Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 07 (5 page)

The front door opened and someone shuffled into the room. The accompanying odor swept through the office like a tidal wave, swelling into comers and butting against the ceiling. If it had color, it would have been bilious green. I recognized it as the unlovely emanation of Raz Buchanon, the local moonshiner. Tourists find him quaint. I find him a royal pain in the ass.

“We’re closed, Raz,” I said as I glumly regarded his filthy overalls, stringy gray hair, bloated belly, food-encrusted whiskers, and the ominous bulge of his cheek. “No crimes allowed after five o’clock. And do your spitting outside, please.”

I would have had equal luck communicating with a tree stump. “Now, Arly,” he sniveled, “I got some right important bizness with you. Somebody dun went and broke the law, and you being the police, you’re the one what ought to do something.”

“Did Perkins steal another of your dogs?”

“If that sumbitch so much as looks cross-eyed at any of my dawgs, I’m gonna blow his goddamn head off.” Raz sat down and began to scratch aimlessly. He comes from a particularly thorny branch of the Buchanon clan, one renowned for mindless retribution and infrequent displays of animal cunning. I doubted he’d ever been to a wedding or a funeral in which shotguns failed to outnumber guests. None of them differentiates among uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins, and parents. The consanguinity’s too complex.

I sat down behind my desk and reminded myself to breathe through my mouth. “Okay, Raz, let’s hear it.”

“Well, the thing is, I was a-drivin’ into town from over by Hasty, and out of the blue, Marjorie gits a funny look on her face like there’s a flea in her ear.”

“There probably was a flea in her ear, Raz,” I said, not pointing out the obvious source of said flea.

“This ain’t the time for jokes, Arly. Anyways, Marjorie’s been acting odd lately, but this time she’s acting so dadburned odd that I stop my truck, turn around, and go driving back to the low-water bridge, looking real careful like for whatever was puzzlin’ her. Then I seen it, and I liked to run clean off the bridge.”

I have to admit I was getting interested. “And?”

“Some low-down sumbitch moved the sign.”

Here I’d been hoping to hear about aliens emerging from a silver saucer, or Mrs. Jim Bob and Brother Verber capering indiscreetly in a cornfield. “What sign?” I asked.

“The town limit sign.” He creaked to his feet and stomped over to the front door to spit in the parking lot. To my regret, he stomped back and sat down. “That sign used to be right past Estelle’s. Now any fool can see it’s by the bridge. What are you gonna do about it?”

I stared at him. “Have you and Marjorie been lapping up too much moonshine?”

“I don’t know nuthin’ about any moonshine. Don’t take to bein’ accused, neither.”

“Jesus H, Raz, every last person in town knows you have a still on Cotter’s Ridge. I’ve been trying to find it for three years. Cut the crap about not knowing ‘nuthin’ about any moonshine,’ okay?”

“I don’t know nuthin’,” he muttered into his whiskers. “So what are you aimin’ to do about the sign? Nobody kin just up and move a sign like that.”

“If the sign has been moved, what earthly difference does it make to you? You live out the opposite direction.”

“It just ain’t right,” he said, then again creaked to his feet and went to the door to spit. “You better have a look fer yourself,” he said over his shoulder, scratched his butt, and ambled through the doorway. “And check your messages.”

I did, but they were all from Ruby Bee and centered on how displeased she was to have to speak to an answering machine. It was getting dark and I was getting hungry, but I was curious enough to take a flashlight out of a drawer, hang the CLOSED sign on the door, and drive toward County 102. The obvious explanation was that Raz was confused, I thought, more than a little confused myself. He was sly enough to hide his still from the long arm of the law, but he was a Buchanon, after all. I would have had no problem if he reported the sign was shot full of holes or embellished with an obscene word. Vandalizing property is a popular hobby for young and old. But to move a sign fifty feet?

Estelle’s house was on the right, and farther down the road, the Wockermann house loomed on the left. It was dark and deserted, just as it’d been since the last tenants moved away. The house had been in disrepair then; surely by now it deserved to be condemned.

