Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 10 (14 page)

“Good work, Apocalypse,” Sterling said, shading his eyes and peering vainly across the pasture. “I realize no one showed up when we tried this at Bradley’s place, but I assumed that was because of the remote location. You’d think the citizens of Maggody could-Look! A pickup truck’s coming!”

“And someone’s walking this way from the direction of the creek,” added Barry. “I guess there are a few patriots left.”

Kayleen squinted across the corn stalks. “That’s Jeremiah McIlhaney in the truck, and he’s got Earl Buchanon with him. Neither of them is overly bright, but they’re hard workers. They might do just fine.”

“Who’s the fellow down that way?” asked Sterling.

“I can’t rightly say because of the knit cap pulled down so low and those sun glasses and that mustache. I don’t think I’ve seen a mustache like that in Maggody, but I may not have met everybody as of yet.”

Barry moved to Sterling’s side, and in a low voice said, “I don’t like this. Could he be a foreign agent?”

“He could be, I suppose. They’ve been known to infiltrate groups such as ours. We’ll have to be real cautious with him until I can determine his background.”

“You had any more luck contacting Dylan’s old group?”

“No, and it’s rather odd. The password worked the first time, but I’ve tried several times since then to access the message board with no success. The phone’s been disconnected.”

“Could that be Dylan’s doing?”

Sterling stopped staring at the figure on foot and turned to Barry. “Why do-what makes you say this?” he sputtered. “Do you know something that you haven’t told me?”

“I just don’t trust him, especially after last night.”

The truck came to a halt beside the Hummer before Sterling could demand an explanation. “Welcome,” he called to the two men as they emerged. “It’s heartening to meet patriots like yourselves.”

“Hey, Earl, Jeremiah,” said Kayleen, giving them her friendliest Betty Crocker smile. “How’re you boys this morning? Earl, I hear you’re going to be a grandpa in a few weeks. You and Eileen must be real tickled.”

“Yeah,” said Earl. He stuck his hands in his pocket and studied the mud caked on the sides of the truck.

Kayleen winked at Jeremiah. “I saw your daughter the other day at the Dairee Dee-Lishus. She’s such pretty thing. I’ll bet the boys hang around her like litter of lovesick pups.”

Jeremiah felt his ears heating up. “Thanks, Kayleen,” he mumbled. He noticed the figure walking toward them and elbowed Earl. “What’s Kevin been doing down at Boone Creek? Don’t he know it’s too cold for fishing?”

“I dunno,” said Earl, pulling off his cap to scratch his head. “I thought Dahlia said he had to work this morning. Maybe the schedule changed or something.”

They stood in silence, watching Kevin as he slipped and slid toward them. When he came around the front of the Hummer, he froze like an ungainly scarecrow and said, “Uh, Pa, I didn’t reckon you’d be here. I was-well, out taking a walk and decided to cut up this way on account of it being a shortcut of sorts, and then I noticed the trucks and-“

“Welcome,” Sterling cut in smoothly. “You all already know Kayleen. I’m General Pitts and this is Colonel Kirklin. I’d like you to look over our material and take anything that interests you. All of it should-if you’re as concerned as we are about the sorry state of the government these days.” Rather than stepping aside to allow them to get to the card table, however, he launched into a rambling lecture about the erosion of constitutional rights and the perils of an invasion by foreign troops.

Twenty minutes later, after having thoroughly bewildered Earl, Jeremiah, and Kevin (who never had a chance), he gestured dramatically at Cotter’s Ridge. “This may well be your last line of defense, which is why survival training is so vital. You may be forced to take your families up there and live off the land until militias like ours can drive the foreigners into the sea.

“You’d better drive if you’re going to the sea,” Earl said. “It’s a good six or seven hundred miles to the Gulf of Mexico, and more like two thousand to the Pacific.”

Sterling reminded himself of the necessity of recruiting privates and corporals, who would be expendable in battle. “How astute,” he said to Earl, who was grinning at Jeremiah. “Please examine the material, and don’t hesitate if you have any questions.”

Earl looked at Kevin. “What’s that piece of black paper doin’ taped on your lip, son?”

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“Read ‘em and weep,” said Jim Bob as he spread his poker hand on the table. “Didn’t believe I’d picked up that third cowboy, did ya?”

