by Joan Hess
Estelle jabbed me in the arm. “I’m surprised you have time to worry about your stomach when Kevin Buchanon is missing and that Bernswallow fellow’s been murdered.”
“How do you know he was murdered?” I said.
Ruby Bee grabbed a dishrag and began to wipe the surface of the counter. “Everybody in town thinks it was murder, Miss Closed Mouth. You and Carolyn both said it was too much of a coincidence that an accidental fire started the very same time we were in the lot. And when the body was found, well, that made it perfectly clear.”
“I wish it were perfectly clear to me,” I said, “but I’m too weak from hunger to think straight.”
The dishrag stopped. “If I’m willing to slave over a hot stove just so you can satisfy your stomach, will you tell us what-all the sheriff and those investigators had to say?”
I seriously considered stalking out the door, my nose high enough to brush the cobwebs off the ceiling, but acknowledged to myself that the results of the investigation would be common knowledge within a day or two, thanks to the mach-seven grapevine. “How hard are you intending to slave?”
“I think I have a slab of leftover meat loaf with tomato sauce and a little dish of creamed potatoes.”
“No cobbler?” I said in a wounded voice.
Estelle jabbed me again. “It is unseemly to listen to you blackmailing your own mother.”
“She started it.”
Ruby Bee marched over to face me across the counter and folded her arms. “I reckon there may be a piece of cherry cobbler in the ice box. I was planning on serving it to Carolyn when she finished making phone calls, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“Where is she?” I asked curiously. “And for that matter, where’s Dahlia?”
“Carolyn went to her unit to call her office and make arrangements to stay in Maggody until this awful tragedy is resolved,” Estelle said. “Although I told her until my face turned blue that none of this was her fault, she insisted that she was in some way responsible because of the demonstration and everything.”
“So she thinks the demonstration was the catalyst for the murder?”
Ruby Bee snapped the dishrag under Estelle’s nose. “See, I told you it was murder, didn’t I? Arly just said so.”
“I didn’t argue with you,” Estelle said, sounding deeply offended. “If I recollect, I was the one who said the fire was set to cover the murder.”
“Then you disrecollect,” Ruby Bee huffed.
To my utter relief, they took their squabble with them into the kitchen, leaving me in dim, cool, quiet bliss. I was almost dozing when the door opened and footsteps clicked across the dance floor. Carolyn climbed onto the stool next to me. “I heard you’re planning to stay around until the investigation is completed,” I said.
“I feel bad. Had I not accepted Johnna Mae’s case, none of this would have happened.” She stared at her reflection in the spotted mirror behind the bar. “Maybe it would have anyway. Johnna Mae was deeply upset by the blatantly sexist, illegal actions taken against her.”
“Everybody seems rather eager to cast Johnna Mae as the villain in the piece,” I said mildly. “Bernswallow wasn’t especially popular with a lot of people. Perhaps your rhetoric stirred another of the women to violence, or even a closet sympathizer from the far side of the road.”
“I incited someone to kill Bernswallow and burn the building? I’m good, but I’m not that good. I will say I was surprised by the cooperativeness of the local women when I first arrived to organize the demonstration. On the campuses, I’m usually lucky to find a handful of women who’ll stand beside me in the name of equality and justice. Too many sorority girls would rather worry about dates to fraternity parties than worry about the injustices that they’ll face in the workplace after graduation.” She stopped with a rueful laugh. “Sorry, the rhetoric sneaks out when I’m not alert.”
“Can you describe what went on in the parking lot before the fire caught everyone’s attention?”
“It was chaotic, but not dreadfully so. There was a lengthy discussion about the quality of the army cots, and several of the demonstrators were making barbed remarks about dedication and sacrifice. I believe there was a canasta game going on. There was another group exchanging recipes. It was fairly dark, and I’d be hard-pressed to say where anyone was at any given moment. When that ghastly man began shrieking about the fire, I was standing with Ruby Bee, Estelle, and Ms. McMay. Five minutes before that, I really couldn’t say.”
“Did you leave at any time between five o’clock and ten o’clock?”
