Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 02 (12 page)

Which got her back to Brother Verber and his no-show. He was the one who'd counseled her to bring the bastards into her home -- or what was left of it. He'd been full of praise for her self-sacrificing, saintly, charitable generosity. Why, if he'd said not to do it, she might well have heeded his advice. But he'd been right enthusiastic. He didn't seem to think it was a sin to disobey her husband, even though she'd said "love, honor, and obey" in a clear, steady voice and had certainly meant every syllable of it at the time.

Which got her back to Jim Bob.

She retreated to the bed and sank down on the edge so as not to wrinkle the bedspread. At last she took the telephone book and looked up a number. She didn't much want to admit things weren't going real well, but she didn't see what else she could do -- if she wanted to be the mayor's wife and live in a fine house on top of the hill, complete with professional landscaping and new beige carpet. Her finger was trembling so hard, it took her a long time to fit it in the little circles, but she did.

"That is the second stupidest thing I've heard all day," I said. "The only reason it's not the stupidest is that I've already heard it."

"But it makes perfickly good sense," Ruby Bee said. She plopped a spoonful of yellow goop into Baby's mouth, then wiped the little chin with a dishrag. "Madam Celeste has the ability to help you find Robin Buchanon, and you're downright mulish not to ask her to assist in the investigation. I told you how she advised Gladys Buchanon to look in her top dresser drawer for her glasses, and there they were. Now, you can't close your eyes to the significance of something like that."

"Watch me." I closed my eyes until it got boring. When I opened them, I saw Ruby Bee bent down in front of the high chair, shoveling in more goop. "It's out of the question, and I don't want to discuss it further. Madam Celeste is a quack, as in duck."

"She is not," Estelle said in a scandalized voice. She was sitting at the bar, smiling approval at each successful spoon of goop. "Wipe his chin, Ruby Bee; he's liable to chap. Now, Arly, I don't know where you get off saying that sort of thing. Did you hear the story behind Madam Celeste's move to Maggody?"

"Something about a lost boy," I said. "Right out of a book about flying children, pirates, and fairies. I just came by to check on Baby and let you know where I'll be for the next six hours of my life. I did not come by to argue about something that is out of the question."

Estelle held out her hand to inspect her scarlet fingernails. "Well," she said airily, "isn't it timely that you'll have the opportunity to tell Madam Celeste yourself."

"No, I won't. I'm going up to Cotter's Ridge to see how many chiggers and ticks I can find. I'm going to come back to my apartment and take a long, hot bath and read a trashy thriller until my toes shrivel up. If I see fit, I may go hog wild and open a can of chicken noodle soup." I did not add that I would then go over to David Allen's house for a rematch and a bottle of champagne. Nobody's business.

"Tomorrow," Estelle continued in the same complacent voice. "That's when I told Mason to tell her that you were coming. At eleven o'clock, and try not to be late this time, Arly. You can see that it upsets Madam Celeste."

"No."

"Estelle as good as made an appointment," Ruby Bee said.

"Estelle can cancel it," I said, starting for the door.

"Madam Celeste has a very busy schedule, and I don't aim to do anything to upset her," Estelle said.

I stopped and turned back with my firmest expression (my ex-husband used to refer to it as "the Ice Queen Clone"). "This has nothing to do with me. I am not going to allow Madam Celeste to muddle up this investigation. I am not going to allow you two to muddle it up, either. You may make and break appointments to your hearts' desires, but I do not even want to hear about it. Am I making myself clear?"

"Like Boone Creek," Ruby Bee sniffed.

"In April," Estelle snorted.

I turned my back on the pair and stomped out the door. It would have played better if my beeper hadn't started chirping before I made it to the jeep. In that it was the first time it had done anything except disrupt my lines, it took me a few seconds to punch the button that indicated I'd received the message. And of course the radio in the jeep was dead, owing to someone's inquisitive, dirty little fingers.

I went back inside the bar and over to the telephone, ignoring all the raised eyebrows and smirky smiles aimed in my direction. I called the dispatcher and asked for the message, which turned out to be Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon, an emergency, call as soon as possible. "What kind of emergency?" I asked the dispatcher.

