Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 06 (15 page)

“Figured it out yet?” Dahlia said in the same simpery voice.

In the sanctuary of her own bedroom, where nobody could see her, Mrs. Jim Bob was on her knees beside the bed, her elbows spread on the pink bedspread, her hands clasped, her eyes rolled toward heaven, her lips sucked in so tightly that her chin trembled. On the far side of the door, Jim Bob was snorting and harrumphing like he always did before settling down, but there was no way she was going to get any sleep until she and the Almighty agreed upon an answer.

Her immediate problem was that she couldn’t bring herself to formulate the question. The very question itself … well, it was unthinkable. She wasn’t about to invite it into her mind, not one lurid word of it.

“For better or worse, till death do us part,” she murmured over her bent thumbs. As far as she could tell, neither one of them was planning to die anytime soon, which meant she had many a hard row to hoe down the line. Oh, Jim Bob thought he’d fooled her all these many years, claiming he had to work late or had to run into Farberville for a meeting, but she wasn’t stupid, for pete’s sake. Whenever he started snuffling after a new hussy, he’d turn genial and mannersome and stop whining about having to dress up for prayer meeting on Wednesday nights. He’d also lose interest in crawling into her bed, which was fine with her. Mrs. Jim Bob wiggled her elbows more firmly into place and let her forehead fall onto her entwined fingers. But was there something out there that she’d been missing? In the trashy novel she’d confiscated from one of the girls in her Sunday school class, there’d been all sorts of nonsense about … well, romance. About moonlight, supple lips, and electricity racing through one’s veins, throbbing and pulsating and demanding and forcing and …

Was it possible to enjoy It? It, of course being the marital obligation that her mother had so rightly warned her about just before the wedding. The thought had never before occurred to her. She’d just kept her eyes closed and reminded herself that what seemed like disgusting animal behavior was actually encouraged by the Good Book itself. Although she hadn’t been fruitful or done any multiplying, she felt obliged to do her duty … week after week after week.

Mrs. Jim Bob reminded herself that she wasn’t all that old. If nothing else, she was young enough to be married to a self-proclaimed stud willing to indulge his carnal desires from one end of the county to the other. She’d kept her figure. There was life within her, albeit buried pretty darn deep.

Adultery was out of the question, of course. “Till death do us part,” she repeated sternly to herself. She could smell a mortal sin from a long way away, and she valued her eternal soul too much to consider the very idea.

But then, despite the surge of piousness that might have allowed her dreamless peace, she recalled the feel of another man’s hand on her thigh, and she was overcome with an image. Overcome and overwhelmed.

She crept into bed and yanked the blanket to her chin. Moonlight danced seductively on the ceiling, causing shadows to melt in and out of each other like amorous amoebas. For the first time in her life, Mrs. Jim Bob wished she were a Catholic. Everybody knew they did whatever they wanted all week long, including murdering and raping and robbing and fornicating and all kinds of sinful things, and then just sashayed into a funny wooden box and confessed their sins to a priest. He canceled every last one of them, just like that.

“Not fair,” Mrs. Jim Bob murmured, pulling the blanket up farther so she wouldn’t have to watch the shadows copulating on her ceiling.

“This is a fine mess,” Ruby Bee said from within the bathroom. “I come all the way here to be in a cooking contest, then the prissy little thing goes flying off the handle and storms out the door. They may have paid for the airplane tickets, but I spent a goodly sum of money for clothes for this shindig. On account of bein’ given less than a week’s notice, I didn’t have time to see what all was on sale. Furthermore—”

Estelle closed the door and sat back on the bed. “It’s not like she’s the only one who made any sacrifices. I had to cancel all my appointments, including two perms and a frost.” She paused, but before I could get in a word, said, “For the Riley girl. I think it’s gonna look real sweet, what with her auburn hair. You know something, Arly? If we were to take off about six inches and—”

“No,” I said curtly, although I was aware of the risk of being booted out of 219 once and for all. I’d been invited in only in order to gossip about the debacle at the press conference. If they’d been up to no good within the room, they’d tidied up nicely—no blood, no stray body parts, no lingering traces of sailors and salesmen. I glanced up as Ruby Bee edged out of the bathroom, dressed in a flannel gown and her face slathered with cream. Pink sponge rollers made bumps under her plastic shower cap.

