Madness In Maggody (13 page)

Ruby Bee's was
sparsely populated, which was fine with me. I waved to a couple of people in the front booth, then stopped in the middle of the dance floor as I caught sight of the occupant in the last booth, way back in the corner where it was almost too dark to read the menu. Jim Bob was slumped down so far, his head was barely even with the back of the booth, and he appeared to be having a dispirited conversation with three beer pitchers and a bowl of pretzels.

As far as I could tell, he was doing all the talking, but you never know.

Ruby Bee hissed at me to get myself over to the bar. I sat on a stool beside Estelle, who was hunched over a glass of sherry and snorting under her breath.

"Where have you been?" Ruby Bee snapped.

"I'm surprised you don't know every single place I've set foot in today," I said. "What's the matter—grapevine let you down? What a shame."

"Don't get prissy with me, Miss Mute Mouth. You sailed out of here a good seven hours ago...and you didn't have the decency to warn me you wouldn't be back until late. Then you had the audacity to order me to go watch those youngsters beat each other up. Then you hung up on me just like I was trying to sell you vinyl siding."

"All true." I nudged Estelle. "Have fun at baseball practice?"

She took a deep drink of sherry, and in a voice more suited to a heavy smoker on a respirator, said, "I think you're right about them not being ready to play on Thursday." She pulled back her cuff to show me a red, crescent-shaped indentation. "You see that? Teeth marks. All I was doing was trying to pull them apart, and now I most likely need a tetanus shot. My legs took like I was stomping purple grapes to make wine."

I was about to show her the bruises on my shins when something struck me. I'll readily admit I don't have a great memory and the cliché about out of sight and so on has some personal applications. While living in Manhattan (the cat-burglar capital of the world), I'd dialed 911 once when I'd heard someone trying to get into my apartment, but at the last second remembered I was married and what's his face not only lived there but also had a key. During my senior year in high school, I dropped Ruby Bee off for a doctor's appointment in Farberville, bought a fashion magazine at the drugstore, and was home reading on the sofa when I realized something was amiss(-ing). I never attempt to introduce anyone to anyone. I check myself in the mirror when leaving, not out of vanity but out of concern I might have forgotten to button my shirt or put on my badge.

"I drove by the field," I said carefully, "to make sure you two were there. I told you to expect seven players, but I saw only six. Where was Hammet?"

Ruby Bee fluttered her hand. "He...he had other things to do, I guess. Maybe he got busy."

"What other things?"

Estelle snorted. "Other things. He had other things to do, that's all."

"He left under his own steam," Ruby Bee added. "He was right upset about you abandoning him, if you must know."

"Is he at my apartment?" I asked.

"Why don't you call and find out for yourself." She flounced away to a safe distance, muttering something about someone's inability to keep track of her own houseguests.

I went over to the pay telephone and called, but there was no answer. My palms were wet as I replaced the receiver, and my legs weren't at their best as I went back to the bar. "Listen, you two, I want to know where Hammet is. We've got a maniac running around town; for all I know, Hammet got hold of a bad sponge cake and is retching his guts out in a ditch somewhere, or even worse. Someone's playing hardball, and I'm not talking about kids in a cow pasture."

Ruby Bee's defiant expression slipped. "Is it true what I heard about Buzz Milvin's mother-in-law?"

"Heard what from whom?" I said.

She fiddled with her apron for a minute, shooting desperate little glances at Estelle, who managed not to notice. "Well, I just happened happened to call over to the sheriff's office, hoping I might find out where you were, and LaBelle may have said something about the ambulance and all. When I happened to call back later in case she'd heard from you, she told me Buzz and Martin were at the hospital and poor Mrs. Smew was headed for the morgue."

I poked Estelle's arm. "Okay, let's get all the gossip out in the open. What did you say Perkins's eldest said Mrs. Jim Bob said—or something like that, anyway? Go ahead, spit it out. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Mrs. Jim Bob took a message for Jim Bob from some bank in Little Rock or Hot Springs; Perkins's eldest wasn't real sure which. I don't know why she'd get the two mixed up. They don't sound the least bit alike, you know. If it was Springdale or Springfield, I could see why—"

"It doesn't matter," I cut in. "Mrs. Jim Bob took a message from a bank. Did he bounce a check?"

