Chapter Fourteen.

"That's the third camper to leave," Earl grumbled as he came into the kitchen and tossed his cap on the table. "At this rate, the field's gonna be empty by sundown. It ain't like it was Matt Montana who got hisself killed in the window of Mrs. Jim Bob's shoppe."

Eilene hung his cap on the peg by the door. "I wish you'd remember to wipe your feet, Earl. I just finished mopping the floor."

He waited for her to get him a beer, but she walked right out of the room. "Are you sick?" he called in a real solicitous voice. "I can run over to the deli at the supermarket and pick up some tamales and beans for supper."

"Don't bother," she said from the front room.

Harrumphing under his breath, he got himself a beer and sat back down. She was acting awful peculiar, he thought as he popped the tab. Here he'd offered to go get the tamales and she hadn't even said, "Thank you for being so considerate, Earl." She was the one who was big on his being "considerate" and "sensitive to her needs" and was all the time taking quizzes in women's magazines. He'd found one on the counter that told you how to measure how much s.e.xual magic there was in your bed. The score she'd circled said they needed a postmortem, but he wasn't about to let any wife of his order something kinky from a catalog. "You talk to the kids today?" he asked, trying to sound like Phil Donahue.

She came to the doorway, her arms crossed and her mouth not so much frowning as set like she was trying real hard not to frown. "I called this morning, but Kevin'd already gone to work. Dahlia was in a hurry because she was supposed to have the Matt-Mobile at the high school at ten, and she wanted to hose down the wagon because some tourist spilled a soda pop on the floorboards. She was afraid Matt Montana might end up with a sticky purple stain on his white britches. I'm real worried about her."

"We got any pretzels or chips and dip?"

She gave him a funny look before she drifted back to the front room. "She hardly ate any supper last night."

"Won't hurt her," Earl said, determined to keep trying to have a normal conversation. "You know, I'm kinda glad to get those trucks and RVs out of the field. If it rains tonight, their tires will tear it up and it'll take weeks to get it plowed next spring."

She came back to the doorway. "Did you hear what Dahlia said this morning down by the low-water bridge?"

"That hogwash about murdering some old guy and rolling him up in a bag? She must have gone home last night and eaten a couple of frozen pizzas, or stopped by Raz's place to buy some shine. Indigestion or a hangover--one or the other of them was making her crazier than ol' Typha Buchanon. Remember when he burned down his own house cause he thought he had Mormons in the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"I wonder," Eilene said as she once again disappeared.

"You wonder what was making Dahlia crazy--or are you starting to wonder if we got Mormons in the bas.e.m.e.nt, too? For pity's sake, Eilene, just call her and ask." He looked at the doorway and almost choked on a mouthful of beer as he saw her standing there. "If you want to, I mean. It can't hurt to ask her why she was spouting off like that."

"I spoke to Eula this morning. She was at the supermarket yesterday evening, and a man with silver hair asked her for directions. All he had was the rural route and box numbers, but they got to talking and it turned out he was looking for Kevin and Dahlia's house. He claimed he was interested in buying a vacuum cleaner from Kevin, but Eula said he looked more like someone trying to sell time-shares in a cemetery."

"So?"

"So Dahlia didn't make up everything. There was a man with silver hair who was looking for the house. What if he found it?"

"Why, she murdered him like she said, but then somebody happened into the chicken house and brought him back to life so he could go home. Problem is, n.o.body's seen the Messiah walking around MagG.o.dy, and Brother Verber ain't up to that kind of miracle yet. Besides, if he brought a fellow back from the dead, you can bet he'd be crowing about it from the roof of the a.s.sembly Hall. You sure we ain't got any pretzels?"

Eilene took a cellophane bag from the bread box and came to the table. "All I said, Earl, was that someone ought to be thinking about what Dahlia said happened last night."

