Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (31 page)

“There was some life insurance money,” Kayleen said as she vanished into the bathroom.

I nearly keeled over as it came together like mashed potatoes and gravy. I made it to the chair and sank down, listening in awe as pieces of the puzzle slammed into each other in much the same fashion as Kevin’s car had slammed into the Hummer outside the emergency room. Although I hadn’t listened to the cassette, I would have crossed my heart and sworn to die that I knew what the conversation had been about.

Furthermore, I was in the wrong room.

Before I could rectify this, Kayleen emerged. Her freshly applied lipstick was a bit crooked, but her gaze was level. She went to the window and pulled back the drape, then said, “I’m thinking about going back to the hospital. All I can do is hold Eileen’s hand, but that’s better than sitting here, worrying about the baby. Is it okay with you, Arly?”

“Is the deputy still out there?”

“Why, yes,” she said, frowning at what she must have felt was a stupid question.

I produced another one. “How much life insurance money was there, Kayleen? There’s no point in lying about it. One of Big Brother’s favorite offspring, the IRS, has the figures. It may not be legal for them to divulge it, but they can be coaxed, as can the insurance company that held the policy. Not the individual agent, though. He’s liable to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. God, I’m getting sick of that.”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“Sterling won’t want to discuss how he can afford a fifty-five-thousand-dollar tank and a computer and other expensive equipment. If he owned a large agency with a lot of employees to drum up business, I might buy it. His agency probably doesn’t generate enough income to fill the Hummer’s gas tank every week.” I went to the window and made sure she hadn’t lied about Les’s presence twenty feet from the door. He may have had the book in his lap, but he was making a show of scanning the units as if they were cells on death row.

Kayleen sat down on the bed. “Sterling and I have never talked about his personal finances. As for the insurance money, the policy was for half a million dollars. I guess when Maurice took it out, he thought he was going to get rich.”

I waved at Les, then turned around. “His daughter and the sheriff both said he was a tightwad. Tightwads don’t spend a ton of money on life insurance premiums so their heirs can squander it. Did he even know you and Sterling arranged for the policy?”

“I knew I would outlive Maurice, and the last thing I wanted to do was be forced to go back to work. Is there something wrong with making sure I had security in my old age?”

“Darn right you knew you were going to outlive Maurice,” I said coldly, “especially since you chose the night to kill him. It was a really good scheme, by the way. You set the stage by prowling around your neighbors’ houses so everybody’d believe your story about masked men in your house. You had plenty of time to take a few weapons and hide them to give the nonexistent burglars a motive. Then you shot your husband, broke a window and the gun case, and called for help. You would have gotten away with it if you hadn’t sold the Ingram MAC ten.”

“You’re out of your mind, Arly. I consider Ruby Bee and Estelle to be my dearest friends. They’re not going to like it when they hear you said all these terrible things about me. When I say my prayers tonight, I’ll ask God to help you come to your senses.”

“Thanks,” I said with a facetiously bright smile. “And I was wrong a minute ago. I said you would have gotten away with it, but you wouldn’t have if Dylan hadn’t been killed. You already know he died of nicotine poisoning. The rifle might have done the trick, but I guess you had to be sure.”

She gaped at me, then stood up and edged over to the dresser. “I’m beginning to think you’re plumb crazy. Why in heaven’s name would I want to kill that boy? I hardly knew him, and I didn’t believe all the accusations about him being a government agent.”

I once again checked to make sure Les was attentive enough to gallop across the lot if I needed him (there wasn’t time for him to make a grenade launcher). “He wasn’t a government agent,” I said, glancing at the telephone and wondering if Agent Tonnato was on the other end of the line. “Dylan was actually the son of the man who was murdered with the Ingram you let slip out of your hands. Friday night he got into the room next to Sterling’s and taped everything everything that was said between seven and ten. After Barry left, you and Sterling discussed new recruits-but you weren’t referring to your militia roster. Had you decided what to do once you and Brother Verber came up the aisle? A long boat ride, or maybe a sprinkle of this or that in his spaghetti sauce?”

