"03 - Much Ado in Maggody" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hess Joan)

Joan Hess - AH03 - Much Ado in Maggody

(Book 3 in Series)


1


I am not going to start off bitching and whining about how nothing ever happens in Maggody, for two reasons. One is that the premise is getting as stale as day-old bread. The other is that it doesn't appear to be all that valid anymore. That's not to say a lot of what happens in Maggody, Arkansas, isn't on the mundane side. We're talking about outsiders running the single traffic light or putting the pedal to the metal in the school zone. Dogs being stolen. Good ol' boys brawling at the pool hall on a regular basis. Marijuana and moonshine. Among Maggody's 755 residents, someone's always stirring up minor headaches for yours truly, Arly Hanks, chief of police extraordinaire. I've got a real live badge and a box with three bullets in it to prove it.

And there have been some bizarre incidents during my official tenure, which began when I submitted the only application for the position. Calling them crimes of the heart seems too romantic for this neck of the woods; they're more like crimes of the bowel. But if on a given day you were to cruise through Maggody (observing the speed limit signs, we'd like to think), you'd be hard pressed to find anything seething below the surface. You might see a couple of good Christian folks in tight white patent leather shoes, gabbing out in front of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall; a grizzled sort in well-worn overalls shuffling into the tiny branch bank to see if Miss Una can help him make heads or tails of some new-fangled computerized bank statement; the Emporium, run by a bunch of aged hippies who still sit around in the nude behind their house and hum through their noses, to their neighbors' alarm. Earl Buchanon, in particular, keeps muttering about communes, Communists, and how a backside of birdshot's too good for 'em. Not everybody's into mantras in Maggody.

There's a line of stores, the windows decorated with yellowed newsprint and strips of peeling tape. A red brick building, the police department, that gives me a place to while away the hours swatting flies, drinking coffee, taking potshots at the roaches with the radar gun, and wondering why in hell I ever came back to Maggody. Okay, I came back because I wanted to lick my wounds after a tacky divorce. I had no intention of doing so for more than a few months, but I was still licking away two years later, mostly because I'm not double-jointed and therefore can't twist my leg back far enough to kick myself in the rear.

Moving on, there's the Suds of Fun Launderette and the Kwik-нStoppe-Shoppe on the left, followed by some shabby houses and enough weeds to drown a toddler in. On the right, however, is our local attempt at glitz: Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill. It's painted a peculiar shade of pink in deference to the sign out next to it that proclaims the availability of accommodations at the Flamingo Motel. The neon flamingo looks a little motley, and the V CAN Y sign hardly draws a crowd, but the parking lot in front of Ruby Bee's is usually filled with pickup trucks. The beds of the trucks are guarded by emaciated, gunky-eyed hounds wishing they were out chasing coons instead of snuffling dust and growling at potential truck thieves.

I won't extol the virtues of the Pot O' Gold Mobile Home Park, the skeletal remains of Purtle's gas station, the Dairee Dee-Lishus across from the high school, or even the bucolic bliss that, reigns all the way to the Missouri state line. Prevarication's more of a winter sport, and the thermometer had been pushing triple digits for nigh on to a week.

I was fiddling with the window unit in the PD when the door banged open and Johnna Mae Nookim stomped into my sanctuary.

"Holy cow," she said as the heat hit her. "This place is worse than an oven, Arly. I swear, if you had a mind to, you could bake buttermilk biscuits in here."

"I realize that. In fact, I'm seriously considering tacking up a sign outside that offers free sauna sessions. Our first health club."

Johnna Mae gave me a puzzled look as she settled her hefty bottom on the chair across from my desk. She had seriously bleached hair, a round, tomato-colored face, and the beetlish brow and yellowish eyes of the Buchanon clan. She was wearing a prissy white shirt, the armpits of which were getting wetter by the second, and a miniskirt that made no concession to her pudgy thighs, dimpled knees, and thick ankles. God knows how the spike heels supported all of the above, but one had to presume they did. After all, she hadn't crawled into the PD. Then again, if the air conditioner continued to balk, she darn well might find herself crawling crawling outЧwith me clinging to her ankle.

