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

"I was just on my way to check dealer tags with the state license department," I said politely. I pushed past them and went to my car, a little surprised by the virulence of the attack. There's no love lost between the town council and me, but we usually keep civil tongues when I appear to beg for a new box of pencils or a junior G-нman fingerprint kit. They laugh, I laugh, and we adjourn till the next meeting. I'm always the last item on the agenda. It lets them wind up the meeting on a light note.

Larry Joe and Roy were pulling up in Larry Joe's pickup as I drove away. It seemed that all the local dignitaries were gathering at Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill, which was odd. The other two members of the town council were not present, but neither had made a meeting in several months. Harry Harbin was visiting his daughter in Miami Beach and wasn't expected back until his arthritis eased. Old Jesse Buchanon was around somewhere, but he was so senile he couldn't stop dribbling long enough to find the meeting room.

I hung around the office the rest of the afternoon, working on the duck and filing my nails. Nobody called in with any information about Cal Withers, so I assumed he'd headed for Texarkana and points south. At six o'clock Paulie arrived to man the night shift. He was still pink around the gills from his session with Jaylee, whom he adored almost as much as his badge and radar gun.

"Did Jaylee feel better when you left, Officer Buchanon?" I asked sweetly.

He had the grace to blush. It was quite appealing on his boyish face; he's the sort who'll look eighteen when he's forty-five, even though he'll be balder than a coot's ass. I'll have all my hair and look fifty-five.

"No word on Carl," I said as I started for the door. "You can call the dispatcher if you want to, but I doubt she'll have anything for you. Carl's likely to be in New Orleans by tomorrow."

"I'll handle him if he shows up," Paulie said in a low voice. If he was doing an impersonation of John Wayne, I missed it.

I walked across the highway to my apartment, which is above Roy Stiver's antique shop. Maggody has a limited number of rental units, and I wasn't about to move back home with Ruby Bee. There were several mobile homes available at the Pot O'Gold Mobile Home Park, but I lacked the moral fiber to live in a structure at which God aims tornados about once a month every spring. That left a tent or Roy's apartment, which was dirt cheap, catty-corner from the police station, and not too bad if you squinted and used fortyнwatt light bulbs.

Roy Stivers is an interesting old guy and a good landlord. Like the rest of us, he returned to Maggody when he got tired of life in the fast lane, but he stayed gone thirty years while his mother ran the antique store. It's one enormous room, colder than a witch's tit, and crammed full of glassware and old books. The tourists stop a lot, thinking they can pull a swift one on grizzled old country-boy Roy. He chaws around with them, playing the rube, and reluctantly lets them buy an old table for twice its value. I'm the only one who knows he writes poetry in the little office in the back of the store. He had a volume of poetry published about twenty years ago. I read it, but most of it was above my head or below my knees--I never could decide. Roy and I occasionally sit around the stove and drink bourbon. I noticed he wasn't around as I climbed the stairs behind the store.

I was working on a bowl of chicken noodle soup when the telephone rang. It was Paulie, and he was rattled. At last I determined that a real live state trooper was actually in our office, being officious and demanding to see me. I grabbed a jacket and strolled across the highway, not about to be intimidated by someone in mirror sunglasses.

He wasn't wearing the sunglasses, perhaps because we operate at an economy-minded wattage. I could see why Paulie was rattled, however; the guy was putting on a pretty darn serious show.

"Chief of Police Hanks? I'm Sergeant Plover, State Police."

"I saw your cruiser outside," I said as I slipped behind my desk. "You parked too far from the curb, but I'll let it go this time." A little joke--we don't have any curbs in Maggody.

He was a big man, as tall as I am but decidedly broader across the chest. I'm more vertical than horizontal myself. He looked to be about forty or so, his face chipped like a dish from the dump and his nose doing a zig where it should have zagged. Blond hair (longer than regulation, I'd have bet), brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles. He might have been all right when he smiled, but he sure wasn't at the moment.

"I appreciate your professional courtesy," he said, although he didn't sound real sincere. "We have a small problem, and I was sent to request your cooperation, Chief Hanks."

I propped my feet on the desk and grinned. In one corner of the room Paulie was slumped against the wall, gulping harder than a salmon going upstream, but I ignored him and kept my eyes on the trooper. "Sure, anything at all. I'm always willing to cooperate with the state police--you all are the ones who never ask me to dance. Does this have something to do with the escaped convict?"

"No, we'll get him before he reaches your jurisdiction. If he tries to hitch north, one of our boys will be polite enough to give him a ride back down to Pine Bluff. You don't need to worry about that."

What he meant was that I didn't need to bother my pretty little head with such scary things--it was plainer than day in his eyes and tolerant smile. "Ooh, thank you," I squeaked, producing a girlish shiver. "I'll sleep better knowing that you'll catch that big nasty man before he gets to Maggody."

"Will you? That's good to know."

Paulie was not hopping from foot to foot, probably convinced I had destroyed his chances for the big time. I decided to ease up just a tad, since I didn't have a good excuse for my behavior anyway.

"Then what did you have in mind in terms of cooperation, Sergeant?" I smoothed a yawn and blinked up at him.

"We had a call from the regional EPA office in Dallas. They sent a contract specialist up this way yesterday to meet with the city council in Starley City, but the man failed to arrive. The council finally called Dallas this morning to find out what happened. Dallas had no idea anything had happened, but they called us. We agreed to run a check, and learned that"--нhe took a pad from his pocket and consulted it--"one Robert Drake signed for a car from the interagency motor pool yesterday at eight-sixteen in the morning. He told them he would return it today and return to Dallas on an afternoon flight. That was the last anyone saw him."

"Good," I muttered. When Sergeant Plover gave me a sharp look, I added, "No one in Maggody is excited about Starley City's proposed sewage treatment plant on Boone Creek, which runs west of town. I've read all the environmental impact reports, and I know they say the water will be cleaner than it is now, but I don't like the idea of sewage flowing through my old swimming hole."

Sergeant Plover thought that one over for a minute. "So the citizens of Maggody are angry about the proposed plant. Would anyone be likely to prevent Mr. Drake from reaching Starley City?"

"No one put up a roadblock yesterday, if that's what you're getting at," I said. I picked up a pencil and rolled it between my hands. "The EPA has already made the decision and granted the construction application. Starley City is going to build the plant whether we like it or not, so I can't see anyone making a grandstand play with some little bureaucrat whose job is to sign some paper. They'd just send someone else, wouldn't they?"