The Merry Wives of Maggody Page 17

  “Nobody understands me,” Mrs. Jim Bob wailed. “I’ve sacrificed everything for this community, everything! Without moral guidance, people would lie and steal and fornicate with farm animals. It’s up to me to maintain the standards of decency laid out in the Bible, even if it means living with ridicule and gossip behind my back. Don’t think I’m unaware of it, Arly Hanks!”

  She was now drinking straight from the bottle. I gave Frederick a faint smile and left him to deal with her. The storm had rumbled its way out of the valley and the rain was easing up. I stepped in a puddle as I went to my car. My clothes were wet, and my right shoe squished as I drove down the driveway. I thought about Harve, stretched out in a recliner in front of the TV, the remote in one hand and a beer in the other. The kitchen at Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill would be redolent with the heady aroma of parsley, sage, rosemary, and chocolate cream pie. Even my so-called efficiency apartment with its mold and mildew was preferable to my car, which was beginning to smell like manure from my trips to the golf course.

  Duty beckoned. I bit down on my lip and drove once again up to the tournament site, wondering if Natalie truly had arranged another ride or simply wanted to get away from Janna for a while. All the likely suspects were at the motel. One of the ladies might have taken Natalie home with her, but I couldn’t imagine who. Natalie was the enemy: young and willowly, reputedly an excellent golfer. Frederick had claimed she had a sparkle in her eye. Such descriptions were better suited for romance novels, along with sultry smiles and tingles of lust. It was more likely she’d been slapped in the eye by a wet branch.

  The tent looked even bleaker. As I turned around, I saw Raz sitting on his porch. I stopped and put down the car window. “Have you seen anybody around here since the tournament was stopped?” I called.

  “Mebbe.” He took a sip from a jar and smacked his lips. “Or mebbe not. What’s it to you?”

  “A young girl’s missing. One of the golfers.”

  “I don’t give a shit if all them golfers drownded in the pond. Long about August we’ll start seeing their swelled-up bodies in the muck. Won’t be a purty sight.”

  “It won’t be a purty sight if I wring your scrawny neck. Have you seen anybody in the last two hours?”

  “Saw you prancin’ around. I was hopin’ you’d fall flat on your ass in the mud.”

  “Who else?” I said coldly.

  “That woman you was talkin’ to. She’s a mean one, like my half brother Smutter. He was so ornery he used to dump kerosene in the well and toss in a bucket of frogs, just to watch ’em belly up. I reckon that woman would, too.”

  “What about before that? A blond girl, maybe carrying a golf club?”

  Raz grinned complacently at me. “What’s it worth to ya?”

  “You think I don’t know about that stash of ’shine in the root cellar behind Belcher’s old cabin? What’s that worth to you?”

  “Ain’t no root cellar up there, and iff’n there is, there ain’t nu-thin’ in it.” He spat an amber ribbon toward a bucket, then glowered at me like a treed possum. “About ten minutes after ever’body left, the gal walked by. I offered to let her sit a spell on the porch to git out of the rain, but she acted like she din’t hear me.”

  “Did you see anybody else?”

  “I had to go inside and change channels on the TV. Marjorie gits right bored watching baseball. If she had her druthers, she’d watch them reality shows all day and half the night.” He cackled so hard that moths flew out of his beard. “She likes cooking shows, too. Jest last night we was watching—”

  “Thanks, Raz,” I said, then returned to my car. Close encounters with Raz always made me itchy, but I didn’t have time for a shower and a change of clothes. Natalie had been on foot, heading toward the highway. It was less than a mile, and the chances of being attacked by a buffalo were slim. I would have noticed if she was lying in a ditch. But she had been talking with Kevin earlier in the day, I thought. With almost no encouragement, Kevin would bleat out all his woes—including the fact that Dahlia and the kids were staying at his ma’s house. If she’d seen him leave with Jim Bob or one of the tontine members, she’d know his house was unoccupied.

