by Joan Hess
“Yeah,” Reed said grudgingly, “something like that. We was standing next to my pickup, and he took to admiring the modified shotgun on the rack. He was real impressed when I said I’d done the work myself, and then we got to talking about weapons in general. He converted an SKS rifle to an automatic that uses AK-47 magazines. He went on to say he’d had to sell it before he left town, and that’s what led to him telling me about the warrant. Seems he sent an early Christmas present to a judge, but a hotshot at the post office called the bomb squad. Somehow or other they traced it back to Dylan.”
“I hope you didn’t reciprocate by spilling your guts to him,” Barry said with a dark look. “He sounds like he’s got a big mouth and a propensity for sharing secrets with strangers. The last thing we need is for him to have too many beers and start talking about our operation to anyone who’ll listen.”
“I didn’t say shit about anything to him, but I’m going over to Pitts’s house tonight to discuss this guy with him. Since Bradley got thrown in the state prison, Carter Lee upped and disappeared, and Mo got gunned down by thievin’ mongrels, we’re down to what—four members? The women are useful, but I wouldn’t share a fox hole with either of them. A bed, maybe, but you can’t trust women in combat. God put ’em on this planet to bear children, which is why they’re as useless as tits on a boar hog when the going gets rough.” He opened yet another beer and drained half of it, ignoring the dribbles on his chin. “I came home one night and found Bobbi Jo bawling on account of she’d spilled her fingernail polish on the bedspread. Jesus!”
“The manual says the optimum number for a cell is ten. That doesn’t mean we ought to stand on the corner and pass out application forms to anyone who walks by.”
“Yeah,” said Reed, back to staring at the blank screen.
Barry left to find something to eat in one of the dives along Thurber Street. Although usually alert, he failed to notice the figure sitting in a small car parked across the road from the apartment building.
Chapter 3
Estelle pranced across the dance floor, her heels clattering like castanets, and fidgeted impatiently on the stool at the end of the bar while Ruby Bee finished filling two mugs from the tap and took them to Jim Bob Buchanon and Roy Stiver.
Ruby Bee was grumbling as she came back behind the bar. “I swear, I don’t know how men can talk as much as they do about deer season. You’d think they were out to get a buried treasure instead of a flea-ridden old buck. Those two”—she jerked her thumb at the corner booth—“have been jabbering for more than an hour. If they’d spend half as much time earning a living as they do talking about dogs—”
“I had a real interesting letter this morning,” Estelle said, unable to restrain herself. Beaming, she took a folded piece of paper out of her purse. “It’s from a lawyer over in Oklahoma.”
“Since when do you know any lawyers in Oklahoma?”
“Since I got this letter this morning.” She paused while she unfolded it and smoothed it out on the surface of the bar. “His name is Chester W. Corsair, and his office is in Muskogee.”
Ruby Bee gazed blandly at her, then shifted her attention to Jim Bob and Roy. “You boys want some pretzels or a couple of pickled eggs?” she called, knowing full well Estelle was close to bubbling over with excitement. However, it was her bar and grill, not Estelle’s, and she could do as she pleased when it came to earning a living.
Instead of answering, Jim Bob dropped a few dollars on the table, and he and Roy walked out of the bar, still deep in conversation about how many bottles of whiskey and bologna sandwiches they’d need.
When the door closed, Ruby Bee said, “Does this Mr. Corsair want you to go to law school and become his partner, or is somebody suing you for wrongful hair?”
Estelle decided to be magnanimous about this petty display of poor manners. “Do you recall me talking about my Uncle Tooly?”
“I recall a little about him. Didn’t he marry a one-eyed widow woman with a lot of money?”
“You’d think one eye would be enough to see he was nothing but a skinny old geezer with more hair poking out of his ears than on his head, but she married him anyway. They lived in her fancy house on Lake Eufaula until she died. Then he bought himself a farm way out in the middle of nowhere and took to experimenting.”
