The Maggody Militia Read online

  I gave up worrying about him and drove to the sheriff’s department. LaBelle was on the phone, this time talking about her bladder infection. She eyed me coldly, then pointed toward Harve’s office and resumed reciting her symptoms. She sounded especially proud of her urinary tract.

  “Any update from McBeen?” I asked Harve as I came through the doorway.

  “Not yet.” He held up a plastic bag. “This here’s the slug from the boy’s shoulder. It could have been fired from any hunting rifle from here to the North Pole.” He slumped back and sighed. “McBeen said he’d have a better chance at finding the cause of death if he had the boy’s medical records. We went through his wallet, but all we found was two hundred and thirty-seven dollars. That plastic doohickey where most folks keep their driver’s license and credit cards was empty.”

  “He worked at the same garage as Reed. Aren’t they supposed to have his Social Security number?”

  “Supposed to, yeah. The guy that owns the place said the kid kept stalling, and then quit on Thursday. They settled up out of the cash register.”

  I told Harve what little I’d learned about Dylan, most of it based on the befuddled speculation of the militia. “Frankly,” I admitted, “I’m not sure if any of it’s true, including the truck being parked in town. It is peculiar that he didn’t have any identification with him, though. You’d think the FBI or the ATF could have produced fake documents for an undercover agent.” I took the notebook out of my pocket, opened it to the single entry, and tossed it on the desk. “I found this in Dylan’s bag. See what you make of it.”

  Harve whistled softly. “An Ingram MAC ten is a right serious automatic pistol, and the rest of it looks like the serial number. I’ll follow up on it.”

  “I wish you’d follow up on getting information from the feds,” I muttered. “There’s an FBI office here, but all I got was a recorded message telling me to call during regular business hours. A guy at the Little Rock office gave me a number in DC. The guy there was as helpful as a chunk of asphalt. I had the same reaction from the ATF. It’s possible you or the county prosecutor can get something out of them.”

  “I know ol’ Tinker Tonnato, the local FBI agent. I guess he figures the terrorists are gonna have to twiddle their thumbs while he gets in some weekend hunting. I’ll call him first thing Monday morning.”

  “Even if Dylan had a medical condition, whoever fired the rifle is still looking at a charge of first degree murder.” I picked up the plastic bag and studied the misshapen lump of steel. “You sure you and Les got all their weapons?”

  “Yeah,” Harve said as he reached for a cigar. “All the fellows staying at the camp had handguns and the Rondly boy had a rifle, but they kept them locked in their vehicles. Earl Buchanon told me that Pitts was the only one to come back to the pasture, and that was to use the phone in that ridiculous-looking tank of his. The only other weapon any of them had in their possession was the flare gun that Rondly used to signal there was an emergency.”

  Noxious smoke was drifting toward me, so I put down the plastic bag and stood up. “How did the press conference go? Did you win any votes?”

  “I told ’em we’re doing everything we can short of assigning a deputy to every house set off by itself. A couple of the reporters had the same idea you did. At least I could tell them we’d already eliminated anything the homeowners might have had in common. My best guess is the perps are watching the houses somehow.”

  “From the woods?” I said dryly. “They sit in trees and train binoculars on the back door on the chance the owners are going to come out carrying luggage? What are the odds they’d get lucky six times in the last month? And think about Mayfly, Harve. They waited two or three days before they broke in, which means they were pretty damn confident that Mrs. Coben and her daughter would be gone for more than a day.”

  “Did either of them tell anybody?”

  “Mrs. Coben said she mentioned their trip to a couple of people who live out that way. Heidi had broken up with her boyfriend a couple of weeks earlier, and she was holed up at home, sulking and refusing to talk to anybody. Katherine Avenued may have told people, but Heidi described her as being so shy she rarely smiled or spoke to anybody. Katherine’s neighbors at the apartment house had never done more than say hello to her on the sidewalk, and her classmates and co-workers said the same thing. Besides, Mayfly is at least twenty miles away from the other houses that were burglarized.”

