Mischief In Maggody

by Joan Hess

  "The only thing we saw was Baby. He looked mighty lonesome, so we fetched him with us." Hammet glanced at his siblings. "We all got something we wants you to explain. It's about this foster stuff, and gittin' new siblings and a bicycle. Arly's gone, and I figgered you was the next smartest person I knew."

  David Allen recounted what he knew of the process, being as truthful and candid as he dared. He admitted a lot of things that didn't sit real well with the Buchanon children, who were squirming and peeking at each other like wallflowers at a cotillion class (although they weren't that, by any stretch of the metaphor).

  When he finally stopped, Hammet looked at Bubba and shrugged. "So maybe you don't get a bicycle after all. I still don't think we should tell anybody, though."

  "Tell anybody what?" David Allen inserted, rather slyly he thought. "About our pappies," Sukie said through a finger.

  Bubba whacked her on the side of the head hard enough to put her on the floor. "You shut up, you stupid little pig. Me and Hammet is talking together. And shush your howlin' unless you wants another slap."

  Sukie didn't shush, which set Baby off to howling, too, and Sissie to scolding both of them. Despite the noise, Hammet and Bubba managed a low conversation while David Allen sat helplessly on the edge of his seat. At last Hammet gestured for David Allen to join him in the kitchen.

  "We're gonna tell you about our pappies," he said. "Bubba says that's a darn sight better than going off with some tight-ass social worker lady, and I guess he knows 'cause he's the oldest."

  "Great. Let me get a piece of paper and a pencil, and we'll-"

  "Oh, we ain't gonna tell you now. We're gonna tell you tomorrow after we goes to church," Hammet said, shaking his head.

  "After you go to church? Why would you want to do that?"

  Hammet looked at the floor. "Because that holyfied lady said we was going to hell iffen we didn't, and that we'd burn like sticks of kindling. We decided we need to see this church of the almighty place."

  "You realize they may not welcome you with open arms?"

  "We don' care what all they do. We ain't gonna talk until after we go to this church place."

  "But why do you have to wait to tell me about your fathers?" David Allen asked, totally bewildered. "I don't see what that has to do with anything." He went to the refrigerator and took out a much-needed beer, keeping a leery eye on Hammet. "If you want to go to church, I suppose I can take you in the morning, but there's no reason not to-"

  "Good," Hammet said. "By the way, we was wondering if we could sleep on your floor the rest of tonight. Baby's got snuffles, and Sukie don't look all that good, neither. If either of them commences to crying, we can stick 'em outside to shush 'em real fast. We won't bother you hardly at all."

  David Allen realized his jaw was going up and down but he wasn't making any noise-that he could hear, anyway. Hammet gave him a grin, then went back to the living room and turned on the radio receiver. By the time David Allen numbly followed, Hammet was explaining how Mr. Macaroni had also rigged up this here box where you could find rockets what prematurely crashed in the woods. Course it weren't as good as the ones you used to talk to foreigners in their houses, even if you didn't know what they was saying. For David Allen, the scariest thing was that it almost made sense.

  The moon came out about the time I reached my reserved parking space on the back side of the ridge. I took the little package of carob chip cookies that Rainbow had pressed on me, threw a few branches over the jeep, grabbed my flashlight, and trudged up to my campsite, yawning so hard my eyes watered and my jaw felt like it might pop out of its sockets. There was no indication I'd been visited by raccoons, bears, skunks, or anything else that might merit concern. Filled with gratitude for that small blessing, I crawled into the tent and secured the flap. My sleeping bag was damp, and my beeper cut into my side as I wiggled around to find a tolerable position, but I was too tired to do more than unclip the damn thing and lob it across the canvas floor.

  As I drifted asleep, I did wonder why Ruby Bee and Mrs. Jim Bob had ceased their relentless campaign to speak to me via LaBelle. I must have wasted a good ten seconds on that one.

  Madam Celeste stared into the blackness of her bedroom, unable to dismiss the face. The death mask. The wide, unblinking eyes. The flies on the clotted blood. The open mouth. The terror. For the first time in twenty years she longed to be Sarah Lou Dickerson, a gawky, knock-kneed, grimy girl in a faded dress donated by the righteous church dogooders. Living in a miserable trailer on a rocky patch of mountainside. Being whipped on a regular basis by her pa, when he wasn't doing other nasty things to her. Watching her ma get older and grayer, until she looked worse than the wash on the line.

