Madness In Maggody

by Joan Hess

  I raised my eyebrows. "What exactly is the bon mot at the barracks, Sergeant?"

  "The word at the barracks, Chief, is a four-letter word, perhaps too uncouth for your sensitive ears."

  "I'm touched by your gentlemanly concern. I feel quite sure no four-letter word has been uttered aloud within the city limits of my domain, unless, of course, it was the night Hiram Buchanon's barn burned. From all reports, things got way out of hand."

  "The word is B-A-R-F, all caps and in a boggling quantity. From what I heard, half the town was doubled up on the floor of that new supermarket, begging for death. Luckily for them, everybody survived. I presume you didn't-"

  "Sample the canapés? No way, José. We won't know what happened until we get some test results from the state lab. Harve's determined to write it off as an accident, but I'm not so sure. How'd you hear so quickly?"

  "Corporal Anderson was off duty Saturday afternoon, and it seems his cousin's boy is on some baseball team that was included in the opening ceremonies. Anderson's presence was deemed a familial obligation, since he's got a camera."

  "Did you drive all the way out here to discuss barf?"

  Plover removed himself from my desk and sat down in the ratty chair I keep to discourage visitors. "No, I just thought it was interesting-a typical Maggodian sort of madness. Let me know what the lab reports indicate, will you?"

  "You'll hear it more quickly on the barracks grapevine," I said lightly. It was, after all, my jurisdiction and therefore my case. If I wanted the cavalry, I would send for it. "If you didn't come to tease me about that, then what is it that has propelled you to the boonies?"

  "Well," he began, then stopped. He studied the floor, the ceiling, the wall above my head, and the mess on my desk. The air conditioner sputtered as always, but not loudly enough to fill the sudden vacuum of silence. "Have you had lunch?"

  Fantasies about French bread and pâté were inadequate to sustain me for any length of time. "No," I admitted, "but I was thinking about it. You buying?"

  "I might."

  We drove to Ruby Bee's in his real, live official vehicle. I tried not to be too envious of such things as a working radio and a working air conditioner and all kinds of mysterious buttons and knobs that no doubt worked also. He parked between two semis and we settled in a booth.

  The proprietress came over with menus, looking a lot more cheerful than I'd seen her for several weeks. "We haven't had the pleasure of your company for a while," she said to Plover. "How've you been keeping youself?"

  "Fine," he said, smiling back at her. "Me, too," I said, although nobody had asked. My smile may have lacked warmth. "I missed you and Estelle at the practice yesterday afternoon. I called here and at your unit several times, but all I got was a busy signal. It's hard to get much accomplished when my major concern is keeping everybody off each other's throats."

  Ruby Bee's expression was that of a puppy that'd been kicked across the room. "Why, land sakes, Arly, you know I'd have given my right arm to get out there yesterday to help you, but business has been real brisk these last two days and it's all I can do to sit down and rest my feet for a minute."

  She had a point. The bar stools were all occupied by neckless hulks, and most of the booths by more of the same. The whiny country music from the jukebox was almost drowned out by the babble of the troglodytes and the clatter of utensils.

  We were given menus and told to holler when we made up our minds. Once she was out of earshot, I leaned forward and said, "Okay, why are you here?"

  The infamous kid with his hand in the cookie jar couldn't have looked more uncomfortable. Plover again found many things to study, none of them remotely in the direction of yours truly. When I kicked him under the table, he cleared his throat and said, "How's the meat loaf? I don't think I've ever tried it."

  "The meat loaf is heavenly. You're here on official business, aren't you?"

  "What was that bit about baseball practice?"

  "You're not going to like it when I stand on the table and scream at you. Just tell me why you're here, okay? Then I'll tell you about baseball practice and we'll both be fully informed."

  "I'm getting to it," he said, suddenly obliged to start rereading the menu. "Let's wait until we order."

  "Let's not." By this point, my voice was beginning to compete with the general racket surrounding us, and more than one asphalt cowboy was glancing at us and most likely hoping for an old-fashioned public brawl between the sexes. The CBs would sizzle all the way to the Missouri line and on into Illinois and Indiana.

  He winced. "Okay, okay. It…ah, it seems we've once again lost someone in Maggody."

  "What?"

