by Joan Hess
Something twitched from underneath. He was curious enough to squat down and poke the shadow with a stick. “Something’s under here,” he said. “One of the Lord’s little critters needs to be on its way afore we commence our mission.”
“What is it?” she said, joining him. Destroying the still and burning up unspeakable lingerie was one thing—two, actually—but she didn’t want any roasted groundhogs on her conscience.
This led almost immediately to the second unexpected thing. The Mephitis mephitis (also called polecat, zorrino, and, by the less couth, wood pussy) was frightened by the jabs to its hindquarters. Instinct took over and it backed out from its haven, lifted its tail, and spewed out a message that had stopped many a predator ten times its size. Having succeeded, it stalked indignantly into the brush to hunt up some tasty grubs for supper.
Mrs. Jim Bob and Brother Verber were grappling with each other as they tried to escape the yellow mist that stung their eyes, clogged their throats, and seized their lungs. Both of them were screeching something awful; the words weren’t intelligible but the messages were pretty much identical. By the time they reached the far edge of the clearing, Mrs. Jim Bob was sobbing uncontrollably and Brother Verber was on his hands and knees and in the process of tossing his lunch.
“You idiot!” Mrs. Jim Bob howled between sobs. “I can’t believe what an idiot you are!” She staggered to her feet and tried to wipe the miasma off her face. She might as well have tried to wipe off her nose or her chin. “You stupid idiot!”
He caught hold of a sapling and pulled himself up, in some corner of his mind obliged to agree with her. “I didn’t know! I thought it was a—a—I dunno! I didn’t think it was a skunk, for pity’s sake!”
“You idiot,” she repeated for good measure, “look what you’ve done. I can barely see. What if I’m blind forever after? How are we gonna find our way out of here?”
She remained hysterical for another ten minutes or so. Brother Verber missed some of it because of recurrent nausea, but it finally eased up and he offered her his handkerchief. She was still making disparaging remarks when lightning crackled. Not more than a few seconds later, thunder exploded with such fury that the whole ridge trembled.
“Now what?” she shrieked, immediately lapsing back into hysteria. “Now what? What do we do?”
A fine question, worthy of the beacon of the flock, he heard himself thinking as he spun around and gazed at nothing more useful than scrubby brush and the creek bed they’d come up. He couldn’t recall which way the car was, but he was certain it was a long, long way. And they had a short, short time to find shelter.
“Stay here a minute,” he said, then hustled himself past the still to the other side of the clearing. There wasn’t much of anything there, either, and he plunged into the brush, his feet moving of their own accord and his mind nigh onto blank. He thrashed this way and that, feeling as if he were covering miles but actually making a loppy circle, and therefore was a little surprised at how quickly he returned to his companion.
“Well?” she snapped.
“There’s a cave not too far from here,” he gasped. “It ain’t a Holiday Inn, but it’s deep enough that we can get out of the rain. I think Raz uses it to store his whiskey.”
“What about this disgusting stench?”
Thunder reverberated, this time clearly a warning that the preliminaries were over and the rain was coming any minute. Brother Verber snatched up the packages and said, “I didn’t see a shower in the cave, if that’s what you mean. We’d better hurry, Sister Barbara. Time’s a-wasting.”
The heavens proved him right. They hurried to the cave, but by the time they arrived, they were soaked to the skin, shivering so hard neither could speak, and their clothes, rather than being rinsed off, smelled all the worse for being clammy. Mrs. Jim Bob sat down on a crate and blotted her face, then took a look at the decor, which consisted of a dozen crates of moonshine, a few stubby candles, crumpled candy wrappers, and a vast quantity of crushed acorn shells on the muddy floor.
She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and began to sniffle. It was retribution, she thought despondently. She’d sinned, and now she was being made to suffer for it. She’d entertained notions of lust, and to make it worse, had envisioned herself in the arms of another man. “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” she mumbled under her breath, “and thou better not even thinketh about it.” She’d said those very words to Jim Bob, time and again, once going so far as to write them down on a paper and leave it pinned to his pillow the night he hadn’t come home until the roosters were crowing and the first yellow school bus was sucking in a child at the edge of the county.
