The second book in the Arly Hanks series, 1988

Carol Alice Plummer clutched her teddy bear to her post-pubescent chest. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she moaned, rocking back and forth on the edge of her bed. "It's so damn awful, I may kill myself and save everyone the bother of watching me fade away into nothingness."

Heather Riley put her hands on her hips and glared down at her best friend in the whole world. "Get real, Carol Alice, and stop talking like that. You know perfectly well, that you aren't going to kill yourself. I don't even like to hear you say it."

"I might as well. I mean, there's no point in life if Bo Swiggins and I can't get married."

"You can't? I thought you two were almost engaged. You've been going together for more than a year now, and he took you out to dinner on your birthday and gave you a present and everything." Heather bit down on her lip, wishing she hadn't used the word "everything." She wasn't supposed to know that Carol Alice and Bo had engaged in "everything" in the backseat of his uncle's '73 Trans Am, but she knew. Everybody in Maggody knew that sort of thing within fifteen minutes of its happening. Which was the only reason she'd made Billy Dick McNamara keep his hands to hisself the night he'd taken her to the movie in Starley City, and Billy Dick was the best-looking boy at school even with the harelip.

Carol Alice politely overlooked the lack of tact. "Today after school I found out that we're totally, hopelessly incompatible. There's no way to get around it, even if I change my name-and my pa'd whip me silly if I even said I was thinking about it. But as for Bo and me, it's our vibrations. We can never be harmonious." Carol Alice squeezed her bear hard enough to make his little button eyes bulge. "We could get married, but we'd end up fighting and screaming every night, worse than my oldest sister and her husband what live in Hasty. I might as well tell Bo the truth and break up with him after the game this weekend. See, I already put his letter jacket in that sack to give back to him, along with that chain he gave me for my birthday and that sweet little stuffed dog he won me at the county fair less than a month ago." She began to sniffle. "Then I'm going to commit suicide and kill myself."

Heather sat down next to her. "I don't guess there's any way to get around vibrations," she said solemnly. "After all, it's cosmic fate-yours and Bo's. And Lord knows you don't want to end up like Terri Lee and that jerk she married. Their baby's right cute, but I don't know how she stands him hitting her and getting drunk and everything."

"Bo's such a gentleman; he'd never act like Terri Lee's husband! It's not poor Bo's fault we're so dadburned incompatible and doomed to discord. But there's no closing our eyes to the fact that he's going to be too materialistic for a cosmic mother like me, and we'll grow to hate each other."

"A cosmic mother? That sounds real mysterious. What does it mean?"

Carol Alice flopped back against the daisy-covered pillow sham and sighed. "Well, if I weren't going to kill myself-which I am-I'd make a good nurse or housemother for sweet little mentally retarded children. But if I act all arrogant and ignore my Life Path, I'll end up fat and slouchy…like Dahlia O'Neill. Can you imagine me in one of those tent dresses, stuffing Twinkies down my throat and belching like a sow in heat? That's reason enough right there to kill myself!"

"Why don't you talk to Mr. Wainright about it? Maybe he could tell you what you ought to do." Giggling, Heather poked her best friend in the world. "Besides, it'd give you a reason to talk to him, and he's such an incredible hunk."

"There ain't no point in it, that's why. I've got more guidance than I can stand right now. It's fate. There's nothing anyone can do."

"Oh, Carol Alice, I feel so sorry for you that I could just cry."

Carol Alice handed a tissue to her best friend in the whole world. "How many aspirin tablets do you reckon it'll take to kill myself?"

"Probably a whole bottle," Heather said, blinking. "You ought to get those coated ones that won't give you an upset stomach. I think I've got a coupon in my purse."

I drove to the PD, reasonably pleased with lunch and already testing excuses for not showing up at Estelle's on Tuesday for my appointment with the psychic, of all fool things. The sheriff's deputy, who'd been minding the store during my "so-called vacation" (I'd forgotten to find out the subtle nuance there), flapped a hand in greeting as I came through the door.

"Welcome back, Arly. Have a good leave?"

"I thought I did until a few minutes ago. I visited some friends on the East Coast, camped on the beach, drank cheap wine, gazed at sunsets, and did everything I could think of to forget this ugly place. Anything happen while I was gone? Did we have a rash of bank robberies, holdups, homicides, Russian spies, and international dope busts?"

"Yeah, I had to beat off the ABC, the CIA, the DEA, the EPA, the KGB, and so forth right down to the VFW. Some guy from network television interviewed me, and I received three purple hearts." He gave me a chagrined look as he slapped his chest. "Lordy, I forgot to wear 'em today, just when I had hopes of impressing you."

"I'm sure your wife's impressed enough for the both of us," I said, moving around the desk to my chair, a comfy old cane-bottomed thing that had held my fanny for more than eighteen months without a whimper. Or a splinter. "Anything else?"

"You're going to love this, Arly." He began to edge toward the door. "Jim Bob Buchanon came by couple of days ago and left a little present for you. It's on the table in the back room."

"A present for little old me? It's not my birthday, and it's nearly two months 'til Christmas. Did Hizzoner the Moron miss me so much that he felt compelled to leave a welcome-back present for his favorite public servant?" Despite my flippancy, I was a tad nervous. "Is there a sentimental, storebought card along with it?"

