides in Number One so she can keep an eye on the activities that take place after midnight. The locals refer to it as the Maggody Stork Club. Work on it.

  I parked my patrol car in front and called the county sheriff’s dispatcher to let her know I’d be out of touch for lunch. She wasn’t especially interested—could be because I get a message from the dispatcher maybe once a month, and that for a vehicle accident. Due to the vigilance and alertness of the Maggody PD and the ennui of the residents, there is no crime. As I got out of the car, I decided after I ate I’d run a speed trap by the school zone sign until it was time to follow the school buses to the county line. Or maybe at the signal light. Such decisions.

  Did I mention that the infamous Ruby Bee is, among other less enchanting things, my mother?

  “Ariel, honey, what’s wrong?” she called as I stepped into the cool dimness of the bar. It’s a good-size place, with booths along one wall and a few tables scattered around a handkerchief dance floor. On Saturday nights it’s jammed with good ol’ boys at the bar and girls dancing with their eyes closed, mouthing the words of songs while they picture themselves on the Grand Ole Opry stage.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said irritably. “I came in to eat lunch, not to collapse of malaria on the barroom floor.” I pulled myself together and managed a smile. “Sorry, but this place is starting to close in on me. I really thought I knew what I was doing when I moved back. The only thing Maggody and Manhattan have in common is a couple of letters of the alphabet, but I’d forgotten how quiet things are around here— along the lines of a mouse pissing on a cotton ball. Do I look all that bad?”

  “You just look so pale, honey. Why don’t you wear a little more makeup?” This from the woman who wears alternating stripes of pink eyeshadow, black eyeliner and mascara, and scarlet lipstick. I probably did look pale through her eyes. Her blond hair (worth every penny of it) and girlishly white complexion gave her painted features a rather ghostly look, as though she hovered behind the bar. Her body was substantial but reasonably trim for a woman who refused to get out of bed on the day of her fiftieth birthday—five years ago.

  “It’s mere malnutrition,” I promised, “and soon to be alleviated, if you feed me.” I told her about Raz and Perkins while she dished up a plate of pork chops, rice, gravy, and fried okra.

  “Raz is just being ornery,” Ruby Bee informed me as she brought a glass of milk to the bar. “Perkins whupped him in checkers three nights running and won seventy-five cents.”

  “Did he purloin poor Betty for revenge?”

  “Probably, but Paulie ain’t going to find the bitch until deer season’s over.” My mother has her finger on the pulse of Maggody. Her sweet round face invites confidences, which she promptly repeats to anyone who’ll listen, including me. There’s not much else to do in Maggody. While we were discussing ways to rescue the victim, Ruby Bee’s dearest friend, Estelle Oppers, came in and joined us.

  Estelle is as tall as I am (five-feet-ten in my socks) and as skinny (135, soaking wet and no socks). She is not pale, however, and no one has ever suggested she add more color to her violet eyelids or to her fire-engine red hair, arranged that day in sort of a Grecian column effect. She is the proprietor and sole operator of Estelle’s Hair Fantasies, located in the living room of her house. Every female in Maggody has at one time or another found herself in Estelle’s chair— except me. I prefer to maintain my dark hair in a sensible bun. Trimming is done with cuticle scissors and provides most of my excitement on weekends.

  Twenty years ago Estelle played the piano and warbled in a motel lounge in Little Rock, our state’s major metropolis. With enough sherry pumped into her, she still reminisces about her promising career that was cut short by some obscure tragedy. According to her, when she got warmed up she could put every customer in tears with her rendition of “Moon River.” I don’t doubt it for an instant.

  Estelle bellied up to the bar beside me and gave me a puzzled frown. “You look different, Arly. Did you finally do something to your hair?”

  “I combed it, but that’s about all. Why all this concern about me out of the blue, ladies? I can swear on Grandpappy Hank’s Bible that not one tiny thing has happened to me—or anyone else I know—in a coon’s age.” I tried to return to my pork chop.

