Madness In Maggody (16 page)

*****

"That was Joyce,"
Ruby Bee said as she replaced the receiver and gave Estelle a grim look. "She called to warn me because that fellow stayed here and might come back. I saw him the other night, you know. Well, at least I heard him creeping around outside, but it was too dark to do more than catch a glimpse of him."

"And that makes about as much sense as turkey potpie," Estelle said in that snooty voice Ruby Bee couldn't stand. "Warn you about what fellow?"

"Lamont Petrel," Ruby Bee said in her unfriendly voice, which she knew Estelle couldn't stand. "Joyce called to say Petrel is on a rampage raping women all across the county. She thinks she saw somebody in the backyard way out by those forsythia bushes by the fence. She's locked in the house and calling to warn everybody."

"Does Arly know? It seems to me she's the one who ought to be doing something—if the story's true. I for one am not sure. Lamont seemed like a real gentleman to me. When you introduced us, I thought for a second he was going to kiss my hand like they do in movies about foreigners."

"Now who's talking turkey potpie?"

"Well, Miss Mind Reader, it's a relief to know you're keeping track of everything I think. Why doncha tell me what I'm thinking now? Go ahead; I'll think of a number between one and a hundred and you tell me what it is."

"We don't have time for that kind of foolishness, not with a rapist in town. I'd better call Arly and have her get the sheriff over to Joyce's before something tragic happens." Ruby Bee dialed the number at the PD, and when there was no answer, the number at the apartment, getting grimmer with each ring. At last, a small voice answered. "Hammet, where's Arly?" Ruby Bee demanded.

She listened for a minute, then told him to stay in the apartment with the door locked. "Hammet says she went out to talk to folks and he doesn't know who or where or when she'll be back," she reported to Estelle. "I guess we ought to call the sheriff ourselves, even if it is long distance."

She was reaching for the telephone when Estelle grabbed her wrist and said, "Wait a minute. I just thought of something."

"I already told you we don't have time for parlor games. That maniac might be breaking into Joyce's house right this second, or cutting across Perkins's pasture and heading this way to attack you and me."

"This ain't a parlor game. You said something that jiggled my memory, and it may be important."

"Then spit it out and let me call the sheriff," Ruby Bee said, bowing to the inevitable, as usual.

"When we were talking about Lamont Petrel the other day, you said you let him stay in number four because he was quiet and real good about paying for his long-distance calls."

"So what? I wouldn't have let him stay if I'd known he was a rapist. I don't cater to that sort of customer, not any more than you'd offer to trim his hair."

Estelle shook her head violently, getting so agitated that a bobby pin went flying across the bar. "He made long-distance calls, and they're on your bill. We have a list of all the numbers he called while he was staying in number four."

"That's not going to help Joyce Lambertino. Calling Sheriff Dorfer and telling him to get his fat butt over there might. Let go of my wrist so I can do it."

"Hold your horses," Estelle said, although she did let go of Ruby Bee's wrist. "I'm not convinced Petrel is a rapist or that Joyce is watching him out the window. If she's so all fired scared, let her call the sheriff instead of all the folks in town. We've got ourselves a clue as to where Petrel might be hiding or if he's in cahoots with somebody."

"You're saying he called a cab to pick him up during the grand opening? There's gonna be a call to a hotel somewhere because he wanted to make reservations to disappear?" She looked at the telephone, but she had to admit (to herself, of course) Joyce was pretty dadburned chatty for someone in imminent danger of being raped.

"I don't know who he called, but I think we ought to have a look at the last bill," Estelle persisted. "It can't hurt to look at it, for Pity's sake."

"I suppose not." Ruby Bee grumbled under her breath all the way out to her unit, grumbled all the time she rummaged through her drawer for the latest bill, which had come that very week, and then grumbled all the way back to the bar and grill. "Here it is, Ms. Magnum P.I."

Despite her tone, she was beginning to get excited, too, and she leaned over Estelle's shoulder. "Some of these are mine," she said, squinting at the numbers. "I called for a doctor's appointment here, and this is to the company that delivers the paper goods. The delivery man showed up without napkins, and I knew for a fact I'd ordered two cases, but he said—"

"Here's one to Texas. You didn't call Texas for napkins, did you? Here's another one to the same number, and another one the day of the grand opening!"

"He said something about it being a supermarket company," Ruby Bee said, trying to recollect. "He stopped by and wrote a check Saturday morning, and apologized for having to make a passel of last-minute business calls from his room. Look here, he called this number in Farberville four times, including the day of the grand opening. It's likely to be a wholesale grocer."

"There's a simple way to find out," Estelle said, nibbling on her lip as she studied the bill. "Call it."

Ruby Bee started to mention that it was her bill they were putting long-distance calls on, but she went ahead and dialed the number as Estelle read it aloud. "Hello," she said briskly. "Who's this?"

