Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 07 (10 page)

“Gone to work in Farberville. She called this morning and told Miz Twayblade that she was quitting and wouldn’t be in anymore. She found a super job taking care of a crippled gentleman in one of those big old houses by the park. She’s making almost twice as much as she did here. She said that last night she got a call from an agency over there wanting her to start right away. Miz Twayblade was mad about not getting proper notice, but—”

“I notice,” Mrs. Twayblade said from behind me, “that it’s time to set the tables for lunch, Tansy. Do you think you could do that instead of engaging in gossip?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tansy fled. Mrs. Twayblade smiled thinly. “I studied Adele’s file carefully. She has no living relatives. Her sister’s name has been crossed out with a notation that she passed away several years ago, as did a niece. They were the last two. In the event of Adele’s death, her house is to be sold and the proceeds turned over to her church. There’s a small policy to handle the funeral expenses. Is there anything else, Chief Hanks?”

“I guess not, except for Patty May’s address and telephone number.”

Amid comments about ingratitude and irresponsibility, Mrs. Twayblade found the information in a folder, copied it on a slip of paper, and thrust it at me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to see to lunch.”

I went back to my car and sat for a few minutes, idly watching squirrels scampering around in a last-ditch effort to hoard enough acorns for the winter. Three cars were parked in the lot, and in that there seemed to be at least three employees (TwaybIade, Tansy, and the unseen Deirdre, for those who’ve lost their scorecards), they did not merit consideration. A pickup truck at the back of the building was likely to belong to the cook. But someone must have waited near the emergency exit until Adele slipped outside and then driven her somewhere. Had she taken advantage of the plumbing crisis in the kitchen—or somehow caused it? In the former case, she must have made a telephone call. In the latter, she’d arranged the assignation in advance. But with whom?

I decided to break for lunch, then come back and snoop around some more. Adele had left in the middle of the day, and not via alien space shuttle. There were houses along the road inhabited by the sort of people who stood behind the curtains and watched for their neighbors to do something worthy of excommunication from the church. The county home was not as busy as LaGuardia, but it wasn’t hopelessly remote and isolated. A bookmobile pulled into the lot to confirm my supposition.

Vowing to return, I headed for the Dairee DeeLishus and another bout of indigestion brought on by Matt’s Special Secret Sauce.

“I got the Maggody blues,” Matt sang, putting every ounce of his soul into it in case Katie had her ear pressed against the other side of her front door. He paused to take the last mouthful of whiskey from the pint bottle and started off again like a lovesick coyote on a mountaintop, or at least how he imagined a lovesick coyote would sound, having eschewed the hazardous badlands. “I got the raggedy … jaggedy … Maggody blues.”

Rather than glued to the front door, Katie was in her bedroom, under the covers and with a pillow wrapped around her head. He’d been sitting in her hall for the better part of an hour, and she was as effectively trapped as a coal miner when the shaft collapsed. Lillian had warned her to stay away from him, and Pierce had ordered her to keep him happy till the tour started. Only Ripley knew what he himself preferred. She couldn’t call her mama. Folks were a sight more mannersome back home, and her mama’d probably take the next bus to Nashville to straighten out her daughter’s suitor. Her representative at the Figg Agency had resigned the week before to become an undertaker. She’d been fighting to build her career too hard to get to know much of anybody else.

Out in the hallway, Matt was working on the second verse. “I went to my gray-haired mama, I went to my bald-headed pa, I begged ‘em both to show me the road to get out of Arkansas … ‘cause I got the Maggody blues.”

Ripley Keswick drove by The Official Matt Montana Souvenir Shoppe. Seconds later, he passed Matt’s Billiard Parlor and Family Entertainment Center. He’d already been greeted at the edge of town by a sign welcoming him to the Birthplace of Matt Montana, noted Matt’s Parking Lot: $2.00 Hourly; $12.00 If-U-Stay-All-Day, and had braked to read the billboard with an arrow pointing down a county road to Matt Montana’s Birthplace & Boyhood Home (Guided Tours 9:00-5:00; Discounts for Children Under Twelve and Senior Citizens; Buses Welcome). A colossal depiction of bungled plastic surgery looked down at him, but after he’d squinted at it, Ripley realized it was meant to be Matt.

