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  Much Ado in Maggody

  An Arly Hanks Mystery

  Joan Hess

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  To Priscilla Ridgway,

  who, perhaps more than anyone else,

  makes me laugh. I take back all

  those things I said about you.

  Really.

  1

  I am not going to start off bitching and whining about how nothing ever happens in Maggody, for two reasons. One is that the premise is getting as stale as day-old bread. The other is that it doesn’t appear to be all that valid anymore. That’s not to say a lot of what happens in Maggody, Arkansas, isn’t on the mundane side. We’re talking about outsiders running the single traffic light or putting the pedal to the metal in the school zone. Dogs being stolen. Good ol’ boys brawling at the pool hall on a regular basis. Marijuana and moonshine. Among Maggody’s 755 residents, someone’s always stirring up minor headaches for yours truly, Arly Hanks, chief of police extraordinaire. I’ve got a real live badge and a box with three bullets in it to prove it.

  And there have been some bizarre incidents during my official tenure, which began when I submitted the only application for the position. Calling them crimes of the heart seems too romantic for this neck of the woods; they’re more like crimes of the bowel. But if on a given day you were to cruise through Maggody (observing the speed limit signs, we’d like to think), you’d be hard pressed to find anything seething below the surface. You might see a couple of good Christian folks in tight white patent leather shoes, gabbing out in front of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall; a grizzled sort in well-worn overalls shuffling into the tiny branch bank to see if Miss Una can help him make heads or tails of some new-fangled computerized bank statement; the Emporium, run by a bunch of aged hippies who still sit around in the nude behind their house and hum through their noses, to their neighbors’ alarm. Earl Buchanon, in particular, keeps muttering about communes, Communists, and how a backside of birdshot’s too good for ’em. Not everybody’s into mantras in Maggody.

  There’s a line of stores, the windows decorated with yellowed newsprint and strips of peeling tape. A red brick building, the police department, that gives me a place to while away the hours swatting flies, drinking coffee, taking potshots at the roaches with the radar gun, and wondering why in hell I ever came back to Maggody. Okay, I came back because I wanted to lick my wounds after a tacky divorce. I had no intention of doing so for more than a few months, but I was still licking away two years later, mostly because I’m not double-jointed and therefore can’t twist my leg back far enough to kick myself in the rear.

  Moving on, there’s the Suds of Fun Launderette and the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe on the left, followed by some shabby houses and enough weeds to drown a toddler in. On the right, however, is our local attempt at glitz: Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill. It’s painted a peculiar shade of pink in deference to the sign out next to it that proclaims the availability of accommodations at the Flamingo Motel. The neon flamingo looks a little motley, and the V CAN Y sign hardly draws a crowd, but the parking lot in front of Ruby Bee’s is usually filled with pickup trucks. The beds of the trucks are guarded by emaciated, gunky-eyed hounds wishing they were out chasing coons instead of snuffling dust and growling at potential truck thieves.

  I won’t extol the virtues of the Pot O’ Gold Mobile Home Park, the skeletal remains of Purtle’s gas station, the Dairee Dee-Lishus across from the high school, or even the bucolic bliss that reigns all the way to the Missouri state line. Prevarication’s more of a winter sport, and the thermometer had been pushing triple digits for nigh on to a week.

  I was fiddling with the window unit in the PD when the door banged open and Johnna Mae Nookim stomped into my sanctuary.

  “Holy cow,” she said as the heat hit her. “This place is worse than an oven, Arly. I swear, if you had a mind to, you could bake buttermilk biscuits in here.”

  “I realize that. In fact, I’m seriously considering tacking up a sign outside that offers free sauna sessions. Our first health club.”

  Johnna Mae gave me a puzzled look as she settled her hefty bottom on the chair across from my desk. She had seriously bleached hair, a round, tomato-colored face, and the beetlish brow and yellowish eyes of the Buchanon clan. She was wearing a prissy white shirt, the armpits of which were getting wetter by the second, and a miniskirt that made no concession to her pudgy thighs, dimpled knees, and thick ankles. God knows how the spike heels supported all of the above, but one had to presume they did. After all, she hadn’t crawled into the PD. Then again, if the air conditioner continued to balk, she darn well might find herself crawling out—with me clinging to her ankle.