  "We had a call from Muriel Petrel. She said her husband came here Friday evening to prepare for the grand opening on Saturday. She thought he'd be home that night or at least the following day, but she hasn't seen him or heard from him for the last forty-eight hours."

  "That's Jim Bob's partner," I said, frowning at him.

  "I came out to find out when he was last seen and to ascertain if he could still be in town. His car's parked out back in front of his motel room, and his suitcase is in the room."

  I was fighting to control both my eyelids and my jaw, but I wasn't having a helluva lot of success. "Did you talk to Jim Bob?"

  "He said he didn't see Petrel after the minor problem arose in the pavilion. Said he left Petrel in the office, looking at the initial inventory invoices. When he returned thirty minutes later, the invoices were in a neat pile and the office was empty."

  I finally got hold of myself and glared across the table. "So you're supposed to breeze into town and question everyone who might have knowledge of Petrel's whereabouts. Did it occur to your lieutenant to consult the local police department?"

  "I'm consulting it right now. The issue of jurisdiction's tricky. Petrel lives in Farberville, and the missing-persons report was filed initially with the local police department there. They told Mrs. Petrel to call us."

  "But you've already begun talking to witnesses," I said coolly. If my air conditioner had worked better, I could have worked myself up to coldly, but it had been one long, hot summer. "Who else has been contacted?"

  "Mrs. Jim Bob said Petrel had poisoned everybody for his own dark purposes and fled the county, if not the country."

  "Does she have any evidence?" I asked.

  "What do you think?" Plover put his hand over mine and tried to smile guilelessly. "Petrel probably forgot to mention a business trip, that's all."

  "And walked to the airport?"

  "Hell, I don't know. It hasn't even been seventy-two hours yet, so I'm just poking around. Maybe he has some phobia about barf and went stumbling into the woods. Maybe he hitched a ride to an unknown destination because…because Mrs. Jim Bob's correct and he poisoned everybody for his own dark purposes. "

  "In your dreams," I said glumly, shaking my head. "Harve's probably right about there having been some weird accident during the food preparation, but I'm staying on it until I'm satisfied. After all, it cost me a perfectly good uniform. Even my badge stinks, which could lead to all kinds of complex philosophical questions about the role of enforcer in an evolving society, were we so inclined. However, I'm more inclined to meat loaf."

  7

  "He raped her right there on the sofa bed in the office," Edna Louise Skimmer whispered to Barbie Buteo, her second cousin once removed on her mother's side, who lived in Emmet but got by every now and then for a nice visit. They were obliged to whisper due to the kids being in the next room.

  "No?" gasped Barbie. "Did she go to the emergency room at the hospital?"

  Edna Louise tried to remember what all she'd heard at the county nursing home several days back. "I don't think so," she admitted with a trace of regret.

  "Does her pa know about it?"

  "Oh, no, and this is strictly between you and me, Barbie. One of the aides just happened to have overheard a conversation on the porch and passed it along to me, but I can't a
fford to lose my job for repeating gossip, even if it's the gospel truth. I wish I could tell you more about whatall he did, but I can't say another word." She rolled her eyes and zipped her lips to emphasize her point. "You do understand what I'm getting at, doncha?"

  "I won't tell a soul," Barbie vowed solemnly, going so far as to draw an X on her chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die. I just can't believe everyone's gonna let that slimeball do you know what to a local girl and not even make him say he's sorry or offer to replace the shirt he ripped off her."

  "It was awful", Edna Louise said. "The girl was hysterical when she came stumbling out of the office, and she nearly got herself run down on the highway by one of them tractor trailers. A neighbor happened to be driving by, and she put the poor little thing in her car and got her home afore anybody else saw her. We have no way of knowing if she was the only one-or only the first one."

  Barbie peered around the corner to make sure all seven of the children were safely engrossed in cartoons, then leaned across the table and shook her head. "You know what I think, Edna Louise? I think they ought to tar and feather that fellow and escort him right out of town on a railroad tie. What'd you say his name was?"

  "Petrel. Lamont Petrel." Edna Louise said this very firmly, because she was very sure.

  *****

  After lunch, Plover said he wanted to question the owner of the Flamingo Motel about Petrel's disappearance. I offered to assist and was told my presence would not be required. I pointed out she was my mother and was told that was the problem. I mentioned that I was the chief of police and was told everybody already knew that.

