Malice in Maggody

by Joan Hess

  “I should hear tomorrow in the mail if I passed the GED. They say the third time’s a charm, and I’ve been crossing my fingers and toes like a fool. If I do pass, I’m going to throw everything I own in the back of my car and leave this dump in fifteen minutes flat. I already got accepted at the Purley Institute of Hair Design and Beauty, and they said I could start whenever I got my equivalency diploma and showed up on the doorstep.”

  Robert realized that he might not enjoy being kidnapped if Jaylee weren’t around to keep him occupied. The shitheel mayor and his three stooges had come by a couple of times, wanting to talk about the proposed sewage treatment plant and their precious creek. As if he cared. He had pointed out that he was only a lowly contract specialist and had no clout except over clauses and exceptions, but they didn’t seem convinced. Sure, he could delay the contract for a week or two. It would get signed eventually, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

  He grabbed a handful of Jaylee’s hair and pulled it back until he could see her face. “You mean you might leave tomorrow? What am I supposed to do—play with myself ?”

  “Aw, Robbie, they’re going to let you go Tuesday.” She winced as his fingers tightened. “Stop it, please. Somebody’ll bring you trays and magazines after I’m gone—maybe Estelle or Ruby Bee herself. I’ll tell her to cook something real special for your last night, and even bring you a bottle of wine to go with dinner.”

  “Big frigging deal.” He freed his hand and idly slid it down her neck to her breasts while he tried to decide what to do. A wonderful idea finally broke through the bourbon haze. “Tell you what we’re going to do, honeybee. When you find out if you passed whatever the deal is, you pack the car and drive right over here to the door. You unlock the door and get back in the car, then I’ll jump in, hunker down in the back seat until we’re out of this asshole of a town, and ride with you to Little Rock.”

  “I don’t know, Robbie. Jim Bob would be real perturbed if—”

  He rolled on top of her and covered her mouth with his lips. “You just do what I say, honeybee,” he muttered between kisses. “We’ll stop in some motel to spend the night, and I’ll—”

  She twisted her face aside. “But Jim Bob told me that delaying you was the only way to keep Starley City from—” She broke off with a scream loud enough to wake up the bodies in the back room of the funeral parlor.

  Robert leaped off her and took refuge in a distant corner, just in case she was planning to go nuts. “What’s the matter with you? Why’d you have to go and scream like that?”

  Jaylee grabbed the sheet and covered herself. She marched to the door and yanked it open. “You goddamn sick pervert!” she yelled into the darkness, her buttocks atremble with indignation. “You know you’re sick, don’t you— watching people through the window! I hope your pecker gets snagged on a barbed-wire fence!”

  “You saw someone at the window?” Robert gasped. He snatched up a blanket and wrapped it around himself, feeling as if he were in some department store window with a crowd of gawkers on the other side of the glass. “Who— who was it, honeybee?”

  Jaylee slammed the door and swung around. “I didn’t get more than a quick peek, but I can tell you it was some filthy pervert! The idea of him staring at us while we was in bed makes me want to puke. He was probably drooling and playing with himself, like some crazy person in an institution for the criminally insane.”

  “You didn’t recognize him?”

  Jaylee shook her head, then dropped the sheet and began to dress. Robert poured himself a drink, gulped it down, and refilled the glass, wishing his hands would stop twitching. “Could it have been Jim Bob or one of those guys checking on me?” he asked.

  “I told you I only got a peek.”

  Robert gulped down the second drink. “What about your husband Carl? Could it have been him?” The oversize hulk with the nasty temper and the bulk to back it up? The barroom brawler with hands the size of canned hams? The person most likely to get riled if he saw another man in bed with his wife? Oh, yeah— that husband.

  Jaylee dropped her panty hose and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her face turned whiter than the sheet she was sitting on. “Oh, my God. What if it was Carl, Robbie? He’ll kill both of us as sure as the day is long, and he won’t think nothing of it, either.”

