Madness In Maggody

14

The next morning I ambled down to Ruby Bee's, found my favorite bar stool, and warned myself to tread very carefully if I ever again wanted to savor a square of lemon icebox pie. "Anybody home?" I called to the kitchen.

Ruby Bee came out to the bar. Her expression reeked of danger, although I'm relieved to report she no longer reeked of more tangible things. "What do you want?"

"I came to talk to you."

"What about? I got to get lunch started. The potatoes need to be peeled and the pies are awaitin' to go in the oven. If you want to talk, why don't you call somebody long distance?"

"I heard you did some of that yourself," I murmured, keeping one foot on the floor just in case.

"Did you?" she said, then wheeled around and started shifting glasses on the back counter. "Where'd you hear that?"

"From Sergeant Plover. He told me the whole story, from the calls to the…unpleasant situation in the apartment parking lot yesterday afternoon." My chin started twitching, and I realized I was, as Hammet would say, in a shitload of trouble. I covered the lower part of my face with my hands and feigned a coughing fit, all the while watching her back. It was rigid enough to withstand a bullet.

When she turned around, her stare was enough to stop said bullet in midair. "You getting a summer cold?" she said challengingly. "Is that your problem, missy?"

I nodded helplessly and coughed until I could trust myself as much as I ever would be able to. "But at least we learned where Petrel has been hiding out," I said. "It's unfortunate that he slipped away during the…ah, the situation. Plover's confident the state police will be able to run him down today. He couldn't have gone too far on foot."

"The airport's not too far. It's across the street."

"I don't think he'll make a run for Brazil. He didn't commit a crime; he simply chose to hole up in a crummy apartment for the best part of a week."

"With that woman," Ruby Bee said with a growl that would have intimidated a grizzly bear. "I could use another word if I were a mind to, but I won't. She was right uppity when I politely asked to use her bathroom to freshen up. You'd have thought I asked to use her toothbrush or prance around in her black lace underwear."

I was overcome with another fit of coughing. I finally wiped my eyes and said, "According to what I heard, you had a noticeable aroma about you that may have put her off."

"Like a cesspool being dredged after fifty years," Estelle contributed as she came across the room. "Not to mention the coffee grounds in your hair, and that curlicue of apple peel hanging off your ear, and the big ol' brown splotch on your dress, and-"

"Thank you so much for not mentioning any of that," Ruby Bee snapped. "Do you happen to recollect whose brilliant idea it was for me to climb into that nasty thing? Do you?"

Estelle tilted her head and pretended to think. "It seems to me it was a matter of height and who was going to be able to boost the other one over the side and help her out, Miss Five Foot Three On Her Tiptoes."

"Why did you climb in the dumpster?" I asked. "Plover said you claimed that you were going after evidence, but he wasn't clear what it was or why it would be in the dumpster, or even whether or not you found it."

"I was merely investigating. I was hoping to find proof that Petrel was hiding in that awful woman's apartment. I didn't, but she admitted he had been there, so it doesn't matter, does it?"

"What kind of proof?" I said, not buying a word of it.

"I really couldn't say. You realize the big game's this afternoon, doncha? I got your pink Flamingo shirt in the kitchen; wait and I'll fetch it for you."

I waited, and when she returned, tried my damnedest to badger a straight story out of her and/or Estelle. It paled after a while, so I switched to the less threatening topic of current gossip. What I heard was enough to peel the paint off a '57 Chevy. "Do you believe any of this?" I demanded.

Ruby Bee shook her head. "To tell the truth, I don't rightly know what to believe. I know Petrel wasn't breaking into Joyce's house, and I can't figure out why he'd tamper with the little cakes at his own store, much less put enough poison in one to kill Lillith Smew. But Elsie told Estelle that the Riley girl now claims he raped her-but that doesn't fit in with what Lottie said happened." She frowned at Estelle. "Do you think there were two different cheerleader tryouts?"

Estelle chewed on her lip. "Doesn't make an ounce of sense that there would be. Why would that girl go back after what happened between her and Jim Bob?"

"It's puzzling," Ruby Bee admitted, "but no more so than imagining Kevin and Dahlia carrying on like everybody said they was, and doing it right there on the porch swing, with Eilene and Earl watching television in the living room. I don't think the swing's all that wide."

"Not as wide as Dahlia," Estelle said. "But that's what Johnna Mae Nookim heard when she was buying a broom at the Emporium. She said Perkins's eldest heard all about it while she was cleaning at Mrs. Jim Bob's last week."