He turned the opposite way, but there was no reprieve. At the high school, a droopy paper banner proclaimed that the Maggody Marauders welcomed Matt Montana. Across from it was a drive-in, and although he couldn’t make out the small lettering on the hand-painted menu, he had a fairly reasonable guess as to les spécialités du maison. Back on the main road, he continued past Matt Montana’s Christmas Craft Boutique and a funny-looking metal building called the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. He was wondering why its name hadn’t been changed to Matt’s Chapel when he saw the portable sign on the lawn. The Good Lord apparently had endorsed this rest stop on the highway to heaven. Ripley wouldn’t have been surprised to see Matt Montana’s Eternal Garden out back, dotted with headstones from Matt’s Discount Marble Mart (Personalized While U Wait).

Surely, he thought as he drove by Aunt Adele’s Launderette and pulled into the parking lot of Matt Montana’s Hometown Bar & Grill, which existed in conjunction with Matt’s Motel (NO V CAN Y, alas), the town had established diplomatic ties with Hannibal, Missouri. There was only one thing they’d overlooked, but he was not going to be the hark-the-herald of bad tidings. Geoffry would see to that when the time came.

He opened the barroom door and went in warily. Strings of twinkly Christmas lights looped across the ceiling and along the walls; the room looked as if it were under siege by lightning bugs. The jukebox was blaring, and the SRO crowd was belting out the chorus of the hometown boy’s number one hit.

He made his way around the dance floor, where couples twostepped enthusiastically on each other’s toes, and took a stool at the end of the bar. He would have to identify himself eventually, but he was reluctant to do so at the top of his lungs, which would be the only way to make himself heard over this welter of aboriginal sounds and smells. Oh, to be in Oxford—Oxford, Mississippi, that is—drinking bourbon and deconstructing tales of streetcars named Desire and counties named Yoknapatawpha. If Faulkner were to write about Stump County, it wouldn’t be stream of consciousness. This was miles downstream from any discernible consciousness.

“What’ll it be?” Ripley smiled at the grandmotherly bartender. “A Manhattan, please.”

“I went up there once, and you better believe me when I say nobody’d name a drink after that place. If they did, it’d have scum on the surface and stink like bus fumes. How ‘bout a Matt Montana Moonshine Special? It’s beer, on account of that’s mostly all I sell in the way of spirits, but it comes in a quart jar just like the real stuff. I ordered ‘em from the same place Raz gets his.” She noticed his puzzlement and explained, “Raz Buchanon’s our local moonshiner. I don’t allow him in here because he’s forever chawing tobacco, spitting, scratching his privates, and dragging along his pedigreed sow. Her name’s Marjorie.

“Buchanon?” Ripley said, startled. It was the last name of his local contact, but she certainly hadn’t sounded like the wife of a moonshiner who moonlighted as a mayor.

“I suppose it could be her last name,” said Ruby Bee, finding this man more than a little bit peculiar. He was a customer, however, so she gave him an encouraging look and said, “So, how ‘bout that Moonshine Special?”

A woman with implausibly red hair swooped in and claimed the stool next to his. “Afternoon,” she said to Ripley with a neighborly nod, clutched the edge of the bar and said, “You ain’t gonna believe what I just saw, Ruby Bee. I’m almost afraid to tell you, but if I don’t, somebody else will sure as God made little green apples.”

“Estelle, what on earth are you carrying on about? I got a roomful roomful of customers, and it’s all I can do to handle them until Joyce gets here to help me out. If you got something to say, spit it out.”

They both gave Ripley suspicious looks, as if he were dressed in a trenchcoat and sunglasses. He held up his hand and said, “Please don’t think I’d stoop so low as to eavesdrop, my dear ladies.”

“Then see that you don’t,” Ruby Bee said sternly before turning back to Estelle. “Well?”

“I was driving out Finger Lane to look for the last of the little yellow bur marigolds to make an arrangement for the table by the door where I keep my appointment book.” She smiled at Ripley. “It’s a maple drop leaf that I inherited from my second cousin. He died of a broken heart after his wife ran off with a preacher with a wooden leg. I guess you could say she ran off and he hobbled off.”

“He doesn’t care where you got the table,” Ruby Bee said in her snippiest voice.