"Maybe you ought to be thinking more about fixing my supper," Earl said with a smile. He'd opened his mouth to suggest spaghetti when she poured the pretzels on his head, folded the empty bag, and put it in the wastebasket. He took a pretzel off his ear and stared at it. "What the h.e.l.l's gotten into you, Eilene? I've been messing with those fool tourists all day and I'm hungry. If all you're gonna do is stew about this, call Dahlia and ask her straight out what happened."

"I can't. She came by an hour ago and borrowed my car."

"She did what? d.a.m.n it, I told Ira I was bringing my truck in so he could fix that busted headlight. It won't be ready till Monday. I figured we could use your car the rest of the weekend. Where'd Dahlia go?"

"I didn't ask," Eilene said as she left the kitchen. This time she went to the bedroom and locked the door.

I drove to the motel parking lot, where my two recruited deputies had been told to wait for me. "Tell me about last night," I suggested. "The comings and goings."

They solemnly a.s.sured me no one except Ruby Bee had entered or left the parking lot. I let them finish, then asked, "What about Matt Montana?"

One of them (and it doesn't matter which) said, "Never so much as peeked out of the bus the entire time. It was a good thing, 'cause we sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't have known what to say to him if he wanted to take a walk."

I gave them a knowing grin. "Got pretty cold last night, didn't it? If I'd been here, I wouldn't have thought twice about sitting in my car while I watched the lot. I'd have run the heater just so my toes wouldn't freeze, and if Ruby Bee'd brought me some coffee, you can bet I'd have poured an inch or two of something in it to keep me warm."

We all agreed I'd hit it square on the head, that what I'd described was the only way to survive a long, cold, boring night in an empty parking lot. I told them to talk to Harve about their paychecks, politely asked the real deputies to station themselves at both ends of the lot, and went to the souvenir shoppe to see if the coroner had made any progress.

An ambulance had joined the cars from the sheriff's department and a truck with a well-stocked gun rack and an orange cap on the dashboard. A tablecloth had been taped across the store window. The tourists, deprived of a view of the corpse, were gone, and the media had regrouped across the street at the parking lot. They looked unhappy, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

Inside, deputies were sprinkling fingerprint powder on the souvenirs. The coroner supervised the ambulance attendants, who were struggling to fit the curled body into a bag designed for a rec.u.mbent one.

"Do we have an estimated time of death?" I asked.

The coroner looked up peevishly. "Rigor's established, so he's apt to have been dead at least twelve hours, but that's all I can say until we know if he was outside any length of time. It was d.a.m.n cold last night. Depends, too, on the circ.u.mstances preceding his death. Maybe the state medical examiner can do something with the stomach contents." He gave me a smile I found ghoulish. "Too bad it ain't summer, Chief. The maggot count can be real accurate."

"Come on, McBeen," I begged, "give me a ballpark figure."

"More than ten hours, less than eighteen," he said, then paused to scowl at a photographer who was getting in the way. "And I ain't even touching the corpse before it goes to Little Rock. There's something perverse about the way he was dolled up in these clothes and set like that. This kind of tomfoolery may be fine for those silly mystery novels my wife reads, but I'm not having any part of it. Soon as the paperwork's ready, he's off to the state lab."

I looked at Harve for help, but he was busy pricing a Matt Montana duck caller. "McBeen, we all know the lab down there's staffed with a bunch of yuppies with telephones in their cars and silk neckties under their one hundred percent cotton lab coats. You've had more experience than all of them rolled together, and you don't waste time counting toes and fingers before you identify the cause of death."

McBeen picked up his notebook, tucked his pen behind his ear, and, with a weary sigh, prepared to follow the gurney out the door. "Get yourself a cellular phone, Arly. It'll give you something to do when you're stuck in one of these local traffic jams I've been hearing hearing about lately. Give me a ring and we'll have a chat about livor mortis."

"Internal hemorrhage and a fractured skull?" I said to the back of his neck. He nodded perceptibly as he left.

