Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 07 (26 page)

“You ain’t funny,” Ruby Bee said as she snatched up the empty plate from in front of Hammet and started for the kitchen. “I told you that was Brother Verber’s idea.”

Hammet frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe he ain’t such an ol’ fart after all.”

When Ruby Bee returned, I asked her for her key to the Wockermann house. She wanted to know why, of course, and so did Hammet and most of the customers at that end of the bar. Estelle came out of the rest room in time to throw in her two cents. The detective in the movie Hammet and I had seen the previous evening did not have to present his proposal and get a show of hands before he continued his investigation. He simply drove up and down steep city streets at a hundred miles an hour, splattered crates of produce, averted collisions with buses, and ultimately watched his pursuers drive through a barrier and sail into the bay. He had it easy. After all this, she admitted that they kept a key on the ledge above the front door.

“What’s in the attic?” demanded Hammet once we were outside and I’d quit grumbling. “Ghosts? Skeletons?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but at least two people have been up there looking for something. I wonder if maybe we ought to get the owner’s permission before we go there.”

“How we gonna do that?”

I told him.

After a detour by the PD to make a call, we drove into Farberville and parked in front of the lobby of the motel where Patty May Partridge had vanished. This time I told Hammet he might as well come along, since I was going to disrupt the ambiance in any case and he might as well have the opportunity to observe a professional in action.

The manager was as peevish as McBeen. “We’re even busier tonight,” she said. “There are four private parties, including the county bar association in the Razorback Room, and the club is always packed on Saturday nights. If you’ll excuse me, Chief Hanks, I must attend to business.”

“Officer McNair, Larry, and I will try our best not to disturb your guests.” I beckoned to the two figures outside the door. “Here they are now. Larry is also trained to find illegal substances, so we may have to bring in more police officers if … well, I’m quite sure none of those lawyers and their spouses in the Razorback Room would be in possession of drugs, not even the designer ones.”

“That’s a dog,” the manager said in a horrified voice.

I nodded. “I have a handkerchief with the missing woman’s scent. We’ll start here in the lobby, or maybe in the restaurant, and hope he can pick up the trail. If not, we’ll go up and down the halls. Unless, of course …”

“Unless what?”

“If I’m correct, these women have been here for almost three weeks. Someone on the staff has seen them, talked to them, taken them extra towels or trays of food. And while you’re at it, calls may have been placed to Nashville from their room. The area code is six-one-five.”

She made one last stand. “Do you have a warrant?”

“I have a dog. His name is Larry.”

“Just don’t bring him in here,” she said, heading for the desk. “I’ll try the long-distance records, and my assistant will start questioning the staff. Leave the dog in the parking lot, all right?”

I went outside to thank Officer McNair for coming to the motel. When I came back in, Hammet was scooping pennies out of the fountain and the manager was shrieking in her office. Within five minutes, she came out and said, “There are two women in 223, one young and one elderly, registered as the Misses Germanders. On six occasions, calls were made to a number with a six-one-five area code. Is that adequate, Chief Hanks?”

I thanked her, grabbed Hammet by the back of his belt, hauled him out of the fountain, and propelled him out of the lobby.

“I got seventy-three cents,” he crowed, showing me his drippy treasure. “Coulda got more, too. Why do you reckon folks throw money in there? Don’t they figger somebody’s gonna fish it out?”

I admitted I didn’t know as we walked past the frozen pool and up the concrete steps to the balcony. Room 223 was next to an alcove with ice and soda machines, convenient for either Miss Germander should she feel the need of a cold drink. Lights were on, and through the door I could hear the sounds of a television game show. I hesitated, recalling all the time and energy I’d spent trying to find Adele Wockermann and all the exasperation I’d experienced because of it.

Hammet leaned over the iron railing. “Do they throw money in the swimming pool, too?”

“You can go look, but don’t fall in.” After he’d gone back down, I knocked in the manner of a maid with an extra blanket.

Patty May opened the door, saw my badge, and tried to close it. I pushed my way inside. “Where is she?” I demanded, eschewing inquiries into her health.

Her mouth went limp. “Where’s who?”