  • • •

  I parked, opened the gate, and went up squeaky steps to the porch. It seemed silly to knock, since I was a cop and she was committing a crime. If this were a scene from a TV drama, the SWAT team would have kicked in the door and stormed the house. This being mundane reality, the door wasn’t locked. I went into the living room, which was decorated in yard sale chic. An upturned playpen dominated the middle of the room; mangled toys were scattered among juice boxes and bits of orange peel. The plastic houseplants were near death. A golf club, quite possibly a wedge, was propped in a corner.

  “Natalie?” I called. “I know you’re here. I’m not in the mood to play hide-and-seek, so don’t make me come find you in a closet.” I wandered into the kitchen. Jars of peanut butter and grape jelly on the counter tempted me, but I didn’t want to humiliate myself in front of my imaginary SWAT team. I squared my shoulders and returned to the living room.

  “Hey, Chief Hanks,” she said as she came in from the hallway, a towel in her hand. “I know I’m trespassing, but I had to get out of the rain. I kind of feel like Goldilocks. Thank gawd I didn’t find three bowls of porridge on the kitchen table.”

  Her skin was perfect, I had to admit. Her teeth were white and even. She wasn’t as tall as I was, but she probably weighed thirty pounds less. Her ash blond hair was wet but neatly combed and tied back with a pink ribbon, accentuating her high cheekbones and guileless blue eyes. She’d managed not to get mud on her short pleated skirt or bug bites on her ankles.

  “Janna’s worried about you,” I said. “She expected to see you two hours ago.”

  Natalie sighed. “I know. I keep waiting for her to have a GPS chip implanted under my skin. That way she’ll be able to tell when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.” She pushed aside a plastic truck and sat down on the sofa. “Can you imagine what it’s like to have someone spying on you every minute? She keeps a record of everything I eat and drink. I take a handful of vitamins and supplements twice a day. She inspects my fingernails. Sometimes I want to scream.”

  “Slavery was abolished in the nineteenth century. Why don’t you leave?”

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s like I was a scruffy dog at the pound and she rescued me. I’d be a terrible person if I wasn’t grateful to her. I was living with my mom and a brood of brothers and sisters in a little town near Fort Sill, over in Oklahoma. My mom’s an alcoholic and, well, a slut. She doesn’t even know the names of the fathers of most of the kids, including mine. I don’t remember her ever keeping a job for more than a couple of weeks. I dropped out of school and started working at a café when I was fourteen. I was terrified I’d end up like her.”

  “And Janna rescued you.” I sat down and gazed steadily at her, trying to get a sense of her sincerity. I’ve always had a tendency to mistrust beautiful people. “How did she do that?”

  “Fort Sill’s an army camp. I started dating a corporal, a real nice boy from Iowa, and he taught me how to play golf.” She picked up a stuffed animal and squeezed it in her arms. “It wasn’t serious or anything. He had a girlfriend back home, and he was crazy about her. He told me he kept all her letters under his pillow so he’d dream about her. I thought that was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.”

  “Where does Janna come in?”

  “She saw me at the golf course and told me I had a natural talent. I didn’t even know you could make money playing golf, but she swore that I’d be able to make millions—with her help. My mother couldn’t have cared less what happened to me, so she signed some kind of guardianship paper. Janna resigned from the army, and we moved to an apartment in Farberville so I could play on better courses. I started competing in tournaments at the country club, and then in bigger ones. Golf Digest did an article about me. Sports Illustrated wanted me to b
e in their swimsuit issue, but Janna said no. She’s as concerned about my reputation as she is about my game. I spend all day practicing, working out at a gym, and running. At night, she makes me study history, grammar, boring old books, and that sort of stuff so I won’t sound ignorant. It’s not like the interviewers ever ask me about the Battle of Hastings.”

  It sounded like boot camp, minus the obstacle course and the firing range. Having met Janna, I had no trouble believing Natalie. “How does she afford all this?”

  “She never spent a penny of her army pay, and now she gets a pension. She also teaches a couple of fitness classes at the gym. She’s so tough that half her clients crawl out to the parking lot after class. She took over a seniors’ class, and the manager had to call an ambulance three times in the first month.” Natalie giggled as if she were still fourteen and we were having a sleepover. I almost expected her to pass chips and dip, or pull out her yearbook.