“I’m just heartbroken to hear you say those things, Arly. I’ve had a hard life, losing two husbands and having to work night shifts, but I swear I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“Ruby Bee managed to support herself and bring up a child without resorting to murdering lonely old men. I won’t be surprised if it turns out you’ve gone through more than two husbands.” I went to the door. “Get your coat, Kayleen. I’ll have the deputy take you to the sheriff’s office.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said in a thin voice. “All you’ve done is make wild accusations. You can’t prove any of it. Sheriff Flatchett did a thorough investigation, and he was satisfied that I was telling the truth. Why can’t you do the same? I deserve the chance to live out my life with a loving husband and caring friends. Maggody’s a clean town without the kind of people who pollute the air just by breathing it.”

She was damn good. Her eyes glittered with tears and her lips quivered, and she looked willing to fall to her knees and clasp her hands like a malnourished orphan. Then again, black widow spiders have a decorative red mark on their backs and no doubt find each other attractive.

I shook my head. “I don’t have much proof yet, but I’ve sent someone to get the rifle that you hid on the ridge. The person who found it has the blowgun, too. The dart you dipped in nicotine and took out of Dylan’s neck as soon as you reached his body may never be found, since you could have put it in your pocket and disposed of it.”

“But I didn’t,” Kayleen said as she took a threeinch needle with a plastic tip out of her pocket. “It took me a long time to soak loose tobacco and then boil it down to a sticky goo. You can see some near the tip, so I assume it’s still … serviceable, in a manner of speaking.”

Did I mention I was in the wrong room? What’s more, it was all my stupid, semi-arrogant fault for not leaving when I first realized she was a murderer. I could have called a cheery goodbye, gone outside, and used Les’s radio to summon Harve and whomever else he could round up. Harve could have held his own press conference, impressed the electorate, and started tracking down a pair of bloodhounds.

As it was, I was obliged to settle for the trite, “You’ll never get away with it, so put that thing down before you make it worse.”

“Does that queer hermit I’ve heard about have the rifle?” she said, brandishing the dart.

I pressed my back against the wall. “Maybe.”

“That’s what I figured. I saw him on the top of the ridge, watching the maneuver. He ducked out of sight as soon as I fired the shot, but he may have lingered long enough to see me stash the rifle and blowgun. I was following what I hoped were his tracks when I ran into Ruby Bee.” She came close enough to me that I could see the dark brown residue on the dart. “Do you know where his cave is?”

“Sure,” I said quickly. “It’s not too far from Raz’s still.”

“Ruby Bee said you’ve been looking for the still for several years-but you haven’t found it.”

It was odd the way my mother could interfere even when she was twenty miles away in a hospital waiting room.

“Earlier this week Raz broke down and told me,” I said, struggling not to allow my voice to crack. I’m much better at lying when I’m not being threatened with an untimely demise. “You want me to draw you a map?”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but your maps are kind of hard to read. You’d better take me there. I’m sure I can reason with the hermit, or give him a few dollars in exchange for the rifle. He’s one witness I won’t have to worry about, isn’t he?”

She actually laughed, but I wasn’t in the mood to share the merriment. She kept right on smiling as she put on her coat, careful to keep the dart within jabbing distance, and then said, “We’re going to walk outside and get into your car. I’ll be behind you, and the dart will easily penetrate your clothes should it be necessary.

“And I’ll have five minutes to tell the deputy what happened before I lose consciousness.”

“Which means I’ll go to prison. You’ll be dead.”

There was that. I shrugged and opened the door, painfully aware of her breath on the back of my neck as we went out into the parking lot. I was weighing my chances of escaping somewhere on the ridge versus running toward Les’s car when the door of #5 opened.

“Kayleen! Good news,” boomed Sterling, practically pounding on his chest like a silverback. “I’ve just spoken to the lieutenant governor, and he’s going to take care of this in the next hour. Chief Hanks, it may be time for you to start practicing the phrase, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ “

Kayleen hesitated. In that I really, really didn’t want to go back to Cotter’s Ridge, I spun around and punched her in the nose hard enough to put her on the gravel. I picked up the dart by its plastic tip and started yelling at Les to get his boss on the radio. Doors opened and the entire militia came stumbling out, drunk, sober, half-dressed, clad in camouflage-the whole gamut. The only thing they seemed to have in common was outrage, but for once their paranoia had a basis in fact: cops can be brutal.