Harve tested the duck caller (non quack pas en francaise), then set it down. "You already knew that. Get anywhere with the Nashville folks?"

I considered how much damage I could inflict with a short length of hollow wood. "I haven't had time to question them individually. This far, no one admits to having any idea when the victim came here, or why. Yesterday afternoon he didn't mention any intentions of coming, but he obviously changed his mind. I'll call his secretary and see if she knows anything." I did a bit of arithmetic. "McBeen said death occurred ten to eighteen hours ago. That puts it between seven last night and three this morning. That's a lot of help, isn't it?"

"It was dark by half past five yesterday evening. When did Mrs. Jim Bob close the store?"

"She left early because of her guests, and Darla Jean locked up at seven. The bar and grill and the pool hall close at midnight, so there would have been traffic until then. Mrs. Jim Bob leaves an overhead light on to discourage burglars." I realized we were missing a player. "Has anybody found the mannequin?"

"Uh-uh. I had the boys look out back and on the adjoining property in case our smarta.s.s dumped it nearby. I guess we need a description of it from Mrs. Jim Bob. She's waiting in the back room." He took a cigar b.u.t.t from his pocket, then put it back and grimaced. "Sounds ridiculous, don't it?"

"Yep," I said as I went past him and pushed back the curtain.

"Just bring home something for supper, you hear?" Mrs. Jim Bob said into the telephone receiver, saw me, and hung up as if she'd been talking to the KGB. "Is the body gone?"

"Just now, but it's going to be some time until everything in the immediate area is fingerprinted. It won't do any good, but I suppose they'll do the same around the back door. Did you ever have any communication with this Pierce Keswick?"

"Never heard of him until he had the audacity to be found in my front window, and on a day when the store was packed with customers. Jim Bob said folks at the supermarket are talking about leaving on account of a murderer loose in town. The parking lot's half-empty. The Christmas Boutique isn't doing any business to speak of. Brother Verber hasn't sold a single postcard this afternoon, and not one soul has signed up for a guided tour down to the creek. I'm beginning to think we never should have ..." She hung her head and began to sniffle. "Jim Bob doesn't know this," she said between gulps, tears welling in her eyes, her cheeks turning fiery, "but I borrowed close to seven thousand dollars for inventory and fixtures like the tables and postcard racks. If the store goes broke, I don't know how I can pay the bank and replace the money from the ..." She began to root through her purse for a tissue, all the while mumbling about her precipitous foray into debilitating debt and disgrace. I knew how to deal with her sanctimoniousness, but not with this admission of vulnerability. I couldn't bring myself to pat her shoulder, but I did nod sympathetically and say, "You should be able to open the store in the morning. I don't know how this will affect the remainder of Matt's visit, but it's possible the concert can go ahead as scheduled."

"The T-shirts alone cost me one thousand four hundred and fifty-nine dollars, and that's not including freight. I only ordered two dozen embroidered jackets, but they were almost thirty-five dollars apiece wholesale. The caps were nine hundred and twenty-five dollars. There are sixty dollars worth of pencils in that carton right there. One hundred and twenty-eight dollars worth of coffee cups. The novelties company gave me thirty days, but that was three weeks ago."

"Maybe they'll give you--"

"I allowed myself to be blinded with a vision of saving the community. Satan was whispering in my ear, but I kept picturing the faces of innocent little children on Christmas morning when they came downstairs and saw those empty stockings. I knew better than to heed the devil. 'But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful l.u.s.ts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.' "

"The gospel according to J. C. Penney?"

Mrs. Jim Bob stuffed the wadded tissue into her purse and stood up. "First Timothy, missy. If you'd make it a habit to attend church on a regular basis, you might just learn something. Are you planning to stand here the rest of the day, or is there a murder you might want to investigate?"

I asked for a description of the mannequin and with great seriousness recorded her answers: molded blond hair, flesh tone #4 (moderate tan), six-foot even, forty pounds roughly. Left foot missing, chipped nose, and a broken right forearm now held together with duct tape, all why she'd gotten it cheap.