The deputy had cleared the door sill and was eyeing his car. "No card, but he had a message for you that'll make your day-ha, ha. He said the town council voted not to hire a deputy for the time being. Budget's awful tight, he said two or three times, but he didn't look all that sad."

"And the present?"

"It's one of those beeper things like doctors and county agents wear so their secretaries can track them down on the golf course. You're on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."

"You're joking. Please tell me that you're joking."

" 'Fraid not, Arly. But there is some good news-you don't have to clean the PD anymore. Jim Bob said he'd hired a janitor to come in at night and sweep."

I propped my feet on my desk, tilted back in the chair, and closed my eyes. "Somehow, I have a funny feeling about this. I realize I should shoot off some firecrackers and break out in song, but there's something that smells overly ripe about Jim Bob's generosity." I squinted at the deputy. "Since you won't tell me you're joking, tell me why I'm not singing."

He had his car keys in his hand. "Well," he said, easing out of range should anything come flying through the doorway, "your newest employee is Kevin Buchanon. See ya, Arly."

The screen door banged closed, leaving me in solitude to gripe, growl, and curse Jim Bob Buchanon and the other equally treacherous members of the town council. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week seemed extreme, if not unconstitutional, and I didn't fool myself for a minute that I was going to see a pay raise to go along with it. Oh, no, I got a beeper instead, so that I could never hide. Maggody was going to be a one-gun town. Whoopee.

And Kevin Buchanon, who by sheer coincidence was Jim Bob's second or third cousin, was going to invade the PD on a daily basis, which meant I'd feel obliged to be civil to him. He wasn't as objectionable as his more illustrious relative, but he was a pain in the butt. Jim Bob had achieved that level of animal cunning I mentioned, but Kevin couldn't outwit a possum. Kevin couldn't outwit a rock rolling down a hill. I'd have to show him which end of the broom to use. And I'd probably have to show him every day. Worst of all, I'd find myself listening to his personal problems, most of which would center around the love of his life, the apple of his eye, the dumpling in his pot pie, the pork in his pork 'n' beans, a.k.a. Dahlia O'Neill. I was starting to regret that second piece of pie, because I was definitely feeling queasy.

With a shudder, I planted my feet on the floor and picked up the folder of reports the deputy had left on the desk. It wasn't going to be easy to lose myself in them, but I sure was going to give it my best shot. Welcome back, sucker.

The next morning, after a bowl of stale cornflakes and three cups of instant coffee (with instant cream), I drove over to Estelle's house, which was a quarter of a mile north of the Emporium on a county road that the county had disinherited along about WWI. The psychic and her brother lived a little ways farther up the road, just before a dilapidated chicken house and a rusted Nash set on concrete blocks that was the closest thing to a historical marker we had in Maggody. After that there were stunted pine trees and scrub, a low-water bridge across Boone Creek that provided excitement in the spring months, and ten teeth-rattling miles to Hasty. Hasty makes Maggody look like the Loop in Chicago. Estelle's house was an old but tidy clapboard thing, and she'd done some landscaping with plastic flowers, concrete statues of gnomes and toads, and a genuine imitation marble birdbath. Wishing I had some plastic dandelions to poke into the flower bed, I went up onto the porch and lifted my hand to knock.

The door flew open and Estelle came outside, her purse clutched under her arm. "I swear, Arly, sometimes you're slower than sorghum at Christmas. I told Madam Celeste we'd be there at ten o'clock sharp, and she has a very busy schedule. Not to mention other folks, who have a business to run and Elsie McMay at ten-fifteen for a haircut, shampoo, and set. As you well know, Elsie practically has a stroke if she's kept waiting."

"I'm terribly sorry. Shall we walk or drive?" I asked humbly.

"Goodness' sakes, Arly, it's not more than a hundred feet up the road." Estelle took off at full mast, the hem of her lavender uniform flapping in the breeze. The red, dangling curls had been vanquished to hair heaven in favor of a beehive of admirable height-and not one hair trembled despite her pace. Which was leaving other folks breathless, I might add.

I caught up with her on the porch of Madam Celeste's house. In contrast to Estelle's house, the place was a sorry mess. Paint peeled off the sides in curling gray tongues or bubbled like alligator skin. The yard was a collage of crabgrass, wild onions, bleached patches of dust, and beer bottles. The only thing that saved it from essence of squalor was a satellite dish sitting in the side yard, although the weeds were getting a mite high around the base. Maybe they used it to beam down The Grapes of Wrath and Tobacco Road.

Before I could mention the possibility (or hightail it back down the road to my car), Estelle rang the doorbell. "You are going to love Madam Celeste," she confided as she straightened the belt of her uniform. "She is astounding, just plumb astounding-as long as you don't turn up your nose and act all snooty. The only thing you have to do is to believe in her powers, Arly."

"Is that all?" I said in a distracted voice. I was busy envisioning a heavy-set, elderly, swarthy Gypsy, complete with scarves, beads, gold hoop earrings, and a long, embroidered dress that hung down not quite far enough to hide swollen ankles. A mustache and bright-red lipstick. A hoarse Hungarian accent, if one was attuned to such things. A mole on her chin. Lugging a crystal ball, a Ouija board, and a floor lamp with a fringed shade.

