by Joan Hess
Ruby Bee knocked on Raz’s door. “Yoo-hoo,” she called in a real nice voice, “it’s Ruby Bee and Estelle, Raz.”
“I kin see that for myself,” he said from behind a bush at the corner of the shack.
“You liked to scared me half to death!” Estelle snapped. She remembered the purpose of the visit and forced herself to wave at him. “How are ya doin’, Raz? We came to ask you a little question.”
He stepped into view, a shotgun in his hand. “What be it? I got critters to deal with out in the barn. Some of those rats is bigger’n polecats, and twicest as mean.” He flashed his tan teeth at them and hooked his thumb under the strap of his baggy overalls. “Biggest durn rats in the county,” he added with a proud grin. “Wanna have a look-see?”
Ruby Bee clutched her heart. “No, thank you kindly, but Estelle and I have other things we have to do. We came here because we were hoping you could help us.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile but stopped short of a wink. “What with Arly being so busy, we’re looking to find that cameraman named Fuzzy. By happenchance, I noticed that you and he had a nice talk in the bar. I was wondering what he said to you.”
“Said all kinda things,” Raz said. He spat, wiped his mouth on his crusty cuff, and narrowed his eyes. “Disappeared, did he? When did he take off, and which way’d he go?”
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Ruby Bee said. “It’s possible he cut across the pasture behind the motel and came this way. Did you see him?”
“Nope, but I found some mighty peculiar footprints out behind the barn. I reckon somebody was snooping around out there. Made afore the rain last night, too, since they’re filled with water.” Raz scratched his neck with the barrel of the shotgun, and later Ruby Bee swore she could see he was doing his best to think. “He came over one night to have a little snort with me and Marjorie. Don’t know why he’d be down by the creek, though.”
“Could he have been looking in the barn for something?” Estelle asked. “Like jars of whiskey, for instance?”
“Ain’t nuthin’ in the barn except the rats and hairy spiders. Mebbe you’d like to make sure of it yourself?”
“No, I don’t believe I would.” Estelle started backing across the yard. “Not today, anyway. I’m wearing my good shoes.” She went through the gate and stood behind it. “Some other time, maybe.”
Ruby Bee sniffed at the quantity of cowardice on display. “Now, Raz, try to remember if you said one little ol’ word about where your still is. Most everybody in town has a pretty good idea, but these Hollywood people wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“I dun told you I ain’t running a still,” he said, shaking his head so hard crumbs flew from his whiskers. “And I ain’t running it up past Robin Buchanon’s cabin, neither, and if I was, I wouldn’t spout off about it to that goofy feller from Hollywood.” He held up the shotgun and began to jerk it like a pom-pom. “And if he’s up there messing with it, he’s gonna have a backside of buckshot for his trouble.”
“Ruby Bee,” Estelle called, her good eye intent on the shotgun, “I do believe we ought to run along now. I’m sure Raz would like to go shoot rats or something.”
“He’s gonna be a sight sorrier than a goddamn revenuer,” Raz continued, his rage rising faster than Boone Creek in the spring. “He ain’t gonna sit down till the cows come home!”
“Coming, Estelle,” Ruby Bee trilled. She backed out of the yard, grabbed Estelle’s hand, and they hurried across the road. They could still hear Raz’s sputtery threats as they got in the station wagon, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors. Neither spoke until they were down the road a piece and out of range.
“I believe we learned something of interest,” Estelle said.
Ruby Bee stared out the window. “I believe we might have stirred up some trouble, that’s what I believe. I’d feel dadburned awful if Raz goes up the ridge and shoots Fuzzy. I don’t know what we can do about it, though.”
“We got no choice but to warn him,” Estelle said as she turned right at the highway and headed for the narrow road that led into the scruffy jungle of Cotter’s Ridge.
While Plover made coffee in the back room, I told him the sad little story I’d learned from Augusta.
“Sounds rather typical of the times,” he said as he came to the doorway. In the back room, the coffee maker groaned and gurgled as if it were bleeding to death.