Harve agreed it was premature to put out an APB, fiddled with a cigar b.u.t.t until it was lit to his satisfaction, and went to the front of the store to watch the photographer capture the lack of bloodstains on the wooden floor and chair.

Hammet came across the road as I parked in front of the PD. He was back in overalls, a patched flannel shirt, unlaced sneakers, and My army surplus jacket from distant college days. "Did ya catch him yet?" he asked as he followed me inside. "Is the sumb.i.t.c.h locked up in the pokey--or did he pull a gun and force you to splatter his brains on the ceiling?" He aimed an imaginary a.s.sault weapon at my chair. "Get 'em up or you're dead meat, slime bucket."

"What happened to your fancy white duds?" I asked as I went into the back room and got a cup of coffee.

"That ol' fart said I cain't wear 'em unless I'm gittin' my picture taken. He wuz sposed to take me down to the house so I could be in some pictures, but then he said weren't n.o.body gonna do anything else today 'cause of the dead man. I kin question folks for you, 'specially that piggy lil' kid."

"Better let me do that, Hammet. I might lose my job if the town council found out I was making you do the tough stuff. There is a way you can help me out, though, if you're not too busy posing for photographs."

"You jest name it." He sat down across from me, his back rigid, his eyes popping with eagerness, his trigger finger itching, and his grin a d.a.m.n sight more infectious than Matt Montana's would ever be.

I felt like a latter-day f.a.gin as I told him about the missing mannequin. He demanded a description, and once he was clear about the left foot versus the right arm, he promised to "git busier than a guide on a riffle" and shot out the door. The colloquialism was beyond me, but his intentions were unmistakable.

I took Ripley's business card out of the drawer and dialed the office telephone number of Country Connections, Inc. After ascending through the corporate hierarchy, I was pa.s.sed to Pierce Keswick's private secretary, Amy Abbott. She sounded genuinely upset when I told her the bad news and said they'd been worried all morning when he had not come into the office as usual.

"Mr. Pierce was a really nice man," she said in response to my question. "He was strict, and he could get furious when people lied to him or made dumb excuses, but everybody respected him. He was always up front with you, not like ... other people in the office."

I presumed she'd heard about Faulkner's flora. "What did he do yesterday and when did he leave the office?"

"Let me check his appointment calendar." She put me on hold but returned within a minute. "He had a meeting yesterday morning with the legal department, and then lunch with an agent. He just worked the rest of the afternoon."

"What about calls?" I asked.

"Oh, he made some and people called him. He spends a lot of time on the telephone. Spent, I should say. Golly, this is so awful." She put down the receiver to blow her nose, then continued hoa.r.s.ely. "At three o'clock, he had me get Lillian on the phone to make sure they arrived safely. That's why I was surprised when Katie called an hour later."

"How do you know she called?"

Amy sighed. "She called collect. The switchboard finally put the operator through to me so I could accept the call because it's against our rules. Katie was calling from a pay phone at a laundry or something, and all these machines were clanging in the background and people kept telling her to get off the phone so they could use it."

"Did she say why she was calling?"

"No, and I left while Mr. Pierce was in his office with the door shut. I guess he was still talking to her. He wanted me to take a box of demo tapes to one of the studios and told me to go on home afterward."

"Did that happen often?" I asked, feeling as though I was in the general proximity of a vital clue, if not in danger of stumbling over it. "All the time," said Amy. "When traffic's heavy, it takes almost an hour to get out to that studio. My apartment's right down the street."

Apparently, the only thing I was stumbling over was my appet.i.te for red herrings. "Would anyone else in the office have spoken to him yesterday afternoon?"

"I don't think so, but I'll ask. When his door's closed, you'd better have Wynonna Judd or Emmylou Harris with you if you knock. That's the first thing I tell the temps. When Mr. Keswick's door is closed, you'd better have Wynonna Judd or--"

"How about when he went through the office at the end of the day?"

