Malpractice in Maggody (7 page)

“No names, just a general description of their problems. Maybe he thought my line was tapped.” He turned his attention to a hammer and nail.

“It’s not as though we’re treating Saudi princes or heads of state,” Brenda murmured as she picked up objects on his desk and examined them. “Is this a photograph of your family?”

“Yes, it is.”

“How charming.” Brenda replaced the framed photo and picked up a crystal paperweight. “Is this a graduation present?”

Randall looked over his shoulder at her. “No, it’s a paperweight. Look, Brenda, I’ve got a lot left to do, so if you don’t mind…”

“We need to talk, Randall.” She came up behind him and put her hand on his arm. “You and I. It’s about Vincent.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, okay? He’s my partner. I’ve invested every last dime I’ve got in this project. The only thing I’m going to focus on is making it successful. If you have a problem with Vincent, than take it up with him.”

“Goodness, Randall, I don’t believe I’ve heard you get so fired up before. You really ought to consider taking up yoga as a way to reduce stress.” She left before he could respond, and continued toward Vincent’s office. Boxes were stacked by the door, but the work party had been disbanded. At least temporarily, she thought as she noticed the Mexican men standing near a marble bench, smoking and laughing.

She hurried over to them. Waggling a finger, she said, “No smoking! No, no, no! And don’t even think about stubbing those out on the walk!”

The men glanced at her, then pinched the ends of their cigarettes and put them in their pockets. “
Si, señora,
” said one of them.

“And I don’t want to see this again,” she went on, aware that they couldn’t understand the words but confident they would get the message. “Now go back and wait with the others. Go, go, go! You are not allowed to loiter out here under any circumstances.” She fluttered her hand at them. “Why are you standing there? Go back to the day room!”

Smirking, they turned and walked toward the pool. Brenda was certain they were talking about her. It was not her fault, she reminded herself. It was her nature to be assertive. If she’d been meek, she’d be a waitress in a diner on a highway, but she had done what was necessary to achieve her degree. She might have caused some damage along the way, but she’d never allowed anyone to hold her back.

Vincent’s office door was closed. As she slowed down, she heard not only girlish giggles and a deep chuckle, but sounds that suggested that Vincent and Molly were doing more than reviewing her résumé. She lowered her hand, continued to her own office, and went inside.

After locking the door, she slumped to the floor and began to sob.

I was doing everything I could to preserve the peace within the confines of Maggody, which meant I was sitting in the cane-bottom chair at the PD, my feet propped on the corner of the desk, watching a spider progress across the ceiling. I’d considered running a speed trap out by the remains of the Esso station, but had decided it would not be cost-effective, in that there was no traffic to speak of. Across the road, Roy was dozing in a rocking chair in front of his shop. Raz had rattled by in his pickup earlier, with his pedigreed sow Marjorie hanging her head out the passenger’s side. I’d caught a flash of pink as Mrs. Jim Bob drove by, most likely heading for the rectory to harangue Brother Verber. Children screeched at each other as they rode their bicycles down the middle of the road. There was some activity at the pool hall, but nobody would get rip-roarin’ drunk until evening. We might not observe the cocktail hour, but happy hour on Friday was a sacred ritual.

Lately, the water stain on the ceiling had taken to resembling a map of South America, and the spider was approaching the coastline of Brazil. I wondered if it was hoping to find its own species in the Amazon rain forest. I had just concluded it was more likely to end up in Colombia when the door opened and Dahlia thundered in.

“You got to do something!” she said shrilly.

“About the drug cartels? I wish I could, but it’s up to the DEA.”

This stopped her, but only for a few seconds. “No, about my granny. She’s drivin’ me crazy, Arly. What are you aimin’ to do about it?”

“What do you suggest? I can’t exactly arrest her, you know.”

Dahlia flopped down on the chair across from me. “You got to make that nursing home in Starley City take her. I can have her packed up and waiting by the road in ten minutes. Go ahead and call ’em.”

