The Arly Hanks Mysteries Volume One Page 3

  “I was just on my way to check dealer tags with the state license department,” I said politely.

  I pushed past them and went to my car, a little surprised by the virulence of the attack. There’s no love lost between the town council and me, but we usually keep civil tongues when I appear to beg for a new box of pencils or a junior G-man fingerprint kit. They laugh, I laugh, and we adjourn till the next meeting. I’m always the last item on the agenda. It lets them wind up the meeting on a light note.

  Larry Joe and Roy were pulling up in Larry Joe’s pickup as I drove away. It seemed that all the local dignitaries were gathering at Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill, which was odd. The other two members of the town council were not present, but neither had made a meeting in several months. Harry Harbin was visiting his daughter in Miami Beach and wasn’t expected back until his arthritis eased. Old Jesse Buchanon was around somewhere, but he was so senile he couldn’t stop dribbling long enough to find the meeting room.

  I hung around the office the rest of the afternoon, working on the duck and filing my nails. Nobody called in with any information about Cal Withers, so I assumed he’d headed for Texarkana and points south. At six o’clock Paulie arrived to man the night shift. He was still pink around the gills from his session with Jaylee, whom he adored almost as much as his badge and radar gun.

  “Did Jaylee feel better when you left, Officer Buchanon?” I asked sweetly.

  He had the grace to blush. It was quite appealing on his boyish face; he’s the sort who’ll look eighteen when he’s forty-five, even though he’ll be balder than a coot’s ass. I’ll have all my hair and look fifty-five.

  “No word on Carl,” I said as I started for the door. “You can call the dispatcher if you want to, but I doubt she’ll have anything for you. Carl’s likely to be in New Orleans by tomorrow.”

  “I’ll handle him if he shows up,” Paulie said in a low voice. If he was doing an impersonation of John Wayne, I missed it.

  I walked across the highway to my apartment, which is above Roy Stiver’s antique shop. Maggody has a limited number of rental units, and I wasn’t about to move back home with Ruby Bee. There were several mobile homes available at the Pot O’Gold Mobile Home Park, but I lacked the moral fiber to live in a structure at which God aims tornados about once a month every spring. That left a tent or Roy’s apartment, which was dirt cheap, catty-corner from the police station, and not too bad if you squinted and used forty-watt light bulbs.

  Roy Stivers is an interesting old guy and a good landlord. Like the rest of us, he returned to Maggody when he got tired of life in the fast lane, but he stayed gone thirty years while his mother ran the antique store. It’s one enormous room, colder than a witch’s tit, and crammed full of glassware and old books. The tourists stop a lot, thinking they can pull a swift one on grizzled old country boy Roy. He chaws around with them, playing the rube, and reluctantly lets them buy an old table for twice its value. I’m the only one who knows he writes poetry in the little office in the back of the store. He had a volume of poetry published about twenty years ago. I read it, but most of it was above my head or below my knees—I never could decide. Roy and I occasionally sit around the stove and drink bourbon. I noticed he wasn’t around as I climbed the stairs behind the store.

  I was working on a bowl of chicken noodle soup when the telephone rang. It was Paulie, and he was rattled. At last I determined that a real live state trooper was actually in our office, being officious and demanding to see me. I grabbed a jacket and strolled across the highway, not about to be intimidated by someone in mirror sunglasses.

  He wasn’t wearing the sunglasses, perhaps because we operate at an economy-minded wattage. I could see why Paulie was rattled, however; the guy was putting on a pretty darn serious show.

  “Chief of Police Hanks? I’m Sergeant Plover, State Police.”

  “I saw your cruiser outside,” I said as I slipped behind my desk. “You parked too far from the curb, but I’ll let it go this time.” A little joke—we don’t have any curbs in Maggody.

  He was a big man, as tall as I am but decidedly broader across the chest. I’m more vertical than horizontal myself. He looked to be about forty or so, his face chipped like a dish from the dump and his nose doing a zig where it should have zagged. Blond hair (longer than regulation, I’d have bet), brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles. He might have been all right when he smiled, but he sure wasn’t at the moment.

