by Joan Hess
“Matt Montana came to town two years ago?”
“I thought we were talking about little Moses Germander. He’s what came and sat right there and visited for most of the afternoon. He was all growed up and filled out. He brought me some real pretty flowers and a box of candy. I had to give the candy to Iva on account of the pecans. Pecans have always given me gas. Everything gives her gas, so I figured it didn’t matter either way.”
“What did he want?”
“He didn’t want nothing except to see how I was getting along. I’m old, you know. I’ve got my plot out by Mr. Wockermann and a paid-up burial policy that cost me three dollars a month for seventeen years.”
Mrs. Jim Bob was not about to be distracted by Adele’s approaching demise. She took a magazine from her purse and opened it to a photograph of a handsome young man in a rhinestone-studded suit. “Is this the boy?”
Adele frowned for a long time, sliding her tongue over her dentures and scratching her chin, letting the suspense build just to get even with her visitor. “Iva’s better at faces than I am, but I don’t think you should wake her. She’s been asleep like that since last Thursday or Friday. She ain’t dead, though. She grunts every time I poke her.”
“Is this the boy who came in the summers?”
“This cain’t be him. He wore ratty jeans and shirts with the sleeves chopped off. He was skinny as a rail, with red blistery pimples all over his face and back, and he wore his hair down to his shoulders like a girl. If Mr. Wockermann had been alive, he’d have dragged that boy down to the barber shop and held him in the chair while ol’ Grubbins shaved his head.”
“Is this who came two years ago to visit you?”
“I reckon it is.”
Mrs. Jim Bob thought she heard a muffled noise from out in the hallway, but she didn’t hear anything else and she finally dismissed it as a manifestation of Iva’s problem. When she looked back at Adele, she realized that her hearing aid had been turned on and the only responses from then on would concern the high jinx taking place on the far side of the moon.
Not that she cared. She had the story just as she’d promised Mr. Ripley Keswick in Nashville, Tennessee, and she had time to call him back and relate every word of it before she got dressed for prayer meeting.
The “real humdinger” of a wreck had made for a lively day, but the next day was less exciting than one of Brother Verber’s hell-and-damnation sermons. I ran a speed trap at the north end of town until I finished my book, and then followed the school bus to the county line, watching the children behind the dusty windows stick their little pink tongues at me. The older ones, and we’re talking ten or eleven, preferred a more traditional hand gesture to express their contempt for the law. I figured we could discuss it in a year or so, when I caught them drinking beer, smoking pot, or drag racing out on the back roads. Maggody doesn’t offer its youth much in the way of wholesome entertainment. Count the condoms and the whiskey bottles out by Boone Creek if you don’t believe me.
It was close enough to dusk to call it a day, although not much of one. I drove back through town slowly, not sure if I wanted to go back to my one-room efficiency over Roy Stiver’s antique store and drown my sorrows in chicken noodle soup, or suffer through the whiny songs on the jukebox in order to get a decent meal.
Chicken soup it would be, I decided as I pulled into the parking lot in front of the redbrick PD and went inside. My latest gift from the town council sat on the desk, blinking angrily at me. The town councilmen—there’ll be a councilwoman right after the local ducks start quacking in French—don’t give me things in order to express their deep and abiding respect for my dedication to duty. They’re just too damn cheap to pay a salary for a deputy.
The red eye was menacing, the blinking nearly hypnotic. I eased past it and went into the back room to put my radar gun away in the metal cabinet that also held my gun and a box with my last three bullets. If the Four Horsemen were to come thundering into town, I’d shoot Famine first and then start drawing straws.
The front door opened and someone shuffled into the room. The accompanying odor swept through the office like a tidal wave, swelling into corners and butting against the ceiling. If it had color, it would have been bilious green. I recognized it as the unlovely emanation of Raz Buchanon, the local moonshiner. Tourists find him quaint. I find him a royal pain in the ass.
“We’re closed, Raz,” I said as I glumly regarded his filthy overalls, stringy gray hair, bloated belly, food-encrusted whiskers, and the ominous bulge of his cheek. “No crimes allowed after five o’clock. And do your spitting outside, please.”
I would have had equal luck communicating with a tree stump. “Now, Arly,” he sniveled, “I got some right important bizness with you. Somebody dun went and broke the law, and you being the police, you’re the one what ought to do something.”
“Did Perkins steal another of your dogs?”
