Madness In Maggody

7

"He raped her right there on the sofa bed in the office," Edna Louise Skimmer whispered to Barbie Buteo, her second cousin once removed on her mother's side, who lived in Emmet but got by every now and then for a nice visit. They were obliged to whisper due to the kids being in the next room.

"No?" gasped Barbie. "Did she go to the emergency room at the hospital?"

Edna Louise tried to remember what all she'd heard at the county nursing home several days back. "I don't think so," she admitted with a trace of regret.

"Does her pa know about it?"

"Oh, no, and this is strictly between you and me, Barbie. One of the aides just happened to have overheard a conversation on the porch and passed it along to me, but I can't afford to lose my job for repeating gossip, even if it's the gospel truth. I wish I could tell you more about whatall he did, but I can't say another word." She rolled her eyes and zipped her lips to emphasize her point. "You do understand what I'm getting at, doncha?"

"I won't tell a soul," Barbie vowed solemnly, going so far as to draw an X on her chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die. I just can't believe everyone's gonna let that slimeball do you know what to a local girl and not even make him say he's sorry or offer to replace the shirt he ripped off her."

"It was awful", Edna Louise said. "The girl was hysterical when she came stumbling out of the office, and she nearly got herself run down on the highway by one of them tractor trailers. A neighbor happened to be driving by, and she put the poor little thing in her car and got her home afore anybody else saw her. We have no way of knowing if she was the only one-or only the first one."

Barbie peered around the corner to make sure all seven of the children were safely engrossed in cartoons, then leaned across the table and shook her head. "You know what I think, Edna Louise? I think they ought to tar and feather that fellow and escort him right out of town on a railroad tie. What'd you say his name was?"

"Petrel. Lamont Petrel." Edna Louise said this very firmly, because she was very sure.

After lunch, Plover said he wanted to question the owner of the Flamingo Motel about Petrel's disappearance. I offered to assist and was told my presence would not be required. I pointed out she was my mother and was told that was the problem. I mentioned that I was the chief of police and was told everybody already knew that.

So I may have been in a snit as I slammed the door on my way out of the bar and grill. As I stalked up the highway toward the PD, I may have been thinking of a whole lot more devastatingly clever things I should have said, and that may have been why Jim Bob had to bellow like a bullfrog to get my attention.

I shaded my eyes and looked across the highway. "What do you want?"

"The inspectors from the health department are here and they want to talk to you," he yelled. "Have you gone blind and deaf, Chief Hanks…or just plain stupid?"

"It's the heat. If I had a decent air conditioner in the PD, I wouldn't be reduced to a mindless mass of indeterminate gray matter," I yelled back, not in the mood for Hizzoner's particular brand of humorless humor any more than I was in the mood for a certain state trooper's "Don't worry your little head about it" attitude. I hate that.

"The inspectors have to talk to you, and they want to do it sometime before the sun sets in Hawaii. If you can't cross the street by yourself, I'll come hold your damn fool hand."

I waited until a truck rattled by, then took my own sweet time going across the road and the parking lot. Two men were waiting with Jim Bob under what shade there was beside the door of the SuperSaver. Despite the fact that one was tall and the other short, one rosy and the other anemic, one with a nice smile and the other with stained, crooked teeth, they had a certain sameness that bureaucracy demands and therefore begets. Neither looked especially impressed with me, but frankly, my dear, I didn't give a rat's ass.

"This is Chief Hanks," Jim Bob muttered. "She has to hear how you inspected the store and didn't find dead mice in the vents or bug spray in the icebox."

Tweedledee bobbled his head and assured me everything satisfied current state regulations. Tweedledum bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

"Then we're not to worry about the twenty-three people who had to be taken away by ambulance?" I asked blandly. "It was just…one of those pesky little things that can happen to any of us?"

