The Maggody Militia Read online

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to cause any bother,” Estelle said with a self-effacing smile. “You’ve got all those other folks to deal with. I’ll just make sure all my doors and windows are locked tight and sit up all night in the living room with a rolling pin.”

  Ruby Bee knew darn well she was expected to beg. Normally, she wouldn’t, but she’d seen how Estelle’s hand shook when she picked up her glass. “You won’t cause a bit of bother, so stop being silly. I’ll even go back to your house with you and keep an eye out for the birds while you pack an overnight bag.”

  “The bag’s in my station wagon.”

  “Well, then,” Ruby Bee said, taking off her apron, “let’s go get you fixed up. I was planning to shampoo carpets in two of the units tomorrow if I can find time. Would you mind staying next to General Pitts?”

  “As long as he doesn’t practice barking out orders like a drill sergeant. My nerves are too frazzled for that.”

  They collected Estelle’s bag and continued around back to #5. Ruby Bee started to unlock the door, then stopped and frowned.

  “That’s strange,” she murmured. “The door’s not locked. I know I locked it last week when I was inspecting all the units to see which carpets needed to be shampooed.”

  “Maybe it didn’t catch,” said Estelle.

  “It caught.” Ruby Bee opened the door, stuck her head in, then went inside. “Somebody was in here recently. I always vacuum after a guest leaves, and you can see that shag has been squashed where a chair was moved. This somebody tried to put it back where it was, but the marks are off by an inch.” She sidled around the bed and made sure no one was in the bathroom. “Look at this, Estelle! The toilet seat is up. I always leave it down on account of it looks nicer.”

  “The lamp’s unplugged,” called Estelle, who had no desire to evaluate the significance of an upright toilet seat. “Would you have left it that way?”

  “Once I had a customer who stole all the light bulbs, including the ones in the ceiling fixture, so I make a point of switching on everything to make sure it works.” She emerged from the bathroom to count coat hangers (three) and ashtrays (two). “Nothing’s missing, as far as I can tell. It doesn’t look like anybody sat on the bed. Whoever it was just raised the toilet seat, unplugged the lamp, and moved the chair out from under the table for a spell.”

  “Or you could have done those things yourself. You’re getting to that age when folks start forgetting things like where they parked their car at the supermarket. The other day I saw Bur Grapper pushing a shopping cart all over the parking lot. He tried to tell me he was looking at the different models—but I didn’t just get off the turnip truck.”

  Ruby Bee put her hands on her hips. “I am nowhere near that age, Estelle Oppers! Bur was old enough to vote by the time I was born. Now are you gonna stay here or not? I need to get some cobblers in the oven.”

  “I expect I will, but only so that you won’t have to worry about me all alone with those hissy birds watching through the windows.”

  “Don’t knock yourself out on my account.” Ruby Bee marched out the door, resisting the urge to bang it closed behind her, and headed for the barroom. “Who said I was gonna worry?” she demanded of a starling perched on a garbage can.

  “Now whatta we do?” asked Kevin as he squirmed in the muddy leaves, trying to get away from the water dripping off the bluff above him.

  Dylan was leaning against a rock at the back of the recess. “Just keep a lookout. We only had a fifteen-minute head start, so the others should be getting close by now. Don’t squawk when you see someone coming. Give me a hand signal, okay?”

  Kevin clutched the rifle he’d been issued and stared so hard at the line of trees that his eyeballs bulged. It was more exciting than a John Wayne movie, he thought, but scary, too. He and Dylan had been assigned to defend the position while everybody else tried to capture them. His pa and Mr. McIlhaney hadn’t looked all that enthusiastic, but they’d accepted weapons and had been listening to General Pitts’s orders when he and Dylan had lit out of the campsite. That meant it was seven against two.

  “You ever been in a real battle?” he asked Dylan. “You know, with bullets instead of paint pellets and fellows trying to shoot you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you shoot anybody?”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it? It wouldn’t be much of a battle if nobody shot anybody else. Shut up a minute. I thought I heard something above us. Keep watching the treeline.” He crawled out to the ledge and stood up to peer at the bluff.