I continued past the chicken houses, one charred and the other merely ramshackle, and parked by the low-water bridge, which, for the uninformed, is a concrete swath that allows water to flow across it. After a hard rain, it can make for an exciting minute or two. The sign was where Raz had claimed it was. It was pockmarked and rusted to the edge of indecipherability, but after a couple of years in Maggody, most everything and everybody is.

I’d never paid attention to its location, however, and I felt pretty damn foolish standing in the dark and shining my flashlight at it. It finally occurred to me to direct the beam at the ground. The earth was fresh. Frowning, I walked along the road until I came to spot where I found a depression, the earth also freshly disturbed.

And to think I keep griping that nothing ever happens in Maggody. Tsk, tsk.

“No luck at the courthouse?” Ruby Bee asked solicitously. “You look as worn out as a cow’s tail on a humid day. Let me get you a glass of sherry.”

Estelle considered marching out the door, but reconsidered and perched on her stool. “I spent all morning looking through the birth certificates for the whole year, but all of ‘em had home addresses that weren’t in Maggody. There was one rural route that got me stiffed up. Then the clerk got out a county map and we tracked it down to a road out by Hamilton.”

“All that work for nothing.” Ruby Bee set down the glass of sherry and made sure the pretzel basket was filled. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you, but some of us had better things to do all day than to flip through dusty old books.” She took a dishrag and began to wipe the bar, her expression perfectly innocent except for a bare trace of a smile. Just in case Estelle missed the message, she started humming Matt Montana’s best-known song.

“I suppose I could call Patty May Partridge and ask her if she’s heard anything new,” Estelle said with a sigh.

“She got off work at noon today.”

“Then maybe I’ll call her tomorrow, although it probably ain’t worth the effort.”

Edging closer, Ruby Bee hummed louder and made sure she wiped in time with the music.

Estelle remained oblivious. “I saw a real pretty sweater at the K-Mart, and nearly bought it, but then I couldn’t think what I’d wear it with, so I put it back. It was pink, with brown flowers and seed pearls.”

Ruby Bee’s eyes were bulging and her lips beginning to ache. She quit the humming and said, “Did I mention that Patty May got off work at noon?”

“I seem to recollect that you did.” Estelle inspected a pretzel and stuck it in her mouth. After a moment of thoughtful mastication, she said, “These are a mite stale. You ought to throw ‘em out tomorrow and open a fresh bag. I know they ain’t the reason business is so bad, but you don’t want to let your standards slip.”

“Aren’t you gonna ask why I happen to know the precise time that Patty May got off work?”

“I think I’ll go home and heat up the lasagna I fixed last night.” She slid off the stool and acted like she was leaving, although she wasn’t about to until she heard whatever it was that was setting Ruby Bee to twitching like she had her finger in a light socket and her foot in a bucket of water. “Don’t forget that we’re going to that flea market on Saturday morning. On the way, we may just have to run by the K-Mart so I can take another look at that sweater.”

“Because she came here to tell me her big news,” Ruby Bee blurted out in desperation. She snatched up a piece of paper and flapped it. “I wrote down the details so I wouldn’t forget anything.”

“How’d you find time to do that during your busy day?”

“Do you want to know or not?”

It could have escalated into a fine Mexican standoff, but Estelle swallowed her pride (for the moment, anyway) and climbed back up on her stool.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with Kevvie,” Dahlia wailed, rocking back and forth so wildly that Eilene was worried about the future of the swing, the porch, and even the second story of the house. “I ask him what’s wrong, but he won’t tell me. You’re his ma. You got to make him tell me what’s wrong!”

Eilene looked down at the moist mountain of misery. “All newlyweds have problems getting adjusted to married life,” she said as warmly as she could, considering she’d said it—or other similar platitudes—for the best part of an hour. On the other hand, Dahlia hadn’t offered much in the way of variations and it was beginning to wear thin. “Tell her to turn it down out there,” Earl called from the living room, where he was leaning so close to the television screen that his nose hairs tingled with static electricity. “The ball game’s in the last quarter. I can’t hardly hear the announcer over all that racket she’s making.”

“He’s changed,” Dahlia continued. “Yesterday there was a woman doctor on Sally Jessy, talking about how to save your marriage. I listened to every word she said. Last night when Kevvie walked through the door, I was wearing a naughty black nightie. I’d pinned my hair up on top of my head, put on makeup, and splashed half a bottle of cologne behind my ears. He went right by me to the bedroom like I was invisible.”

