Joan Hess - Maggody And The Moonbeams

"She's dead," I said, standing up.

Larry Joe's face was almost as pale as hers. "What happened to her? Why's she out here and dressed like that? Is she some kind of witch?"

I stared at the surrounding brush, hoping I'd see a small face watching us. This woman had not been Darla Jean's quarry. Where was the child?

"What's the matter?" said Larry Joe, his voice cracking. "Is somebody else here?"

I let him imagine the worst while I tried to figure out what to do. Moving the body to the road would be damn near impossible under the existing conditions. If there was any evidence indicating the cause of death, we would destroy it with unwieldy attempts to keep our footing while carrying what appeared to be a hundred and forty pounds of dead weight.

Very dead weight.

I held up my hand to hush Larry Joe, then kneeled down and pushed the woman's head to one side. I was immediately sorry that I had. I stumbled backward and sank down, battling nausea.

"What's wrong with you?" demanded Larry Joe.

"I'll be okay in a minute. We need to go back to the lodge and call the local police. Whoever this woman is, she didn't lose her balance and bang her head on a rock. The back of her head's caved in. Something really walloped her."

Lightning illuminated the object Larry Joe raised above his head. "Like maybe this bat?"

Had a movie production crew been present, the director would have shouted, "Cut!"

Hammet offered a few choice words as the rain began to splatter. He was cold, tired, and still hungry, even after eating the sandwiches and pie. What's more, it was getting dark. He supposed he could sleep in the church, but folks would start coming in the morning and he might get caught. He sure as hell didn't want to get arrested and sent to the gawdawful place Jim Bob had described.

He couldn't quite figure out what had happened to everybody, but it seemed like Arly, Ruby Bee, Estelle, and Mrs. Jim Bob was all off for the time being. He finished the last apple, flung the core at the silver trailer, and got up. There was one other place in Maggody where he'd stayed before, and it was big enough that he ought to be able to keep out of sight, and at the same time stay warm and dry. He couldn't sleep in a bed or lie on the sofa watchin' television, but he reckoned there were all sorts of storage rooms and closets in such a fine house. With Mrs. Jim gone, it wasn't like Jim Bob would come looking for the vacuum cleaner. If he was careful about stealing food, he could most likely hide out there till Arly got back. It was kinda hard to guess what she'd do, but at least she wouldn't arrest him or anything like that. More than likely, she'd just sigh and send him back to the foster home. It never hurt to try.

He set off across the pasture behind the row of abandoned buildings, trying to remember the layout of the house where he and his brothers and sisters had been dumped while Arly figured out what shitheel had killed their mama. At the back of the garage was a room with what he'd later learned was a washing machine and dryer. The floor was concrete, though, and likely to be clammy as a cave. He couldn't recollect if there was a basement or an attic. He stopped in the knee-deep weeds and tried to think. Between the kitchen and the living room was a closet crammed with winter coats where he'd hid during a game of hide-and-seek. Not even his dumbshit brother had found him in there. It hadn't smelled real good, but it didn't stink near as bad as the dirty quilt he'd slept on in the cabin up on the ridge.

He figured it'd do.

Jim Bob had meant to shut down his computer and go home, but messages in the chat room were coming fast and furious. Most of 'em were from pissant teenagers with screen names like Vaginalee and Studboy. He'd fired off his share of responses, just to amuse himself by trying to see if he could make them squirm. It was about as tough as shooting fish in a barrel.

Then a new presence popped up in the chat room, one making more sense than the brain-dead morons with nothing better to write than, "Yo, dudes." Jim Bob waited for a while, reading the messages from a poster using the name "LovePussy." Clearly she was older than the pimply assholes in the chat room, and she was making veiled suggestions that would send most of them under their beds to jerk off.

Jim Bob continued reading for a few minutes, enjoying the specter of the fourteen-year-old boys utilizing their impaired vocabularies and geeky emotions to impress this mysterious LovePussy. She wasn't buying, but she was teasing the living hell out of them.

He finally decided to put the litter out of their misery and posted a message to LovePussy that claimed she was all talk and no action. An instant message came up on his screen, offering to prove otherwise.

Jim Bob damn near fell out of his chair. Once he'd pulled himself together, he replied, asking how LovePussy thought she might make good on her promise. Her response had chilled him: "See you at the Dew Drop Inn in half an hour."

Jim Bob turned off his computer and swept all the papers, including such irrelevancies as the payroll and the current invoices, into a desk drawer. As he blotted his face with his handkerchief, he wondered if he had time to swing by his house and take a shower.

Probably not, he concluded. If "LovePussy" actually showed up at the Dew Drop, she might not be the kind to wait around. He locked his office and went to the registers.

"Idalupino, close up at nine. Kevin's fixing to wax the floors, but he's got a key so's to let himself out when he's done."

"I'm supposed to be off at seven," she protested. "Me and some of my girlfriends are gonna have us a night out. We've been planning it for weeks."

"So go at nine. Big fuckin' deal."

"The schedule says you're closing tonight. Besides, I need to wash my hair and do my nails. I even bought an outfit 'specially for tonight."

"Maybe you ought to save it for going on job interviews next week, 'cause that's what you'll be doing after I fire you. If I was you, I'd start at the poultry plant in Starley City. I hear they're always looking for workers to yank the guts out of chickens. Kinda messy, but you get to go to the company picnic on the Fourth of July. Oh, and you get a fruitcake at Christmas."

Idalupino stared at him. "You're a real sumbitch, Jim Bob."

"So they say." He went back through the store and out the loading dock door to his truck. He ran a comb through his stubby hair and splashed on some cologne from the bottle he kept in the glove compartment.

The Dew Drop Inn was twenty minutes away. He wasn't sure if she'd even show up, but if she did, he figured he was in for one helluva night.

When Larry Joe and I made it back to the road, I piled up a few rocks as a marker, then walked back to the lodge, oblivious to his demands for an explanation. As we reached the porch, I turned around. "There is a telephone, isn't there?"

"Yeah, back in the little office, but it doesn't work. While you were upstairs with Darla Jean, I tried to call Joyce to make sure she was okay. Lightning must have hit a transformer somewhere."

This was not good, but I was encouraged to see the lights were back on inside.

"Wait here," I said to Larry Joe, then went over to Estelle's station wagon. As I'd hoped, the key was in the ignition, which was standard behavior in Maggody. "I'm going into Dunkicker to tell the deputy what we found. Let's hope he can get some backup from the sheriff's department. What I need you to do is go inside and see if Heather's there. If not, go down to the girls' cabin and tell her that we found Darla Jean."

"Wouldn't it be better if one of the other girls went?"

"I don't want any of them setting foot out of the lodge until we know for sure that…" I dribbled off, unable to think of a tactful way to finish the sentence.