  The two exchanged meaningful looks, then Ruby Bee took over. “Estelle and I was just thinking that, and I don’t mean to insult you, you’re looking a little peaked these days, honey. You work all day, then sit around that dreary apartment all night instead of getting out to have some fun. You could go to the dance over in Kingsley next Saturday and meet some young people like yourself.”

  Estelle hobbled her head. “Sure you could, Arly. I’d be real pleased to do your hair for free. Maybe even frost it with a burnt gold rinse, then—”

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” I interrupted. “I’m fond of my hair as is, and I have no desire to attend the bimonthly festivities at the Kingsley highschool gymnasium. I would be fifteen years older than ninety-nine percent of those in attendance, and sixty years younger than the remaining one percent.”

  Ruby Bee began to pout. “You used to go every time.”

  “I used to be in high school, and that was all there was to do. I am now thirty-four years old, divorced, and the chief of police. The kids are probably still sneaking out back to drink corn liquor out of mason jars and throw up on each other. It wouldn’t look good for me to attend. You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?”

  “That would be just awful,” trilled a voice from behind us. Jaylee Withers ambled into the room, her generous hips moving to an inaudible rumba and her well-endowed chest bouncing along with the beat. Her blond hair had recently been exposed to Estelle’s artistic whimsy, for it was piled higher than a run-of-the-mill beehive; it literally soared a good twelve inches. I was surprised she wasn’t trailed by a homeless swarm.

  “We were talking about the dance in Kingsley,” Ruby Bee announced, giving me a dark look. “I was telling Ariel here that she ought to get out and have herself a good time, but she thinks she’s too old and respectable to listen to me.”

  Ruby Bee drives me crazy.

  Jaylee nodded with all the wisdom of a twenty-two-year-old married woman currently employed as a barmaid. “She’s right, Arly. If you stay home, you’re gonna get all sour and dried out, like Raz’s oldest girl. Then no man will have you and you’ll spend the rest of your life in Maggody, dreaming about fancy cars and fur coats.”

  “Raz’s oldest girl is sixty-seven years old if she’s a day,” I pointed out. “Furthermore, I’ve already had fancy cars and fur coats. I never could find a place to park, and my nose itched every time I opened the closet door.”

  Jaylee was too busy winking at Ruby Bee and Estelle to be swayed by my logic. “You know, Arly, I’d be charmed to do something with your hair, free of charge. I need the practice for when I attend cosmetology school, hopefully as soon as next month, if I pass the GED this time. Estelle’s been teaching me and I could do a right nice French roll for you. You could come by my mobile home tomorrow and I could give you a permanent, then I could—”

  “Sorry, I’m on a case,” I said. The pork chop was too cold to bother with, anyway. “An investigation into a kidnapping that could have pr
ofound influence on the deer season—although it’s strictly under wraps for the time being. I’d better get back to it.”

  I left Ruby Bee’s, knowing full well that I hadn’t fooled any of them. I could almost hear them dissecting poor Arly’s situation—so tragic, you know. The way she drags around she ain’t ever going to catch another man. You’d think she’d have enough sense to forget that man in Noow Yark and settle down with someone who could give her a houseful of kids and an automatic dishwasher, a night at the picture show once a month and a lifetime subscription to Better Homes and Gardens.

  I climbed into the police car, slammed the door, and snatched up the mike on the police band radio. “Chief of Police Hanks has returned to active duty. Ten-four, seven-eleven, and Bingo!”

  Estelle and Jaylee drive me crazy, too.

  Paulie Buchanon was sitting in his cruiser in the shade next to Roy Stiver’s Antiques and Collectibles: Buy, Trade or Sell. I pulled up next to him and rolled down my window. “What the hell are you doing, Officer Buchanon? Unless there’s been a change in the roster, you don’t come on duty until six o’clock tonight. Since I make up the roster, which hasn’t varied in eight months, I have some doubts.”

  He did not deserve my testiness, which he knew as well as I. He gave me a wounded look and said, “I was just keeping an eye on the signal light, Chief. Jim Bob cussed me out for not writing more tickets last month and acted like he was going to fire me.”