  “That’s just goddamn dandy, Jaylee.” He began to pace back and forth, getting more angry with each step. “You might have told me you were married the first night you climbed into bed. You might have mentioned the fact that your husband rips heads off kittens for fun and breaks noses with his pinkie.”

  “I told you I was married!”

  “About a day too late, wouldn’t you say? Now what the hell am I supposed to do? Go invite Carl in for a drink and talk about the weather until he gets bored and decides to mash me into wood pulp?”

  “What about me? If that was Carl at the window, he’s going to hang around in the dark until he can get his paws on me. I want you to know I don’t take kindly to being mashed myself, Mr. Robbie Drake. You might think about me before you make your own funeral arrangements!”

  “I’m sorry, honeybee.” He sat down beside her and offered her the bourbon bottle he discovered in one hand. “We got to think of something—and damned quick.”

  “We sure as hell do.”

  Carl Withers waited until the taillights winked in the distance, then awkwardly limped across the highway. There the forest was even darker, if such a thing was possible, and teeming with low branches and curling vines covered with thorns. It was blacker than the inside of a cow, he thought in his ponderous way, and having to keep an eye out for smokies was making him jumpier than a goddamn basket of bullfrogs.

  For some reason he could not analyze, it was all Jaylee’s fault that he was there, hurt and damn near freezing.

  He hadn’t tried to call her or anything, but she should have known he would be coming in her direction and found some way to help him. Picked him up, maybe, or left some warm clothes and a gun where he could find it. Stupid bitch hadn’t helped one bit. He decided he wasn’t about to take her with him when he went to Houston. Oh, he’d slap her around for being such a selfish slut, but she would spend the rest of her life in the mobile-home park, gossiping and whining like a snot-nosed kid.

  Yeah, he’d get the payoff like he’d been promised, then head south for Houston. Find some Texas woman with big tits and a warm bed, then send Jaylee a friggin’ postcard or something.

  He gave up trying to think and walk at the same time. His twisted ankle hurt like hell and it was getting colder. It was, he figured, at least forty more miles to Maggody.

  5

  Bright and early Monday morning I went to the high school to question the local talent. It’s a bigger school than you might think, since kids are bused in from miles around in battered yellow death traps. Maggody District High School usually has a so-so football team, but it does well at basketball, mostly because the latter requires fewer players. I used to go to the games and scream myself hoarse for the Maggody Marauders. A big time on Friday nights.

  I waited around the front office for a few minutes, watching the kids come in to whine about tardy slips and unexcused absences, then followed a no-nonsense rump into the shrine for a word with the principal. For some reason, he failed to appreciate the purpose of my mission and we wasted a good fifteen minutes arguing about the Constitution and the students’ rights to protection under the law, blah, blah, blah. All that from a man who strip searches female students in his office, with the door locked and the Venetian blinds closed. If I ever get a signed complaint, I’m going to hang his balls from the flagpole out front, whether or not he’s attached to them—in either sense of the word.

  I gave up and went down to the shop room to speak to Larry Joe Lambertino, who I hoped might be able to help me get past the petty tyrant. The room was about the size of Ca
rlsbad Caverns but jammed full of screaming table saws; rusted, skeletal cars on blocks; sweaty but dedicated welders; and a goodly amount of what appeared to be straightforward garbage. It smelled worse than the poultry processing factory in Starley City, if you can imagine. I never took shop myself; the reasons flooded back like a stopped-up toilet.

  Things quieted down real quick when I entered the room. “Hey, Larry Joe,” I called, so those with guilty consciences (about 80 percent, I estimated) would realize I hadn’t come to arrest any of them—in the immediate future, anyway. “I need a little assistance from the town council.”

  Larry Joe jumped to his feet. “What do you want, Arly? I’m real busy right now with the Shop II class; they’re getting ready to tear down the Oldsmobile and I have to be there to supervise the winch. Then I got an advanced—”

  “It’ll only take a minute,” I said, wondering why I was so all-fired popular these days. He could have smiled and offered me a seat, but he was watching me as if I had a bullsnake draped around my neck. I gave him a very brief account of the case of the kidnapped bureaucrat, which he didn’t seem to enjoy a whole lot, and asked him to give me the names of any girls who might have been open (thighed) for business along the highway Friday morning.

