Malice in Maggody

by Joan Hess

  “Well, that’s good to know,” I said faintly. “What happened?”

  “She was smushed. She must’ve gotten away from Perkins and tried to cross the highway to get back to my place, being a right loyal bitch and something of a homebody. This morning when I was driving over to the co-op to get some layer scratch, I chanced to see her. She was flatter than a pancake right on the yeller stripe in the middle of the road.”

  “Are you positive it was—” God, I couldn’t remember the name. How humiliating. “—your dog?”

  “You implying I wouldn’t know Betty, even if she was flat and bloody?” He gave me an indignant look and shot another stream into the corner. “Would you recognize Ruby Bee if’n she got runned over?”

  “It was Betty. I believe you, Raz. I’m real sorry about Betty, real sorry. I wish we could have found her and prevented this tragedy. Officer Buchanon did begin the investigation, but we were sidetracked by the kidnapping and then the murder.”

  “This is murder.”

  “Raz, she was probably hit by a car passing through town. The driver may not have even noticed when he—he, ah, inadvertently made contact with Betty. Lots of animals get hit on the highway.”

  “I come to tell you because you are the police and supposed to stop crimes and arrest folks what commit them, not tell me the number of skunks and possums that get theirselves run over every night. What are you aiming to do about my bitch?”

  I sank back in my chair and rubbed my forehead. Cops on television shows never had to deal with this sort of problem; they have simple, straightforward drug dealers and armed robbers. “When did the crime take place and did anyone happen to see it?” I asked humbly as I pulled out a report form. The ploy had worked before, but I didn’t have much hope at the moment. Not with murder on his mind.

  “It was last night just before ten. Kevin over at the gas station said he seen the whole thing. It was a big black Mercedes going real fast, mebbe sixty or seventy miles an hour. Didn’t even brake for poor Betty or stop afterward to see if he could do something for her. He jest went on through town without any notice of what he did—some damn fool rich man in a hurry.”

  “You’re most likely right, Raz, but I doubt I can do anything since it wasn’t a local car. The driver’s long gone.”

  He turned beady eyes on me and sent a splattering finale into the corner. “So’s Betty,” he said dourly as he went out the door.

  I wrote out the silly report, noting the details carefully, and stuffed it in a manila folder in the bottom drawer. I doubted I could convince the State Department of Motor Vehicle Registration to give me a list of black Mercedes, much less track down the owners to see if they had alibis for the night in question. The state boys would hoot for a week, and I had better things to do—just as soon as I figured out what they were.

  I was whittling a duck foot when Sergeant Plover returned. Saluting him with my pocket-knife, I kept my attention on the delicate webbing between the toes. A very tricky spot, requiring great care.

  “You still trying to turn that hunk of wood into a goose?” he said by way of greeting.

  “A marshland mallard,” I reminded him coolly. “I picked up a few items of interest while I was investigating, if you want to hear. On the other hand, if you prefer to stand there and make wisecracks about an innocent duck, I’ll keep my information to myself.”

  “Ah, yes, a marshland mallard,” he said, nodding like a college professor. “I remember now. There’s been admirable progress since I last had the opportunity to admire it.” Now he was talking like one, too, so I’d think he was intelligent or at least polite.

  “Thank you, Sergeant. I’m pleased with the progress myself. If there’s nothing else … ?”

  “I thought we might exchange information over coffee. I’ve picked up a few tidbits that might interest you, too.”

  Once we were settled at his table (in my back room) I told him what I’d learned from Ruby Bee and Estelle via the cosmetology grapevine. We agreed that Jaylee had been pulling a swift one on somebody, and Jim Bob was a prime candidate if we could ever track him down for questioning. Plover then casually dropped the fact that he’d found out the location of the deer camp. It seems he’d stopped by for a comfy little chat with Joyce Lambertino, and she’d finally remembered that Larry Joe’s second cousin over in Hasty had been at the camp a few years back. A telephone call later, Plover had the directions in his pocket and an invitation to come back for supper. Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am.

  “Nice work,” I said.