  Grinolli had saved fifteen-year-old Sarah Lou from that, but he'd turned out to be worse than her pa and she'd had enough sense to exit with the first truck driver who'd stopped at the crossroads. Vizzard had been the savior. Although he'd been forty-five years older, he'd been rich and kind-as long as she serviced him (and at his age, it wasn't exactly a daily chore like milking cows; it was more like churning butter once a week). He'd taught her to read and write, and introduced her to a woman who'd understood how Sarah Lou kept seeing things that weren't there and having scary dreams that came true.

  She'd been right sad when she'd had the dream about Vizzard choking on the chicken wing, but she knew she couldn't alter the future, so she cooked what she had to cook and served what she had to serve. Despite having the ambulance number handy, she'd found herself a widow with a reasonable inheritance. She'd used it for what she called her junior year abroad, although the studies took place in dim parlors rather than in snooty art museums. Vizzard had been worth the trouble.

  But now, haunted by the face that would not go away, she wondered how she would have made out with Grinolli in the dreary apartment above the body shop, or with Vizzard if she'd risked cosmic displeasure and insisted on tuna casserole for dinner. Or if she'd allowed Mason to talk her into trying Atlantic City. Mason did seem to enjoy the bright lights, but they both knew he would go wherever she told him to go. Purse strings were longer than apron strings.

  They'd ended up in Maggody, which bore a strong resemblance to Hickory Ridge and all its narrow-minded shabbiness. And as she stared at the ceiling, she figured she knew why. Sarah Lou Dickerson Grinolli Vizzard had no theories, but Madam Celeste ("World-Renowned Psychic as Seen on the Stages of Europe") had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen. The shadow on the ceiling bore a passing resemblance to a chicken wing. There wasn't anyone to consider serving tuna casserole this time.

  13

  Imagine, if you will, the gossamer rays of pink and orange streaming from the eastern horizon as the sun begins its journey across the sky, lavender now but soon to change to a delicate clear blue. The early birds hop from leaf to leaf, trilling bright little songs of optimism and goodwill, of promised sunlight, of rebirth. Squirrels scamper about on the branches. Raindrops sparkle like rubies and sapphires as the morning light catches them. Idyllic, no?

  Now we must mar the bucolic beauty by the addition of one tired, rumpled woman. Her hair has been pinned up without the benefit of a mirror, and her clothes are wrinkled and somewhat dirty. Her face has not enjoyed the improvement of lipstick or mascara. Her shoes are muddy. Yes, it is the upholder of law and order in a small Arkansas hamlet, a police officer dedicated to the apprehension of a vile murderer at any personal sacrifice, the defender of the faith, all that. She is standing by a clearing, her hands curled into fists and her face frozen in a decidedly unattractive expression of disbelief, horror, and outrage (to list only a few). She is so angry that her body quivers like a plucked violin string. Her eyes are dry from the unblinking stare. Her mouth is slightly agape, but her lips do not move despite the little noises that emanate from deep within her. At last we hear two words.

  "Holy shit."

  This is said not in a loud voice, but in a coarse whisper. The fact that the words are intelligible is to b
e both noted and commended, because the woman has been incoherent for several minutes. As well we all would be…

  …because they had chopped the marijuana plants. The clearing was nothing but rows of stubble. The sons of bitches had come during the brief time I was gone, and they had stolen their plants. Not exactly from under my nose, since my nose had been occupied with the delivery of a baby. But pretty damn close.

  I sank down and leaned against a tree, ignoring the immediate sensation of cold wetness that engulfed my rear end. It could not be. I'd been on the stakeout since Friday night, expecting, or at least hoping for, some activity either Saturday or Sunday. But during daylight, for Pete's sake! They had to be escapees from a loony bin to drive up the trail in the dark. Kevin and Dahlia hadn't made it in full sunlight; I'd survived only because I had a sturdy four-wheel jeep and enough sense to creep so slowly I could have been lapped by a snail.