"But she told Elsie that she heard it from a woman in the Homemakers' Extension in Hasty not one day ago," Ruby Bee said doubtfully.

"They serve sherry after the meetings."

"During, from what I hear."

I couldn't take any more of it. I left them debating the relative merits of their sources and drove to the hospital in Farberville to pick up my shortstop. As I passed the Airport Arms, I couldn't keep from staring at the dumpster. I was still chuckling when I reached the hospital. To this day, I get a little smirky when I see one. Ruby Bee, on the other hand, gets very grim.

"The missionary society will be selling canned sodas and cookies," Mrs. Jim Bob said to herself. She made a checkmark by that item and moved on. "Brother Verber will make the opening invocation about playing baseball for Jesus. If he should happen to add a comment or two about the immorality of the other team, I think it might be appropriate, don't you?"

Jim Bob glanced up from the paperwork spread out in front of him on the dining room table. "Yeah, what the"-he caught himself-"heck, let him blast into Ruby Bee and Arly. Might be amusing."

"We are speaking of a religious invocation, not a stand-up comedian's routine."

"Right." He looked back down at the papers, wondering how the bankers could generate such quantities of small print without going blind, fer chrissake. He'd managed to appease the wholesale grocer with a partial payment and the promise of the rest of it that afternoon, 'cause now he knew where Lamont was, or figured he had a pretty damn good idea, anyways. He also figured Lamont was going to be a sight more cooperative about putting up his share of the cash. The loan closing wasn't until after the game, and Jim Bob had scraped together his share. Now that Lamont was back (sort of), there'd be enough money to pay the goddamn points, pay off the wholesaler, and maybe pay off the health inspectors and get Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less open again.

He realized, however, he was going to have trouble with Arly Hanks, who'd run whining to the sheriff and her pet trooper. Not being employees of his, they might be less inclined to take orders from him.

"Then Lottie Estes leads the singing of the national anthem," Mrs. Jim Bob said, making yet another checkmark. She was in a much better mood now that she was running the show again, which of course was only fitting since she was the mayor's wife and the president of the missionary society-and was more than prepared to tackle the tricky passage from Corinthians II when the moment arose.

"Is the band playing?" Jim Bob asked, wrinkling his nose.

"I've already explained that we shall use a tape player. I do not trust that group of pimply pubescents to play the sacred strains of the national anthem. I shall hold the flag, and all the players will line up with their caps on their chests as a sign of respect."

"Yeah, I forgot."

"Then I throw out the first ball and we get this game over and done with as quickly as possible. Afterward, there'll be a nice buffet supper at the Assembly Hall for the players and their parents. Perkins's eldest has fixed several quarts of chicken salad and her fair-to-middlin' homemade cinnamon rolls. You will present the trophy, which will then be displayed in the front window of the SuperSaver-if it ever reopens, that is."

"It'll reopen," Jim Bob said in a cold voice. "Just you wait. Lamont'll show up this afternoon and we'll hustle ourselves to the bank to close the loan. Then Arly can arrest him for tampering with the cakes and maybe even for murdering the Smew woman, if he did it on purpose. When he disappears this time, it'll be to a lice-infested cell with a bunch of fags the size of gorillas. They'll learn him a thing or two about trying to pull a quick one on his partner."

Luckily, she'd stopped listening to him. "Does Arly know when she's supposed to arrest him?" she asked as she frowned at her list. There was no reference to Lamont's impending arrest and she wasn't quite sure where it best fit into her schedule. If it took place before the game, it might distract the players, but if it took place afterward, she'd be obliged to make small talk with a criminal for all those dreary innings.

"After the closing. It has to be after the closing, which is set for four o'clock. Arly'd better not so much as look cross-eyed at him until we've closed the loan." Jim Bob realized he sounded a shade frantic, and warned himself to settle down. "We can't accuse him until everything's settled at the bank. I've got my share, but I need his. If the loan folks get spooked, gawd knows what they'll do."

"We do not take the Lord's name in vain in this house," she said mechanically, still wishing she could make a note about the arrest, if only for her own peace of mind. "Perhaps we might plan on having him arrested after you award the trophy," she suggested. "Then we'll have the players clean up the plates and forks and we can all go home knowing justice was served, along with chicken salad and cinnamon rolls." The telephone rang. Confident that it was for her, Mrs. Jim Bob answered with a curt "Yes?" Fifteen minutes later when she sat back down on the newly re-covered divan, she looked as bumfuzzled as he'd ever seen her. Her eyes were zipping back and forth, and her normally tight mouth was nigh onto invisible. It was rare that she needed to think things over, since she pretty much always had her mind made up in advance.