“Adele Wockermann.” I made sure she wasn’t in the bathroom or the closet, switched off the television, then sat down on the nearest of the two beds. On a table was a tray with the remains of a meal, although it appeared that only one person had utilized room service. “Come on, Patty May, I know what happened the day Adele disappeared. There were no unfamiliar cars in the parking lot that day—only yours and the ones that belong to the other employees. If no one saw any strangers, heard any strangers, or even recalled any strangers in the area, then there weren’t any strangers. The dog did not bark in the night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said as she sank down on a chair across the room and stared at me, more stunned than hostile.

“The cook goes outside to have a cigarette during the dessert course. You carried a tray into the kitchen, cut the hose on the dishwasher, and went back to the dining room. Twenty minutes later water was spurting onto the floor, Mrs. Twayblade was mopping madly, and you were helping Adele out to your car. It was cold, so I hope you covered her with a blanket. She might have been forced to stay there until your shift ended at four, but fortunately Mrs. Twayblade told you and Tansy to take your cars and drive along the road.”

“She did?” breathed Patty May, who apparently had no experience with drawing room denouements and therefore had not yet burst into tears and admitted her guilt.

I wasn’t in any hurry. “So at three o’clock you drove away with Adele on the floor in the back. You needed to stash her somewhere for an hour, didn’t you?”

“I did?”

“Asking questions in response to questions is a very irritating habit, Patty May. It’s almost as irritating as failing to return calls.” I went to the window and looked down at the courtyard, where Hammet knelt by the pool wielding a long metal rod with a net on the end. He’d collected several beer cans and a black brassiere. I let the drape fall back. “Maybe all this talk about the old homestead made Adele feel nostalgic. You dropped her off there, went back to the county home, and picked her up again once your shift ended. Is that right?”

She struggled to come up with a lie, but she lacked Katie Hawk’s experience. “It was her idea to go there, and like you said, it was cold and I hated for her to have to huddle on the floor of the car for another hour. Her arthritis has been acting up lately.”

“Did she mention going up to the attic?”

“Yeah,” Patty May said with some reluctance. “It could have been awful if she fell on the stairs, but she didn’t. She said all this talk about her great-nephew reminded her of what all was up there. I asked her what, but she told me to mind my driving because she wanted a jalapeno pizza as soon as we got to Farberville.”

“Then the two of you came here and checked in under a pseudonym. Why’d you do all this, Patty May?”

“He told me to. He arranged to pay for the room and all our meals and told me to keep her here until it’s safe. Nobody is supposed to know where we are.”

“Who is this benefactor?”

“Why, Matt Montana, of course. He found out about a scheme to kidnap Miz Wockermann because she’s his great-aunt. An ordeal like that would be awful hard on her. He’s cooperating with the FBI, but until the kidnappers are in jail, Miz Wockermann has to hide out.”

I wish I could say I was so astounded by this unexpected turn of events that I was tongue-tied, but I’d had no theories whatsoever about why Patty May had helped Adele escape and this was plausible. More plausible than extraterrestrial involvement, anyway. “Where is Mrs. Wockermann?” I asked.

“She’s out on a date.”

This was less plausible. “Out on a date with whom, Patty May?”

“A man named Merle Hardcock. He’s from Maggody and they’re old friends. When she and I first got here, we went out to eat a few times and went to matinees, but I ran out of money pretty quick. Once we’d watched all the pay movies, she got bored and called him to come over and play pinochle. Two different times they locked me out of the room and I had to sit in the lobby, and another time they were in the nightclub until two in the morning. Matt Montana’s private secretary promised he’d send some money, but that was most of a week ago and nobody answers at the number he gave me.”

“And this private secretary’s name is Ripley Keswick?”

She nodded so vigorously that her glasses slid down her nose and into her lap. “How you’d know that?” she demanded as she squinted at me.

“Just a wild guess,” I said. “Have you ever spoken to Matt Montana?”

“No, he’s been real busy finishing his Christmas album, but he sends messages through Mr. Keswick and is going to thank me in person when it’s all over. I get all tingly just thinking about him shaking my hand. I finally remembered when he came a couple of years back to visit Miz Wockermann. He was just a regular person back then, so I barely paid any attention to him except to tell him when it was time to leave. He’s a lot more handsome now that he’s famous.”

I returned to the window to check on Hammet, who’d perfected the art of pool retrieval and now had a sizable pile of undergarments on the deck, to the amusement of the motel guests, who hung over the railing and shouted encouragement. “Why did you call me when Adele disappeared?”

