Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 07 (13 page)

She was not alone in the conspiracy to drive me crazy. Included in fine print on the list were the Homecoming Committee, the sheriff’s department, Matt Montana’s Special Secret Sauce, the broken dryers at the launderette, and the rowdy crowd at Matt Montana’s Hometown Bar & Grill, where a person could no longer nurse a beer and ponder philosophical issues regarding meat loaf versus pot roast. Tomorrow, when the tour arrived, all hell was scheduled to break loose, and I was going to be in the middle of it, directing traffic with a pitchfork. Harve had promised me Les and Tinker part of the time, but he’d been known to promise me the moon and the stars, and then start hedging until I ended up as empty-handed as a beggar outside a Baptist church.

I dialed the number of the county home and asked for Mrs. Twayblade. “I’ll keep it short,” I said before she started sputtering.

“That’s not been my experience thus far, Chief Hanks, but I’ll try to be charitable.” She sighed, then said in a guilty voice, “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Adele, have you? We have a box of her clothes, and I’m reluctant to dispose of them. Frankly, I’d feel better if I knew she was safe. Not back here, mind you, but safe.”

“I haven’t given up,” I said. “I’m still waiting to get in touch with Patty May. By the way, was she in the kitchen every minute of the dishwasher crisis?”

“The residents were in their rooms and I’d just sat down at the desk in the front hall when Patty May came galloping out to tell me how water was gushing all over the floor. I instructed her to call the plumber and hurried to the kitchen to see how extensive the water was. Patty May stayed out in the hall for a good fifteen minutes.”

“Did you ask her what took her so long?”

“She claimed the plumber’s number was busy. Are you implying she was up to no good?”

“I’m not implying anything whatsoever, Mrs. Twayblade. I just wanted an idea of what happened during the critical period when Adele slipped away.” I didn’t bother to add that I had the beginnings of a pretty good one. Sherlock Holmes had commented astutely on the dog that did not bark in the night. There had been no strange cars in the lot. Patty May Partridge had not struck me as capable of conspiracy, much less kidnapping, but now I wasn’t sure. Adele was Matt Montana’s great-aunt. The utterance of his name could drive some of us crazy, and others of us right over the brink of madness.

I drove out past the Wockermann house, but I saw no mysterious hint of light in the attic window. I turned around on the far side of the low-water bridge and drove back. No one was home at Matt’s Hair Fantasies. The souvenir shoppe at the intersection was dark, and the lot beside the remains of the bank was empty. A dog began to bark, setting off a chain reaction that eventually would stretch across half the county. I wished I could put out a message to Adele so easily. All hell tomorrow, I reminded myself as I parked at the PD, walked across the road and up the steps to my apartment, then froze as I saw a ghostly light on the living room window. Wishing I had my gun and at least one of my bullets, I flung open the door and, in a deep and menacing voice, shouted, “What’s going on?”

The small figure hunkered down in front of the portable television set turned around and gave me a beguiling grin that stretched from ear to shining ear. “Howdy, Arly, how the fuck are ya? I dint think you’d mind if I watched this ball game till you got here.”

My prediction was wrong: all hell had already broken loose. Hammet Buchanon was back in Maggody.

It was getting close to midnight. Ruby Bee felt like she was part of a coven as the executive members of the Homecoming Committee silently filed into the Assembly Hall and sat down in the front pews. Beside her, Estelle was picking at a puffy blister on the palm of her hand. Eula Lemoy and Elsie McMay sat down together, and Jimson Pickerell took a seat behind them. Eilene Buchanon came in and sat at the far end of the pew, her face duller than a widow woman’s ax.

Ruby Bee counted heads and determined they were all there, with the exception of Brother Verber, who was fussing around in the storage room behind the pulpit, and Mrs. Jim Bob, who’d called the emergency meeting and should have had the common decency to be on time.

They appeared from opposite directions. Brother Verber moved instinctively toward the pulpit, eliciting groans from those in the pews who’d sat through his interminable sermons, but he realized his error and plopped down on the pew next to Estelle. She was so relieved that she patted his knee.

Mrs. Jim Bob went right up next to the pulpit, clapped her hands like they were an unruly Sunday school class, and said, “We have a crisis, and it ain’t gonna do any good to pretend we don’t. Our chief of police has failed to locate Adele Wockermann, and we’re running out of time. The Nashville folks arrive tomorrow.”