Once Kayleen had been safely stashed in the back of Les’s car, I went into the kitchen of the bar and found an empty jar with a lid for the dart. It was more than mildly tempting to pour myself a beer and sit in solitude, contemplating my near-death experience, but the neon Coors sign wasn’t the light I was supposed to have seen.

Sterling was shouting at Les as I came back out. He was pretty much incoherent, although the word “amendment” was coming through on a regular basis, along with the tried-and-true “constitutional rights.”

I poked Sterling in the back. “Look, buddy, you may not have pulled any triggers, but you conspired with Kayleen to murder Maurice Smeltner—and it stinks of premeditation.”

“You have no proof.”

“A mere technicality. When the insurance company that paid out half a million dollars to the grieving widow takes a harder look at the application, I suspect they’ll find a whole slew of forged signatures, like Mo’s and that of a physician who purportedly did a physical examination.”

That stopped him cold. “What do you know about that?”

“And even if Kayleen takes the rap for that,” I continued, “the IRS is going to want to have a long talk about unreported income, tax evasion, and fraud.”

“I had to fund our group,” he said, looking imploringly at Barry, Reed, and Jake. “No one but dedicated patriots such as ourselves will be prepared to defend the country in the face of the invasion that will lead to Armageddon. You know it’s coming, don’t you? Women and the inferior races have the vote, the despots in Washington burdened us with an illegal tax levy to fuel the international conspiracy, and the banks are controlled by the Federal Reserve.” He swung around and gripped Les’s shoulder. “Haven’t you seen the secret codes on the backs of highway signs? They exist to aid the enemy’s armies when they arrive to round up able-bodied men and execute them like dogs. Any of us who’s been in the armed services or even in a hospital has a device in his buttocks that can be monitored via satellite.”

Les stepped back. “Don’t go talking about my buttocks unless you want to ride to Farberville in the trunk.”

Reed scowled at Sterling. “Did Kayleen really kill Mo? He wasn’t what I’d call a party animal, but he wasn’t hurting anybody. I mean, we all got to get old some day, don’t we? Doesn’t mean we ought to be shot in the gut.”

“Sacrifices had to be made,” Sterling whimpered.

I told Les to put the general in the backseat with Kayleen. When they were gone, I faced the remaining members of the militia. “Get on home. You’ll be hearing from the sheriff’s department, and possibly the FBI. I don’t think you’ll have much free time to play in the woods, since there’ll be lots and lots of interrogations. Grand juries can be demanding.”

Reed was whining to Barry as they went into #6. Jake spat on the ground and went into #2. They’d be gone by mid-afternoon, and the sheriff would have the Hummer and the Mercedes impounded by morning. The Flamingo Motel would regain its ghost town ambiance, and only Ruby Bee would be criss-crossing the parking lot to dust or squirt air freshener in the bathrooms.

/\
/\
/\

“I cain’t believe it,” Raz said, nearly choking on his chaw as he surveyed the ruins of his still. “I reckon I’m gonna take this rifle back to Diesel’s cave, and when he comes in, I’m gonna nail him between the eyes like the sorry sumbitch deserves. Why would he go and do this, Marjorie? I know fer a fact he takes a jar of hooch ever now and then.”

Marjorie blinked, then went back to chewing on a plastic case she’d found. A strip of thin black cellophane tape dangled out of her mouth, ticklin’ her chin.

“Wait jest a dadburn minute! There’s something in the bushes over yonder! Iff’n it’s Diesel, he’s dead meat.”

Raz crept closer, his mouth screwed up, and carefully pulled back a branch. “Well, look at these critters,” he said. “I ain’t never seen nuthin like this in all my born days—and I can smell my hooch on ‘em. You know what I think, Marjorie? These giant chickens are drunk as Cooter Brown.” It took him a long time to get the thievin’ birds in the back of his truck, and he was sweating something awful. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then got turned around and headed home. He wasn’t real sure what to do with the birds, but he figgered they could stay out in his barn till he came up with something.

He was gonna ask Marjorie what she thought, but she was lookin’ kind of green, so he fiddled with the radio until he found one of her favorite songs.