Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 13 (14 page)

It got real quiet for a spell, but he was way too caught up in his fantasies to think much about it. He was setting the meatloaf on the stove when they reappeared.

"Oh, Mr. Mayor," said Tonya, or maybe Sonya, "the most terriblest thing has happened. While we were freshening up in your bathroom, we had a call on my cellphone. Our poor granny fell and broke her hip. Mama wants us to meet her at the hospital."

"You're leaving?" squeaked Jim Bob.

Sonya, or maybe Tonya, licked his earlobe. "You know we wouldn't if we didn't have to, but our mama hasn't been herself since she lost her leg in a car wreck, and our papa's so fat that he hasn't left his bedroom in seventeen years. Our brother Ivan is doing time for rape, and sweet little Smirnoff keeps insisting he's a frog, so he lives down at the pond. We got no choice but to help our mama. It's a family thing, you know."

"A frog?" said Jim Bob.

"He's making progress in therapy," said Tonya, or maybe Sonya. "Last year he thought he was a polliwog. Do you mind if we make ourselves sandwiches?"

They sounded so matter-of-fact that Jim Bob couldn't gauge their sincerity. "If he believed he was a polliwog ... what did he do?"

Sonya, or maybe Tonya, put out a loaf of bread and a bottle of catsup. "Lived in the bathtub most of the time. Ever' now and then he'd let us drain off the water and then refill it. You would not believe the shit we had to put up with from social workers and truancy officers. They'd come pounding on the door night and day. Whenever we saw them driving up, we'd put on Tina Turner tapes and play 'em at full volume. You like Tina, Mr. Mayor?"

Mr. Mayor was having a helluva hard time thinking of anything to say. Here he'd been imagining a night of lust and abandonment, and now he was being forced to entertain the most unsavory images. "Tina, yeah, I like her," he managed to say, having no idea who she was.

"Tell you what, then. We gotta go to the hospital, but we'll come back here tonight if we can. If not, maybe we can come tomorrow night-presuming your wife will still be gone. A threesome is okay, but we don't much care for a foursome unless we're playing bridge. Then again, there's nothing I'd rather do than make a grand slam. That takes all thirteen tricks, and we just happen to know them all."

"I was thinking," Dahlia said as she flopped over in bed, "that we ought not have a swimming pool just yet."

Kevin was mystified. "In the backyard?"

"No, silly, behind our mansion. Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie will be toddling afore too long. We could, I suppose, hire a lifeguard, but even then I wouldn't be comfortable knowing there was a swimming pool where our cherished darlings might be in danger. No pool."

"We ain't got a mansion."

"But we will soon, and we have to think about these things."

Kevin resisted the impulse to pull the covers over his head and pray that the lack of air might cause him to pass out. "We do not have a mansion, my petunia of passion. If we was to buy a plastic wading pool at Wal-Mart, I can't see that we need a lifeguard. You can keep an eye on them."

"I am talking about Hollywood," Dahlia said testily. "When we get there, we might ought to find a mansion without a pool. Most of them have 'em, but we should at least insist there's a fence. Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie can take swimming lessons, but this new one's gonna be too little."

"We do not have a mansion," repeated Kevin, speaking slowly and very, very carefully. "We don't even have a backyard, except for that patch of crabgrass by the vegetable garden. This ad you saw doesn't promise that our little darlings will earn enough so's we can have a mansion in Hollywood."

"So you don't think Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie will have modeling careers?"

Kevin wished he was waxing floors at the supermarket, but, sadly enough, he wasn't. "Of course I do," he murmured meekly. "It's just that, well, it may take some time. I don't think we ought to be packing our bags just yet."

"What do you think?"

Thinking was not one of his skills. He made an attempt to distract her, but she slapped him off and rolled away. He listened to her grumbles as she sank into her pillow, clueless as to what to say or do to win her heart once again. Maybe she was right, he thought. The twins were the cutest li'l things he'd ever laid eyes on, but he had doubts they'd all be loading up the car and heading for Beverly Hills and a mansion with or without a swimming pool.