“I thought maybe she’d be safer if the kidnappers found out that they couldn’t get their evil clutches on her. If they heard on the news or read in the paper that she was gone, then they’d give up. They haven’t, though. Last night they followed me, and one of them was hanging out the window trying to shoot me. I lost ‘em, but it was so scary that I threw up something awful when I got back here. I don’t reckon I ever hugged the porcelain that long in my whole life.”

“I doubt the kidnappers will bother you anymore. When are Adele and Merle Hardcock supposed to be back?”

Patty May’s face turned the precise shade of the carpet, which, unfortunately, was avocado green, and she appeared to be in peril of a repeat of the previous evening’s gastric extravaganza. “They left yesterday evening while I was visiting my family, and they haven’t come back. I been trying all day to get hold of Mr. Keswick and find out what I should do, but like I said, nobody answers. It’s not my fault. Miz Wockermann wasn’t a prisoner or anything. I was just supposed to protect her until it was safe for her to go back to Maggody.”

I felt as if I’d fallen into Hammet’s pool. “She left last night and hasn’t come back?”

“She wrote a note that they were going to have Mexican food at a place called Matamoros. I looked in the telephone directory, and even called information, but there’s no restaurant with that name. My ma says there’s no town with that name anywhere around here.”

“The only one I can think of is about a thousand miles away, but the food is authentic.” I saw no point in further distressing Patty May by telling her that Merle Hardcock owned a motorcycle the size of a Brahman bull. Oddly enough, he has no known links to the Buchanon family.

Patty May finally made the connection. “You mean Miz Wockermann’s going to Mexico? You got to stop her. Can’t you call the Texas Rangers or somebody like that?”

“And have her brought back in chains to the county home? No, she can do whatever she damn well pleases, and she and Merle will undoubtedly have an intriguing time of it. Now stop worrying about Mrs. Wockermann and listen to me. I want to hear every conversation you’ve heard—or overheard—concerning Matt Montana’s return to his boyhood home. Every word.”

Patty May complied.

Miss Vetchling stuck out her tongue at the dog barking furiously on the opposite side of the car window. Its paws made muddy splotches, and drool flew from its mouth and dripped down its fangs. It was tempting to roll down the window and poke the brute in the eye, but there was no time to indulge in such frivolity. Later, there might be time to drive by and toss a doctored dog biscuit out the window.

She lit a cigarette from Mr. Dentha’s rapidly dwindling pack, then checked off the third name on the list. Kevin had been to the house and demonstrated the system to Mrs. Karpik’s satisfaction. Once again it was time to consult the street map.

The driver of the car parked half a block away would gladly have eaten a dog biscuit. There were no provisions on the seat, and the candy bar fortuitously discovered in the glove compartment had long since been consumed. Fingers had been sucked clean. The driver was beginning to feel downright crotchety.

Mrs. Jim Bob sat in the living room. The fire in the fireplace had sputtered out, and the lights on the Christmas tree were dark. Her tea was cold. Jim Bob had claimed he was going to the SuperSaver, but she knew where he was and with whom. She was too good a Christian to envision the specifics of what they were doing, but even her sanitized version was disgusting and wicked. If he’d paid attention to business instead of chasing after loose women, the store would have done better and she would not have been driven to glean and reap in another field. She would not have been seduced by Satan. Love of money would not have replaced her love of the Lord, who, now that she thought about it, could have sent a signal back in the beginning that she shouldn’t open a souvenir shoppe. She wouldn’t have needed a bolt of lightning to get the message. Surely He could have created an insurmountable problem with the lease or burned down the novelty company.

But He’d let the sun shine on her endeavor. Now it was dark and cold, and sleet would fall by morning. It would fall on the empty spaces at the campgrounds and on the vacant parking lot beside the bank. It would fall on the yard of Matt Montana’s Birthplace & Boyhood Home, but not on more than a few tourists waiting in line for a guided tour. It would fall on the roof of an almost empty Official Matt Montana Souvenir Shoppe. Worst of all, she thought with a shiver that ran clear down to her toes, it would fall on the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, where there was a room used exclusively by the Missionary Society. Where they kept their trays, their coffee and tea pots, their packages of forks, napkins, and paper plates, their spiral notebooks with meticulous minutes of each meeting, and their checkbook that indicated to the last penny how much had accumulated in the treasury. In that the extent of their mission thus far consisted of meeting weekly for refreshments, the treasury had grown steadily.