“I was just being polite by including the gentleman in the conversation,” countered the accused, momentarily nonplussed when the gentleman winked at her. “So I drove by Earl and Eilene’s place, racking my brain as to where I’d seen the marigolds last year, when I happened to glance at the brick pillars at the bottom of you-know-whose driveway. There’s a new sign. I wouldn’t be surprised if the paint’s still tacky.”

“There are new signs all over town. Some of ‘em are real tacky.”

“How many of them announce the opening of the Mayor’s Mansion Bed and Breakfast?”

“You better tell me right this minute that you made this up on account of my forthright remarks about Matt Montana’s Hair Fantasies.”

“The sign’s stuck right there on the J. The one on the B says the rates include a full country breakfast and reservations are required. Remember the meeting when we made our proposals and voted on ‘em? Who objected to Joyce wanting to paint portraits of Matt on black velvet to sell out of the back of her station wagon? I myself thought it was a real clever idea.”

“She’s also the one who fought tooth and nail to keep Elsie and Eula from setting up their craft shop across from the pool hall. At least she didn’t get her way on that one.” Ruby Bee realized the peculiar man was hanging on their every word like he was paralyzed except for the tic in his eyelid and the quiver of his chin. “When we learned that the famous country singer Matt Montana is coming to town, we formed a little group to make sure he feels welcome,” she explained curtly to him. There wasn’t any call for tourists to concern themselves with the town’s private affairs. She stomped back down the bar, snatched a jar from a customer’s hand, and held it under the tap until foamy beer streamed over her fingers and down her arms to her elbows.

Ripley shrugged in apology. “I did notice all the signs about Matt Montana. He was born here?”

“You bet your bow tie he was, out on County 102 just past my house. It’s been fixed up real nice, and tomorrow is the grand opening with a parade featuring the high school band and local dignitaries. After that, it’ll be open to the public every day till dark, with trained guides to talk about the history of the house and point out the bedroom where Matt Montana was born. You can visit the exact place where Matt was baptized in Boone Creek, and when you get tuckered out, you can ride around the town in the Maggody-Matt-Mobile. It’s like an old-fashioned hayride except for the loudspeakers.”

“Are any of Matt’s relatives still living here?”

Estelle ran her tongue over her lips (Tangerine Twist to complement her new sweater) while she considered how to phrase her response. “Well, he has a great-aunt who had to go into the county old folks home a while back, but she distinctly remembers the night Matt was born and in which bedroom. All this has been so exciting for her that it’s like she’s living in a different world these days.” She felt real proud of how she hadn’t told a single lie, except for maybe fudging about the bedroom. They’d chosen the one in the best condition and sealed off the rest of them. After all, tourists wouldn’t pay to see where Mr. Wockermann had passed away in his sleep.

“And did I see something about a benefit concert starring Matt Montana in person?”

“We’re beside ourselves. There’s not one soul in town that ever believed Matt Montana would be singing in person on the stage at our very own high school. Tickets go on sale to the public in one week, so you’d better snap one up immediately if you want to be there for the Hometown Christmas Concert. You can buy ‘em at most of the shops in town, including Matt Montana’s Hair Fantasies.” She patted her hair in case he needed a nudge to figure it out. “It’s almost directly across from the birthplace.”

“I’ll watch for it,” he said as he slid off the stool and gave her the melancholy smile of an anemic southern dilettante. “You’ve been so kind to share this with me, ma’am. I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Estelle blinked at his back as he vanished into the dark mass of bodies surrounding the dance floor. “Your mama sure raised some rum ones, didn’t she?” she said to nobody in particular as she reached for the pretzels.

“You found that old woman yet?” Sheriff Dorfer asked genially from his office in Farberville. “It’s been my experience that if you don’t find someone in the first twenty-four hours, you might as well run an ad in the lost and founds and go fishing. It’s been more than a week.”

“I haven’t given up yet,” I said. “Yesterday I questioned the last of the people who live in that area. The only unfamiliar vehicle turned out to belong to the gas company. A wholesale grocery truck made a delivery late in the morning, and the driver was sure there was no one waiting in a car on the east side of the building. Same thing with a laundry service from Starley City. The cook went outside to smoke a cigarette while everyone was having dessert dessert, and she swears she would have noticed if anyone was parked in the lot or by the road.”