Mischief In Maggody

11

"I thought you were going to Starley City to get the crystal shipment," Rainbow said, coming into the Emporium office.

Nate was sprawled on the couch, a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. "I hafta to hang around for a call," he said through a yawn. "I'll get over there Monday."

"A long-distance call?"

"Just a call." Nate yawned again, and settled himself farther down in the cushions. "Don't bother to ask, because I don't want to discuss it. Or share it, as you'd say. It's personal business." And it would get him out of this godawful town and back into the pool halls of Farberville, where he belonged. Hell, he'd have enough bread to hit all the pool halls in the state, if not the whole damn country. Cold beer and hot women. No more of this aren't-we-centered crap. No more screwing a woman who shrieked about cosmic convergence when she came, or half listening to her discussion afterward about the starlit seeds vibrating in her womb, of all goofy things. No more nonsense-if, of course, his partner was right about being able to predict the moment the policewoman abandoned the stakeout long enough for them to chop the dope and get it out of there.

Too bad his partner was opposed to just going up there and doing whatever was necessary to the woman. They were already facing a murder-two rap at worst, a negligent homicide at best. They were waist deep in shit; one more death wouldn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference. He realized Rainbow was staring at him. "What's wrong with you?" he said, scowling at her.

"You're not one of us," she said as she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. "Your soul is still tortured from bad experiences in the past, isn't it? You're not capable of seeking a higher spiritual plane; you're not even able to explore the present physical reality. You'll never be able to counterbalance those discreative intentions or cleanse your inner channels."

"Blah, blah, blah. You know what-you make me sick. Every time you start gabbling about spiritual planes and cosmic harmony, I want to puke. Hell, maybe I'm pregnant like our fat little friend out behind the counter."

Rainbow's smile tightened until her lips ached. "Then why are you a member of our family, Nate? Why don't you pack your tattered duffel bag and find some new friends more like yourself?"

"When I get the word from my astrologer, maybe I will. Like when Capricorn rises in Gemini, the moon is in the seventh house, Jupiter aligns with Mars, and all that crap, maybe I will." Laughing, he turned his face to the back of the couch.

Rainbow went to the front of the store and dug through a drawer for her astrological miniguide. She was frowning at the squiggles when Poppy waddled over to her. "Capricorn doesn't rise in Gemini," she murmured, puzzled.

"I never said it did," Poppy said. "So what?"

"I was just checking. When's your appointment with the midwife?"

"I was supposed to go this afternoon, but Nate said not to take the truck. My ankles are so swollen I doubt I can walk all the way out there. I guess I'll try to go tomorrow or the next day." Poppy ran her hand over her bulging belly. "If it's not too late."

"You think…? This would be a very auspicious day for a birth, astrologically. Nate's mutters made no sense, but anyone can see that a child born today will have a very solid basis in Scorpio. Oh, Poppy, let's align our vibrations and see if we can induce labor!"

Poppy wasn't all that eager to induce labor, a.k.a. labor pains, but she managed a smile as she closed her eyes and began to hum through her nose. It would be nice to have a Scorpio baby; Scorpios could be very determined and levelheaded.

Mrs. Jim Bob realized things had gotten real quiet. She took the damp washrag off her forehead and sat up, her nose twitching like a rabbit approaching a trap. When she still didn't hear anything (especially along the lines of shrieked profanities or shattering glass), she went to the door and put her ear against it. Nothing.

But it was the kind of quiet that made you shiver if you were watching an old horror movie, because you knew in your heart that the monster was fixing to spring out of the bushes. It was the kind of quiet that comes between the flash of lightning and the boom of thunder, when you nervously count off the seconds under your breath. It was the kind of quiet that blankets a cemetery on a cold, drizzly day.

Mrs. Jim Bob looked outside at the desultory rain coming down. At last, unable to contain her curiosity, she opened the door and peered down the hallway. She took off her bedroom slippers, then crept to the top of the stairs, prepared to flee back to the sanctuary should she hear the slightest noise. No muffled giggles. No sudden gasps or snorts. Nothing. She made it halfway down the stairs without hearing anything but the thudding of her heart. She made it to the bottom.

