Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 04 (5 page)

-- ==+== --

I was on the way out of Merganser's office when I ran into Plover. He suggested coffee, and we went into the break room at the back of the barracks. While he played host, I flopped down on an ugly sofa and said, "Merganser was helpful, in a terrifying way. We agreed it wasn't arson for profit, and it doesn't look as if anyone's trying to cover up anything. If it's revenge, no one's been harmed physically or financially. That leaves us with a nut case."

Plover handed me a chipped mug and sat down across from me. "How nutty?"

I tasted the coffee and decided it might be better used to repair roads. I put the mug on the floor and said, "The profiles vary. It could be a thrill-seeker, someone who craves the excitement of the trucks roaring in and the firemen dragging out the equipment. This one, most commonly, tends to be male and starts setting fires in his teens and early twenties. Problems at home, low self-esteem, lack of appropriate positive role models, possibly with a sexual dysfunction."

"That describes our witness," Plover said flatly.

"I know, and I'm going to talk to him later today. I'll verify his explanation for being on the road and discreetly ask where he was when the other fires were discovered." I paused as I recalled Merganser's second option. "Or it may be the work of a psycho who's been starting fires out of some misguided idea that he -- or she -- is under orders from unseen powers."

"Why has he surfaced in the last month? Why hasn't he been torching abandoned buildings all along?"

"Beats me," I said, reaching for the mug and then catching myself. "There's no one new in Maggody. I guess I need to check in Emmet and Hasty."

Plover raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. "Good idea, Arly. Perhaps the fire chief can help you with the investigation."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Sergeant Innocent shrugged. "It means you can ask what's-his-name if anyone has moved to Emmet in the last two months. He looks like he'd know -- especially if it was a female."

I tried to maintain a normal tone, but I didn't have laudable success. "And what's that supposed to mean? Wade's a nice guy. He's a county extension agent and contributes a lot of free time to the volunteer fire department. He's the one that keeps tabs on the equipment, makes sure the paperwork gets done, and supervises the training sessions."

"Did Merganser tell you that firemen have been known to start fires so they can be heroes?"

I stood up, kicking over the mug in my haste, and headed for the door. As I reached it, though, I stopped and attempted to sort through the anger and indignation swirling inside me like fierce red sparks. "I don't know what's bothering you," I said without turning around (and thus startling a baby-faced corporal so badly that he bumped into a wall). "All we do is go to the movies or have dinner maybe twice a month. What you do the rest of the time is your business -- since I sure as hell have no part in it."

"I thought that was what you wanted."

I made myself look back at him. "I didn't say it wasn't, Plover. You're entitled to privacy, just as I am. For all I know, you've got a wife and three kids stashed somewhere, or an insatiable passion for some college girl."

"You're the one who's in a self-inflicted cocoon."

I thought of several devastating retorts, but I realized my face was flushed and my eyes were beginning to sting. I hurried down the hallway and out into the parking lot, willing myself to do so with no more than professional briskness. Chief of Police Ariel Hanks had places to go and witnesses to question. She did not have time to engage in a childish exchange with a man who fancied himself an amateur shrink.

She drove all the way back to Maggody and parked in front of the PD before she burst into tears. One tough cookie, that Chief of Police Ariel Hanks.

-- ==+== --

"A house across the road from Raz's place?" Ruby Bee said into the receiver. "There's nothing directly across, but Dahlia O'Neill and her granny don't live but a hop and a skip north of there.

"Fantastic," Carlotta said. "Can we use the house? We've had to do a few more revisions and add a character. She doesn't have to live in the immediate vicinity, but it would make the shooting go faster."

Ruby Bee didn't bother to tell her that everyone in town not only knew about the latest addition to the cast but also knew what she intended to wear and how she planned to have her hair fixed. "I don't reckon Dahlia's granny will mind, since she's down in Jessieville visiting kin. Dahlia can be right ornery, though."