"I don't know, Arly. She sound pretty weird, though, like a character in one of those zombie movies. The last time I had a call like that was from an eighty-four-year-old woman who'd just put two loads of buckshot in her husband's face. Seems he'd been fooling around with some girl at the community college. Night school, naturally. She pled temporary insanity 'cause of unbridled passion, and the jury hooted so hard the judge threw it out of court. It was about a month after Hiram's barn burned."

I thanked the dispatcher for the bit of trivia (although I doubted it would come up in the edition David Allen and I played) and replaced the receiver. I knew darn well what Mrs. Jim Bob's emergency was, but I didn't know how to handle it so that it wouldn't result in a jeepful of Buchanon bush colts.

"Isn't he the sweetest thing?" Ruby Bee cooed.

"He's such a darling," Estelle simpered. "It's just awful that no one seems to have taken the time to give this cutie pie a name. Now, look at that tiny nose. Isn't that the tiniest little nose you ever laid eyes on?"

I took my thirty-five-year-old nose out the door, telling myself I'd deal with the emergency at Mizzoner's house when I got back to town. The justification for the cowardice was the premise that I'd find Robin at the cabin, sick with worry about her children and frantic to dash back with me so she could clutch them to her bosom. It put a strain on my powers of imagination, but I clenched my teeth and gave it my best as I drove toward Cotter's Ridge. At fifteen miles over the speed limit. I wasn't going to issue a citation to myself, after all.

Mrs. Jim Bob glared at the telephone, but it still wouldn't ring. Somewhere below there was a thud that shook the house, followed by a screech and some howls. Mrs. Jim Bob kept her eyes on the telephone, willing it to ring. Making all kinds of promises to the Lord if He'd make it ring. Making promises in Jim Bob's name if He'd make it ring, and telling herself she would take it upon herself, Barbara Ann Buchanon Buchanon (they were second cousins once removed), to see he carried out every last one of them. The telephone remained silent.

When she'd called earlier, she was promised that the message would be beeped to Chief Hanks pronto. She'd told Jim Bob that the purchase of the beeper was a waste of municipal funds, but he'd snickered and said he'd have preferred a choke collar, but couldn't convince the other councilmen to agree. Well, it was obvious who was right and who was wrong. The beeper was a waste of money -- since it didn't work.

Thinking of that brought her back to Jim Bob, for the umpteenth time. He was going to be furious, both at the fact that she'd defied him and at the destruction of the house. He could be meaner than a pit bull terrier with mange. She certainly couldn't call him all the way down in Hot Springs to get his advice about the horrid frenzy going on downstairs. Arly didn't seem inclined to return her call. Besides, she told herself with the slightest hint of a wicked smile (because she was not a wicked woman; everybody knew that), the bastards needed a strong moral hand to slap them into a semblance of civilized behavior. And who was the shining beacon of morality and righteousness and decency in Maggody?

Wincing at a particularly loud crash, she dialed the number of the Voice of the Almighty Lord parsonage, which was a mobile home parked out behind the building. The line was busy. Sighing, Mrs. Jim Bob dialed the dispatcher to try again.

The cabin was as vacant as a dead man's eyes. Having expected nothing to the contrary, I forced myself to poke around for clues. What kind of clues did I think I'd find? Nonexistent clues. The cabin was a two-room shack, the front room a general-purpose living room, library, kitchen, sleeping area for the children, and den. A living room because of a couple of hickory chairs with splintery seats; a library because of a family Bible and a few tattered picture books; a kitchen because of a wood stove and a bucket of greenish water; a sleeping area because of the straw pallets. A den because it was fit for animal occupancy.

The back room was Robin's bedroom. The bed was a contraption of sticks lashed together with rope, the mattress stuffed with corncobs. A pile of clothes reeked in one corner, and two complacent mice scratched in the other. Over the bed hung a small square of cross-stitch that said, God Bless Our Happy Home. Robin probably traded a jar of hooch for it.