"Bubba?" she whispered. "Are you nasty little bastards playing hide-and-seek? You're going to be real sorry if I find you."

She did some seeking, and determined that they were gone. Where, she couldn't begin to imagine, but she didn't waste a lot of time on it, either. Mr. Jim Bob had said, albeit with more snarling than anything else, that he'd better not find those bastards in his house if she knew what was good for her. She didn't believe some of his threats, partly because she was a good Christian woman who would never listen to that kind of language, and partly because he was so angry he was incoherent. It was pretty clear, though, that he didn't want to run a makeshift orphanage.

Neither did she. In fact, after giving him a couple of hours to calm down, she'd tried to call him back to tell him she'd think of some way to get rid of the bastards. A snooty desk clerk had informed her that Mr. Buchanon had checked out. No, he hadn't left any messages, and good day, madam. It had turned her blood to chilled tomato aspic.

Now, as she considered it, it came to her that she'd done the kind, generous, pious thing by seeing that the bastards were brought down to town and given food and shelter. That had been her Christian duty. She'd pointed out their sinful ways and instructed them in the path of righteousness. In fact, she'd set them on the path and given them a swift pat on the fanny to start them on their way. She'd done her duty and then some.

There was a dreadful mess on the kitchen floor, but she stepped over it and put on the kettle for a nice cup of tea. More than her duty, she thought as she took out a cup and saucer, a box of tea bags, and her nicest creamer and sugar bowl-the ones with the lavender rosebuds that had belonged to her grandmother.

Arly had taken advantage of her kindhearted soul, Mrs. Jim Bob told herself. Arly was the one who should have disinfected the bastards and seen to their basic needs. Arly was the chief of police, which meant she was in charge when the mayor and town council were out of pocket. Arly could have put the bastards in a jail cell, where they couldn't destroy someone's lovely home with new beige carpeting.

She poured boiling water into the cup, then took the tray into the dining room and sat down at the table. It was becoming increasingly clear that this whole disaster was Arly's fault. Everybody knew Arly had lived in New York City, which was filled with perverts and muggers and book editors. Not to mention society women, who ran around in skin-tight dresses and miniskirts that were the devil's own designer fashions. They painted their faces and drank martinis all day and slept with each other's husbands all night. Now that she thought about it, Mrs. Jim Bob realized it was no wonder at all that Arly'd been able to trick her like she did. Good Christian women didn't know all the big-city dirty tricks, much less how to avoid being mistreated and abused by them that did.

"Jim Bob's going to have a word with her," she said aloud, practicing just a tad. "He's going to tell her that she's responsible for all the damage done to our home and carpet. What's more, he's going to make her pay to shampoo the carpet and reupholster the sofa."

There was a navy-blue print fabric over in Farberville that would look real nice. It had peacocks with their tails all swooped up, and some flecks of beige. The current plaid was dingy, and she'd happened to glance through the fabric samples one day, purely out of idle interest. The peacocks would look fine. And those heathen bastards had probably wiped their filthy hands on the wing chairs, which would look better if they were re-covered in something brighter, maybe rose to counter the navy.

Feeling much better, much better indeed, Mrs. Jim Bob went to the telephone book and looked up a number. When a voice answered, she briskly said, "Perkins, let me speak to your eldest. I'm going to need her to clean today."

She was in the middle of negotiations (Perkins' eldest thought cleaning houses was as delicate a job as brain surgery, and therefore expected to be paid about the same hourly rate) when the doorbell rang.

She told Perkins' eldest to hold her horses, then hurried to the door and threw it open. "I am on the telephone."

David Allen tried a smile meant to reassure her his intentions were good, if not his timing. "I came by to talk to the children. Shall I wait here while you fetch them?" he said, trying to ignore the rain dripping down his collar.

"They're gone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I don't have time to visit with you at the moment." Mrs. Jim Bob started to close the door, her mind toying with the possibility of paying minimum wage just this once. It was something of an emergency, what with Jim Bob most likely roaring up the highway.

"Where'd they go?"