“At one point I became rather overwhelmed by the intensity of the group and walked back to the motel to pick up a package of pamphlets we were planning to distribute today. I’d estimate that I was gone for half an hour.”
“Did anyone else leave for a time?”
“I have no idea. Each of us certainly could have been away for a few minutes to use the washroom facilities at the Emporium or to make a phone call. Our sentries were watching for intruders, not escapees.”
I thought for a minute. “I understand that it was dark and that everyone was wandering around chatting or griping or using the facilities. Was there anyone you couldn’t find at a particular time?”
“When I went to congratulate Truda Oliver on her courageous stand, it took me quite a while to locate her.” Carolyn slapped her forehead, although carefully enough not to jar loose any powder. “And Johnna Mae did say she was going home for a few minutes to make sure her husband had the children tucked in bed.”
“What time was that?”
“I have no idea, Arly. You’ll have to ask her.”
Ruby Bee and Estelle came out of the kitchen, the former with a heaping plate of meat loaf et al and the latter with a glass of milk and a bowl of cobbler. The lovely above-mentioneds were placed in front of me, and I had my fork poised when the pay telephone rang in the corner.
“Maybe it’s Dahlia,” Estelle said as she hurried to answer it.
I looked at Ruby Bee, who was doing her best not to notice me. “Just where is Dahlia?”
Estelle saved her by covering the receiver and calling, “It’s for you, Arly. Some deputy calling from Farberville. Says it’s real important.”
I put down the fork and glumly went to the telephone. “Arly Hanks,” I said. “What’s up?”
I learned what was up in no time flat. Estelle was hovering at a discreet distance, her earlobes aquiver, so I turned my back on her and hunched over the receiver while I asked questions and listened to answers that got grimmer by the minute. At last I hung up and started for the door.
“What about your supper?” Ruby Bee squawked.
“Let Carolyn have it. I’ve got some official business, and I can’t put it off any longer.”
Estelle put her hands on her hips and gave me an indignant look. “But you said you would tell us what-all the investigation turned up. I thought we had ourselves a deal.”
I turned back and gazed at Ruby Bee and Estelle, who were on the militant side, and Carolyn, who was on the bewildered side. “I’m afraid there’s some new evidence that implicates Johnna Mae. I’m going to talk to her now. On an empty stomach.”
There was a comment about Miss Liar Liar Pants on Fire, but I didn’t stop to argue the issue.
9
The same Nookim child was throwing the same tennis ball against the side of the mobile home, and it was making the same infuriating thwack with each encounter. I told him to stop. He looked at me sullenly, then hurled the ball again. I told him that it might take him all day to extract the ball from his mouth, which was what he was going to have to do if he continued. I then went to the door and knocked, although my shoulders were tensed in preparation for the thwack beside (or more probably, in the back of) my head.
Johnna Mae opened the door and gazed through the screen at me. She wore a tired, wrinkled housedress; her hair was limp and her makeup unable to disguise her yellowish pallor. “Hi, Arly,
” she murmured. “That was pretty awful about Bernswallow, wasn’t it?”
“It certainly was, and what’s worse is that we’re almost sure he was murdered,” I said evenly.
“I can’t believe that. I mean, that’s downright impossible to believe that someone would do something like that.” She produced the proper expression of horror and incredulousness, but her voice had a funny edge to it and her eyes were darting every which way except at me.
“I need to talk to you, Johnna Mae, and I think”—thwack—“that we’d have more privacy at the PD.”
“Stop that right this minute, Earl Boy, or I’ll whip your rear end with a willow branch so hard you won’t sit down for a solid year!” She shrugged at me, then called over her shoulder that she’d be gone for a few minutes. As we walked past Earl Boy, she slapped at him without much enthusiasm. There were three more thwacks before we made it to the car.
I thought about making chitchat while we drove to the PD, but I didn’t have the heart for it and Johnna Mae didn’t look all that receptive. She kept her face lowered, and every once in a while muttered something unintelligible under her breath. When we arrived I asked her to sit down and settled myself in my chair behind the desk.