I waited a moment to see if the chair was going to collapse, then shook my head. “I don’t have any influence with them. Have you tried the county health department? Surely they have some kind of day-care program for the elderly.”

“I took her there yesterday morning, but while I was filling out some forms in the office, she took off all her clothes and climbed onto the piano. Some of the old geezers liked to have had heart attacks right there on the spot. We was out on the curb in no time flat, and it was all I could do not to just leave her sittin’ there and drive off.” Her brow lowered ominously. “I would have, too, but I’d already told ’em my name and address. Mebbe I should put her in a gunnysack and dump her out in the woods.”

“That’s against the law,” I said quickly. “You don’t want to deliver your baby in a prison hospital, do you?”

She mulled this over for a moment. “I reckon not. When are you gonna do something about Eileen?”

“She’s not back?”

“Would I be askin’ if she was?” Dahlia struggled to her feet and trudged toward the door. “Earl ain’t heard from her, neither. He’s mopin’ around like a mangy dawg.”

After she left, I did some highly intricate calculations and determined Eileen had been gone for at least thirty hours. It was premature to call in a posse or demand that Harve issue an APB, but it was worrisome. I considered calling Earl, then decided to drive over to his house and ask a few questions, some of which might be awkward.

His pickup was parked in the yard. I went up onto the porch and knocked on the screen door. When there was no response, I opened the door and called his name. I continued into the living room, and then into the kitchen, where I found him sitting at the table, dressed in grubby trousers and a torn undershirt. He had not shaved in the last two days, and his eyes were red and glazed. An empty bottle of cheap whiskey on the table did much to explain his appearance.

“Earl?” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

I noticed there were no dirty dishes on the counter or in the sink. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

“I don’t rightly recollect.”

I opened the refrigerator and took out some leftover meatloaf. I made him a thick sandwich, set it in front of him, and sat down. “Dahlia said you haven’t heard from Eileen.”

“Dahlia sez a lot of things. Just listening to her wears me out. I don’t know how Kevin puts up with her all the time jabbering like a magpie.”

“But you haven’t heard from Eileen,” I said.

“Nope.”

“I know it’s none of my business, Earl, but did you and she have an argument the night before she left?”

“She fixed supper, then went out to some fool meeting at the county extension office. Quilting, mebbe. Got home about nine, bitched at me for leaving cake crumbs on the counter, and went to bed. The next morning she was gone, slick as a whistle.”

“And she didn’t take anything with her?” I persisted.

He lumbered to his feet and took a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet. After a brief struggle punctuated by grunts and curses, he wrenched off the top and took a deep swig. “How in tarnation would I know? Her toothbrush is still in the bathroom, along with her bottle of mouthwash. Stuff tastes like horse piss.” He dropped back in the chair and gazed moodily at the salt and pepper shakers. “Worse’n horse piss.”

“Did you call her relatives?”

“Kevin did yesterday evening, and ever’body else he could think of. Nobody’s laid eyes on her.”

I sat down across from him. “What about money, Earl?”

“What about it?” he said as he took another swig of whiskey.

“Did she…well, empty your wallet while you were asleep?”

He gave me a dark look. “Weren’t but a couple of dollars in it. I reckon she could have gone to the bank. Are you saying she cleaned out the account and took off for good?”

“I’m not saying anything, Earl. I’m just worried about her, the same as you are. Why don’t you call your bank and ask them about the last withdrawal, and then call me. If she has money, she’ll be safer.”

“That’s all you have to say?” he said in a surly voice. “You ain’t gonna do anything about it?” His face turned red as he thumped the tabletop with his fist. “She’s got no right to run off like this! Can’t you have her arrested for running off?”

I eased out of the chair and backed toward the living room. Earl was a big man, with a thick neck and strong arms from years of manual labor on his farm. He wasn’t a notorious brawler, but there had been times when I’d had to drag him out of the pool hall and send him home with an acerbic lecture. At the moment, he was too befuddled to intimidate me, but I didn’t want the scenario to turn any uglier.

