Part 3 (1/2)
The door banged open, interrupting my pleasantly spooky reverie. I opened my eyes and confronted Dahlia O'Neill Buchanon's puckery scowl. Her cheeks were puffing like a bullfrog's and her hands were clinched into ma.s.sive fists. Every ounce of her quivered quivered with fury, which meant there was a lot of quivering in the room.
”I got to talk to you,” she said in lieu of salutations.
”If the road signs have taken to hiking in front of your house, it's not my jurisdiction. Call the highway department.”
This disconcerted her, as intended, and a few of the quivers subsided. ”Road signs don't go hiking, Arly.”
”Don't be too sure of it,” I said as I gestured at the uncomfortable chair I keep to discourage visitors. I was mildly curious to see if it could withstand her bulk, and mildly disappointed when it did. Just mildly, mind you. I am not a mean-spirited person, and to prove it, I asked a seemingly innocuous, neighborly sort of question. ”How's married life?”
”It's just plain awful! I keep asking myself if I went and made a terrible mistake when I married Kevvie. It ain't to say that I don't love him, because I do, but I don't know if I can stand it any longer.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob, her shoulders convulsing and her feet stamping so violently that I glanced at the plastered ceiling.
”Dahlia,” I said loudly to compete with her ululations of despair, ”I'm not a marriage counselor. I'm not the right person for you to talk to. Listen to me, please.”
I carried on in that vein until she finally calmed down, took a tissue from a pocket in the cavernous floral tent dress, and blew her nose in a manner reminiscent of a car's backfiring.
”I know you ain't a marriage counselor,” she said between hiccups hiccups. ”You being a cop, I figure you're trained to investigate like those private eye fellows on television. They're mostly in the reruns these days, of course. You know who I mean?”
I didn't, but I wasn't about to contradict her and I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't going to ask any more ”innocuous” questions. ”My expertise is geared more toward radar guns and paperwork.”
”But you know how to investigate crimes, doncha? Every time somebody goes and gets murdered in MagG.o.dy, you're the one who solves the case. You snoop around and find little clues and question people just like that nice Perry Mason, except he asks his questions in the courtroom. At least that's where he did it until he had the accident and had to get hisself a wheelchair. I always felt real bad about that.”
”What are we talking about, Dahlia?”
”I want you to follow Kevin and find out what he's doing.”
”He's selling vacuum cleaners in Farberville. If you want to know the ins and outs of it, why don't you ask for a demonstration in your living room?”
”He already practiced on me so much that the carpet's worn through and I have nightmares about some of the attachments,” she said in a voice that hinted of an impending eruption of some sort. ”He's up to no good, and I have to know. Our vows said through sickness and health, and richer and poorer, but I didn't swear to sleep alone every night. His mother says he's just tuckered out from carrying that case every day, but when he was a stockboy at Jim Bob's supermarket and stacking heavy cases, he wasn't ever too tired to make the bed springs squeal, and even when we were trapped all night in that outhouse, he--”
”Have you asked him what's wrong?” I said hastily.
”I've asked him a hunnert times what's wrong, but he just shakes his head and goes to sleep in the recliner. Last week I got so plum fed up that I dragged him right into the bedroom, yanked off his clothes, and told him in no uncertain terms that I expected him to act like a husband. He wasn't up to it, if you get what I mean, and afterward, he cried himself to sleep out on the sofa. Now he won't even set foot in the bedroom except to get dressed in the morning. He rushes out the door without a bite of breakfast, and this morning, he forgot to take the sack lunch I fixed for him. I cried so hard I could barely choke it down.”
”I don't see what I can do, Dahlia. I'm not a private investigator. I'm the one and only cop in MagG.o.dy and I need to hang around town on the off chance someone takes it into his or her head to break the law. Isn't it likely that Eilene is right and Kevin's simply tired?”
