Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 07 (3 page)

I left them to their plotting and walked back to the PD to sift through flyers begging me to protect my loved ones with a wise investment in life insurance. The only loved one I had was Ruby Bee, and nothing could protect her from her sharp-eyed, sharper-tongued, meddlesome self. Picture the two of us in a boat out in the middle of a pond. A sudden breeze blows off her scarf. I get out of the boat and walk across the surface of the water to retrieve it for her. If you think she’d be impressed, think again. “What’s the matter, Miss Tippy Toes?” she’d say tartly. “Forget how to swim?”

Hell, I’d probably apologize. A couple of years in Maggody and I’d regressed into childhood. The symptoms were hard to overlook. After a brief romantic fling with a state cop, I’d shrugged him off and subsequently dedicated my life to reading Sears catalogs and watching grainy black-and-white movies in which the heroine dies in her paramour’s arms in time for a message from Bad Bubba at the discount furniture farm. I was bored, petulant, and, somewhere not too far in the back of my mind, usually wondering what my mother would fix me for supper.

Whose fault? I’d blamed it on my ex-husband for a while, righteously telling myself I was so scarred from his betrayal that I was incapable of anything more complex than a do-nothing job in a town where there was nothing to do. I was merely being realistic about my temporary emotional debilities. When the time was right, when I was no longer a bruised orchid but something more like an invincible kudzu vine, that’s when I’d venture out into the real world. Bear in mind, when all you do all day is mark the minutes until your next meal, you can come up with some impressively eloquent metaphors for sloth.

Berating myself had become so boring that I dozed off. When the dispatcher from the sheriff’s office called to invite me to a “real humdinger” of a truck wreck near Emmet, I heard myself come too damn close to bubbling over with gratitude. I hung the CLOSED sign on the door of the PD and left to go scrape bodies off the pavement. With any luck, I’d be busy trying to match arms and legs until suppertime.

Mrs. Jim Bob parked in front of the county old folks home. As the mayor’s wife, it was only proper that she be the one who determined what all this call from Nashville was about, and why in heaven’s name some man had insisted on talking about Matt Montana to doddery old Adele Wockermann.

The gloomy foyer smelled of a disinfectant pungent enough to make her eyes water. Pinching her lips, she listened to the faint squawk of a television set behind one of the closed doors and voices that drifted down the passageway beyond an uninhabited desk. She hadn’t been in the building since Cousin Vinnie Buchanon had been placed there temporarily while his daughter dealt with his mailorder bride from the Philippines. He’d been in the wing to her left. The ladies resided in the one to her right. The common rooms were clumped in the middle, and somewhere there was a nursing ward. The memory of it made her uneasy. Good Christians knew it was their duty to visit the sick and dying, but she figured that Brother Verber’s seminary training had better prepared him to offer a dose of bedside solace.

After a terse mental lecture about the gravity of her visit, she went by the desk and tracked down the voices to a pair of aides in a staff lounge. Both wore drab green smocks and white stockings. One of them, a chubby young woman with tortoiseshell glasses and a ponytail, had taken off her shoe to massage her foot. The other, made up like a tart, was filing her nails and nattering.

“Is one of you Patty May?” asked Mrs. Jim Bob.

“Oops, a room buzzer,” said the tart. She didn’t exactly run out of the room, but she didn’t dawdle either.

The remaining one squinted nervously from behind thick lenses. “I’m Patty May,” she admitted.

Mrs. Jim Bob decided there wasn’t any reason to beat around the bush, especially when it looked like it was missing a few leaves. “I’m going to visit with Adele Wockermann, but first I’d like to hear exactly what that Nashville man said.”

“Are you a relative?”

“I am the wife of the mayor of Maggody. I suggest you stop asking questions and worry about answering them.”

“I got to fix the medicine cups. Maybe you ought to talk to Miz Twayblade. She’s the day supervisor, and—”

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you around town,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, “and I’m sure I’ve never once seen you attending services at the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. You are a good Christian, aren’t you?”

Patty May gaped as she tried to figure out if she’d just been accused of being a heathen. She decided she had and, in a huffy voice, said, “Of course I am, ma’am. I’ve been a member of the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Hasty since the day I was born. I’m in the choir and—”

“Very commendable, I’m sure. Now stop flapping your lips like you’re eating soup and tell me about this telephone call from Nashville, Tennessee.”

