Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 09 (13 page)

Now that she was cured, she could put that money to better use. She put down the teacup and picked up a mail-order catalog. It must have been divine intervention that the first thing she looked at was a real pretty comforter that cost exactly forty dollars.

—==(O)==—

“Where is your walker?” Mrs. Twayblade asked Petrol Buchanon, who was shuffling down the hall. “We don’t want to have another nasty fall, do we? Medicaid isn’t going to keep paying for hip operations forever. We have to take precautions.”

“Don’t reckon I need it,” he said, cackling. “This time next week I’ll be kicking up my heels with Miz Teasel down in room twenty-two.”

Mrs. Twayblade was not amused. “I want you to wait right here while I fetch your walker—and I don’t want to hear any more of this gibberish. This preacher may have told you that you could walk like you used to, but that’s no excuse to risk a broken hip. Do you know what’s involved with the necessary Medicaid and Medicare forms? I am already drowning in paperwork.”

“When Jesus eased my arthritis, I felt it from my toes to the tip of my nose. Iff’n I ain’t crippled no more, I ain’t gonna use the walker.”

“I hope that when the time comes, Jesus is going to fill out the Medicaid forms,” she said with a sniff.

As she went past him, he pinched her buttocks. The subsequent dialogue was so spirited that heads popped out of doorways all the way to the end of the hall.

—==(O)==—

Lottie Estes squinted at the recipe in the newspaper, but the tiny print was too blurry for her to make out. Last night when Malachi had squeezed her shoulders and prayed that her vision be restored, she’d felt an odd sensation all over her body. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have pulled off her glasses and given them to Seraphina, who was standing right there in a sparkly white dress, smiling and telling her how it was a blessing direct from Jesus. The way everybody in the audience cheered and hollered when she read the Twenty-third Psalm made her feel like when she’d won a blue ribbon for her strawberry preserves.

She finally put down the newspaper and tried to see what time it was, but the numbers on her watch were no larger than the print. It had to be going on eight, she told herself as she made sure she had a clean hankie in her purse, picked up her lesson plan book, and went out to her car. As she backed the car out of the driveway, she wondered if asking Seraphina Hope to give back her glasses would constitute blasphemy. Jesus had cured her, after all. Implying that he hadn’t was likely to be a sin of some sort or other.

—==(O)==—

“What’s this I heard about you waltzing out of the store yesterday afternoon with a Mr. Coffee?” Jim Bob asked as he stuffed a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.

“I don’t care to discuss it,” Mrs. Jim Bob said from in front of the sink, where she was scrubbing the skillet.

“I gave you a Mr. Coffee for your birthday last year, and it’s been gurgling just fine ever since. Why’d you want a new one?”

“You heard me the first time.” She left the skillet to soak and busied herself fixing a cup of tea. “Wipe that dribble of syrup off your chin. Sometimes I wonder if you were under the porch when the good Lord was passing out the manners.”

On that note, she sailed into the sunroom, leaving him to speculate on why she was so hoppin’ mad when he hadn’t done a blessed thing except eat his breakfast. The previous night he’d come home as soon as the SuperSaver closed, and he’d kept the television real low so’s not to disturb her. He’d even remembered to put the beer cans in the garbage can out by the garage instead of in the wastebasket under the sink, where she claimed they made the kitchen reek.

“Did you go to the revival last night?” he called, feigning interest in an effort to mollify her.

“I did not.”

He put his plate next to the sink, made sure his chin was no longer glistening, and went to the doorway “I’m surprised you didn’t. I thought you and Brother Verber would go together.” She looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Damned if he knew. “Well, I just thought … you being so devout and all, that you’d want to be sitting in the first pew with your Bible in your lap.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

His jaw waggled like a mule’s tail as he tried to come up with an answer. “You haven’t missed a Sunday night service since I met you. Why, even when we were on our honeymoon over at Eureka Springs, you—”

“I said I don’t care to discuss it!”

The conversation was getting murkier than the stock pond behind Raz Buchanon’s shack—and somehow or other, the Mr. Coffee was at the bottom of it (the murkiness, not the stock pond). Scratching his head, he went back into the kitchen and wasted a few minutes stealthily opening cabinets to see if he could find the Mr. Coffee. When he was satisfied it wasn’t there, he took a quick peek at his wife (she hadn’t moved a muscle, as far as he could tell), took his truck key from the bowl on the counter, and let himself out the front door.