  “I appreciate your professional courtesy,” he said, although he didn’t sound real sincere. “We have a small problem, and I was sent to request your cooperation, Chief Hanks.”

  I propped my feet on the desk and grinned. In one corner of the room Paulie was slumped against the wall, gulping harder than a salmon going upstream, but I ignored him and kept my eyes on the trooper. “Sure, anything at all. I’m always willing to cooperate with the state police—you all are the ones who never ask me to dance. Does this have something to do with the escaped convict?”

  “No, we’ll get him before he reaches your jurisdiction. If he tries to hitch north, one of our boys will be polite enough to give him a ride back down to Pine Bluff. You don’t need to worry about that.”

  What he meant was that I didn’t need to bother my pretty little head with such scary things—it was plainer than day in his eyes and tolerant smile. “Ooh, thank you,” I squeaked, producing a girlish shiver. “I’ll sleep better knowing that you’ll catch that big nasty man before he gets to Maggody.”

  “Will you? That’s good to know.”

  Paulie was not hopping from foot to foot, probably convinced I had destroyed his chances for the big time. I decided to ease up just a tad, since I didn’t have a good excuse for my behavior anyway.

  “Then what did you have in mind in terms of cooperation, Sergeant?” I smoothed a yawn and blinked up at him.

  “We had a call from the regional EPA office in Dallas. They sent a contract specialist up this way yesterday to meet with the city council in Starley City, but the man failed to arrive. The council finally called Dallas this morning to find out what happened. Dallas had no idea anything had happened, but they called us. We agreed to run a check, and learned that”—he took a pad from his pocket and consulted it— “one Robert Drake signed for a car from the interagency motor pool yesterday at eight-sixteen in the morning. He told them he would return it today and go back to Dallas on an afternoon flight. That was the last anyone saw him.”

  “Good,” I muttered. When Sergeant Plover gave me a sharp look, I added, “No one in Maggody is excited about Starley City’s proposed sewage treatment plant on Boone Creek, which runs west of town. I’ve read all the environmental impact reports, and I know they say the water will be cleaner than it is now, but I don’t like the idea of sewage flowing through my old swimming hole.”

  Sergeant Plover thought that one over for a minute. “So the citizens of Maggody are angry about the proposed plant. Would anyone be likely to prevent Mr. Drake from reaching Starley City?”

  “No one put up a roadblock yesterday, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I said. I picked up a pencil and rolled it between my hands. “The EPA has already made the decision and granted the construction application. Starley City is going to build the plant whether we like it or not, so I can’t see anyone making a grandstand play with some little bureaucrat whose job is to sign some paper. They’d just send someone else, wouldn’t they?”

  “You and I know that,” Sergeant Plover murmured, trying to include me in his mental meanderings. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d ask around town, see if anyone saw a state car or this Drake man.”

  “I’ll ask, but it won’t do any good. He’s probably holed up at some truck stop with a CB hooker or taking his sweet time driving up from Little Rock. Maybe his car broke down.” I shrugged to emphasize my heartfelt disinterest in missing EPA men and state troopers.

  �
�That has already occurred to us. He would have contacted someone or touched base if he experienced car trouble. We’ve checked all the motels on the highway between here and Little Rock, but he may have eluded us.” Sergeant Plover touched base with the visor of his hat. “In any case, my visit is just a formality, Chief Hanks. We don’t expect you to produce the missing man. You’re hardly equipped to deal with that sort of thing, are you—you and your deputy, I mean?”

  I wished I had Robert Drake stuffed in my bottom drawer; I really did. “Of course not,” I said to the back of the state trooper. He was through the door before I could add an expletive or two.

  Paulie slunk out of his corner. “Do you think you should talk that way to the state police? What if they … ?”

  “What if they what, Officer Buchanon? They can’t take away my badge or make me turn in the radar gun.” I broke the pencil and let the pieces clatter to the floor. “I would like to find the errant EPA man and hand him over on a silver platter to Sergeant Plover, however. What are the chances the missing man stopped in Maggody and found himself so in love with the town that he couldn’t bear to leave?”