Roy Stiver folded his cards. “I’m surprised you can count that high, Jim Bob. From what I hear at the barber shop, you have a tough time making change at the SuperSaver. Perkins said you tried to stiff his eldest out of ten dollars.”

Jim Bob was casting around for a response that would leave Roy feeling as naked as a picked chicken when Larry Joe came into the trailer, a magazine in his hand.

“Did y’all hear something a minute ago?” he asked.

“I heard Jim Bob guffawing at how lucky he is,” said Roy. “I didn’t hear you flush the toilet ‘cause it ain’t but a hole in the ground. If it’s the same to you, I’d prefer not to hear exactly which bodily functions you performed out there.”

“No, I’m serious, so listen up,” Larry Joe said with enough earnestness to get their attention. “Just as I was leaving the outhouse, I heard a strange boom, kind of like a bass drum. I looked in that direction and saw this-this thing behind some bushes. I couldn’t make it out real good, but it was more’n five feet tall and it was sizing me up like I might make a tasty meal. I liked to jump out of my skin.”

“It was Diesel, you near-sighted dolt,” Jim Bob said as he poured bourbon into his glass.

Roy nodded. “Yeah, everybody knows he’s living up here. Or maybe it was Raz, making sure we weren’t fixing to help ourselves to a couple of jars of shine. That stuff strips paint better than any commercial goop, and your skin along with it if you don’t watch what you’re doing.”

“I don’t think it was human,” said Larry Joe. “It had eyes like orange marbles and a head no bigger than a baseball.”

Jim Bob began to shuffle the cards. “Jesus H. Christ, Larry Joe, the next thing you’ll be doing is telling us you saw a flying saucer, too. Are you gonna stand there like a virgin in a roomful of preachers, or are you gonna play poker?”

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“They arrived yesterday,” I told Harve, who’d called just as I was heading out the door of the PD. His timing was getting downright uncanny. “Rumor has it that Generalissimo Pitts is driving a Sherman tank, but it may be an exaggeration. Other than that, nobody seems to know or care that they’re here. I’m not going to worry about them unless they start firing bazookas at Estelle’s Hair Fantasies.”

“We’ll blow up that bridge when we come to it. I talked to Katherine Avenued’s mother this morning about arranging for the body to be shipped to Tucson. McBeen says there’s no reason to do more than a perfunctory autopsy since the cause of death’s so obvious. He did run a drug screen to make sure she wasn’t an addict likely to have unsavory friends. She was clean.”

“I told Mrs. Coben and Heidi that I’d go over there this afternoon to get an update on what was stolen. Let’s hope Heidi has remembered something Katherine might have mentioned in passing.”

“Like the license plate of the truck that followed her all over Farberville the day she was killed?”

“Bingo,” I said, unamused.

Harve obviously was, and I had to listen to him snort and snicker for a while before he calmed down and said, “LaBelle said to ask you if Estelle ever got her inheritance.”

“She wasn’t too thrilled,” I said, then went on to describe the previous evening’s events. “When I got there, the birds were long gone. From Estelle’s hysterical description, I think they’re ostriches. Uncle Tooly must have had a twisted sense of humor-or been nursing a grudge against his niece for a long while.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, if you find out anything new from the Cobens, lemme know.”

“Sure,” I said, thinking of the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell. Not good, from all accounts.

After I hung up, I took out the reports on the previous burglaries and skimmed them. I had no brilliant insights, however, and I was in the back room turning off the coffee pot when the front door opened. I went to the doorway in time to see Raz slam the door.

“I jest come to tell you,” he said, his eyes blazing and saliva dribbling out of the corners of his mouth, “what I’m gonna do if you don’t get that goddamn Diesel off the ridge.”

“What would that be?”

“He’s gonna be right sorry he was ever born, cause I’m gonna put so many holes in him that the wind’ll whistle ‘Dixie’ through him.”

“Shall I assume you and he had another unpleasant encounter?” I asked as I went behind the desk and sat down. “Do you want to file a complaint?”

“I ain’t got no use for no complaint. I reckon a twelve-gauge shotgun is what I need.” He stuffed a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek, apparently forgetting how much I despise the habit. “This morning I went squirrel huntin’. I left Marjorie in the truck, but I put down the window so she could git some fresh air. She must’ve decided to root for acorns and wandered up the ridge. All of a sudden she started squealing something terrible, so I runned up a ways and found her huddled under a ledge. She was so scared she could hardly poddle back to the truck.” He looked around for a place to spit, caught my glare, and swallowed. “I’ve had it with Diesel. Unless’n you make him take his sorry ass to a place so wild the hoot owls holler in the daytime, I’m gonna git him good.”