A short woman with bleached-blond hair opened the door. "You are late," she snapped, one hand on her hip. "I have other appointments today, and there may not be enough time to do a complete reading. I really don't like to start and then have to quit just when I've begun to feel the cosmic force. It gives me a headache. But come in, come in."

"I'm so sorry," Estelle said, dragging me through the doorway. "This is Ruby Bee's daughter, Arly Hanks."

Two icy green eyes turned on me. "And this reading is for you-is that correct? Do you want cards, sand, an astrological reading, or a numerological analysis?"

Estelle leaned over and cupped her hand around my ear. "Take the sand, Arly; it's the most revealing," she advised in a hiss. "You might as well get your mother's money's worth."

"The sand, by all means," I said to Madam Celeste.

Estelle patted me on the back, then announced she simply had to dash off because of Elsie McMay. She preceded to abandon me to the clutches of the psychic. Madam Celeste appeared to be under forty, although there were some lines around her eyes-perhaps from all that peering into the future. She was shorter than Ruby Bee, but her waist was trim and her hips were contained in tight designer jeans. She wore a faded T-shirt and rubber thongs. No mustache, no mole, no scarves, no beads, no hoop earrings. The accent was odd; I couldn't place it, but it didn't sound like Budapest. She would have been attractive if her features had been less linear and harsh; as it was, she reminded me of a sharp-chinned cat, if that makes any sense to you.

"Are you ready to begin?" she said impatiently. "I don't have time to stand in the foyer all day while you goggle at me as if I, Madam Celeste, were a sideshow freak. Come along to the solarium." She wheeled around and stalked through a doorway, muttering under her breath.

I stalked after her, muttering under my breath. Odds are we weren't muttering the same things.

Forty minutes later, I came out of the solarium (which bore an uncanny resemblance to a breakfast room, owing in part to the tea-kettle wallpaper and the dinette set), armed with the knowledge that in the past I'd been treated unfairly but had shown courage. In the future I would see great changes in my life, make a meaningful career move, encounter two strangers who would have a profound influence on my life, travel, survive a test of character, and find great happiness down the line. Every time I'd asked for specifics, Madam Celeste had rubbed her temples and told me that it just wasn't coming through because of negative vibrations in the atmosphere. For those agog with curiosity, Mesopotamian sand is blue and looks like the stuff in the bottoms of aquariums. It was in a Tupperware salad bowl. She'd had me make a handprint in it, then done a lot of staring at it.

Madam Celeste opened the front door for me. "I hope you were satisfied with the reading, but I do not offer any guarantees. Sometimes I can see things as clearly as I see your face; other times I must battle negative vibrations, although I cannot say from where they emanated."

I wasn't going to tell her; after all, she was the psychic. "I have days like that myself," I said in my most sympathetic voice. "Ruby Bee said you came here from Las Vegas. That was quite a change, wasn't it?"

"Yes, of course it was." She gave me a wary look, no doubt thinking her newest client didn't have all her carob chips in the cookie dough, so to speak.

"But it must seem awfully tame here. Why did you trade Las Vegas for Maggody?"

"I had great trouble with the police there, if you must know. A woman came to me, very distraught, crying and twisting her hands, begging for me to help her. Her child, a dear little boy of seven, had disappeared over a month before. The police searched for him, but finally gave up and told her the case was as good as closed. To say such a thing to a mother-can you imagine such heartlessness!"

"Why did she come to you?"

Madam Celeste drew herself up (to about five foot two). "Because I am a world-renowned psychic. I have studied with the greatest clairvoyants of the European continent. At that time I was working at one of the largest casinos, and creating much excitement and comment. This poor woman heard about me from one of her friends, and literally threw herself at my feet. After some discussion, I agreed to help the police find the child. The police, stupid scum that they are, laughed at me and sent me away-but in the end I was able to give the mother some guidance as to the location of the poor little boy's body several miles out in the desert. He'd wandered away and fallen into a ravine, where he could not be seen from above. The police were embarrassed, of course, and made wild accusations about me to cover up their stupidity."

"So you decided to come to Maggody, Arkansas?" I persisted. "Had you been here before? Do you have friends here?"

"I was drawn here by some unknown force, as if my destiny were to be unfolded and made known to me here in this peaceful little village," she said briskly, making me suspect she'd recited it many a time. She glanced at her watch. "Now I am very busy. You must leave so that I may prepare for my next appointment. It will be a most difficult session for me, and I must have time to arrive at the proper frame of receptiveness. I use your mother's credit card number, yes?"

I had a whole truckload of questions left, but I suggested she bill Ruby Bee time and a half for the additional few minutes, then went down the porch steps and along the road to my car. I hid out at the PD all afternoon and, with sly anticipation, went home for a can of chicken noodle soup just before Kevin's arrival. Conscientious enforcer of law and order that I was, I clipped my beeper on my belt as I scooted out the door.

Later that evening, I went over to David Allen's house and told him about the reading, which had been as perceptive and personal as a syndicated horoscope column in a newspaper. We agreed that the whole thing was apt to blow over, and on that optimistic note shared a six-pack and played Trivial Pursuit until midnight. It beat sitting at the front window of my apartment, counting the Mercedeses that went through town in one evening. If you're wondering, the world record to date was three.

