Much Ado in Maggody Read online

  I parked on the far side of the highway and tried to figure out what the hell was happening. As Johnna Mae reeled around, I caught a glimpse of the crude printing on her posterboard: SHERMAN OLIVER IS A CHAUVINIST PIG AND HATES WIMMEN.

  Sherman Oliver certainly looked as if he hated one woman in particular. Under a shock of white hair, his eyes were slits. His nose was on the purple side, and his cheeks were blotchy. His jaw was quivering like molded gelatin. He seemed to be muttering to Bernswallow, who was also looking rather displeased. Everybody else, with the exception of Mrs. Jim Bob, was observing the spectacle with varying amounts of interest/amusement.

  “Yo, Johnna Mae,” I called as I walked across the road.

  “The Bank of Farberville discriminates against women! Take your business elsewhere! Sherman Oliver hates women! Don’t bank here—take your money to another bank!” She broke off to catch her breath, then snapped her sign up and took off in the opposite direction. “This bank cheats women! Don’t trust them with your hard-earned money!”

  “About time you got here,” Ruby Bee said out of the corner of her mouth. “This could turn right ugly.”

  “Elsie said that Johnna Mae said she was going to bash Sherman Oliver smack on the top of his head if he so much as laid a finger on her,” Estelle added out of the corner of her mouth. The two of them watch way too many gangster movies, along with their daily diet of police and private eye shows.

  “I can’t see this crowd turning any uglier,” I said out of the middle of my mouth. “How long has this been going on?”

  Ruby Bee kept her eyes on Johnna Mae. “Estelle and I just heard about it ten minutes ago. Dahlia came in to work and said something about a commotion. I stuck the Closed sign on the door and we trotted right down here to see what was happening. What do you aim to do about it, Arly?”

  “Why should I do anything about it?”

  “I don’t know. I just think there’s gonna be trouble if you don’t do something pretty quick.”

  “I doubt it,” I said, glancing at the crowd. “Johnna Mae’ll get tired of all this parading after a while, and everybody will wander off to get out of the heat. I don’t want to hurt Johnna Mae’s feelings, but this isn’t all that exciting.”

  “Hussy!”

  I looked over my shoulder at the character stomping across the street. Mizzoner held the number-one spot on my list of least popular, and now we had the first runner-up in our midst. Brother Verber, spiritual leader of his fuzzy flock, defender of the faith, and beacon of sanctimony carried a Bible in one hand as he charged into battle with the devil. His nose was aglow with righteous indignation, and droplets of spittle dotted his lips.

  “Hussy,” he panted, pointing the finger of retribution at Johnna Mae, who’d paused in mid step to stare at him. “Don’t you know what the Bible says about women? It says they’re supposed to be obedient, not loud-mouthed and vulgar.”

  Mrs. Jim Bob nodded. “That’s right, Johnna Mae. You’re supposed to stay home and take care of your family, not march up and down in the street and make accusations against good Christian folks like Sherman Oliver.”

  “Maybe she can’t afford to stay home,” Ruby Bee muttered. Mrs. Jim Bob spun around to glower, but Ruby Bee stood her ground and glowered right back. Estelle managed a glimmer herself. I settled for a comradely wink.

  Brother Verber mopped his shiny forehead. “That is not the issue. The Bible says women were made out of a man’s rib, so they’re supposed to be subservient and do what-all they’re told. They’re supposed to be modest, not vulgar. It says in the vows of holy matrimony that women are supposed to obey their husbands, and I think we can safely conclude that they therefore ought to be obedient all the time. This woman is making a disgrace of herself. Where’s your husband? He ought to drag you home this minute and teach you how to behave.”

  Johnna Mae’s fingers tightened around the stick of her sign. “My husband is home with the kids. Just who do you think you are, you pompous old fart, telling me how I ought to stay home and keep house? I’d like not to have to work, but I’d like to put food on the table every night, too.”

  “A woman’s place is in the home,” Brother Verber countered.

  Several of the pool hall hulks nodded, although I would have bet a week’s salary that all of their wives were plucking feathers at a poultry plant in Starley City or waiting tables in Farberville. Someone had to pay for the custom pool cues and the long-neck beers.

