Madness In Maggody

"No way of knowing." He raised the bullhorn to his mouth. "Listen up, we've got the house surrounded and there ain't no way you can get away. Let the woman and the children come out and then you and I'll have ourselves a talk. How does that sound?"

Joyce appeared at a window, waved frantically at us, and then ducked out of sight. After a moment, Lissie and Saralee came to the same window and stood there talking to each other as they watched Harve, the deputies, and me all watching them.

"The little girls seem okay," one of the deputies said out of the corner of his mouth. "The woman looked frightened, though. You want me to see if I can sneak up on the porch and take down the perp through a window?"

"Hold on," I said to Harve, pulling down his bullhorn. "Are we very, very sure there's a perp in there?"

He looked at the two girls, then at me. He sucked on his lips for a minute, shook his head, and said, "Nope. Let's not start taking down any perps just yet, Bertie. Let's just sit tight for a few minutes and see what all happens." He put the bullhorn on the hood of his car and took a cigar butt out of his shirt pocket. The deputies looked disappointed as they lowered their weapons and straightened up.

I smiled and waved at the girls, who replied in kind. They exchanged a few words, then Saralee unlocked the window, yanked it open, and yelled, "Hi, Miss Arly. What are you and all those fellows with guns doing? Are they go

"Is there anyone in there with you?"

"Yeah," Saralee yelled, nodding. "Do you want us to come out with our hands up like that fat man said to do?"

The deputies were nudging each other and chuckling. Harve got the cigar going, then picked up the bullhorn. "Who all's in there?"

"Lissie and me," Saralee answered. "Aunt Joyce, Cousin Larry junior, Cousin Traci, and the baby. Uncle Larry Joe went to the high school earlier, but he said he'd be back for lunch. We're not coming out until you swear you ain't go

Harve ordered the deputies to search the yard and adjoining pasture, and gestured at me to follow him as he walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the door.

"Hi, Miss Arly," Lissie said through the window. "This is better'n television, ain't it?"

"Much better," I said.

Joyce opened the door and threw her arms around Harve. "Thank God you're here," she said brokenly. "You, too, Arly."

Harve disengaged her from his neck and checked his pocket to make sure she hadn't smashed his stash. "Where's the rapist, ma'am?"

"I thought I saw him out back under the forsythia bushes."

"Someone called and said he was in the act of breaking into your house. Was it you?" When she shook her head mutely, he continued. "Is your phone off the hook?"

"I was talking to someone when y'all drove up. It liked to have scared me to death, the sirens and lights and that booming voice and those guns aimed at the house."

The deputies came around to the front yard, none of them dragging a rapist, and reported that the only thing under the forsythia was an ugly yellow dog and a chewed-up plastic truck missing a wheel. Harve brusquely ordered them to wait out by the cars, then gave Joyce a mean look.

"So how'd this rapist story get all the way to my office in Starley City?" he asked.

Joyce twisted her hands and looked at me for help, but I was fresh out. "My second cousin Barbie Buteo called this morning and said that Lamont Petrel had raped a dozen women in the county, escaped from the police, and was likely to be hiding in Maggody. I guess my imagination got loose from me, huh?"

"And where did this Buteo woman hear that?" he asked, still pissed at having had to drive all the way over and make an ass out of himself with the bullhorn and the display of firepower.

"I don't know."

"Who do ya think called my office?"

"I don't know," she repeated meekly.

"But you were on the phone?" I said, fighting back a grin because I figured Harve wouldn't appreciate it one bit. "Who all did you call, Joyce?"

"I felt obliged to warn some of my friends. I called Ruby Bee, Eula, Elsie, and Millicent McIlhaney-but she wasn't home, so I left a message with Darla Jean. I was talking to Lottie when I heard the sirens. She said she'd let everybody else know what was happening."

"So now," I said to Harve, unable to hold back my grin, "threequarters of the locals are convinced our missing person is in the act of raping Joyce while making a list of his next dozen potential victims. If you listen real carefully, you can hear those telephone wires humming across the county, and by tomorrow, they'll be barricading the doors in Texarkana."

Harve harrumphed at Joyce, then stalked across the porch and down the sidewalk to his car. I caught up with him before he could drive away, and said, "Somebody'd better find Petrel before a lynch mob of husbands, uncles, and brothers beats us to him. Every last one of them will be a hundred percent convinced Petrel raped some woman someplace."

"Think you can run the rumor back to its source?"

"Sure, Harve, sure. I don't have anything to do for the next year or two. I was going to keep working on the poisoning investigation, but if you want me to start calling the roster of the missionary society, I'll be delighted to oblige."

"You know what? Sometimes you got a real smart mouth."

Harve left me standing in a cloud of dust, but I hardly noticed.

Brother Verber had searched every inch of the mobile home, and he was fairly sure he'd gotten all his study material together-except for the two missing issues, which sure as heck weren't under the mobile home or lying in the grass beside it or anyplace of which he could even begin to think.

Their disappearance into thin air was why he was sweating like a pear-shaped pitcher of iced tea. Droplets of sweat were ru

He stared at the gray plastic garbage bag filled with back issues of study material. He couldn't set it in the metal can outside the Voice of the Almighty, because there was obviously a devious burglar in and around the grounds. He wasn't about to put it under his bed or in his closet. He considered putting it in the can behind the Emporium, but as he glanced out the window, he saw the hippie woman stacking crates and decided she looked like the kind of person who knew exactly what was supposed to be in her garbage cans and what wasn't.

It was a vexing problem, and to make it worse, he didn't know where Mrs. Jim Bob was or when she was likely to come banging on his door again.

Brother Verber mopped whatever body surfaces were readily available, squared his shoulders, and picked up the garbage bag. Maggody was too small. He was going to have to take a ride to a place where the garbage cans were anonymous and their contents unlikely to be scrutinized by anyone who would then point the finger finger of accusation in his direction, even though he had a perfectly legitimate reason for possessing half a dozen issues of Rubber Maid and twice that many of Kittens and Tomcats, less two, of course. The August issue of Of Human Bondage. A collection of paperback novels, all selected in order to acquaint him with the steamier sins of his flock and featuring characters named Rod and Dick and Pussy Wantsit. And his most recent addition, Suzie Squeezums, neatly deflated and tucked away in her plastic carrying case.

He went out to his car, tossed the bag in the backseat, and drove out of Maggody, sweating all the more as he fondly thought about his little Suzie.