“How am I supposed to do that, Raz? I don’t even know where his cave is. I gather it’s near your still, so if you want to tell me where that is, I’ll try to find Diesel and talk to him.” The last bit was a flagrant lie, of course, but I was curious to see how he would react in such a quandary.

He opted for his standard response. “Ain’t got no still.”

“Then there’s nothing I can do. Give my regards to Marjorie-and stay off the ridge.”

After he stalked out the door, I put on lipstick, buffed my badge with my cuff, and headed for Mayfly.

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Dahlia went into Jim Bob’s SuperSaver and looked around for Kevin. He wasn’t in sight, but he could be mopping one of the aisles or stacking oranges in the produce department. Not wanting to have to walk all over the store, she approached the checkout girl.

“Hey, Idalupino. Where’s Kevvie?”

“He was here when I started work at nine, but then he got sick and had to go home. I hear tell there’s some sort of bug going around that makes you retch your guts out something fierce.”

Dahlia chewed on this for a moment. It didn’t seem likely that Kevin was at home, since she herself had left less than ten minutes ago. He could have gone to his ma and pa’s house, she supposed, on account of not wanting to expose her to his bug. Ever since she’d told him she had a bun in the warmer, he’d fretted like she was a dainty flower. In fact, he was gettin’ to be a pain in the butt with all his questions about how she felt and how many times the baby’d kicked and could he fetch anything for her or rub her feet.

“Can I use the phone?” she asked Idalupino, who was flipping through a tabloid.

“It’s in the employee lounge. Hey, Dahlia, do you think they really found a statue of Liberace on the back side of the moon?”

“I ‘spose they could have,” she said, then headed for the lounge to find out if her gallant knight was retching his guts out at his ma and pa’s.

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Ruby Bee waited until Estelle was settled on her stool and had pulled off her scarf and gloves. “I’ve been waiting on you for more than an hour,” she said in the snippety voice that always irritated Estelle. “You said you’d be here at two so we could go to that garage sale in Hasty. There won’t be anything left by now. “

“I had something more important to do than look at cracked china and broken fishing rods,” Estelle said as she took a piece of paper out of her handbag.

“Another letter from that lawyer?”

She shook her head. “I went over to the high school because I figured Lottie’d be there. Every Saturday she snoops through her students’ lockers for incriminating evidence. Once she found a cartoon of her that Darla Jean had drawn-and it wasn’t flattering. Another time she found a real steamy note to one of the football players implying the girl-I disremember who-had done some shameless things with him out by Boone Creek.”

“So you went to the high school,” prompted Ruby Bee, “and Lottie let you inside.”

“Yes, and she unlocked the library for me so I could use the encyclopedias. They’re on the old side, but I found what I wanted, which was about ostriches. I’ve got to know what I’m up against if they come back. I still get the heebie-jeebies when I think about ‘em.”

Ruby Bee caught the hint and poured a glass of sherry. “What all did you find out?”

“It’s bad, real bad,” she said, checking her notes. ‘The males can be as tall as eight feet and weigh three hundred and fifty pounds. The females are a mite smaller, but they’re nothing to be sneezed at. When they’re frightened, they can run forty miles an hour. They can also kick the livin’ daylights out of you. What could Uncle Tooly have been thinking to burden me with creatures like that? Why couldn’t he have left me tropical fish or a cat?”

“They’re gone, Estelle, and I’d be real surprised if you ever see them again.” Ruby Bee paused to do some calculating. “They’ve been gone close to fifteen hours, give or take. If they were going forty miles an hour, that’s six hundred miles and they could be in Mexico or Canada by now, depending, of course, on which way they went.”

“Or they could be lurking out behind my garage, ready to attack me. First thing this morning I tried to call that blasted lawyer in Oklahoma on the off chance he was working on a Saturday morning, but all I got was his answering machine saying the office was closed on weekends. I called information, and this sassy girl told me his home number was unlisted. I don’t think I slept more than ten minutes all night, imagining them scheming to sneak back in my house.”