  To my astonishment, Ruby Bee went to stand next to Johnna Mae. “Yeah, how’s she supposed to feed her family and new baby if she stays home?”

  Estelle completed the triumvirate. “Everybody knows her husband’s disabled. You have no call to stand there and say that sort of thing about a woman who’s trying to take care of her family.”

  “She’s tempting the devil,” Brother Verber replied smugly, if inanely. Mrs. Jim Bob scurried right over to him, her expression that of a hen anticipating an attack on one of her chicks.

  Sherman Oliver cleared his throat. “I don’t see why this needs to go any further. Why don’t we all just go about our business?”

  “Chauvinist pig!” Johnna Mae shouted at him.

  “This is an outrage!” Mrs. Jim Bob shouted at me.

  “Hussy!” Brother Verber shouted at Johnna Mae.

  “Old fart!” she shouted at him.

  “Go home and diaper your baby!” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “Who’s supposed to pay for the diapers?” Ruby Bee shouted in the general direction of the last participant.

  “Sherman Oliver is unfair to women!” Johnna Mae shouted.

  “He is not!”

  “Stuff it!”

  “An abomination in the eye of the Lord!”

  I could assign all this dialogue, but it doesn’t much matter who was shouting what because all of a sudden everybody was shouting at the top of his or her lungs and the noise level was rising faster than Boone Creek after a thunderstorm. Elsie McMay was nose to nose with Raz, busily telling him how Johnna Mae was doing the right thing by bringing home a paycheck. Ruby Bee was doing the same with one of the hulks, while Estelle was shaking a finger and shrieking at another. Johnna Mae was exchanging remarks with Brother Verber. Mrs. Jim Bob was getting in her two cents’ worth every other second or so.

  Cars and trucks were crawling past now, the passengers in danger of terminal rubberneck from twisting to catch every bit of the scene. Kevin Buchanon almost lost his life to a camper when he stopped his bicycle in the middle lane to goggle. The hippies came out of the Emporium and stood on the porch, shading their eyes with their hands and poking each other when someone let out a particularly idiotic remark.

  Sherman Oliver was turning more purple by the moment. He stormed over to Johnna Mae and began to bellow at her, which of course sent Ruby Bee and Estelle right back to Johnna Mae’s side to bellow in her defense. Which isn’t to say that she wasn’t bellowing real well herself.

  You might be wondering what the upholder of law and order was doing during all this. Nothing. Not a blessed thing. I suppose that I could have fired my gun into the air to stop everybody, but I hadn’t thought to bring a bullet along. I was pondering the possibility of trying to make myself heard, or going inside the bank where it was bound to be cooler, when that which had been threatened took place, to wit: Johnna Mae Nookim grasped the broom handle of her sign with both hands, raised said sign above her head, and slammed it down on Sherman Oliver’s bald spot.

  Despite the fact that the sign was primarily posterboard, he stumbled backward and might have sprawled in the shrubbery had not Brandon Bernswallow caught him. “Arrest that woman for assault!” Oliver sputtered.

  “And battery!” Mrs. Jim Bob added as she rushed forward to play Florence Nightingale.

  I felt obliged to intercede. Johnna Mae had the sign reared back to bust him again as I grabbed the corner of it. “Hold your horses,” I said. “You can’t do this.”

  “Why can’t I? He dam
n well was asking for it. I have every right to express my opinion, because this is the land of the free and we are guaranteed freedom of speech.” She tried to tug the sign out of my grasp. “Hell, Arly, he’s a pig. Lemme have one more swing.”

  All the combatants had quieted down by this time and were crowding in around us. Faces were still red, however, and the breathing was heavy. A few hands were curled into fists, including one of Ruby Bee’s. “What about freedom of speech?” she demanded.

  “You have to do your duty,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, tapping me on the shoulder in case I didn’t know to whom she was speaking. “This is a clear case of assault and battery, not to mention outrageous behavior on the streets of Maggody.”