This time Tweedledum bobbled his head and reassured me all the facilities looked shipshape to him. Tweedledee bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

"Good grief," I said to Jim Bob, "where'd you buy these two? Do they work part-time as dashboard figurines? You know, with one of those wiggly plastic hula girls between them and a pair of foam dice dangling from the rearview mirror, you could have yourself a real nice-"

"Thanks, boys," Jim Bob cut in heartily. He slapped them on their backs and told them how very deeply he appreciated them having to come all the way out to Maggody to satisfy some meddlesome cop who had nothing better to do than stand around in the hot sun and make smart-alecky remarks.

He kept it up until they drove away, then looked at me with one of his smirkier smirks. "I do believe you've been informed that once the state health inspectors have been here, I can reopen the store?"

"But not the deli until we hear from the lab."

"Fuck the deli. Just get all that tape out of here and go find something useful to do for a change. You're running behind on speeding tickets this month, and I'd be real sorry if the town council had to unplug that air conditioner of yours in order to cut down on expenses. Then you'd really have something to bitch about, wouldn't you?"

With a parting smirk, Hizzoner went into the store. Apparently, he'd been confident of a favorable report from the health department, because several high-school boys drove up and headed for the front door. I decided the orange tape gave the place a festive air, and went back across the road. This time, no one offered to hold my hand, but I did it just the same.

At five o'clock Monday afternoon, roughly fifty hours after twenty-three people had been removed from the premises in ambulances, Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less reopened for business, although without a marching band, dignitaries, careening cheerleaders, or any fanfare at all.

At 5:10, the first customer of the day, Raz Buchanon, bought a tin of chawin' tobacco, a tabloid that claimed Elvis was not only alive but had endured a series of sex-change operations to protect his anonymity, and two gourmet frozen dinners (breast of chicken à l'orange with vegetable-rice medley). If you don't understand why he bought two, don't worry about it. If you do, try not to dwell on it too much.

At six o'clock, the small patch of gravel in front of the Satterings' produce stand was as vacant as a dead man's eyes. Ivy figured she knew why, but she told Alex to wait there on the off chance there'd be a customer. She went into the house and combed her hair, then drove into town to compare tomato and snap-bean prices at the SuperSaver.

At 6:15, Geraldo Mandozes banged down the counter window of the Dairee Dee-Lishus, banged into position the CLOSED sign, banged his car door shut, and drove over to the SuperSaver to see whether the shits were selling tamales that tasted as if they were made of dog meat and catsup.

At 6:20, Eula Lemoy told Millicent McIlhaney that Lamont Petrel had tried to poison every last soul in town and was now hiding out in a brothel in Little Rock or maybe Pine Bluff.

At 6:30, Barbie Buteo told her husband, R.T., that some fellow in Maggody had raped half a dozen high-school girls. This is hardly vital to the plot, but let it be noted that R.T. spent a goodly portion of the ensuing evening (and of his paycheck) at the Dew Drop Inn on the south side of Emmet, which isn't too far from Maggody.

At 6:45, Ruby Bee and Estelle got so tired of standing on tippytoes in front of the kitchen-sink window, trying to see who all was going in and out of the SuperSaver, that Ruby Bee taped up the CLOSED sign on the door of the Bar & Grill and the two went over to identify the traitors by name, rank, and serial number, if nothing else.

At 7:13, Hammet Buchanon hit a baseball for the first time in his life. It rolled between Martin Milvin's feet, bounced over a clump of Johnsongrass, flattened a honeybee on a black-eyed Susan, and came to a stop not too far in front of Georgie McMay. After a moment of thought, Georgie hurled it as hard as he could at Earl Boy Nookim's head, but it soared over him and hit Ray Mandozes in the back. The subsequent exchange of expletives, some in Spanish and some in English, evolved into an epic brawl.

At 8:55, Dahlia sauntered real casual like past the end of the last aisle and ducked into the employee break room because she wanted to have a few words with Kevin before he started work. He came in shortly afterward and they commenced a conversation interspersed with jabbing fingers and more than a snivelly tear or two.