"Now how would I know? I certainly can't read their pornographic little minds, not that I'd want to even if I could. Why don't you ask Madam Celeste?" She again tried to close the door, but someone's foot was in the way.

"When did they leave?" David Allen persisted, despite the pain.

"They left a while back, and they didn't say where they were going. They are not my responsibility, David Allen, and I don't keep track of everybody's comings and goings like I was some spinster at an attic window. Arly's the one who'd better do that, especially if she has a mind to keep her job."

The door closed in the guidance counselor's face. He blinked, then turned and looked as far as he could see in all directions for Buchanon children. When that didn't do any good, he drove over to the Bar and Grill to see if Ruby Bee had any theories. When that didn't do any good because nobody was there, he drove on home and got a beer out of the refrigerator. That did some good.

It may occur to you that a lot of people were lost-and it's undeniably true. For all intents and purposes, Kevin and Dahlia had dropped off the face of the earth. Four Buchanon bastards had taken off for parts unknown. Mr. Jim Bob had checked out of the hotel and was no longer snarling threats from his hotel room. Yes, Baby Buchanon wasn't googooing in the station wagon when Estelle and Ruby Bee came out of Madam Celeste's house, which set off a goodly amount of screechings and wild accusations and indignant rebuttals. Mason Dickerson wasn't available to ask if he'd seen anyone on the road, and his sleek silver car wasn't parked in the driveway. Madam Celeste was in the house, one supposed, but she wouldn't come to the door despite a lot of banging and pleading to do so.

Other people were where they were supposed to be. Nate was still napping on the sofa in the back room of the Emporium, waiting for a call he hoped would liberate him. Poppy and Rainbow were out in the front, sounding off like kazoos. Zachery, the fourth partner, was in the loading area in the back, smoking a joint and enjoying the rain that misted his hair and beard with tiny crystals. David Allen was fiddling with his toys and on his third beer. Perkins' eldest was trudging up the driveway to the mayor's manor, a bottle of ammonia in her purse, while inside same manor Mrs. Jim Bob sat at the dining room table and sipped tea from a porcelain cup. Brother Verber was scribbling away, his face flushed with inspiration as he thought up increasingly pious expressions that would knock the socks off 'em the following morning at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall.

The minor players were doing minor things of no great import. Kevin Buchanon's mother was hunting for a recipe for sweet potato pie, because her last hadn't been quite spicy enough and she prided herself on the perfect combination of cinnamon and nutmeg. Her husband, Earl, was wondering where the hell Kevin was, but he wasn't worrying all that much since boys will be boys and at least Kevin wasn't in the sweet gum tree peeking at naked hippies. He'd checked first thing, but the tree was uninhabited.

Elsie McMay was hovering near the telephone, just in case the filthy pervert called. Merle Hardcock stood on the north bank of Boone Creek, trying to refigure the angles. Carol Alice and Heather were cross-legged on Carol Alice's bed, thumbing through fashion magazines for ideas for bridesmaids' dresses, Heather being steadfastly opposed to both puffy sleeves and high waistlines, since neither flattered her and she knew it. Carol Alice's fiancé was over in the National Forest with a couple of his buddies, drinking beer, telling risqué stories, and arguing about the best location for a deer stand whenever they chanced to remember the purpose of the jaunt. Gladys Buchanon was squinting at her grocery list, since she couldn't find her glasses again and wasn't about to pay fifteen dollars for psychic revelations. LaBelle was in the little girls' room, cursing that doctor in Farberville who wasn't a day older than her nephew and therefore hardly qualified to prescribe medicine and prod at people's privates. Harve was grumbling over reports that looked like they'd been written by third graders. Decidedly minor things.

The drizzle was not making me happy. It was making me clammy and cold. It was making my blanket squishy. It was making my coffee watery and my cornflakes droopy. It was making my mood bleaker than that of a bag lady who'd lost her baggage.

No one had approached the pot patch, which meant I hadn't nabbed a single criminal as of yet. I doubted my perps were foolish enough to appear on a miserable, wet, cold day, harvesttime or not. Perps weren't notoriously clever (or they wouldn't be perps-they'd be investment bankers or Mercedes salesmen), but even the dumbest ole boys had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Squirrels and blue jays and mosquitoes had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Only chiefs of police were devoid of sense. Not to mention cold and wet and bored and lonesome and apt to come down with pneumonia.