  He gave me a funny glance before pulling out the county map and spreading it out flatter than a runover dog on a yeller stripe. We put our faces over it and finally decided that we knew where the trailer was parked, which was way back in the mountains on some land owned by a Chicago fellow who’d bought it before he discovered there were ticks and snakes along with the deer. He’d made a lease arrangement with the Mafia and confined his hunting to singles’ bars.

  “I don’t think I can find it by myself,” Plover admitted. “You’ll have to come with me, and we’d probably better get a jeep or four-wheel from the sheriff before we try.”

  I may have still been a bit miffed over Joyce’s flash of brilliance. Of course I hadn’t sweet-talked her or gotten myself invited to come back for supper, like I was some encyclopedia salesman with a silver tongue and soft brown eyes.

  “I intended to go, anyway,” I said with a snooty smile as I banged down my coffee cup and walked out. What an exit line.

  I called the dispatcher and arranged for a vehicle, then called Paulie and told him where I was going. He said he’d come mind the store. He sounded glum, but I figured it would be his mood for a long time to come, since he’d had a run of personal blows, all about gut height.

  Sergeant Plover and I drove to the sheriff’s office in his shiny police car. I passed the time admiring all the gizmos on the dashboard and the real live radio that buzzed and snapped like a teenager with bubblegum. My radio comes and goes with no discernible rhythm. Paulie’s mostly goes; we’ve begged the council for new radios at the last dozen meetings, but all we’ve gotten are lame excuses and harrumphs over the budget. I thought it might be fun to have all the real cop toys—in working condition.

  “Can I ask you something, Sergeant Plover?” I said, twisting buttons on the radio to see if I could pick up somebody speaking Spanish. “You can ask, Chief Hanks.”

  “Do you have a first name? You don’t have to tell me what it is or anything like that—just tell me if you have one.”

  “I have one.”

  We looked at each other. “Sergeant,” we said together, like a couple of marionettes on the same set of strings. Damn it, I shouldn’t have bothered to ask.

  “Arly ain’t going to like this,” Ruby Bee whispered, on her knees behind the bush. “She’s likely to pitch a fit if she finds out, and I’ll never hear the end of it till my ears get so sore they plumb drop off. She’s real persistent when she’s riled. I used to tell everybody she had her mother’s beauty and her daddy’s temper.”

  “She isn’t going to get riled because she isn’t going to find out,” Estelle whispered. She pushed aside a branch for a better view of the mobile home. It looked hollow and cold, an empty box left outside too long. “I don’t think the police have even come by here,” she added indignantly.

  The Pot O’Gold was peaceful. Most of the inhabitants had either returned to work after a midday dinner or had crawled onto a sofa for a nap. A baby had howled for most of an hour, but now it was hushed, tucked in a crib with a bottle of milk. The mother was on a sofa with her own bottle. Paulie had driven by earlier, but he hadn’t seen them. Ruby Bee and Estelle had sighed in relief and agreed it was sort of like an omen that God actually wanted them to sneak into Jaylee’s mobile home to search for clues. God approved a lot of their better ideas in just such a manner. You could tell if
you watched for the signs. An open mind and a liberal interpretation helped.

  “My knee hurts,” Ruby Bee murmured, shifting her weight as best she could, although gravel was gravel, no matter how careful you were. “How much longer do we have to hide?”

  “I don’t like this any better than you, but we got to be alert. You’re the one who’s so all-fired worried about Arly finding out what we’re going to do in another minute or two. Eula Lemoy is still out behind her unit taking down the wash from the clothesline. You want her to see us acting like cat burglars?”

  Wincing, Ruby Bee crawled to a more advantageous position. “Look at Eula’s brassieres, Estelle. They’re about as dingy as I’ve ever seen, and her always going on how’s she’s a pious Christian woman and president of the Veterans Auxiliary. You’d think she could use less bleach on her tongue and more on her brassieres!”

  “Hush up,” Estelle whispered. “She’s about done. We’ll give her a minute to get inside and settled down in front of the television for her soaps, then we’ll see if we can figure a way to crawl around to the back of Jaylee’s unit. You haven’t dropped the key, have you?”