Maybe it was his fault he came within inches of smashing into Lottie Estes’s ancient Edsel up at the intersection. He assured her he’d been distracted, and he went so far as to offer her his handkerchief when she started blubbering apologies. Only afterward did he realize it had been a miracle neither of them had been killed.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Ruby Bee said as I came across the barroom, my hair still damp from the shower and my eyeballs aching as if they’d been skinned. “I suppose you’ll be wantin’ breakfast, even though it’s as plain as the nose on your face you’ve got more important things to do.”

Avoiding eye contact (a technique espoused at the police academy for dealing with the deranged), I went to the end of the bar to fill a mug with coffee, then sat down. “I can’t think of anything more important than warding off starvation with the best cooking west of the Mississippi.”

“How about solving a murder, Miss National Geographic? Or is police work just a hobby?”

I choked on a mouthful of coffee. Once I’d wiped my face and caught my breath, I opted for full frontal eye contact. “What murder do you have in mind?”

“Norma Kay Grapper’s, of course. I never cared for Bur—and still don’t—but she was always mannersome when I saw her at the SuperSaver. The girls on the basketball team are going to be mighty upset when they hear the news. Maybe you should talk to them after you finish getting a statement from Malachi Hope. Do you want I should call Darla Jean McIlhaney and have her set up a meeting?”

“She’s not home,” said Estelle as she came up behind me. “I saw her and Heather Reilly driving toward Farberville not five minutes ago. They were in a big hurry, but most likely on account of having to be back at eleven for practice.” She gave Ruby Bee the same worldly half smile that Gloria Swanson had given William Holden just the night before in Sunset Boulevard. “Imagine the girls with their little gym bags, gathered in the parking lot, waiting for Norma Kay to unlock the door for them.”

Ruby Bee wiped her cheeks on the hem of her apron. “I was just telling Arly that she should be the one to break the news to the team.”

“Hold your horses,” I said before they sank into such maudlin sentimentality that it would take a dredger to pull them to the surface. “How do you two know about Norma Kay’s death last night?”

“Ruby Bee called me,” Estelle said hastily. “That’s how I know.”

I glared at the accused, who had the grace to pretend to be abashed. As she noticed how tightly I was gripping the mug, she prudently moved out of range and said, “When I opened up this morning, the telephone was ringing. It proved to be LaBelle over at the sheriff’s office. She was trying to find you on account of the sheriff wanting to tell you something real important. LaBelle said she’d called your office and your apartment, but you hadn’t answered. All she could think to do was leave a message with me for you to call Harvey Dorfer when you turned up.”

“And she told you all the details?”

“She may have felt the need to explain why it was so urgent you call back. I was so distressed over the news that I had to talk to someone …”

Someone nodded but kept her mouth shut.

My face was hotter than the coffee in the mug. I gave myself a moment to cool off and then said, “LaBelle had no business telling you what happened last night. And you have no business embellishing it and then spreading it all over town.”

“Embellishing it? I beg your pardon, missy—I didn’t say one syllable that’s not the gospel truth.”

“You said it was murder,” I countered sternly, “and we don’t have the results of the autopsy yet. It very well may turn out to be suicide.”

Ruby Bee gave Estelle a look that presumably was fraught with significance, then said, “Norma Kay would rather die than commit suicide. She used to be a Catholic before she married Bur Grapper and moved here.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Estelle must have decided that it was safe to butt back in. “I was the one who found that out. It happens that Edwina Spitz’s niece married a boy from Topeka. I disremember her name, but she used to visit Edwina in the summer with a whole suitcase full of Barbie dolls and accessories. One morning Edwina tripped over a little pink convertible and came within inches of falling off her back porch into the azaleas.”

“Could we stick to the story?” I said.

“Her name was Justine,” Ruby Bee said, then caught my glare and retreated to the far end of the bar.

“That’s it,” said Estelle. “Justine married a real nice boy whose daddy owned a clothing store on the main street in Topeka. They had twins right off the bat, but then Justine started dwindling away till she was nothing but skin and bones. She upped and died before the twins reached kindergarten.”

