Malpractice in Maggody (27 page)

“Buenas días,”
said the older woman, her expression stony.
“Muchas gracias por sus regalos.”

“That means thank you,” Estelle said.

Ruby Bee snorted. “I figured that out by myself. Now go on.”

Estelle opened the pad where they’d written down significant words and phrases.
“¿Como está usted?”

Apparently Estelle’s accent was hard to decipher, but after the two women had a whispered consultation, the older one said,
“Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?”

“That means fine, thank you, and how are you doing,” Estelle said, proud of her success. “This one’s gonna be a mite trickier.” She took a deep breath, squinted at her notes, and painstakingly read aloud each word.
“Me llamo Estellita. Esta es Ruby Bee.”

“Me llamo Marisela,”
said the younger one, looking pleased with herself.
“Su nombre es Ofelia, y su nombre es Miguel.”

“Pleased to meetcha,” Ruby Bee said. “Okay, Estellita, we’re making progress. Now ask them about the celebrities’ names.”

“Easy for you to say.” She smiled at the three foreigners. “
Los
patients
en el
hospital. What are
sus nombres?
”

Indeed, it was more than a mite trickier for the women. They gestured for Miguel to join them. After a discussion, Ofelia said,
“¿Los pacientes en el hospital, si? ¿Sus nombres?”

“That’s right,” Estellita said, getting into it. She figured if she kept this up, she’d be speaking like a foreigner in no time flat.
“Sus nombres, por favor.”

“No sabemos.”

Ruby Bee peered at their notes. “I don’t see that. What does it mean?”

“Right offhand, I’d say it means they don’t know,” said Estelle. “Lemme try a few names and see if they get the idea. She took a deep breath and said, “Sharon
Piedra
? Is she a
paciente
?”

“Sharon
Piedra
?” echoed Marisela.
“¿Quien es ella?”

Estelle drew a line through Sharon Stone’s name. “Okay, then, what about Russell
Cuervo?
Is he a
paciente
?”

Marsiela glanced at the other two, then looked up with a puzzled frown.
“¿Un pájaro negro? No hay pájaros en el hospital, señoras.”

Ruby Bee stepped forward. “You know, a crow.” She tucked her hands in her armpits and flapped her elbows. “Caw, caw!”

“You’re spooking ’em,” Estelle said, getting frustrated. “Hush up and let me try another one. “What about Jude
Ley
?”

Ofelia stood up and crossed her arms.
“No somos criminales, señoras. ¡No rompimos la ley!”

“Good work,” muttered Ruby Bee. “Now you’ve got them thinking they broke the law. This ain’t gonna work, Estellita. I got better things to do than scare these poor folks half to death. They’re just trying to make a living, same as the rest of us. Now you tell ’em to have a nice day and let’s go.”

“You can give up if you want, Rubella Belinda Hanks, but I ain’t ready to turn tail as of yet.” She gave Ofelia, Marisela, and Miguel her most congenial smile, like she was a contestant in the Miss Stump County Watermelon Pageant. Doing her level best to enunciate each syllable of the phrases in her notepad, she asked, “Are any of
los pacientes estrella de cine, celebridades de Hollywood?
”

“¿Celebridades de Hollywood? Si, señora,”
Marisela replied happily.
“Uno de los pacientes es Dawn Dartmouth. La ví en una película hace varios años. Ella entonces era mucho mas bonita. Ella es gorda y fea ahora.”

“My goodness gracious,” said Ruby Bee, gasping. “I didn’t catch all that jibber-jabber, but I heard the name Dawn Dartmouth clear as day. Can you imagine that? Dawn Dartmouth, right here in Maggody! Well, right near Maggody, anyway, not a mile away from where we’re standing. Ain’t that something?”

Estelle fanned her face with her notes. “Never in my life could I have come up with that. Dawn was the cutest little ol’ thing when she wasn’t much more than a toddler, and she had that impish smile that made me want to give her a hug. Remember when she sang that lullaby to her doll on Christmas Eve? I liked to have bawled my eyes out.”