At nine o'clock, Buzz Milvin discovered the two in the break room and told Dahlia to run along home and Kevin to get to work and do something about the smell lingering in the general area of the picnic pavilion. When Kevin looked blank, Buzz told him where to find a bucket and mop, then went to the third aisle for a jumbo bottle of Lysol. He assumed Dahlia left through the back door.

At some moment during the next hour, Hammet Buchanon stopped complaining about what a dopey, cross-eyed calf Saralee Chewink was and fell asleep in front of the television. Saralee herself went to sleep on a roll-away cot in the Lambertinos' family room, thinking about what a mysterious fellow Hammet was. What she really meant was enigmatic, but that was a word decidedly outside the limited scope of her fourth-grade vocabulary. Also safe in bed for the night, Jackie Sattering told his pa how he'd caught a monarch butterfly in right field. Alex shared his excitement. In the tiny bedroom of a rusty mobile home at the back of the Pot O' Gold, Ray Mandozes was awake in the top bunk, imagining himself a courageous toreador and Georgie McMay a trembling, drooling, bowlegged toro. Olay, as they say in Maggody.

At ten o'clock, Enoch McMay was conversing in his dreams with Gilligan and the Skipper. Georgie McMay picked at a scab on his lower lip. Earl Boy Nookim caught a lightning bug and squished it in his fist, and only went inside the mobile home not too far from the Mandozeses' when his ma threatened to whup him if'n he didn't.

At pretty much the same time as above, Lillith Smew ordered Martin Milvin to turn off his light and go to sleep if he knew what was good for him. She checked on Lissie, who was curled up tightly around her rag doll and breathing evenly, then went into her bedroom and sat down to rub liniment on her knees. All this cooking and cleaning was getting to be awful hard on her, she thought with a grimace. Buzz and the children didn't appreciate how she sacrificed herself day and night for them. Her daughter had been properly sympathetic, but she sometimes wondered whether Buzz even listened when she discussed all her recurring symptoms of heart trouble, shingles, rheumatoid arthritis, failing eyesight, palpitations, dry mouth, and other equally life-threatening conditions. She put away the liniment and opened the first bottle of pills in the long row. At 10:30, all the way over in Farberville, Sergeant John Plover picked up the telephone receiver, dialed five or six numbers, then sighed noisily (which didn't matter, since he lived alone) and told himself to let his favorite chief of police cool off for a day or two. Also in Farberville at that time, Muriel Petrel plumped her pillow, gazed at the unoccupied twin bed, and considered calling her sister to have lunch the next day, since she wouldn't have to be home to fix something for Lamont. There was that new place with tables on the patio that sounded real nice.

At 10:35, Estelle Oppers tried to warn Tom Selleck not to get in the convertible with the bleach-blond floozy, but he didn't pay her any mind and got right in. Estelle figured he deserved what he was gonna get before the next commercial (it was a rerun and she knew for a fact he was going to be mighty sorry, even if he didn't know it).

At 10:36, Ruby Bee read the last page of a mystery novel about a deranged, tattooed serial killer who murdered seven beautiful models before the quick-witted police detective tracked him down in a seedy bar in Miami and shot him deader'n a doornail. As she reached for the light, she thought she heard footsteps outside. It took a good five minutes before she found enough courage to go over to the window. All she saw was the parking lot, and it was empty. She stayed at the window for a minute, because it looked kinda shimmery and romantic in the moonlight, like a lake.

And at the end of this busy day in Maggody, perhaps even as early as eleven o'clock, everybody and everything had pretty much shut down except for the night shift at the SuperSaver. Jim Bob had come in and disrupted the scheduled routine with a lot of nonsense, but he was long gone. Buzz was driving to Starley City, the two canvas money bags on the seat beside him. Kevin was supposed to be setting out cans of pork 'n beans, but he wasn't.