Instead of responding, I went out to my car and drove back toward the PD. I had no idea what Eileen was up to, but I wished her well.

“Well, just what was I supposed to have said?” grumbled Ruby Bee as she filled baskets with pretzels in preparation for happy hour. “It ain’t like the motel’s booked up for the next six months.”

Estelle leaned over and snagged one of the baskets. “I myself wouldn’t sleep at night knowing that kind of people were in the next unit. Far be it from me to criticize you for wanting to make money, but don’t go selling your soul to the devil for less than a million dollars—or maybe that should be pesos.”

“That’s the silliest talk I’ve heard since Berrymore Buchanon decided he was gonna run for president of the United States. Remember how he snuck around town at night planting signs in people’s yards?”

“Say what you like,” Estelle replied disdainfully, “but you’re the one who’s gonna have to put up with all manner of tacky behavior. Don’t come whining to me on account of how you can’t get any sleep because they’re having fiestas or whatever you call ’em.”

Ruby Bee went over to the window and looked out at the parking lot of the Flamingo Motel. There were two concrete block buildings, each with four rooms. She’d cut a door between numbers one and two, using one as a sitting room with a small kitchenette and the other as her bedroom. More often than not, the rest of the units were empty. Now four of them were rented for at least three months.

“They look perfectly normal to me,” she said as she watched the men and women remove battered suitcases from a van. She’d prudently (or perhaps prudishly) put the men on one side and the women on the other, although there wasn’t much more than thirty feet separating the buildings. And it wasn’t like the Flamingo Motel had never been home to some hanky-panky.

Estelle joined her at the window. “But they’re foreigners.”

“So’s the fellow what owns the Dairee Dee-Lishus, but him and his family are real nice. Do you recollect when their little boy played baseball on my team?”

“They don’t go to church.”

Ruby Bee resisted the urge to jab her friend in the arm. “Yes, they do. I told you that he said they’re Catholics, so they go to Farberville on Sunday mornings.”

“Catholics. Now if that don’t make you nervous, nothing should.”

“Estelle Oppers,” said Ruby Bee, aghast, “I never knew you were a bigot. Catholics are Christians, same as us. Furthermore, just because somebody is from another country doesn’t mean he’s some kind of junkyard dog.”

“I never said that, Ruby Bee Hanks, and I don’t appreciate being called a bigot! I am just as open-minded as anybody else.”

Ruby Bee narrowed her eyes. “I heard what you said—and it wasn’t pretty.”

“All I said was that you ought to be a mite careful with all these foreigners staying at the motel.” Estelle banged down her glass on the bar and spun around. “When you’re ready to apologize, you know where to find me. Have a nice day!” She stomped across the dance floor and out the door. Seconds later, her tires spun in the gravel as she drove away.

“When
I’m
ready to apologize?” muttered Ruby Bee as she snatched up the glass and washed it in the sink. “That’ll be long after the cows come home, let me tell you. You can sit under a hair dryer and sip sherry all by your lonesome, Estelle Oppers. I ain’t got time for bigots in this bar! Why, I’ve half a mind to…” She stopped and wrinkled her forehead, since she couldn’t come up with much of anything. She dried the glass and put it on a shelf, then went into the kitchen to check on the ham and the sweet potato casserole in the oven. The pies were already done, and it was too early to start the rolls. It was tempting to go out back and welcome her guests, even though Dr. Skiller had warned her that none of them spoke English. At least they’d understand a smile and an armload of extra towels.

When she came out of the kitchen, she saw she had a customer in one of the booths. He was scruffy, with frizzy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and stubbly cheeks. His nose dominated his face, and from what she could see of his eyes, they were small and dark. He was wearing a battered leather hat and a dirty denim jacket. He lit a cigarette, then looked up at her and said, “Can I get a hamburger and a beer?”