“The contest may continue,” I said to her. “There’s no reason to start packing your bags. Kyle may be able to convince Geri to come back, and if not, perhaps he can get someone else from her firm to take over.”

Estelle gave me a pitying look. “Kyle couldn’t convince someone to come out of a blizzard, much less take over something like this. Why, I wouldn’t consider it for all the tea in China, unless it meant I could turn that Catherine over my knee and paddle her, wash Jerome Appleton’s mouth out with soap, put tape over Brenda’s mouth—”

“Well, you can’t,” Ruby Bee said. She sat down on the foot of the nearest bed and sighed. “I sure can think of ways to spend ten thousand dollars. My television set’s been flickering something awful, and I happened to spot a fine-lookin’ one in Sears not too long ago.” She sounded so disappointed that I felt guilty for secretly enjoying the melodramatics in the dining room. I patted her slumped shoulder and said, “As I said, don’t start packing yet.”

“Or counting your chickens,” added Estelle. “There are four other contestants, after all.”

“I ain’t worried about them,” Ruby Bee said with measurable smugness. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll win, presuming the contest goes on like it’s supposed to.”

I frowned at her. “Why is there no doubt in your mind? For all you know, Durmond could have created the world’s most insidious way to disguise the taste of soybean flakes. As could Brenda, Catherine, or even vapid Gaylene, who’s extremely proud of her kabobs.”

She responded with an indulgent smile, then wiggled her eyebrows at Estelle and said, “It’s getting late. Doncha think we ought to get ourselves some beauty sleep? Run along now, Arly. You look a mite haggard yourself, and a good night’s sleep can’t hurt.”

“It might help,” Estelle said as she opened the door and waited for me to leave.

I left, although I was far from assured that all I needed was sleep to erase the dark smudges below my eyes and the tendency to twitch whenever a horn blared from the street. In any case, I ambled down the hall, idly wondering why Ruby Bee was so damn sure she would win. Her chocolate chip bundt cake was divine, but she was at the mercy of the judges and needed to acknowledge the possibility that one of them might have an abiding fondness for strawberries and jam. She wasn’t counting her chickens before they hatched; she was anticipating the very existence of the eggs.

Unless, of course, she was up to something, which was hardly inconceivable. As I passed the door of the Appletons’ room, I heard voices—one low and surly, the other high and tremulous. One of the contestants (kontestants?) might be on the shaky side in the morning, I thought as I went right on by and headed for my room.

From behind the Vervains’ door, I also heard sounds indicative of an argument. I slowed down long enough to hear Frannie say, “I am so ashamed of you. I will not allow you to behave like this, Catherine.”

Deciding not to hang around and discover how Catherine felt about the matter, I pulled my key from my pocket, glanced at Durmond’s door, and opened my own. I did so stealthily, not because I was too much of a ninny to face him, but because I was as sick and tired of the situation as Geri. Unlike her, I couldn’t stomp out the door to take refuge in some other part of the city. I needed to take refuge in some other part of the country, say two thousand miles from the door of the Chadwick Hotel.

I undressed, then sat on the edge of my bed and called Eilene to find out if she knew anything more. Amidst a great deal of sniveling and sniffling, she admitted she had heard nothing new despite numerous calls to the Lebanon police. The newlyweds were still inside the café with their captor, condition unknown. The police were content to wait outside, and it seemed this Marvel person was equally willing to wait inside.

I made a few reassuring remarks, promised to call in the morning, and lay on my bed to stare at the mottled ceiling. The lights from the street flickered in a nebulous pattern of colors and images. I supposed they continued to do so long after I drifted into sleep.

The elevator awakened me several times, as did what sounded like a massive traffic jam a block from the hotel, a spirited rendition of a Bob Dylan dirge by a tone-deaf tenor, and an argument that peaked below my window. A car backfired, or so I told myself. The tenor retraced his steps, incoherent but still enthusiastic. Eventually everybody quieted down, and I was able to take the pillow off my head and breathe the musty air wheezing from the air conditioner.