Don't think for a minute that Hammet Buchanon spilled out his little heart to me. For one thing, I wouldn't have bet a dollar that he had one; for another, he was about as credible as a televangelist claiming a hotline to God and requesting help with the phone bill. Hammet finally admitted he and his brothers and sisters had been alone for four or five days, and hadn't had much of anything in the way of vittles. When last seen, their mother was going 'seng hunting. I inquired where her patch was. He shot me a suspicious look and told me it weren't none of my goddamn business. What a cutie.

I considered various responses, then settled for a sigh. "Let's get you something to eat, Hammet. I'll call the sheriff's office to see if we can borrow a four-wheel and run up to the cabin. If your mother's still missing, I suppose we'll bring your siblings back to town and deal with the situation then."

"Ain't got none."

"None of what?" I said absently as I clipped on my beeper.

"Them that you said."

I thought about it for a minute, then realized what he meant. "Siblings are brothers and sisters, Hammet. How about a big, greasy cheeseburger and a glass of milk?"

He didn't budge. "Why ain't they brothers and sisters?"

"It's another word that means brothers and sisters, I said, taking his shoulder strap to propel him toward the door.

"Why din't you jest say brothers and sisters?"

Cursing Mrs. Jim Bob under my breath (although I doubted I used any words not an integral part of the child's vocabulary), I dragged him out the door while explaining that there were often several words that meant the very same thing. I could tell he didn't believe a word of it.

We were still exploring the delicate issue of semantics as we went into Ruby Bee's. The proprietor's mouth fell open as I put Hammet on a bar stool, then hopped up on the next stool and gave her a bright smile. "Why, Arly," she said, "whoever is your little friend here?"

"Hammet Buchanon. He's one of Robin's children, and he's starving. How about a cheeseburger and a glass of milk?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Well, he's welcome to something to eat, but don't you think he might like to wash up first?"

I could tell she was thinking of a prolonged session with a sandblaster rather than a cursory encounter with soap and water in the rest room. "He hasn't had anything to eat in several days," I said. "Let's get him fed; then I'll take him back to my apartment and bathe him."

"The hell you will," contributed the object of the conversation. "Sure as cow shit stinks I ain't taking no goddamn bath. Done took one a while back."

Ruby Bee blinked, first at Hammet and then at me. "He has quite a colorful vocabulary, doesn't he? I'll start the cheeseburger right away. Would he like a bag of chips while I'm fixing it?"

"Would you?" I asked Hammet.

"Yeah, what the fuck," he conceded with a shrug.

Ruby Bee had enough sense not to roll her eyes and demand a "please" from this customer. She marched away, but I could hear her mutters all the way through the kitchen door. After a minute I heard her shrilly repeating the conversation, presumably to Estelle. I wanted to escape to the kitchen and explain that none of this was my idea to begin with, but I settled for yet another sigh, then said, "I'm not asking you where the ginseng patch is. All I want to know is if you know where it is."

"Nope. Her never did say. Somewhere on t'other side of the ridge. It were grandpappy's oncet upon a time."

"How long does your mother stay gone when she's 'seng hunting?"

"I dunno. Don't care neither. She's a mean ole sow and I hope the bears et her for supper."

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked, hoping this sudden loquaciousness would last. I'd been at Robin's cabin on another matter, and I'd seen children hovering in the shadows. But at that time I was too concerned with an escaped convict, a kidnapped bureaucrat, and all sorts of crazy shenanigans to try to count those shifting, feral creatures.

"I has four"-he paused to give me an unfathomable look "siblings, being Bubba, Sissie, Sukie, and Baby. Baby don't count for much 'cause he's too little to do anything exceptin' cry and shit in his britchins. He's about as useless as tits on a boar hog. You reckon we can jest leave him in the baby trough?"

"I doubt it, Hammet." I tossed him a bag of corn chips and spent the next five minutes praying Robin would be at the cabin when we got there. I could hand over Hammet, compliment her on her ginseng, and scoot right back down the mountain. Alone.

Ruby Bee came through the door, a plate in her hand and a disapproving expression on her face. "Here's your food," she said, banging down the plate in front of Hammet.

He bent down to sniff over the plate like a leery polecat. "What be this stuff?"

"A cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickle relish, and mustard. I might add that I am often told I fry the best cheeseburger on this side of Starley City," Ruby Bee said. She didn't sound real friendly.

"I ain't eating this crap." Hammet pushed the plate away and lunged for another bag of corn chips.

I caught his wrist and explained that he was going to eat the cheeseburger, one way or another, and that one of those ways included physical acts on my part and a great deal of discomfort on his. He offered a comment that implied I had engaged in a series of unnatural sexual encounters with various barnyard animals. Ruby Bee cut in with a few comments that might have come from the prissy lips of dear Mrs. Jim Bob. Hammet repeated the terse yet effective witticism that gave Mrs. Jim Bob the bout of hyperventilation. Ruby Bee slapped her hand to her heart and started hyperventilating. I suggested everybody shut up. Nobody did.

We were going at it real good when the kitchen door opened and out waddled Dahlia O'Neill. She was wearing her customary tent dress (which could have slept six-and probably had on more than one occasion) and an apron embroidered with daisies and her name. The sight stopped me in mid-word. Even Hammet broke off with a gasp, giving Ruby Bee the golden opportunity to swoop in for the last word. A favorite hobby of hers.