The only other light worth mentioning was in the apartment above Stiver's Antique Store: Buy, Sell, or Trade. It was a small yet adequate reading lamp beside the bed.

It was nearly noon by the time Hammet and I headed for Ruby Bee's for lunch. Because the SuperSaver was open and, based on the number of cars and trucks in the lot, doing a brisk business, I was on the leery side as we went into the bar and grill.

Ruby Bee gave me a calculating look as I hopped up on a stool, but merely tossed me a menu and asked Hammet if he'd like a cheeseburger and glass of buttermilk.

"Yessum," he said.

"Business seems normal," I said as I debated between pork chops and pot roast with gravy.

She busied herself cleaning up after one of her sloppier customers. "For the time bein', I suppose. I saved some lemon icebox pie for you and Hammet. Earl Buchanon liked to burst into tears, but I told him no siree Bob, this is for Arly and her little friend what plays on the Ruby Bee's Flamingos. How's that coming, by the way?"

This display of nonchalance and maternal charity wasn't fooling fooling me one whit. "If I had an assistant coach to sit on Georgie McMay's head, I might make some progress. As it is, no one knows the difference between a dugout and a hole in the ground."

"Ain't that a shame." She stayed busy for a minute, but I could almost hear the corroded gears grinding in her head. "I hope you all will do me proud at the game. I was thinking Estelle and me might go into Farberville and buy some little trophies to give to everybody at a party after the game Thursday. I was of a mind to serve hot dogs and corn chips, but Estelle says everybody likes hamburgers better. What do you think, Arly-hot dogs or hamburgers?"

"I think you think I didn't hear what you just said," I said promptly. "Or perhaps you think I think the Ruby Bee's Flamingos will master the rudiments of the game in two days and be ready to take on a team made up of jockstrapped giants. That leads me to think you're out of your ever-lovin' mind."

"I think hot dogs sound swell," Hammet contributed, then caught my look, slithered off the stool, and went over to the jukebox to ponder the selections.

"But the Starley City tournament starts Saturday," Ruby Bee said in a low voice, keeping an eye on those on nearby stools in case they were SuperSaver spies in denim trench coats. "We got to prove my team's the champions if we're going to represent Maggody at the tournament."

"We may lead the league in cow-patty hurling and nature study," I began, then stopped as the telephone behind the counter rang. Ruby Bee answered it, and, after a moment, whispered, "It's Eilene Buchanon. She's looking for you."

"Oh," I whispered back as I took the receiver. "What's up, Eilene?"

"Arly? I think you'd better come over here as soon as possible. I got something you need to see."

"Can you tell me what this is about?" I asked, more concerned with the pork chop versus pot roast dilemma.

"I don't think I better say any more on the telephone."

I said I'd be there shortly, then handed back the receiver to Ruby Bee and told Hammet to wait for me. Ruby Bee was frowning, but she had enough sense not to ask me anything. I was puzzled by Eilene's insistence that I come to her house. Although she's got two strikes against her (she's married to a Buchanon and is Kevin's mother), she always seemed a reasonable sort.

I drove down Finger Lane and parked in the driveway. Eilene met me at the screened door and said, "Thanks for coming, Arly. I wasn't sure what to do, but I figured I'd better do something before Earl gets home from work this evening." She ushered me through the living room to the kitchen, where she pointed rather melodramatically at a chocolate cupcake on the table. "That's the culprit."

Nothing in my training had prepared me to arrest a cupcake, or even interrogate it. In that it was nestled in the remains of a cellophane wrapper and had a squiggly line of white icing across its top, I deduced it was store-bought. In that they tended to come in two's (à la Noah's ark), I furthermore deduced one was missing and was either ingested or had fled the scene of the crime.

I straightened up and said, "What's this about, Eilene? I know these have enough sugar in them to levitate a nursery-school class, but that's not enough to press charges against the bakery."

She wasn't smiling. "Look at that little silver dot on the side," she said. "You recognize what it is?"