Patty May obliged.

Once she was armed with the scanty details, Mrs. Jim Bob sent the girl about her business and went down the hall. She was beginning to wonder if she was supposed to go out the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT and look for some sort of annex when she saw her quarry’s name on a handprinted card. She opened the door of the room that Adele Wockermann seemingly shared with a hairless cocoon under a thin gray blanket. “Afternoon, Adele. How are you today?”

Adele was seated on the edge of her bed, dressed in a thin cotton robe and shapeless slippers. She was deflated with age, her fingers swollen as they plucked at a snarly mess of yarn, her back bent, her skin as translucent as tissue paper. It was a shock to Mrs. Jim Bob, who could remember when Adele had been tall and strong, her head so high she always looked down her nose at you, often brusque, never one to hunt for a tactful word or spare a smile.

Adele shot her a spiteful look. “I’m fine and dandy, excepting that Miz Twayblade went and canceled the finals of the volleyball tournament.” Cackling, she pointed at her roommate. “Iva and me were the favorites for the gold medal.”

“Have you been taking your medication, Adele?” Mrs. Jim Bob retorted, unamused.

“I hide them horse pills under my pillow, and then slip ‘em to Iva. The last thing I need in my dying days is a roommate who blathers like a goat. Got no time for visitors who do the same. State your business, Barbara Ann Buchanon Buchanon, and then be on your way.”

At least she was lucid, Mrs. Jim Bob thought as she twisted her gloves. The only chair in the room was piled high with soiled towels; she wasn’t about to touch them, much less move them. Iva most likely wouldn’t have minded if she sat on the bed—or even on her head—but it didn’t seem polite. She stayed where she was. “I happened to hear that a man from Nashville called to speak to you yesterday, but you—”

“Never been there. Mr. Wockermann and I went on the train to New Orleans for our honeymoon. I didn’t know what to make of all those dark-skinned faces and wild music and dancing in the streets. Still don’t, come to think of it.”

“Matt Montana is the name of a person, a real popular country music singer. Just last month he won a prize for writing the best original song of the year. Why would this man from Nashville say he was born here and you’d know about it?”

“The man from Nashville was born here? Seems to me he’d be the man from Maggody.” Adele put aside the yarn and lifted her hand to the hearing aid in her left ear. “It’s time for you to go, Barbara Ann Buchanon Buchanon. There’s trouble brewing in places you’ll never see, and I aim to tune in for the latest bulletin.”

Mrs. Jim Bob sprang forward and caught Adele’s wrist. Abject supplication wasn’t among her most predominant talents, but she did her best. “Please give me one more minute, Adele. One more teeny, tiny minute. Maggody’s in a bad way. If this Matt Montana fellow is a hometown boy, he can save us.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s his professional name. You would have known him as Matt something else or maybe Matthew. Could he have been one of Mr. Wockermann’s kinfolk?”

Adele stopped struggling and gave Mrs. Jim Bob a sly smile. “If I was to recall, what’s in it for me?”

“What do you want?”

Adele wanted a number of things. Telling herself this was no time to worry about what Adele planned to do with swim fins and an electric can opener, Mrs. Jim Bob dutifully made a list, tucked it in her purse, and promised to return the next morning, Adele having made it clear she was tuning out until she had her spoils.

Patty May hovered on the porch, swinging her arms to keep herself warm. “Did she tell you anything?” she demanded eagerly. “I’d about die if it turns out Matt Montana’s Miz Wockermann’s kin.”

“No, but I’ll be by in the morning to see if she’s remembered anything. Listen real carefully, Patty May. If that Nashville man calls again, I want you to give him my name and my telephone number. Tell him I’m acting as Adele’s agent in all matters concerning Matt Montana. Furthermore, I don’t want Adele disturbed by anyone else—especially Ruby Bee Hanks and Estelle Oppers. They’re nothing but a pair of magpies who’ll yammer away until they exhaust the dear old thing.” She thought for a minute, then waggled her finger at the aide. “This needs to be our secret. If you do what I say, I’ll make sure you’ll be the very first person in all of Maggody to meet Matt Montana and get his autograph. Can I count on you?”

Patty May nodded, but after Mrs. Jim Bob was gone, she went to find Tansy to see what she thought.