  So I may have been in a snit as I slammed the door on my way out of the bar and grill. As I stalked up the highway toward the PD, I may have been thinking of a whole lot more devastatingly clever things I should have said, and that may have been why Jim Bob had to bellow like a bullfrog to get my attention.

  I shaded my eyes and looked across the highway. "What do you want?"

  "The inspectors from the health department are here and they want to talk to you," he yelled. "Have you gone blind and deaf, Chief Hanks…or just plain stupid?"

  "It's the heat. If I had a decent air conditioner in the PD, I wouldn't be reduced to a mindless mass of indeterminate gray matter," I yelled back, not in the mood for Hizzoner's particular brand of humorless humor any more than I was in the mood for a certain state trooper's "Don't worry your little head about it" attitude. I hate that.

  "The inspectors have to talk to you, and they want to do it sometime before the sun sets in Hawaii. If you can't cross the street by yourself, I'll come hold your damn fool hand."

  I waited until a truck rattled by, then took my own sweet time going across the road and the parking lot. Two men were waiting with Jim Bob under what shade there was beside the door of the SuperSaver. Despite the fact that one was tall and the other short, one rosy and the other anemic, one with a nice smile and the other with stained, crooked teeth, they had a certain sameness that bureaucracy demands and therefore begets. Neither looked especially impressed with me, but frankly, my dear, I didn't give a rat's ass.

  "This is Chief Hanks," Jim Bob muttered. "She has to hear how you inspected the store and didn't find dead mice in the vents or bug spray in the icebox."

  Tweedledee bobbled his head and assured me everything satisfied current state regulations. Tweedledum bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

  "Then we're not to worry about the twenty-three people who had to be taken away by ambulance?" I asked blandly. "It was just…one of those pesky little things that can happen to any of us?"

  This time Tweedledum bobbled his head and reassured me all the facilities looked shipshape to him. Tweedledee bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

  "Good grief," I said to Jim Bob, "where'd you buy these two? Do they work part-time as dashboard figurines? You know, with one of those wiggly plastic hula girls between them and a pair of foam dice dangling from the rearview mirror, you could have yourself a real nice-"

  "Thanks, boys," Jim Bob cut in heartily. He slapped them on their backs and told them how very deeply he appreciated them having to come all the way out to Maggody to satisfy some meddlesome cop who had nothing better to do than stand around in the hot sun and make smart-alecky remarks.

  He kept it up until they drove away, then looked at me with one of his smirkier smirks. "I do believe you've been informed that once the state health inspectors have been here, I can reopen the store?"

  "But not the deli until we hear from the lab."

  "Fuck the deli. Just get all that tape out of here and go find something useful to do for a change. You're running behind on speeding tickets this month, and I'd be real sorry if the town council had to unplug that air conditioner of yours in order to cut down on expenses. Then you'd really have something to bitch about, wouldn't you?"

  With a parting smirk, Hizzoner went into the store. Apparently, he'd been confident of a favorable report from the health department, because several high-school boys drove up and headed for the front door. I decided the orange tape gave the place a festive air, and went back across the road. This time, no one offered to hold my hand, but I did it just the same.

  *****

  At five o'clock Monday afternoon, roughly fifty hours after twenty-three people had been removed from the premises in ambulances, Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less reopened for business, although without a marching band, dignitaries, careening cheerleaders, or any fanfare at all.

  At 5:10, the first customer of the day, Raz Buchanon, bought a tin of chawin' tobacco, a tabloid that claimed Elvis was not only alive but had endured a series of sex-change operations to protect his anonymity, and two gourmet frozen dinners (breast of chicken à l'orange with vegetable-rice medley). If you don't understand why he bought two, don't worry about it. If you do, try not to dwell on it too much.

  At six o'clock, the small patch of gravel in front of the Satterings' produce stand was as vacant as a dead man's eyes. Ivy figured she knew why, but she told Alex to wait there on the off chance there'd be a customer. She went into the house and combed her hair, then drove into town to compare tomato and snap-bean prices at the SuperSaver.

  At 6:15, Geraldo Mandozes banged down the counter window of the Dairee Dee-Lishus, banged into position the CLOSED sign, banged his car door shut, and drove over to the SuperSaver to see whether the shits were selling tamales that tasted as if they were made of dog meat and catsup.