  “His Honor can’t do that without consulting me first,” I said, turning my glare on the Kwik-Screw across the street. “He’d have to call a special meeting of the town council, and they’d have to vote on it, anyway. Did you catch anybody running the light?”

  Paulie held up a book. “No, actually I was studying the state police manual.”

  “Did you hear from them?” I asked sympathetically, forgetting my feud with His Honor the Moron. “A result from the test?”

  “No, but it’ll be any day. They’re processing my exams and interviews now, and said they’d let me know by the end of the month.” Paulie’s eyes glazed over as he considered his future as a state policeman, and even the skin on the top of his head seemed rosy under the sparse black hair. “Do you think I ought to get me a pair of those mirror sunglasses, Chief?”

  “Wait to be accepted at the academy,” I advised him, determined not to giggle. Paulie’s terribly sincere, especially when the topic centers on the academy. “Why don’t you go study at the PD while I nab perpetrators at the signal light? I was thinking about it earlier, and it’ll help me burn off a little frustration.”

  He grinned at me, having seen me drive away from Ruby Bee’s at a velocity above that permitted within the confines of Maggody. “Sure, Chief. Holler if you get bored and I’ll take over for you.”

  After he left, I backed around to park in the shade. Another thrilling afternoon in Maggody, where nothing has happened since Hiram Buchanon’s barn burned down eleven years ago and a cheerleader got caught running out of it, smoldering pink panties in hand.

  2

  Paulie came in the next afternoon to report that Perkins refused to cooperate in the investigation. The dog had not been spotted among the children and chickens playing in the dirt in front of the ramshackle cabin. “I suppose I could go back with a warrant,” he concluded morosely, “but Perkins’ll probably dump a load of buckshot in my behind. I don’t think he’s got the dog, anyway.”

  “Probably not,” I said. “We can decide about a warrant next Tuesday when the municipal judge shows up for court. I’m sure as hell not driving all the way into Starley City to get a search warrant for a dog, especially Raz’s bitch.”

  I leaned back in the chair and studied the ceiling while Paulie bustled around the back room, fixing coffee and playing with the radar gun. He’d make a fine space explorer; I could hear him making little noises under his breath as he zapped aliens and cockroaches. I suspected I’d sort of miss him when he let for the state police academy, but I was praying hard he’d get accepted.

  The police band radio sputtered to life. I fiddled the knobs and settled back for another exciting communique from the sheriff’s office, expecting to hear that some damn kids had smashed themselves up on the hairpin curves north of town.

  I was wrong. When the radio quieted down, I stood up and brushed the dust off my khaki fanny, then hollered for Paulie. “I need to run over to Ruby Bee’s,” I informed him with a grim smile. “Carl walked off the prison farm sometime yesterday. We’re supposed to keep an eye out for him, but I think I’d better warn Jaylee right away.”

  Carl Withers was once Maggody’s main claim to fame, when he won all-district honorable mention in football. The recruiters did not swarm to town to offer Cadillacs and scholarships, however, and he ended up working for Hobert Middleton in the body shop. He managed to impregnate Jaylee during her sophomore year of high school (he was twenty-six at the time) and did the honorable thing, although she lost the baby a couple of months after the wedding. Two years ago he’d tied one on, stolen a brand-new Eldorado off Hobert’s lot, side-swiped a Buchanon child on a motorscooter, and totaled the car just outside of town. The child ended up with two broken legs and a concussion. The judge was unamused and Carl got four years at Cummins State Prison Farm down by Pine Bluff. Among his other talents, Carl was bigger than a semi and meaner than a water moccasin. A real live sumbitch, as we say in Maggody.

  When I found Jaylee, she was in a back booth, studying a cosmetology magazine for inspiration. She choked on her tongue when I told her Carl was loose. After a great deal of coughing and tearing, she got hold of herself and managed a shaky laugh. “He wouldn’t dare show his face around here, Arly. He’ll go to his brother’s house in Texarkana and then head south. He used to talk all the time about getting a job on one of those oil rig thingies in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “I hope so. I looked up the file on him before I came over here, Jaylee. He beat you up pretty bad the night he got arrested, didn’t he? Seven stitches in your lip and a fractured collarbone?”