  “I know,” Harve said, “but there has to be something, damn it! We can’t blame it on a full moon, since that doesn’t happen six times a month.”

  I told Harve I’d keep him posted, then drove back to Maggody, hoping I’d be in time to see Reed Rondly’s reaction when the process server knocked on the door.

  Not much had changed in my absence. Mrs. Jim Bob’s Cadillac was still parked in front of the Assembly Hall, and Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill was still closed. Les had been relieved by an unfamiliar deputy who introduced himself as Corporal Batson and assured me that although there’d been some movement between units, no one had left the motel parking lot. A car, presumably Barry Kirklin’s, was parked next to Reed’s truck. Estelle’s station wagon was still gone. I was warning Batson about the process server when Sterling came out of #5.

  “I have been waiting for you for more than two hours,” he said. “That lame-brained deputy refuses to allow us to do something about dinner. Kayleen called the barroom, but no one answered. Prisoners of war are treated better than this, Chief Hanks. The Fifth Amendment clearly prohibits the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.”

  “Are you suggesting that I arrest you? It’s okay with me.”

  “On Monday morning I shall place a call to the lieutenant governor to make a formal complaint. Now, what do you propose to do in order that we receive a decent meal?”

  “I’ll send the lame-brained deputy over to the supermarket to get some roots and berries. If you all promise to behave, you can have a picnic out here in your tank. Half the town could probably squeeze into the back seat. How much did this thing cost?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he said, then closed his door.

  I asked Batson to go across the road to purchase sandwiches and soft drinks, then sat on the hood of my car and tried to envision what had taken place on Cotter’s Ridge earlier in the day. None of the current residents of the Flamingo seemed to have an adequate motive to take a shot at Dylan. Sterling, Barry, and Jake suspected Dylan had been a federal agent, but they weren’t firmly convinced. Reed and Kayleen were skeptical, at best. And none of them had been carrying a rifle.

  Perhaps Harve’s first assessment was right, I told myself, and the incident had been nothing more than a coincidence of cosmic dimensions. The burglaries could be that, too, although it was hard to ignore the parallels in all six of them. My eyes drifted to the window of #3 as I remembered what Kayleen had said about Maurice’s murder. They’d been awakened by the sound of breaking glass.

  I slid off the hood and walked across the lot to knock on her door. When she opened it, I said, “May I come in? I need to ask you something.”

  Barry and Reed had taken refuge in her room until they could get into their unit. Reed was stretched out on the bed, muddy boots and all, with a beer balanced on his belly. Barry was seated by a table, where it looked as though he and Kayleen were in the midst of a card game.

  “Did you find out what killed Dylan?” asked Kayleen. “Was it a heart attack?”

  “We don’t know yet,” I said, “and most likely won’t for a day or two. I realize this is a sensitive subject, but I want to ask you about the night Maurice was killed.”

  “Poor old Mo,” drawled Reed, lifting his head to take a gulp of beer.

  Kayleen sat down at the table. “Why, Arly? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what happened today.”

  Barry leaned forward to squeeze her hand. “I don’t see how it could, but it won’t hurt to answer a few questions.”
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br />   “I suppose not,” she said unhappily.

  Feeling a bit like an employee of the Spanish Inquisition, I said, “I’m sure you’re aware that Elsie Buchanon’s house was burglarized last week. There have been some other burglaries, too, and I’m trying to find a link.”

  “Like what?”

  “For starters, were you and Maurice supposed to have been away on a trip when the break-in took place?”

  She thought for a long moment. “Maurice had suggested going to a gun show somewhere—Kansas City, I think—but we didn’t like the looks of the weather.” She swallowed several times and her eyes filled with tears. “If we’d decided to go, Maurice would still be alive, wouldn’t he? It was my doing, since I was the one who was afraid the roads might turn icy.”

  Reed belched. “That don’t mean Mo’d be around these days. He was old as the hills, and so gimpy he could barely get around. Every meeting we had, all he’d do is complain about his damn prostrate or whatever it was.”

  “Shut up!” snapped Barry.

