Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (3 page)

I crossed my arms. “If you’d told me you wanted to file a missing person report, I would have brought the forms with me. Before I round up a posse to search the ridge, however, I might mention that Kayleen left the PD about ten minutes ago on her way to the Wockermann place. Something about an electrician.”

“General Pitts, this is Arly. Her real name is Ariel, which I chose on account of it having a nice ring to it. She used to be married, but when she got divorced, she decided to take back her maiden name, which is the same as mine. How long ago was that, Arly?”

The man slid off the stool and spun around in a neat, controlled movement worthy of a ballroom dancer. He had short gray hair, close-set eyes, and thin, taut lips. A jutting jaw gave him an air of belligerence. That, or listening to Ruby Bee dither about me as if I were the hottest thing since sliced bread.

“I’m Sterling Pitts,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, figuring he knew pretty much everything about me from kindergarten to court. “Would you like directions to the house Kayleen bought?”

“Eventually, but why don’t you allow me to buy you a soda?”

I glanced at Ruby Bee, who was rolling her eyes and wiggling her mouth at me as though a bug was crawling up her back. “A beer sounds good,” I said as I brushed past him and sat on a stool.

He frowned at the badge on my shirt. “Are you allowed to drink alcoholic beverages while on duty, Chief Hanks?”

“I’m not on duty,” I said as I took off the badge and put it in my pocket. “My shift ended fifteen seconds ago when I decided to have a beer. I can deputize Kevin if the bank robbers show up.”

Ruby Bee banged down a mug in front of me. “Mind your mouth, Arly. General Pitts may not think you’re as funny as you do.”

“That’s right,” Estelle said as she came out of the ladies room and perched on her customary stool at the end of the bar, where she could eavesdrop without spilling her sherry. “What’s more, you ought to take some interest in your appearance when you’re on duty. I just got in a shipment of lipstick that might give you some color. Why don’t you come by and let me give you a complimentary makeover?”

I ignored her. “You’re a general?”

“It’s really more of an honorary title,” he said, flushing. “It was bestowed on me by the members of a group that I organized several years ago. We adopted military ranking in order to provide internal structure.” Ruby Bee gave him a disappointed look. “Oh, I thought you were a real general, like Eisenhower and Patton. Go ahead and tell Arly what you’re aiming to do next week.”

Pitts clearly was not pleased to have his rank dismissed so nonchalantly, but after a brief moment of pouting, he turned to me and said, “Please rest assured that our activities will take place outside your jurisdiction, Chief Hanks. Furthermore, we are law-abiding citizens with no desire to disrupt the community or cause alarm. We simply ask to be allowed to exercise our constitutional rights without undue interference.”

It didn’t sound as if he was planning to stage a beauty pageant to select Miss Stump County-or anything remotely that innocuous. Then again, he’d hardly tell me if he were plotting to overthrow the town council and put in a dictatorship (as if we’d notice).

“Just what do you have in mind?” I asked, setting down my beer in case I needed to put myself back on duty.

“I am the leader of a small group concerned about protecting the American way of life. We are preparing ourselves to fight back in the face of an invasion of foreign troops or even an attempt by the federal government to declare martial law and deprive us of our rights. Should push come to shove, we will not be led to the slaughterhouse like bleating sheep. We will resist.”

“How are you preparing yourselves?”

Pitts gave me a smile that oozed superciliousness. “Through rigorous physical training, as well as education and networking with others who share our beliefs. We will establish an encampment encampment at the far edge of Kayleen’s property in order to perform military maneuvers in the more rugged terrain on the ridge. We will perfect survival techniques in anticipation of the day when resources are controlled by the enemy. We will eat off the land.”

Ruby Bee winced. “You’re gonna eat roots and berries when you could have a nice blue-plate special right here? Wouldn’t you prefer chicken-fried steak with cream gravy and your choice of three vegetables?”

“We are not ignorant savages,” he said. “We will simply make do with game or fish, if necessary supplementing it with provisions brought with us. One of the women handles those duties while we focus on important matters.”

