Madness In Maggody

"Not yet," I admitted. "I'm hoping you can help. The poison seems to have been in the coconut-covered cakes. I had half a dozen reports of tampering that day, although everyone else experienced only mild reactions."

"I bought the cakes on my way out of the store. I just picked 'em up off the rack."

"And there was nothing suspicious about the cellophane wrapper?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I didn't think to examine it. I was going to give them to the kids, but I forgot I had them in my pocket until later in the day. Lillith's got a sweet tooth, and we decided to have ourselves a little treat on the sly. I took it and a beer into the living room, opened a magazine, and the next thing I know some nurse is hovering over me and I've got enough needles in me to be a voodoo doll."

He began to cough in harsh spasms that shook his shoulders and brought tears to his eyes. The nurse came to the door of the cubicle, shot me a dirty look, and said, "How are we doing, Mr. Milvin? Would we like a sip of water?"

"I'm okay," he said, waving her away. "Anything else?"

"One quick question. On Monday night, Jim Bob sent you to Starley City to make the deposit. Do you know why he did that?"

"Some woman called the store and asked to speak to him. He hunkered over the receiver and tried to keep it down, but his ears were redder'n raspberries and he was breathing pretty hard by the time he hung up. He told me to take the bags, that he wanted to stay at the store. When I got back, he was gone."

"But Kevin Buchanon was there the entire time?"

"He was supposed to be," Buzz said with a grimace. "But even when he's there, he's not quite there, if you know what I mean."

I assured him that I did indeed, told him I'd come back to visit, and left before the nurse booted me out. I went back to Martin's room, turned off the television, and stood beside the bed. "Are you sure you didn't have a bite of your pa's or your grandmother's coconut cake?" I pleaded. "One little bite?"

"Is that what poisoned them?"

"And you, too," I said with as much control as I could rally in my seriously frustrated frame of mind. He shook his head. "I don't like coconut. It gets stuck between my teeth."

I told him I'd see him in the morning, and took Lissie out to the car.

"One short errand on the way back to Maggody," I told her as we headed down the highway.

She nodded, uninterested in the foolish vagaries of adults, and was humming to herself as I parked next to the dumpster at the Airport Arms Apartments. I went upstairs and along the balcony to the last door. My knock was as officious as I could make it, and the door opened within seconds.

This time Cherri Lucinda's curly blond hair was not hidden, and I was fairly sure she was the woman who'd been sent sprawling into the van during the ceremonies outside the SuperSaver. In fact, her scowl was strikingly similar to the one she'd had that day.

"I'm sick and tired of you people," she said angrily. "I mean, I've had it up to here with cops and spies and crazy women. I'm in the middle of packing my bags, and with luck I'll be in the next state by sunset."

"Wait a minute," I said as she tried to close the door. "I need to ask you some questions."

"I don't give a damn what you need. I am sick, sick, sick of this whole stupid nonsense! Screw the gold Le Baron convertible, screw Jim Bob Buchanon, and screw you!"

The door slammed in my face.

Lissie didn't glance up as I got back in the car, started the engine, and drove out of the lot in a cloud of dust. I dropped her at Joyce's, pulled back onto the highway, and was considering the idea of driving to France when I spotted Kevin pedaling along the side of the road in front of the pool hall. I pulled in front of him and stopped.

"I want to talk to you," I said as I got out of the car. "And if you so much as sniffle, I'm going to put your head between the spokes of that bicycle and pedal like hell to the East Coast."

"Hi, Arly," he said cheerfully.

"Don't 'hi' me, Kevin Buchanon," I continued. I was aware I wasn't at my coolest, professionally speaking, but I was as sick as Crate of all the gossip and evasions of the last five days, and he was a prime evader. "What happened Monday night at the SuperSaver?"

He swallowed several times, glanced over his shoulder, then rolled his bicycle forward until the front tire went over my foot. "Dahlia came by at ten to talk to me," he said in a whisper, although there was no one in sight except for Roy Stiver sitting in front of his store and therefore a block away. "Buzz told me to git back to work, but we-Dahlia and me, not Buzz and me-had some more talking to do, so she went to the break room and waited there."

"And then?"

His eyes darted like mi

"Yes, Kevin, I do know that. Then what happened?"

"Golly, Arly, that's kind of personal," he stammered, his Adam's apple bouncing.

"I do not-repeat, do not-want to hear what transpired between you and Dahlia. Did the two of you remain in the break room until Buzz returned?"

"It's kind of fu

"Did you see Jim Bob?" I inserted.

"No, but it wasn't Buzz 'cause he was gone for more than an hour and stayed once he came back. We figured it was Jim Bob."

"And how did you reach that conclusion, Sherlock?"

"He had a key. Otherwise, how would he get back inside the Store?"

I stared at him. "I wish you'd mentioned this earlier, Kevin. Did you and your betrothed work out your problems?"

"Oh, yeah, everything's go

And so do Sherman tanks, I thought. I left Kevin sitting on his bicycle and in imminent peril of being run down by a chicken truck (one of the more imminent perils in Maggody). A few of the threads were begi

It was still closed.

I turned around in the parking lot and drove back to the PD just as Plover pulled up. He had a peculiar look on his face, so peculiar it was impossible to define or even take a stab at. But thirty minutes later, after hearing his story, I had the same expression on my own face.