  I touched Kayleen’s shoulder. “Did you or your husband tell anyone that you were going to Kansas City? A neighbor, maybe, or a storekeeper?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, “and I don’t think Maurice did, although I can’t be sure. He did a lot of business over the telephone. If someone had wanted to make an appointment, he might have mentioned the possibility of a trip. Do you think the burglars broke in because they believed the house was empty?”

  I nodded. “That’s the only thing we’ve come up with thus far. I guess I’d better call the sheriff’s department over in Chowden County. We might be able to exchange some information and figure out if the same perps simply moved their operation to Stump County.”

  Barry began to gather up the cards. “Any idea when we can get in our room?”

  “Did any of your training include a course in picking locks?” I asked. “Or were you too busy learning how to survive on pizza and beer?”

  He gave me a level look. “Anyone with a credit card could get past these locks. Want me to demonstrate?”

  Before I could answer, there was a knock on the door. I admitted Corporal Batson, who was carrying several sacks from the SuperSaver.

  “Hope ham ’n cheese is okay with everybody,” he said apologetically. He handed me a bill. “I said you’d drop by and settle up. You can probably get the sheriff to reimburse you. It may take a while, though. Our budget’s so tight we can’t afford to fix the microwave in the break room.”

  I told Barry that he and Reed could move into #6, and Kayleen was distributing sandwiches to her guests as the deputy and I left the room. In #5, I could see Sterling hunched in front of a computer screen, his expression indicative that he wasn’t having much luck in his endeavor. Wondering if he was trying to make contact with the Colorado group, I took a sandwich and soda out of one of the sacks and went back across the lot.

  He jerked open the door before I could knock. “It’s about time, Chief Hanks. I’m beginning to feel lightheaded from lack of food. Proper nutrition is vital to maintaining mental acuity.”

  “Is that protected by the Constitution, too?” I said as I handed him the sandwich. “Does one of the amendments guarantee three square meals a day?”

  “The Constitution should be treated with reverence, not derision. It’s our only defense against the federal government and its illegitimate manipulation of individual rights.”

  I fluttered my eyelashes. “Hope ham ’n cheese is okay, General Pitts.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard it,” Jim Bob said, flipping over his cards and pushing back his chair. “More than likely Diesel’s playin’ Injun and taken to beating a tom-tom, or maybe those screwy militia boys are firing cannons at the low-water bridge.”

  Larry Joe peeked at his hole card to see if it had transformed itself into an ace, then gestured at Roy to rake the pot. “That don’t explain what I saw—and I know I saw something straight out of one of Brother Verber’s hell-and-damnation sermons. It was evil.”

  “I heard it, too,” inserted Roy as he arranged the chips into tidy stacks.

  “So what?” said Jim Bob. “That doesn’t prove it’s a friggin’ demon here to punish us for taking a few days off to relax. Now if I was at the delectable Cherri Lucinda’s love nest, I might be worried that Mrs. Jim Bob had struck a deal with Satan. I wouldn’t put it past her to sell my soul for a new Cadillac. In fact, I can see her writing up the contract, with Brother Verber there at her side to notarize it.”

  Larry Joe went to the window to peer out at the utter darkness. “This ain’t anything to joke about, Jim Bob. Roy saw the tracks in the mud, and you yourself heard that noise.”

  Jim Bob grunted. “I heard a noise, not a demonic screech. I reckon I need to make a trip to the outhouse. Will my rifle be enough protection, or should I take a submachine gun and a bible?”

  He grabbed a flashlight and went out the door, mumbling to himself about nervous Nellies. The weeds had been trampled into a serviceable path that led around the corner of the trailer and fifty feet down the hillside to an outhouse fashioned of irregular scraps of plywood and a warped sheet of siding. The corrugated tin roof provided minimal protection from rain and gusts of wind.

  After he’d finished his business, he came back out and pointed the flashlight at the tangle of vines that Larry Joe kept harping about. He saw exactly what he expected to see, which was nothing more than whatever Mother Nature had planted. Larry Joe had been teaching school too long, Jim Bob decided as he let the beam of the flashlight bobble on the runty trees. Maybe being surrounded by all those hormones had addled his mind.