"What was that about?" he asked.

"That was Millicent. She said she'd just heard an amazing story from Darla Jean, and I must say it takes the cake. Darla Jean and another girl were driving into Farberville to shop for school clothes, and they had the misfortune to have a flat tire right by the airport. They were struggling with the spare when they saw someone they knew across the road at that derelict apartment building. Do you know which one I mean?"

He certainly did, but he prudently hesitated for a moment and scratched his head. "Yeah, the one that should have been torn down a decade ago."

Mrs. Jim Bob went on to relate the rescue of Ruby Bee and the ensuing scene with a blond woman on the balcony. "Darla Jean and her little friend couldn't hear anything, of course, and they were about to walk across the street when a truckload of Maggody boys drove up and fixed the flat for them. The girls went on to the mall. I can't begin to imagine what in tarnation Ruby Bee Hanks was doing in a dumpster. And Darla Jean swears Estelle Oppers came out of an upstairs apartment-and she wasn't alone. I find this most peculiar."

"Which apartment?" Jim Bob said, doing his level best not to break out in a telltale sweat, despite the fact his bowels had iced over like a sump hole in January.

"I couldn't say, but the point is that she was in a half-naked man's apartment and Ruby Bee was in a dumpster. I would like very much to find out what those two were up to, but my first duty is to report this to Brother Verber. I'm sure he will share my outrage at this immoral behavior."

Brother Verber had the decency to answer the telephone, and she plunged in briskly.

"This is Sister Barbara. Now you'd best sit down and take notes concerning what I'm about to tell you. It has all the makin's of a splendid sermon."

"Why, certainly, Sister Barbara. I'm sure what you have to tell me is very important, very important indeed. Let me get a pencil and a piece of paper."

She could hear his heavy footsteps and a good deal of huffing and puffing as he fetched his supplies, but he sounded fine when he came back on the line to assure her of his readiness.

"Are you familiar with the Airport Arms Apartments?" she began.

"I don't reckon I am, but I devote all my time to saving souls in our little community. I can't remember when I last had call to leave my trailer parked right here in the righteous shade of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall."

"I know where your trailer is parked, Brother Verber. The apartment house is that disreputable place across from the airport in Farberville." She waited for him to say something, but all she heard was his breathing, which suddenly sounded right raspy. He didn't say anything, though, so she went on. "What I have to tell you concerns the dumpster."

His breathing took a turn for the worse, wanting to get to the gist of her story, Mrs. Jim Bob was beginning to lose her saintly patience. "Are you having a seizure? You haven't even heard the half of it yet."

"I haven't?" he croaked.

"Millicent McIlhaney said her daughter Darla Jean saw one of our citizens in the dumpster and another come out of an upstairs apartment with a half-naked man with a beer can in his hand."

She was quite pleased that he grasped the implications so readily. She could tell from the gurgly noises he made that he was as outraged as she, if not more so. It was most satisfying.

Martin was waiting in the hospital lobby. The pallor of his face was accented by dark smudges beneath his eyes, but he managed a smile for me. He didn't look like an energetic shortstop; then again, it didn't much matter, because we didn't have the proverbial bat's chance.

I stopped at the information desk and learned that Buzz had been moved to a semiprivate room and was now upgraded to good condition. I asked Martin if he wanted to visit his father. He blinked at me for a moment, then said, "Yeah, Miss Arly. That'd be great."

Buzz was sleeping as we entered the room. The tubes were gone except for an IV in his arm, and his color was better than Martin's. He opened his eyes and said, "Martin, good to see you. I've been real worried about you and Lissie, and it's comforting to know Arly's watching out for the both of you. How are you feelin', son?"

"Okay," Martin said quietly. "You don't have to worry about us."

Buzz glanced at me. "You found out anything about who poisoned us?"

"The preliminary lab report is less than detailed, but they've speculated that it was an industrial pesticide. It may take weeks to get more specific information. In the meantime, I'm trying to pick out snippets of truth from all the rumors and gossip."

"So folks are talking?" He let out a low laugh that became a cough. I poured him a glass of water and hovered beside the bed until he regained control. "Sorry, those damn tubes liked to leave scratch marks all the way to my stomach. What's everybody saying?"