"What'll it take? We can go one hundred dollars, one-fifty max. It's only two interiors, so we'll be done in no more than a couple of hours."

Ruby Bee wasn't sure how to break the news to this nice woman from Hollywood. She finally decided there was no tactful way to go about it. "Dahlia has her heart set on being in the movie. She's been moping around like a motherless calf ever since she heard about it, and poor Kevin's fit to be tied."

"There's no other house near the shack?"

"Sorry, honey, but the only other persons who live out that way are Perkins and his eldest, and I'd sooner cozy up to a grizzly bear as ask him."

Carlotta was also renowned for her flexibility. "Okay, we'll go with this Dahlia woman. Give me a quick rundown: How old is she, and what does she look like?"

Ruby Bee did so.

The ensuing silence crackled all the way from Hollywood to Maggody, and you could almost see people in New Mexico and Arizona gazing up at the telephone lines, asking themselves what in tarnation was going on. Ruby Bee was wondering if they'd been disconnected when Carlotta said, "Tell me you're kidding."

" 'Fraid not," Ruby Bee said sadly.

"Oh," said Carlotta in a faraway voice, which was not surprising in that she was in what most of Maggody considered nigh on to a foreign country, where folks ate raw fish and sat around naked in oversized buckets of boiling Water.

Estelle came into the bar and grill and glanced curiously at Ruby Bee, who was clutching the receiver but not saying a word. Her expression was impossible to make heads or tails of, except that she looked perturbed.

"Is there someone on the line?" Estelle asked. When there was no reply, she went around the bar, poured herself a glass of sherry, and sat down on her stool to wait for further developments, such as a word being spoken into the receiver.

It was a good five minutes of toe-twitching tedium before Ruby Bee said, "Okay, I'll ask her. You sure about this ... ?"

Carlotta was sure.

-- ==+== --

Wild Cherry Wine (REVISED 5/20)

CLOSE SHOT -- LUCINDA

LUCINDA, a hulking earth mother, is concealed behind a clump of bushes, and observing the scene with a curious frown. Her lips move silently and she blinks several times.

10 RETURN TO SCENE

-- ==+== --

A knuckle on the window brought me back with a yelp of surprise. I wiped my eyes and looked up at a seriously unappetizing view, a.k.a. Kevin Buchanon's face. It was so close that I could see the fading blemishes, the emerging pimples, the smattering of blackheads (coming and going), and even the craterish pores of his nose.

"Arly?" he said through the glass. "Are you okay?"

I rolled down the window an inch and said, "Yes, I am just peachy. What do you want?"

"I was hoping you might see fit to explain about how men and women get along with each other," he said, fogging the glass as he moved even closer. "My beloved's all sad these days, except when I mention going to Boone Creek, and then she likes to whop me up the side of the -- "

"Stop, Kevin. Under no circumstances am I going to attempt to analyze the unbreachable gulf between female sensibleness and male insufferableness. Not in my worst nightmare would I dare to interpret your and Dahlia's interactions. Go away. Better still, run away from home and join the Foreign Legion. Maybe Dahlia will feel more kindly toward you if you have a battle scar and some medals."

I rolled the window up and backed out of the lot. After a moment of debate, I drove toward Emmet to see if Wade Elkins had any new theories about the firebugs.

It was all for naught, in that he wasn't home and I preferred not to hunt for him at his office. Just as well, I told myself as I drove home.

Chapter 4

15 CONTINUED:

Billy Joe and Loretta are grappling under the sheet as the door opens stealthily.

16 CLOSE-UP -- WIDOW THIGPEN

Words cannot convey the level of shock on her face. However, she advances soundlessly, and we realize she is reliving memories of what has taken place in the bed in the past. A bemused look comes over her as she spies on the sweaty young lovers.

17 BACK TO SCENE

LORETTA

Oh, Billy Joe-is you sure this is right? I swore to God above that I'd save myself for my wedding night.