"Who's this?" a woman's voice responded.

"It's...ah, it's possible I dialed the wrong number," Ruby Bee said, giving Estelle a panicky look. "If it's not too much trouble, just tell me who you are and I'll tell you if it's the wrong number."

"It's the wrong number. Trust me."

Frowning, Ruby Bee put down the receiver and said, "She hung up. I don't think this is going to work, Estelle. Folks don't want to tell you their names in case you're getting ready to sell them storm windows or portraits at a photography place."

"I got an idea." Estelle picked up the receiver, dialed the same number, and when the woman answered, said, "This is Miss Oppers with the telephone company. We're verifying a long-distance call that was charged to this number. I'll have to have your name and address, ma'am." After a moment, she handed the receiver to Ruby Bee. "She hung up, and she was right rude about it, too. You'd think she'd have the decency to answer a polite question from the telephone company. I didn't ask her how much she weighed or if her hair color was natural."

"Let's let her cool off, " Ruby Bee said as she picked up the bill and studied it. "Here're more numbers that I don't recognize, and in Farberville, too."

One turned out to be a wholesaler with a secretary who announced as much when she answered. Ruby Bee muttered something about the wrong number, hung up, and drew a line through that one. The Miss-Oppers-from-the-telephone-company routine worked on Muriel Petrel, who obliged with the information, even though she'd been in the shower and was standing in an expanding puddle and was wearing a pink and white towel and nothing else. After a certain amount of debate, Ruby Bee grudgingly grudgingly called the Texas number and spoke to a sugary voice at Market Investments and Management Inc.

"Is Mr. Lamont Petrel there?" she asked slyly.

The sugary voice sounded a little confused. "Mr. Petrel is not a member of our firm. Would you care to speak to Mr. Dow or Mr. Long?"

Even though the meter was ticking, Ruby Bee said sure and shortly thereafter found herself speaking to a male voice with the expansive drawl of a Houston wheeler-dealer wearing six-hundred-dollar cowboy boots. "I'm afraid your secretary got it cattywampus," she said, now so overcome with slyness that she could have ransacked a henhouse and had fried chicken for a month. "I'm calling on behalf of Lamont Petrel."

"How's the old fart doing?" Long said genially.

"Fine, real fine. He asked me to call and see if you had any messages for him."

"Put the lazy son of a bitch on the line. I got a joke for him that'll steam the wrinkles out of his dick."

"He can't come to the telephone just now," Ruby Bee said, slylessly. "He's in the other room. You know what I mean?"

Long did, if she didn't. "Reading on the John, huh? Tell him I'll save the joke for next time. Have yourself a nice day, and watch out for Lamont."

"Wait a second! What about the messages?"

"What messages?"

"Mr. Petrel just wanted me to ask if there's—if there's been any change in the plans," Ruby Bee said, clutching the receiver so tightly her fingers hurt.

"You mean he's not going to sell that little supermarket? Fer chrissake, I've been putting the paperwork together and working on the figures all goddamn week. Now you're telling me..." There was a moment of silence. "Who is this?"

"Oops, Mr. Petrel's hollering at me from the other room. It's been real nice talking to you, Mr. Long. You have yourself a real nice day, you hear?" Ruby Bee replaced the receiver and sat down on the nearest stool. "That man thinks Lamont Petrel's going to sell him the supermarket," she told Estelle.

"You think Jim Bob wants to sell it? From what I've heard, he's puffed up about being the manager and having his name in big plastic letters across the front of the building."

"Maybe he didn't before, but now that it's closed down again and everybody's scared because of being poisoned to death, he may have changed his tune," Ruby Bee said thoughtfully. "We ought to tell all this to Arly so she can ask him."

"We don't have anything to tell her yet, and she's real busy with this poisoning investigation. She doesn't have time to wonder if Jim Bob and Lamont are going to sell the SuperSaver—or to find out who the rude woman is at the other end of this telephone number. We can save her a lot of time if we do a little asking on our own."

"She could find out real quick. All she'd have to do is call over to the sheriff's office and have LaBelle call the telephone company." Ruby Bee blinked at Estelle, who blinked back, and within seconds Ruby Bee was doing further damage to her bill by making yet another long-distance call and telling herself she was only saving Arly the bother.

*****

Martin gave me
a startled look as I came into his hospital room. I sat down at the end of the bed, patted his leg, and said, "The nurse said you were about ready to go home. We're going to need you tomorrow at the big game."

"Gran's dead."

"Yes, and I'm sorry, Martin. You pa's going to be okay, but he'll have to remain here for a few more days. Lissie's been staying at the Lambertinos' house. I'll ask if you can stay there, too, until your pa gets home and everybody can be together."