“Experimenting in what?” asked Ruby Bee, thinking of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory with its blinking lights and body parts scattered around the floor. “Why doncha stop telling me his life story and get to the point, Estelle? It’s nigh onto three o’clock, and I haven’t finished cleaning up the kitchen so I can sit a spell and work on my column. Writing a weekly column ain’t like making a grocery list, you know, and I have to turn it in by noon tomorrow if it’s gonna appear in the Shopper on Saturday.”
Estelle folded up the letter. “Why don’t I wait until tomorrow evening to tell you the rest of it? I’d feel just awful if I interfered with scrubbing pots and writing about who’s been in the hospital. Maybe I’ll run by Elsie’s for a cup of coffee and a nice visit. She’s not as busy as some folks.”
“Just tell me.”
“Well, the letter says how Uncle Tooly was attacked by sheep in his front yard. He—”
“Sheep?” said Ruby Bee, snickering. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard in my entire life. It sounds like one of those yarns Samsonite Buchanon would spin to anyone fool enough to listen. He could have been a regular guest on the Geraldo show.”
“While Uncle Tooly was trying to get away, he fell and broke his hip. Three days later a neighbor happened to drive by and spot him sprawled in the grass, but it was too late for Uncle Tooly. His mouth was full of fleece. He’d died of dehydration and shock not fifty feet from a telephone.”
“I’d sure go into shock if I was attacked by sheep. Was it a flock—or a gang?”
Estelle gave her a reproachful look. “We are talking about my kinfolk, one of whom passed away in a most tragic manner. I’d appreciate it if you could show some respect.”
“Sorry,” Ruby Bee murmured, reluctantly forgoing a remark about a “drive-by bleating.” “Does this letter from the lawyer mean your uncle remembered you in his will?”
“Yes, it does. It doesn’t say exactly what Uncle Tooly wanted me to have. He gave all his money to charities, so all I’m expecting is an heirloom of some sort. It’s kind of exciting, though.”
“What’s exciting?” Kayleen asked as she came across the dance floor and joined them at the bar.
Estelle explained about the letter, adding, “I don’t recall him having a coin or stamp collection, so it’s liable to be a mantel clock or a ship in a bottle or a carton of family albums. The letter said it’ll be delivered next week.”
“How’s the remodeling coming along?” Ruby Bee asked Kayleen, since there wasn’t much point in discussing Estelle’s inheritance till they found out what it was.
“The walls have been stripped of that cheap paneling and some boards in the floor have been replaced. All the wiring will have to be redone, though, and a lot of pipes are so rusty the water comes out like silt. I have a feeling I’ll spend a goodly part of the next six months in the motel out back. That reminds me, Ruby Bee—I need to book a room for Sterling Pitts.”
Estelle cocked her head. “I thought he was all gung ho about surviving in the woods. The Flamingo Motel’s not much to look at, but it has your standard conveniences like hot water and clean sheets. The parking lot’s hardly what you’d call rugged terrain.”
“He needs a telephone and a place to set up a computer,” Kayleen said. “Most of the time he’ll be in the woods, but he likes to stay in communication with his office in case there’s an emergency. To be honest, I don’t think he’s real thrilled about sleeping in a tent in this kind of weather. He’s close to sixty and has spells of rheumatism.”
Ruby Bee struggled not to sound sarcastic, but she didn’t have much luck. “So he sleeps in a nice warm bed while the other fellows freeze their butts
up on Cotter’s Ridge? What do they think about it?”
“I don’t rightly know.” Kayleen took a pretzel from a basket and nibbled on it for a moment. “Can I ask y’all something of a different nature? I’m a little curious about Brother Verber. Is he originally from these parts? Do you know anything about his background and his family?”
Estelle and Ruby Bee smirked at each other, then Ruby Bee said, “He’s been here for maybe ten years. Before that, I don’t know where he was living, but you might ask Mrs. Jim Bob. You can be as sure as a goose goes barefoot that she knows every last detail of his life up to the time he moved into the rectory.”
“I ran into her at the supermarket,” Kayleen said with a wry smile, “and I have a feeling she won’t tell me the time of day. She went right by me with her nose in the air and her lips squeezed tight, then made a production of telling someone in the next aisle that a pawnshop was nothing more than a gathering place for drug dealers and rapists. I can’t imagine why she took such a dislike to me right off the bat, but she did. I felt like I had bad breath or oozing sores all over my face and hands.”