  Kevin reminded himself that this was a make-believe battle. General Pitts had assured them that the paint pellets might sting but would do no damage. It wasn’t like they’d be taken prisoner and subjected to torture. The worst that could happen was they’d lose the game. His pa’d laugh at him, but he did that anyway.

  “Ow!” yelped Dylan.

  “What’s the matter?” demanded Kevin as he scrambled to his feet without thinking, and promptly banged his head so hard he went sprawling back into the leaves. He was about to repeat his question when a gun was fired from the woods. Whimpering, he covered his head and wiggled to the back of the recess.

  After a moment, he found the courage to lift his head. Dylan was gone, which was a puzzlement. Had he been taken prisoner without so much as a peep? Or had he abandoned their position? It didn’t seem like a comradely thing to do, Kevin thought as he cautiously wiggled back out to the rocky ledge. He couldn’t see anybody in the brush on the hillside; he rolled over and looked up, but he didn’t see anybody there either.

  “This is a fine kettle of fish!” he said peevishly, but softly so’s not to tip off the enemy, who had to be around somewhere.

  A drop of cold water splashed his nose. He rolled back over and continued wiggling until he reached the edge. Risking life, limb, and a paint pellet to the forehead, he looked down.

  Six feet below, Dylan lay flat on the ground, his arms and legs flung out as if he were hanging on to keep from being sucked up by a tornado. On his shoulder was a spreading stain that Kevin realized was not paint. There’d been a gunshot, he reminded himself as he scrambled down to Dylan and poked his arm.

  “You okay?” he said, gulping.

  Dylan opened his eyes. “Not really, so maybe you’d better get help.”

  “Yeah, right, that’s what I’m gonna do.” Kevin took a couple of breaths in case there were more orders. When none were forthcoming, he went galloping downhill. He stopped as he reached the line of trees and waved at Dylan, who was sitting up. “Stay there!” he shouted, then plunged into the brush.

  It was slow going. Thorns snagged him with every step, and roots lay in wait to trip him. It hadn’t seemed this rough when he and Dylan had come up from the camp, he was thinking as he stepped in the entrance of a burrow and fell on his face.

  He was blinking back tears of frustration as he got to his feet, but he was determined to carry on just like the Duke did when he was leading his men through the jungle. Sure, his ankle hurt and his hands were muddy, but he was a soldier. Nothing was gonna prevent him from carrying out the mission. He’d taken one step when the paint pellet hit him in the middle of his chest.

  “Bang, you’re dead,” Reed said cheerfully as he materialized from behind a tree.

  Kevin looked down at the orange blotch. “You can’t just say ‘bang.’ You have to fire your gun.”

  “I used my blowgun.” Reed’s eyes narrowed and his voice turned ugly. “Did you split and leave Dylan up there by hisself? Are you a deserter?”

  “’Course not. I was coming—”

  “Then you must be a spy, and I caught you behind enemy lines. If this was the real thing, we could hang you without bothering with a trial.”

  Kevin glanced involuntarily at a nearby branch, then remembered why he was there. “Dylan was shot, and not with a paint pellet. His shoulder’s all bloody. He was sitting up when I left him, though, so he ain’t dead or anything like that.”
r />   “Damn!” said Reed. He took a fat pistol out of his pocket and fired into the air. A flare streaked toward the bluff. “That’ll bring everybody. You wait here. When Kayleen shows up, tell her to get the medical kit.”

  Kevin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to salute, but he went ahead and did it. “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 9

  Mrs. Jim Bob’s timing was as uncanny as Harve’s. Thirty seconds after I’d arrived back at the PD after a fruitless trip to Mayfly and was debating whether to do anything about the red light flashing on the answering machine, she burst through the door.

  “There you are!” she snapped.

  “Well, that’s good to know. I’ve been wondering all week where I was.”

  Mrs. Jim Bob blinked, then said, “Let’s have no more flippant remarks, missy. I want to file a missing person report.”