He jerked his leg out of reach, then stared out the window and surreptitiously swiped at the wetness on his cheeks. "Yeah, that'll be swell."

"Would you rather stay with me? Hammet sleeps on the couch, but we can fix up something on the floor for you, and I'm sure Hammet would enjoy the company."

"Okay," he said hoarsely. "Did they find what killed Gran and made Pa and me sick?"

"I wanted to talk to you about it yesterday. You and Lissie had breakfast, then she watched television all morning. What about you?"

"I didn't do nothing, just hung around and didn't do nothing special."

"The two of you had spaghetti and corn bread for lunch, right?" He nodded, watching me closely. "At some point in the afternoon, your pa woke up and told Lissie to go outside and play. That left you, your pa, and Gran in the house. We think someone may have tampered with a package of coconut cakes from the supermarket. Did you eat part of one, Martin?"

"No. Pa and Gran might have, but all I had was a root beer and some crackers. I went into my room to work on an airplane model, but later I started feeling bad and lied down on my bed. The next thing I knew, you was squeezing my hand and then I was in an ambulance and then I was here."

My great theory went up in smoke or down the drain, whichever. "You're sure you didn't eat a cake?" I asked.

He gave me an impatient frown. "All I had was a root beer and a handful of crackers, Miss Arly."

The door opened and a young doctor with shiny black hair and a baby face came into the room, humming to himself and swinging a clipboard. When he saw me, however, he stopped abruptly. "Are you this boy's mother?"

"My ma's dead," Martin said. "This is Miss Arly."

"I'm a police officer," I added. "I'm investigating the poisonings."

"And my patient's bruises?" the doctor said angrily.

"Bruises?" I echoed. I tried to think whether Martin had participated in the brawls we referred to as baseball practice. I didn't think he had, but I'd been in the thick of it most of the time and there'd been arms, legs, knees, and fists flying. "Where'd you get bruises, Martin?"

"I fell out of that walnut tree at the side of the house," he said. "I already told this doctor fellow about it. I was chasing after a gimpy squirrel when my foot slipped and I fell on my rear end."

I told the doctor I'd wait in the hall, said goodbye to Martin, and stood by the door until the doctor came out. "I didn't know about any bruises," I said in a low voice. "Could they have resulted from the fall he described?"

"They could have." The doctor glanced at his watch, made a note on his clipboard, and gave me a cool look. "I was planning to call the Department of Human Services to request an inquiry, but I'll leave that up to you. I've been on call for thirty-six hours and I need to crash."

"Then you don't think the bruises came from an accident?" I said, unable to assimilate the possibilities. "You think there's been physical abuse?"

"I don't know. The boy says he fell, and that may be the truth. Or he may have been paddled with a flat object hard enough to leave some big bruises. If you'll excuse me, I want to finish my rounds and get to bed."

The doctor went into the next room. I hesitated, then went into Martin's room and said, "I forgot to tell you that I'll be here tomorrow morning to take you back to Farberville. You want to stay with Hammet and me?"

"Yeah," he said from the bed, his voice so faint I could barely hear it.

I stood beside the bed and looked down at his pale face and watery eyes. "Did you get into trouble with your pa yesterday morning? Lissie said you went to the back bedroom to talk with him. Did he spank you?"

"Nobody touched me. Pa was pissed because I hadn't done my chores the day before. I did 'em all, but Pa said the toolshed was still messy and someone had left the hammer and a handful of nails on the floor. He didn't believe me when I said it must've been Lissie."

"Was it Lissie?"

"I don't rightly recall," he muttered. "But all Pa did was yell at me about putting tools away properly and not skipping my chores again. I said okay and went outside, and that's when I saw the gimpy squirrel in the walnut tree. I was trying to catch him so I could take care of him until his back leg healed up, but then my foot slipped and I fell. The squirrel was in the next county by the time I got my breath back."

"So your pa didn't spank you?" I persisted.

"I fell out of the tree. Pa doesn't ever whip me or Lissie. He just yells. Gran was too sickly to do anything except gripe about her heart and her very close veins and her red spots. If you don't believe me, ask Lissie."

"I believe you," I said, then told him I'd be back the next day and took the elevator to the basement and the intensive-care ward. Through the glass wall of the cubicle, I could see Buzz's gray face under a lot of plastic tubes and wires. The nurse told me he was past the threat of respiratory or cardiac failure, but that they would monitor him for at least another twenty-four hours.

As I drove back to Farberville, I tried to think how Martin had taken a dose of the poison that had killed his grandmother and almost done the same to his father. Root beer and crackers. But Martin had the same symptoms the others had evinced, and he clearly had ingested the poison—not at breakfast, not at lunch, and not for high tea.

I was scowling so hard that I didn't even turn my head as I drove past the Airport Arms Apartments.