I lapsed into a convoluted dream involving Kevin, Dahlia, and a faceless assailant in a baggy raincoat, all cowering in the shadow of a nuclear reactor while Raz Buchanon circled them in a horsedrawn buggy. He was snapping the reins so loudly that it took me a moment to realize someone was tapping on my door.

I banished the last of the bizarre dream, went across the room, unlocked the deadbolt, and opened the door as far as the chain would permit. “Who is it?” I whispered.

“Who do you think it is? ” Estelle whispered right back. “It sure ain’t the mayor wanting to give you a key to the city. Open the door right this minute.”

“What time is it?”

“Time to open the door, Miss Third Degree. We are disinclined to be murdered in the hallway while you ask stupid questions.”

I closed the door to disengage the chain, then opened it and waited irritably as Estelle and Ruby Bee slipped inside. They were wearing robes and slippers, which at least implied they hadn’t been riding the subways or prowling the sex boutiques at Times Square.

I squinted at the clock. “Okay, what’s the problem? It’s nearly four in the morning. Back home, you may get up with the chickens, but in this neck of the woods, the only chickens are in the moo goo gai pan.”

Estelle poked me in the chest. “Here’s your poor mother, who’s just gone through a terrible ordeal, and you’re making smart-mouthed remarks. I’d like to think you can show her some compassion, instead of spouting off like a snotty teenager,” She poked me again for good measure.

I bit back a retort and glanced at Ruby Bee. Even in the murky lights from the street, I could see she was upset. She stumbled to the bed and sat down with a muffled moan. “Terrible, terrible,” she said, rocking back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself. “I can’t think when I’ve seen something that terrible.”

“What?” I snapped, having become inured to her thespian skills well before the onset of my adolescence.

“A body in the kitchen,” Estelle said.

I numbly switched on the light and sat down next to Ruby Bee. “Did you have a nightmare?”

She shook her head. “I wish I had, but what I saw was as real as it gets. And the blood! I ain’t never seen so much blood in all my born days. There was blood on the floor, blood on the wall, blood on the counters, and blood all over him like he took a bath in it.” She covered her face with her hands and slumped forward. “I get all woozy just thinking about it.”

I was a little woozy myself. “And this was in the kitchen? You were in the kitchen and found a body? Whose body?”

“It was dark and I didn’t stop to ask for identification,” Ruby Bee said testily, apparently not as close to a swoon as she’d been two seconds ago. “Nobody would have. For all I knew, the murderer was hiding right there in the broom closet, a butcher knife in his hand. I skedaddled out of there like the hem of my robe was on fire, and I didn’t look back.”

Estelle sat down on the other side of her. “You did just what any one of us would have done.” She gave me a dark look for hinting that Mother had not acted appropriately upon the discovery of a blood-drenched body. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

“About what?” I said more loudly than I’d intended. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about, for chrissake! For one thing, the kitchen is locked, so there’s no way there could be a body down there—or that you could have stumbled over it and fled before you met the same fate. I realize you’re anxious about the contest. You had a very vivid nightmare set in the kitchen.” My theory was not well received, or so I suspected from the snorts and glares coming at me as if I were a hapless toreador. “The kitchen is locked,” I repeated, enunciating slowly and carefully.

“No, it ain’t,” Ruby Bee said. She took an oldfashioned hairpin from her pocket and showed it to me. “I planned to use this to get the door open, but it wasn’t even locked. I eased it open in case it squeaked, took a couple of steps inside, and saw the blood splattered on the wall. I didn’t know right off it was blood. There was only a little bit of light from the hallway, so I thought it might have been shadows or even mildew.”

I stared at her. “But why did you go to the kitchen in the first place?”

Estelle twitched disapprovingly. “Would you let her finish the story without this constant interrupting?”

“Sure,” I said as I lay back on the bed. “I’ll hold my breath to the very end.”

“Then,” the narrator said in a hushed voice, “I started to tiptoe around the island in the middle of the room, and I happened to put my hand down to steady myself. I felt something wet, and when I looked at my hand, it was smeared with brown stuff. I was pondering it as I took another step and caught sight of the feet sticking out from the far side. I liked to jump out of my skin, lemme tell you. I took a fast look at the rest of it, but there was a noise like someone was lurking in the darkness. I turned tail and ran out the door, along the hallway to the stairs, and right on up to the room without wasting one second.”