I pulled my jacket more tightly around my shoulders and tried very hard not to succumb to selfpity. I didn't have a whole lot of success. At two o'clock I plodded through the wet leaves to the jeep and called LaBelle. Once we'd gotten through the preliminaries-no, I hadn't seen or heard anything; yes, I was dandy and having a wonderful time; yes, I'd remember rain or sleet to check in-she casually mentioned a telephone call from one Ruby Bee Hanks. "What'd she say?" I asked without enthusiasm.

"Well, she wanted to know where you were and when you'd be back. I told her in no uncertain terms that the information was as confidential as it'd been the first time she asked, and there wasn't any point in badgering me. Then she asked me something I found right peculiar, if you know what I mean."

"I have no idea what you mean, LaBelle."

"She wanted to know if we'd had anything unusual turn up in the lost-and-found department this morning. I told her about the dentures, the pompom, the three-legged hound, and the pair of spectacles, but she said never mind and hung up afore I could find out what she was looking for." LaBelle moistened her lips, then added, "She sounded kind of worried, although she was trying not to."

A particularly icy drip of rain found its way down my collar. "You don't have any idea what she might have lost?"

"I am not a mind reader, Arly. You ought to ask Madam Celeste about that sort of thing; she's real uncanny."

"Did you check with school about Kevin?" I asked, too discouraged to pursue my mother's latest bit of nonsense.

"He did not come to work yesterday, and Earl and Eilene haven't seen him since the night before that. And don't bother to interrupt, because I asked Ruby Bee if she'd heard from Dahlia and she hadn't. Do you want to file a missing persons report?"

"Not if that means someone might find them." I rogered over and out, then went back to my post, which had a puddle in the middle middle of it. I dug through the box of cornflakes for a wishbone, aware that it indicated a deterioration of my mental faculties, and came up with a soggy yellow flake. I decided that I would remain on the job until six o'clock, when it would start getting dark. Then, without telling LaBelle or anyone else, I would slither back to Maggody, take a hot shower, and spend the night in my dry, warm bed. I could be back at the patch by seven the next morning. Since the dopers had no idea the patch was under surveillance, they had no reason to risk a broken axle or a broken ankle by harvesting in the dark.

Once I talked myself into that minor dereliction of duty, I felt a little bit better and a good deal saner. I even managed not to snarl at a squirrel too stupid to stay in out of the rain. Almost pegged him with a walnut, but I figured I was merely assisting him in his nut collection. Damn bushy-tailed rat.

"Arly's going to hit the ceiling," Ruby Bee moaned. "She'll never stop talking about how irresponsible we were to lose that precious little baby. The poor little thing's probably been kidnapped by some degenerate pervert who'll demand money for ransom. I'm going to hate to turn over my life savings to a degenerate pervert, but I suppose we'll have to if he calls."

Estelle looked in the opposite direction. "Let's not cross the Brooklyn Bridge until we come to it. Between the two of us we don't have near enough money to resemble a ransom payment, and I for one don't intend to end up in the county old folks' home. Besides, maybe we'll find Baby before Arly comes back from wherever she is and starts getting all haughty about how you lost the baby."

"How I lost the baby? It seems to me that you put the baby out in the car and said he'd be just fine by his little self. You were so all-fired sure there weren't any Gypsies on the road. You were plumb full of confidence that Madam Celeste would identify the father. You were-"

"What do you think she meant?" Estelle interrupted, not enjoying the drift of Ruby Bee's remarks.

Ruby Bee made a rude little noise to let Estelle know just what she thought of the diversionary tactic, then shook her head. "Lordy, I don't know. Celeste claimed she saw a list, but she couldn't come up with any idea where in tarnation there'd be such a thing. We both agree that the hospital's out, and the welfare office hasn't sent anyone to Robin's cabin in a coon's age. So who has a list?"

"It doesn't make any sense," Estelle said. "I was wondering if we ought to go back out there and ask the madam if she has any visions of where to find Baby, but most likely she still won't answer the door."