"He might have gone that way if he had contracts to put on someone's desk or something like that, but most of the time he uses the stairs right outside my office."

I heard voices in the background. Amy asked me if she could tell the others. I gave her permission, then said I might call her again and replaced the receiver. Pierce Keswick had been in his Nashville office at four o'clock and had died in MagG.o.dy within the next eleven hours. It was a long haul to Nashville, at least ten hours. If he'd driven, he hadn't wasted any time admiring the scenery.

I made a note to have Harve call the Tennessee authorities and ask them to check with the airlines--and with the state police to see if any speeding citations had been issued to Pierce Keswick. I could do the same with the Arkansas State Police, who were cooperative cooperative if approached with proper deference.

It was nearly four o'clock. The heavy clouds that had moved in earlier in the day hung over the valley, apparently satisfied to remain indefinitely. Rain was more likely than snow. It rarely snowed before January, and I could recall exactly one white Christmas in all my childhood years of listening to carols about winter wonderlands and sleighbells. You can't build a snowman out of drizzle.

Witnesses were waiting, and by now half the town had experienced Hammet's unconventional investigative techniques. Some of the tourists had packed up and were rolling out of town in search of other stars shining in the east. They may not have come bearing frankincense and myrrh, but the local merchants would be sorry to see all those gold credit cards leaving.

I was on my way out the door to have a chat with Katie Hawk when one of Harve's deputies came running down the road. "Chief Hanks!" he called, "Sheriff Dorfer says for you to come back to the souvenir shoppe."

"Did the duck caller nip him?"

He leaned against my car and caught his breath. "No, he was just leaving when some lady charged into the shoppe, dragging this little boy with her. She was carrying on something awful, but she finally calmed down long enough to say they'd found a man's body down toward the creek somewhere. Sheriff Dorfer's waiting for you."

"I'm busy."

"You want me to go tell Sheriff Dorfer that, or should I stick my gun in my mouth and save him the trouble?"

"The person he ought to be waiting for is Dahlia Buchanon. Unless this body has a chipped nose and duct tape on his arm, this lady undoubtedly found the body Dahlia was toting around town last night. He must have regained consciousness and staggered into the woods ... to use the pay phone to call his office and check for messages."

"There aren't any pay phones in the woods," the deputy said with a pitying look.

"But there is one at Aunt Adele's Launderette, and that's the one I'm interested in at the moment. Tell Harve to give my regards to McBeen."

"Whatever you say, Chief Hanks."

"I'll give you a ride back to the souvenir shoppe," I said as I got in the car, since we both knew that's where I was going despite my piddling outburst of bravado.

"I prefer to walk," the deputy said. He turned sharply and headed back up the road.

He was a prime candidate for roadkill, but I drove sedately past him. Harve was waiting by his car, doing his best to talk to a woman who was doing her best to collapse in his arms. The kid in the green cowboy suit was eating a candy bar.

"What is wrong with this town?" the woman demanded as I rolled down my window. "I have never been in a town where there are so many dead bodies just lying around! Haven't you all heard of funeral homes? In Joplin we have all these funeral homes where--"

"Who is it?" I asked Harve.

"She didn't stop to ask him his name," Harve said gruffly. "She has a point about all these bodies, you know. Is anybody else missing?"

"Sure," I said. "Adele Wockermann has been missing for weeks, and although Patty May's not technically missing, I can't seem to find her either. Did you get any kind of a description of this latest body?"

"No, and we'd better get started. If we wait around for McBeen to get back here, we'll never find it in the dark. They strayed off the path and were lost back in there for at least an hour."

"I don't know how we found our way out," the woman contributed shrilly. "Bernie Allen was so upset that he twisted his ankle and I had to carry him half the way."

Harve glanced at Bernie Allen, who probably weighed well over a hundred pounds. "He can wait here while we--"