"12 - Murder@Maggody(dot)com" - читать интересную книгу автора (12 - Murder@Maggody(dot)com)

[email protected]

An Arly Hanks Mystery

(Book 12 in the series)


Joan Hess

1


We were not rockin' and rollin' in Maggody, or even reelin just a bit. There was so little action, to be frank, that I was reduced to wandering down a dim hallway in the high school, trying to remember where the cafeteria was, so that I, Arly Hanks, chief of police of a staunchly stagnant community, currently unarmed but the possessor of a handgun, four bullets, and a really scary radar gun, could snooze through a school-board meeting.

If I'd had cable, I wouldn't have been there. And, well, maybe if I hadn't heard rumors that the meeting might turn lively. The rumors came from a most reliable source, aka my mother, who keeps a firm finger on the pulse of Maggody, Arkansas (population circa 755, not taking into account pets, farm animals, or the infrequent transient trolls living under the bridge north of town). Ruby Bee Hanks, proprietor of the bar and grill of the same name, as well as the Flamingo Motel out behind it, does not spend her days hunkered on the roof of the building, binoculars poised, but she might as well. What she doesn't learn while dishing up chicken-fried steaks and pitchers of beer is gleaned by her best friend, Estelle Oppers, who operates Estelle's Hair Fantasies in the front room of her house out on County 102. Between the two Of them, they hear it all. And I mean all.

In contrast, I don't hear diddly-squat in my two-room police department, except for the infrequent complaint about a stolen dog or vandalized lawn ornaments. Every now and then I get a request from the sheriff to handle a car wreck on a county road. Not having much else to do, I usually comply, although I'd been known to clutch my throat and feign laryngitis. Sheriff Harve Dorfer, a good ol' boy with the silhouette of a Sumo wrestler and the instincts of a polecat, rarely falls for it.

I hadn't expected much more stimulation than that when I'd crawled back home after a nasty divorce in the equally dim halls of justice in Manhattan. All I wanted, I told my mother when I knocked on her door at midnight, was time to restore my spirits. Maggody had seemed the perfect haven, in that nothing had ever happened of note in my twenty-odd years of growing up here. Oh, Hiram's barn had burned, and a cheerleader was spotted dashing for the woods with smoldering panties in hand. The ownership of the Pot O' Gold Mobile Home Park had changed hands more than once, and the Dairee Dee-Lishus was currently run by a surly Hispanic whose tamales were noticeably better than his social skills. A New Age hardware store had come and gone, as had a veritable parade of wackos including porn moviemakers, tabloid reporters, feminist rabble-rousers, and militants. The Esso station had finally collapsed into an untidy pile of charred beams. Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon, who was still running the town as though he fancied himself to be Caesar Ozarkus, had put in a convenience store known by locals as the Quik Screw. Now it was gone, replaced by a good-sized store called Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.

Not that we did.

But there I was, discomfited by a sense that I should be (but most certainly wasn't) dressed in a navy blue skirt and white blouse complete with a Peter Pan collar. What I was doing was eyeing the obscenities scratched on the lockers while I tried to remember the location of the cafeteria. I'd come in the right door, but had taken a wrong turn. The story of my life, perhaps. I strained to hear voices other than the ghostly echoes of Mr. Woolsey stressing the significance of cosines, which he'd pronounced "cousins," and Lottie Estes explaining the role of potholders in a well-organized kitchen. The band room was down here, I thought, and the shop. The cafeteria was at the end of a different corridor.

Seconds before panic sank in, I saw a light and headed toward it. Latecomers were not streaming into the cafeteria like lemmings, but quite a few citizens were doing their civic duty. I nodded at Larry Joe and Joyce Lambertino, who, for the first time in years, had no children clinging to their legs. Elsie McMay toted a knitting bag only slightly smaller than a subcompact car. Kevin and Dahlia Buchanon struggled with a double-stroller and two sleepy cherubs. Why they were there was bewildering, in that Buchanons in general have a poor track record in educational endeavors (and think a Ph.D. is a brand of motor-oil additive). Kevin has been spotted puzzling over a soda can with a poptop.

Members of the Buchanon clan, scattered across Stump County like chickweed, are renown for beetlish brows, yellow eyes, and thick-lipped sneers. They do not patronize the Brains "R" Us outlet at the mall.

One of the wilier members of the clan was seated at a table on a podium. Jim Bob Buchanon had his hand over the microphone as he hissed at his wife beside him. At one end of the table, Peteet Buchanon appeared to be in the midst of a near-death, or perhaps near-life, experience. At the other end, Roy Stiver gazed at the ceiling, either composing poetry or doing his level best to transport himself elsewhere. Roy's the closest I have to a kindred soul in Maggody, although the company he keeps (Jim Bob and Larry Joe, for example) is suspect. I rent what we both laughingly refer to as an efficiency apartment above his antiques ("New & Used") store. There have been nights we've sat in the dark and drowned our sorrows sorrows in bourbon and silence. And there was the night he started reciting Kipling, but we swore never to discuss it. Some episodes in one's life are best left on the ethereal plane.

So be it, Gunga Din.

Ruby Bee and Estelle had saved a chair for me in the front row. I smiled and nodded at various folks, most of whom eyed me with some suspicion, since my involvement with the community stopped with handing out warnings for moving violations and shaking my finger at miscreants for such crimes as forgetting to pay at the self-service pumps. In my defense, I am always polite to co-launderers at the Suds of Fun Launderette, even offering to make change, and downright deferential in matters of prime produce at the supermarket. However, the consensus in Maggody is although I have every right to be there, I shouldn't. It has crossed my mind.

Nightly.

I slipped in between Ruby Bee and Estelle. "Did I miss anything?" I whispered.

"You missed the first ten minutes of complaining about the cafeteria budget," Ruby Bee said with a sigh. "Jim Bob thinks serving moldy bread is like giving the students a free dose of penicillin, which he said most of 'em could use, considering the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. Peteet said those students with objections could just scrape off the mold. Mrs. Jim Bob reeled off some Bible verse about bread being the staff of life, although she did stop short of describing it as manna from heaven."

"Sorry I missed it," I said.

Estelle drove her elbow into my rib cage. "I'd like to hope you'll support Lottie Estes. She's worked so hard for this that I don't want to think what she'll do if it doesn't get approved. We have to make it clear we're behind her one hundred and ten percent.

I managed a weak nod as I sank back to determine if I had any cracked or, more likely, splintered, ribs. Estelle and I see eye to eye at perhaps five feet ten, and neither of us carries any excess weight. On the other hand, she has the advantage with her blazing red beehive of hair and heavy-handed makeup, giving her a few extra pounds, courtesy of Mary Kay. Ruby Bee appears more ingenuous, despite her unnaturally blond hair and conspicuous pink eyeshadow, but should it deteriorate into mud wrasslin', I'd take bets either way.

After a certain amount of dithering about locker searches, teacher retirement pensions, and handicapped parking spaces at the football stadium, Hiz Moron the Mayor Jim Bob introduced Lottie Estes. He did so with a curled lip and a squint, both traits of the clan. Unlike most Buchanons, Jim Bob can outwit a possum. A rabid possum, anyway-and I'd prefer the company of the latter.

"Lottie here," he began grandly, "has some foolish ideas about bringing computers to Maggody. Now she insists on dragging out the meeting with her proposal, even though most of us would rather be on our way home to put on our pajamas and watch television. Mrs. Jim Bob has let me know that there's a slice of lemon meringue pie just waiting for me, and I guess everybody here knows who makes the best lemon meringue pie in Stump County."