They sat in silence for a while, considering options and lists and what to say to Arly when she showed up-which she would, sooner or later. They almost leaped out of their respective skins when the jukebox blared into life and David Allen Wainright joined them at the bar.

"Any word from Arly?" he asked, once he had a beer in front of him and a bowl of popcorn within reach.

"Not recently," Ruby Bee said cagily. "How about you? Did you have any luck interviewing the Buchanon children today?"

He explained how they'd gone off somewhere, and how Mrs. Jim Bob wasn't exactly chewing her fingernails or sweating bullets over their disappearance. He then went on to say that in a way he felt responsible, but he couldn't figure out anything to do about it except have another beer.

Not quite willing to admit the whole truth, Ruby Bee told him how she and Estelle had consulted Madam Celeste concerning the delicate issue of paternity-not that she'd doubted David Allen's professional abilities, mind you, but it never hurt to cover all the bases. Estelle butted in to repeat Celeste's murky pronouncement about a list, and how it didn't make a whit of sense. David Allen was forced to agree.

They had a companionable beer, and then he wandered off. Once the door closed, Estelle jabbed her finger in the air.

"Arly shouldn't have turned over those poor orphans to Mrs. Jim Bob in the first place," she said. "It's no wonder they ran off when they had the opportunity, what with her Bible-thumping and selfrighteous sermonettes and all. Not to mention her pie crust, which personally I find soggy."

"Arly's not going to be pleased," Ruby Bee said with a sigh. "Now all five of the orphans are lost. She'll be fit to be tied when she finds out. She may have my good looks, but she sure does have her daddy's temperament. She'll go on and on about how we wouldn't have lost Baby if we hadn't consulted Madam Celeste, and she'll also claim we were interfering in her investigation by doing so-even though we weren't."

Estelle let out a sigh of her own. "Are you sure LaBelle won't give you any hints about when Arly gets back? I might feel the need to go into Farberville and buy an aqua uniform."

"You're not running out on me, you coward! It was your idea to begin with."

"You're the one who insisted on keeping Baby," Estelle pointed out. "If you'd let him go to Mrs. Jim Bob's house with the others-"

"What'd you say earlier about Mrs. Jim Bob?"

"I said her pie crust was soggy. Now, if you'd let Baby go-"

"Something else," Ruby Bee said excitedly. "You said something about Mrs. Jim Bob thumping her Bible, remember?"

Estelle was tiring of not getting out a single sentence without all the time being cut off. "I may have made such a remark, but I don't see why that gives you the right to blurt out anything that comes into your head."

"What's in a Bible?"

"The Old Testament and the New Testament, Miz Feathers-for-Brains. Chapters and verses like 'Thou shall not interrupt thy friends when thy friends is making a point."

"What else is in a Bible?" Ruby Bee continued, her eyes bright enough to compete with the jukebox. "Right in the beginning?"

"I'm not sure I remember my Sunday-school lessons perfectly, but there's Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and so forth."

"Before that-right on the first page?"

"I am finding this most tedious," Estelle said. "If you want to see if you qualify for one of those TV game shows where you shout out the answers, that is your business."

"Right on the first page of everybody's family Bible is a record of births, marriages, and deaths. It's a list."

Estelle's jaw dropped so hard it almost hit her chest. "You're right, Ruby Bee. A list of births, marriages, and deaths. We ain't interested in the last two, but we are in the first. Do you think that's what Madam Celeste was referring to?"

"She wasn't referring to a grocery list, for Pete's sake. That's got to be what she was referring to." Ruby Bee's face fell. "Of course, that's assuming Robin Buchanon had a family Bible, which is a stretch of the imagination."

"Or that she bothered to write down the names of the ole boys who fathered her bastards."

"Or that she could write down names or anything else."

"That she had a pencil in the cabin."

"That she knew the names of the fathers."

They both slumped down on the stools and propped their elbows on the bar and engaged in a lot of sighs. At last Ruby Bee pulled herself together, squared her shoulders, and said, "It's the only clue we have, especially since the other Buchanons have run off. We don't have anything else to go on except the possibility that Robin Buchanon kept a list in a family Bible."