  “He’s at the deer camp. Ruby Bee saw him loading up cases of beer and supplies yesterday morning.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said as she sank down in the visitor’s chair and pursed her lips so tightly veins popped out in her neck. After a long moment of silence, she said, “I don’t know why Ruby Bee would say such a thing. She may not have much admiration for him, but she wouldn’t stoop so low as to make up a bald-faced lie like that. Doesn’t she have any regard for his reputation?”

  That was not a topic I wanted to explore. “Why don’t you rent a four-wheel-drive and go roam around Cotter’s Ridge until you find the deer camp? I’m sure the guys will be delighted to show you around and get some remodeling hints for the outhouse.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  I crossed my eyes. “I might be. I certainly must be hearing voices, because I distinctly heard someone imply that Ruby Bee should have regard for Jim Bob’s reputation. I hate to break it to you like this, but—”

  “Who said anything about Jim Bob?”

  “Then who’s missing?” I said, surprised.

  “Brother Verber. He hasn’t been seen since the Wednesday evening prayer service. I want you to fill out a missing person report and issue a countywide alert. It’s possible he had an accident and is bleeding to death in a ditch somewhere.”

  I leaned back in the chair and settled my feet on the corner of the desk. “He’s only been gone for three days. Don’t you think it’s premature to start planning his funeral?”

  Mrs. Jim Bob took out a hankie to dab at her nose. “I just know that something terrible has happened to him. How can I live with myself if I don’t do everything possible to save him? I realize you don’t believe in the power of prayer, being an atheist and all, but I have prayed for his return and begged the Lord to watch over him and keep him out of the arms of the wretched trollop.”

  “Wretched trollop?” I said.

  “That pawn store woman,” she said with a shudder. “Brother Verber was riding in her car Wednesday afternoon when he was supposed to be discussing the Thanksgiving pageant. Four hours later he vanished like a puff of smoke. I find that suspicious, and you should, too.” She wadded up the hankie in her fist and leaned forward to stare at me. “What if he agreed to go with her after the service, and she took him to an abandoned house where devil worshipers meet and they sacrificed him to Satan?”

  “Isn’t it more likely that he heard about a sale on plastic poinsettias and dashed off to buy some to decorate the Assembly Hall next month?”

  “He would have told me,” Mrs. Jim Bob said firmly. “We have a close spiritual bond based on the strength of our faith in the Lord. While we’re on the subject, you could use a healthy dose of that, couldn’t you? If you’d bother to read the Book of Revelations, you’d be a sight more worried about eternity.”

  “It feels as if this conversation has been going on for an eternity,” I said as I stood up. “If Brother Verber’s not back tomorrow for the morning service, I’ll ask the sheriff to have his deputies keep an eye out for him. I don’t think we can call in the FBI until you get a ransom note.”

  “Will you question that woman?”

  “When I get a chance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. You wouldn’t want me to get behind on all this fascinating paperwork and disgrace the badge bestowed on me by Hizzoner himself, would you?”

  Mrs. Jim Bob tilted her head so she could look down her nose at me. “These days there’s little doubt in most folks’ minds that this is not a suitable job for a woman.”

  On that note, she swept out the door. I waited a moment in case she reappeared with another parting shot, then hit the button on the answering machine. The first two messages were from Ruby Bee and had something to do with upright toilet seats and shag carpet. The third was from LaBelle.

  “Get yourself over to where the make-believe soldiers are camping,” she said. “Sheriff Dorfer will meet you there. Ten-four.”

  Sometimes LaBelle goes through a phase of watching cop shows on television, so I figured she wasn’t telling me the time of the message. I put on my coat while I listened to the last message, which again had to do with a toilet seat, then drove out to the old Wockermann place.

  As soon as I’d passed the farmhouse, I saw half a dozen vehicles at the far side of the pasture. I followed a path of flattened corn stalks and parked between an ambulance and a monstrosity that could probably drive up a tree. Earl Buchanon and Jeremiah McIlhaney were sitting in one of the pickups, passing a whiskey bottle back and forth. Neither looked particularly pleased when I approached them.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Where’s everybody?”