  Ruby Bee sniffed as she held up the object in question. “I still say those brassieres are dingy,” she whispered crossly. “And my knee still hurts and we’re going to get ourselves thrown in the pokey for breaking and entering.”

  “You’ve been watching too many of those cop shows, honey. They don’t throw criminals in the pokey no more; they just lecture them and probate them so they have to stay out of trouble for the next ten years.”

  “I dearly hope so,” Ruby Bee sighed.

  Neither of them saw the daisy-yellow cafe curtain twitch in the kitchen window of the mobile home.

  Robert Drake was sitting on a stump, wishing he was back at the deer camp. Or on the edge of the highway, or at a goddamn ranger station with a telephone and a pot of coffee. Anyplace but the middle of the desolate, cold, stinking woods that seemed to have no end. It had thorns, plenty of those, and holes covered with leaves so you could twist your ankle or sprawl on your face in the mud. Slippery leaves that were wet and slimy when you fell in them. It had noises that you couldn’t identify, coming from behind or in front or on both sides. He hadn’t seen any animals, but he figured they’d seen him.

  It was colder than he realized at first. His coat wasn’t nearly heavy enough, and his shoes and socks were soaking wet from a creek crossing that hadn’t worked out real well. He was hungrier than he’d ever been in his life, including the time he’d holed up with a cheerleader for thirty-six hours in the Paradise Motel. The mirror on the ceiling had kept him satiated, along with other activities.

  There wasn’t much point in just sitting, he told himself as he stood up and studied the woods with a morose sigh. All the trees looked pretty much the same. He’d tried downhill earlier; it had brought him to the bottom of the mountain and the beginning of another one. He’d followed the creek until his feet were blue. Maybe, he thought, he’d go uphill and hope he could see something from the mountaintop— like a highway or some ranger tower. Or a McDonald’s burger stand.

  “Fat fucking chance,” he growled, scrambling up the slope.

  Jim Bob and Hobert reached town without problem. Roy and Larry Joe had sworn they’d track Drake down and put him back in the bedroom for the time being. They’d all agreed that Fiff was their only shot, if the asshole would get himself back to his office so he could take Jim Bob’s call. Nobody wondered aloud what they’d do if Fiff just laughed and hung up or refused to help them out of what was getting right sticky.

  In front of the car lot, Hobert got out of the four-wheeler and said he’d meet Jim Bob in an hour or so, as soon as he kicked some ass and got his sales force in gear. But once Jim Bob had driven away, Ho hurried to his office and locked the door. He squatted down and opened the safe, hoping that somehow there would be enough money, that the lovely green stuff had begat more in his absence.

  It hadn’t, and there wasn’t enough. He slammed the safe closed, sat down at his desk, and glared at the paperwork awaiting him. No way he could get to it now, he thought, his jowls turning pale as he considered what was likely to happen when he admitted he didn’t have two thousand dollars in cash. Carl Withers wasn’t the sort to slap him on the back and laugh about the delay. No, Carl was more apt to inflict pain—serious pain and permanent damage. Ho shivered at the images racing through his mind. It was a damn bad business. He had to come up with some way to get out of it, without getting himself killed or his reputation torn to shreds.

  “How long will it take us to get to the camp?” Plover asked as we drove away from the sheriff’s office in a bright red jeep.

  “At least an hour. The road’s probably washed out, and we have to cross the creek in a couple of places. If nothing else happens, we may find that we’re wrong about the location of the deer camp, that it’s on one of the other hundred roads back in the hills.” I gazed through the windshield at a scrawny cow, who gazed back with Dahlia’s serene lack of comprehension. “And they may not be there, in any case. This has the feel of a wild goose chase, Sergeant Plover.”

  “Or a marshland mallard hunt.”

  “Something like that, too,” I said, smiling just a little bit to prove I had a sense of humor. I pointed out the place to turn, then settled back and studied him out of the corner of my eyes. Not with any warmth, mind you, but out of curiosity. “Do you have any influence with the boys at the state police academy?”

  “They don’t call me when they need a light bulb changed, but I guess I know some of the instructors.”