“What time?” Jimson asked, trying to ingratiate himself into the group by acting all businesslike. In reality, he was kinda slow when it came to telling time, never having gotten his “tills” straight on account of a personality conflict with his first-grade teacher.

“I don’t know what time, Jimson! You just make sure your parking lot attendants are dressed in their Tshirts and are keeping an eye out for cars trying to sneak into the lot from the back.” She clapped her hands once again, although nobody else’d said a word. “I promised Mr. Keswick that Adele would be in her rocking chair next to the Christmas tree and eager to greet her famous great-nephew as soon as the cameras were ready. I don’t think an empty rocking chair will have the same effect.”

Ruby Bee stood up and cleared her throat. “It ain’t Arly’s fault that Adele turned out to be slick as a peeled onion when it came to disappearing.” She sat down and reminded herself to tell Arly about her spirited defense.

“That remains to be seen,” Mrs. Jim Bob retorted, unimpressed. “After some painful negotiating, I’ve come up with a contingency plan.”

“And I’ve come up with a li’l orphan for the benefit concert,” said Brother Verber, who was so proud of himself that he didn’t notice he was interrupting. “He doesn’t need a liver, but he’s living in a foster home where money’s tight and he needs a warm winter coat and mittens and maybe a shiny red bicycle. I went and fetched him this evening. He was tickled pink when I told him we’d get him a cowboy suit and hat just like Matt Montana’s. It liked to bring tears of joy to my eyes to see this orphan’s beaming face.”

“Where is he?” asked Mrs. Jim Bob.

Brother Verber swelled up so much one of the snaps on his shirt popped open. “I dropped Hammett off at Arly’s apartment. By now, they’ve had a warm reunion and are sharing stories over steamy cups of cocoa and toasted cheese samwiches.”

He was surprised when the committee members stiffened and stayed mute, particularly at a time when he was expecting a few words of congratulations. They didn’t have to go all out and break into applause, he thought, but they could stop sitting there like they’d been dunked in ice water. He’d sacrificed most of the afternoon and a full tank of gas. Couldn’t saintly Sister Barbara say anything?

“He’s a real cute little fellow,” he added as he took his handkerchief to blot his forehead, “The man from Nashville made it plain that he wanted a child that could pluck at the heartstrings of the audience—and this orphan’s one fine plucker.” He wiped the back of his neck, stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket, and waited for one single word of admiration for his noble sacrifice.

“Meeting adjourned,” said Mrs. Jim Bob.

The bus pulled to the side of the road in front of Matt Montana’s Hometown Bar & Grill. I’d seen it go by the PD and was walking toward it at an admirable clip when the doors hissed open. A good-sized crowd had already gathered, and the stores were spewing out tourists right and left. Cars and pickup trucks from both directions stopped in the road. We had the makings of a crackerjack traffic jam.

I arrived at the lot as Ripley Keswick peered out the doors of the bus, no doubt assessing their chances of slipping into town without being noticed. They’d have a better chance of hearing a Maggodian mallard quack, “Bienvenu!” He gestured for me to come to the door, offered his hand to help me up the steps, and then told the driver to close the doors.

I’ll admit I was curious to learn how the rich and famous traveled. The front section of the bus was fairly standard, with rows of seats facing forward and some turned to provide optimum seating at two tables. The last third of the bus was hidden by a partition with a door. The rich and famous traveled amidst a horrendous collection of aluminum cans, paper cups and plates, overflowing ashtrays, and crumpled sacks from fast-food joints. It reminded me of the back seat of my car.

“Arly, my dear,” Ripley said, still holding my hand as if we were newlyweds, “let me introduce you. Bart here is our driver and bass player.”

Bart looked neither rich nor famous, and, in fact, looked mostly drunk. We nodded at each other.

Ripley gestured at three men seated around a table.

“The other boys in the band—Beau and Brad are brothers, and Buck is their cousin, as is Bart.”

They were clones from the same laboratory that had produced a couple of patchwork movie monsters. They had frizzy, carrot-colored hair pulled back in ponytails, muttonchop sideburns, and droopy mustaches. They wore black hats and black vests over dingy Tshirts, and on their upper arms were tattoos of snakes and eagles intertwined in improbable procreative activity. I nodded. Brad blinked. Or maybe Beau … or Buck. I wasn’t sure they could tell themselves apart, if they’d ever tried.