Eilene fought back a grimace as she imagined the scene.

“He was tired, honey. Going to all those houses, lugging that heavy suitcase—it’s wearing him out.”

“Something’s wrong with Kevvie,” she recommenced to wailing, making so much noise that dogs across town were howling and most of the neighbors on Finger Lane had come out on their porches to listen.

“Are folks going to remember you?” Ripley asked as he studied his notes.

Matt grinned. “It was a good ten years ago and I was just a runty kid trying to keep himself amused. If the same hick’s running the pool hall, he’ll remember kicking me out on my ass for stealing field whiskey from his stash in the back room. Used to be an antique store across from that, and if it’s still there, the old guy might tell the reporters about the time I tried to set fire to his cat. The preacher might remember how close I came to screwing his daughter in the basement of the church while the choir sang ‘Come Unto the Bosom of Jesus’ ten feet above us.”

“What about your great-aunt?”

“She’s the one what caught us in the basement.”

Ripley sighed as he imagined the reporters’ collective glee (and ensuing articles) if they were privy to Matt’s attempts to amuse himself. The tour would collapse, as would the opportunity to sell Country Connections, Inc. Pierce and Lillian refused to even meet with Whitey Breed, but Ripley’d had several clandestine conversations and had gone so far as to offer rosy financial projections based on the success of Matt’s new album.

Damn.

Mrs. Jim Bob settled her gloves in her lap, smoothed her skirt over her knees, and said, “Now, Brother Verber, I know you think it’s sinful for a woman to work outside the home. You quoted a passage from the Bible about how women are supposed to glean and reap in their husband’s field. At the time, you said anything to the contrary was sinful and an abhorrence unto the Lord.” She gave him a look of such unfathomable intensity that it sent a trickle of sweat down his back. “Do you still hold with that?”

“Has Jim Bob taken up farming?” he asked cagily.

“No, he hasn’t taken up farming. Just how sinful is it for a woman to work outside the home?”

Brother Verber slithered to his knees and clasped his hands on the back of the pew. “Let us pray for help on this, Sister Barbara. Let us beseech the Lord to tell us if He’s changed His mind in recent years. It ain’t up to a lowly preacher like myself to speak on behalf of Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”

“I don’t have time to sit here while you beg the Lord for an update on His opinion of feminist propaganda. Just this morning I had another call from Ripley Keswick. He wanted to know if the same folks still own the pool hall and the antique store from ten years ago and if you were the preacher back then.”

“What’d you say?” She struggled to keep a civil tongue. “That the pool hall changed hands last year, that Roy Stivers left last week for Florida, and that you came eight years ago. He seemed relieved, for some strange reason. Then he said for the benefit concert we’re supposed to come up with someone to be benefited. What he wants is a little child in need of an organ transplant, but I couldn’t think of a soul. Can you?”

“Can’t think of anyone off the top of my head,” he admitted. “We can hope for the best, but if no child starts ailing, we might have to settle for a family in dire straits. We’ve got a town full of them these days.”

“Well, we’re gonna have a town full of media folks and fans driving in from all across the country to have a look at the birthplace of Matt Montana. Thousands of people visit Graceland every year, and Elvis has been dead for years.”

Brother Verber whistled under his breath. “Paying to tour the house, eating in restaurants …”

“And more than likely eager to see the church where baby Matt was baptized.”

“Where would that be, Sister Barbara?”

She began to tug on her gloves. “Adele attended the Assembly Hall three times a week for seventy years before she had to go into the old folks home. I can’t see her lugging a baby down the road to the Methodist church.”

“But according to your story, Adele didn’t want anyone to know that her niece had given birth to a bushcolt, so she wouldn’t have announced it to everyone in town by having a public baptism, would she?”

“Mr. Keswick doesn’t want any mention of Matt’s illegitimacy. I told him I’d speak to Adele about remembering how the girl’s husband was killed early on, maybe in a war. If she’d been married, then the baby wouldn’t have been a bastard. Therefore, this is where he’d have been baptized, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” he said, bewildered by her logic but willing to go along with it if she was.