by Joan Hess
“Kevvvin,” she howled as she took out a ham salad sandwich and a banana. She figured it was real important to keep up her strength.
Kevin thought it was the best chocolate cake he’d ever eaten in his entire life, right down to the fudge icing decorated with pecan halves. His ma wouldn’t let him have chocolate because of pimples popping up when he did, so he was right pleased when the issue wasn’t mentioned. He was even more pleased when his request for a third piece was seen to briskly.
He flipped over to the page with the fillet knives. The stainless steel ones were the best, he decided, even if they were a sight more expensive than he’d thought.
10
“Registrar’s office.”
“This is Ms. Martin at the attorney general’s office in Little Rock. We need some information concerning one of your graduates from the law school up that way,” the woman said in a nasal whine that was almost impossible to understand. “And also about a business student a couple of years back.”
“You’ll have to submit your requests in writing. We require three copies of each, plus notarized authorizations from the students involved. All records and transcripts are sealed.”
“Oh, we don’t want to worry ourselves about a bunch of paperwork, do we? I don’t want to know about their grades or how they deported themselves. I just want to know if they were there at the same time. Maybe if they had any classes together or something like that.”
“Three copies, and the notarized authorizations from the students involved.”
“But this is the attorney general’s office. You have to tell me what I need to know or we’ll persecute you. You do realize we can put anybody we want to in jail, don’t you? And if we’ve a mind to, just throw away the key?”
The only thing the secretary in the registrar’s office realized was that it was four o’clock, and she would be on her way to the beer garden in a manner of minutes. “Have at it,” she suggested, already salivating over the idea of an icy cold beer sliding down her throat, while the band set up for the show and all her friends wandered by.
“Now listen here, Miss Snooty Pants, unless you want to find yourself in a whole passel of trouble, you tell me if Carolyn McCoy attended the law school up there and if she did, what years. And also if—”
The secretary hung up the receiver, grabbed her purse, and wished everyone a nice evening. It was still hot, but the beer garden was always shady and the beer always cold. A dynamic duo.
When I got back to Maggody, I stopped at the PD and made a list of all the women who’d participated in the demonstration. I then mentally ran over the trucks that had been parked across the highway and did my best to write down the names of the silent vigilantes. I counted for a minute; at forty-seven, I lost heart, stopping midway down the second page.
The PD was a damn brick oven preheated to broil. The air conditioner clearly had ceased working hours ago, either while I was talking to Sherman Oliver or sipping a soda at the trooper barracks. My Alaska pamphlets were on the desk. I found one with a vivid photograph of a glacier and fanned myself with it as I chose my first victim for the Arly Hanks third degree. The selection was based on the rumor that one of our good citizens had recently acquired the newest, flashiest, iciest air conditioner on the market, a veritable state-of-the-goddamn-art miracle. And away I went.
Raz Buchanon came to the door in a baggy stained undershirt and a baggier, stainier pair of khaki trousers. He gave me a spotty yet sincere grin. “Howdy, Arly. Hot enough for ya?”
“I thought you bought a new air conditioner,” I said through the screen. “Why aren’t you running it?”
“I did, and I is.”
I waited politely while he sent an arch of tobacco juice toward a Tupperware bowl in the middle of the braided rug. “But then don’t you think you ought to close the windows and doors?” I asked him.
“Why in tarnation would I do that? This ol’ house gits hotter than a fiddler’s elbow if I close it up.”
We blinked at each other, equally bewildered. “But, Raz,” I said, enunciating slowly and carefully so he could follow each word, “if you leave the windows and doors open, the air conditioner can’t cool the house. You’ll end up cooling the yard and running up a whopper of an electricity bill.”
He chawed on that for a minute, then slapped his belly and cackled. “You got it all cattywampus, Arly. I never aimed to cool this house with that contraption. I put it in the little shed I built for my hogs. I got me one of those fancy show sows. Name’s Marjorie and she’s in the family way. When it got so dadburned hot, her poor ears and tail started a-drooping and she got a real sad look in her eyes. Finally I couldn’t stand it no more and bought the air cooler for her shed.”