"I have never in all my born days heard such filthy language. You just eat that cheeseburger right now, young man!" She stepped around Dahlia and vanished into the kitchen.

"How ya doing, Arly?" Dahlia said.

"Fine," I croaked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the new barmaid. Madam Celeste-do you know her? Well, anyways, she told me that I needed to make what she called a career move, so I quit my job at the Kwik-Screw. Ruby Bee done hired me as a barmaid, and it's working out right nice. She, meaning Madam Celeste and not Ruby Bee, told Kevin the exact same thing, which is why he's cleaning the commodes at the high school and sweeping nights at the PD. You must of seen him, Arly-you being the chief of police and all."

"I've seen him," I admitted. Maybe Madam Celeste would counsel a career move for me. Something in the range of five hundred miles.

Dahlia beamed. "I figured out you had. You want I should get you a beer or something?"

"I'll take coffee, and Hammet'll have a glass of milk."

She figured out how to open the refrigerator under the bar for milk and, after a few false moves, how to coax coffee from the urn. All this in less than five minutes, too. Hammet tore into the cheeseburger with the grace of a hyena, splattering his bare torso and a goodly part of the immediate area with grease. By the time Dahlia put a glass in front of him, he'd polished the burger off and was peering from under his brow at the chips.

"I'll ask this woman to bring you a piece of pie-if you agree to a bath afterward," I said.

"Don't need no goddamn bath." He rubbed his palm across his glistening front, then carefully licked it.

"But are you willing to submit to one in exchange for a piece of Ruby Bee's homemade apple pie-with a scoop of ice cream?"

"I don't need no goddamn bath 'til next year. Creek's colder'n a well-digger's ass."

"My creek is not, however. My creek is warm, and it doesn't have any crawdads, snapping turtles, minnows, or rusty cans in it. Deal?"

He nodded without enthusiasm. Dahlia, who'd been listening to all this with a perplexed look, served the pie and even remembered the ice cream. His enthusiasm restored, Hammet tore into it.

"Why's he with you?" Dahlia asked, her cheeks puffed out like a bullfrog's on a summer night as she watched Hammet slurping his way through dessert.

"In the metaphysical sense, I have no idea. Mrs. Jim Bob gave him to me, and I haven't figured out how to pass him along to someone else." I nudged my ward. "You ready for a bath and an exciting ride in a jeep?"

We went to my apartment, and he did indeed take a bath while I washed his overalls in the sink, then dashed over to the Suds of Fun and stuck them in a dryer for a few minutes. When I returned, I threw them into the bathroom. I then called the sheriff's office to arrange for a vehicle worthy of logging trails, dried-out creek beds, animal carcasses, and whatever else I expected we'd encounter.

Hammet came out of the bathroom, his hair slicked down and minus a couple of layers of grime. "That's right smart," he said as he looked around curiously. "Havin' water in the house, I mean. It ain't bad, lady."

I told him he could call me Arly, which brought a shy smile. We went across the street to the PD to get my car, then drove over to Starley City. Hammet had a good time playing with the radio, which actually was functional for the moment. I filled out the paperwork at the county compound, took the keys to a spiffy red jeep, and had enough sense to grab a survey map before we set out into the vast, skimpily charted wasteland of Cotter's Ridge.

Mrs. Jim Bob's knees were getting sore, but she kept her lips tight and her head bent to a pious tilt, trying not to ponder the heretical idea that Brother Verber was a mite long-winded. Especially when she had things to discuss. She couldn't help but notice the floor of the church was dusty, which went to prove she'd been right all along when she said Perkins' eldest was doing a poor job of cleaning. She stole a quick peek at the windows above the choir loft, then hastily closed her eyes. Yes, they were streaky, just as she'd imagined they would be. And Perkins' eldest carrying on about how she always used ammonia when she wiped the windows. Everybody knew ammonia didn't streak.

"Amen," Brother Verber said in a deep, melodious flow of vowels and consonants, clinging to the final sound until it tickled his nose. He just loved it when his nose tickled, even if it meant a sneeze was coming.

"Amen." Mrs. Jim Bob stood up and brushed off her dusty knees. "I appreciate you taking the time to pray with me, Brother Verber, and it did warm my heart. Now I'm hoping you can offer some counsel about a difficult problem."

"You know better than anybody that that's why I'm here, Sister Barbara. What sort of problem do you want to discuss?"

"It concerns something that has arisen between Mr. Jim Bob and me."

"Problems of an intimate marital nature?" Brother Verber said, striving for the proper balance of sympathy and distaste. Sometimes, he knew, he sounded too enthusiastic when asked to counsel his flock about what all they did in the privacy of their bedrooms. And the stories he heard were enough to make a grown man blush. It was hard to imagine some of the lurid, disgusting, filthy animal practices he'd heard about over the years. In fact, only last week he'd been obliged to order some magazines (to be delivered in plain brown wrappers) so he could study the photographs and be more understanding of his flock's depravities. His old magazines were falling apart from all the studying he'd done.

Mrs. Jim Bob sat down on a pew and took out a tissue to wipe her forehead. "Brother Verber, you know I would never permit Jim Bob to even hint at anything unnatural or contrary to my Christian upbringing. When I agree to fulfill my marital obligations, we do it precisely like the Good Book says we should, and we don't dillydally about it, either. I wouldn't consider some unspeakable atheistic variation."