“Beg pardon?” Brother Verber said as he fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. He took in her startled gaze and said, “Don’t you mind, Sister Barbara. I have on an undershirt. I’m hoping it won’t smell quite so bad and I can put my shirt way off in the corner behind those crates.”
“I’m not about to take off my dress,” she said primly, or at least as primly as anyone could who was shivering, shaking, stinking, and dripping onto the floor of the cave. “I shall not sink to indecency, no matter how trying the situation. Now you fetch some wood and build a fire.”
They both looked at the rain coming down like Niagara Falls. “I don’t reckon we’ll have much luck with a fire,” he said as he threw his shirt down and determined sadly that his undershirt was just as wet and just as smelly. Lordy, it was cold. Poor Sister Barbara was twitching from her head to her ankles, and it was all he could do to stop himself from rushing to her side and wrapping his arms around her to share his warmth and to comfort her in this time of trouble and despair. “I wish we could get out of these wet clothes,” he said as he put that idea right out of his mind and sat down at a decorous distance. “They might dry if we spread ’em out for a time, but of course I know we can’t do that on account of being good Christians.”
Mrs. Jim Bob plucked at her sodden skirt. “You’re probably right about getting out of these clothes. However, I am a married woman, and under no circumstances would I behave immodestly in front of another man. Or in front of Jim Bob, for that matter.” Her teeth began to chatter so hard she had to stop talking. Her knees were knocking against each other as if they were applauding, although there sure wasn’t anything worthy of ovation. There they were, stuck in a cave with whiskey. They were wet, cold, stinking to high heaven, with no good idea of how to find the car should the rain ease up, and it was all her fault. She clenched her hands together and hung her head.
“I don’t think you ever said what’s in these boxes,” Brother Verber said, picking up one and peering at the splattered paper and listless white ribbon.
Ruby Bee was still irritated from the interview with Lieutenant Henbit and had been making it known going on several hours now. At the moment, she was flipping through the guidebook, but for not the first time. Then she slammed it on the bed and said, “I don’t know when I’ve met a less mannersome man. He acted ruder worse than Leadbelly Buchanon did when those kids tipped his outhouse. I swear, I thought ol’ Leadbelly would never quit griping about that.”
Estelle decided not to mention an uncanny parallel that happened to be lying on the bed. “At least you didn’t tell him about the purpose of your mission last night. Gawd only knows what he would have said if he’d been told. He might have arrested you for tampering with the contest rules or something, and you’d be back in the slammer before you knew what hit you.”
“If we could get this mess straightened out, maybe Geri could go ahead and have the cookoff,” Ruby Bee said, again not for the first time. “Ten thousand dollars ain’t chicken feed, not by a long shot, and I sure could use it. I might just buy some ferns for the barroom, after all. Dahlia doesn’t do much more than mope around as it is, so she could be in charge of sweeping up the leaves.”
They discussed the tragedy in Lebanon for a while, but they didn’t know much. After they’d agreed how awful it was and how they co
uldn’t imagine such a thing happening on a honeymoon and maybe this hotshot black FBI man might help, the conversation dribbled off. It did get them back to the problem with the plumber, however, in that Eilene was supposedly looking into the lead vs. copper situation.
Estelle snorted and said, “I’m having some doubts about this fellow, even if he really is just a bad plumber. Why would he be moonlighting for a snooty magazine? It seems to me he’d make a lot more money making emergency calls at night, when people are obliged to pay an arm and a leg to keep the house from flooding.”
“That old boy in Emmet charged me forty-five dollars when the commodes backed up on a Saturday night,” Ruby Bee muttered, getting steamed up just thinking about it. “He had the audacity to tell me that if I didn’t want to pay the extra charge, he’d see if he could come by Monday or maybe Tuesday. Now how am I supposed to make do without commodes for two or three days?”
“Why would he say he was a plumber if he wasn’t?”