Estelle decided to help out Ruby Bee, who clearly was having trouble finding a response. “Mrs. Jim Bob takes her role as the mayor’s wife real serious, not to mention being president of the Missionary Society. She thinks everybody should get her permission before they sneeze so she can make sure they have a clean hankie.”
Ruby Bee nodded. “And she’s suspicious of single women because she knows her husband strays with every hussy in Stump County. If he had a notch in his belt for every one of them, his trousers would be around his ankles and he’d be waddlin’ like a duck.”
“I prefer men with Christian values,” Kayleen said firmly. “Men who come from solid Anglo-Saxon stock and are loyal and trustworthy, dedicated to their beliefs.”
“Like Sterling Pitts?” suggested Ruby Bee. Match-making was one of her favorite hobbies, and she’d about given up on Arly.
“Sterling’s married, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s ineligible. There’s no chance Brother Verber has a wife stashed away somewhere, is there?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Estelle. She stopped and thought for a moment, then said, “Unless she’s in an insane asylum or prison. I don’t suppose he’d say anything that might reflect poorly on him as a man of God.”
Ruby Bee scooted the pretzels out of Estelle’s reach. “That’s hornswoggle—and you know it. Brother Verber may have his faults, but I can’t see him leaving some pathetic woman locked up all these years. Why, he got all misty at Kevin and Dahlia’s wedding, and had to stop and blow his nose at least three times before he pronounced them man and wife. He almost single-handedly raised the money to put a baptismal font in the Assembly Hall after one of the ladies in the choir got chased across a gravel bar by a water moccasin down at Boone Creek.” She racked her brain for other examples of his worthiness, not because she had all that much respect for him but to impress Kayleen. “He collects discarded clothes and spectacles to send to a mission in Africa, too.”
“That ain’t all he collects,” Estelle inserted.
“Hush, Estelle,” Ruby Bee said sharply, possibly because she was still smarting over the comment about the Flamingo Motel not being much to look at. “Tell you what, Kayleen—if I run across Mrs. Jim Bob, I’ll tactfully see what I can find out about Brother Verber’s past. Are you planning to attend the Sunday morning service?”
“I said I would.” Kayleen slid off the stool and waggled her fingers at them. “I’d appreciate it if y’all didn’t mention that I was asking questions about Brother Verber. I’ve lived in enough small towns to know how tongues get to wagging. I need to run along and make some calls.” She paused in the middle of the dance floor and looked back at them. “You two are just being so sweet to me. Once I get the house fixed up, I’ll have you over for supper so we can get to know each other even better.”
Ruby Bee and Estelle smiled brightly until she was gone, then set aside their differences and got down to business discussing how to find out whatall they could about Brother Verber’s past. It had never before been of interest, but now it was downright intriguing.
As Eileen Buchanon drove out of the clinic parking lot and headed toward Maggody, she glanced at her daughter-in-law. Dahlia was downcast, but no more than usual these days. Being pregnant was harder on her than it’d been on Eileen, what with the strict diet and exercise program to control her blood sugar. They’d had a real scare when Dahlia had allowed a faith healer to convince her the diabetes had been cured, but his exposure as a quack had brought her to her senses. What there were of them, anyway.
“What did the doctor say?” Eileen asked as she slowed down for a chicken truck.
Dahlia sighed so gustily that the windshield fogged up. “Same as he always sez, I reckon. I got to keep pricking my finger and writing down the numbers in my notebook. I haft to come back next week so he can poke my privates. He’s still harping about this test called a sonogram, but I ain’t gonna allow it on account of it turns the baby into a mutant with the wrong number of arms and legs and eyes. No one’s doin’ that to my baby.”
“The doctor wouldn’t suggest something like that.”
“He brings it up at every visit,” she said, her chins quivering with distress and her placid expression turning fierce. “I signed a paper saying I refused to do it, and I meant it!”
Eileen finally got around the chicken truck and pressed the accelerator. “What makes you think this test would do the terrible things you said?”