  “I don’t think this is all that healthy,” she muttered, fanning herself with a piece of paper. “I’d be more inclined to say it was downright unhealthy, if you get my drift. You ever thought about getting a fan or something, Arly?”

  I twitched a knob or two and banged my fist on the top of the damn thing. I had drawn back my foot to bust it when a cool breeze drifted out. It wasn’t anything arctic, but I took it as a conciliatory gesture and reluctantly lowered my foot. Once I was sitting behind my desk, I said, “Hear you had a baby, Johnna Mae. Congratulations.”

  “Seven pounds, twelve ounces, and enough red hair to make a wig for an Irish setter. He is the sweetest little ol’ thing imaginable, and the spittin’ image of his daddy. That’s not to say I didn’t have a spot of trouble convincing little P.J. to make the trip, of course. He wiggled around so much the last couple of weeks before his birthing date that he was about as cattywampus as a baby can get. My first two slid out just as easy as you please, but this one had to be taken out by a cesarean section, where the doctor makes this slit right across the front of you and reaches in and pulls the baby out. Putter like to have passed out cold in the delivery room. He still turns a little green when I talk about it, but he’s always had a delicate side most people can’t see.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said before I was given further graphic description of each and every minute of little P.J.’s arrival. “But you look like you’ve bounced right back.”

  Johnna Mae’s brow lowered until she could barely see from under it. “I have regained my good health, yes. Now, I was only intending to take off a few days of maternity leave, but the C section changed all that. Dr. Herkmeyer insisted I stay a whole solid week in the hospital, and then he told me I couldn’t go back to work, I had to stay home for another five weeks. I must admit I wasn’t feeling all that chipper. Putter was real good about taking care of the kids and seeing to the housework, and I just kind of stayed on the sofa and watched my soaps while I recuperated.”

  “Great,” I murmured, wondering why she was sounding madder and madder as she described a six-week session of sofa vegetation.

  “That’s fine and dandy for you to say, Arly. None of it was my fault, you know. Not even Dr. Herkmeyer could see that little P.J. was going to give me such a troublesome time during and after. Anyway, long about last Wednesday I decided I’d better get my rear off the sofa and get back to work at the bank. Due to Putter’s disability he’s been unemployed for nearly three years now, and we were feeling a pinch most everywhere. I called Mr. Oliver and told him I’d be in. I managed to squeeze into panty hose and a jumper I’d worn during the confinement, then I had Putter drop me off in front of the bank just like he’s done for eleven years. I breezed through the front door, hollered a greeting to Miss Una, and headed straight for my locker in the back room. Well, that’s when the shit hit the fan, if you’ll pardon my French.”


  “Oh,” I said, nodding wisely. I had no idea where she was heading, and I wasn’t overly enthralled by the narrative. If the truth must be made known, my brain was drifting down the highway toward Ruby Bee’s, where there might be a plate lunch with my name on it. In capital letters.

  Johnna Mae gripped the arms of the chair and leaned forward. “That locker has been mine for the last six years, since Mr. Oliver decided to spend all his time at the main bank in Farberville and I assumed the position of head teller at the branch.” She paused for a moment, just in case I wanted to get her autograph or some such fool thing. I didn’t twitch. “Being head teller isn’t like being executive vice president at the main bank, but it involved a right nice little raise and a certain amount of authority. I don’t want to crow on my own fence, Arly, but I did a mighty good job of it for six years.”

  “And now you’re no longer head teller?”

  “You hit it square on the head. In my absence, this damn fool college smart-ass youngster was brought in and given my position, not to mention my locker and my desk. Why, you’d like to have thought he’d been there for years from the way he’d thrown out all my little efforts to make things homey at the bank. Miss Una managed to save my philodendrum from the garbage can, but my African violets just went everywhere. He took my photographs of my family and put them in a box and then proceeded to put the box in the dampest corner of the back room. There was mildew on the backs of them by the time I fished them out and wiped them off. I want you to do something, Arly.”