“Maybe I’m crazy to force parallels between Becky Hopperly’s story and the script of Wild Cherry Wine, but there’s something there.” I bore down on the pencil so fiercely that the point snapped. “Oliphant hopped a bus to Hollywood. He changed his name, married a famous actress, built a solid career, and from all reports, was leading a happy life. Until he came back to the Ozarks, anyway.”
“And murdered his wife, with whom he was reputed to be madly in love?”
Shrugging, I took a pocket knife from the drawer and began to whittle a new point on the pencil. “What if one of the Hollywood people is a long-lost Hopperly? He would have a good, old-fashioned, redneck motive: revenge.”
“Because of the abandonment,” Plover said helpfully.
“Becky’s father sent her away in disgrace and refused to send money. Unwed mothers were not in vogue then, and I doubt she had any employable skills. She died when she was still young. If Buddy had married her, they might be running the family farm, baby-sitting for grandchildren, and rocking away the evenings on the porch.”
“All right, I think you’re stretching, but let’s go with one of them being a relative, or even someone who cared about Becky and was enraged by her death. That doesn’t narrow down the field, you know.”
“I need to ask them about their backgrounds and then try to verify the stories. On television shows, the detective drives across town, parks right in front of the house or apartment building, and encounters babblative people with lots of lovely information. I don’t know where to start, and if I did, I’d have to do it by long distance and account for the bill at the next Town Council meeting.”
“Life’s tough,” Plover said, then stopped as the telephone rang. “A television producer from Hollywood, perhaps?”
“More likely Ruby Bee from a jail somewhere,” I said. I picked up the receiver and muttered my name.
“Arly?” Carlotta said shrilly. “You’d better get over here—and fast.”
“Are you still at the Assembly Hall?”
“No, we came back to the motel for a break. Please get over here. There’s been another—I don’t know.” She began to sob, and I could make out only a few words. One of them was “dead.”
I banged down the receiver and told Plover what she’d said. We drove to the motel in his car. Ruby Bee’s parking lot was empty, but the van and rental car were parked in front of the row of motel units on the left. As we stopped, Carlotta came out of #3.
“Hal, in there,” she said, gesturing weakly. “I was taking him some food.”
“Wait in your room,” I said, then took a breath and followed Plover into #2. Hal Desmond’s body lay on the bed, nude except for a plastic bag over his head. Below his flaccid jaw, the bag was secured with a necktie. The plastic adhered to the contours of his face and head like a shiny, transparent skin. The flesh beneath it had a bluish tinge.
Plover felt Hal’s neck for a pulse, then shook his head. “Call the barracks, Arly. Use a phone in another room.”
I made the call from Carlotta’s room. She came out of the bathroom, her arms wrapped around herself, and slumped against the wall.
“Where’s Gwenneth?” I asked her.
She slid down the wall until she was hunched on the floor. “This is too bizarre,” she said with a moan. “Kitty, and now Hal. Is there some maniac killing us one by one? I can’t deal with this. I just can’t deal with this.”
She certainly sounded as if she couldn’t. I left her on the floor and went across the lot to Frederick’s room. I pounded on the door, and after a moment, discovered it was u
nlocked and went into the room. The bathroom door was closed. I could hear the shower running.
I opened that door and through the steam, shouted, “Frederick!? It’s Arly Hanks! Come to Carlotta’s room immediately!”
“I’m taking a shower!” he yelled back, in case I was less than astute.
“Just do it!” I said, then left his room and hurried to Anderson’s. He came to the door, a script in his hand, and gave me a puzzled look. I repeated the order, ignored his questions, and went back across the lot as Plover stepped out of #2 and closed the door behind him.
“What?” I said, too frantic to formulate anything more complex.
“Beats me,” he said. “He was asphyxiated by the bag, obviously, but it’s hard to say offhand if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.”
“What?” I repeated cleverly.
“There’s enough cocaine in there to keep the entire county high for a week. There was paraphernalia on the bedside table, so it’s probable he did a few lines in the last hour. He could have put the bag on his head for kicks, or someone could have done it for him and held him down. The medical examiner will take a closer look, but I saw some bruising on the upper arms, as if someone knelt on him … until he stopped kicking.”