  I told him about the letter that had shattered Paulie’s dream. He pointed out that not more than one in fifty made it to the academy, and even passing the tests would not guarantee a slot in the next class. We both agreed (odd) that Paulie ought to settle for the regular academy or try something in another direction, but I still felt sort of sad. I did not break into “The Impossible Dream” at this point, nor did I hum a few bars of “Climb Every Mountain,” even though the idea came to mind.

  As expected, the road got a lot worse as we twisted our way through the mountains. It was chilly in the deep valleys, and the wind was severe on the higher cuts. To keep myself from turning blue, I asked my driver what he thought about the investigation.

  “There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” he said. “I was going to tell you earlier, but you flounced out of the room before I had a chance.”

  “I left the room at a briskly professional pace in order to arrange for the jeep,” I pointed out through clenched teeth. “You suggested we needed to call the sheriff, Sergeant. I was merely cooperating with you, since you have rank and serial number, if not name.”

  “Why’d your mother name you Ariel?”

  “Ariel’s a character in The Tempest, a blithe, gossamer spirit who stirs up mischief. ‘I come to answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds.’ ”

  “Oh,” he said, properly awed. “Do you do all that stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “Dive into fire and fly through curled clouds?”

  “When the mood strikes me.”

  After a moment of silence, he said, “What I didn’t tell you earlier was that I got the initial report from the coroner at the state lab. It seems Miss Withers was approximately seven weeks pregnant.”

  “What? Were they sure? After all, Carl’s been unavailable for that sort of thing for nearly two years. I presume they don’t allow inmates to stick it through the wire mesh on visitation days, and we haven’t gotten to the point of conjugal visits at Cummins yet.”

  “So it wasn’t her husband. Surely Miss Withers knew more than one male in Maggody, and thus far I’ve gathered she wasn’t the sort to sit home chastely and bake cookies for her husband.”

  “Not exactly, no. Jaylee did date; in
fact, she had Paulie all hot to trot, but I don’t think she let it get that far with him.” I toyed with a handful of the puzzle pieces for a few minutes. “But she’d certainly fool around with Jim Bob Buchanon. He could afford an occasional little trinket or a night in Starley City, and he’s not too terrible to look at—if you keep your eyes closed in bed. I’ll bet that was what I overheard during the party—Jaylee telling Jim Bob the news and demanding some money to keep quiet.”

  “Do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Keep your eyes closed in bed?”

  Despite my mental lecture, I turned pinker than a milk cow’s udder. I flapped my mouth a couple of times, but I couldn’t get anything out, so I finally gave up and stared at the woods as if I’d never seen them before. I could hear him chuckling, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge it.

  “Do you think Jim Bob would kill Jaylee to keep her from blackmailing him?” he asked. “Is he that type?”

  “He’s not a paragon of virtue, but I don’t know if he’d go that far just to keep her quiet. Mrs. Jim Bob wouldn’t take kindly to the news he’d fathered a bastard with the local barmaid, and she’d be likely to throw him out on his ear while she sulked, but she’d take him back in once he had suffered enough. I can’t see him murdering Jaylee to avoid a spot of discomfort.”

  “But would he pay her off?”

  “Possibly. We ought to be there in another fifteen to twenty minutes. I’ll take real pleasure in asking His Honor all about it.”

  The Mephitis mephitis (Mustelidae) was startled out of a dream by the crackle of leaves above its head. Suddenly a shoe landed on its body, hard and frightening, squashing its fur and causing great pain along the tail and the small, delicate hind leg. A muffled expletive followed.

  The Mephitis mephitis was too alarmed to roll over and go back to a blissful dream of grubs and birds’ eggs for breakfast. With a growl, it scurried out of the indentation, turned its hindquarters toward the invader, and lifted its tail. A fine mist of yellow liquid sprayed out. This produced a loud bellow and a series of coughs and sputters, followed by more expletives and a tumbling, terrified retreat. The Mephitis mephitis (also called polecat or zorrino, or sometimes wood pussy) gave the invader a beady look, then shuffled away to find another bed until evening. Its black and white tail swished indignantly as it disappeared into a thicket.