”There can be only one reason why he's acting this way.” She paused with an impressively gothic expression, then turned her palms upward and said, ”He's having an affair with another woman. It ain't necessarily his fault. He's not as glamorous as Matt Montana, but ever since his voice dropped and he grew a little hair on his chest, he's been irresistible to most every woman he meets. Some desperate, s.e.x-starved s.l.u.t from Farberville sunk her fangs in him and is draining him of his precious fluids.” Let's. .h.i.t the pause b.u.t.ton for a minute here. Kevin is one of the scrawniest, dopiest, most hopelessly inept people I've ever known. He may well be responsible for the introduction of the word huh? into the English language. He and Dahlia have managed to intrude into my investigations every now and then and, with their b.u.mbling and stumbling, caused me numerous headaches and nearly brought on their own unnatural and untimely demises. I could imagine him in a lot of roles, but a mesmeric Casanova was not among them. Now hit play.
”An affair?” I said weakly.
”Which is why I want you to follow him and get me the name and address of the woman who's trying to steal my beloved and destroy our marriage. Then I'll march up to her door and tell her how the cow ate the cabbage, and if she doesn't swear to give him up, I'll knock her upside the head or shoot her through the heart or--”
”Wait a minute! You don't know for sure that he's seeing another woman, so let's not get all excited about exterminating her just yet.” I glanced out the window in hopes I might see a white-coated attendant approaching the PD, an extra-large b.u.t.terfly net over his shoulder for her, or even a medium one for me. Reminding myself that I was the one responsible for the basic parameters of the situation (I hadn't packed my bags and flagged down a Greyhound bus several years ago), I looked back at her smoldering eyes, ham-sized arms, and bloodless fists. A calm, soothing voice seemed called for. ”Now, Dahlia, I am not going to tail Kevin on his appointed rounds. I realize that you're unhappy, and maybe you have a good reason for worrying. If your talk with Eilene wasn't helpful, why don't you find someone else who can give you advice?”
She rose as if she were a thundercloud appearing over the ridge, and I could definitely feel the barometric pressure plummeting. ”I reckon I can think of someone else who can give me advice. I'm gonna have a nice talk with the man at the p.a.w.n shop in Hasty, and let him give me advice about which gun to buy and how many bullets it takes to kill a man-eatin' harlot!”
I was still gaping as she swept out the door and continued down the road. Most of the time, folks in MagG.o.dy mind their own business (and their neighbors') in a mundane fas.h.i.+on, but at other times, everybody turns downright queer.
This appeared to be one of 'em.
Dahlia was without a car, and I decided to call Eilene and warn her not to loan hers to her homicidal daughter-in-law. I looked up the number and was reaching for the telephone when it rang, I reacted as if it'd hissed at me, but I finally took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and admitted the caller had reached the MagG.o.dy PD.
”This is Patty May Partridge,” whispered a voice.
”This is Arly Hanks,” I whispered back.
”We got a terrible problem out here at the county old folks home,” she continued in the same insubstantial voice, ”and Miz Twayblade'll skin me alive if she finds out that I called you. She's awful worried about losing our license, but I think when you lose a resident, that's a lot worse.”
”So who'd you lose?”
”Adele Wockermann. Every day after lunch, all the residents are supposed to take a nice little nap so Tansy and me can clear the tables and help the cook clean up the kitchen. Well, today the dishwasher was leaking all over the floor, so Miz Twayblade had to mop right alongside us until the plumber could get here and do something. Usually she sits out at the desk and keeps an eye on things, but what with the flood in the kitchen and all, there wasn't n.o.body to notice Miz Wockermann was gone until I went in at two to fetch her roommate's tray.”
”What does her roommate say?”
After a pause, Patty May said, ”She didn't say anything about it. Miz Twayblade sent Tansy and me to search outside. We went all the way to the edge of the woods without catching sight of anybody, and then we got in our cars and drove both ways down the road for miles.”
I rubbed my face and tried to calculate how far an octogenarian, or perhaps a nonagenarian, could get in a maximum of two hours. ”Stop whispering, okay? This is quite a bit more serious than a license, which Miz Twayblade will lose in an ex officio minute if anything's happened to Mrs. Wockermann. I'm going to notify the sheriff's department. What's she wearing?”
