Joan Hess - Maggody And The Moonbeams

He leaned against the side of the cabin. "And that's what I did. She told me she'd tried to start her car that morning, but it was dead. Lester even came out and tried to jump the battery. Mind if I smoke?"

"Why, Anthony," I said inadvertently using his given name, "I didn't realize you have secret vices. Do you keep a bottle of whiskey under your pillow?"

"Yeah, and I pilfer pennies from the collection plate on Sundays."

"Your mother must be very proud of you."

I could see his smile as he flicked a lighter and took a draw on the cigarette between his lips. "She's not, though," he said. "My father was a banker. He invested in the stock market, bought up repossessed properties, and had a couple of car dealerships. I barely got through high school. If I'd had a different last name, I never would have graduated. Hell, I'd probably still be repeating the eighth grade."

I waited until he'd finished the cigarette and ground it under his heel. "I guess we'd better keep searching. Did you think to look in the dugout at the softball field?"

"The only place I went was the lodge. I can see that they might have gone over to the field, but why would they stay in the dugout?"

"They might have seen the teenagers working on the bleachers and found it entertaining-or they might have been there later when Jarvis went to meet Norella."

"I know Norella was Ruth's real name, but who's Jarvis? Shouldn't you have brought him in for questioning if he was at the field?"

"Jarvis is one of the boys," I said. "Norella called him a few days ago and asked him to bring her enough money to get away from the Daughters of the Moon. I talked to him about it. He could have been lying through his teeth, but I couldn't discern any reason why he might have attacked Norella. He agreed to give her what he could, but if he didn't want to, all he had to do was stay away."

"Maybe they had something going. A boy's brain is located between his legs. Could she have threatened him with blackmail?"

I stood up. "Let's get going. And slow down, okay? I'm partial to my knees, skin and all."

"Sorry," he muttered. We retraced our way to the road. "I still say you should have taken this Jarvis into custody."

"Even if she had been sleeping with him back in Maggody, nobody would care. Mrs. Jim Bob might have turned sanctimonious and fanned the gossip, and Brother Verber might have rumbled from the pulpit for a few weeks. I don't know what all goes on in Dunkicker, but we've seen worse in Maggody." I stopped to brush a bug out of my face. "Did you ever find out who Ester called in Florida?"

He stopped. "I told you I threw away the bill because I didn't see why it mattered. It was probably a relative. Now that I think about it, some man called for her after she'd left for the day. A cousin, he said. I told him not to call back."

"But you didn't take Rachael's advice and contact your long-distance company?"

"I didn't care what her cousin's name was."

"Well, I do," I said as I nudged him into motion, then allowed him a few steps. "First thing tomorrow, I'll get a locksmith so we can examine the interior of Ester's car. She may have left an address book or some letters. It'll help us track her down in Florida, if that's where she went."

He wheeled around. "Why are you so obsessed with Ester? The only crime she committed was making long-distance calls from our house, and that's hardly worth bothering with. You want to look in the cabin over there?"

"You do it," I said. "I'll wait here." There was no convenient picnic bench this time, so I settled for an unpleasantly damp log. Ester had not been a happy camper, although she had come of her own free will. Could she really have fathomed what she was getting into when Deborah invited her to join the cult? The Daughters of the Moon had provided her with an austere existence and the opportunity to clean bathrooms and fry chicken in someone else's house. She'd implied that she knew how to come into serious money, and it wouldn't be from pawning Willetta Robarts's odd bits of jewelry. Had her cousin found her a job at Disney World? Did Snow White have a dwarf named Baldy?

"All clear," Corporal Robarts said as he pushed his way past a scrub oak. "On to the softball field?"

"Good idea." I brushed off my butt and followed him. "I think I'll check on those numbers Ester called, just in case we don't find anything in her car. You may have tossed the bill, but the long-distance company will have records. Aren't you surprised that Norella made calls, too?"

"They go about their business, and I go about mine."

"But you came out of the men's room while she was using the pay telephone at the café. That must have startled her."

"I don't think she even saw me."

I slowed down, hoping to remain upwind from him. "She was talking to Jarvis. Did you hear her arrange to meet him?"

"I didn't pay any attention. You gonna stand there all night?"

"You knew she was meeting him yesterday afternoon. No one else, including her ex-husband, had any reason to think she'd be by the creek. Not Rachael, or Sarah, or Naomi, or Judith, or even Deborah-unless I need to take a closer look at Merle. It'd be a stretch, but odder things have happened in dear old Dunkicker in the last thirty-six hours."

"What is this shit?"

"Later in the day, did you go home to have supper with your mother, or to shower and dispose of your bloody clothes?"

"The way you're carrying on, the next thing you'll be accusing me of is putting on lipstick and prancing in the woods. I didn't especially like Ruth, or Ester, for that matter. Then again, I don't like Crank Nickle and I'm not overly fond of Chief Panknine's wife. You want to use my cellphone to make sure I didn't sneak away this morning to suffocate them in their beds?"

"Ester's not in Florida, is she?"

"How the hell would I know?"

I was beginning to feel like a lame-brained heroine who'd gone up to the attic to investigate. "I think Norella figured out what had happened. She was probably suspicious when she saw Ester's car behind the body shop. Quite the ironic place to stash a body, don't you agree? New and used parts, all of that."

"You want to explain?"

I wanted to grab his gun, but I demurely put my hands into my pockets. "The trunk will be opened tomorrow, Anthony," I said, this time using his given name deliberately. "You're the one who's going to have to explain why you lied about taking her to the bus station, why she did something so threatening that you killed her."

"Go on." He would have sounded more menacing if his voice hadn't cracked.

"There is something about Florida that not everybody knows. Most people think of the theme parks, the beaches, even the hurricanes. I think of all that, but I also think of tabloids. Most of them are located in Lantana. Was Ester planning to sell her Beamer story to one of them? They'd eat it up. These women didn't come here for religious sanctuary; they came to get away from abusive ex-husbands. Norella must have heard about it when she was turned away from the battered women's shelter and went to the community outreach program, desperate for money to buy gas and feed her children. Most towns in the area have similar agencies. That's where Deborah recruited them, didn't she? She must have convinced a few good-hearted volunteers that this was the last refuge for women and their children, perhaps even arranged for transportation. The rules didn't sound so awful. Their shaved heads convinced the locals that they were members of a wacky cult, not fugitives. What they didn't realize was that they'd never put aside enough cash to leave. Not exactly slave labor, but close to it. First, mandatory community service, and then a lowpaying job and an obligation to contribute most of their earnings to the grocery demands."