BILLY JOE

This ain't a sin, my darling Loretta. Mebbe there ain't no way to keep you from marrying Cooter, but he won't be the one what takes your purity and hides it in his black heart forever.

WIDOW THIGPEN

What all's going on -- and in my own bed? Loretta Biggins, I am sorely ashamed of the way you're carrying on with this white trash. No wonder your pa was gonna whip you!

LORETTA

Widow Thigpen! I didn't hear you come in.

Billy Joe flops back with a groan of frustration. Loretta covers herself with a sheet and sits up.

WIDOW THIGPEN

I don't recall hearing Billy Joe Jenks come in, neither.

LORETTA

I let him in through the window. I'm so sorry, Widow Thigpen. When Billy Joe gets too close to me, my body seems to catch on fire like a pile of kindling.

(beat)

But it's a sin, ain't it?

CLOSE-UP on Widow Thigpen as a knowing smile flits across her face.

WIDOW THIGPEN

I was young once, Loretta. I was in love with the boy down the road, and more times than I can count, we met under an old sweet gum tree and made love like we'd invented it.

(beat)

He was strong, and handsome as a movie star. The first time I was scared, but I closed my eyes and I never regretted it.

BILLY JOE

Then you'll let us stay in here?

LORETTA

No! It's not right, Billy Joe. I can't let Ma and Pa lose the farm. It's jest not right.

Loretta begins to sob as Billy Joe and Widow Thigpen exchange enigmatic looks.

DISSOLVE TO:

-- ==+== --

Frederick Marland rolled up the script and began to slap his knee with it. "This is so very amusing, Carlotta. Gwenneth and I come within centimeters of full engagement six times in the first fifteen scenes. Do you think I've got a elevator button between my balls? Going up, going down ... going up, going down."

He was slouched in the last seat in the van, his jaw extended with the petulance of a toddler and his dark brown eyes glowering as he unfurled the script and resumed reading it. Despite his tendency to regress, he was handsome enough to be followed around malls by giggly girls and a few young mothers pushing strollers and telling themselves they should know better. He'd agreed to let his sunstreaked brown hair grow for the role, and the soft curls over his ears and on his neck were those of a Renaissance cherub floating above a Madonna.

Although he was in his mid-twenties, on cue he could invoke an aura of adolescent innocence; within weeks of his arrival in L.A., it had earned him a small part in a soap. Inevitably, the writers had wandered on to other sordid subplots, and his character had slithered down the drain. The experience had served him well, however, and his career was proceeding exactly as he'd planned.

In the seat in front of him, Gwenneth D'Amourre was trying to hold the script still with one hand and steady her cosmetics case with the other as the van bounced from pothole to pothole. "Oh, Billy Joe -- is you sure this is right? I swore to God above I'd save myself for my wedding night." She looked up with a teeny-tiny frown. "Hey, Carlotta, did you make this rhyme on purpose? It's kinda sweet, you know? This is right; wedding night."

Gwenneth had prepared for the eight hours of plane and van. She wore a halter and shorts, and her baby-blue eyes were concealed behind the expensive sunglasses she removed only for the camera and bed. Very little was concealed behind the halter, but Gwenneth liked to give her fans a thrill when she sailed majestically through airports. Her lush golden hair (her term) cascaded down her lovely, supple shoulders like a tawny lioness's mane (as above), and she was adept at flipping it out of her face with a toss of her elegant (ditto) chin. Gwenneth's résumé was heavily peppered with adjectives, her private life with adverbs.

In the front seat, Carlotta had opted for the conservative yet comfortable attire of a blouse and khaki slacks. The remarks from the back rows of the van had caused her to lose her place in her notes, and her voice was sharp as she said, "Yes, Frederick, I do think you're controlled by nothing more than a tiny, shiny black button. No, Gwenneth, I did not notice that the line contains an internal rhyme. If you can't get it out without lapsing into that godawful singsong, I'll rewrite it."