  “And a sin against all of mankind,” Brother Verber rumbled piously. “The Bible says that woman should obey man, and—”

  “Calm down, Johnna Mae,” I said, ignoring everybody. “You can’t bash people on the head, no matter how justified it seems to you. Why don’t you let me have the sign and go on home and cool off?”

  Brandon Bernswallow got Oliver steadied, then he came over to peer down his nose at me. “There has been a criminal act, and we intend to press charges. This woman, in front of witnesses, attacked Mr. Oliver with the intent of causing him bodily injury. I demand that you arrest her.”

  Sherman Oliver looked uncomfortable as all eyes turned on him. “Well, now, I wouldn’t say there was any bodily injury, Brandon. She whacked me with a piece of cardboard, not a two-by-four. If she’ll promise to stop this childish nonsense and stay home, I think we can forget about this.”

  “Okay, Johnna Mae?” I said.

  “No, it is not okay. I am not some worthless person who can be demoted like I was trash or hadn’t spent eleven years working at this bank. Mr. Oliver and this fellow think they can cheat me, but I ain’t going to roll over and play dead just because they say so.”

  “Right on,” came a low voice from the crowd.

  One would like to think one’s mother was not a seasoned agitator, but one would find oneself in error. I glared over my shoulder, then turned back to give Johnna Mae a grim look. “I understand your frustration, but you cannot cause a riot on the street or attack someone simply because you’re unhappy with your position. Mr. Oliver is entitled to file charges against you. Now, he’s said he’ll forget this if you’ll promise to stop protesting.”

  “I won’t stop,” Johnna Mae said as her eyes filled with tears. “I got to do what I got to do.”

  “Please,” I hissed at her.

  “No, Arly. There’s no reason for me to go home and watch my children eat beans and corn bread until the money runs out. I have plenty of free time on my hands now that he”—she scowled at Bernswallow—“has relieved me of my duties. I might as well be here as lying on the sofa in front of the television, especially since they’ll cut off the electricity before too long. I’m going to be right here every day from nine until five, just like it was a regular job. If he doesn’t like it, he can lump it.”

  Bernswallow clearly didn’t like it. After a hushed conversation, he announced that Mr. Oliver would press charges once he’d had an aspirin and a few minutes to rest. He then took the branch manager’s arm and led him into the bank. I pulled Johnna Mae aside and told her that she would have to come back to the police department so that I could do the necessary paperwork.

  The crowd drifted away, leaving Ruby Bee and Estelle in one corner of the metaphorical wrasslin’ ring, and Mrs. Jim Bob and Brother Verber in the other.

  Mrs. Jim Bob leapt into the lull. “I must say that I am sorely disappointed in you, Rubella Belinda Hanks. I never once thought you were one of those women’s libbers who burn their bras and mock the church and turn into lesbians if they’re not careful.”

  “Nobody’s a women’s libber, Barbara Buchanon Buchanon, and you know it. You can stand there and spout all those pious things about a woman staying at home, but Johnna Mae has to work.”

  “Well, it’s not right for her to boss men around,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, bristling at the very idea.

  “That’s right,” Brother Verber added. “Women weren’t created in order to run the world and tell men what to do. Adam came first, not Eve. She was put in the Garden to be a helper, to bear children and fix supper.”

  Estelle put her hands on her hips. “And we all know what God made man out of, don’t we? Dirt. That’s the gospel truth and you know it. Man was made out of your common variety of dirt.”

  That didn’t sit well. I could see we were on the verge of a tag-team event, so I took Johnna Mae’s arm and got her into the police car before the actual violence broke out. She was sniveling by this time, and big, plump tears rolled down her cheeks to plop into her lap. As I turned around in the bank parking lot, I saw a tableau that did nothing to ease my conscience one bit: Putter Nookim, a black-haired scarecrow in faded denim overalls, stood in the shade, a blanketed bundle in his arm. Behind him were two small figures, clutching his legs and peering out from either side.

  I hated my job.