  Jim Bob decided to have himself a little fun. He positioned himself behind the rusty carcass of an old truck, switched off the flashlight, and threw a pebble at the kitchen window. The resulting clink was sharp and loud. Within seconds, Larry Joe’s face appeared in the window, and Roy’s just behind him. Their expressions were so bumfuzzled that it was all Jim Bob could do not to start laughing.

  Eventually they moved away from the window. Jim Bob gave them a couple of minutes to persuade each other that a bird had crashed into the window, then threw another pebble. This time Roy reached the window first, with Larry Joe a close second. Their jaws were wagging something fierce, and Jim Bob could see the whites of their eyes.

  He found a third pebble and was leaning back to scare the holy shit out of them when he heard a crackle directly behind him. He spun around. What he saw was enough to make him drop the flashlight and bolt for the trailer.

  Despite her in-laws’ objections, Dahlia had insisted on being taken home so she could be there if Kevvie turned up. Now she kinda wished she hadn’t, what with the wind rattling the loose shingles and rustling the leaves alongside the house.

  She turned on the television for company, and was heading for the kitchen when another of those dad-burned contractions stopped her in her tracks. The doctor had called them by some fancy name and told her she’d be getting them as the due date got closer, but that wasn’t much comfort when her innards were being squeezed like someone was wringing out wet laundry. To top it off, Kevin Junior kicked so hard that a warm dribble ran down her leg.

  Once the contraction eased, she went on into the kitchen for a diet soda and a handful of carrot sticks, then sat down across from the television. The silly sitcom did nothing to keep her from brooding. Kevvie had no business going off like this, she thought as she chomped away like a leaf shredder. Here she was, within weeks of havin’ the baby, and she was all alone, tormented by the contractions, poking her finger all the time, visiting the potty every ten minutes, and reduced to carrot and celery sticks whenever her stomach rumbled.

  “I hope you don’t turn out like your pa,” she said to Kevin Junior. “He’s about as useless as a one-horned cow. What’s more, he’s liable to git his sorry self fired on account of missing work. Jim Bob’s kin, but he ain’t gonna be thinking of that when he kicks your pa out the door. We’ll all end up at one of those
homeless shelters.”

  The very idea set her lower lip to quivering, and tears to sliding down her cheeks. Her granny had grown up during the Depression, and her stories about scrimping for food were scarier than any tales told around the campfire during church camp—shoes with cardboard soles, clothes from charity stores, watery soup and stale bread.

  Dahlia was reduced to snuffling when the telephone rang. She lunged for the receiver. “Kevvie?”

  “No, this is Idalupino down at the SuperSaver. Listen, I just heard something peculiar. My second cousin Canon Buchanon was just here, and he said he saw Kevin’s car parked by the low-water bridge. Nobody was in the car. He didn’t see a body floating in the creek or lying on the gravel bar, but it was right dark and he was leery of going into the woods after what happened this morning. Anyways, I thought you’d want to know about the car.”

  “Thanks,” Dahlia said numbly. She replaced the receiver and slumped back, doing her best to come up with some sort of explanation for what she’d heard. It had to do with that militia game, she figured, since Kevvie’s pa had told them about all those grown folks pretending to be soldiers. Eileen had been real scornful, but Dahlia had been a little proud that Kevvie had been chosen for such an important role. She wasn’t clear about why they were told they were gorillas, unless they were pretending that Cotter’s Ridge was a jungle.

  A contraction interrupted her laborious thought process. She grimaced and moaned her way through it, then went into the bedroom and searched the dresser drawers for another pamphlet that might tell about an evening meeting. Finding nothing of significance, she checked under his pillow and on his shelf in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

  She trudged back into the living room and dialed her in-laws’ number. The line was busy. What if, she asked herself, Kevvie was lost on Cotter’s Ridge, all cold and scared and hungry? Or even worse, if he’d been shot like that other fellow and was bleeding like a stuck pig while she sat at home eating carrot sticks?