“You can’t make decent biscuits over a campfire,” stated Ruby Bee, who clearly fancied herself to be an authority of the same stature as Julia Child.

He gazed coldly at her. “Sacrifices must be made in order to defend the Constitution of the United States of America.”

When he didn’t burst into the national anthem, I said, “I’m not sure it’s wise to play G.I. Joe in the woods next week. Deer hunting season starts this Saturday. A lot of guys stick a bottle of bourbon in their pockets and go stumbling around, shooting at any thing that twitches a whisker. There are one or two fatal accidents every year. I wouldn’t set foot out there, even if Raz Buchanon offered to carry me piggyback to his still.”

Pitts climbed off the stool and took a step back, his shoulders squared and that same damn smile on his face. “There are worse dangers than drunken hunters. Now, if you’ll tell me how to find Kayleen’s house, I will be on my way. I’m sure you have more important things to do than sit here and make idle conversation.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” I said without enthusiasm. After Ruby Bee had given him directions, no more complicated than left out of the parking lot, right on County 102, he marched out the door. I finished my beer and stood up. “Did Pitts say where he lives when he’s not stalking squirrels and godless communists?”

Estelle snorted. “Farberville. He owns an insurance agency.”

“Then I hope he has a hefty life insurance policy,” I said as I headed for the door.

“Do you think there’s anything to what he said?” asked Ruby Bee. “Could the government up and take over the country?”

“About the time Marjorie sprouts wings,” Estelle said with another snort.

I kept on walking.

Brother Verber was slumped on the couch in the silver trailer that served as the rectory for the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. It was so small that it was a miracle he didn’t run into himself in the hallway that led to the bathroom and bedroom. What’s more, it lacked the cozy touches only a woman could provide, like doilies on the armrests and china knickknacks on the table. The counter of the kitchen alcove was cluttered not with the makings for buttermilk biscuits, but with dirty dishes, crusted pots, and empty sacramental wine bottles.

It hadn’t seemed so awful a week ago, when he was resigned to being a bachelor for the rest of his life. He had his pulpit and his congregation, his subscriptions to magazines that kept him informed of any new trends in sexual deviancy, and occasional trips to Little Rock to do personal research into such matters. Still, there’d been times when he wondered if he was missing something.

He put down the plastic tumbler to clasp his hands together and find out what, if anything, the Lord would think about all this. ” ‘Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.’ ” He paused, then added, “That’d be from Ecclesiastes, in case You couldn’t quite put Your finger on it.”

The Lord didn’t seem to have a response, so Brother Verber went to the refrigerator and refilled his glass with the last of the wine. Rather than resuming his prayerful posture on the couch, he looked out the window at the Assembly Hall, a metal structure that bore a vague resemblance to the rectory. Kayleen had agreed to come to the Sunday morning service, but she hadn’t promised to join his little flock on a permanent basis. He imagined her in the first pew, her face rosy with religious fervor and her skirt hitched up just far enough to permit a glimpse of her muscular thighs.

He took a handkerchief out of his bathrobe pocket and blotted his forehead. This wasn’t anything to do with lust, he told himself. It had to do with warm, loving companionship as they traveled down the road to the Pearly Gates. There was nothing wrong with that, surely. They were both too old to go forth and multiply, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t partake in a few worldly pleasures of the flesh.

Sweat was dribbling into his ears and his eyes were glazed with the particulars of his fantasy when he heard a knock at the door. He shoved as many wine bottles as he could into the garbage bag under the sink, took a last swipe at his forehead, and opened the door.

“Why, Sister Barbara,” he began in what he hoped was a voice of surprise and delight, “I wasn’t expecting to see you this afternoon. Why don’t you-“

“You’re not dressed,” Mrs. Jim Bob said as she swept past him. “Shouldn’t you be out visiting the sick or over in the Assembly Hall working on your sermon? The devil finds work for idle hands, as you well know.”

While she took off her coat, he snatched the tumbler off the kitchen table and stuck it in the nearest cabinet. “I was headed for the county nursing home this morning,” he improvised, “but then I started feeling like I had a touch of the stomach flu. Not wanting to inflict my germs on those feeble old things, I came right home where I could pray for them without endangering their health.”

