Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 13 (25 page)

"Keep repeating this to yourself," I said. "'I am empowered by the state to remove these children and place them in shelters until foster care can be arranged.' That's all you have to say."

"But what if they agree? You intending to load the children in the back of the station wagon and take them back to the lodge?"

I shook my head resolutely. "They won't agree."

"Five bucks says they do," murmured Bonita.

"Then what a high time you'll have tonight at the Woantell Motel," I said. "Wait till Harve runs that bill by the quorum court. You may find yourself wearing his badge before you expected."

Judith appeared from inside the cabin, her face furrowed with displeasure. Ruby Bee's less-than-subtle gasp reminded me that she had yet to encounter a Beamer. "Stay calm," I warned her as we halted by the clothesline.

"You're back," said Judith.

"Got that right. Where's Deputy Robarts?"

"At the schoolhouse with Naomi and the children. Every Sunday they spend the afternoon studying the Bible and memorizing verses. At supper, we give an award for the best achievement."

I elbowed Ruby Bee, who squawked, "I'm from the Department of Family Services."

"Oh, really?" drawled Judith. "You look as though you got lost on your way home from the bowling alley."

As I'd hoped, Ruby Bee turned ornery. Jabbing her finger at Judith, she said, "Now you listen here, you tacky tabloid centerfold, I don't have to put up with any lip from the likes of you! If you don't cooperate, we'll have the children in shelters in Little Rock afore you can pluck another hair from your eyebrows. I want to see them right this minute. Where are they?"

"I'll take you," Bonita said.

"Send Naomi back here," I said, wondering how Judith would respond. "Then you and Mrs. Coldwater need to get names and home addresses."

"They will not cooperate," Judith said, sounding a bit uneasy. "You have to understand that this does not mean they're neglected or abused. We see to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. The only things they've been deprived of are violent video games and R-rated movies. Their lives are structured. Any punishment that is meted out is done only after a community meeting, and then with reluctance and restraint."

I sent Ruby Bee and Bonita down the path. "But they're allowed to run free in the campgrounds? Yesterday one of my girls chased a four-year-old all over the woods, losing him when the storm came in."

"Damon is seven, but small for his age," she said. "He told me about it later. All of them are curious when we're invaded by outsiders."

"Was Ruth curious, too? Is that why she went down by the softball field?"

Judith sat down on the bench of the picnic table. "She went to look for Damon, or so she told me."

"You wouldn't go looking for your child?"

"I adopted my sister's girls after she died. They're eleven and thirteen."

I looked around. "And they're content to live among the squirrels and rabbits and memorize Bible verses on Sunday? No mall time, no MTV? They don't sound like typical teenagers."

"It's been hard on them," she admitted, "but they agreed to come here."

"At what age do you shave their heads?" I asked bluntly.

"It won't come to that."

"Then you won't be staying, either? The woman named Leah is history. Ester left a week ago. Ruth called her mother a few days ago and said she would be leaving shortly."

"That's absurd. We have no access to telephones, and even if we did, we all swore not to make any calls to friends or family members. Calls can be traced to their origin. Ruth made no calls to anyone."

I wandered over to the garden. "Did Ruth say why she came here in the first place?"

"Our conversations were limited to the schedule and assignment of duties."

I was sadly lacking in women friends in Maggody these days, but I remembered what it had been like in Manhattan when I'd gone to lunch and swilled white wine all afternoon at whichever café was trendiest at the moment. Ruby Bee and Estelle talked incessantly over sherry, often long past closing; Elsie and Eula may have claimed all they ever drank was tea, but we knew better. Millicent poured out her heart whenever she had a permanent, and Dahlia came by the PD every now and then to tell me about Kevin's latest boneheaded remark. Even Mrs. Jim Bob's confidential sessions with Brother Verber qualified in their own perverse way.

Unlike Judith, I had eyebrows to raise. "The Daughters of the Moon never talked to each other? Here you all are, stuck in the middle of nowhere, scrubbing clothes in the creek and making soap, all in total silence? Nobody had a life before she submitted to bad hair? Nobody had a bozo of a boyfriend or a husband who limited his conversation to grunts and drank himself into a stupor on the sofa every night? Nobody wanted to sit out here on the picnic table at night and talk about whatever sent her here? Were you all brainwashed? This is beyond preposterous, Judith -- or whatever your name is!"

"We abide by the rules," said a voice from the path.

I turned around. "You're Naomi?"

I would have offered a description, except she looked like the others. Pale skin, shaved head, dark lipstick, draped in a white robe that hid any physical idiosyncrasies. At best, she qualified as "ditto."

"And you are?" she countered.

"Take a guess," I said, still simmering with frustration. "You are aware that Ruth was found murdered yesterday, aren't you? I realize communication skills aren't what they might be around here, but surely this was mentioned to you."

"So you're the cop," she said as she sat down next to Judith. "There's nothing I can tell you about Ruth."

Surprise, surprise. "All right, then," I said, "tell me about yourself."

"My name is Naomi. I tend to the children and help Judith with meal preparation. When it becomes feasible, I'll have a job in Dunkicker."

"What would make it feasible?"

"We're short-handed at the moment," said Judith. "Two of us are needed here to handle domestic concerns. We rely on Rachael to earn enough to purchase staples, and on Sarah to bring back leftovers when she can. Preacher Skinbalder often slips her a few dollars from the collection plate, which helps."

"And how does Deborah make her contribution? Does she prowl homeless shelters and bus stations, looking for recruits?"

Judith's eyes shifted away. "In a manner of speaking."

