Madness In Maggody

"Yes, Pa," she repeated, still not looking up. "Can I go now?"

"I'm not through with you. You're supposed to be minding Miss Arly. If I hear about her getting any sass from you, you can expect to be real sorry. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Pa." She gave me a dark look, as though I was responsible for her father's tirade, then she trudged back toward the outfield.

"I'll play catch with her tonight," Buzz said to me.

I managed a tight smile. "Well, I've got to get back to practice. We're going to see if anyone can hit the ball."

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Arly. You must have the patience of a plow mule to put up with this bunch of misfits."

"They're trying," I said, still a

He held up his hands. "You're right, and I apologize. It disturbs me when Lissie acts like a baby, but I suppose she's entitled to act however she wants. It's been real hard on all of us since A

"But things are better with Lillith around to take care of the house," I said.

"A hundred percent. There wouldn't have been any way for me to spend half an hour after supper playing catch if Lillith wasn't here. I would have been washing dishes and fretting about bills. With her Social Security check added into the budget, I don't have to worry about putting new shoes on the kids a couple of times a year or having to sign them up for free lunches at school. Milvins don't take kindly to charity."

"How's the new job at the SuperSaver?"

Buzz licked his lips and looked away for a minute. "It'll work out okay," he said at last. "It won't be the hardest thing in the world to show Kevin Buchanon where to mop, or tally the register receipts and have the cash ready for Jim Bob to take to the night depository. At least I don't have to drive over to Starley City every morning at sunup and drag home eight hours later."

"Did Jim Bob say anything about when the SuperSaver would be open?" I asked delicately.

He gave me an amused look as he lit a cigarette. "Yeah, he did. This ain't a direct quote, but it had something to do with when a certain chief of police stopped behaving like a pedigreed bitch in heat and saw fit to take down the goddamn police tape that was put up Saturday. Lordy, that was something, wasn't it?"

"Yes, indeed," I said, struggling not to visualize it.

"Any idea what caused everybody to start…?"

"No, we'll have to wait for the lab results. The sheriff seems inclined to dismiss it as an accident, and he's apt to be right. I surely don't want it to turn out to be someone's idea of a prank."

"You mean like when a couple of years back someone poisoned bottles of aspirin and two or three folks died?" he said, bewildered. "I saw something about it on the news."

"Let's keep our fingers crossed that it can be explained by sloppiness in the kitchen or sour milk." I did not need rumors flying around the town like ravenous mosquitoes. I didn't need a baseball team, either, but it seemed I had one. I reminded Buzz of my immediate concern and waited until he waved at his children and left.

Then, with a bright smile and an omniscient sense of utter futility, I told everyone to gather at home plate-a burlap bag-to learn how to hold a baseball bat.

Brother Verber flipped to the next page and let out a low whistle of disbelief. Was this the sort of depravity he could expect to hear about in the counseling session? Why, it was enough to make a grown man cry. He studied the slightly blurred photograph for a long while, then reluctantly decided there weren't no way three people and a German shepherd could all fit on a porch swing. Besides, he figured Eilene Buchanon would have been real suspicious if Kevin had gone out to the porch wearing nothing except a leather mask and handcuffs, no matter how he tried to explain it. Furthermore, if he remembered rightly, that particular Buchanon family didn't even have a dog.

But it was important to be familiar with this variety of perversion. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that the O'Neill girl was a slut, and only the Good Lord knew what all she and Kevin might have done.

They were going to have to confess to every last lustful encounter so he could judge the level of depravity and determine how best to make them repent, Brother Verber thought as he blotted the saliva on his chin with a handkerchief. Every last lustful encounter, from the first timid kiss to the very last sweaty, fiery, wild-eyed, groanin' and moanin', steamin', mindless act of passion. On their knees and in detail.

He turned to the next page, just in case.

Emotions were still in high gear on Monday morning. Mrs. Jim Bob twitched her foot angrily as she stared at her husband across the breakfast table on the sun porch. "I don't know when I've ever been so embarrassed in all my days," she said, not for the first time. "Do you realize Eula Lemoy is in my Sunday-school class? How am I supposed to face her next week after what happened?"

Jim Bob was pretty sure a gremlin was residing in his head and setting off firecrackers every few seconds. His hand shook as he tried to gulp down the last of the coffee in his cup. It was colder than a well digger's ass by now, and tasted like raw sewage. He choked it down anyway and opened his mouth to offer a rebuttal.

"I have never been subjected to this kind of public humiliation before," she continued. "All of my friends were there, as were the many, many people in the community who look up to me for moral and spiritual guidance. And what happened? You have to go and poison them. You might as well have driven a stake through my heart. How can I face Eula, or Lottie, or Millicent, or any of my dearest friends ever again as long as I live?" She snatched up her napkin and dabbed her eyes.

"I didn't poison anybody."

Mrs. Jim Bob flung down the napkin. "Oh no? Then how are you pla

"Nobody knows what happened." He hesitated for a second, a little surprised he'd gotten a few more words in. When she merely glowered like a jack-o'-lantern, he added, "I'm meeting with the health department first thing this afternoon so's they can take another look at the equipment. All the girls in the kitchen have their certificates of clean health. There ain't no way anyone's going to blame this on us."

"Us? All I see is you, Jim Bob. I don't happen to see Mr. Lamont Petrel sitting in a chair beside you, willing to take his fair share of the blame. You look mighty alone right this minute."

"I told you already that I don't know where Lamont went. When everybody started whooping and shrieking in the pavilion, I left Lamont in the office and went back to have a look-see. By the time I got back to tell him what all was going on, he was gone. I haven't heard a squeak from him since Saturday afternoon. It's been close to forty-eight hours by now. I called over to his house, and his wife said she'd give him a message when he showed up."

"I think it's perfectly clear what happened," Mrs. Jim Bob said briskly and with an air of complacency that sent a shiver down Jim Bob's spine. "Mr. Lamont Petrel is responsible for the poisoning. A guilty man always flees the scene of the crime. The fact that he was scared to stay around proves it. Do you want to call the sheriff or shall I?"