"If we find the list, we'll know the identities of the fathers. Maybe Baby was kidnapped by his own father," Estelle added.

"Then we wouldn't have to tell Arly how we lost the little sweetums, or even where we were and what we were doing at the time. Assuming there is a Bible, for one thing, and for another that it has a list." Ruby Bee tried to keep her sense of optimism, but it wasn't easy. "And that we can get our hands on it. Robin didn't live in a condominium on the highway, you know. It's not all that simple to just run up there and pick up this Bible off the coffee table for a look-see."

They finally agreed that there wasn't much choice, and once Ruby Bee'd put up the Closed sign for not the first time, they got into Estelle's station wagon. After all, they told each other several times, they'd been there before on that other distasteful matter. There wasn't any reason why two full-grown intelligent women couldn't remember a few turns here and there. They were still engaged in the pep talk as they turned off the pavement and bounced up a rough trail that led toward Cotter's Ridge.

Hammet made sandwiches and told everybody not to be gettin' crumbs all over everywhere like they was uncivilized animals. They sat in the dim room, watching the soundless antics on the television set. Hammet tried to explain the finer points of the football game, based on observation alone since he'd never seen anything quite so all-fired dumb in his short lifetime, but he could tell not even Sukie believed his theories. "If they's tryin' to kill each other to win that ball, why don't they have shotguns?" she asked.

"They wants it to last for hours and hours, so all those other people screaming and jumping up and down can watch 'em," he said. "They puts up those numbers to show how many they've kilt."

"Why don't those people jest shoot 'em and put 'em out of their misery?" Sissie asked, equally enthralled by the violence.

"He don' know shit," Bubba inserted.

Hammet settled for an eloquent shrug, since he didn't know shit about it anyway.

At six o'clock (or maybe a few scant seconds earlier), I stored my blanket and thermos in the tent, then slipped and slid through the sodden leaves to the jeep. The beeper was clipped to my belt, so I would be alerted instantly if LaBelle found some obscure reason to desire communication with me. No one would know I wasn't expiring of pneumonia in a damp sleeping bag on the ridge all night; I would tuck the beeper under my pillow (the soft, warm, dry pillow on my soft, warm, dry bed) and if it beeped, I could go down to the jeep and radio in.

As I drove down the back side of the ridge, I told myself over and over that it wasn't a deadly sin, or even a dereliction of any significance. No, not at all. It was the intelligent thing to do. It was not evidence of weakness or self-indulgence to avoid a slow, miserable death by freezation and ennui. The mythology of superheroes was immature. Television cop shows were aimed at viewers with IQs in the single-digit range. Besides, no one would ever know. So there.

I felt a flicker of guilt as I drove past the abandoned jeep. Maybe Kevin and Dahlia were out there in the woods, as wet and miserable as I'd been for a solid twenty-four hours. They'd taken the jeep late Thursday afternoon; Merle had happened across them toward dark. That worked out without much effort to forty-eight hours. And no one had bothered with a missing persons report, or a search party, or dogs, or helicopters, or anything. No one had informed either set of parents that said twosome were lost somewhere on the ridge.

Then again, there wasn't a bear or a wildcat mean enough to tackle Dahlia O'Neill. With any success, anyway.

I pulled over and cut off the engine. I fiddled with the radio until I got through to LaBelle, who hopped right in with the time. I waited until she ran down, then told her to check with the parents to make sure the prodigal pair hadn't returned. If they hadn't, I instructed her to put out an APB on Kevin and Dahlia.

"You want I should book a posse to comb the ridge?" she asked.

"Not yet. If we bring in a posse, our dope growers won't dare to come back to their pot patch, which means we'll never catch them," I said, sighing. "The dopers committed murder, and I'll be damned if they're going to get away with it because Kevin and Dahlia are snuggled up in a cave somewhere. Maybe Dahlia'll shed a couple of pounds. If they haven't turned up by tomorrow night, we'll do the posse thing."

"Whatever you say, Arly. Have a nice night."

"I fully intend to," I said earnestly. Boy, did I get that wrong.