  “You think this guy from Dallas picked up one of the Maggody girls?” he asked. There was no denying the man was bright.

  “I doubt it, but I thought I’d better ask around. The state boys are on my back about it, since the man was last seen at the Kwik-Screw and might have decided on a licentious interlude after he left.”

  “What’d Jim Bob say?”

  “Jim Bob said he was going to apply his foot to my fanny. I presumed you’d heard about that last night at the Maggody Mafia meeting.”

  “At the what?” He didn’t enjoy that, either. I thought it was kind of cute … the alliteration, you know, if nothing else. Try it a few times under your breath.

  “I saw the cars parked behind Roy’s when I went home last night,” I said patiently. “If your wife thinks you were at prayer meeting, that’s fine with me. You all are entitled to have your secret meetings; my lips are sealed tighter than a storm door and to hell with the Freedom of Information Act. Our town reporter hasn’t made a meeting in six months, anyway; she makes up all the articles about the meetings based on what Jim Bob tells her the next day.”

  “We weren’t talking about you last night. We were talking about something else completely unrelated.”

  “Gee, that’s good to know, Larry Joe. I stayed up all night worrying about it, and you’ve eased my mind now. But I need to find out about any of the girls who might have been absent from school Friday, but not too sick to wiggle into jeans and take a ride down a back road.”

  “Are you sure you ought to get involved with this case, Arly? Why don’t you let the state boys find that fellow while you worry about local matters?”

  “The girls are local, and one of them may have gotten herself in trouble. Why don’t you just tell me what I need to know and let me get out of here before I feel obliged to arrest somebody for something—like obstructing justice?” Sounded good, didn’t it? Too bad it didn’t mean anything, but it was enough to fool Larry Joe.

  He gulped like he’d choked on two bugs and a locust. “How the heck am I supposed to know what some girls did Friday?”

  “Why don’t you ask the experts?”

  Larry Joe beckoned to a group of pimply welders. They straggled over, as leery as a litter of undernourished field mice, and hemmed and hawed around until I offered a lame explanation about needing a witness for an accident. The thought of gore perked them up. After an enlightening discussion about the whereabouts of certain young ladies Friday morning (the boiler room, the boys’ showers, and the parking lot were mentioned), they decided that none of the prime candidates had missed school. I asked if anyone had been out to the logging trail lately and received embarrassed denials and a goodly number of suggestive leers. From a bunch of fifteen-year-olds, for God’s sake. I thanked them kindly and left.

  Officer Buchanon was parked in the shade, keeping one eye on the signal light and the other on a toxicology manual. I pointed out that he wasn’t on duty and he agreed, one of our standard conversations. I then told him the wenches were accounted for during the time in question and that I thought I’d work on the report for Sergeant Plover. When pressed, I also admitted I didn’t know any of the seven deadly signs of cyanide and meekly listened to them, in descending order.

  “I think I’ll hear something today,” Paulie said as I started to drive away. “A deputy in Hasty who interviewed the same day as me heard in Saturday’s mail. Jaylee and I can leave this hole together; I know I can convince her to divorce Carl once we get to Little Rock.”

  “Have you suggested that to her?”

  “Not yet,” he said, staring past my ear for a moment. “I’m so darn excited I don’t know what to do. Can’t you just picture me in a khaki trooper’s uniform, right down to the wide-brimmed hat and the mirror sunglasses? Maybe I’ll be assigned to Stump County so’s we can still work together on an occasional case, Chief.” He gave me a comradely wink, then gave himself one in the rearview mirror for practice.

  “You’d better get accepted before you start give me orders,” I said, smiling.

  “You think I won’t get in?”

