Joan Hess - Mischief In Maggody

He mopped for a minute while the congregation tried to imagine what practices he was referring to, since they sounded interesting. Once he was tidied up, he sternly studied his flock. "What can we do, you ask me? Well, I'm going to tell you what we can do. We can tell this whore we don't want her in our community any longer. We can tell her that we're God-fearing soldiers of the Lord, and we'll no longer tolerate her depravities. We can tell her we're sick of her, that she is an outcast who'd best go somewhere else to engage in her whorin' and moonshinin' and perversions. We can tell her we don't want her kind because we're moral and pure. We are pillars of the Lord!"

I glanced at Hammet, who glanced at Bubba, who sucked in a breath of his own, stood up, and pointed his finger at the figure behind the pulpit. "Pappy!"

And one beat behind him, Sissle leaped up and aimed an equally accusatory finger at the very same person. "Pappy!"

That rather brought the situation to a halt. The silence was such that you could have heard two electrons collide. Maybe a whole sackful of electrons. The proverbial pin would have sounded like a nuclear explosion. Verber recoiled. His face was so frozen in panic that I decided this time we were going to be treated to the spectacle of a public heart attack. Personally, I was enchanted. It made the last threequarters of an hour worth every tedious second. Ruby Bee and Estelle nodded at each other, leading me to further questions regarding their sanity. David Allen was biting down on his lower lip so hard it was likely to bleed.

Finally there was a noise in the back, followed by footsteps down the aisle. Mrs. Jim Bob stomped right up to Bubba Buchanon and jabbed her finger at him. "You are a filthy little liar! How dare you and this wretched sister of yours make that kind of wild, lying accusation in the house of the Lord? You ought to be whipped until you can't sit down for a solid week. Maybe a year!"

Hammet now poked Sukie, who picked up Baby and turned around to stare at the back of the room. Every head in the congregation turned too. What we saw was Jim Bob Buchanon, Hizzoner the Moron, sneaking toward the exit. What we heard was Sukie loudly lisp, "Pappy!"

"Liar!" Mrs. Jim Bob howled.

"No, she ain't," Ruby Bee said, rising to the occasion. She held up the Bible so everyone could see it. "What I got in my hand is Robin Buchanon's family Bible. She couldn't read or write real well, but she had enough sense to record the names of her children's fathers. It seems like Brother Verber begat a couple, as did our fine, upstanding mayor. This is proof. The begats are written in the Bible."

And right there in the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall, all hell broke loose. It was wonderful. It really was.

David Allen, Hammet, and I slipped outside. Even beside the highway we could hear the accusations flying inside the building, with Mrs. Jim Bob the most audible. By a long shot.

"Interesting timing," I said to Hammet.

He gave me a grin of great innocence and shrugged. "We was going to wait until afterward, but he was saying all them low-down things. It jest seemed like the time."

David Allen nodded. "I thought it was well staged, myself. But what about your father, pal? Wasn't he in there cowering behind a pew?"

"No, he used to live over in Emmet, but I think he moved away a few years back. He weren't all that bad. He gived me a dollar once, but of course Her found it and like to slap me silly."

"Do you know his name?" David Allen asked.

"It's in the goddamn Bible." Hammet sighed, then looked up at me with his puppy-dog expression. "Iffen we can't find him, can I live with you? You might get married sometime to a father what wants a sibling for his own little boy-iffen his little boy gets well."

I bent down and hugged him until he squirmed. "Listen," I said gently, "you know you can't live with me. But we'll find your father and let him know about you. You yourself said he wasn't all that bad. And you can come visit me whenever you want-if you don't complain about sleeping on the sofa or being left alone all day while I do police work."

Which I needed to do. I was in the middle of asking David Allen if he'd keep Hammet for an hour when a pickup truck drove past us and stopped in front of the Emporium across the road. My whiskery, dope-smoking friend got out of the truck and waved a half-eaten ice-cream cone at me. I told everybody to sit tight and went across the street.

"How are Poppy and the baby?" I asked.

"They're cool. How about you?"

A dark-haired man with the motions of a panther came out of the store, a gasoline can in one hand and a package of light bulbs in the other. Ignoring me, he glowered at Zachery. "I told you to be back an hour ago. What the hell kept you? Are you trying to fuck with me for some reason?"

"Hey, man, don't come down on me. Rainbow told me to wash the truck. It was so dusty she thought it might contaminate the bottled water or something screwy like that." He grinned at me. "Have you met Nate here?"

"You're the one who wasn't around last night to fetch the midwife," I said pleasantly, considering. "You'd gone off in the truck, so I ended up driving all over the county to find her."

"Yeah, tough luck," he muttered.

I looked at the truck, which was blue and battered-and familiar. "I saw you in the truck last night, by the way. Remember the jeep you almost ran off the road right down there by Estelle's Hair Fantasies?"

"You didn't nosedive into the ditch, lady. You ought to pay more attention when you drive, instead of trying to pin something on me."

"I was talking on the radio, and I might not have been watching too carefully. However, I did have my headlights on. If yours are broken, I doubt those light bulbs will fit. Where were you going? There's nothing down that way until Hasty, which is hardly worth a visit on a bright, clear day. It's unthinkable on a rainy night. It's suicidal on a rainy night without headlights."

"The headlights were on. You've got a loose screw, lady." He put his things under a tarp in the truck bed and started to walk away, but Zachery caught his arm.

"She's a cop," he said in what was supposed to be a whisper.

"Tough shit." Nate shrugged off the hand, then went into the Emporium and slammed the door hard enough to set off the wind chimes that hung in front of the window. Shaking his head, Zachery took out a package of cigarette papers and a Baggie of green leaves. He then remembered who I was, wiggled his eyebrows in apology, and strolled around the corner of the store. A soft "wow" wafted in his wake.

I went back to the lawn of the church. Ruby Bee and Estelle had joined David Allen and Hammet, and the four of them were studying the front page of the Bible.

I tapped Ruby Bee on the shoulder. "Where'd you find that?"

"On the table in the cabin. It was right there in plain sight. I'm astounded you didn't take it when you were there, forcing others of us to run your errands for you."

"Raz Buchanon took you up there in his truck?"

"No, he didn't," Estelle said. "We went most of the way up there in my station wagon, if you must know. Then the engine got all hot and wouldn't go any farther, so we had to hike the rest of the way up the mountain-and all the way down this morning. Once we got to the highway, we stuck out our thumbs and tried to hitchhike a ride for the longest time. Finally Raz happened by and was kind enough to give us a lift for fifty cents."

"And this is how you didn't interfere in my police investigation?" I asked, smiling sweetly.

Estelle warily returned the smile. "For reasons best left unspoken, we decided it was real urgent to learn the names of the Buchanon children's fathers. We went to Madam Celeste, who told us she saw a list of names. Once we thought about it, we realized just where to go. We hadn't counted on my station wagon giving out so that we'd have to spend the night in a haunted cabin."