“Sorry, I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I came by to see if you noticed anything out of the ordinary at the bank last night.”
“There was a fire what burned it to the ground.” He was idly scratching his armpit, but he was watching me real close.
“I’m aware of the fire. I just wondered if you saw anybody going behind the bank, or acting in a suspicious manner.”
He switched to the opposing pit. “Earl Buchanon was mumbling and fretting something awful, and Jeremiah was carrying on the same way. Is that what you mean?”
“Closer, Raz. All the women were in the lot, and all the spectators were across the highway on the Assembly Hall lawn. Was there anyone else you might have noticed?”
“I seem to recollect someone.” He scratched and chawed and spit for a minute, then grinned. “That Nookim feller was hiding in the bushes beside the Assembly Hall. I think mebbe he was waiting for Brother Verber, because I heard the preacher say something and there weren’t nobody else in earshot.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to hide a frown. I started down the porch steps, then stopped and looked back. “Why were you there, Raz?”
“My damn fool VCR is broken. There wasn’t a single network show Marjorie and I could agree on, so we moseyed down to the far end of town to see what was happening. She stayed in the truck, of course, because of her delicate condition. She’s right shy about it.”
That is a direct quote. I swear it.
I drove past Ruby Bee’s, noting that an unfamiliar car had joined Estelle’s station wagon and Carolyn’s subcompact, and turned left on the county road. I bumped across the cattle guard at the entrance of the Pot O’ Gold and wound through the mobile homes to the Nookim residence. Earl Boy was not in sight, thus saving me from a major moral dilemma in that I’d locked his mama in jail but I still couldn’t tolerate the thwacks.
Putter, dessed in the same apron and with the baby in his arms, watched me as I came up to the door. “What now, Arly?” he said without spirit. “Is there news about what they’re fixing to do to Johnna Mae?”
“Nothing will happen until Monday, when she’s arraigned. The judge will appoint an attorney for her, and he’ll do what he can to get her out on bail.”
“We can’t pay an attorney and we don’t have any money for bail.”
“The attorney’s services are free. Maybe your neighbors can chip in on the bail money,” I said, sounding more optimistic than I felt. “But there’s something I need to ask you about last night. What time did Johnna Mae come back here to kiss the children good night?”
“Hang on a minute.” He disappeared into the dim interior and came back with neither apron nor wee Nookim. “I didn’t look at the clock. She wasn’t here more than five minutes before she said she had to get back to the bank and take guard duty.”
“What’d she say about the demonstration? She told me on the way to Farberville that you asked how long it would last and was there enough kerosene to keep the lanterns going all night.”
He tugged on his forelock and sighed. “Yeah, we talked for a little while.”
“On the sidewalk, she told me, while you walked her out to the gravel road?” I prompted, not especially fond of myself. Mendacity always strikes me that way.
&nbs
p; “Yeah, on the sidewalk.” He stopped tugging on his hair and gave me a narrow look. “Why are you asking all this? Are you trying to get at something so you can keep Johnna Mae locked up for the next fifty years?”
“No, Putter, I’m not. I’m trying to get to the bottom of what happened last night. You and Johnna Mae didn’t have the conversation because you weren’t here. Who baby-sat for the kids while you were gone?”
“Who says I wasn’t here?”
“Someone saw you in the bushes beside the Assembly Hall. The witness theorized that you were waiting for Brother Verber, but I don’t agree. What were you doing?”
“I was worried about Johnna Mae. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“You don’t have to tell me any of this,” I said bleakly. “You don’t have to testify against your wife.”
“She may have borrowed some money without asking, but I know for a fact she didn’t kill Bernswallow and set that fire, and I ain’t afraid to testify about that.”
“Then who did?”