  “About one in ten million.”

  “Agreed.” I sat and brooded for a few minutes, then took my feet off the desk and stood up. “Maybe Drake stopped to pick up a hitchhiker in a zebra suit. Carl murdered him, changed clothes, stole the car and is now driving to Starley City to sign their paper. He’ll then report to work in Dallas Monday morning.”

  “I don’t think so,” Paulie said, frowning. “Most people won’t stop for hitchhikers these days. Too dangerous. While I’m on patrol tonight, I’ll ask around and find out if anyone saw the car go through town.”

  “Let me know if you find out anything.” I returned to a bowl of cold chicken soup. I spent a delirious hour watching the news and learned that Carl was at large and possibly armed. Nobody had mentioned that tidbit to me. I spent another equally delirious hour at the front widow watching the pickup trucks and beat-up Chevies cruise up and down the highway, the kids hollering and honking at each other.

  Even that paled. I put on my jacket, crammed my hands in my pockets, and walked down the road to Ruby Bee’s, trying not to think of my former life, when I spent my Saturdays at intimate dinner parties, offering politically correct opinions over martinis. One beer, I decided, then bed.

  Ruby Bee’s was humming, as usual. The bar was blocked by a solid row of denim jackets topped with cowboy hats. Very little neck in between. The jukebox moaned and wailed at top volume so everyone would know he was having a good time. After a cursory glance to see if I saw anybody I wanted to sit with, I elbowed a path to the bar.

  If I had thought my mother would be delighted to see me out enjoying myself on a Saturday night, I was wrong. When she finally got around to me, she gave me the expression she had used when discussing Robin Buchanon’s propensity for reproduction.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Having fun. Drinking beer and being sociable. You’re the one who told me to get out and do something.”

  She gave me a funny look and a fast beer. “Here’s your order. You don’t have to stay here on my account, Arly. If you’d rather be home reading or something, don’t feel obliged to linger.”

  It’s heartwarming to know you’re always welcome at your mother’s. “Let me drink my beer before you throw me out, okay?”

  “Nobody’s going to throw you out. I just don’t want you to put your nose out of joint because of some dumb thing I said yesterday.” Ruby Bee began to wipe the counter with a vengeance. “I don’t know why you started taking my advice, anyway. You never did before.”

  My eyes were getting rounder by the second. The lip of the beer bottle fit right in the circle my mouth made as I stared across the bar at a woman who was trying her damnedest to pick a fight with me. “What are you gabbling about?” I asked.

  “Well, I told you not to run off to Noow Yark with a man that writes those television jingles, didn’t I? I knew you wouldn’t like that kind of life and those people.”

  “And you were right, weren’t you? I scampered back with my tail between my legs, just like you said I would. I let you say ‘I told you so’ five hundred times in the last eight months and never whimpered.”

  Ruby Bee wiped the counter hard enough to leave a rut in it. “I did tell you so. You should have listened to me.” She was going to continue in that vein, but the cowboys around the bar were ready for another round. She snapped the rag under my nose and left. I picked up the bottle and squeezed away from the bar to find a table where I could analyze the conversation for hidden undertones.

  I bumped into Estelle, who was carrying a tray with a forest of bottles. “Why are you working?” I yelled over the music. “Where’s Jaylee?”

  Estelle shrank back and stared at me as if I had a third eye in the middle of my forehead. When I repeated myself, she managed to come to her senses. “I’m just helping out for a few minutes; Jaylee was feeling poorly and went to lie down till she felt better. What are you doing here?”

  I held up the beer bottle. “Same thing everyone else is doing, I guess. Is something wrong around here that I don’t know about? Did Carl show up?”

  Estelle jerked her head back and forth. “No, not a trace of him. I wouldn’t lie about that, Arly. He’s a real nasty fellow and he’s likely to go after Jaylee and hurt her. I swear on a stack of Bibles I’ll call you if Jaylee hears one word from Carl or sees one hair of him.”