  I had to remind myself that she wasn’t talking about the high school hierarchy. When I lived in Manhattan, I always took whichever fitness class was trendy at the time. We strolled rather than walked. We allowed our husbands to open wine bottles and doormen to open doors. Our most strenuous challenge was wielding credit cards. I was so lost in memories of my previous life that it took me a second to realize that someone was driving past the house. By the time I turned around to look out the window, the road was clear.

  “Did you see who that was?” I asked.

  Natalie shook her head. “The rain’s stopped. Do you think I should leave a note for Kevin’s wife, thanking her for letting me hang out here?”

  “Definitely not. She’s . . . ah, temperamental. Why did you come here, Natalie? Janna offered to wait and give you a ride to the motel, and so did Frederick Cartier. Were you planning to meet someone once the coast was clear?”

  “Who would I want to meet—some toothless redneck? One of those piggish local men? I may not have a degree, but I’m not an idiot. I just wanted some time to myself. Janna and I have been crammed in that tiny motel room since Friday.”

  “You managed to party Friday and Saturday nights,” I pointed out.

  “It wasn’t like there was anything else to do.”

  Hazy sunlight began to lighten the room. Before she could bolt, I said, “Tell me about the sexual assault. Who, where, when.”

  “Oh, that.” She made a face. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’d just as soon forget about it. Janna shouldn’t have mentioned it to you.”

  “Sexual assault’s a crime that I take very seriously,” I said. “I’ve been known to ignore shoplifting or running the stoplight, but this needs to be investigated.”

  “I was dashing across the parking lot when I slipped and tore my shirt. Janna jumped to the conclusion I’d been assaulted, and I was too tired to argue with her. Not that it would have done any good. She never listens to me.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you did on Friday, beginning with your arrival?”

  She began to wander around the room. “I’ll try,” she said at last, “but I may not remember every little thing. After we checked into the motel, we went to the golf course. As soon as I saw it, I was ready to pack up and go home, but Janna didn’t want to hear it. I played eighteen holes with Kale, some guy named Big Dick, and that asshole Bonaparte. If you want to know about Tommy, I met him a couple of years ago at a tournament in Tulsa. He was a fun guy and a real party animal. He’d won his flight and was buying drinks for everybody.” She smiled sadly. “Poor guy, getting killed like that. I hope he was so drunk that he didn’t suffer. Anyway, after the practice round there was an impromptu party in the bar, like a get-acquainted thing. Beer, burgers, pretzels, popcorn, dancing, whatever. At nine, Janna decided she was tired, so we went to our room. Once she took an antihistamine, she was out like a light. I couldn’t see just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, so I went back to the party and stayed until midnight or so. I guess I had a little too much to drink.”

  “So there was no assault,” I said. “You tripped in the parking lot between the two motel buildings. Instead of telling Janna the truth, you made up the story just so you wouldn’t have to admit to drinking.” When she shrugged, I went on. “Now tell me about yesterday. What did you do after Tommy made his hole-in-one?”

  “I was happy for him ’cause I knew how much he wanted to win the boat. I was playing with three men from Starley City. We finished the round and turned in our scorecards, and then they heard the news and drove off. I drank some champagne with Tommy. Janna glared at me, but I didn’t care, even if it meant running extra laps when I got home. Everybody else was drinking, too. After we ate, we went to the bar. Tommy was loud and obnoxious, to be honest. Bonaparte looked like he wanted to pick up the jukebox and drop it on him. Jim Bob was simmering like a pot of chili. Even Amanda Gilbert was muttering nasty things under her breath, and she doesn’t give a shit about golf tournaments. The only reason she tags along with her husband is to flirt with the golf studs.”

  “Where was Janna?” I asked.

  “She said she felt woozy and needed to go to bed. The next time I looked around for her, she was gone.”

  “Let’s talk about the little contest out on the highway after Ruby Bee closed the bar.” I put my forearms on my knees and leaned forward. “Don’t bother to deny it, Natalie. I’ve already got evidence.” I did a pretty good job of sounding confident, even though the golf balls in the ditch across from the SuperSaver were long gone.