  Ruby Bee was listening from behind the bar. “That’s the unvarnished truth,” she inserted, having no reservations about butting in. “It wasn’t the first time neither. I saw you plenty of times with a split lip, Jaylee, or wearing sunglasses to hide a shiner. That Carl’s a skunk if I ever met one.”

  Jaylee’s lower lip edged out, as if she were going to protest, but she thought better of it. “He can be rough,” she admitted. “That’s why I was hoping to be long gone before they let him out of jail. I figured he’d never be able to find me in Little Rock.”

  I was nudged aside by my deputy. “Hey, Jaylee,” he said as he sat down across from her and reached for her hand. “You don’t have to worry about Carl showing up in town. The state police and the sheriff’s department are both watching for him, and if he makes it here, he’ll have to deal with me first.”

  In that Paulie had snatched the words right out of my mouth, I retreated to the bar and ordered a glass of milk. Paulie sat with Jaylee for a long time, murmuring too softly for me to catch more than a tadpole’s tail of what he was saying. She finally relaxed and stopped trying to wiggle her hand free. Their heads moved closer, and I could see she was fanning him with her eyelashes.

  “Sweet, ain’t it?” Ruby Bee cooed over my shoulder. She’s a sucker for soap operas and romance novels.

  “Just like molasses. Maggody’s cutest couple, making plans to escape before the demented husband shows up with a twelve-gauge to blow them both to smithereens.”

  “You think Carl’ll head this way?”

  “Beats me. I don’t know him—the Withers family moved here after I graduated from high school and left for college. He must be a real prince, though.” I finished my milk and glanced over my shoulder. Jaylee was showing Paulie one of the more fanciful hairstyles in her magazine while she tugged at the curls dangling over her forehead.

&nbs
p; “It’s Saturday,” Ruby Bee said in an innocent tone. “You got any plans for tonight?”

  “I’m going to get drunk and shout obscenities out my bedroom window,” I said as I started to leave. “Is Robin Buchanon still making hooch up on Cotton’s Ridge? I might run up and get me a couple of jars.”

  Ruby Bee snorted delicately. “I don’t keep up with Robin Buchanon, miss. She’s a slut and she doesn’t even try to guess who fathers those filthy brats of hers. She must have ten or eleven by now, in all different shapes and colors.”

  “Enough for a touch football team. I’m going back to the police department to see if there’s any word on Carl or Betty. Send Paulie along when his hand gets so sweaty he can’t hang on anymore.”

  To my regret, I met Jim Bob and Hobert in the doorway. Jim Bob glared up at me and said, “Don’t you have any work to do, Chief? The town council doesn’t pay you to hang around bars gossiping with the womenfolk.”

  Hobert’s pendulous chin quivered in agreement. “I saw three out-of-town cars run the signal light this morning, Chief. If you don’t write some more tickets, you may find yourself with a downright skimpy paycheck at the end of the month.”

  “I was just on my way to check dealer tags with the state license department,” I said politely.

  I pushed past them and went to my car, a little surprised by the virulence of the attack. There’s no love lost between the town council and me, but we usually keep civil tongues when I appear to beg for a new box of pencils or a junior G-man fingerprint kit. They laugh, I laugh, and we adjourn till the next meeting. I’m always the last item on the agenda. It lets them wind up the meeting on a light note.

  Larry Joe and Roy were pulling up in Larry Joe’s pickup as I drove away. It seemed that all the local dignitaries were gathering at Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill, which was odd. The other two members of the town council were not present, but neither had made a meeting in several months. Harry Harbin was visiting his daughter in Miami Beach and wasn’t expected back until his arthritis eased. Old Jesse Buchanon was around somewhere, but he was so senile he couldn’t stop dribbling long enough to find the meeting room.