“I’m afraid this will have to be official,” I told her, and recited the Miranda warning. When I’d made sure she understood it, I continued. “The problem is that the sheriff had someone go over to the main bank and dig through the Maggody branch records. He was baffled by the number of small loans made to locals over the last few years. When he saw his brother-in-law’s name, he called and asked why the hell he was borrowing money. His brother-in-law said it was the first he’d heard of it, and why would anyone think a bank would loan money to an unemployed backhoe operator with a cast on his ankle and monthly disability checks as income.”
“Oh,” Johnna Mae said so quietly I almost missed it. “That would be Clarence Pipit. I’m sorry to hear about his misfortune.”
“This is more serious than a broken ankle, because the ankle will heal sooner or later. The deputy made several more calls. The upshot was that the bank got its bookkeepers in there, and they started shifting through all the files. A vast percentage of the loans originating from the Maggody branch were bogus. A bank employee had filled in the applications for small, inconsequential amounts that wouldn’t raise an examiner’s eyebrow, approved the loans, and pocketed the proceeds. When a loan came up for renewal, another bogus application was approved and a portion of it used to make an interest payment and reduce the capital on the previous loan. It was a widening spiral, but one that didn’t stir up much dust. Then, about two months ago, the payments on the loans stopped. The computer spewed out letters to the loanees, reminding them they needed to make payments.”
“I didn’t know I was going to need the C section,” Johnna Mae said dully. “I thought I’d be out for a few days, not a whole six weeks.” She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. “And when I got back, Bernswallow was the head teller. I didn’t have the money to make payments on the loans, and I sure couldn’t run any new loan approvals past him without him catching wind of it. There wasn’t a thing I could do but just wait until the shit hit the fan.”
“Or kill him, and burn the records to boot. Didn’t you realize the main branch would have copies of all the paperwork generated in the branch?”
“Kill him? Me? I didn’t kill him and I didn’t start that fire, Arly. You got to believe that.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I’d like to believe that, Johnna Mae, but I’m having a hard time. You were absent from the branch for quite a long time, long enough for some indignant customer to demand an explanation from the top honcho at the branch, which used to be you but became Brandon. One of the accused was so pissed she squawked about a libel suit. Surely one of the others stalked into the lobby and shoved the letter under his nose. Lottie Estes, for instance, the day I dropped by to see how you were?”
“I tried to explain it was a mix-up, but she demanded to talk to the head teller. There wasn’t any way to stop her,” Johnna Mae admitted in the same dull voice. “Bernswallow didn’t say anything about it that day, but I knew the whole thing was right on the verge of exploding in my face.”
“So Bernswallow stumbled onto the bogus loans, probably long before you came back to work.” I rubbed my forehead some more, trying to massage my brain into a more cooperative state. “If that’s what happened, and I’m fairly certain of it, he had three possible alternatives. One was to run screaming to the bank auditors, with a side trip to the police, and we all know he didn’t do that. The second would be to adopt the scheme and operate it himself. The third might not exclude the second, but it would include blackmail.” I looked up in time to catch her sudden twitch. “Was that what happened? Did he demand that you meet him in the bank last night so you could pay him for his silence?”
“Pay him with what? You know I don’t have two dimes to rub together, Arly. Bernswallow knew it too. All he had to do was take a gander at my checking account to see it was a rat’s whisker away from overdrafts.”
“What did you do with the money you embezzled?”
“Bills,” she said with a humorless laugh. “Doctor bills, utility bills, grocery bills, pharmacy bills, shoe bills, you name it. I didn’t take more than a couple of thousand dollars, and I mean to pay it back soon as Putter’s able to work again and we can save a little something every month. I was just borrowing that money. The bank’s got assets in the millions of dollars; they weren’t going to have a hissy-fit over less than three thousand dollars.”
“It’s still embezzlement,” I said, feeling like the Grinch on Christmas Eve, “and it’s a felony.”
“But I didn’t kill him and I didn’t set the bank on fire.”