"Ninety-nine percent of it is pure malarky," I said, shaking my head. "The hottest theory is that Lamont Petrel tampered with the packages, then eluded a county-wide dragnet, has been raping women nonstop for the last week, and is numero uno on the FBI's most wanted list."

"He struck me as a nice enough guy. I guess you never can tell, can you?"

"We'll let you rest," I murmured, not in the mood to explain the fine line between hysterically explosive rumors and tedious truth.

Martin and I drove back to Maggody. Hammet was watching television, but as we came into the living room, he switched it off and gave me a worried look. "Is it true what I heard about Miss Ruby Bee being squashed flatter than road kill-and in a big ol' square garbage can?"

"Not exactly," I said. I showed Martin where I'd put his clothes, then sat down across from Hammet and said, "Where'd you hear this latest tidbit?"

"From Saralee, who heard her aunt talking to some lady who was drinking coffee. Lissie said she supposed there was bank robbers' money in the garbage. I dunno, though. I can't figure out why the hell they'd hide money in the garbage."

"Neither can I," I said, amused in spite of myself. Hammet's link to the grapevine was as slippery as anyone's in town. I shuddered to think what the younger side of the population was making of the snatches of conversation they were picking up. Bank robbers and road kill, obviously.

I told the boys to rest up for the big game, then walked across the street to the PD and allowed myself a walking tour of Brussels and a glass of lager at a sidewalk café in the main square. It calmed me down to the point of idle musing, and after a few minutes, I got out my notebook and reread the notes from all the interviews. It became increasingly interesting, this collection of half-truths, gossip, and out-and-out lies, and shortly thereafter some things began to fall into place. Not everything, mind you, because some witnesses (i.e., Ruby Bee) were about as recalcitrant as diving mules.

Cherri Lucinda Crake had admitted to Plover that Lamont Petrel had been at her apartment since the afternoon of the grand opening. She'd continued to deny that Jim Bob visited her Monday night, but once I decided that was a lie, all sorts of things began to make sense, including Kevin's avowal that Jim Bob had returned to the supermarket and Ruby Bee's screwy story about a serial killer in the motel parking lot. Petrel's motive for disappearing was obvious, and his current whereabouts unknown but within bounds of speculation. I was fairly sure I'd be hearing about it soon, thanks to Hizzoner, but for the moment there wasn't much I could do.

I knew who had laced the tamale sauce and sponge cakes with ipecac, and who had stuck pins in the cupcakes. I knew how and why and when and where, thus qualifying my theory for a journalism class exercise. I moved on to the mysterious poisonings at Buzz Milvin's house. It was possible that the same perp had doctored the coconut cakes, perhaps underestimating the toxicity of the polysyllabic substance. But unless Martin had lied, he hadn't consumed the damn things.

I called Plover and asked him to call back with the lab report on the contents of Martin's stomach. He tried to weasel answers out of me, but I hung up and waited, drumming my fingers on my notebook and staring at the visitor's chair.

It took him only a few minutes to report back to me. "Spaghetti, corn bread, soda pop, crackers, a minute trace of cereal, milk," he said. "Just what the kid's been saying all along. What're you thinking, Arly?"

"That he didn't lie," I said, mostly to myself.

"Lie about what?"

"About what he ate that day, of course." I was hedging, but I wasn't quite ready to explain the fuzzy idea that was struggling to take shape. "I'll get back to you shortly." I hung up, called Ruby Bee, and demanded she repeat the one bit of gossip that nobody had shared with me. She hemmed and hawed, but finally she told me what I'd suspected I would hear. I confirmed it with a second source, then called Plover back to relate my theories.

"I think you're right," he said after a minute of silence. "So what's our schedule?"

"I'm going to call Harve with all this, and then, Sergeant Plover, I'm going to a baseball game. The grande dame of the dumpster is having a party for the team afterward, so I can leave Hammet and Martin in her care. I should be in your office by four-thirty."

After I'd made the final call, I went back to my apartment, put on the pink T-shirt, gathered up the equipment and the two players, and we drove to the baseball field behind the high school.

Most of the town was there for the big shootout, and it took some maneuvering to find a parking place among the pickup trucks and station wagons. Raz was there, as were the Satterings, Perkins and his eldest, Earl Boy Nookim's parents, and the entire force of both the missionary society and the pool hall coterie. Picnic baskets and coolers were everywhere.