“I read about it in the newspaper. Would you stop at that gas station over there? My bladder’s liable to burst if I don’t git to a potty real quick.”
Eileen obliged, then glumly watched Dahlia disappear through a doorway on the side of the concrete block building. Other than the diabetes, which was under control, Dahlia seemed healthy and had gained no more weight than the doctor had allowed. Women had been giving birth for thousands of years without complicated tests, and a good number of them were doing so these days. It was probably better not to cause Dahlia more distress by pressuring her to have a sonogram or anything else she didn’t want. It was hard enough keeping her away from what she did want.
Jake “Blitzer” Milliford opened the closet door and squatted down to paw through the shoes on the floor. “Where’re my boots?” he shouted at his wife, who was in the kitchen.
“Wherever you dropped them,” Judy shouted back, more concerned with the cornbread in the oven and the beans in a pot on the stove. “Did you leave ’em on the back porch?”
He slammed the door and started hunting under the bed. “When’s the last time you cleaned under here—Easter?”
She gave the beans a stir, then turned off the burner and came to the doorway. She was small-boned and barely came up to his shoulder, but living with him for twenty-three years had thickened her skin. It had also etched some wrinkles in her pretty face and turned some brown hairs gray, as well as extinguishing a good deal of what had once shone through her eyes. “Maybe you left them in the back of the truck,” she suggested, “or in the toolshed.”
“Bullshit.”
“You ought to look anyway,” she said, fully aware the boots were in the hall closet, where she’d put them after he left them on the kitchen table.
Jake got up off the floor and hitched up his worn, greasy jeans. “I ain’t got time for a damn scavenger hunt. LaRue is pickin’ me up as soon as he gets off work. He bought hisself a new laser sight for his Glock, and he wants to test it over at his brother’s place.”
“You don’t need your boots for that, do you?”
He gave her a disgusted look. “No, I don’t need my boots for that. I need ’em next week for the retreat. We’ll leave for Maggody on Friday afternoon, soon as I can get away from the salvage yard. Shorty wasn’t real happy with me missing work, but he shut up when I pointed out that everybody else’ll call in sick all week long on account of deer season. At least I
’m givin’ him some warning.”
“Were you aiming to mention this beforehand or was it supposed to be a surprise?”
He brushed past her and went into the front room to see if LaRue was out in the driveway. “Yeah, I was aiming to mention it beforehand,” he muttered under his breath, then raised his voice. “When you find my boots, clean ’em up and set ’em on the back porch. While you’re at it, see if the sleeping bags need to be hung out on the clothesline. Last summer I spilled some fish guts on one of them and it’s liable to stink worse than a buzzard’s roost by now. And check the cooking supplies. I ain’t gonna be pleased if I have to drive back to Emmett because you forgot your pancake turner.”
“What makes you think I’m going with you next week, Jake? I’ve got better things to do than sit around all day in a drafty tent and cook over a campfire. Friday evening I have a church bazaar committee meeting. I told Janine that I’d keep the baby on Saturday so she can get her hair cut and do a little shopping. She hasn’t been out of the house in six weeks, and that fat lout she married won’t even change a diaper.”
“He puts groceries on the table, doesn’t he? Janine’s a whiner, same as you. It’s gonna be cold and wet out at the campsite, and we need better than those gawdawful ready-to-eat meals. Janine doesn’t have any call to waste her husband’s hard-earned money on a hair cut. She can get a pair of scissors and whack it off herself.”
Judy thought of something she’d like to whack off with a pair of scissors, but he most likely wouldn’t appreciate hearing it. “Who all is going this time?”
“Who all is going?” he said in a falsetto, mocking her. “Do you think Pitts invited the cheerleaders over at the junior high and all the sumbitch politicians down in Little Rock? Same as last year, except for Carter Lee and Bradley. We figure we can dig up ol’ Mo and prop him against a tent pole. It’s not like we’d be able to tell the difference.” He looked out the window, then took his jacket off a hook and made sure the can of Red Man was in the pocket. “LaRue’s here. After we test the sight, we’ll probably stop by the Dew Drop for a couple of beers. Don’t wait up.”