"Of course you wouldn't," Brother Verber said, swallowing his disappointment. He plopped down next to her and patted her knee with a pudgy hand. "Now, you take all the time you need to mull over this problem, then just let it come right out. I'll sit here quietly and wait." He patted her knee some more in order to encourage her to mull.

"I have had a disagreement with my husband, long distance since he's still at that municipal league meeting all the way down in Hot Springs. I told him about something I intend to do. He ordered me not to do it. I told him that it was the morally correct thing to do. He raised his voice, Brother Verber. He went so far as to yell at me over the telephone. All the operators in Hot Springs probably heard him." She took a swipe at her eyes with the tissue, then tucked it in her cuff.

"What is this thing you intend to do?" Brother Verber asked. He patted her knee a little bit higher to show his support in case she changed her mind and wanted to talk about a delicate sexual matter. "I know in my heart that anything you want to do will sit right pretty in the eyes of the Lord. Surely your husband knows that, too. But you're going have to tell me all about it, so's I can make an informed counsel of the matter."

"That is not the point," she said as she inched down the pew. "The point is that I intend to disobey my husband for the first time in thirty years of marriage. I took a solemn vow to love, honor, and obey him. The very thought of disobeying him rips my soul, Brother Verber. Rips it like it was wet tissue paper."

Brother Verber did some inching so he could pat her knee to show his soul was ripping as fast and furious as hers. "I see you have a very complicated problem. You did the right thing to bring it to me. But I still don't know what you're talking about, so you'd better just spit it out, Sister Barbara."

Sister Barbara inched for a few seconds, then said, "I am going to take some poor, starving, motherless orphans into my home. I am going to feed them, bathe them, and instill Christian morals and values in them. I am going to see they receive an education so they can make something of themselves in the future. And I'm going to wash their mouths out with soap until they learn to speak in a civilized fashion!"

"I think that sounds beautiful, Sister Barbara. More than beautiful. I think that sounds downright saintly." He inched down the pew so he could pat her saintly knee. "Why would Jim Bob object to something so charitable?"

"I am speaking of Robin Buchanon's bastards."

Brother Verber's hand halted in mid-pat. His florid face turned even redder, and the pores seemed to widen on his nose until they resembled lunar craters. "Say what?"

"Robin Buchanon's children. It seems the disgusting slut has disappeared in a totally irresponsible way. They have been alone in that primitive shack for the best part of a week, with no food or moral guidance. I almost cry every time I think of those poor, abandoned, dirty, starving bastards."

Brother Verber tugged on his lower lip as he tried to digest her proposal for sainthood. He'd seen those nasty little brats in the past, and they were by far the nastiest little brats he'd ever had the misfortune to see. The lot of them should have been drowned at birth. "I'm beginning to understand," he said cautiously. "Jim Bob doesn't want to open his home, his hearth, and his heart to the little waifs?"

"He started swearing before I even finished my explanation," Mrs. Jim Bob said with a sniffle of outrage. "His remarks were uncalled for and rude. I was quick to tell him so, but he kept right on with his curse words."

"He swore at you?" Brother Verber said incredulously. He started patting her knee again to express his dismay. "What precisely did he say?"

"Nothing a good Christian woman can repeat, especially in the House of the Lord. Brother Verber, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I'm going to have bruises all over my upper legs if you don't stop patting me."

"My deepest apologies, Sister Barbara. I was carried away with my heartfelt response to your story of verbal abuse and outrage. I was doing a terrible thing. I cannot believe I was doing such a terrible terrible thing. Why, if you were to come by the church tomorrow and lift your skirt to show me horrid black-and-blue marks all up your thigh, I'd be so ashamed I couldn't live with myself" With a look of anguish (or something like that), he moved away from her and hung his head to stare over his girth at the floor. Which was dusty, he noticed.

"I would never do anything to cause you that kind of grief," she said solemnly.

"No, it's clear I deserve to be confronted by my venereal sin of overenthusing. I feel mighty badly about this, Sister Barbara, mighty badly. I fear I've taken a step in the direction of eternal damnation by causing you the tiniest bit of pain, just when you were inspired to do something selfless along the lines of an African missionary converting savages to the Lord. Do I hear Satan putting a check by my name in his ledger of sinners? Are the angels wringing their hands at my unforgivable actions? Are the sweet baby cherubims crying out their sweet little eyes?"

"My leg is fine," Mrs. Jim Bob said, sorry she'd ever brought it up to begin with. "I just mentioned the possibility of bruises, that's all. Why, I'd be offended if anyone suggested your tender hand could cause me pain and suffering."

"Is it too late to pray for salvation?" he said in a hollow voice.

Mrs. Jim Bob glanced at her watch. "Well, actually it is. I've got to run along now, Brother Verber. I'm afraid Arly's already fetched those poor little bastards and will be looking for me." She stood up and gazed down at his bent head. "Why don't you come by the house this evening, Brother Verber? I'll have a nice, fresh pecan pie and a cup of coffee for you. You can be thinking about how I can get around this 'love, honor, and obey' problem."

He gave her a watery smile. "Will you allow me to ease my mind about those bruises I may have inflicted on your knee?"