  That sounded sincere. I nodded and went to sit with a married couple I knew from high school days. Alex and I drank beer, but Charlene stayed with RC colas in a glass, rubbing her swollen belly with a satisfied expression every now and then. I learned number three would be ripe in a couple of months and that they were hoping this one would be a boy so they could name it after Alex’s father.

  It wasn’t especially exciting stuff, and I kept an eye on Estelle as she waited on tables and chatted up the customers. She, in turn, kept an eye on me, as if she thought I was going to pull out my gun and blast the jukebox. Alex and Charlene wandered home to rescue the babysitter, leaving me alone in the booth to wonder if I would end up like Raz’s oldest girl.

  After an hour, Jaylee suddenly appeared in a short apron and took the tray from Estelle. She looked unharmed; in fact, she looked as satisfied as Charlene had when touching her belly. I curled a finger at her for another beer, and when she approached, I asked her point-blank if she’d heard from Carl.

  “Gawd, no, I’d be home locked in a closet if I heard from him,” she said with a shudder that set her breasts in motion for several seconds afterward. “I learnt my lesson the last night be beat me up, and he knows I wouldn’t give him the time of day if he got down on his knees and begged. I just hope they catch him right quick and lock him up for about twenty years.”

  That theory wasn’t holding water, much less beer. Sergeant Plover might have been right about Carl’s chances of making it all the way to Maggody. As I thought unkind things about Plover, I noticed Jaylee’s hair was rumpled and a button had been torn off her blouse. The lace-edged napkin pinned above her left breast was wrinkled down so that her name was invisible. “Estelle said you were sick,” I said cagily.

  Jaylee chewed on her thickly coated lower lip. “I went to lie down for a few minutes, but I feel fine now.”

  “A touch of the stomach flu?”

  “Something like that, yeah. I got to get back to work, Arly. These old boys get pissed if they have to wait for beer. You going home now?”

  I was not exactly a hit in Ruby Bee’s Bar and Grill that night. I said I was going home to listen to Mozart, waved halfheartedly at the wretched woman who claimed to love me as only a mother can, and left.

  Outside it was cold and crisp, a perfect autumn night with the crackly acid smell of leaves turning brittle and pine burning in faraway fireplaces. Ba
ck in the hills deer were moving around cautiously and possum waking up for a bit of nocturnal mischief in barns and garbage cans. Owls waiting for mice and squirrel to go too far from the nest. Bears lumbering around to find a last berry patch before settling down for the winter. Chiefs of police sulking in the shadows to spot an escaped prisoner and show up state troopers.

  There were at least two thousand more stars in the sky in Maggody than there were in Manhattan, I decided as I cut across the Kwik-Screw lot and climbed the steps to my apartment. As I reached the top step, I heard voices from somewhere below. Sounds can carry a long ways in the cold night air, but I at last figured out they were coming from Roy’s back room.

  In my dual capacity as conscientious renter and police officer, I tiptoed back down the steps, wishing I had my gun with me in case I found some damn fool prowler in the store. I cocked my finger and whispered “Bang, bang” as I moved around the corner and stood on my toes to peek through the back window.

  I caught sight of the proprietor in person as he moved across a patch of light, a bottle of bourbon in one hand and four glasses in the other. If it was a party, I pointedly hadn’t been invited, so I scurried away and retraced my tracks to the top of the steps. I might have been feeling just a tad sorry for myself as I crawled into bed and yanked the covers over my head. A social outcast in Maggody tends to feel that way.

  3

  Robert Drake leaned back against the pillows and opened a magazine. The cheesecake did little to ease his growing boredom; he had tried the television earlier, but the Sunday-morning preachers were foaming away about hell and damnation, two of his least favorite subjects. With luck, a football game might come in on one of the fuzzy channels in a couple of hours. Maybe even the goddamn Dallas Cowboys and those lusty, busty cheerleaders. God, he hated the Dallas Cowboys.

  A key rattled in the door, and a sugary voice yelled, “You decent, Robbie?”