  “It was so dumb,” she said. “I think it was Bonaparte’s idea, but I’m not sure. Everybody jumped right in. Phil Proodle said he’d award a bottle of scotch to the winner. Tommy was bragging how he was going to use the pot to buy fishing gear. Everybody was really mad at him. I thought the contest was a terrible idea, but I went along with it because I thought it was better than a lynch mob.”

  I doubted that she’d been all that reluctant to join in the fun. “Who ended up participating?”

  “Bonaparte, since it was his idea, and Tommy, who’d bet on the color of his eyes and figure out how to win. Amanda came along to bitch at Dennis. Jim Bob, that guy called Big Dick, and some other guys whose names I don’t remember. The pimply kid, Kale. Bopeep stormed off after her boyfriend said he was in. Proodle was the judge. About a dozen altogether, I’d say. I shouldn’t have worried about a hanging. Most of them were too drunk to tie their shoelaces.”

  “So who won?”

  Natalie rolled her eyes. “Take a wild guess. When I left, they were all arguing and Tommy was prancing around with a fistful of money, chortling like he’d won the U.S. Open. It was way after one o’clock, so it was lucky for me that Janna didn’t hear me come in. She thinks I should be in my pajamas by nine, reading a biography about a dead president.” She put her fingers to her lips. “Oops, I guess I shouldn’t say that with Tommy being . . .”

  “Dead,” I concluded for her. “You have no idea what happened after that?”

  “Sorry. If it’s okay with you, I should go to the motel and let Janna know that I’m okay.”

  “I’ll give you a ride.” I locked the front door when we left, hoping Dahlia never learned that her house had been invaded by a petite blonde who could get lost for a month in one of Dahlia’s dresses. As we drove to the Flamingo Motel, I again asked Natalie if she’d planned to meet anyone after the storm hit. She countered with questions about my job and how I got along with the sheriff and men like Jim Bob. Neither of us was satisfied when I dropped her in front of her motel room.

  Janna’s car was there. I waited for a moment in case I heard shrieking, then abandoned all pretenses of being a professional and headed to my apartment for a hot shower.

  Ten

  I was feeling new and improved as I went inside Ruby Bee’s. I wore my uniform and badge, and my hair was pinned up in a permafrost bun. Ruby Bee gave me a startled look, then ducked into the kitchen; Estelle merely watched me approach. I wasn’t sure if my latest sin was of omission or commission, but I didn
’t really care. Kathleen Wasson was seated in a booth, nibbling a grilled cheese sandwich. I sat down across from her. “You doing all right?” I asked her.

  “Oh, Chief Hanks, how kind of you to ask. What a horrible weekend this has been. That nice man was killed, and then the storm, and now we’re here for another day. I’ll have to call in sick tomorrow. I don’t know what we’ll do if I lose my job.” She put down the remains of the sandwich and pushed aside the plate. “I work for a housecleaning service and get paid by the hour, minimum wage. We barely squeeze by as it is, and it’s not like I can work a late shift. People don’t want you mopping floors and vacuuming in the evening.”

  “I’m sorry about all this. I can take your statement now, and then you can go back to Farberville so you won’t have to miss work. Ruby Bee will keep an eye on your son.”

  “I can’t leave Kale alone,” Kathleen said in a shocked voice. “He may play golf like an adult, but he’s not even old enough to vote.”

  I didn’t point out that her baby was currently drinking his weight with the good ol’ boys out back, most of whom thought a ballot was a sad song. “It’s your decision. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me about Friday and Saturday? I’ll catch up with Kale later.”

  Kathleen picked up a glass of iced tea with an unsteady hand, took a sip, and then put it down very carefully. At that rate, I thought, she’d finish it long about midnight. “Kale didn’t want to come on Friday, but I persuaded him. He’s done very well on the junior golf circuit, but it’s important that he makes a name for himself as a serious competitor in the future.” Her eyes began to well with tears. “I’ve raised him on my own,” she continued unsteadily. “His father took up with a mud wrestler named Betty Boob before Kale’s first birthday, and never paid a dime of child support or sent a Christmas present. Kale needed a father, a role model, someone to admire. I know I spoil him, and there are times when he’s surly. He’s still grateful in his own way.”