I gave her a moment to elaborate, then said, "We found your cars behind the body shop, by the way. We're running the plates right now, and should hear back by late this afternoon. Two from Arkansas, one from Oklahoma, and one from ... Missouri. Either of you ready to volunteer a hometown?"

"We have no hometowns," Judith insisted, but without her earlier conviction.

"Well, I'm sure Mrs. Coldwater can persuade the children to cooperate. She can be very grandmotherly when it suits her. I don't enjoy allowing children to be manipulated, but I'll do so unless you work with me. What's more, local police will be knocking on doors this evening, and questioning neighbors if necessary. If you don't want your families to know where you are, you'd better start explaining."

"None of us committed any crimes," Naomi said sulkily. "This isn't one of those cults where the children are starved or beaten. There's no fat white guy making all the women have sex with him. The only weapons around here are homemade bows and arrows. You have no right to interfere with us."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry to say that I have. One of your members was murdered not more than half a mile from here. Someone committed a crime, and a serious one at that."

Naomi looked at Judith. "Do we have to tell her where we're from?"

"Eventually, although the information may not be as clear-cut as she hopes. I, for one, did not drive a car to Dunkicker, and neither did Rachael."

"Then how did you get here?" I asked her.

"Deborah arranged transportation."

"From where?"

Judith gave me a pitying smile. "Why are you bothering to ask?"

I dug my fingernails into the palm of my hand. "And what about you, Naomi? Is your memory any better now that you know we'll have your name and address in an hour?"

"Not just yet," she said, visibly disturbed. "Maybe I ought to go back to be with the children. The little ones aren't comfortable with strangers. They've been around Anthony every now and then, but this Mrs. Coldwater is likely to have them all poopin' in their pants."

"So, are you the Beamer from Springfield, or the one with the fondness for bingo?"

She made it to her feet, took a step, and collapsed. It might have held more dramatic effect had she not gone facedown in a muddy bed of asparagus.

14

Judith, Bonita, and I stared, mesmerized by this unanticipated belly flop. If we'd been required to hold up scorecards, I would have given Naomi at least a six for style. Maybe a six-point-four.

Bonita came to the end of the picnic table. "Is she all right?"

"Shouldn't we do something?" said Judith. "It looks uncomfortable."

"Feel free," I said. "She's your loony sister, after all. Maybe Rachael or Sarah can toss the robe in the machine at the laundromat tomorrow. So she's from Springfield?"

"I don't know."

"Get off it," I said, going over to the supine figure to make sure she wasn't snuffling mud. "One of the cars behind the body shop must belong to Naomi, and another to Sarah. That leaves one for Ruth, and one for whom -- Ester?"

"Ester left by bus," Judith said. "I presume she arrived that way, too. Deputy Robarts brought her out here, and when she said she wanted to leave, he came and picked up her suitcase while she waited at the PD. She told him she'd break down if she had to say goodbye to her children."

"That leaves Deborah, unless there are other Beamers you haven't mentioned." I nudged Naomi with my foot. "She's starting to come to her senses. One of you needs to help me haul her up -- and stop gawking like she fell into a pile of hog manure."

Judith began to pick at a blister on her thumb. "We use organic fertilizer. Anthony buys it for us from a chicken producer in Azure. We have more than a dozen mouths to feed, you know, and the soil here is thin. We need to put up a lot of vegetables to get through the winter months."

"Chicken shit," said Bonita, her nostrils flaring. "You're saying she plopped in chicken shit. She's your suspect, Chief Hanks."

I doubted that I could pull rank on her with any success. "Supreme Court justices wade through shit every day. Consider this practice."

Judith stared at me. "Supreme Court justices? Do you think I'm Sandra Day O'Connor in disguise?"

"I wish I knew just who you were," I said irritably.

"Naomi's a fellow Beamer."

"She'll get up when she's ready," Judith said, crossing her arms. "Is Mrs. Coldwater intending to take away the children?"

"Ruth's children can't stay here, and neither can Ester's. They'll have to go to a shelter until legal guardians can be located."

"This is all they have right now. They've had upheavals in their lives, and a strange environment will only traumatize them all the more. Can't you let them stay here for an other day or two so I can talk to them?"

"If I could trust you," I said, "I could delay the paperwork. As things stand, we don't even know their names. We may have to take all the children until we can sort them out."

"All of them?"

"I warned you this might happen," I said without sympathy. "You, Naomi, Sarah, and Rachael may wallow in the chicken shit to your hearts' content. The children will be returned to civilization, where they will thrive on sitcoms and hot dogs until the DFS sorts through all this."

"You have no right to take away my children," protested Naomi as she sat up. She flicked a brownish clump off her nose and glared at me.

"I have every right to take them into protective custody," I said, unsure if I did but damn sure Mrs. Coldwater didn't. "You are potential suspects in a murder investigation. You've refused to provide me with your names and background information. I don't know what's going on here, but it smells like -- like chicken shit!"

"My goodness, Arly," said the purported Mrs. Coldwater as she came up the path. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when you was carrying on like that."

"What did you learn?" I asked her, pulling her aside before she ventured into telltale familial territory. "Have you documented the children?"

"Not hardly. The little ones were right friendly, but those older ones were too terrified to speak to me, even when I invited them to the dock for a pizza party this evening. You'd have thought they'd been threatened with rubber hoses and thumbscrews if they so much as opened their mouths. I couldn't get a first name out of any of them."

Anthony came stumbling around the corner of the cabin. "I just had a call on my cellphone from Les. He's got Duluth Buchanon back in custody. He wants to know what he should do."

"Tell him to handcuff Duluth to the bunk," I said. I turned to Judith and Naomi. "I'll allow the children to stay tonight, but Corporal Robarts is going to remain here to make sure you don't attempt to leave."