The Ruby Bee's Flamingos were milling around near third base, which was not a burlap bag. Georgie McMay, Saralee, and Earl Boy Nookim were exchanging ominous looks, but not blows. Lissie and Jackie were after butterflies, and Enoch was watching reruns in his head. Ray was talking to his father, who went to the bleachers when he spotted us approaching.

I put down the equipment bag, said hello to the team, and shaded my eyes to look across the field at the SuperSavers. If anything, they'd all grown half a foot and a couple had sprouted whiskers. Larry Joe Lambertino was pointing here and there and presumably offering last-minute advice. Hizzoner and Mizzoner stood nearby, both wearing insufferably smug smiles. Petrel was not in sight, but if my theory was correct, he would be before too long.

I turned around to assess the fans in the bleachers. Brother Verber was mopping his face and neck, and looking as composed as a deer caught in the glare of headlights. Dahlia and Kevin were at the far end. Kevin fluttered his fingers at me, but Dahlia didn't even blink, which was fine with me. Joyce was passing out cookies to keep her kids relatively contented. Several high-school girls were sitting together, but a goodly number of their boyfriends were not in sight.

As Ruby Bee walked past the bleachers, there was a low murmur and a few snickers. She held her chin up, however, and I doubted anyone had enough courage to make any remarks within her earshot. Estelle trailed after her, carrying a large plastic bag that bulged oddly but didn't seem heavy.

It looked as if we were all present and accounted for, except for Petrel. I went over to Larry Joe and inquired about procedure. Before he could answer, Mrs. Jim Bob marched over and stuck a piece of paper under my nose.

"I have made all the arrangements," she said with a pinched smile. She consulted her watch. "The pregame ceremonies will begin in three minutes, so I suggest you instruct your team to commence their warm-up."

"Who's the umpire?"

"Why, Jim Bob, of course. I believe he's selected a couple of his employees to umpire out in the field. There are only two minutes remaining."

I thought about protesting, but it wouldn't have done any good and it didn't really matter, since the game was predetermined by relative size (monsters versus dwarfs) and athletic ability (some versus none). There wasn't much reason for our team to warm up, so I told them to sit down and try to remember some of the basic rules.

The SuperSaver cheerleaders tried to rouse the crowd out of its amiable indolence by shrieking and cartwheeling into each other. When they finally gave up (and got up), Mrs. Jim Bob dragged Brother Verber to home plate and clapped her hands until everybody settled down.

"Brother Verber will now lead us in the invocation," she announced.

He wiped his forehead, shot a fearful look at the bleachers, and finally found his voice. "We are gathered here today," he began sonorously, "to test the skills of these two teams of Maggody children-but we are not here with God's blessings. God is wincing as He looks down at this field. He is gnashing His teeth. He is rubbing His hands together and sighing. Why? Do you want to know why God's unhappy today in heaven?"

Nobody admitted to possession of an inquiring mind. After a quick swipe with the handkerchief, Brother Verber sucked in a lungful and told us, anyway. "Because one team is made up of outstanding young boys, each dedicated to the principles of competition and fair play."

"How young are they?" Saralee called.

"Young, little lady. Now this other team"-he made a grandiose sweep in our direction-"this other team has violated the laws of God, not to mention all standards of human decency. This other team has girls and boys playing together! And do you know what that means?" He had to pause to get another lungful, but he had enough sense not to demand any response from the crowd, most of whom were eyeing the Flamingos in case they commenced violating standards right there on the spot. "It means they have wicked thoughts running through their previously innocent little minds. They are seeing each other's bodies, and boys are wondering what all there is under those curvaceous pink T-shirts and the girls are wondering the same about those tight-cut jeans. They are thinking about sex."

"I'm thinking you're an asshole," Hammet volunteered.

"Me, too," Saralee added loyally.

"That's an example of what I'm talking about," Brother Verber said, his nose pulsating and his face beginning to drip. "There is a passel of wickedness in Maggody, and it comes from boys and girls being thrown together-on baseball teams and on porch swings. It leads to lust and depravity and-"

"Magazine subscriptions?" Kevin Buchanon said loudly. It would have been more impressive if his voice hadn't cracked, but now all heads turned to the far end of the bleachers. "What about magazine subscriptions?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I think it's Satan hisself I'm hearing," Brother Verber blustered. "Satan hisself is perched on your shoulder, ain't he? Satan hisself!"

