"01 - Malice In Maggody" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hess Joan)

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Paulie came in the next afternoon to report that Perkins refused to cooperate in the investigation. The dog had not been spotted among the children and chickens playing in the dirt in front of the ramshackle cabin. "I suppose I could go back with a warrant," Paulie concluded morosely, "but Perkins'll probably dump a load of buckshot in my behind. I don't think he's got the dog, anyway."

"Probably not," I said. "We can decide about a warrant next Tuesday when the municipal Judge shows up for court. I'm sure as hell not driving all the way into Starley City to get a search warrant for a dog, especially Raz's bitch."

I leaned back in the chair and studied the ceiling while Paulie bustled around the back room, fixing coffee and playing with the radar gun. He'd make a fine space explorer; I could hear him making little noises under his breath as he zapped aliens and cockroaches. I suspected I'd sort of miss him when he let for the state police academy, but I was praying hard he'd get accepted.

The police band radio sputtered to life. I fiddled the knobs and settled back for another exciting communique from the sheriff's office, expecting to hear that some damn kids had smashed themselves up on the hairpin curves north of town.

I was wrong. When the radio quieted down, I stood up and brushed the dust off my khaki fanny, then hollered for Paulie. "I need to run over to Ruby Bee's," I informed him with a grim smile. "Carl walked off the prison farm sometime yesterday. We're supposed to keep an eye out for him, but I think I'd better warn Jaylee right away."

Carl Withers was once Maggody's main claim to fame, when he won all-district honorable mention in football. The recruiters did not swarm to town to offer Cadillacs and scholarships, however, and he ended up working for Hobert Middleton in the body shop. He managed to impregnate Jaylee during her sophomore year of high school (he was twenty-six at the time) and did the honorable thing, although she lost the baby a couple of months after the wedding. Two years ago he'd tied one on, stolen a brand-new Eldorado off Hobert's lot, sideswiped a Buchanon child on a motorscooter, and totaled the car just outside of town. The child ended up with two broken legs and a concussion. The judge was unamused and Carl got four years at Cummins State Prison Farm down by Pine Bluff. Among his other talents, Carl was bigger than a semi and meaner than a water moccasin. A real live sumbitch, as we say in Maggody.

When I found Jaylee, she was in a back booth, studying a cosmetology magazine for inspiration. She choked on her tongue when I told her Carl was loose. After a great deal of coughing and tearing, she got hold of herself and managed a shaky laugh. "He wouldn't dare show his face around here, Arly. He'll go to his brother's house in Texarkana and then head south. He used to talk all the time about getting a job on one of those oil rig things in the Gulf of Mexico."

"I hope so. I looked up the file on him before I came over here, Jaylee. He beat you up pretty bad the night he got arrested, didn't he? Seven stitches in your lip and a fractured collarbone?"

Ruby Bee was listening from behind the bar. "That's the unvarnished truth," she inserted, having no reservations about butting in. "It wasn't the first time neither. I saw you plenty of times with a split lip, Jaylee, or wearing sunglasses to hide a shiner. That Carl's a skunk if I ever met one."

Jaylee's lower lip edged out, as if she were going to protest, but she thought better of it. "He can be rough," she admitted. "That's why I was hoping to be long gone before they let him out of jail. I figured he'd never be able to find me in Little Rock."

I was nudged aside by my deputy. "Hey, Jaylee," he said as he sat down across from her and reached for her hand. "You don't have to worry about Carl showing up in town. The state police and the sheriff's department are both watching for him, and if he makes it here, he'll have to deal with me first."

In that Paulie had snatched the words right out of my mouth, I retreated to the bar and ordered a glass of milk. Paulie sat with Jaylee for a long time, murmuring too softly for me to catch more than a tadpole's tail of what he was saying. Jaylee finally relaxed and stopped trying to wiggle her hand free. Their heads moved closer, and I could see she was fanning him with her eyelashes.

"Sweet, ain't it?" Ruby Bee cooed over my shoulder. She's a sucker for soap operas and romance novels.

"Just like molasses. Maggody's cutest couple, making plans to escape before the demented husband shows up with a twelve-gauge to blow them both to smithereens."

"You think Carl'll head this way?"

"Beats me. I don't know him--the Withers family moved here after I graduated from high school and left for college. He must be a real prince, though." I finished my milk and glanced over my shoulder. Jaylee was showing Paulie one of the more fanciful hairstyles in her magazine while she tugged at the curls dangling over her forehead.

"It's Saturday," Ruby Bee said in an innocent tone. "You got any plans for tonight?"

"I'm going to get drunk and shout obscenities out my bedroom window," I said as I started to leave. "Is Robin Buchanon still making hooch up on Cotton's Ridge? I might run up and get me a couple of jars."

Ruby Bee snorted delicately. "I don't keep up with Robin Buchanon, miss. She's a slut and she doesn't even try to guess who fathers those filthy brats of hers. She must have ten or eleven by now, in all different shapes and colors."

"Enough for a touch football team. I'm going back to the police department to see if there's any word on Carl or Betty. Send Paulie along when his hand gets so sweaty he can't hang on anymore."

To my regret, I met Jim Bob and Hobert in the doorway. Jim Bob glared up at me and said, "Don't you have any work to do, Chief? The town council doesn't pay you to hang around bars gossiping with the womenfolk."

Hobert's pendulous chin quivered in agreement. "I saw three out-of-town cars run the signal light this morning, Chief. If you don't write some more tickets, you may find yourself with a downright skimpy paycheck at the end of the month."