  Earl pointed a stubby finger at the ridge. “Way the hell up there, but I don’t rightly know where. The camp’s not too far on the other side of the gully. The sheriff said to tell you a deputy would be waiting there for you.”

  “What are you and Jeremiah doing, Earl?”

  “Drinkin’ whiskey so we won’t freeze our butts off. The sheriff wants to talk to us after they bring down the body.”

  “Whose body?” I asked, wishing he was a tad more communicative.

  Jeremiah bent forward to look at me. “A young fellow name of Dylan Gilbert. It sounds like he caught a bullet from a hunter.”

  Earl took a drink of whiskey and wiped his mouth with his hand. “I wish to hell we hadn’t showed up in the first place. Eileen ain’t gonna like it, especially when she finds out Kevin was here, too.”

  “Millicent’s gonna be hotter than a peppermill that I didn’t get the truck back so her and Darla Jean could go shoppin’ in Farberville,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll hear about this till Christmas.”

  “I’ll hear about it till Easter.”

  “Well, I’ll hear about it till the Fourth of July.”

  I left them to discuss the impending repercussions and went across the gully. Les was leaning against a tree at the campsite, which consisted of four small tents, several coolers and cartons, and the smoldering remains of a campfire. “You made it, huh?” he said.

  “It looks like it. What’s going on?”

  He gave me an abbreviated version of the scenario as we walked uphill. “What I don’t understand,” he added, “is why a bunch of grown men want to play ‘Rambo on the Ridge’ when it’s the middle of deer season. A couple of years back a woman was shot in her own backyard. She thought she was safe on account of posting her land, but she didn’t realize how far a bullet travels. That’s likely to be what happened here. Somewhere on the ridge is a guy that’s cussing up a storm ’cause he missed a buck. He’ll never know what he really hit.”

  I was too busy battling the brush to respond. Five minutes later we came into an open area. Harve was puffing on a cigar butt as he watched the paramedics zip up a black body bag. At his feet were strange-looking pistols, each with a tag. Standing in a group were Pitts, Kayleen, the guy who’d introduced himself the previous evening at Ruby Bee’s, and two guys I’d never seen before. All of them wore olive drab and boots, although Kayleen still looked quite stylish. Kevin was sitting on a stump, his bony shoulders hunched, hi
s face puckered, and his Adam’s apple rippling as if he were trying to swallow a ping pong ball.

  “Hey, Harve,” I said as I joined him. “Les told me what happened. Are you really satisfied it was an accident?”

  “I reckon so. Les and I checked these morons’ pistols, and the only thing they can fire are paint pellets. We’ll have ballistics check ’em out just to be sure.”

  The paramedics picked up the stretcher. “We’re out of here,” one of them said. “You shouldn’t hang around, either. It’s not the safest place I’ve been lately.”

  Harve waited until the paramedics reached the line of trees. “Okay, everybody down to pasture. We’ve got some talking to do before you pack your gear and get the hell out of here. Those of you who live elsewhere had better not come back, either.”

  Sterling harrumped like an ancient bullfrog. “The First Amendment guarantees the right of the people to assemble peaceably. That is precisely what we were doing, and will do so again if we so choose. You are a public servant.”

  “Don’t expect me to wash your windows,” Harve said, then stomped on the cigar butt and took off down the hill. Everybody else followed him, except for Kevin, who was surreptitiously wiping his eyes.

  “Come on,” I said to him. “Like the guy said, this is not the safest place.”

  “This is all my fault. It was my first mission, and I failed. Dylan told me how we was supposed to watch out for each other. He said that’s what they do in a platoon, and we shook hands on it. He even said I was gonna make a real fine WASP.”

  “As in White Anglo-Saxon Protestant?” I said, confused as usual when trying to follow Kevin’s thought process. “That’s what you already are.”

  “No, it stands for White Aryan Superior … something or other. Patriot, mebbe. I’d start out as a private, but Dylan said I’d be promoted in no time.”