Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 04 (2 page)

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"Hiram Buchanon's barn, twenty years ago," I said into the telephone receiver. I settled my feet on the corner of my desk, rocked my chair back until it hit the wall, and gazed idly out the window. "That chicken house where the marijuana was being cured. The bank and Miss Una's house. Four fires in twenty years, Harve. Now we've had three more in the last month."

Harve Dorfer, the Stump County sheriff, exhaled noisily, and I could almost smell acrid cigar smoke. "I know, Arly, I know. But what in tarnation can we do about it? I sure as hell don't have the manpower to put a deputy inside every old barn and shack in this half of the county."

"The volunteer fire department from Emmet offered to open a branch office in town. I'm thinking about cornering the market in marshmallows and wieners." I held up my free hand to admire the black grime under my fingernails. "I went back to that last shack and took another look. For some crazy reason, I got it into my head that I was being watched. I looked over my shoulder once too often and ran into a tree."

"Haunted, is it?" Harve chuckled.

"It may be haunted, but it's also arson. Our problem is that it's going to be darn hard to prove it. I talked to the investigator at the state police barracks, and he agreed it was impossible to determine anything from a pile of ashes."

"Think we got us a nut case?"

"Three fires in a month," I said, sighing. "All abandoned structures of little or no value, and the damage confined to the immediate site. No one hurt, no families left homeless, no great loss to the landscape. But, yeah, Harve, I think we've got a nut case with a box of matches and no socially redeeming hobbies."

We chatted for a while longer, but neither of us had a theory worthy of repeating, nor did we have a devious scheme to find the nut and take away his matches. After we'd given up, I went outside and looked at the ridge beyond the east side of town. The mountainside was pale green. Although the nights were cool, the days were beginning to swell with early summer warmth. The teenagers had begun to skip school to skinny-dip in Boone Creek, and the grown-ups to sit on their porches in the evenings to drink iced tea and monitor their neighbors.

There was no curl of smoke rising from the mountainside, however, and I went back into the PD to write up a tedious report about my investigation of the charcoaled shack that hadn't been inhabited for so long that no one in town remembered who used to live there. Or cared. I skipped over the part about sensing someone in the brush on the hill, but as I paused to think of a properly officious phrase, I felt the same circle of heat on my back, right between my shoulder blades. I resisted the urge to shiver and sternly told myself it had been a beam of sunlight cutting through the remains of the roof.

I finished the report, stuffed it in a drawer for later perusal, and decided it was quittin' time, so to speak. In that, I was not only the chief of police but also the entirety of the department; I was on duty twenty-four hours a day. It would have been a relentless burden had Maggody been riddled with violent criminal activity on a regular basis, but everybody tended to go about his or her business, licit or illicit, in a quiet and orderly fashion. Oh, I knew the owner of the pool hall bootlegged beer from an adjoining state, and every once in a while I suggested he desist. The rumor of a moonshine still on Cotter's Ridge waxed and waned, but I wasn't about to waste my energy combing the woods for it -- or for the marijuana patches that were up there, too.

Instead, I dedicated a portion of each day to nabbing speeders out by the skeletal remains of Purtle's Esso station. I followed the school buses in the afternoons to remind folks to stop when the flag shot out from the side of the bus and children scampered mindlessly across the highway. When I heard about the local teenagers acting up, I went down to the high school and bawled out the offenders. I listened at least once a week to Raz Buchanon gripe about whatever was ailing him.

And mostly let the days slide by. I'd been doing so since I'd come back to Maggody to recuperate from life in the fast lane and divorce in the excruciatingly slow one. The transition from Manhattan to Maggody had been accomplished so easily that it alarmed me. Martinis to beer. Caviar to catfish. Nightclubs to nights alone in a tiny apartment above the antiques store across the road from the PD. Debating foreign policy to complaining about the weather.

I was becoming complacent, I lectured myself as I walked down the road to Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill for a comfortable supper and an update on the gossip, which was dished out as readily as the black-eyed peas. There was nothing to stop me from returning to Manhattan. The job at the security company would be there. Since I'd been the martyr in the divorce, most of my old friends would put me back on the invitation list.

But it didn't feel right; not yet, anyway. The confusion and pain of the divorce had worn down my edge, left me skittish and unsure of myself. I wore my hair in a bun and stored my makeup in the back of a drawer. I favored a khaki uniform over designer jeans and silk blouses. My nightly fantasies were works of art. I'd run home to mama, and for the moment I was content to be bullied and pampered and fed the best scalloped potatoes on either side of the Mississippi.

The parking lot was thick with pickup trucks, most of them with well-stocked gun racks in the rear windows and tool boxes in the beds. The Flamingo Motel sign flickered nervously; it looked as though the bird was about to lose another feather and the V CAN Y sign another letter. One of these days the symmetry would be completed and we'd be looking at V C N Y. Viable Connections in New York. Very Close; Not Yet.

The jukebox was wailing and the booths were filled with nuzzling couples or bellicose drunks. One couple appeared to be copulating on the dance floor, to the amusement of the spectators, since everyone in town knew the girl was carrying on with the boy's brother -- and his uncle. Everyone also knew Joyce Lambertino was pregnant, Elsie McMay's daughter was visiting, the Missionary Society was in a tizzy over the upcoming elections, and that Chief of Police Arly Hanks would never catch herself a fellow if she didn't stop moping around and start listening to her mother, who happened to be the infamous Ruby Bee Hanks, proprietress. And not to mention allowing Estelle Oppers, owner and sole operator of Estelle's Hair Fantasies, to do something about that schoolmarmish bun and plain dark hair. An auburn rinse and a body perm had been suggested.

