Madness In Maggody

"Well, I never," Estelle gasped.

"I never, either," Ruby Bee said as she let out her breath and eased off her knees. She picked a piece of gravel off one kneecap, then looked at Estelle. "He threw something in the dumpster. I heard it."

"And I didn't?" Estelle said, picking at her own kneecap.

"Now what do we do?"

They both thought about the challenge of retrieving whatever it was that was somewhere in the foul confusion of the overflowing dumpster. Where there was rotting garbage, there were apt to be unspeakable things. From the scattered litter in the general vicinity, it was obvious the dumpster contained broken glass, razor-sharp lids, dirty diapers, oil, grease, and filth, all baked in the sunshine and thoroughly ripe.

"You said you needed a tetanus shot, anyway," Ruby Bee suggested with more decisiveness than she felt. "I'll give you a boost inside, and you can grab the evidence real quick."

"I beg your pardon," Estelle said, gazing down her nose like she fancied herself to be the Emily Post of Dumpsterdom. "For one, you're not tall enough to give me a boost. I, on the other hand, am tall enough to give you a leg up and help you when you're ready to climb back out."

The debate raged for a good fifteen minutes, but eventually Estelle won out, interlaced her fingers in a stirrup of sorts, and grunted softly as she hefted Ruby Bee over the edge of the sixfoot metal wall. The resultant remarks from the interior were about as graphic as she'd ever heard, but she didn't comment on them because she figured she'd be saying the same things and perhaps even more.

After a minute or two, Ruby Bee said, "I think I see something. It's not as…nasty as the other bags, and it's kind of on top of…other things. Let me see if I can get over there and-"

The next sound was a harrumph of sorts, but said with great unhappiness and accompanied by an explosive clatter and the tinkle of breaking glass. Estelle clutched her cheeks and said, "Are you all right?"

The door of the upstairs apartment they'd been watching opened and a figure in a white bathrobe and a terry-cloth turban yelled, "What the hell's going on down there?"

Estelle threw herself around the corner, praying she hadn't been spotted. From inside the dumpster, a low voice said, "Dandy. This is just dandy."

Another door opened. A wizened man dressed in baggy shorts and a baseball cap came out on the balcony. His chest was covered with matted black hair and his arms resembled rolls of barbed wire. He had a beer in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other. "Damn rats back in the dumpster?" he asked his neighbor. "I saw one the other day big enough to tip the thing over and drag it away."

"I just heard the crash, Arnie," the woman said, still scowling down at the dumpster.

"Tell you what, I'll get my shoes and my shotgun and go have a look. It's bad enough living in this dump without having rats taking up residence in the parking lot."

"Go for it," the woman said. She went back inside and closed the door. The man stuffed the last of the sandwich in his mouth, finished the beer, and went back into his apartment. The door remained ajar.

"Now what?" said a most unfriendly voice.

"I don't know. Lemme think about it," Estelle whispered, panicked to the point of hyperventilation, which was unfortunate considering the redolence of the moment.

"Good idea…thinking, that is. You're the one who got me into this. I'm squatting in garbage, and liable any minute to come nose-to-nose with a rat, and you're going to think about it. Would you like to know what I think?"

It came to Estelle about the time she thought she was going to pass out from the panic. As distasteful as it seemed, she had no choice and had to do her duty. "Just wait there," she told Ruby Bee. "I'm going to distract him so he won't shoot you." She stood up, brushed the dust off her skirt, patted her hair back into shape, lifted her chin, and took off for the stairs that led to the second floor.

The wail of desperation was lost as a plane roared overhead and went in for a landing.

13

Plover's car was parked beside the PD, and I found him inside telling whimsically gory tales to Hammet about bandits and bank robbers. I sat down behind my desk and made a few desultory notes about my interviews with Ivy and Mandozes. They didn't amount to a hill of beans (organic or refried), and I was mostly just sitting when Plover finished his lurid story, sent Hammet to the back room to play with the radar gun, and sat down across from me.

"Have you heard from the lab?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, but you're not going to leap into my lap and smother me with kisses when you hear what they reported."

"I'm not?"

"Only in my fantasies, I fear. The lab analyzed the contents of Lillith Sinew's stomach and blood and found traces of a toxic compound. Same for the other two victims. To the pathologists' regret, it's not nice, straightforward arsenic or potassium cyanide, or even something charmingly exotic like curare, but some incredibly complicated mess of polysyllabic chemicals. They think it might take several weeks to pin it down."

"Several weeks? What are we supposed to do while they piddle around with their tests? How am I going to identify a poisoner if I don't have any idea where to look? What kind of a lab is it, anyway?" I rattled desk drawers and slammed around pencils and notebooks until I calmed down. "They have no idea what the toxic compound is?"

"Unofficially, my friend said he suspects it'll turn out to be a common industrial pesticide."

"As in ant powder or rat poison or insecticide?" I told him what I'd learned in the last day. "So Ruby Bee, Mandozes, and Ivy Sattering all have access to lethal substances. But so does everyone else in town. Every kitchen has a box of something or other in the cabinet under the sink where curious toddlers can get to it." I sat back and sighed. "I don't know why I'm bothering to conduct an investigation. All I need to do is wait quietly until Eula and Lottie and all the other tongue-flapping magpies figure it out and pass along the solution. Considering the tempo thus far, I ought to have it by baseball practice this afternoon."

Hammet came to the doorway. "The game's tomorrow, you know. I went over to the field at the high school and watched that other team play. I think we got a shitload of trouble, Arly. They kin throw and catch and one of 'em liked to knock the darn hide off the ball."

"All we can do is try. Team effort and that sort of thing. Ruby Bee's serving supper afterward, so at least we'll eat well."

"Where is she?" Plover asked. "I was going to suggest a late lunch, but the bar and grill is closed." I shrugged again. "I am not my mother's keeper, for which I am currently and shall remain eternally grateful. She's off ru

"What color?" Hammet demanded, clearly enchanted with the brightly hued images in his mind.

I shooed him out the door, tilted back in my chair, and propped my feet on the corner of the desk. "This whole thing is a polysyllabic mess. Someone managed to lace the tamale sauce with ipecac, perhaps in front of a dozen people, but nobody saw anything. The store was locked from Saturday at three o'clock until Monday afternoon, and that evening someone left the tampered cake packages on the display rack. All but one had pins or ipecac, which resulted in unpleasantness but not serious injury. One package contained a lethal poison. Why?"

"Beats the hell out of me," Plover said affably. "Why did Lamont Petrel disappear at the grand opening? Why did Jim Bob lie about his whereabouts Monday night? Why did Martin Milvin have the same symptoms as his father and grandmother? Why do fools fall in love?"