My ersatz groom continued, “And there in the back is Miss Katie Hawk, one of our hottest young talents.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said as she smiled unenthusiastically at me.

“Well, then,” said Ripley, “I’m not sure how best to proceed, what with the crowd around the bus and the problem with traffic.”

I wasn’t ready to proceed, period. “Where’s the hometown boy? You’ve got close to two hundred people out there who’re going to tump the bus if Matt’s not on it.”

I may have underestimated the size of the crowd, but Maggody doesn’t present many opportunities to practice the art. The parking lot was packed. Faces were pressed against the tinted windows of the bus as if it were a shrine. A chant was in its infancy, but it was gaining momentum like a Baghdad political rally.

Ripley arched one eyebrow, a particularly eloquent movement that I’ve not mastered after countless hours at the bathroom mirror “Matt and Lillian are in the back. How do you suggest we handle the logistics, Arly?”

“What logistics do you have in mind?”

“Arly!” shrieked Ruby Bee, who’d wormed her way to the door and was pounding on it with her fist. “You got to let me in! They’re gonna rip me limb from limb!”

Ripley told the bus driver to open the doors wide enough to admit her. As she squeezed through the opening, we got a sound bite from the frantic fans. It wasn’t anything innovative, but the message was hard to miss.

“It ain’t the most civilized crowd,” she said between gasps, proving herself the master of the understatement. Once she’d caught her breath, she added, “Welcome to Maggody! We’re so thrilled to have you all—” She stopped and poked me in the rib cage. “Where in tarnation is he?”

“Fuckin’,” contributed one of the boys.

“Or fightin’,” said another.

The third inhaled deeply from a joint and shrugged.

Ripley put his hand on Ruby Bee’s arm. “Matt was so excited to be coming home to Maggody that he hardly slept last night. He and his wife are in the suite at the back of the bus. But, look, there’s Miss Katie Hawk in person. You can say hello to her.”

“Hello,” said Ruby Bee, albeit sullenly.

Katie smiled for a nanosecond. “H’lo.”

I was going to repeat my question regarding logistics when I realized the bus was beginning to rock back and forth. The faces squashed against the window looked more like snarling gargoyles than adoring fans, and there was a lot of scuffling in the crowd. We were liable to have fistfights and butts flying through the air before too long. The boys in the band were thumping on the table with each lurch of the bus and hooting obscenities at the faces on the other side of the glass. Katie screamed as a gorilla-sized hand replete with black hair flattened on the window next to her face. Ruby Bee hung onto my arm for dear life. Trash scooted across the floor. We were no longer in a bus, but in the fun house at a carnival. I’d always considered the name a misnomer.

“How do you handle a mob like this?” I shouted at Ripley.

“I haven’t any idea. I do ad campaigns, not mobs.”

I lost my balance as the floor tilted, and Ruby Bee and I stumbled into him. “You’d better think of something!” I shouted in his ear before we stumbled away. I turned around to order the driver to get us out of there, but he had passed out across the steering wheel. Splayed like a spider across the windshield was none other than Hammet Buchanon, waving excitedly at me. A woman with hair to rival Estelle’s snapped off a windshield wiper and triumphantly held it aloft. She stopped grinning as several women charged her. Ruby Bee and I went flying back into Ripley, this time pinning him against the door. He winced as Ruby Bee’s elbow caught him in the stomach.

Abruptly the bus stopped bucking. The chant faded to a few uncertain voices, then dried up. Hammet slithered out of view. Faces unglued themselves from the windows, and fans at the door of the bus drifted away.

“Are we missing the second coming of Christ?” said Ruby Bee. “Look over there at Jim Bob in the doorway of the bar. He sure looks like he’s facing the wrath of God.”

“More likely to be his wife,” I said as I heard a disembodied voice singing reverently as if easing into a hymn, then growing stronger.

“My sweet angel Katie on the top of the tree, we’ll celebrate Christmas for eternity …”

Dentha was deeply confused. The car that had been parked down the street from the office was registered to one Earl Buchanon of Maggody. He presumed this Buchanon was related to his former employee in some way, but that didn’t explain much. He hadn’t fired the boy. He never fired anyone, no matter how poor their sales were. His problem was recruiting new salesmen, most of whom would sell at least one or two Vacu-Pro Systems to members of their families before they became discouraged and quit. He and Miss Vetchling were the only constants in the office, and she was beginning to sniffle about the lateness of her paycheck.