I examined the culprit more carefully. "It looks like a pin head."

"And it's attached to the rest of the pin. There was one in the other cupcake, too. I know this because I bit into it and scratched my tongue. Luckily, I had enough sense to spit it out. If I'd swallowed it, the Lord only knows what damage it would have done further down the road."

I stared at her for a minute. "A pin in the cupcake?" I said, not sounding especially bright. "Someone put a pin in one and you took a bite and hurt yourself?"

She stuck out her tongue and pointed out a ragged red scratch along one side. "Ith thill bleeding," she said.

I sat down and studied the second cupcake. I suspected I already knew the answer, but I went ahead and asked, just for the hell of it. "Where did this package come from, Eilene?"

"Kevin brought it home this morning from that supermarket where he's working. When he went in last night, I gave him a grocery list. It didn't have cupcakes on it, but he decided on his own account to get a few other things. I had to take the cupcakes away because he's not allowed to have chocolate on account of breaking out."

"I suppose I'd better talk to him," I said. Eilene told me he'd gone to Dahlia's house. I asked her for a bag, scooped up the evidence, and went to find him.

Dahlia and her granny lived out past Raz Buchanon's place. The porch didn't look strong enough to support her granny, much less Dahlia. However, I traversed it without trouble and rapped on the door. I wasn't surprised when Kevin opened the door, but I certainly was when he yanked me inside and said, "Thank God you're here, Arly! We got to do something fast! Dahlia's been poisoned!"

I dashed past him and found the object of his affection on her hands and knees in a tiny bathroom. She regarded me over her shoulder, then jerked back in time for a brief episode of severe gastric disorder.

Kevin shook my arm. "Should I call an ambulance?"

"Shut your mouth," Dahlia said before I could answer. She backed out of the bathroom to the hall, where she had room to get to her feet, and proceeded to do so, albeit ponderously. "I must've told him twenty-seven times it's just another touch of that stomach flu. I ain't about to go off to a hospital again. I liked to have rolled right off that narrow ol' bed they made me get on last time. And the nurses were the snottiest people I've met in all my born days."

"But, beloved," Kevin protested, "what would I do if'n anything happened to you?"

"Visit that fat, pious pig by yourself, that's what."

"You're awful pale."

"You're plain awful, acting like you did and tearing a hole in my best blue blouse."

"I told you I was sorry."

"You can be sorrier than an undertaker for all it matters to me."

"Both of you hush," I said. "Kevin, did you bring Dahlia anything from the supermarket-such as a package of cupcakes?"

His jaw dropped and his Adam's apple shifted into fifth gear. "I paid for everything I took this morning. You can ask that checker with the black ducktail if I didn't pay for everything."

"That's not the question. Just answer me before I shake it out of you."

"I brought my sweetheart a peace offering," he mumbled.

Dahlia had her hand on her mouth and she was beginning to look a little bug-eyed, but she managed a nod. "Kevvie brought me a package of those little gold-colored sponge cakes. He knows they're my favorite."

I realized time was of the essence. "You ate them?"

"I didn't stick 'em in my ears." Her cheeks bulged, as did her eyes, and she pushed past me to fall to her knees in front of the commode. The entire house shook; we're talking six or seven point something on the Richter.

Not wishing to invade her privacy, I grabbed Kevin's elbow and hauled him to the front room. It took a good while to get his story, what with Dahlia appearing and then thundering away every three minutes or so, but after a half a dozen more episodes, she seemed to recover and admitted that the sponge cakes hadn't been up to snuff but that she'd eaten them anyway. Kevin assured the both of us he'd taken them and the cupcakes off the shelf beside the checkout counter, and no, he hadn't examined the wrappers, but why would he do that?

When I left with the cellophane wrapper safely stashed in a small plastic bag, I knew there was something going on at the SuperSaver that was at best malicious and at worst murderous.