One of the neckless wonders at the bar staggered toward the men's room, so I appropriated his stool and waited until Ruby Bee noticed me. "What's for supper?" I inquired politely.

"How can you eat at a time like this?"

I glanced at the clock above the bar. "At a time like six o'clock, give or take a few minutes, I can eat. In fact, I cannot fathom not being able to eat at such a time, which isn't to say there aren't other equally appealing times."

"All you ever think about is eating and sleeping and making uncalled-for remarks." She shot me a pinched look, then moved down the bar to berate one of her regulars, who had dumped the pretzels and was now flipping them into the air like tiddlywink pieces. He quit immediately, because he and everyone else had enough sense to be intimidated by Ruby Bee, who was short and matronly and who could toss out a drunk without regard to his weight or his degree of compliance.

She returned and devoted great energy to wiping the spotless countertop. "I suppose you haven't heard the big news." I thought for a minute. "Joyce's pregnancy? Elsie McMay's visitor? The fire up past the Pot O' Gold mobile home park?"

"Don't be smart-mouthed with me, young lady."

Devotion to scalloped potatoes forced me into humbleness. "What big news?"

"It's all over town. You being the chief of police, I'd have thought you took an interest in local happenings."

"I've been occupied with a fire bug, which is somewhat important to the community, unless we all decide to start smoking -- literally."

"Seems I heard about that old shack burning down two nights ago," she said with a small frown. "But nobody's lived there for years and years. I am talking about the movie."

I didn't think she was referring to The Towering Inferno, so I arranged my features for maximum fascination and said, "What movie?"

"You mean Arly doesn't know?" Estelle said from behind me.

"She's been too busy to pay any attention to what every last soul in town's been buzzing over all day," Ruby Bee said, taking more swipes at the pristine counter.

"Why don't you just tell me," I said meekly.

They did, although it was a challenge to pick out the snippets of fact from the fanciful ravings of two potential movie stars who were already imagining themselves strolling along the sidewalk of fame and accepting statuettes for best supporting actress. "Is it really going to happen, or was the woman merely considering Maggody?" I asked.

Ruby Bee grew solemn. "It's really going to happen. She called a while ago and said she needed to fax consent forms. I had to tell her we didn't have any of those machines in town. She's reserved all the rooms out back and arranged for the cast and crew to eat here.

"What's the name of the production company?" I said, trying to come up with a reason why anyone (besides yours truly, that is) would come to Maggody voluntarily, especially a second time. "What other movies have they done recently?"

Estelle leaned forward and murmured, "We can't say one word about their last picture. We swore to keep it a secret."

"Good for you," I said. "How about pork chops, Ruby Bee? And peach cobbler with ice cream for dessert?"

She nodded, then gave Estelle one of their aren't-we-too-clever-for-words looks. "Sure, Arly. And how about a nice glass of wild cherry wine to go with that?"

They found this remark hilarious -- shrilly, wildly, loudly hilarious. I was not the only one staring in bewilderment at them as the jukebox whined a lament of lost love and whiskied woes.

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What fascinated him was the ease with which he could start the fires. The first time he'd used a pile of kindling and a match, then moved to a prudently chosen hiding place to watch as flames begin to lick the roof and curl through the windows. Rafters crashed to the floor. Walls collapsed, hurling armies of sparks at the cloud-choked sky. He felt as if he'd unleashed a maleficent dragon inside the primitive structure. The first fire had given him a sense of power he'd never felt before.

The second fire had been even more compelling. As he'd watched, he'd been overwhelmed with a strange sensation that abated slowly and left him flushed and damp with satisfaction. As the third one consumed his chosen victim, the sensation had been stronger.

The woman cop with the dark hair had come once with a grim man, and the two of them had squatted on the floor to scrape brittle black fragments into plastic bags. She'd returned later, alone. He'd almost laughed aloud at her obvious uneasiness, but of course he'd been very quiet. She could dig through the ashes as much as she desired, as long as she didn't try to stop him.

Chapter 2

6 INT. SHACK -- EVENING

Loretta is sitting on the sofa as WE HEAR the doorbell. Zachery crosses the room and throws Open the door to admit COOTER GRIMMLEY. He is wearing a coat and a bow tie and holding a hat.

ZACHERY

Well, if it ain't Cooter! Come on in and set right there by little Loretta.

MARTHA

I already told Loretta the good news. How 'bout a piece of apple pie and a cup of coffee?

Cooter stays by the door, staring at Loretta.

COOTER

I thank you kindly, Martha, but I reckon I'll pass on the pie. I came to see if my fiancée wanted to take a stroll and enjoy the cool breeze.

Loretta stares at the floor. CAMERA WIDENS as Zachery crosses to her and pulls her to her feet.

ZACHERY

(jovially)

'Course she does, Cooter. It's time you two got to know each other better. Why, you'll be hitched afore you know it.

COOTER

We shore will, won't we, honey child? By this time next year, you'll be so busy caring for a little baby that you won't have time for a peaceful stroll with your husband.

LORETTA

I 'spose so. Ma, Billy Joe said he was coming by with some fresh okra from his garden.

(beat)

Tell him I said it was real nice of him to think about us.

COOTER

Billy Joe Jenks? He's just a dirt-poor, whitetrash kid. I grow plenty of okra to share with y'all. I don't want to hear tell of you even talking to that pissant excuse for a farmer.

MARTHA

I'll keep 'em away from each other, Cooter.

COOTER

You better if you want to keep your farm. She's mine, and I ain't gonna stand for him or anyone else taking what I aim to take for myself. Now come on, Loretta. We don't got all night. Not yet, anyways.

He takes her wrist and pulls her out the door. Martha and Zachery exchange looks, but neither speaks.

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