She wasn't there, though, and the stove was cold. There were a lot of cobwebs, but I had no idea how long they'd been there. Years, maybe. Dirt and grime and grease. Dried leaves on the pinewood floor. A tin plate with some unidentifiable smears of a meal long past. If you noticed I didn't describe the bathroom, it's because it was at the end of a path out back and I wasn't in the mood to open the door for a quick search.

It got to me. I went outside and sat down on the edge of the porch, still amazed and depressed that people could live that way. It was more than thirteen hundred miles to Manhattan -- it was more like a million miles. Had my ex, who thought he was dealing with a primitive culture when his martini lacked an olive, been given a tour of the cabin and adjunct, he would have assumed he was hallucinating and dashed off to his analyst to discuss the implications. Had Robin been given a tour of the Manhattan co-op, she would have laughed herself silly at what we felt was vital to a civilized existence.

I reminded myself that Robin Buchanon had chosen her lifestyle. She had enough relatives in the county to throw herself on one of them, to live in the back room or up in the attic. Or down in the root cellar, for that matter. But her children hadn't made the decision to live in incredibly grim poverty, isolated from normal people, deprived of any chance for an education and thus unable to escape from a lifetime of this. Perhaps I'd done them a disservice by bringing them off the ridge, I thought bleakly. Especially Hammet, who seemed to have a quick wit and a curious mind.

"Aw, hell," I said aloud, startling a lonely hen that had wandered around the corner to peck at the packed dirt. She gave me a beady look, then produced a single cluck of disapproval and stalked away.

I decided to see if David Allen might be able to do something for the children, who were legally required to attend the local school, even if said school was not delighted to have them and willing to waive the long-standing truancy. However, for the moment I needed to search the area for Robin's still and the ginseng patch. Both were probably in an eighty-acre section. I reluctantly rose and started into the woods, glad I'd had the sense to wear boots and a heavy jacket.

Mason opened the door cautiously. "How you doing, Celeste?" he asked in a low voice. "Can I fetch something for you -- a soda pop or a sandwich?"

She sat in front of a round table. Tarot cards were spread in front of her, each a brightly colored depiction of an ancient symbol. "Come in, Mason," she said without looking up.

"Ah, sure." He entered the solarium and sat down across from her at the dinette table. "Have you figured out whose face you saw when you were with Carol Alice?"

"No. But there are many swords in the cards these days, which tell me there will be trouble. The King of Wands appears every time I deal the cards; he will not go away and he is always reversed. I do not like it." She tapped a card with a picture of a bearded monarch.

"He doesn't look all that nasty," Mason said. "You see him from your side of the table. To me, he is reversed, which indicates the presence of at best an unreliable man, at worst a sly liar."

Mason laughed, albeit uncomfortably. "Not your baby brother, I hope. I may forget to watch the time once in a while, but I'm a terrible liar. You know how my face turns red and I start to stammer."

She glanced up for a brief second, her expression enigmatic. Returning to the cards, she said, "I am not sure who it represents. He is surrounded by the Nine of Swords and the Moon, which warns me there is trickery and deception in this town. There is much mischief afoot in this little town of Maggody, but I do not know who is behind it or why." She tapped a picture of a skeleton holding a scythe. "And Death is here, grinning at me."

Mason stared at the card, reminding himself he didn't believe in this crap. "Is someone going to die?" he heard himself say with a gulp.

"It does not always mean that someone will die. There will be changes, however, and not necessarily for the best. And the King of Swords, reversed, speaks to me of violence. I do not like what I see, Mason, but the cards do not lie to me."

He couldn't think of much to say, so he settled for a nod and repeated his offer to fetch her something to eat or drink. He was relieved when she ordered him away with an irritable demand to be left alone. Fine with him, he thought as he went out to his car. He'd go over to Ruby Bee's and see if anybody wanted to discuss pro football over a beer. As he backed out of the driveway, he spotted the redhaired beautician coming toward the mailbox. He rolled down the car window and said, "Good morning, Miss Oppers. How are you this fine autumn morning?"