Joan Hess - Mischief In Maggody

"I did what?" I howled.

"Dozens of gray hairs?" Ruby Bee howled.

"What about Carol Alice?" Heather howled.

"You'll never touch me again as long as I live," Mrs. Jim Bob howled (from inside the church building, presumably to her husband-but you never know).

"She was a Jezebel," Brother Verber howled (same locale).

Lupine madness provided some degree of catharsis, not to mention a great deal of satisfaction to the audience. Once things quieted down, I told everybody to have a nice day, got in the jeep, and drove sedately down the highway to the PD. For all I knew or cared, they could have formed a pack and loped into the forest to eat bunny rabbits for Sunday dinner.

The office was dusty, which reminded me that I really needed to do something about Kevin and Dahlia-just as soon as I dealt with the dopers. Having resolved that for the moment, I sat back in my comfy old chair and called the sheriff. We had a long talk about the disastrous stakeout, and he was kind enough to say he'd probably have done the same thing. Neither of us believed it, but it was a nice gesture. He then put me on hold and went to talk to the treacherous LaBelle. When he came back, he said he was confident she had not spilled the beans to anyone except Mrs. Jim Bob. He said he'd do something about the missing lovebirds and suggested I take a well-deserved nap. I told him I didn't deserve anything, sympathy included, and hung up.

The dim light and utter quiet were conducive to thought, so I thought for a long while. I thought about who'd planted the dope and subsequently chopped it. You're undoubtedly screeching Nate's name at this page of this book, because that much was pretty obvious: Zachery's steady supply of dope, Nate's absence at the critical moment, the lightless truck on the road.

That didn't explain how he knew when to return to his patch, however, or who was with him, or where the dope was at the moment. And it didn't prove a damned thing. Obviousness doesn't equate with evidence. And I really did want to nail the sons of bitches for Robin's murder.

I went across the street and up the stairs to my apartment, wondering how much of a mess the Buchanon children had left. As Hammet had promised, it wasn't all that much worse than usual (my feckless Manhattan housekeeper refused to follow me to Maggody, and I never was one for scrubbing toilets; Ruby Bee says I'll get typhoid one of these days). I took a shower, changed into clean clothes, ate a bowl of cornflakes (the only edible item that hadn't been devoured by my guests), and drove back to the Emporium.

The truck was gone. I went inside and found Rainbow in the office. We discussed Poppy's baby and the miracle of birth and the cosmic truth or consequences of Jupiter in the eighth house. I then asked her where I might find Nate.

"I don't know," she said, her smile slipping just a bit. "He's been impossible lately, and if you ask me, his karma has been rotten. He's not the least harmonic. He either lies around the office waiting for mysterious telephone calls, or he vanishes in the truck. He missed Daffodil Sunshine's birth, you know. It was a vital family experience. We were supposed to share!"

"Was he lying around the office yesterday waiting for a call?" I asked.

"Yes, and then about the time it got dark he got his call. He announced he had something to do and drove away. I told him Poppy was having contractions, but he laughed and said it was gas. Now that's rotten karma if there ever was one."

I agreed. After once again declining to have my chart done, I went back to the jeep and myopically gazed at the Voice of the Almighty while I tried to determine my next brilliant move. When nothing struck, I drove down the country road where I'd seen the truck. I doubted Nate could have stashed a hundred pot plants in Estelle's back bedroom without her noticing. I wasn't particularly pleased with Madam Celeste, but I had no reason to think she and Mason were involved in felonious activities. Past their house there was only the rusty car, the dilapidated chicken house, the low-water bridge, and Hasty-ten miles down the road.

Surely he hadn't planned to drive all the way to Hasty without headlights, I told myself as I turned around and drove back toward Maggody. As I approached the psychic's house, I saw Mason pull into the driveway.

"Everybody says ask Madam Celeste," I said aloud, tightening my fingers around the steering wheel until it would have yelped, had it been capable of yelps. "I'll ask Madam Celeste."

I parked by the mailbox and went over to Mason, who was unloading groceries. "Sorry I didn't get back to you on Friday," I said. "Something came up and I had to leave town."

"I shouldn't have knocked on your door at six in the morning. Celeste has been so darn weird about this dead woman's face that I'm scared not to do what she says. She sits in the solarium night and day, laying out tarot cards or shaking the Mesopotamian sand and then reading it. She even canceled all her appointments."

"Except for Carol Alice Plummer. That's the one she should have canceled."

A sack of groceries hit the ground. "Oh, no," he groaned. "Did Celeste get that sweet little girl all upset again? She was sniveling in the solarium the other day, so I made up some silly predictions to cheer her up. Why didn't she just stay away?"

I handed him a can of corn that had rolled between my feet. "The girl's suicidal, which doesn't sit well with her parents or her boyfriend. I guess I'd better have a word with your sister; she really can't upset the local girls like this." And slip in a question about activity on the road the previous night.

Mason said he'd go over to Carol Alice's house and see if he could calm her down with some jovial fortune-telling. The front door was unlocked and there were sodas in the refrigerator, he told me as he drove away.

Madam Celeste was still in the solarium, the cards spread in front of her on the Formica table. When I'd first met her, she'd been sparkling and fizzing like a glass of champagne. Now she looked gray and exhausted. There were black smudges under her eyes, and her hair hung limply on her thin shoulder. I sat down across from her. She regarded me without interest, then moved a picture card a fraction of an inch and let her hand fall away.

"I understand you helped the police in Nevada," I said softly.

"I did, but they resented it."

"I wouldn't resent help. I need all the help I can get. Did Mason tell you that a woman's body was found in the woods south of town?"

"He did."

"I've been investigating the death."

This time her eyes were brighter, although narrowed to slits. "Then you saw this woman's face?" When I nodded, she said, "There had been an explosion, no? Her eyes were opened in shock, her nostrils clotted with blood, her lips cracked and covered with flies?"

"That's a reasonable description," I said cautiously. "Mason said that you'd seen the face before-in a trance."

"I saw a face, but I do not know whose it was. A woman, yes, and dead. The cards insist that there is evil afoot in this town, that there are men who lie and stir up mischief. Not childish mischief, but malicious mischief for their own dark purposes."

"Do you know their names?" Dumb, naive, foolish, but I had to ask. Hell, she might have whipped out a list for me, perps in alphabetical order. Footnoted with addresses and telephone numbers. Not exactly courtroom evidence, but at least a nudge to get me going in the right direction. And it couldn't hurt. So there. Stop smirking.

"Of course not," she said in an irritated voice. "If I knew their names, I would have insisted you come here at once to receive my information and act on it."

"Oh," I said, wondering if I looked all that compliant. "Well, I agree that something's going on in Maggody. Did you happen to see or hear anything last night shortly after nine o'clock?"