Madness In Maggody

"Jesus H.," he said, taking off his hat to run his hand across his carefully oiled hair. "The little girl's okay?"

"She seems fine. The medics said Buzz was critical. They were more optimistic about Martin, the boy. His color was quite a bit better, and he was semiconscious when they put him in the ambulance. The coroner's on his way with Plover and a couple of men to take prints and photographs."

Harve got out of the car and stared at the house. "Did you look around at all?"

"I didn't see any half-eaten sponge cakes, if that's what you're getting at. Damn it, what's going on in this town? Have we got a maniac on our hands? Maggody's not big enough to have a resident maniac. Don't try to tell me-"

Harve hushed me and herded me away from the porch. We hissed at each other until Plover drove up, followed by other official vehicles. He issued orders, then joined us. "Do you want to come inside?" he asked me.

"I want to crawl under my covers," I said in all sincerity. "No, I've seen enough to hold me. You all can go look for cellophane wrappers and fingerprints and whatever it is you think you'll find."

"We'll need you to wait."

"I'll wait." I went across the yard and sat down in the grass, battling to maintain a professional composure. I'd seen nasty things in my life-and some of them in a shabby little town where, in theory, nothing ever happened. When something happened here, however, it happened with an intensity that made it a hundred times worse. A corpse in Manhattan was a corpse. In Maggody, it was someone's mother, someone's child, someone who lived next door or sang in the choir. It had a name. The violence wasn't isolated in a Bowery doorstep. It was a blister that enveloped all of us; we couldn't dismiss it as an inexplicable act of greed, or lust, or rage.

My eyes were closed and my shoulders trembling when I felt a small hand on my knee. "Don't cry, Miss Arly," Lissie said softly. "When I cry, Pa says all it does is make my nose turn red. He says it don't help to act like a baby and that I have to be a big girl now that Mama's in heaven."

"I'm sure your pa loves you very much," I said, aware of the incongruity of a police officer being comforted by a ten-year-old child whose father might be dead within the hour. There was a bright yellow dandelion near my foot. I picked it and handed it to her with a weak smile.

She searched my face for a long while, then crawled into my lap and put her thumb in her mouth. I wrapped my arms around her, and the two of us rocked back and forth in the grass.

9

Lissie couldn't stay at home, so I told her to wait by my car and went into the house. One of Plover's men was taking photographs of the recliner. The coroner was in Lillith Sinew's room, pronouncing the obvious to Deputy Vernon, who looked ill. In the kitchen, a trooper with an exceedingly grim expression was removing items from a garbage can and placing them on the table. Plover and Harve muttered to each other as they examined the items.

I kept my eyes averted from the bunk beds as I packed a few things in a small suitcase. I told Plover I'd be back, then put the child in my car and drove toward the Lambertinos' to see whether she could stay there for the time being.

"Where'd they take Pa and Martin?" Lissie asked.

"To the hospital."

"Why didn't they take Gran, too?"

I glanced at her, but she looked only mildly curious. "I'm afraid Gran was too sick for the medics to help her," I said gently.

"Is she gone to heaven with Mama?"

"Yes, she has."

"Oh." Lissie leaned down and pointed at the battered police radio. "What's that thing do?"

As I explained what the thing was supposed to do but rarely did, I pulled into the Lambertinos' driveway and cut off the engine. "Lissie, I need to ask you some questions. Is that okay?" She nodded, still frowning at the radio. "We think that Pa, Gran, and Martin all ate or drank something that made them sick. You're not sick, so you obviously didn't have whatever they had. Can you think what it might have been?"

"Huh-uh. Does the siren work?"

"Upon occasion," I said, watching her closely. "Let's talk some more about what happened today. Were you awake when Pa came home from the supermarket at seven?"

"Yeah, I woke up real early like I always do, but I didn't get out of bed right away. I read a story to Roxa

"So you and Roxa

She nodded, but her forehead was wrinkled and her lower lip was extended. "I didn't make up the stories. Roxa

"Fine, fine. And then you went to the kitchen, right? Was everybody having breakfast?"

"Is this where I'm go

"Mrs. Lambertino won't let Saralee bother you." I reminded myself of the necessity of eliciting information, and let an authoritative authoritative edge creep into my voice. "Lissie, you do understand that I'm the police chief and I have to find out what happened at your house today. You need to help me. Once you've done that, we can talk about the radio or anything else you want. Okay?"

"Okay, Miss Arly. Gran fixed me cereal, but she was grouchy, so I ate real fast. Then Pa came in and she said she wanted to talk to him in the back room. He said he had a gawdawful headache, but she said they was going to talk right then."

I nodded. "Good, Lissie. Did they talk?"

"In the back bedroom. I couldn't hear much, but I think they were both mad at Martin. He came in from the backyard, and pretty soon Gran came out and told Martin to go talk to Pa. I finished my cereal and went into the living room to watch television."

"Did Martin tell you why Pa and Gran were mad at him?" She shook her head so vaguely that it seemed to drift back and forth. "I watched television all morning. Gran came in and looked hard at me, but all I was doing was sitting in Pa's big chair with Roxa

"You're doing great, Lissie. What about lunch?"

"Martin and me had ca

She obediently scrunched up her eyes. "No," she said in a faraway voice, "he just came in and said he was tireder than a fiddler's elbow at a barn dance. Then Gran started in on him and they went to the back bedroom."

"Did you see anyone have something to eat or drink after lunch?" I asked without much hope.

"No, but everybody was fumin', so I stayed in Pa's chair until he told me to go outside and play. I wanted to watch television some more, but he said the noise was giving everybody a royal pain." She began to squirm on the seat. "It's awful hot sitting here, Miss Arly."

"You're right," I said as I took her overnight bag from the backseat. "Let's go talk to Mrs. Lambertino."