  “About the mildew?” I said, mystified.

  “About this smirky youngster who took not only my position, but my desk and my locker and my personal belongings.” She took a tissue from her purse to mop her forehead, and leaning so far over the desk I could feel her breath, she said, “I want you to arrest Sherman Oliver and have him put in jail!”

  “Wait a minute, Johnna Mae. I thought you were talking about some newcomer to the branch, but—”

  “Mr. Oliver is the one who gave Brandon Bernswallow all those things I struggled for and slaved for and earned through good, honest sweat, not to mention eleven years of dedication to the bank. Now this Bernswallow fellow sashays in, and Mr. Oliver gives me some cockeyed story about how his father is on the board of directors of the bank and how Bernswallow was sent to our branch to learn the ropes so he could end up being president some day down the road.”

  “I can’t arrest him for playing politics,” I said, holding up my hands and wishing the air conditioner would blow hard enough to do something about Johnna Mae’s tuna fish breath. “If the main bank sent in a scion to learn the business, that’s for you, them, and Sherman Oliver to work out. There’s nothing criminal about it.”

  “But there is! Last year when I was visiting my older sister and her good-for-nothing husband what live down near Pine Bluff, she dragged me to this seminar about women’s rights in the workplace. This woman with a hyphenated name was right eloquent, even though I must say I never did understand about the hyphen. Do you know what I learned there, Arly? Do you?”

  “Not right off hand,” I admitted as I picked up a scratch pad and tried to ward off the attack of the killer tuna sandwich.

  To my heartfelt relief, she sank back and sighed. “Well, for one thing, it is illegal to harrass women in the office. That means some jerk of a hotshot executive is not supposed to play grab-ass with his secretary unless she doesn’t mind. And if he does it anyway, she can file a complaint with some office at the state capital and they’ll make him regret the day he even thought about grabbing her ass or pinching her breast or making lewd remarks.”

  “You’re not telling me that Sherman Oliver was trying anything with you, are you? He’s at least sixty if he’s a day, and hardly the sort to chase anyone around the desk like a silver-haired satyr.”

  “I wouldn’t know what that happens to be,” she said with a sniff. “And I am not accusing Mr. Oliver of having lustful thoughts in his heart, or the wherewithal to catch me, or even Miss Una, if’n he did. He has been nothing but a gentleman for all my eleven years at the bank. He is a deacon at the Voice of the Almighty Lord and has been teaching the men’s Bible study class on Sundays since God made little green apples. His wife is the president of the missionary society and does a Sunday school class herself. She’s the only one who’ll even go into the room with the seven- and eight-year-old boys on a regular basis.”

  My stomach made a suggestive comment about the possibility of fried pork chops and peach cobbler. “That’s a real comfort to know, Johnna Mae,” I said as I gazed longingly at the door. “I’m glad to know you have such respect for Mr. and Mrs. Oliver. However, there’s nothing either of us can do about this interloper. Give him a few months and he’ll be gone, and then you can have your position back, along with potted plants and photographs on your desk. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to—”

  “I want you to arrest Mr. Oliver and have him put in jail.”

  “We just went over that, and I explained that whatever happened was not a criminal matter.”

  “Sexual discrimination is against the law, Arly Hanks. In that you’ve sworn to uphold the law in Maggody, it’s up to you to do something. If Putter hadn’t been unemployed these last three years due to a ruptured disc in his back, it wouldn’t be quite so serious. But we just can’t pay the rent on the mobile home, make payments to the doctor and the hospital, keep our children in shoes, and put food on the table every night if I’m making minimum wage. How’d you like to feed a family of five on three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour—before withholding and all of that?”