Mrs. Jim Bob nodded, then hurried down the aisle and out the door before he suggested a "before" and "after" view of the knee in question. Which he seemed to think went all the way to the bottom hem of her girdle. She drove down the highway, turning her head the opposite way as she passed the Emporium since it was owned by a bunch of drug-using, naked devil worshippers, and slowing down as she came to the PD.

Arly's car was gone, which meant she wasn't back with the bastards. At the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe, Mrs. Jim Bob parked and went inside to buy several bars of good, old-fashioned lye soap. After a moment of consideration, she told the pimply clerk to put the entire case in the back of her car. She then drove home, went to her bedroom, sat primly on the edge of her twin bed, and unclipped her nylons in order to inspect the damage.

The Ommms drifted over the fence in the late-afternoon light. Kevin Buchanon, agonized by indecision (not to mention tortured by temptation), leaned against the sweet gum tree and told himself not to do it. "Don't do it," he said aloud, hoping it would help. "Kevin, you know you don't want to get your ass whipped. You know better. Don't do it."

He squinched his eyes closed real tight and tried to concentrate on a vision of his true love, with her warm, soft, monstrous-big bosoms that liked to suffocated him on more than one occasion, and her marshmallowy expanse of rippling body flesh, and her always sincere invitation for him to crawl up that heavenly path between her legs and do anything he wanted. Not to forget her kindly words of instruction and willingness to learn him all kinds of wondrous things.

It didn't help. He shinnied up the tree to the first branch, then wiggled around until he was standing up. He still couldn't see what was going on next door. Scrabbling and grunting, he climbed up several more branches, and took a minute to catch his breath before he turned around to see what he could see.

"Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy," he said in a low whoosh, as his stomach flopped over like a catfish in the bottom of a johnboat. They were naked as the day they was born, all four of them. The men were hairy and uninteresting. But the women-well, that was different, at least in Kevin Buchanon's wide, unblinking eyes. The one with a bun in the warmer was a smidgen rounder, as to be expected. The other one, that being the one with the ripe round perky bosoms, each just a handful, and that flat belly that went all the way down to that dark, fuzzy-

"Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon! You git down from there right this minute! You pa's going be home any time now, and you know what he said he'd do if he caught you up in this tree again!"

He made it to the ground with only a few scratches and a rip in the seat of his jeans. "Gee, Ma," he said, his Adam's apple rippling furiously, "I was just making sure they weren't doing nothing illegal that I ought to report to the chief."

"What's Arly got to do with you being a lowdown peeping Tom?"

"She told me to keep an eye on them. Since she doesn't have a deputy anymore, she asked me to do my civic duty and help her." He was real proud of the inspired reference to civic duty, his ma being big on patriotism and a one-time secretary of the county DAR. The rest of it had been planned over several hours of commode scrubbing. Ad-libbing was not his forte.

"Arly Hanks has a sight more sense than that, young man. I've known her since the day she was born, and I've never seen any signs she's mentally retarded. Which is more than I can say about some folks, present company included. You'd better go in the house and pray for forgiveness of both your sins: lusting at naked ladies and lying to your own mother."

"She did so, Ma. It's supposed to be a secret, though, and I'm not supposed to say nothing about it to anyone, including my own flesh and blood. I swore on the Bible and everything. She says those hippies are breaking the law, and all we need is evidence so we can lock 'em up tighter than ticks on a hound dog's tail."

"Commence your prayers," Eilene Buchanon said, unmoved by the importance of his secret assignment to rid the local environs of dastardly crime. "If you pray real hard, mebbe I won't have to tell your pa that I caught you up in the sweet gum again. His belt's hanging by the back door where it's right handy. He'll be home shortly." She went back to the kitchen to stir the corn bread batter. Kevin trailed after her, explaining her civic duty not to tell anybody, including Pa and especially Pa, about the secret assignment.

Across the fence, the chanting stopped. Poppy lay back on the blanket and massaged her belly. "It's kicking. Does anyone want to feel it?"

"Of course we do," Rainbow said, nudging Zachery. "We all love you and we all love our baby. Isn't that right?"

Zachery obediently crawled across the blanket and put his hand next to Poppy's. "Like, wow. I feel it. Do you think it's all excited by the meditation vibes?"

Rainbow smiled as she joined him next to Poppy's supine body. "That's an intriguing thought, Zachery. I don't know why the baby wouldn't sense the cosmic harmony and want to move with it. What do you think, Nate?"

He lit a cigarette. "Probably taking a crap. Listen, I need the truck in the morning. Got to talk to a man in Farberville about some personal business. I'll drop you off at the store on my way out of town. I should be back by the middle of the afternoon."

"That's impossible," Rainbow said gently. "Poppy has an appointment with the midwife just before noon. I'm going to drive her over and wait."

"Change it. I need the truck. I'll bet you enjoy hassling me all the time, don't you? Gives you a real kick."

Rainbow's smile trembled as she struggled for sympathy, cooperation, and lovingness. "But Nate, the midwife is an old granny woman who lives in a shack on the county road. She doesn't have a telephone, so we can't call to change the appointment. But let's vote on it, shall we? That way we'll follow the communal spirit and strengthen our harmony. Who feels Poppy's need is greater than Nate's?"

Nate threw down his cigarette and stalked into the house. A few minutes later the truck's engine rumbled to life. A cloud of dust blew over the fence, eventually settling like cocoa powder on the three naked occupants of the backyard meditation garden.