Lillian Figg paused in the doorway of the bedroom, debating the merits of adopting a celibate life-style. She was a solid woman, broad-shouldered, taller than most of the men with whom she did business, and able to both shout them down and drink them under the table when negotiations demanded it. Her income as an agent and manager depended on her image, and at forty-two, it was taking more and more time each morning to fine-tune it. She did so religiously and effectively.

Matt was spread across the bed, his face submersed in a pillow, his hands dangling on either side. He was still dressed and his boots were in the corner where she’d set them; as far as she could tell, he hadn’t moved in the last six hours. Although it would probably take something along the lines of a sonic boom to disturb him, she moved quietly to the bathroom, which smelled worse than the drunk tank from which she’d fetched him those same six hours ago.

She went back through the bedroom to the kitchen, gathered up cleaning supplies, and returned to the bathroom. Struggling not to gag as the stench enveloped her, she mopped up the splattered mess, wiped ceramic surfaces, and finally flushed away the evidence of the night’s debacle.

“You driving a bulldozer in there?” Matt said groggily.

“Welcome back to the land of the living—or the land in which some of us, present company included, have to earn a living.”

“Will ya fix me some coffee, Lillian? God, I feel like I ate a pillow and what feathers aren’t stuck down in my throat are rammed up my ass.”

Lillian considered offering to make it a reality, but instead went into the kitchen and started the coffee maker. Pipes gurgled in the wall as Matt turned on the shower, and by the time he reappeared, barefoot but dressed in a bathrobe, she’d rescued what she could from a loaf of moldy bread and made toast.

“You got any aspirin?” he said as he took a gulp of coffee, shuddered, and put down the cup with a shaky hand. Blood oozed from a nick on his jaw, and a dollop of shaving cream clung to one earlobe like a lopsided pearl earring. She regarded him without enthusiasm. This was not the Matt Montana who sent girls into frenzied giggles and warmed the jaded hearts of credit card-wielding house wives. That one had a freckled face, a wide mouth with generous lips that lapsed easily into an endearing aw-shucks grin, slightly crooked but very white teeth, and wide-set eyes ringed with long lashes. Floppy auburn hair with golden highlights. A crinkly squint. A voice that was boyish, rough enough to sound sincere, and lilting enough to wrench a few tears from his audience.

At the moment, Lillian figured he looked more like what she’d mopped up in the bathroom. “I assume you haven’t forgotten about this evening,” she said as she lit a cigarette.

“This evening?” He spat out a mouthful of coffee. “Oh, shit, it’s that party at the Opryland Hotel, isn’t it? Get me out of it, Lillian.”

He gave her such a piteous look that she went over to him and let him lean his head between her breasts. Gently brushing his hair off his forehead, she smiled down at her husband.

And hated herself once again.

“You’d better mind your manners, Patty May Partridge,” Ruby Bee snapped, then banged down the receiver of the pay telephone and stalked behind the bar, fuming so fiercely that steam should have been curling out of her nostrils while she pawed the dirt. “That young woman has no business telling me that I can’t speak to Adele on account of how I might upset her. I’d like to think I’m not the sort to go around upsetting old ladies. I’ve half a mind to call her boss and report this impertinence!”

Estelle waited until it seemed safe to speak. “When I saw Millicent at the gas pump, she mentioned that she’d been out to visit her uncle at the old folks home earlier this afternoon. Guess whose car she noticed?”

“How should I know? Millicent wouldn’t notice she was hungry till after she starved to death.”

“Well, she noticed Mrs. Jim Bob’s car parked right in front of the steps. She’s liable to be behind this.”

“Mrs. Jim Bob’d like to think she hung the moon,” Ruby Bee said with a snort. “Just because she’s the mayor’s wife and the president of the Missionary Society doesn’t give her any right to—”

“If Patty May won’t cooperate, we’ll just have to come up with something else. I suppose we could go to the county courthouse and look up all the birth certificates for that year.” Estelle leaned forward to add in a whisper, “In fact, according to the interview, Matt was born on Valentine’s Day. How many baby boys could have been born on that day?”

“Why are you whispering?” Ruby Bee asked curiously.

Estelle glanced pointedly at the trucker in the last booth. “He could be a spy. How’d you like to arrive at the courthouse and find out Mrs. Jim Bob had gotten there first and warned ‘em you were coming?”