“What’s going on?” Anderson demanded as he joined us.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said. I left Plover to explain and went back to Carlotta’s room. She was still on the floor, but she was no longer moaning. “Tell me what happened.”
She took off her glasses and let her head fall back against the wall. “About an hour ago, we finished at the church. The entire schedule’s a shambles, so we came back here to grab a bite to eat and figure out what to do. The bar and grill was closed. Everybody went to their rooms, and I sent the trooper out for hamburgers. When he came back, I unloaded the sack, sorted out the orders, and took Hal’s to him. That’s when I—”
“Is it true?” Anderson said as he came in the room.
Frederick followed him, his hair damp and mussed and his T-shirt clinging to his back. “That cop says Hal’s dead. What the hell is going on? Where’s Gwenneth?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said.
Carlotta sighed. “When we first got back, Hal told Gwenneth to come to his room. He used her often, with the excuse that it helped him to release cerebral tension and maintain a creative flow. It had to do more with his ego, I think. He knew he was old and unattractive—deadly sins in the industry, unless you’re very powerful, in which case people are afraid to cross you, and you know it.”
“So he snapped his fingers at her when he wanted sex?” I asked evenly. I looked at Anderson and Frederick. “Did all of you know about this?” They both nodded. “And the coke? Did you know about the impressive quantity of coke in his room?”
“He said it heightened his awareness of reality,” Carlotta said in a numb voice. “I guess this time he didn’t like what he saw.”
“He’s put a bag over his head before?” I asked. My knees wobbled and I sat down quickly on the bed. I felt as if we’d all begun to converse in a foreign language, one I’d never studied. “You’ve actually seen him do this?”
“When he approached orgasm,” she said, looking at her feet. “Some autoerotic thing about the lack of oxygen intensifying the experience. He always pulled it off at the last second.”
“You know this from firsthand observation?”
“My job description’s more inclusive than you might expect. It takes more than talent and initiative to get hired right out of school.”
Outside, car doors slammed and voices barked at each other. Plover was giving orders, tersely but loudly. A police band radio crackled. The door of the next unit banged open and closed. The sounds of footsteps and muffled voices came through the wall.
“So where’s Gwenneth now?” Frederick asked, interrupting the uneasy silence inside the room.
“That’s a very good question,” I said. “Where have you been for the past hour?”
“We stopped outside the van and told Carlotta what we wanted to eat. I went to the room, turned the air conditioner on high, and lay down on the bed for a while. Then I took a shower.”
“And you?” I asked Anderson.
“I took a nap, and was working on my lines when you knocked on the door.”
I turned to Carlotta, who said, “After I gave the order to the deputy, I stayed in here to do revisions. We’d decided not to use the mayor’s house. The wife was a bit upset when she weaseled her way onto the set this morning, and I had a feeling we wouldn’t be welcome. I was trying to see if we could shoot the Cooter interiors here without it coming off as a motel.”
“You didn’t see Gwenneth after she went to Hal’s room?”
“No, and I was concentrating too hard”—she grimaced—“to hear anything through the wall. The printer was running, and I tend to mutter under my breath when I’m doing dialogue. I was in a fog when the trooper came back with the food, but I pulled myself together and noticed we were short a couple of sandwiches and a drink. I sent him back, sorted out what we did have, and went next door.” She swallowed several times. “It was just an accident, wasn’t it? He did too much coke, and passed out or something?”
“I wish I knew.” I told them to stay where they were, then went out to the narrow walk in front of #2. The door was open, and inside the room the troopers from the barracks were dusting for prints, photographing the body and adjoining areas, measuring, scraping samples of white powder into bags, and all the while making vulgar jokes about the corpse on the bed.
I sat on Plover’s fender and waited until he came outside. He had a worn manila envelope in his hand. He allowed the contents to slide onto the hood of the car, then tapped the edges to arrange them so that we could see each clearly.