Dahlia had remained motionless thus far. She rose ponderously, inch by inch and with such steeliness that the crowd was holding its collective breath. "What does Satan know about kittens and tomcats except what he reads in your magazine?" she said very slowly and clearly. Her black eyes were burning within the fleshy mounds of her cheeks. Her lips went in and out as she stared at him. She was not anyone to meet in a dark alley. Brother Verber clutched his bow tie. "They was planted by some sinner to discredit me," he managed to say. "They were put beside my trailer so that I would be made to look like a weak-kneed sinner and unworthy of guiding my flock down the path of righteousness."

Mrs. Jim Bob gave him a quick look, then put one fist on her hip and shook her finger at Kevin and Dahlia. "You're a fine pair to be casting the first stone. Everybody in town knows how you two were fornicating on the porch swing."

Eilene leapt to her feet, although she kept a tight grip on Earl's shoulder to hold him down. "That's a lie!"

"Everybody knows," Mrs. Jim Bob replied complacently.

"I say it's a lie," Eilene said, beginning to snivel. Beside her, Earl was too stunned to do anything, and Kevin and Dahlia had sunk down to their seats and then some.

Estelle and Ruby Bee were whispering. They made a decision and Estelle stepped into the lion's den. "Satan may have planted those magazines by your trailer, but he didn't plant them in a certain dumpster at the edge of Farberville, did he?" She put the plastic bag down and opened it. A bright pink figure popped up, its painted eyes wide in surprise and its other anatomical projections jiggling so realistically that the crowd let out a collective gasp. "What about your little inflatable friend?"

Estelle continued. "Surely you felt bad about leaving Suzie Squeezums, didn't you?"

Brother Verber's face resembled tomato aspic, from the color to the quiver. His jaw opened and closed, and we could see his tongue swelling as if he'd contracted a mild case of bubonic plague. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said hoarsely.

"And you're a fine one to speak," Mrs. Jim Bob added, although she was sending dark looks at her companion. "Why don't you explain what you were doing in an apartment with a half-naked man, and in the afternoon, too.? I think we're entitled to an explanation of this outrageous conduct."

"Sez who?" Ruby Bee snapped.

What was I doing all this time? you ask. Nothing. And why not? you ask. Because every last one of them deserved it, that's why. The entire town had been obsessed with tacky rumors. Life in Puritan Salem had been a damn sight saner, and the only reasons these good citizens hadn't pilloried anyone was because we didn't have a convenient spot for the pillory.

"I've never hidden in a dumpster," Mrs. Jim Bob retorted. It was a non sequitur of monumental proportion, but nobody minded because, in truth, they figured they deserved an explanation of that, too. Several folks nodded and said as much to each other.

Ruby Bee waited until there was dead silence and the tension was as hot as the sun. "I was fetching a bag someone had thrown in there. The bag contained a whole stack of pornographic magazines and books, along with this perverted balloon creature. You want to know who threw it in the dumpster?"

Brother Verber was deteriorating badly, but he nudged Mrs. Jim Bob aside, noisily cleared his throat, and gave it his all. "I did it in the name of the Lord. I was cleansing the town of depravity and filth and perversion by making sure that material was discarded outside the city limits of Maggody, so that not one of our innocent youths might stumble onto it. No, I didn't want a single child to be tainted by that sort of wickedness. No, I didn't want it to creep inside your very homes and destroy your family values. No, I had to fight the devil by my lonesome."

A few of the spectators clapped hesitantly, although most of them were tugging on their lips or scratching their heads as they struggled to follow his logic.

Raz Buchanon expelled an arc of tobacco juice. "But jest exactly where did they come from in the first place?"

Brother Verber clasped his hands over his belly and rocked back on his feet. "Why, they came from Satan hisself."

"Some of the magazines have subscription labels," Estelle called. "They weren't addressed to Satan, either."

Even Mrs. Jim Bob was growing perturbed. "Where did they come from, Brother Verber?"

He thudded to his knees and put his entwined hands under his chin. His eyes welling with tears, he bleated, "Satan."

This divinely diverting moment was interrupted by the sound of an unmuffled engine coming around the corner of the high school. We all stared at the pickup truck as it drove across the grass and right onto the field, and we stared a damn sight harder as we caught an increasingly better view of the figure crouched in the back.

My first thought was that it was some giant skunk on its hind legs. It was basically black, with a white fluttery streak down its spine.

"Oh my goodness," Mrs. Jim Bob said in a strangled voice. "It's Lamont Petrel. They tarred and feathered him!"