“You do look kind of damp,” she said as she sat down on the couch. “If you’re still feeling sickly tomorrow, I’ll make a pot of chicken soup and bring it over here.”

“You are so selfless,” he said, sitting down next to her so he could pat her knee. “That’s why you’re such an inspiration to the congregation.”

“I understand you’ve been doing some recruiting.”

“It’s my duty to bring sinners off the street and into the bosom of the Lord, Sister Barbara. I know for a fact that the angels burst into song whenever a lost soul finds salvation through prayer and Bible studies.”

“I assume you remember how Jesus ran the moneylenders out of the temple, saying it had become a den of thieves. You wouldn’t want that to happen at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, would you?”

Brother Verber was more than a little mystified by her remark. “I should say not,” he said, trying to sound emphatic. “In this sea of wickedness that surrounds us, the Assembly Hall is our lifeboat, and you, Sister Barbara, are right there at the helm beside me.”

“I’m glad to hear we have an understanding.” She removed his hand from her knee and picked up her purse. “I’ll be by tomorrow with the soup.”

“God bless you,” he called as she went out the door, then retrieved his wine and watched her drive away in the pink Cadillac Jim Bob had bought for her after she found out about his relationship with a divorcée living at the Pot O’ Gold trailer park.

Thinking about that reminded him of Kayleen, with her shapely figure and loving nature. He wouldn’t rush her, of course, but instead give her time to learn to appreciate his finer qualities, like his compassion for the little heathen children in Africa, his spirituality, his sacrifices to battle Satan’s soldiers.

Imbued with optimism as well as wine, he sat down on the couch and considered when it would be fitting for him to drop by the Flamingo Motel again. He’d give it a day or two, he decided as he took a swallow of wine and let it dribble down his throat like diluted honey.

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The sun was shining the next morning, but the wind was frigid. I kept my hands in my coat pockets as I hurried across the road to the PD, accompanied only by skittering leaves and litter. As soon as I’d made coffee and was settled at my desk, I called the sheriff’s department in Farberville and asked to speak to Harve Dorfer. “Is there something goin’ on out there?” asked LaBelle, the dispatcher. “More Martians?”

“No,” I said, struggling to keep the irritation out of my voice. LaBelle covertly runs the department, deciding whose calls to put through and whose to leave indefinitely on hold. She was enough of a pain in the rear that I almost would have preferred voice mail: “If you’re in the act of committing a felony, press one.”

LaBelle sniffed. “Sheriff Dorfer’s been real busy these last few days, what with the upcoming election and all. He’s speaking at the Rotary meeting at noon about all the drug busts he’s made in the last year, then he’s supposed to-“

“Just put him on, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she retorted, no doubt already plotting her revenge.

When Harve finally came on the line, he sounded as if he were rehearsing his speech. “Good to hear from you, Arly. It’s important that law enforcement agents work together to keep crime out of Stump County so our children won’t be sold drugs on the playgrounds and our senior citizens can sleep at night, knowing their houses won’t be vandalized.”

“Save it for the Rotarians,” I said. “I need someone at your end to run a check on a guy named Sterling Pitts. I’d estimate his age at fifty-five to sixty, gray hair, a propensity for khaki. Purportedly, he has an insurance office over there.”

Harve chuckled. “Sounds like a dangerous character. Did you nab him for running the stoplight?”

“He hasn’t done anything-yet.” I told him about the conversation in the bar the previous day, then added, “The last thing we need is a bunch of weekend warriors crawling around in the woods during deer season. You’re not going to win any votes if half of them are carried out in body bags.”

I heard the scritch of a match as he lit one of his infamously vile cigars. “You have a point,” he said slowly, “but do we have a leg to stand on here? If they have the property owner’s permission-and you’re saying they do-I don’t see what we can do about it. It may be stupid, but it’s not against the law.”

“Just check out this guy. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find an outstanding warrant to dangle over his head. I don’t care if they want to sleep in caves and eat bark for breakfast; I just don’t want them doing it during deer season. We have to protect our reputation.”