Ruby Bee jabbed at the notes. “Ask ’em who else is there.”

This time Estelle had to take out the book and thumb through it until she found a dictionary at the back. She licked her thumb as she turned to the page she wanted.
“¿Los otros? ¿Celebridades?”

While Ruby Bee and Estelle had carried on about Dawn Dartmouth, Ofelia had pulled Marisela aside for a terse conversation. Marisela, now chastened, kept her eyes lowered as she said,
“No sé, señoras. Ahora iremos a nuestros cuartos. Debo escribir una carta a mi familia. Buenas tardes.”

“What’s that mean?” demanded Ruby Bee, who’d been hoping to hear that Charlton Heston or somebody like that was out at the Stonebridge Foundation, too.

“If I was to guess, I’d hazard to say the last thing meant goodbye,” Estelle said drily as the three Mexicans went into their motel rooms and closed the doors. “I have a feeling that older woman wasn’t real pleased with Marisela for talking out of school like she did. Should we leave the pie and cornbread sitting here?”

“It’ll be gone afore too long. That Miguel fellow looked real interested in it.” As they walked toward the back door of the kitchen, she said, “I know Dawn was born in Arkansas, but I disremember where. Somewhere down by Arkadelphia, wasn’t it?”

“In that neck of the woods,” agreed Estelle. “The newspaper made a big deal about how she was from Arkansas when ‘Rock the Cradle’ became a big hit. She and her twin sister, I mean. What was her name?”

“Sunny, I seem to think. There was some law saying that children could only spend so much time in front of the camera, so they was always on the lookout for identical twins. It didn’t matter one whit to me, since I couldn’t tell them apart. They took turns playing…what was the name?” She allowed Estelle to go into the kitchen first because of her hard work trying to talk Spanish. “Tinkerbell?”

“Twinkle, I think they called her. Her TV family, that is. Just imagine how hard it must have been on those little girls to have three names. They had their real names, their actress names, and their name on the show. I’d have been mighty confused.”

Ruby Bee decided to get started on the braised ribs on the menu for that evening. She put on an apron, then began to gather up what-all she needed. “Dawn made some movies after the show was canceled. Whatever happened to Sunny?”

Estelle chewed on her lip while she tried to recall. “It’s kinda hazy, but I think she died when she wasn’t more than thirteen or fourteen. The family didn’t want any publicity, so there was nothing but an announcement from their lawyer that Sunny had passed away. I remember hoping it wasn’t from some disease that ran in the family, like that mysterious ailment that killed all four of Ambrosia Buchanon’s daughters.”

“Who all just happened to be pregnant by Ambrosia’s seventeen-year-old boyfriend. I wouldn’t go so far as to call rat poison a ‘mysterious ailment,’” Ruby Bee said as she started browning ribs in a skillet. “Now something like heart disease is different. What with Dawn and Sunny being identical twins, they must have shared all the same traits. Do you think Dawn could be at the Stonebridge Foundation on account of being real sick?”

“I’d like to think you aren’t planning to show up at the gate with a pot of chicken soup,” said Estelle, “because that’s as far as you’ll get. The only way we’re gonna find out about Dawn is if you ask Arly.”

“And she’s gonna tell us? I swear, Estelle, sometimes I wonder if you was sitting under a hair dryer when the Good Lord was passing out the brains.”

“I do not appreciate that remark.”

Holding in a grin, Ruby Bee started browning a second batch of ribs. “Then why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“Maybe I will,” Estelle said loftily. She went out to the barroom and across the dance floor to the front door. By the time she reached her car, however, she’d realized it might be wise to avoid Arly for the time being. After a moment of consideration, she drove home and began to search in earnest for the gun.