His expression turned exceedingly blank. “I can’t say right now. I had Earl Boy mind the young’uns while I slipped over to the Assembly Hall to check on Johnna Mae. I didn’t want her to see me because she’d have been perturbed about the kids being left alone, even for a few minutes. It was kind of dark in the lot and it took me a while to spot her. I guess that was when she’d gone home. Once I saw her with that WAACO woman, I hustled straight back here.”
“Do you mind if I ask Earl Boy what time his ma came home for a brief visit?”
“I already asked him, and he doesn’t know. He says he went to sleep as soon as I left. When I got back, I carried him into the bedroom.”
He was blinking like a toad in a hailstorm, and I didn’t buy much of his story. As I left I told him to stick around, I’d be back later for a statement.
It didn’t sound like Johnna Mae’d come home during her absence from the demonstration. The two had cooked up the story of the visit to cover whatever she’d done during that time. Putter wasn’t going to tell me what he saw from his post across the street. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell me he’d seen his wife sneak around the corner from the back of the bank.
She was smart enough to have embezzled money for three years without raising any suspicions. She was hefty enough to have smashed a blunt instrument over Bernswallow’s head. She was dumb enough to think burning the bank would cover the petty thefts, or at least confuse things so we might not stumble across them. She had motive, means, and opportunity.
I went to the PD to call the sheriff, but as I reached for the telephone, it rang. I picked it up and ungraciously muttered my name.
“This is Francis Merganser, Chief Hanks. Sergeant Plover made a friendly call to the crime lab, and they’ve agreed to do a rush job for us, at least on the evidence we sent this morning. I can’t write up my official report until the middle of next week, but I can relate the gist of it now if you’re interested.” When I admitted that I was, he said, “I had the film developed at one of those one-hour places and I’ve been studying the prints real close. I think it’s safe to say that the fire had two points of origin: one was that pile of wadded paper next to the desk and the other was a metal wastebasket off in the corner behind the desk. The former did all the damage; the latter didn’t spread, since it was contained. All it did was leave a mark on the wall.”
“Can you determine which was lit first?”
“I think we can assume that whoever set the bank on fire didn’t fight his way through the flames and smoke to burn something in a metal trash can,” he said, trying not to imply I was the all-time stupidest person he’d ever met. The implication was hard to miss.
“Good point,” I said. “What about the contents of the wastebasket? Was there anything left?”
“The lab boys may be able to do some restoration. You ought to hear from them in a day or so. Your buddy Plover came down on them like a ton of bricks.” Chuckling, Merganser told me to have a nice day and rang off before I could reply that I had other plans. Being told to have a nice day ranked just behind being asked if it was hot enough for me (hell no, I love being parboiled in my own sweat).
I called Harve and told him what I’d learned. We hashed it around for a few minutes, but we didn’t get very far. Two different fires were hard to explain; it would have been more expedient to put whatever was in the metal trash can on the floor with the other paper kindling. We did agree there wasn’t any big rush to file murder and arson charges against Johnna Mae and that it would be quite nice to hear from the state lab before the Monday morning arraignment. Harve then mumbled something about a budget meeting with the quorum court and told me to keep up the good work (darn, I was looking forward to a major screwup). Said phrase fit neatly behind the heat poser.
I took out my list and decided to see if Elsie McMay had noticed anything worth noticing. I didn’t think for a moment that I’d hear much, but I was fairly confident I’d be offered iced tea and the seat of honor in front of the fan.
“What’s for supper?” Earl asked in his friendliest voice. “I was hoping you might make your special chicken and dumplings, but if you’ve got another idea, why, that’s mighty fine with me.”
“Heat up a can of chili,” Eilene said, and not by a long shot in her friendliest voice. “I’m too worried about Kevin to cook.”
“You know how he is, honey—too dumb to find his way home or to even realize how he’s got you all worried. When he does drag his sorry excuse for a tail home, I’ll take him out to the workshop and give him a horse dose of education with my belt. But there’s no point in making ourselves sick by eating stuff out of cans. You’re the best cook in the county. My mouth waters every time I think about your fluffy dumplings.”