"No, but after she hung up, Mrs. Jim Bob said a four-letter word, slammed down the pencil, and went upstairs, sizzling like a slice of bacon on the grill. Perkins's eldest couldn't help but be curious, so when the coast was clear, she took a peek at the pad of paper by the telephone."

"And?"

"And Mrs. Jim Bob had written the number twenty thousand and there was a dollar sign in front of it." Estelle pulled me closer, and with a narrow look at the back booth, she whispered, "The other thing she wrote was the word Thursday, and it was underlined underlined three times! Do you want to know what I think?"

I shook my head and went to the back booth, where Jim Bob was still mumbling away to his inanimate and therefore captive audience. "I have a question," I said as I sat down across from him.

"Get yourself an encyclopedia. Get a whole damn set of 'em."

His breath smelled so bad that I was surprised I couldn't see it. I exhaled vigorously and said, "The answer won't be in an encyclopedia. Are you and Petrel supposed to close some kind of loan Thursday—something to do with the financing for the supermarket, for instance?"

"Goddamn permanent financing, but none of your goddamn business." He hiccuped loudly and gave me what he probably thought was a sneer, although gravity was doing strange things to one of his eyelids and his lower lip.

"And you are supposed to come up with twenty thousand dollars?"

"That ain't the half of it." He hiccuped again. "Mebbe it is. Yeah, the half of it."

"More than twenty thousand? Forty thousand, for instance?"

"Thought you had questions, Chief. Sounds like you got answers, so why don't you remove your butt from the seat and mosey back to the bar?"

"But I do have a question: Is the closing at noon?"

"How the fuck do I know," he said petulantly. After a couple of near-misses, he got hold of a pitcher and filled his glass with what was apt to be flat, tepid beer. "Go ask Petrel; he's the bigshot businessman businessman—except when the shit's in the fan and we can't stay open long enough to play a tune on the cash register, much less make any money." His eyes turned watery and he slid into good old-fashioned maudlin drunkenness. "Petrel really screwed me. He screwed me to the wall and kept on goin'."

I wasn't accustomed to hearing Jim Bob's confidences, but I was game. "How'd he do that?"

"He tol' me we was set just right on the loan, that we'd waltz right in, scribble our names, and be done with it. Then, as sure as I'm sitting here getting stewed to the gills, he ups and says we got to pay points."

"Hmmm," I said, shaking my head at the treachery. "I can't believe he'd do that to you. Imagine him saying you had to pay points."

"Points and payments and payroll. Piss on it. Goddamn toad sucker ought to be shot."

"Hmmm," I said again, determined to remain sympathetic until I figured out what we were talking about. "What happens if you can't pay the points, Jim Bob?"

He gave me an exasperated look. "Well, whatta ya think happens, fer chrissake? I win an all-expenses-paid trip to fuckin' China. All the rice I can eat. A little squinty gal to tiptoe on my back every night."

I refilled his glass and tried to sort out his remarks from the hyperbole. "If you can't come up with your share of the points, can Petrel force you out of the partnership?"

"Why doncha ask him—if you can find him?" He snickered for a moment, then went blank and gradually slithered out of view, as if he was being sucked into a pit of quicksand.

I went back to the bar, wishing I could ask Lamont Petrel a whole lot of things. I hadn't done a blessed thing about a decent meal, but I had some more pressing problems to deal with, such as mass poisonings and a possible murder. A lost houseguest. A lengthy list of witnesses to be interviewed. An ulcer if I didn't watch it.

Ruby Bee came out of the kitchen with a small bag. "I made you a cheeseburger," she said. "And Joyce Lambertino called a minute ago and said Hammet was in the backyard with Saralee and Lissie Milvin. She'll send him home directly, she said."

"Thanks," I said as I took the bag. "You don't happen to have a bottle of syrup of ipecac handy, do you? Considering the day, I'm liable to get a bout of heartburn tonight."

"I don't have whatever you said, but I got plenty of milk of magnesia and that's always been good enough for me."

I looked at Estelle. "You have any ipecac at home?"

"Never heard of it," she said without missing a beat. "I favor those powders you mix that taste like fruit drinks. I'll be glad to run home and get you a grape or cherry flavor if you want."