  And then there was the sheer coincidence-which was too much. I'd waited around for twenty-four hours, vigilant and alert and all that professional stuff. Had they so much as driven halfway up the trail, I'd have been ready for them. Had a foot snapped a twig, I'd have had my camera focused. But no one had appeared. I'd waited until dark and gone into town for maybe nine hours total. The sons of bitches had come and gone during those nine hours. Not a minute too early, not a minute too late. Just as though I were an airplane and they were air-traffic controllers watching my blip on a radar screen. And I'd gone blip, blip, blip down the road and all the way home.

  I dragged myself to my feet and went over to the trail. I could see the water-filled ruts their vehicle had left. The tracks from my vehicle ran over theirs, however, so it was clear that they'd come while I was gone. There were two sets of footprints, but no one had dropped a calling card. I glared at the trail and ground my teeth for a long while, then went back to the cleared clearing and ground my teeth some more. I said some things that scorched little tufted ears. I went all around the perimeter to search for evidence, then methodically examined every inch of stubbly ground. On my hands and knees.

  After I finished not finding so much as a turtle dropping, I thought of some more things to say, some of them about my night visitors and some about my dereliction and its resultant disaster. Some about my avowal to the sheriff that I'd catch the sons of bitches who had murdered Robin Buchanon with their lethal toy. Harve had taken a risk by allowing me to stake out the marijuana patch without any backup. We both knew what the standard procedure was, but I'd been so damned eloquent and sincere and charming that he'd let me do it.

  I'd blown it. I went to my campsite, made another cup of instant coffee, and gulped it down. It was so hot, it scalded my tongue and brought tears to my eyes. That's what I told myself, anyway, as I angrily rubbed my cheeks.

  "Hallelujah, it's getting light," Ruby Bee said as she looked through the window. The yard was disgraceful, all scratch dirt and weeds, but the woods beyond looked right pretty in the fresh sunlight.

  Estelle twisted in the rocking chair so she could see the window. "Well, it's about time. I don't know when I've spent such a miserable night. I hate to think how many splinters I have in places I don't care to mention. We would have been a sight more comfortable in the station wagon. I could have taken the front seat, and you could have stretched out in the back."

  "While freezing to death, I suppose. I told you to go lie down in the bedroom. You're the one who got all nervous and insisted we both sleep in chairs by the stove."

  "I didn't think the bed looked hygienic," Estelle countered, "and it was real crude of you to insinuate until all hours of the night that I believe in ghosts. I am not some hysterical widow woman; I merely have standards. The quilt on that bed is dingier than unbleached underwear. You never know what kind of diseases Robin carried, along with bugs and lice. I simply mentioned that the chairs were apt to be cleaner. Of course my station wagon is always clean." Ruby Bee thought of all kinds of things to say, including references to the undeniable truth that Estelle snored louder than a tractor on an incline, and the likelihood that the station wagon had been destroyed by bears by now. Instead, she went over to the table and tapped the Bible. "Then we wouldn't have found this. It was the reason we came here, wasn't it? How would you have felt if we'd slunk back to town empty-handed, with Arly waiting to ask how Baby's doing?"

  "We do have a few interesting tidbits, don't we?"

  "As sure as I'm standing here, eyeballs are going to pop out of some people's heads when we announce our news. I can hardly wait to see their faces. I don't imagine Robin has coffee and blueberry muffins anywhere around, so I guess we better start back for town. Do you want to visit the facilities before we leave?"

  Estelle shuddered. "I couldn't live with myself if I did. What about you?"

  "I think I'll wait for a nice bush along the road," Ruby Bee replied, giving in to a shudder herself. "At least I'll be able to see the spiders before they crawl on me. Do you have tissues in your purse?"

  "I never go anywhere without being prepared for emergencies of this exact kind. Unless you want to leave a note, let's go find ourselves some bushes."

  Ruby Bee gathered up the flashlight and the family Bible and stashed both in her purse. Once she was satisfied the fire was out, she and Estelle went out to the porch, closing the door carefully to keep out any varmints, then hurried across the yard and down the trail, where bushes were in abundance. Once they'd each had a few minutes of privacy, they began to trudge down the road, telling each other that it wasn't all that far and they'd probably make it in plenty of time. For what, they weren't real sure. However, haste seemed like it ought to be essential, and so they stepped lively.