Once I got to the highway, I debated whether to go directly to the SuperSaver or stop by the PD and call Harve first. I opted for the latter, and found Sergeant Plover seated in my chair, behind my desk, talking on my telephone. There was a scratch pad in front of him and a much maligned expression on his face.

"Yes, ma'am, I'll give her the message," he was saying as I came inside. He wiggled his eyebrows at me, listened for another minute, and said, "Yes, ma'am, as soon as possible. I do understand the urgency, but Chief Hanks is out on an investigation at the moment. I'm just helping out for the afternoon. No, I don't know where she is. Yes, ma'am. Goodbye, ma'am."

"Now what's going on?" I demanded.

"You're asking me? How in blazes am I supposed to know what's going on in this bucolic bedlam of yours? I came by to see if you were still in the mood to rip my ears off. The telephone started ringing, and I've been taking calls for a good twenty minutes."

I tried not to wince. "Any messages of interest?"

He came around the desk and put his hands on my shoulders. "I didn't mean to insult you-okay? You're a very efficient chief of police."

I ducked out of his grasp and took possession of my chair. "As much as I'd enjoy remaining in a foul, immature, unprofessional snit, I've got too many other things to worry about for the time being." I glanced at the names on the scratch pad in front of me: Ruby Bee, Lottie Estes, Millicent McIlhaney, Perkins (who, like his eldest daughter, has never been honored with the usage of a first name, if he has one), and someone named Barbara Buteo. "Anybody report an emergency?"

Plover looked at me. "Your mother said the big game's at three o'clock sharp, and she and Estelle will do everything possible to get to help out at practice this afternoon. The next three callers presumed you might be interested in their gastrointestinal upheavals. The Buteo woman said she'd call back, because what she had to say was too delicate to discuss with me."

"You're not going to believe this," I said, not too sure what I myself believed. I told him where I'd been the last half hour or so and what I'd learned about the goodies from the shelves of Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.

"Holy hell," was all he could say when I had finished.

"It sounds as if we'll be there shortly, " I said. I rubbed my face, then called Harve and reiterated the facts, along with the presumption that three of the previous callers had suffered ill effects also.

"But I got the report from the health department right here on my desk," Harve said unhappily. "This doesn't have anything to do with the inspection, and the deli's closed. Unless you think Eilene Buchanon stuck a pin in a cupcake to add a little crunch, you'd better take my word for it and back me up when I go close down the SuperSaver in five minutes," I said. "State Police Sergeant Plover from the barracks in Farberville is here in my office. Jim Bob won't be able to ignore him, but I've got to have your okay on this, Harve."

Harve told me to do whatever I had to do and he'd get himself organized and be there shortly. Plover offered to drive. As we went outside, I asked him if he'd encountered a similar problem before.

"We've never seen any product tampering in this area," he said, opening the car door for me as if we were heading out for dinner in a prefeminist (read: prehistoric) era.

I managed to close it all by myself. "But it's been in the news within the last two or three years," I said. "Do you honestly think someone's so opposed to this new supermarket that he would stick pins in cupcakes and dribble some substance on the packaged desserts and on the free samples the other day?"

"A substance like syrup of ipecac?" Plover put on his sunglasses and assumed the stony demeanor of a state trooper.

"Why'd you say that?"

"Because I called my ol' poker buddy at the state lab earlier. You won't get the report until late this afternoon, so I came out here to tell you what he told me."

I sank down in the seat and turned the air conditioner on high. "Ipecac is used primarily to induce vomiting in the case of accidental accidental poisoning by a noncaustic substance," I intoned. "Third week of emergency first aid at the academy. The one thing it's not is an ingredient in chili sauce. Mandozes said something to me about the sauce tasting like sweet catsup. Ipecac has a nauseatingly sickly sweet taste to it." I switched the air conditioner back to low, partly out of a heightened awareness of the need for global energy conservation and partly because I was shivering like a dashboard hula girl.