Joan Hess - Madness In Maggody

"I won't tell a soul," Barbie vowed solemnly, going so far as to draw an X on her chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die. I just can't believe everyone's gonna let that slimeball do you know what to a local girl and not even make him say he's sorry or offer to replace the shirt he ripped off her."

"It was awful", Edna Louise said. "The girl was hysterical when she came stumbling out of the office, and she nearly got herself run down on the highway by one of them tractor trailers. A neighbor happened to be driving by, and she put the poor little thing in her car and got her home afore anybody else saw her. We have no way of knowing if she was the only one-or only the first one."

Barbie peered around the corner to make sure all seven of the children were safely engrossed in cartoons, then leaned across the table and shook her head. "You know what I think, Edna Louise? I think they ought to tar and feather that fellow and escort him right out of town on a railroad tie. What'd you say his name was?"

"Petrel. Lamont Petrel." Edna Louise said this very firmly, because she was very sure.

After lunch,Plover said he wanted to question the owner of the Flamingo Motel about Petrel's disappearance. I offered to assist and was told my presence would not be required. I pointed out she was my mother and was told that was the problem. I mentioned that I was the chief of police and was told everybody already knew that.

So I may have been in a snit as I slammed the door on my way out of the bar and grill. As I stalked up the highway toward the PD, I may have been thinking of a whole lot more devastatingly clever things I should have said, and that may have been why Jim Bob had to bellow like a bullfrog to get my attention.

I shaded my eyes and looked across the highway. "What do you want?"

"The inspectors from the health department are here and they want to talk to you," he yelled. "Have you gone blind and deaf, Chief Hanks…or just plain stupid?"

"It's the heat. If I had a decent air conditioner in the PD, I wouldn't be reduced to a mindless mass of indeterminate gray matter," I yelled back, not in the mood for Hizzoner's particular brand of humorless humor any more than I was in the mood for a certain state trooper's "Don't worry your little head about it" attitude. I hate that.

"The inspectors have to talk to you, and they want to do it sometime before the sun sets in Hawaii. If you can't cross the street by yourself, I'll come hold your damn fool hand."

I waited until a truck rattled by, then took my own sweet time going across the road and the parking lot. Two men were waiting with Jim Bob under what shade there was beside the door of the SuperSaver. Despite the fact that one was tall and the other short, one rosy and the other anemic, one with a nice smile and the other with stained, crooked teeth, they had a certain sameness that bureaucracy demands and therefore begets. Neither looked especially impressed with me, but frankly, my dear, I didn't give a rat's ass.

"This is Chief Hanks," Jim Bob muttered. "She has to hear how you inspected the store and didn't find dead mice in the vents or bug spray in the icebox."

Tweedledee bobbled his head and assured me everything satisfied current state regulations. Tweedledum bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

"Then we're not to worry about the twenty-three people who had to be taken away by ambulance?" I asked blandly. "It was just…one of those pesky little things that can happen to any of us?"

This time Tweedledum bobbled his head and reassured me all the facilities looked shipshape to him. Tweedledee bobbled his head and rumbled an agreement.

"Good grief," I said to Jim Bob, "where'd you buy these two? Do they work part-time as dashboard figurines? You know, with one of those wiggly plastic hula girls between them and a pair of foam dice dangling from the rearview mirror, you could have yourself a real nice-"

"Thanks, boys," Jim Bob cut in heartily. He slapped them on their backs and told them how very deeply he appreciated them having to come all the way out to Maggody to satisfy some meddlesome cop who had nothing better to do than stand around in the hot sun and make smart-alecky remarks.

He kept it up until they drove away, then looked at me with one of his smirkier smirks. "I do believe you've been informed that once the state health inspectors have been here, I can reopen the store?"

"But not the deli until we hear from the lab."

"Fuck the deli. Just get all that tape out of here and go find something useful to do for a change. You're running behind on speeding tickets this month, and I'd be real sorry if the town council had to unplug that air conditioner of yours in order to cut down on expenses. Then you'd really have something to bitch about, wouldn't you?"

With a parting smirk, Hizzoner went into the store. Apparently, he'd been confident of a favorable report from the health department, because several high-school boys drove up and headed for the front door. I decided the orange tape gave the place a festive air, and went back across the road. This time, no one offered to hold my hand, but I did it just the same.

At five o'clockMonday afternoon, roughly fifty hours after twenty-three people had been removed from the premises in ambulances, Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less reopened for business, although without a marching band, dignitaries, careening cheerleaders, or any fanfare at all.

At 5:10, the first customer of the day, Raz Buchanon, bought a tin of chawin' tobacco, a tabloid that claimed Elvis was not only alive but had endured a series of sex-change operations to protect his anonymity, and two gourmet frozen dinners (breast of chicken à l'orange with vegetable-rice medley). If you don't understand why he bought two, don't worry about it. If you do, try not to dwell on it too much.

At six o'clock, the small patch of gravel in front of the Satterings' produce stand was as vacant as a dead man's eyes. Ivy figured she knew why, but she told Alex to wait there on the off chance there'd be a customer. She went into the house and combed her hair, then drove into town to compare tomato and snap-bean prices at the SuperSaver.

At 6:15, Geraldo Mandozes banged down the counter window of the Dairee Dee-Lishus, banged into position the CLOSED sign, banged his car door shut, and drove over to the SuperSaver to see whether the shits were selling tamales that tasted as if they were made of dog meat and catsup.

At 6:20, Eula Lemoy told Millicent McIlhaney that Lamont Petrel had tried to poison every last soul in town and was now hiding out in a brothel in Little Rock or maybe Pine Bluff.

At 6:30, Barbie Buteo told her husband, R.T., that some fellow in Maggody had raped half a dozen high-school girls. This is hardly vital to the plot, but let it be noted that R.T. spent a goodly portion of the ensuing evening (and of his paycheck) at the Dew Drop Inn on the south side of Emmet, which isn't too far from Maggody.

At 6:45, Ruby Bee and Estelle got so tired of standing on tippytoes in front of the kitchen-sink window, trying to see who all was going in and out of the SuperSaver, that Ruby Bee taped up the CLOSED sign on the door of the Bar & Grill and the two went over to identify the traitors by name, rank, and serial number, if nothing else.

At 7:13, Hammet Buchanon hit a baseball for the first time in his life. It rolled between Martin Milvin's feet, bounced over a clump of Johnsongrass, flattened a honeybee on a black-eyed Susan, and came to a stop not too far in front of Georgie McMay. After a moment of thought, Georgie hurled it as hard as he could at Earl Boy Nookim's head, but it soared over him and hit Ray Mandozes in the back. The subsequent exchange of expletives, some in Spanish and some in English, evolved into an epic brawl.