"I don't think this is all that healthy," she muttered, fanning herself with a piece of paper. "I'd be more inclined to say it was downright unhealthy, if you get my drift. You ever thought about getting a fan or something, Arly?"

I twitched a knob or two and banged my fist on the top of the damn thing. I had drawn back my foot to bust it when a cool breeze drifted out. It wasn't anything arctic, but I took it as a conciliatory gesture and reluctantly lowered my foot. Once I was sitting behind my desk, I said, "Hear you had a baby, Johnna Mae. Congratulations."

"Seven pounds, twelve ounces, and enough red hair to make a wig for an Irish setter. He is the sweetest little ol' thing imaginable, and the spittin' image of his daddy. That's not to say I didn't have a spot of trouble convincing little P.J. to make the trip, of course. He wiggled around so much the last couple of weeks before his birthing date that he was about as cattywampus as a baby can get. My first two slid out just as easy as you please, but this one had to be taken out by a cesarean section, where the doctor makes this slit right across the front of you and reaches in and pulls the baby out. Putter like to have passed out cold in the delivery room. He still turns a little green when I talk about it, but he's always had a delicate side most people can't see."

"Sorry to hear that," I said before I was given further graphic description of each and every minute of little P.J.'s arrival. "But you look like you've bounced right back." Johnna Mae's brow lowered until she could barely see from under it. "I have regained my good health, yes. Now, I was only intending to take off a few days of maternity leave, but the C section changed all that. Dr. Herkmeyer insisted I stay a whole solid week in the hospital, and then he told me I couldn't go back to work, I had to stay home for another five weeks. I must admit I wasn't feeling all that chipper. Putter was real good about taking care of the kids and seeing to the housework, and I just kind of stayed on the sofa and watched my soaps while I recuperated."

"Great," I murmured, wondering why she was sounding madder and madder as she described a six-week session of sofa vegetation.

"That's fine and dandy for you to say, Arly. None of it was my fault, you know. Not even Dr. Herkmeyer could see that little P.J. was going to give me such a troublesome time during and after. Anyway, long about last Wednesday I decided I'd better get my rear off the sofa and get back to work at the bank. Due to Putter's disability he's been unemployed for nearly three years now, and we were feeling a pinch most everywhere. I called Mr. Oliver and told him I'd be in. I managed to squeeze into panty hose and a jumper I'd worn during the confinement, then I had Putter drop me off in front of the bank just like he's done for eleven years. I breezed through the front door, hollered a greeting to Miss Una, and headed straight for my locker in the back room. Well, that's when the shit hit the fan, if you'll pardon my French."

"Oh," I said, nodding wisely. I had no idea where she was heading, and I wasn't overly enthralled by the narrative. If the truth must be made known, my brain was drifting down the highway toward Ruby Bee's, where there might be a plate lunch with my name on it. In capital letters.

Johnna Mae gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward. "That locker has been mine for the last six years, since Mr. Oliver decided to spend all his time at the main bank in Farberville and I assumed the position of head teller at the branch." She paused for a moment, just in case I wanted to get her autograph or some such fool thing. I didn't twitch. "Being head teller isn't like being executive vice president at the main bank, but it involved a right nice little raise and a certain amount of authority. I don't want to crow on my own fence, Arly, but I did a mighty good job of it for six years."

"And now you're no longer head teller?"

"You hit it square on the head. In my absence, this damn fool college smart-ass youngster was brought in and given my position, not to mention my locker and my desk. Why, you'd like to have thought he'd been there for years from the way he'd thrown out all my little efforts to make things homey at the bank. Miss Una managed to save my philodendrum from the garbage can, but my African violets just went everywhere. He took my photographs of my family and put them in a box and then proceeded to put the box in the dampest corner of the back room. There was mildew on the backs of them by the time I fished them out and wiped them off. I want you to do something, Arly."

"About the mildew?" I said, mystified.

"About this smirky youngster who took not only my position, but my desk and my locker and my personal belongings." She took a tissue from her purse to mop her forehead, and leaning so far over the desk I could feel her breath, she said, "I want you to arrest Sherman Oliver and have him put in jail!"