I wished I had a clicker so I could fast-forward the narrative. “Does this have anything to do with Norma Kay Grapper? Anything whatsoever?”

She gave me a haughty look. “If you’ll stop interrupting after every other word, I’ll get to the point. Edwina went all the way to Topeka on a Greyhound bus to attend the funeral. To her surprise, it was held in a Catholic church because Justine’s husband and his family were all Catholics. In her Christmas letters to Edwina, Justine made out like she was still a Baptist.”

“She was never one to spit in the very devil’s teeth,” murmured Ruby Bee.

“Edwina would have been heartsick,” Estelle said, bobbling her head in agreement. “She’s real worried that papists are scheming to take over the country. So there’s Edwina, sitting in a Catholic church not knowing what she’s gonna do if folks take to kneeling, and down sits a woman who introduces herself as Justine’s neighbor. They get to talking afterward, and Edwina says she’s come all the way from Maggody. This neighbor asks if she knows Norma Kay Hunniman. Edwina can’t out smart a whiffle-bird, but she figures out it’s Norma Kay Grapper. That’s when the girl says Norma Kay used to attend the very church where the funeral was held. Ain’t that something?”

Although I was aware more was expected of me, all I could manage was a mildly interested expression. “So Norma Kay was a Catholic at one time. Is that it?”

Ruby Bee put her hands on her hips. “Everybody knows Catholics aren’t allowed to commit suicide. They’ll get kicked out of the church by the pope hisself.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” I said. “What have you heard about any extramarital activities involving Norma Kay?”

“I’m not one to speak ill of the dead!” Estelle gasped, so offended that she snatched up a menu to fan herself.

I watched her for a moment to see if she was going to enliven the scene by toppling off the stool, then turned to Ruby Bee. “Was Norma Kay having an affair?”

“There’s been talk. Do you want some breakfast?”

“I want to know the man’s name.”

“Bear in mind that Norma Kay never lingered in the teachers’ lounge to discuss her personal affairs. When she first moved here, she joined the County Extension Homemakers and the Missionary Society, but the story is that Bur didn’t like for her to go out in the evenings unless it was related to her job. I’d say Cory Jenks is a possibility, what with them working together and riding to games on the same bus.”

Estelle recovered from her conveniently brief bout of the vapors. “Then again, Millicent saw John Robert Scurfpea’s delivery truck parked in the side yard one Saturday when Bur was visiting Amos at the nursing home in Farberville.”

“Jim Bob prefers them younger,” added Ruby Bee, “but I saw him carrying Norma Kay’s groceries out to her car not that long ago. He was flashing his teeth like a TV weatherman.”

“What about Eddie Joe Whitbread?” Estelle said, pensively sucking on a pretzel. “I heard he changed a flat tire for Norma Kay on the road to Emmet. She’d gone to the flea market out that way and ran over a nail. She was sitting on the side of the road when Eddie Joe drove up, and she told him he’d saved her life.”

Ruby Bee frowned at her. “Where’d you hear that?”

“From Eddie Joe’s sister. She used to get her hair done at the Casa de Coiffure over in Hasty, but they botched her perm something awful. She used to have hair thick as a dog’s back, but when she came slinking in, I could see right off the bat where great big clumps had come out.”

I slid off the stool, wondering why we paid good money to the CIA when we had such talented operatives in our own backyard. “I’d better go call Harve,” I said as I headed for the door. Neither one responded, being too occupied with analyzing Eddie Joe Whitbread’s sister’s cataclysmic experience at the Casa de Coiffure.

—==(O)==—

“I’m not in the mood to play hide-and-seek,” Mrs. Twayblade said from the doorway, her foot tapping so loudly the aides in the kitchen were convinced there was a woodpecker on the roof. “I want you to tell me where Mrs. Teasel is. According to the schedule, it’s time for her crafts class. I believe they’re decorating little mint cups for our Labor Day festivities.”

Mrs. Teasel’s roommate pulled up the covers until only the upper half of her face was visible. “Don’t know where she is.”

“Was she in her bed when you woke up this morning?”

“I seem to recollect she was.”

Mrs. Twayblade clutched her clipboard more tightly to her chest as she struggled to maintain her professional aplomb. “No one saw her at breakfast or at any time this morning. Did she say anything to indicate she might leave the grounds?”