  "Wake up, my dumpling; I thought I heard voices," Kevin whispered.

  Dahlia's head hung forward and she was snoring softly, like an asthmatic old hound dog in front of a campfire. He prodded her shoulder, but it didn't do any good. He wiggled around, relishing his seat in the soft valley of her broad thighs, then let his face fall against a pendulous breast. Nibbling gently so's not to disturb his beloved, he finally dozed off, a contented smile on his face and his Adam's apple rippling in time to the snores.

  I packed up the camping gear and took it to the jeep, not worrying that the perps might see me on the trail. It was a little late to lock the barn door. I then went back to the marijuana patch, but no clues had popped up in my absence. There was no point in trying to take plaster casts of the foot prints or the ruts in the trail; they were mushy, uneven puddles rimmed with mud. Not exactly prime evidence in a court of law.

  When I could think of no further evasive tactics, I fired up the radio and prepared to confess to that father confessor, LaBelle.

  Once I'd finished the dismal recitation, she said, "Heavens to Betsy, Arly, do you think they were watching you all that time and just waiting for you, to leave? That's enough to make your skin crawl, ain't it?"

  "I don't think so," I said slowly. "No one knew that we had discovered the pot patch and Robin's body. There'd be no reason to think the patch would be under surveillance. I didn't mention anything about my trip except that I'd be out of pocket for a couple of days. You, the sheriff, and I are the only people who know anything at all." I heard a sharp intake of breath, and it wasn't mine. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?"

  "Merle Hardcock knows about the body. Mebbe he said something."

  "He told me he was heading straight for Boone Creek, and would be there all weekend. He also swore on his motorcycle helmet not to say one word about finding the body. Did you tell someone about the murder, LaBelle? That information, coupled with my absence, could have tipped off the perps. Did I spend two miserable nights in a pup tent for nothing?"

  "Didn't you tell the Buchanon children that they were orphans?"

  "I told one of them, and asked a friend to break the news of her death to the others, but I told them it was an ordinary hunting accident. We get one or two of them a year, so no one's likely to suspect foul play. Did you tell someone there'
d been a murder?"

  "When are you coming back to town, Arly?"

  "Damn it, LaBelle, did you-"

  "I got to go, honey. My bladder's about to pop on account of this infection and the medicine that teenaged doctor gave me. I'll tell Harvey the news. Bye-bye."

  I let her escape, mostly because I intended to wring it out of her scrawny neck when I got to the sheriff's office. It had not been an amusing weekend, nor had it been worthwhile. Sitting under a bush all day and sleeping on rocks all night would have been justified only by the identification and subsequent arrest of Robin's murderers. Thirty-six hours of futility justified the strangulation of one dispatcher-once I found out to whom she'd blabbed. The Veterans' Auxiliary? The congregation of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

  As I drove down the road, it occurred to me that I could do something about Kevin and Dahlia now, since it didn't matter if a battalion searched the ridge. Hell, bring in the dogs, helicopters, the Mounties, and the Marines. I wasn't sure what I would do to Kevin when he surfaced, but I was in such a black mood that torture seemed too tame. My mood continued as I bumped down the road, found blessed pavement, and headed for Maggody at a rather brisk pace.

  I was still fuming and muttering when I passed the Voice of the Almighty and realized it was Sunday morning. All sorts of folks were on the grass in front of the building, shaking hands and relating the hottest gossip before they went inside for a dose of piety. I was almost past the group when I saw the most peculiar thing I'd ever seen in my life (and remember I strolled the streets of Manhattan in an earlier life).

  I slammed on the brakes to stare. David Allen Wainright stood at the edge of the grass. He was tugging at his collar and looking about as cool as a heifer in a slaughterhouse. Next to him were all the Buchanon children. All five of them. Bubba and Sissie were watching the church folks as if they anticipated attack. Sukie morosely sucked on a finger. Baby sat on the grass, chewing on a chunk of sod. My buddy Hammet was the only one in the group who looked pleased with himself; his mouth was stretched in a big grin, and his eyes darted about as if a circus parade could be heard in the distance.