“Don’t try to butter me up with that sweet talk. You can eat canned stuff or eat nothing at all. It matters not one whit to me, Earl Buchanon. My days of leaping to my feet when you say boo are over, and over for good. If you want a slave, go buy yourself one. I ain’t for sale.”
Eilene turned on her heel and walked right out of the room, leaving Earl standing there dumbstruck. He figured she would have gotten back to normal by now, since that smarmy feminist had caused the bank to burn and had therefore been obliged to slink away in disgrace and to leave all the women to act like wives instead of loud-mouthed Communists.
He called Jeremiah McIlhaney on the pretext of talking deer season and slyly asked how things were over there. Jeremiah seemed real proud of the fact Millicent was baking bread, but then admitted he’d had to promise to take her to the picture show all the way in Farberville and have gussied-up ice cream sundaes afterward. Earl curled his lip but didn’t say anything to Jeremiah except it sounded like fun. He called Larry Joe and tried the same routine. Larry Joe’s voice got squirmy, and he finally said Joyce was still ticked off so bad she was refusing to do laundry or cook or much of anything except announce she was going to watch some movie on the television set that night, right when Roy had planned to settle down in front of a football game with a six-pack and a bag of nacho-flavored Doritos he’d bought for the occasion.
Earl made some more calls, but the reports were pretty much the same. The women were still acting screwy and showing no signs of easing up. As far as he could tell, Eilene was going to stand at the living room window until Kevin came home. She didn’t care if Earl starved to death, or ran out of clean underwear, or had to match his socks himself.
“What the hell is the world comin’ to?” he muttered out loud.
In the living room Eilene heard his plaintive remark but she saw no reason to enlighten him.
Carolyn came into the bar just as Staci Ellen was reaching the best part of her story about Bruno’s bowling team’s so-called picnic, when one of the boys had flung a Frisbee at a wasp nest just to show how tough he was. Ruby Bee and Estelle both sighed as Carolyn said, “Good, you’re here. Give me a rundown on what’s been happening at the office, then you can take the su
itcases around back to our rooms.”
Staci Ellen thought of all sorts of barbed remarks but decided there was something to the business about discretion and the better part of valor. “The mail’s on the table. There were no visitors and only two telephone messages. I wrote them down exactly how they were dictated.”
“I’m glad you’re learning,” Carolyn said as she riffled the mail. “Just tell me who called and the essence of the messages.”
“The caller’s name was Monty. He said an anonymous person sent his wife a letter detailing your affair with him, and also called the hotel in Las Vegas last night and left a lengthy message with the desk clerk. Then this Monty started cussing up a storm and calling you all sorts of nasty names like—”
“Never mind, Staci Ellen,” Carolyn said abruptly, looking a little warm despite the fact she was below a vent. She gave Ruby Bee and Estelle a strangled smile and suggested Staci Ellen take the suitcases to their rooms. Immediately.
Ruby Bee dived in. “Is Monty your boyfriend?”
“No, he’s merely a colleague who’s delusional at times. He really ought to be disbarred and committed to a nice quiet place with padded walls and designer straitjackets,” Carolyn said, regaining some if not all of her poise as she imagined Staci Ellen with her lips stitched up in a zigzag pattern. “Have you heard anything new from Arly?”
Ruby Bee poured Carolyn a glass of iced tea and one for herself. “There hasn’t been a peep from Arly, but Elsie McMay said she saw Arly driving out of town, and that Johnna Mae Nookim was sitting in the front seat looking despondent.”
“We think Arly was taking Johnna Mae to the county jail,” Estelle contributed. There wasn’t any reason Ruby Bee deserved all the fun, so she added, “This Monty fellow sounds crazier than a loon, but I’ll bet you’ve got all sorts of boyfriends down there in Little Rock.”
“I’m too involved in my work to waste time engaging in sexist mating rituals. If I wish to have a male companion for dinner or an evening at the theater, I simply invite him. All expenses are divided evenly.”