“A clipping about a hit-and-run,” he said, bending over to read the print. “Six years ago, child on bicycle, witnesses who saw a dark blue or black subcompact, one bushy-tailed enough to write down the license plate number.”
“And another clipping about the murder of a housewife who chanced upon a burglar in a Beverly Hills mansion,” I said. I scanned the article, which was dry and unembellished. “The police declined to comment on possible suspects or any similarity to other crimes,” I read aloud. I did not read the final line, which had been underlined in ink: “The husband, well-known actor Anderson St. James, was on location in Nevada at the time of his wife’s death.”
Plover nudged a photograph toward me. “What’s significant enough about this to merit inclusion in the collection?”
It was a small black-and-white photograph. The two people seated at a table were blurry, and one was partially obscured by a branch. Both appeared oblivious to the camera. “The one on the right is Carlotta Lowenstein,” I said, squinting, “and she’s holding something. The other person’s male—dark hair, skinny mustache, jewelry. I don’t think they’re in a restaurant. It looks more like a patio.”
“Let’s have a closer look.” Plover went into the room and came back with a magnifying glass. He held it over the photograph, then handed it to me and said, “The doorway behind them looks as if it leads into a living room. She’s holding a box, I think.”
I took my turn, then straightened up. “A videocassette, I think. Yo, ho, ho.”
“And a bottle of rum?” Plover said blankly.
“Or blood.”
Chapter 16
It was still daylight on Cotter’s Ridge, although a lot of folks swear, to this day, that the sun never shines there very brightly. Dark, grumbling clouds had settled more firmly on the ridge; the air was heavy with impending rain. The gloom had silenced the birds, sent the squirrels to their nests, even squelched the drone of mosquitoes and hornets.
The explosion was sharp, loud, and unexpected by a variety of people, most of whom were converging, unbeknownst to each other, on a decaying shack at the end of a road better described as a washed-out creekbed.
Kevi
n Buchanon dove nosefirst into a hollow of sodden leaves and briars, and burrowed like a mole. He had never been out of the state, much less across the ocean to an exotic place like Vietnam, but he’d seen a lot of war movies and he couldn’t stop himself from picturing small, dark-skinned foreigners sneaking along the ridge.
With a shriek, Dahlia O’Neil forced her bulk to the floor of the car (no small feat) and put her arms over her head. Then, when it occurred to her that the car was in plain sight of the madman, she squirmed and grunted until she was sitting up, got out of the car, gaped at the cabin containing a corpse, and thudded down a path to a sanctuary that had served her well in the past. Once she was seated with the door hooked, she peered through a knothole but she didn’t see a soul.
Ruby Bee and Estelle ducked behind a rock. They stayed there for quite a long time, agreeing that it had sounded like a gunshot and debating what to do. It was a hissy conversation at best, and Ruby Bee finally stood up, brushed off her knees, and announced that she wasn’t scared of an ol’ geezer like Raz Buchanon. She took off up the road, and after tossing a few tart remarks at her back, Estelle followed. Billy Dick MacNamara and Willard Yarrow froze at the sound, but when it was not repeated, they exchanged nervous looks and sat down on a damp, mossy log. A few minutes later, Trudi caught up with them. Panting, she sat down at the end of the log, as far away from them as she could manage.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Squirrel hunter, most likely,” said Billy Dick.
Trudi wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to shiver. “I must have been crazy to come up here with you two pathetic nerds.”
Willard glanced slyly at her. “But if we steal Raz Buchanon’s moonshine, we can make all kinds of money selling it to everybody for five bucks a quart.”
“We should be able to carry six jars apiece,” Billy Dick added. “You can buy yourself a skimpy little halter like that blond movie star wears.”
“Keep your filthy eyes off me,” Trudi said. “Let’s just get this over with, okay? This is dumber than that stupid make-believe game you two play all the time.” She gave Billy Dick a particularly venemous look. “I’ll bet you get real excited when you pretend you’re a fairy, doncha? Do you put on your ma’s petticoat and prance around in front of a mirror?”