But that didn't mean his pa would cotton to ridin' in a limo, 'specially if the chauffeur was a pansy. His pa hated pansies.

8

The homecoming parade, or so it seemed, marched into the cabin at some insanely early hour when not even the birds were stirring. The girls were trying to be quiet, but the snickers, giggles, and whispers composed a full woodwind section.

Estelle shook my shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I was doing just fine," I said as I sat up. "What time is it?"

"Seven-fifteen. Ruby Bee's fixing breakfast, and Mrs. Jim Bob wasn't feeling charitable enough to escort the girls down here. We fretted about you most of the night. Larry Joe clammed up, but it was obvious he was worried sick. He seemed to think you'd come back to the lodge, but then you didn't and Ruby Bee was pacing and peering out the window till dawn. Darla Jean took to moaning about her ankle, so I spent the night keeping it packed with ice and holding her hand. Poor little thing finally fell asleep three hours ago."

"Which is about when I got back here." I rubbed my eyes. "Nothing happened after I left, then?"

"I ain't the person to answer that, am I, missy? I didn't steal a station wagon and go driving off, or come back with a strange man and make all sorts of discombobulated remarks. You'd have thought we were at that hotel in Noow Yark City, with headlights flashing all night long."

The girls (minus Darla Jean and Heather) began to appear from the bathroom, dressed in robes, their hair wrapped in towels. None of them had the nerve to speak to me, however, which was for the best. I had no idea what might be going through their adolescent minds.

"There was a problem last evening," I announced. "A woman's body was found behind the softball field. Did any of you see anything that seemed odd?"

"Well," said Amy Dee as she took a cigarette from her purse, glanced at me, and then defiantly lit it, "when Mr. Lambertino got all riled up on account of Jarvis cutting a board too short, Parwell and me sort of wandered behind the dugout." She paused until the giggles died down. "I could have sworn I saw a couple of brats hunkered under a bush on the hill. Parwell didn't believe me, but I saw 'em."

"Brats?" I repeated. "How old?"

"Fifth, maybe sixth grade. Soon as they saw I was looking at them, they scampered away."

One of the Dahlton twins flung herself down on a lower bunk. "They must have been children who came to this place and then died. Now their spirits roam the woods, watching us, waiting for us to leave them in peace. This woman Arly found must have been their mother, coming to fetch them back to their graves."

"I wanna go home," wailed the other twin, flopping on the mattress next to her sister. "This is like so unbelievably weird."

I stood up. "No, the woman was alive and well as of yesterday afternoon. There are some other people currently living at Camp Pearly Gates. When the church groups began to arrive, they moved to the more remote cabins."

"There are?" gasped Estelle.

"You sure they ain't dead?" asked Lynette, as helpful as ever. "I saw this movie once where -- "

"Very sure," I said firmly. "Now get dressed and go back to the lodge for breakfast. You can enjoy Ruby Bee's biscuits and gravy, or Mrs. Jim Bob's oatmeal and prunes. Afterward, Mr. Lambertino will go with you to the softball field and put you to work. If you prefer not to participate, I'm sure Brother Verber will be happy to counsel you the rest of the morning on the joys of godliness, celibacy, and sobriety."

"He doesn't know much about that last thing you said," Estelle muttered. "He spent the night under the diningroom table. Mrs. Jim Bob tried to convince Ruby Bee and me to help her drag him out and carry him upstairs. We refused and sat on the porch, sipping sherry, watching the moonlight on the lake -- and waiting on you."

"Let me take a quick shower, then I'll come to the lodge and explain," I said. "In the meantime, stay with the girls."

"You aimin' to return my station wagon any time soon?"

"I think I'd better hang on to it for the time being. I've got to go back into Dunkicker this morning, and I'd rather not stick out like a high-school graduate at a Buchanon family reunion."