  At 6:20, Eula Lemoy told Millicent McIlhaney that Lamont Petrel had tried to poison every last soul in town and was now hiding out in a brothel in Little Rock or maybe Pine Bluff.

  At 6:30, Barbie Buteo told her husband, R.T., that some fellow in Maggody had raped half a dozen high-school girls. This is hardly vital to the plot, but let it be noted that R.T. spent a goodly portion of the ensuing evening (and of his paycheck) at the Dew Drop Inn on the south side of Emmet, which isn't too far from Maggody.

  At 6:45, Ruby Bee and Estelle got so tired of standing on tippytoes in front of the kitchen-sink window, trying to see who all was going in and out of the SuperSaver, that Ruby Bee taped up the CLOSED sign on the door of the Bar & Grill and the two went over to identify the traitors by name, rank, and serial number, if nothing else.

  At 7:13, Hammet Buchanon hit a baseball for the first time in his life. It rolled between Martin Milvin's feet, bounced over a clump of Johnsongrass, flattened a honeybee on a black-eyed Susan, and came to a stop not too far in front of Georgie McMay. After a moment of thought, Georgie hurled it as hard as he could at Earl Boy Nookim's head, but it soared over him and hit Ray Mandozes in the back. The subsequent exchange of expletives, some in Spanish and some in English, evolved into an epic brawl.

  At 8:55, Dahlia sauntered real casual like past the end of the last aisle and ducked into the employee break room because she wanted to have a few words with Kevin before he started work. He came in shortly afterward and they commenced a conversation interspersed with jabbing fing
ers and more than a snivelly tear or two.

  At nine o'clock, Buzz Milvin discovered the two in the break room and told Dahlia to run along home and Kevin to get to work and do something about the smell lingering in the general area of the picnic pavilion. When Kevin looked blank, Buzz told him where to find a bucket and mop, then went to the third aisle for a jumbo bottle of Lysol. He assumed Dahlia left through the back door.

  At some moment during the next hour, Hammet Buchanon stopped complaining about what a dopey, cross-eyed calf Saralee Chewink was and fell asleep in front of the television. Saralee herself went to sleep on a roll-away cot in the Lambertinos' family room, thinking about what a mysterious fellow Hammet was. What she really meant was enigmatic, but that was a word decidedly outside the limited scope of her fourth-grade vocabulary. Also safe in bed for the night, Jackie Sattering told his pa how he'd caught a monarch butterfly in right field. Alex shared his excitement. In the tiny bedroom of a rusty mobile home at the back of the Pot O' Gold, Ray Mandozes was awake in the top bunk, imagining himself a courageous toreador and Georgie McMay a trembling, drooling, bowlegged toro. Olay, as they say in Maggody.

  At ten o'clock, Enoch McMay was conversing in his dreams with Gilligan and the Skipper. Georgie McMay picked at a scab on his lower lip. Earl Boy Nookim caught a lightning bug and squished it in his fist, and only went inside the mobile home not too far from the Mandozeses' when his ma threatened to whup him if'n he didn't.

  At pretty much the same time as above, Lillith Smew ordered Martin Milvin to turn off his light and go to sleep if he knew what was good for him. She checked on Lissie, who was curled up tightly around her rag doll and breathing evenly, then went into her bedroom and sat down to rub liniment on her knees. All this cooking and cleaning was getting to be awful hard on her, she thought with a grimace. Buzz and the children didn't appreciate how she sacrificed herself day and night for them. Her daughter had been properly sympathetic, but she sometimes wondered whether Buzz even listened when she discussed all her recurring symptoms of heart trouble, shingles, rheumatoid arthritis, failing eyesight, palpitations, dry mouth, and other equally life-threatening conditions. She put away the liniment and opened the first bottle of pills in the long row. At 10:30, all the way over in Farberville, Sergeant John Plover picked up the telephone receiver, dialed five or six numbers, then sighed noisily (which didn't matter, since he lived alone) and told himself to let his favorite chief of police cool off for a day or two. Also in Farberville at that time, Muriel Petrel plumped her pillow, gazed at the unoccupied twin bed, and considered calling her sister to have lunch the next day, since she wouldn't have to be home to fix something for Lamont. There was that new place with tables on the patio that sounded real nice.