Madness In Maggody

"What was that bit about baseball practice?"

"You're not going to like it when I stand on the table and scream at you. Just tell me why you're here, okay? Then I'll tell you about baseball practice and we'll both be fully informed."

"I'm getting to it," he said, suddenly obliged to start rereading the menu. "Let's wait until we order."

"Let's not." By this point, my voice was begi

He winced. "Okay, okay. It…ah, it seems we've once again lost someone in Maggody."

"What?"

"We had a call from Muriel Petrel. She said her husband came here Friday evening to prepare for the grand opening on Saturday. She thought he'd be home that night or at least the following day, but she hasn't seen him or heard from him for the last forty-eight hours."

"That's Jim Bob's partner," I said, frowning at him.

"I came out to find out when he was last seen and to ascertain if he could still be in town. His car's parked out back in front of his motel room, and his suitcase is in the room."

I was fighting to control both my eyelids and my jaw, but I wasn't having a helluva lot of success. "Did you talk to Jim Bob?"

"He said he didn't see Petrel after the minor problem arose in the pavilion. Said he left Petrel in the office, looking at the initial inventory invoices. When he returned thirty minutes later, the invoices were in a neat pile and the office was empty."

I finally got hold of myself and glared across the table. "So you're supposed to breeze into town and question everyone who might have knowledge of Petrel's whereabouts. Did it occur to your lieutenant to consult the local police department?"

"I'm consulting it right now. The issue of jurisdiction's tricky. Petrel lives in Farberville, and the missing-persons report was filed initially with the local police department there. They told Mrs. Petrel to call us."

"But you've already begun talking to witnesses," I said coolly. If my air conditioner had worked better, I could have worked myself up to coldly, but it had been one long, hot summer. "Who else has been contacted?"

"Mrs. Jim Bob said Petrel had poisoned everybody for his own dark purposes and fled the county, if not the country."

"Does she have any evidence?" I asked.

"What do you think?" Plover put his hand over mine and tried to smile guilelessly. "Petrel probably forgot to mention a business trip, that's all."

"And walked to the airport?"

"Hell, I don't know. It hasn't even been seventy-two hours yet, so I'm just poking around. Maybe he has some phobia about barf and went stumbling into the woods. Maybe he hitched a ride to an unknown destination because…because Mrs. Jim Bob's correct and he poisoned everybody for his own dark purposes. "

"In your dreams," I said glumly, shaking my head. "Harve's probably right about there having been some weird accident during the food preparation, but I'm staying on it until I'm satisfied. After all, it cost me a perfectly good uniform. Even my badge stinks, which could lead to all kinds of complex philosophical questions about the role of enforcer in an evolving society, were we so inclined. However, I'm more inclined to meat loaf."

7

"He raped her right there on the sofa bed in the office," Edna Louise Skimmer whispered to Barbie Buteo, her second cousin once removed on her mother's side, who lived in Emmet but got by every now and then for a nice visit. They were obliged to whisper due to the kids being in the next room.

"No?" gasped Barbie. "Did she go to the emergency room at the hospital?"

Edna Louise tried to remember what all she'd heard at the county nursing home several days back. "I don't think so," she admitted with a trace of regret.

"Does her pa know about it?"

"Oh, no, and this is strictly between you and me, Barbie. One of the aides just happened to have overheard a conversation on the porch and passed it along to me, but I can't afford to lose my job for repeating gossip, even if it's the gospel truth. I wish I could tell you more about whatall he did, but I can't say another word." She rolled her eyes and zipped her lips to emphasize her point. "You do understand what I'm getting at, doncha?"

"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 go

"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.