  “You were dropped to minimum wage after eleven years at the bank?” I asked despite myself.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “That’s the honest to God truth, Arly, and you know me well enough to realize I’m not some sniveling crybaby who ran to the teacher any time a boy snapped my bra on the playground. But I learned at this seminar that it’s illegal to demote a woman because she takes maternity leave. Women are supposed to have babies. That’s why God gave them wombs.”

  “It might be a violation of the Civil Rights Act, but it’s still not a criminal matter, Johnna Mae. I agree that you’ve been treated shabbily. I wish I could do something to help, but I can’t. You need to find a lawyer who specializes in this kind of discrimination.”

  “Now, how am I supposed to find some lawyer, much less pay him, when I can’t feed my family meat more than once a week?”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that one. We talked a while longer, then I gently shooed her out the door and walked down the highway to Ruby Bee’s, where at least it would be dark and cool. To my delight, it was also deserted, except for one comatose character in a far booth. Several empty pitchers both explained and attested to the depth of the coma, but I didn’t even raise an eyebrow. Too hot for facial aerobics.

  I perched on a barstool and allowed the lovely breeze to wash over me. I was still evaporating when the proprietor came through the kitchen door and shot me a beady look.

  “I suppose you want something to eat,” Ruby Bee said in a most unfriendly voice.

  “I was hoping.”

  “And you didn’t stop to think for one minute about how I’d have to stand over a hot stove to fix it for you, did you? Didn’t think about how the vents in the kitchen don’t work and it’s hotter than a fire in a pepper mill, did you? All you think about is your innards, missy. If you paid half as much attention to other folks, you’d think twice before insisting on someone having to slave and perspire so’s you could gulp it down and prance away without so much as a thank you kindly.”

  Did I mention that Ruby Bee is my mother?

  I pondered my options for a moment. “I am always most grateful when you make such sacrifices for your only child,” I said meekly, sucking in my cheeks and widening my eyes in true Oliver Twist fashion. “I’d have gone over to the Dairee Dee-Lishus for a cheeseburger, but your cooking is the best in the county. However, I cringe t
o think of all that slavery going on over a hot stove, so I’ll just head back down the road.”

  “Haven’t I taught you anything about eating well-balanced meals?” she snapped, looking pissed enough to come across the bar and turn me over her knee. It would make an amusing scene, to say the least. To begin with, I’m five foot ten and she’s five foot period. She has brassy blond hair, courtesy of her friend Estelle Oppers, owner and sole operator of Estelle’s Hair Fantasies. Despite the waves of pink eye shadow and the inch or so of powder, Ruby Bee resembles everyone’s granny, from her angelic smile to her clean white apron and support stockings. If the woman knocked on your door, you’d invite her in to make cookies in your kitchen. You’d beg her to watch the kids while you ran out for a package of chocolate morsels. Truth. Then again, there are a lot of smirky, smart-ass rednecks who’ve learned the wisdom of backing off when Ruby Bee gets a certain tightness to her mouth.

  So had I, and I was backing off fast, although in a metaphorical sense. “I’ll do whatever you want, Ruby Bee. I’ll eat here. I’ll eat at the Dairee Dee-Lishus. I’ll trot home and eat a can of chicken soup. I won’t eat anything at all.”

  “You already look as scrawny as a heifer what’s caught the eye of the resident bull. There’s no way you’re ever going to find yourself a man if you don’t put on a little weight.”

  “And it wouldn’t hurt none to do something with your hair,” Estelle contributed as she came across the tiny dance floor and sat down beside me. “Wearing it in a bun like that isn’t exactly the fashion rage these days. I keep thinking that a delicate auburn rinse might bring out some highlights, Arly. Then, with a perm and a few wisps to frame your face, you’d look just like a June bride.” This from a woman with a foot-high beehive of fire-engine-red hair, which gave her an overall upright dimension of six feet plus.

  Ruby Bee clasped her hands to her bosom and gave me a misty look. “Why, I can just see you in a lacy veil, all trembly with excitement, waiting at the top of the aisle while some sweet little girl scatters rose petals in your path.”