“One witness has already told me that you left the demonstration for a few minutes, saying you were going home. All you had to do was go around to the back of the bank, slip inside and have the fatal meeting, and then hurry down the road to the Pot O’ Gold.”
“I didn’t kill Bernswallow,” she said, shaking her head. “I went home, kissed my three angels good night, and came straight back to the parking lot in time to see the fire truck roll in. You can ask Putter.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Johnna Mae. I’m going to question some more witnesses, and the fire marshal sent all the evidence to the state crime lab. Maybe we’ll find someone else’s fingerprints on the surface of the kerosene can. Maybe one of the women will remember seeing someone lurking around the back of the lot. Maybe you’re telling me the truth now; I’d prefer to learn down the road that you are. In the meantime, I’m going to have to arrest you on embezzlement charges and book you in the county jail in Farberville. The sheriff and I will then have to decide if we have enough evidence to file murder and arson charges against you.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and gave me a weary smile. “You do whatever you have to, Arly. If you don’t mind too awful much, can we run by the mobile home so I can say good-bye to Putter and the children?”
Compared to yours truly, the Grinch was a friggin’ prince.
Mrs. Jim Bob sat in her Cadillac and fumed for a good five minutes. Brother Verber was acting downright possessed hisself with the possibility of witchcraft in Maggody, and she was getting a might fed up with it. She’d already pointed out more than once or twice that now they knew what the women had been doing in Ruby Bee’s during those days when the place had been closed: they’d been planning the vulgar demonstration and that was that. Mrs. Jim Bob hadn’t really believed her friends and neighbors such as Elsie McMay and Eilene Buchanon would actually do anything so all-fired evil; she’d just mentioned the possibility of witchcraft to … well, to make conversation.
But Brother Verber was clinging to the theory like a wad of gum on the bottom of a school desk. He was on his knees inside the Assembly Hall, arguing with the Almighty and not being real respectful, if she said so herself. His face was shiny
and beet red, and his eyes were on the bright side for one supposedly engaged in pious prayer. All she could get out of him were distracted nods and a few words about Christian duty. As if she weren’t one of the most dutiful Christians in the entire congregation.
Mrs. Jim Bob switched on the ignition and went to evince a little Christian duty by consoling Truda Oliver over the embarrassment of having her husband’s employee fried to a crisp during the fire. As she pulled into the cul-de-sac, she was relieved to see Truda’s car in the driveway. When duty beckoned, Mrs. Jim Bob did not shirk or make excuses, but she really did need to get home within the hour to make sure Perkins’s eldest had dusted the venetian blinds and vacuumed under the love seat and seen that the children didn’t get into trouble.
Truda didn’t look real thrilled when she answered the door, but she managed a smile and invited Mrs. Jim Bob in for coffee and a piece of apple strudel. After they were settled in the living room, Mrs. Jim Bob politely inquired how Sherman was holding up in the face of this most humiliating tragedy.
“He’s been at the main bank all day. They’ve discovered that the Nookim woman has been embezzling money for the last three years. Sherman’s beside himself, of course, although nobody’s blaming him.”
“He was the branch manager, and therefore responsible for everything that happened at the branch,” Mrs. Jim Bob pointed out as she nibbled the strudel with an appreciative smile, even though it wasn’t as flaky as her own. “She might not have gotten away with it as long as she did if Sherman had paid more attention to what his employees were doing.”
“That’s true,” Truda said, wondering how the strudel might taste with a pinch of rat poison. “However, he has remained in charge of the bank’s portfolio, and the board is aware that that occupied a great deal of Sherman’s workday. And he trusted Johnna Mae.”
“I myself have always had some doubts about Johnna Mae Nookim’s character. Her father, Dewey Buchanon, owned a dry goods store over in Hasty until he and his wife got terminal cases of influenza twenty years back—and a good thing they did. If they’d known Johnna Mae was going to up and marry a Nookim, they’d have locked her in her room until she came to her senses. Everybody knows the Nookims are nothing but white trash; you can tell by the way they all slouch around with long, greasy hair and never hold down a decent factory job or make any kind of effort to amount to something. Putter hasn’t supported his family since I don’t know when.”