No, it wasn't nice. It was sneaky. But I was convinced neither of them knew what syrup of ipecac was and therefore hadn't sabotaged the tamale sauce or the sponge cakes. On that bright note, I said good night, detoured past the back booth to listen to Jim Bob's snuffly snore, and walked up the highway to the PD.

My travel book was in the top drawer, and I managed to eat my cheeseburger in a quaint café on the Left Bank, gazing at Notre Dame, sipping inky espresso, and allowing myself to be a pedestrian in the human race, if only for a few minutes.

I then bid adieu and took out a notebook. Deputy Vernon had given me a list of all the people who'd come by the SuperSaver when it had reopened the previous day. We'd agreed the list was likely to be incomplete, but business had been desultory and the checkers had not been checking their little brains out as they'd done at the one-hour grand opening. All the reports of tampered products had arisen from items purchased Tuesday morning, but those who'd been there Monday evening needed to be questioned.

I drew lines through all the names of subsequent victims, although I didn't erase them. I crossed off Kevin and Dahlia, Buzz and Lillith Smew, Mrs. Jim Bob, Raz Buchanon (because I couldn't produce a motive, no matter how farfetched), Darla Jean McIlhaney (same problem), and all employees.

This left a more manageable list. Ivy Sattering had sniffed around the produce section and left without buying anything. Ruby Bee Hanks had bought a box of Ant B-Gone, accompanied by the always-opinionated Estelle Oppers, who'd taken the opportunity to comment that the picnic pavilion stank worse than a buzzard's roost. Mandozes had demanded to know when the deli would reopen and had become agitated when no one seemed to know. There were a couple of unfamiliar names, and several vague descriptions along the lines of "man in Pro Bass cap," "woman wanting fancy toothpicks," and "pregnant lady with screaming baby."

I was staring at the list as the door opened and Hammet came into the PD.

"Howdy," he mumbled as he sat down across from my desk.

"I heard you missed baseball practice. What've you been up to?"

"Nuthin' much. Can I play with the radar gun?"

I looked more closely at him. "Your knees are caked with mud, Hammet. What have you been up to?"

"Nuthin', I said. Saralee and Lissie and me played tag, and Saralee knocked me down and sat on me and wouldn't lemme up till I said she was prettier'n a pink flower on a store-bought cake. She's got to be the dumbest girl that ever was born. Fractious, too. Somebody oughta sit on her head, and in a hog waller."

"She's not a delicate little debutante," I said mildly. "Did Lissie tell you what happened at her house and why she's staying at the Lambertinos'?"

He gave me a funny look, then got up and wandered into the back room. "Yeah, she told me and Saralee some stuff, but we had to swear we wouldn't tell anybody."

"I was there," I said to the empty doorway. "It won't be a secret for long, not with the tongues waggling all evening."

"I swore I wouldn't go spouting off about what all she told us cause of it being a secret. We had to spit in her hand and everything everything. Does this stupid-lookin' thing work?"

I had no idea what he was looking at, but I went for the percentage answer. "Probably not. Tell you what, Hammet, let's pick up Lissie and drive to the hospital in Farberville. Martin's out of intensive care, and I need to talk to him. You two can say hi and then go to the cafeteria for a soda."

"Naw, I think I'll go read or sumpun." He still had the funny look on his face as he came back into the front room, but it had such overtones of stubbornness that I decided not to press my invitation.

I called Joyce, who had a quick talk with Lissie and reported back that she seemed tuckered out something awful and needed to get to bed early. It wasn't sporting, but I asked if Larry Joe had said anything about baseball practice.

"He's pleased with the team," Joyce said. "Half the boys can knock the ball over the back fence, and one of 'em has a curveball good enough for the minors. Larry Joe says you can't even see the kid's fastball; it goes by like greased lightning."

"That's great," I said with a wince, and hung up before I heard about the scouts coming to town to recruit the whiz kid. I dropped Hammet off at the bottom of the stairs to my apartment, told him I'd be back within an hour or so, and headed for Farberville.

*****

At the front
desk at the hospital, I asked about Buzz's condition and was told he was stable. I went to the pediatric wing and was told that Martin was asleep and could not be disturbed unless I had a court order and a battalion to back it up. Having neither, I meekly inquired about official visiting hours, went back to my car, and drove out of the parking lot.