Brother Verber liked to have wet his pants when the phone rang in the rectory. It was the third time since the senator had left the Assembly Hall. There was no way she could be calling, he told himself as he crouched in the hall. There wasn’t a local directory where she could look up his number. Surely she’d forgotten all about him by now. Still, he ducked under the window as he went into the kitchen and found another bottle of sacramental wine, and stayed low until he was back in his bedroom. The blinds were closed just in case she decided to peek in the window.

He sat down on the bed, refilled his glass with wine, and sank back to mull over possible topics for his sermon in the morning. Something about the sanctity of the body, he thought, reaching under the covers to make sure no electrodes had been attached while he’d been dozing. Jesus had brought Lazarus back from the dead. There ought to be a way to use that.

“I must say I’m disappointed in all of you,” Mrs. Jim Bob began after calling the meeting to order. She, Elsie, Eula, and Lottie, being officers, were seated at the table in the sun room. Joyce and Millicent were sitting on wicker chairs, while Heloise Vermer, the newest member of the Missionary Society, stood by the window, admiring the flowers in pots on the patio. Heloise was aware that she’d been blackballed several times over the last few years on account of rumors that she drank alcohol, so she was being mindful of her manners.

Mrs. Jim Bob continued. “We are now in more danger than ever. A young woman was murdered at the Stonebridge Foundation only two days ago. Had our surveillance not slacked off, this would never had happened.”

“I don’t see how we could have done squat from the persimmon tree across the road,” said Eula. “All we could see was the front porch and driveway.”

“And you can’t see anything in the dark,” Joyce pointed out.

“Besides,” added Lottie, “you already said the girl was killed in the garden behind the building.”

Mrs. Jim Bob tightened her grip on the gavel. “That is beside the point. Had the men in Maggody agreed to cover the night shift, one of them might have seen the murderer escape and apprehended him. Instead, we allowed them to continue drinking whiskey, watching ball games on TV, and shirking their obligations to our community.” She held up her free hand. “I will admit that Jim Bob is among the worst of them. You would think that as mayor, he’d be the first to step forward and volunteer. He did not, despite all my prayers and appeals to the Almighty Lord to encourage him to do his duty.”

“I hear he was doing his duty elsewhere,” Eula said, snickering. “Out at the Pot O’ Gold.”

“As well as getting up a poker game,” said Millicent, who was still irked by the argument she’d had with Jeremiah at noon. “Gambling is illegal, as well as sinful. It doesn’t reflect well on this town when the mayor himself is encouraging good Christian men to indulge in this sort of sacrilegious activity.”

Mrs. Jim Bob ignored Eula. “I do agree with you, Millicent, and I’ll put a stop to it when Jim Bob comes home for dinner. The mayor is supposed to set a good example, not lead others down that dangerous path to eternal damnation. Brother Verber has been off somewhere all afternoon. When he gets back, I’ll make sure he addresses gambling in the sermon tomorrow morning.”

“His car’s parked by the rectory,” Elsie volunteered. “I happened to notice when I was driving over here.”

All of them knew that Elsie always “happened to notice” every last detail of what anybody was doing, who they talked to at the supermarket, what they bought, and how often they skipped church. She was particularly keen on taking notes about what the high school girls were wearing or which of the boys slipped out of the gym for a smoke. She devoted an hour each day to calling their parents, as well as anybody else who might be interested. She’d had twenty-seven years of practice and missed very little.

“I am aware of that,” Mrs. Jim Bob said coolly. “I have also called him several times, but he must have gone out for a walk to appreciate the Lord’s handiwork. Let us each take a moment to reflect on the beautiful spring we have been blessed with this year.” She lowered her head and tried to think how to nudge the conversation into the possibility of a female mayor.

“Oh, my God!” said Heloise. She pointed out the window. “There’s somebody down there at the edge of the woods.”

Reflection was put on hold while the ladies stood up and peered in the direction Heloise was pointing.

“I don’t see anybody,” said Lottie. She moved her purse to her lap and patted it to make sure she had her handgun next to her reading glasses and wallet.

“Me, neither,” Elsie said, disappointed that she hadn’t seen one of the mental patients flapping around like a lame duck.