  “You admitted yourself that the tests and interviews were tough, and even if you passed there’s an overflow of applications every year. You can always apply to the police academy if this doesn’t work out.” I had no idea about his chances with the state police, but he was beaming like a kid with a new two-wheeler. I hated the thought he might get hurt. I don’t even step on spiders unless I have to.

  “I don’t want to go to the regular police academy. I’m going to the state police academy.” Now he was frowning like he’d found a flat tire.

  I waved and went on my way, full of sad thoughts about Paulie Buchanon. He still lived with his parents, who owned and operated the Pot O’Gold Mobile Home Park, where half the town lived in metal crates with wall-to-wall shag and all the modern conveniences except privacy and security from unscheduled flights to Oz. I suspected Paulie had been a shade too bright in school to be popular, a shade too small to be a jock, and way too sensitive to accept reality and make the best of it. He and Jaylee had been in the same class; he once told me he’d had a crush on her since second grade, when she let him peek at her panties during show-and-tell. Like jug wine, Jaylee had aged more rapidly, ending up with Carl. After Carl had been sent downstate to do time, Paulie tried to rekindle the relationship, but I suspected it remained on a second-grade level. No stolen kisses on the playground that I’d heard about, much less middle-school gropes.

  Roy Stivers was standing in front of the PD when I got there. He was looking downright grizzled in his overalls and cap, his belly swelled out like he expected a bundle from heaven any day. He did not look capable of a sonnet or even a dirty limerick, but I knew better.

  “Hey, Arly, I need to talk to you,” he said, holding the screen door for me. Lord Byron would have done the same.

  I poured us both some coffee and settled behind my desk. A snooty psychologist might read something in my taking refuge there in any storm, but I did prefer my string-bare leather seat and quick access to my duck.

  “Whatcha need to talk about?” I asked. “You’re not going to raise my rent, are you? God knows I’m paying too much already.” About one-zillionth of what a New York apartment cost.

  He slurped down some coffee, carefully not looking at me over the rim of the cup. “Nothing like that.”

  I was beginning to think I was a hands-down candidate for Miss Detestable of Maggody. Paulie liked me, sure, but not one other blessed soul in the whole goddamn town had bothered to smile at me for what seemed like a goddamn eternity. Roy was usually friendly; as I said earlier, I’d even been invited to swig
bourbon in front of the stove and talk poetry with him.

  “It’s town business,” he went on in a squirmy, apologetic voice. “Jim Bob’s real pissed at you, Arly. He squawked about some incident up at his house and said you were belligerent and rude. He also mentioned your contract.”

  “Which runs another four months. Did he mention that I was at his house on official business, trying to cooperate with the state police on a case, or did he just talk about his threat to engage in assault and grievous bodily injury?” Roy looked at me as if he’d discovered I wasn’t depression glass after all; I was strictly plastic. I was getting used to it by now, so I grinned back and—you guessed it—took out my duck to consider how best to start on its webby little feet.

  “What’s that?” he asked, his brown in a cable-stitch.

  “It’s going to be a marshland mallard, but I just began on it.”

  “It don’t look like a duck to me.”

  Did everyone nourish an art critic somewhere in his soul? “Listen, Roy, I have to write a report for the state boys about this fool bureaucrat who’s probably living it up in the Tenderloin Hotel in Starley City, so I’d better get busy. If you came to warn me off Jim Bob, the message is received. If you came to tell me I’ve been canned, do it before I start the report and save me some sweat.”

  “Aw, Arly, don’t start scratching like a dog with a load of fleas. I just think you ought to stay away from Jim Bob for a few days until both of you have a chance to calm down. Deer season starts pretty soon, and he won’t have time to worry about firing you or finding a replacement with credentials.”

  “He’ll be too occupied killing Bambi to bother with little old me, I suppose? I’ve got to write a report, Roy. Thanks for coming by to warn me, but I’m not going to let that fart scare me into hiding in the back of the barn for the next week.”

  “You’d better let the state boys look for the EPA fellow.”