Merry Wives of Maggody (6 page)

I dialed his number and, after the customary battle with LaBelle, the gossipy dispatcher, was put through to the inner sanctum.

“What ever happened, Harve,” I began, “was not in my jurisdiction. We are a peaceful, law-abiding community. The only way we can remain so is for me to stay within the city limits, ever alert to the potential peril of bank robbers, horse thieves, cattle rustlers, and international terrorists. There are rumors that Ginalola Buchanon is stockpiling water balloons and beef jerky in the event we’re invaded by papists.”

“You’re a real pain in the ass, Arly,” Harve said amiably. “Hold on a sec.” I listened to the familiar scritch as he lit a match to fire up one of his noxious cigars. “All right now,” he continued, “what’s all this about a golf tournament out your way?”

“There’s a golf tournament out my way.”

“No kidding. I hear tell there’s a prize—a Ranger Z21.”

“I hear tell that, too,” I said. “It’s chained to a light pole in front of Jim Bob’s SuperSaver Buy 4 Less as we speak. I guess it’s the one, anyway. It looks like a cross between a boat and a NASCAR vehicle. Or maybe NASA. I always get those two mixed up.”

“Did I mention you’re a real pain in the ass? Who all is playing in this tournament?”

“I have no idea, Harve. Mrs. Jim Bob seems to expect quite a crowd.”

“Real golfers, or duffers like me?”

“All I know is that there’s one PGA player and some people from out of town. Ruby Bee and Estelle aren’t involved, and neither am I. Anything else?”

“Sure is a fine boat…”

“It sure is. If that’s all, I see a misdemeanor in the making. Hedge Hooper is walking toward the barbershop with a wad of chaw in his cheek. We don’t take kindly to spittle in Maggody. I’ll most likely bring him over to your lockup until the arraignment. Good luck in the golf tournament, Harve.”

I could hear him sputtering as I hung up. Harve’s a good ol’ boy who could easily play the role of a hick sheriff in a movie. Big belly, red ears, close-set eyes, and hands like paws. A few years ago he’d taken to wearing his hat to hide his spreading bald spot.

I learned a while back that he’s not as stupid as he appears to be.

Although he’s been the sheriff for more than thirty years, I keep hoping he won’t retire as long as I’m around. I’d hate to have to break in a new man.

My chair squeaked as I leaned back and put my feet on the desk. The water stains on the ceiling were distressingly familiar, along with the cobwebs from decades past. Cars and pickup trucks drove by the PD. Birds chirped. A fly buzzed lethargically as it searched for a landing pad. The sounds were pleasantly ordinary, the lullaby of small rural towns. It was naptime.

• • •

Estelle parked alongside the county road. The driveway to the back parking area of the SuperSaver was hidden behind scrub pines and brush, but she could see if anybody drove in or out.

Idalupino had told Dahlia that Jim Bob and Kevin left at four o’clock, and it was nearly that time. Estelle was aware that one or the other of them might recognize her car, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. She’d covered her hair with a scarf and was wearing sunglasses with rhinestone frames. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The disguise was downright becoming, she thought, like an alluring spy in an old movie. When she tried a come-hither smile, she noticed a smudge of lipstick on a front tooth. She scratched it off with a fingernail now painted Cherry Wine Cooler to further her disguise.

She ducked when a car turned at the highway. It would have been a sight more fun if Ruby Bee had come along, since the two of them were a team when it came to investigating suspicious behavior. It may not have always worked out real well, as Arly kept pointing out in a peevish tone of voice. However, Ruby Bee wasn’t herself these days, most likely on account of fretting about Arly’s condition. In fact, she’d taken to standing at the back door of the kitchen, her hands clutched and her face stony.

The car must have turned around and come back. Estelle took a peek in the mirror as it rolled to a stop behind hers. As soon as she saw who it was, she got out, picked her way along the weedy shoulder, and rapped on the window.

Dahlia reluctantly lowered it. “What?”

Estelle peered at the backseat. Kevvie Junior and Rosemarie were in bulky car seats, with Daisy in a smaller one between them. Daisy was wailing because Kevvie Junior was gnawing on her arm. Rosemarie was styling her hair with the contents of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Just what do you reckon you’re doing out here?” she asked Dahlia.

Dahlia twisted back far enough to thump Kevvie Junior’s head, then turned to glower at Estelle. “ “Is this your private property? It’s a county road. I’ve got as much right to park here as you do.”