“If that sumbitch so much as looks cross-eyed at any of my dawgs, I’m gonna blow his goddamn head off.” Raz sat down and began to scratch aimlessly. He comes from a particularly thorny branch of the Buchanon clan, one renowned for mindless retribution and infrequent displays of animal cunning. I doubted he’d ever been to a wedding or a funeral in which shotguns failed to outnumber guests. None of them differentiates among uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins, and parents. The consanguinity’s too complex.
I sat down behind my desk and reminded myself to breathe through my mouth. “Okay, Raz, let’s hear it.”
“Well, the thing is, I was a-drivin’ into town from over by Hasty, and out of the blue, Marjorie gits a funny look on her face like there’s a flea in her ear.”
“There probably was a flea in her ear, Raz,” I said, not pointing out the obvious source of said flea.
“This ain’t the time for jokes, Arly. Anyways, Marjorie’s been acting odd lately, but this time she’s acting so dadburned odd that I stop my truck, turn around, and go driving back to the low-water bridge, looking real careful like for whatever was puzzlin’ her. Then I seen it, and I liked to run clean off the bridge.”
I have to admit I was getting interested. “And?”
“Some low-down sumbitch moved the sign.”
Here I’d been hoping to hear about aliens emerging from a silver saucer, or Mrs. Jim Bob and Brother Verber capering indiscreetly in a cornfield. “What sign?” I asked.
“The town limit sign.” He creaked to his feet and stomped over to the front door to spit in the parking lot. To my regret, he stomped back and sat down. “That sign used to be right past Estelle’s. Now any fool can see it’s by the bridge. What are you gonna do about it?”
I stared at him. “Have you and Marjorie been lapping up too much moonshine?”
“I don’t know nuthin’ about any moonshine. Don’t take to bein’ accused, neither.”
“Jesus H, Raz, every last person in town knows you have a still on Cotter’s Ridge. I’ve been trying to find it for three years. Cut the crap about not knowing ‘nuthin’ about any moonshine,’ okay?”
“I don’t know nuthin’,” he muttered into his whiskers. “So what are you aimin’ to do about the sign? Nobody kin just up and move a sign like that.”
“If the sign has been moved, what earthly difference does it make to you? You live out the opposite direction.”
“It just ain’t right,” he said, then again creaked to his feet and went to the door to spit. “You better have a look fer yourself,” he said over his shoulder, scratched his butt, and ambled through the doorway. “And check your messages.”
I did, but they were all from Ruby Bee and centered on how displeased she was to have to speak to an answering machine. It was getting dark and I was getting hungry, but I was curious enough to take a flashlight out of a drawer, hang the CLOSED sign on the door, and drive toward County 102. The obvious explanation was that Raz was confused, I thought, more than a little confused myself. He was sly enough to hide his still from the long arm of the law, but
he was a Buchanon, after all. I would have had no problem if he reported the sign was shot full of holes or embellished with an obscene word. Vandalizing property is a popular hobby for young and old. But to move a sign fifty feet?
Estelle’s house was on the right, and farther down the road, the Wockermann house loomed on the left. It was dark and deserted, just as it’d been since the last tenants moved away. The house had been in disrepair then; surely by now it deserved to be condemned.
I continued past the chicken houses, one charred and the other merely ramshackle, and parked by the low-water bridge, which, for the uninformed, is a concrete swath that allows water to flow across it. After a hard rain, it can make for an exciting minute or two. The sign was where Raz had claimed it was. It was pockmarked and rusted to the edge of indecipherability, but after a couple of years in Maggody, most everything and everybody is.
I’d never paid attention to its location, however, and I felt pretty damn foolish standing in the dark and shining my flashlight at it. It finally occurred to me to direct the beam at the ground. The earth was fresh. Frowning, I walked along the road until I came to spot where I found a depression, the earth also freshly disturbed.
And to think I keep griping that nothing ever happens in Maggody. Tsk, tsk.
“No luck at the courthouse?” Ruby Bee asked solicitously. “You look as worn out as a cow’s tail on a humid day. Let me get you a glass of sherry.”
Estelle considered marching out the door, but reconsidered and perched on her stool. “I spent all morning looking through die birth certificates for the whole year, but all of ’em had home addresses that weren’t in Maggody. There was one rural route that got me stirred up. Then the clerk got out a county map and we tracked it down to a road out by Hamilton.”
“All that work for nothing.” Ruby Bee set down the glass of sherry and made sure the pretzel basket was filled. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you, but some of us had better things to do all day than to flip through dusty old books.” She took a dishrag and began to wipe the bar, her expression perfectly innocent except for a bare trace of a smile. Just in case Estelle missed the message, she started humming Matt Montana’s best-known song.
“I suppose I could call Patty May Partridge and ask her if she’s heard anything new,” Estelle said with a sigh.