“And what is he?” Ruby Bee mused aloud. There was a truckload of other questions, but she decided to chew on this one for the moment. “If he’s not a plumber, then maybe some of these other so-called workmen aren’t what they say, either. I’ll tell you one thing: Gaylene Feather is no cook. I asked her a few questions about her recipe, kind of assessing the competition, and she was as addled as a snake with feathers. I don’t know how she ever got to be a finalist.”
“It’s odd, her going to the Xanadu yesterday,” Estelle said. “If Arly hadn’t turned up like a bad penny, we might have figured out what she was up to. But you had to start asking that clerk about the lottery and how it worked, and that’s why Arly snuck up on us like she did.”
“I seem to recollect you were slobbering over my shoulder at the chance to win all those millions of dollars.”
“That ain’t the point. If those television detectives were as sloppy when they tailed someone, they’d end up dead before the second commercial.”
Blame was cast back and forth, but in a perfunctory way, and again the conversation dribbled off and both of them took to eyeing a spider on its way across the ceiling.
“It’s too bad we didn’t go up the alley alongside the Xanadu,” Ruby Bee said. “We might have seen Brenda Appleton inside, shooting that fellow—or someone else shooting him. I suppose the police looked around for clues, but they sure seem to think Brenda’s their culprit.”
Estelle assumed Ruby Bee had done her homework well. “Does she know how to cook?”
“Yeah, but she mentioned funny things like matzoh balls and chopped chicken liver.”
“Instead of fried? Does she cook it first, or is it raw?”
Ruby Bee held up her hand. “We didn’t swap recipes, Mrs. Pillsbury Doughgirl, and that’s not important, anyway. What matters is why those men keep going to the third floor and pretending they’re regular workmen. I’d be willing to say there’s something going on up there that doesn’t involve Krazy KoKo-Nut or lead-pipes.”
“Something illegal,” Estelle said, nodding. “Something so awful that they shot Jerome Appleton because of it and most likely the manager at the Xanadu. Maybe we ought Jo warn Rick about them. He could tell the lieutenant, and then the next time they come prancing in with their toolboxes, the police could arrest ’em on the spot.”
“I don’t know about that. After all, they’ve been remodeling this hotel for a time, and you’d think Rick would know if they weren’t who they said. Remember that man at the table saw? He was sure acting like he knew what he was doing, and doing it real loud, to boot. It’s not all of them, but just some, like our ignorant plumber.” She glanced at the bedside alarm clock she’d had the foresight to bring, since the Chadwick Hotel had failed to supply one. “It’s well past quittin’ time, so they’ve probably cleared out by now. What do you say we have a look around and see if we can figure out what’s going on besides remodeling? Then that rude lieutenant can arrest the murderers and we can have the contest.”
“And the ten thousand dollars?” Estelle said, wiggling her well-drawn eyebrows.
Ruby Bee allowed herself a smug smile. “And the ten thousand dollars. I got this contest tied up tighter than bark on a tree—if we ever get to fix our recipes.”
They made sure they had the room key, went out into the empty hallway, and headed for the elevator, doing all this real quietly so’s not to attract the attention of anyone in the rooms (Arly, for example). Once they were safely in the elevator, however, Estelle rolled her eyes and said, “These Yankees are the strangest folks I’ve ever met. They put the Buchanon clan to shame. Can you imagine eating raw chicken liver?”
The topic was more than adequate to entertain them as they rode toward the third floor.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The knock on Durmond’s door was more than mildly inopportune. I grabbed my clothes and hightailed it to my room, then leaned against the adjoining door while I caught my breath and reminded myself I was well past the age of consent—and had done more than my share of any consenting. Hell, I’d initiated it. There was no reason to feel like a kid caught necking on the porch. We were both single, sober, and attracted, and we’d been heading in this direction since we first laid eyes on each other. For all I could tell, I’d been heading in this direction since the stewardess had offered me a complimentary beverage of my choice and a foil packet with six lightly salted peanuts. As far as directions go, it wasn’t a bad one.