“You may have the right, but you must have been in the basement when God was passing out brains,” Estelle countered. “You run along home and let me take care of this. What sort of detective has three kids in the backseat?”

“I don’t know what you think you are, all gussied up like a striptease dancer, but you sure ain’t no detective. This is about my husband, not yours. Why don’t you run along home yourself and paint your toenails?”

Estelle put her hands on her hips, but Dahlia ignored her. She tried another tactic. “How about you go on and I solemnly swear to tell you what I find out? This could be the day Kevin goes straight home. If you’re not there, he’ll be worried sick.”

Dahlia realized there was something wrong with that, but she couldn’t quite figure out what. after sucking on her lower lip for a moment, she said, “Maybe we should join forces. You wanna use your car or mine?”

Now Kevvie Junior was bawling because of the thump, and Daisy was wailing because she was being ignored. Rosemarie scowled as she applied peanut butter eye shadow. If they’d been adults, they would have been ankle deep in juice cartons, cookie wrappers, mutilated tabloids, bald Barbie dolls, and washrags that reeked of sour milk and other unpleasant things. Crumbs were sprinkled on the top of the dashboard like laundry powder.

“I’ll get my purse,” Estelle said hastily.

• • •

In his office inside the SuperSaver, Jim Bob erased all evidence of the porn site on his computer, then shut it down. It was tempting to page Kevin over the loudspeaker, but the last time he did, the idiot was spraying produce. Eula Lemoy had not appreciated a full-frontal dousing while she was sniffing melons. Not to say that she didn’t deserve it, since Jim Bob had seen her plenty of times eating grapes as she pushed around a shopping cart.

He went out to the front, stared at the checkout girls just to make ’em twittery, then looked at the helluva fine boat and trailer chained to the pole out in the parking lot. His mouth watered. It was so damn sleek and sexy. It was aged whiskey on a summer night, a fine cigar, a voluptuous woman in a naughty black negligee.

He felt his privates beginning to throb.

“Hey, Jim Bob,” Kevin said as he shuffled up in a dingy apron, “you want I should stack the canned peaches? I’m beginnin’ to get the hang of it.”

“Hell, no. The last time you tried, you nearly killed one of those Lambertino brats. The last thing I need is a goddamn lawsuit. Go put your apron in your locker. We got to get going in a minute.”

If Kevin had possessed a forelock, he would have tugged it.

“Golly, Jim Bob, I was thinking maybe I ain’t cut out for golf. No matter how hard I try, I cain’t even hit the ball half the time. You ought to get somebody else.”

“Like who, you dumb shit? Toadsuck Buchanon, even though he’s blind on account of drinking a bad batch of ’shine? Diesel? He’d take it right kindly if I barged into his cave up on Cotter’s Ridge and asked him if he wanted to play golf, so kindly that he’d rip off my ears and toss ’em in his skillet. His brother Petrol, who’s shacked up with Dahlia’s granny? Just who’d you have in mind, boy?”

Kevin’s mouth went slack, as it always did when he was confronted with a direct question. “I dunno, Jim Bob. What about those ol’ boys at the garage over in Hasty? Some of ’em are so gosh darn big they could whack a ball clean over the top of a mountain.”

“The boat stays in Maggody,” Jim Bob said tightly. “That’s why I paid your damn registration fee out of your next month’s wages. Get your sorry ass out to the loading dock in five minutes.” He held up his hand, fingers splayed. “You can count, can’t you?”

“Yeah—I mean, I guess so.” Kevin nearly ran into a rack of tabloids as he hurried toward the back of the store.

“The boat stays in Maggody,” Jim Bob repeated under his breath.

“What ever it takes, the boat stays in Maggody.”

Three

D
arla Jean McIlhaney sat on a concrete picnic table in front of the Dairee Dee-Lishus, batting at flies on a dried soda spill. Heather Riley and Billy Dick MacNamara, her two bestest friends, pulled up in Billy Dick’s ancient pickup. The surly Mexican fellow who owned the place glowered at them, then slammed the window and disappeared, but not before they heard him cussing.

“Why’s he got a tamale up his ass?” asked Billy Dick.

“My fault. I asked him if he’d tape up a flyer about the golf tournament. He wadded it up and threw it at me. I guess that meant no.”

Heather giggled. “No way, José. Why do you care about this silly tournament, anyway? Bunch of grown men in really bad clothes, molesting innocent golf balls. Once they get it to fall in a cup, they pick it up and do the same thing all over again. Give me a break!”