"I reckon that's okay, but we deserve to know what all's going on."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She herded out her hastily dressed flock, allowing me a few minutes of peace. I cradled my face as I tried to digest all that had taken place through the long, wet, bone-chilling night. After Corporal Robarts and I had returned to Dunkicker and calls were made, I sent him out to check on the other Beamers and warn them to be careful. Eventually two sheriff's deputies arrived and we headed back to the crime scene, followed by the county coroner, his assistant, and a hearse and driver, courtesy of the local mortuary. We waited while the scene was photographed, then collectively grimaced as the body was transported to the road. The bat had been tagged, but none of us thought it might offer much evidence. Footprints, fingerprints, and bloodstains had long since been washed away.

It had hardly been murder most foul in the conservatory, with a candlestick conveniently discarded on a loveseat.

The Welcome Y'all Café had been closed, preventing me from the ingestation of greasy sustenance or the opportunity to question Rachael. Corporal Robarts clearly regretted having mentioned this mysterious cult; he'd clammed up and refused to answer any more questions about them.

I looked at my watch and realized I was due at his office in an hour. Harve had been, as I'd anticipated, cantankerous, and had ordered me to call him when I had something to say that made a whit of sense. The deputies he'd sent, Les (with whom I'd worked on several occasions), and a muscular young woman named Bonita who kept muttering about law school, were camped out at a local motel. The body should have been at the state medical lab in Little Rock by now, but we'd all agreed that the cause of death was obvious and the time obscured by weather-related circumstances.

I dragged myself into the shower, put on clean clothes, brushed my teeth, slapped on several layers of mascara so I might look awake, and then drove Estelle's station wagon to the lodge.

The blue bus was not parked out front.

This was interesting, but hardly worthy of alarm. The aroma of pork sausages, pancakes, and freshly baked biscuits sucked me into the dining room (my stomach abhors a vacuum). The kids were sitting at the tables, squabbling cheerfully as they passed jars of jam and plastic bottles of maple-flavored syrup. Larry Joe was regarding them as he might a potential plague of locusts. Brother Verber had been relocated from underfoot, and Mrs. Jim Bob was nowhere to be seen.

Silence erupted when I entered the room. "Here's what I know," I said. "A woman was found murdered late yesterday afternoon, her body left in a creekbed behind the softball field. I've already asked the girls, but I'll repeat this: Did you see anything that might help us figure out what happened?"

Nobody had a contribution. I waved off Larry Joe, who was clearly itching to pull me aside, and went into the kitchen. "Any chance for scrambled eggs and a piece of toast?"

Ruby Bee bristled. "Make do with what's on the table."

"Where's Estelle?" I asked as I poured myself a cup of coffee.

"She and Heather took Darla Jean to some hospital to have her ankle X-rayed. Now I'm not one to expect a decent explanation of what all has been happening around here, so I just came in here and made breakfast for these kids. After all, why should I know what's going on? I'm nothing more than a short-order cook in some people's eyes. I don't have anything better to do, do I? Fry up sausages, put biscuits in the oven, wash dishes -- "

"Nobody asked you to do all this."

"And just what am I supposed to do -- let these kids waste away on lima beans and applesauce? It's not like I have an establishment back in Maggody, is it? No, I have a charbroiled kitchen and enough workmen to make up a baseball team. Duluth upped and vanished yesterday. All these slovenly men kept pounding on my door like I knew what was going on. The insurance man -- "

"I will deal with it," I said, wondering if Duluth had come out of what had been a dedicated stupor. Why he would have followed us to Dunkicker was hard to imagine. The Daughters of the Moon would hardly have recruited him, even if he'd agreed to shave his head and wear lipstick. The only Buchanon to do so was Dunmoore, and he was doing time for unseemly behavior outside the fence at the school playground.

"You gonna eat something?" Ruby Bee asked gruffly.

"Oh, yes," I said, then went back to the dining room and took a chair between Jarvis and Big Mac. I skewered a couple of pancakes onto a plate and doused them with syrup. "You all sure you didn't see anything yesterday?"

"Like what?" asked Jarvis.

"People in the woods, that sort of thing. Pass the sausages, please."