I regarded my flushed face in the mirror while I dressed and repaired my hair. There was no scarlet message written on my forehead, but it was obvious I hadn’t been flipping through a magazine during the last half hour, not with a complacent smile like mine. I peered more closely at my eyes, which were simmering with the frustration born of being interrupted during a more leisurely expedition. It then occurred to me that I’d fled so quickly that I didn’t know the identity of the intruder in the next room. I gave up analyzing my recent behavior—not repenting, mind you, analyzing—and went to the adjoining door to knock. My hand froze as I heard Lieutenant Henbit’s dulcet voice.
“Yeah, we picked her up at Grand Central,” he said. “She had a hundred thousand in her bag, but refused to explain it or anything else. One little phone call, and this sleazy lawyer comes barging in, bitching about a lack of evidence, and advising her not to say a word.”
“A hundred thousand,” Durmond said with a whistle.
“This particular sleazy lawyer has been on retainer for certain unsavory families for the last decade. Why would a nice suburban housewife call him?”
“Because her husband worked for them,” I said as I came into the room. Henbit made a burbulous noise, but I ignored it. “I heard him and Rick in the office the day I arrived. Jerome Appleton was their accountant. That explains why Brenda was invited to be a contestant, and why she knew the name of a sleazy lawyer.” I resisted the temptation to make a more generic remark about the profession and waited for Henbit and Durmond to congratulate me on the significance of my comments.
“We know that,” Henbit said. “What I was about to point out when you barged through the door”—he paused to smirk at the rumpled sheets from which we could all see steam rising—“or back through the door, was that we now know that Mrs. Appleton was aware of her husband’s association with the Gabardi organization. Our theory is that he decided to walk out on her, packed his bags, and tried to split. She didn’t go for it, so she followed him through the kitchen to the alley, where she shot him.”
“Ruby Bee saw the body in the kitchen,” I protested.
“So she says. The lab boys are testing the floor and walls for blood, and we’ll have the results before too long. Thing is, she could have shot him there just as easily and dragged him out to the dumpster, set his luggage where it could be stolen by the first bum that staggered by, and then, being a finicky homemaker, felt obliged to clean up the mess she’d made. I’m aware Pilverman here is convinced there were drugs involved, but we haven’t turned up so much as a gra
m and I don’t have the manpower to crawl over every inch of this place in search of one.”
“Where’d she get a hundred thousand dollars?” I asked.
“From his suitcase. Maybe he’s the sort who prefers to pay cash instead of putting it on plastic.”
Durmond gave me a warning look. “I talked to Sonny earlier about this. Let me share our thoughts with you. Appleton went to the kitchen to avail himself of a package or two of Colombia’s finest on his way south. Rick and Cambria were there, getting ready to replace the contents of the cartons with what was supposed to be in them, and they were unhappy about Appleton’s plans. One or the other shot him, and they took away the cartons to complete the substitution. Ruby Bee saw the body before they’d had time to move it to the dumpster, clean up the blood, and replace the cartons.”
It wasn’t quite what he and I had come up with, but I merely frowned and said, “The cocaine’s liable to be on the third floor, Lieutenant Henbit.”
“Ms. Hanks,” he said, his frown a great deal less winsome than mine and his drawl more pronounced, “we have searched the third floor. There is a great deal of evidence that the remodeling continues. We’re talking tools and lumber and sawdust and sheetrock and all those subtle hints even we could hardly miss. If there ever was cocaine, it’s long gone from this hotel. I don’t give a shit what you, Agent Pilverman, and his undercover cohort think, and to be blunt, the last thing I need is a one-bullet cop and a pair of feds messing up my investigation.”
I was going to tell him I had three bullets, but I sensed it was not the moment to quibble about such details. Nor did I offer the information that he had a couple of amateurs on the prowl, partly because I had no idea what they were up to and partly because I was pissed at his attitude. He’d find out in good time. “What are you doing with Rick and Cambria?” I asked meekly (I do great meek).