“Feel free to run over to Mrs. Jim Bob’s house and give her your opinion,” Darla Jean said. “She’ll most likely give you a pair of gloves and order you to pull up all the poison ivy in the pasture. You better wear jeans and boots. Copperheads are fierce this time of year.”

“I’d sooner face a copperhead than Raz. Waylon and I was up by Robin Buchanon’s old shack a couple of days back. Raz came out of the bushes like a rabid coon and began screeching at us to get our asses off the ridge. You’d have thought we was trespassing on his private property!”

“What
were
y’all doing?”

“We weren’t doing nothing but looking for wild strawberries. My ma wants to make jam.” She launched into a highly fanciful story about the hardships that accompanied the search, tossing in descriptive passages about mud, hornets, thorns, concealed tree stumps, and other perils. She had just reached the part about the rumble they’d heard from inside a cave when she realized nobody was listening except the Mexican fellow, who’d come outside to wash the window.

“You seen the bass boat?” Billy Dick sighed dreamily as he thought about the fiberglass hull and the Evinrude E-TEC.

“Those things are so damn fast. The seats are upholstered with real leather. Built-in coolers for beer. I can see myself drifting in the middle of some lake, listening to music and smoking weed. Y’all can come, too, if you wear thong bikinis and open beers for me.”

“Your wet dream, my worst nightmare,” Heather said, swishing her long blond hair for emphasis. “Don’t you agree, Darla Jean? Please don’t tell me you’d go out on a boat with this pimply pervert.”

Darla Jean’s limp brown hair never swished, but at least she didn’t have crooked teeth like Heather. “Only if the lake freezes in July. Want to hear something hysterical? The tournament registration was really slow until Mrs. Jim Bob made her big announcement about the boat. It picked up after that and grew to nearly sixty. This morning a bunch of the local men signed up. Mr. Lambertino came by and gave me a thick envelope filled with their fees and registration forms. He made me promise not to tell a soul. An hour later, Mrs. Lambertino brought me another envelope with the local women’s fees and registration forms. She made me promise not to tell, too. I almost wet my pants trying not to laugh.”

“So who’s registered?” asked Heather.

“They’re almost all married couples, which makes it even funnier. My ma and pa, as well as yours. Yours, too, Billy Dick. Jim Bob and Mrs. Jim Bob. The Lambertinos, obviously. Earl and Eileen Buchanon, Tam and Crystal Whitby, Ruddy and Cora Cranshaw…” She took a slurp of cherry limeade while she thought. “Kevin, but not Dahlia… oh, and Bopeep Buchanon and her new boyfriend, Luke Smithers.”

Heather licked her lips. “He is so hot.”

“Have you ever seen him without his shirt on?”

“I’d die on the spot.”

“I almost did.” Darla Jean imagined Luke in a leather kilt and strapped sandals instead of the grubby jeans and sneakers he was wearing while he tinkered with her father’s tractor. “I thought I was in the Coliseum, watching the gladiators parade around court. He looked like Russell Crowe.”

“I am so totally horny I could pass out,” Heather said. “Call an ambulance.”

“His abs are so tight you can see the muscles.”

“My pa’s never set foot on a golf course,” said Billy Dick, ignoring their girlie histrionics. “He doesn’t have any golf clubs stashed away in a closet or the garage, and he refuses to watch it on TV. The only game my ma can play is canasta.”

Darla Jean came back to earth and flinched at a yellow jacket crawling toward the spill. “Same here. I’d be surprised if any of ’em know how to play. You know, my ma’s been acting kinda odd lately. She says she’s going shopping, but she never comes back with anything. My pa’s been late for supper every night. His excuses are lame. I guess they’re pretty serious, though. I’ve got to go to Farberville in the morning to deposit another four thousand dollars in the tournament account. It’s not going to be a secret very long.”

“Thank gawd Miss Estes didn’t sign up,” Heather said. “Can you see her trying to hit a golf ball? She’d be more likely to teach her home ec classes how to turn ’em into a tasty and nutritious casserole. She’d write the recipe on the blackboard and say, ‘Now sprinkle the top with one cup of crushed potato chips and bake for forty-five minutes, girls.’ ”

“Serve with a green salad,” Darla Jean added in a high-pitched, nasal voice.

“Are you serious?” Billy Dick said, mystified. “Golf balls?”

The girls laughed so loudly that the Mexican fellow threw a bucket of gray water at them. Somehow, that made it even funnier.