“She got off work at noon today.”
“Then maybe I’ll call her tomorrow, although it probably ain’t worth the effort.”
Edging closer, Ruby Bee hummed louder and made sure she wiped in time with the music.
Estelle remained oblivious. “I saw a real pretty sweater at the K-Mart, and nearly bought it, but then I couldn’t think what I’d wear it with, so I put it back. It was pink, with brown flowers and seed pearls.”
Ruby Bee’s eyes were bulging and her lips beginning to ache. She quit the humming and said, “Did I mention that Patty May got off work at noon?”
“I seem to recollect that you did.” Estelle inspected a pretzel and stuck it in her mouth. After a moment of thoughtful mastication, she said, “These are a mite stale. You ought to throw ’em out tomorrow and open a fresh bag. I know they ain’t the reason business is so bad, but you don’t want to let your standards slip.”
“Aren’t you gonna ask why I happen to know the precise time that Patty May got off work?”
“I think I’ll go home and heat up the lasagna I fixed last night.” She slid off the stool and acted like she was leaving, although she wasn’t about to until she heard whatever it was that was setting Ruby Bee to twitching like she had her finger in a light socket and her foot in a bucket of water. “Don’t forget that we’re going to that flea market on Saturday morning. On the way, we may just have to run by the K-Mart so I can take another look at that sweater.”
“Because she came here to tell me her big news,” Ruby Bee blurted out in desperation. She snatched up a piece of paper and flapped it. “I wrote down the details so I wouldn’t forget anything.”
“How’d you find time to do that during your busy day?”
“Do you want to know or not?”
It could have escalated into a fine Mexican standoff, but Estelle swallowed her pride (for the moment, anyway) and climbed back up on her stool.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Kevvie,” Dahlia wailed, rocking back and forth so wildly that Eilene was worried about the future of the swing, the porch, and even the second story of the house. “I ask him what’s wrong, but he won’t tell me. You’re his ma. You got to make him tell me what’s wrong!”
Eilene looked down at the moist mountain of misery. “All newlyweds have problems getting adjusted to married life,” she said as warmly as she could, considering she’d said it—or other similar platitudes—for the best part of an hour. On the other hand, Dahlia hadn’t offered much in the way of variations and it was beginning to wear thin.
“Tell her to turn it down out there,” Earl called from the living room, where he was leaning so close to the television screen that his nose hairs tingled with static electricity. “The ball game’s in the last quarter. I can’t hardly hear the announcer over all that racket she’s making.”
“He’s changed,” Dahlia continued. “Yesterday there was a woman doctor on Sally Jessy, talking about how to save your marriage. I listened to every word she said. Last night when Kevvie walked through the door, I was wearing a naughty black nightie. I’d pinned my hair up on top of my head, put on makeup, and splashed half a bottle of cologne behind my ears. He went right by me to the bedroom like I was invisible.”
Eilene fought back a grimace as she imagined the scene. “He was tired, honey. Going to all those houses, lugging that heavy suitcase—it’s wearing him out.”
“Something’s wrong with Kevvie,” she recommenced to wailing, making so much noise that dogs across town were howling and most of the neighbors on Finger Lane had come out on their porches to listen.
“Are folks going to remember you?” Ripley asked as he studied his notes.
Matt grinned. “It was a good ten years ago and I was just a runty kid trying to keep himself amused. If the same hick’s running the pool hall, he’ll remember kicking me out on my ass for stealing field whiskey from his stash in the back room. Used to be an antique store across from that, and if it’s still there, the old guy might tell the reporters about the time I tried to set fire to his cat. The preacher might remember how close I came to screwing his daughter in the basement of the church while the choir sang ‘Come Unto the Bosom of Jesus’ ten feet above us.”
“What about your great-aunt?”
“She’s the one what caught us in the basement.”
Ripley sighed as he imagined the reporters’ collective glee (and ensuing articles) if they were privy to Matt’s attempts to amuse himself. The tour would collapse, as would the opportunity to sell Country Connections, Inc. Pierce and Lillian refused to even meet with Whitey Breed, but Ripley’d had several clandestine conversations and had gone so far as to offer rosy financial projections based on the success of Matt’s new album.
Damn.
Buy O Little Town of Maggody Now!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joan Hess (b. 1949) is the award-winning author of several long-running mystery series. Born in Arkansas, she was teaching preschool when she began writing fiction. Known for her lighthearted, witty novels, she is the creator of the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the Arly Hanks Mysteries, both set in Arkansas.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is awork of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 19
92 by Joan Hess
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3722-8
This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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