”I don't know,” Patty May said, sniffling but speaking in a more normal fas.h.i.+on. ”She wadded up her robe and gown and pulled the blanket over 'em so no one would notice she'd left. Her dark brown coat isn't hanging on a hook inside the closet. Her spending money, just a couple of dollars, is gone from her drawer. I can't tell what else is missing--except for Miz Wockermann, of course.”
”Is there any vital medication she needs?”
”Not really. We give her vitamin supplements and calcium pills. Missing them shouldn't cause her any harm. Actually, she's one of our feistiest patients, all the time complaining and getting into arguments about which television show should be on in the lounge. Two times last week she started food fights in the dining room. Last spring she crept around in the middle of the night and switched all the dentures. You can't imagine what a time we had trying to match the sets to the mouths!”
”And I don't want to.” I badgered Patty May until I had a decent description of the prodigal prankster, swore not to reveal my source to her supervisor, and then hung up on her and started calling area law enforcement agencies. In the middle of one call, it did occur to me that Ruby Bee and Estelle had also disappeared, and I'll admit I stuttered until I convinced myself it was just a coincidence.
Once everybody'd agreed to cruise for Adele Wockermann, I grabbed my purse and went out to my car. The sun was s.h.i.+ning, but there was a bite to the wind and the forecast had mentioned a chance of rain. Even if Adele Wockermann was mentally competent, she could hardly fare well once the sun went down. First the county home, I decided, and then some cruising of my own.
”Katie,” Matt whimpered through the locked door, ”why won't you let me in? I'm so lovesick I'm gonna die out here in the hallway.”
The door opened as far as the chain permitted. ”You're making a fool of yourself Go away.”
”Katie, you know how much I love you. I gotta come in where at least I can see you.”
”You've seen me before, and I haven't changed. I haven't changed my mind, either. I told you that I'm not going to mess with a married man. The way my pa carried on with every wh.o.r.e in the county liked to kill my mama, and I ain't gonna be the source of another woman's grief.”
He sank down to the floor, and if he'd had a tail, it would have been wagging pathetically. ”Lillian understands. She's seventeen years older than me.”
”Then go home and cry in her lap.” Katie tried to close the door, but Matt had managed to slip his boot into the crack in the midst of his eloquent entreaty.
”I've begged her to divorce me,” he continued, bravely ignoring the pain in his toes, which in all reality was a sight sharper than the one in his heart, ”but she wants to think about it a little longer. I don't want to hurt her, so I have to give her time to get used to the idea.”
”I'm closing the door. If you don't aim to hobble through life without your toes, I suggest you move 'em.” He did, and the door banged shut. He would have stayed if the elevator doors hadn't opened and a woman with a bag of groceries hadn't stopped in her tracks and gasped his name. He rose, gave her a shot of the aw-shucks, autographed her grocery list, and went down the stairs to avoid fans in the elevator. The tinted windows of his car protected him from further adulation, and after a few minutes of gazing at Katie's window, he drove toward the Dazzle Club to see if the boys in his band might be in the mood for a couple of beers and a game or two of eight ball.
Lillian drove past the Dazzle Club and headed for her office. Matt wasn't likely to get into too much trouble at this time of day. He'd been inside Katie's apartment building for almost an hour, moping outside her door and making a fool of himself as he'd done the other times when she'd crept up the stairwell and watched him through the cracked window.
Unbeknownst to him, he was her fourth husband. She wasn't trying to set a record; the first three just hadn't worked out well. She'd been fond of them, but she'd known from the minute she saw Matt that she needed him in ways that frightened her. She was so tangled up in l.u.s.t and tenderness and fierce protectiveness that his announcement that he wanted a divorce had left her s.h.i.+vering like a hound dog in a blizzard. But she hadn't let it show; she wanted him, not his pity. All she could do was keep searching for ways to hold on to him until his infatuation faded and he could see how foolish he'd been. But now Charlie was back.