"Well, I don't know," Gwenneth said thoughtfully, if not pensively. "Right, night. It sure does rhyme."

"Can't fool you, can I?" Carlotta muttered as she delved back into her notes, making check marks as she moved through them. The truck with equipment in the morning. Hal and Anderson on a late-afternoon flight, rental car reserved at the airport. Rewrite trailer scene to include the three-hundred-pound cavewoman. Locate liquor store. Carlotta drew a star by the ultimate item, glanced at the driver across the aisle, and gloomily drew a second star for good measure. " ... the one what takes your purity and hides it in his black heart forever," said Frederick, his voice loud and incredulous. "Jesus H. Croissant, did Hal write this excrement?"

"Indeed he did," lied Carlotta.

Frederick mentally ran through the terms of his contract. "Maybe it's not that bad."

Fuzzy Indigo was driving the van, zealously aiming for each pothole in the road and wishing he had a flask in the pocket of his army surplus jacket. The scenery was friggin' unreal. Squalid houses, rusty trailers, ugly children, weathered chicken houses held together by barbed wire and spit. Ditches cluttered with aluminum cans, crushed paper cups, and a variety of distasteful things.

Fuzzy was by no means a perfectionist, but he was not immune to small displays of vanity. Although he was approaching sixty, he kept his skimpy gray hair combed across the creeping bald spot and long enough to slick back into a ducktail. He purchased only the trendiest fashions from secondhand clothing stores; even his shoes, a size too small, were handcrafted lovingly from the skin of an endangered species. His wit was legendary in drunk tanks from Tacoma to Tijuana.

He was less successful in other areas. The jacket had not been cleaned since he'd appropriated it months ago from a dumpster. He'd given up shaving more than once or twice a week, and at those times he felt as if he'd donated a pint of blood. It was rare that he could complete a compound sentence, or after a particularly stupefying weekend, a simple one. Behind rimless glasses, his eyes darted furtively as if he anticipated a dorsal assault, which he often did when he roamed the less chic streets of L.A. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that veins were snaked across them like highways on a map, and a careful observer might notice similar lines throbbing across his temples.

Had he been a perfectionist in his profession, he wouldn't have agreed (once again) to work nonunion for a laughable fee and a cut of the net.

Fuzzy spotted a fresh lump of road-kill and veered toward it. His grin was humorless. Carlotta noticed it out of the corner of her eye and thought it maniacal. His gleeful chortle did nothing to alleviate her worry.

Directly behind him, Katherine "Kitty" Kaye was draped across her husband's shoulder, snoring softly and dreaming of more lucrative days and more glamorous evenings. Her feline face was as rough as suede from excessive sun-worship, and her body, once firm yet round, was angular. Twenty-five years ago her voice had been praised for its melodious range. Now it was coarsened by a three-pack habit. Carlotta always gave her as few lines as possible and relied on her expressive mouth and eyes. Kitty was a trooper, a veteran but not a victim of Hollywood.

Her husband, Buddy Meredith, was a character actor who'd appeared in countless movies and commercials. Neither his face nor his name was ever recognized, not even by the residents of the neighborhood where he'd lived with Kitty for more than twenty years. It was a nice face, however. The gap between his front teeth and the slight imperfection of his nose gave him a nonthreatening demeanor, and his unfailing affability reinforced it. He was among the few in the industry who accepted gray hairs, wrinkles, discolored spots, and a thickening of the waist as the normal progression of nature.

As Kitty stirred, he smiled at her and lightly ran his finger along her high cheekbone to the crease alongside her slightly curled mouth. She'd once been beautiful, but he'd never been handsome. Even after more than two decades, he never quite understood why she'd agreed to marry a kid with a hick accent and a gap between his teeth.

"Maggody!" Fuzzy announced.

The five passengers looked up, and in an uncanny display of team camaraderie that had evolved during the production of several questionable flicks, groaned as one. As befitting her more extensive experience, Gwenneth outshone them all.