  Lottie Estes sat behind her desk in the home ec room, rereading the letter for the tenth or maybe the twelfth time. No matter how much she squinted at the words, they still seemed ominous. Lottie Estes had never been late in her life. She’d been born on schedule, and she wasn’t the sort who’d ever missed the previews at the picture show, the opening hymn at the Assembly Hall, or even the very first notes of the theme songs of her favorite television shows. Never once in her thirty years of teaching had she not been the first in the classroom or the first in the cafeteria for a teachers meeting. Whenever a friend had a baby shower or a small gathering, Lottie was there in time to help set the food out while the hostess finished dressing.

  But now this letter was telling her that she was late. What’s more, she couldn’t have avoided this accusation because she didn’t know she’d ever borrowed money from some bank in Farberville, much less missed a payment. It didn’t make one whit of sense.

  “Miss Estes?” said a timid voice from the doorway. “We’re ready to start the Future Homemakers of America meeting. Heather wants to know if we should go ahead and read the minutes or wait for you.”

  Lottie Estes stuffed the letter in a drawer and hastily rose. “Please tell Heather I am on my way, Grace Ellen. I have never arrived late to a meeting, and I do not intend to do so today.”

  “No, ma’am—I mean, yes, ma’am,” Grace Ellen murmured, properly abashed.

  Carolyn McCoy-Grunders threw down the file and picked up another from the stack. Except for her inner sanctum, the office was dark and quiet, which was the way she preferred it when she was not in a good mood. Carolyn was in a foul mood. And it wasn’t her fault: Monty had had the nerve to take his wife to Las Vegas and had made sure everyone in the county bar association heard about it at the last luncheon. He’d known Carolyn would be there, of course, and that certain bitches would be sure to tell her the news. And just when she was trying to be mature about her ex-husband’s marriage to that little slut young enough to be his daughter. Or kid sister, anyway. Carolyn dearly hoped the newlyweds drank the water in Acapulco and got their just deserts. And she didn’t mean tortillas dipped in brown sugar.

  She tossed aside the file and snatched up the next. Maybe Monty would lose his BMW at the blackjack table; God knew he had trouble counting to twenty-one unless he took off his shoes and socks and dropped his pants. She glanced at the complaint form.

  “So we think we were passed up for promotion, do we?” she said, dropping the file on the floor and taking yet another. “Maybe we ought to stop whining and expecting people to rush over and wipe our noses.”

  She almost threw the last file in the pile. The handwriting was laborious, almost illegible, and in pencil. Carolyn preferred forms written in ink, if not typed neatly and with a minimum of corrections. This one was smudgy. The spelling was atrocious. The complainant had managed to cover almost every bit of the white space with her long, tedious gripe about maternity leave a
nd demotion and how much the baby weighed, for pity’s sake. Carolyn had no use for babies. Or crybabies, for that matter.

  With a martyred sigh she settled her glasses on her nose and squinted at the form. Some idiotic little podunk town nobody had ever heard of, much less had any interest in. Some two-bit branch bank. God, who’d want to be head teller of such a vile little operation?

  It was about to join the pile on the floor when Carolyn spotted a familiar name. It was very much as if she’d inserted one of her manicured fingertips into an electrical socket. Once she’d stopped waggling her jaw and blinking, she leaned back and began to reread the complaint very, very carefully, her lips curling upward in a smile.

  4

  I got Johnna Mae settled in the PD, centered her lethal weapon on my desk, and proceeded to tell her all sorts of things she wasn’t real happy to hear, such as the fact she’d committed a class A misdemeanor that carried penalties of as much as a thousand-dollar fine and a year in jail. In my best cop voice, I recited the Miranda warning and took out an arrest form.

  “I can’t go to prison,” she wailed. “Who’s going to take care of Putter and the kids? Who’s going to get him his prescription from Farberville? How’s he going to pay for Earl Boy’s braces or P.J.’s first pair of hightop shoes?”

  “Very possibly not the person who refused to go home and forget about picketing the bank every day from nine until five,” I said, slapping down the pencil. “You should have thought of that earlier. Sherman Oliver was willing to forget the whole thing, you know. All you had to do was shut up and go home.”

  She held out two pudgy wrists. “Arrest me and drag me off to prison. Will they let Putter bring the kids when he comes to visit on Sunday afternoons?”