"Like, wow," Zachery said, using his finger to draw a happy face on Poppy's belly. Kevin would have loved it.

I took a bath that lasted as long as I'd vowed it would. I put on jeans and a shirt, stuck a few bobby pins in the bun on my neck, took it down and did it again, applied some makeup, and remembered that I hadn't called Mrs. Jim Bob. I was debating whether to call or drive over there when I heard a timid tap on my front door.

Hammet stood on the landing. "Howdy, Arly," he said, giving me a smile meant to disarm me via candor and charm. "I thought to come by and see how you was doin'."

I took him inside and put him on the couch. "That's neighborly of you, but I suspect there's more to it than a sudden urge to pay a social call. Does Mrs. Jim Bob know you're here?"

"Her? Course she does. She done telled me to visit you as long as I wanted to. She said I could stay here all night iffen I wanted to."

"What's going on over there, anyway? Are your brothers and sisters raising hell?"

"My siblings happens to be behavin' like they's supposed to," he said indignantly. "Last night ever'body took baths and had some grub. Today we jest hanged around, mostly a-playin' and things like that. What do you think we'd be liked to do? Skin the hide offen that kindly ole woman or somethin'?"

Something like that, yes. "I've been getting frantic messages all day. It was reasonable to assume she was having problems," I said, looking down at him. He gazed up with a dopey, angelic expression that almost-but not quite-convinced me he wasn't lying through his teeth. Which I suspected he was. "Why don't I call Mrs. Jim Bob and let her know you made it over here safely?" I suggested.

"She done knows that. I ain't going to get et by a bear in town."

"Let's tell her anyway." I headed for the telephone, but before I could dial the number, there was another knock on the door. Pretty soon I had David Allen on the sofa next to Hammet, who was delighted to make the acquaintance of this unexpected (read: timely) visitor.

David Allen grinned at me. "I was going to surprise you with an invitation for an exotic cocktail at a bar in Farberville. Something with seven kinds of liqueurs in a plastic coconut shell with lots of fruit and an umbrella. But I've got a better idea: how about a hot fudge sundae with oodles of hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, nuts, and a maraschino cherry? What do you say to that, Hammet?"

If he expected Hammet to clap his hands in childish glee, he was in for a long wait. Hammet studied him, then said, "What be all those things you says?"

"You've never had a hot fudge sundae?" David Allen said, clearly dismayed. "But that's disgraceful. Criminal. Unforgivable. Come on, you two. I have a paternal obligation to get this child into the presence of seven thousand calories. To the wagon!"

Somehow I got bustled out the door, put inside his wagon, admonished to buckle my seat belt, and swept away into the sunset. I had a quick glance at the PD as David Allen dove around the corner, and something was not right. Before I had a chance to pinpoint it, Hammet Buchanon draped himself over my shoulder from the backseat and demanded to know why anybody'd be fool enough to put hot stuff on ice cream, which was supposed to be cold stuff. And who invented it, anyways? One of those Eye-talians, he bet. David Allen was clucking like a hen.

I was sleeping quite peacefully when a hand touched on my arm. In that I had had no companion in my bed for nearly two years, I almost choked on a mouthful of pillowcase as I opened my eyes.

"There be somebody at the door," Hammet said. He was fully dressed and regarding me with a sober expression.

"Who is it?"

"I din't open it yet. You want I should get your gun and blow 'em to smithereens?" He took a step toward my dresser, his hand outstretched and his little yellow eyes bright with eagerness to make his day.

"No!" I said as I scrambled out of bed. "Just give me a second to wake up, then I'll see who's at the door. What time is it?"

Hammet looked at the clock, then at the floor. "I dunno, but I reckon the sun'll come up afore too long. I ain't heard a hoot owl in a long whiles."

I made a mental note to teach him how to tell time, although I doubted his mother would give him a Rolex for Christmas. I was reaching for my bathrobe when I heard an insistent knock on the front door of the apartment. After a glance at the clock to confirm the absurdity of the hour, I pulled on the robe and stalked across the living room.

Hammet trailed after me, reiterating his offer to blow the intruder to smithereens iffen I wanted him to. After assuring him that such actions would be premature (and defining "premature" when I saw his lip creep forward), I opened the door to stare at a man with dark hair, brown eyes, and an apologetic smile. He took in my robe and bare feet while I took in his sports coat, starched shirt, discreet silk tie, and creased slacks. It probably took me longer to do the taking in, but I wasn't standing at his door before the sun rose.

"I'm Mason Dickerson," he said. "I know this is crazy, but I wonder if I might ask you something?"

"You jest did," Hammet said. "Asked her somethin', I mean."

"Well, yes, you're right. But it really is important, Miss Hanks. I realize it's early and I'm a total stranger, and by all rights you ought to slam the door in my face or shoot me…"

I joined him on the landing before Hammet could offer to comply with the latter part of the suggestion. "Mason Dickerson," I said slowly. "You're Madam Celeste's brother, right? You're her business manager or something like that?"

"Something like that. If it's not too much trouble, she would like you to come over to our house. I'll be happy to drive you over."

"At six o'clock in the morning?" I shook my head, wondering if Hammet might be on the right track. "I have a personal policy of declining social engagements before sunrise. Unless this is an emergency involving official police business, tell Madam Celeste to call me in a couple of hours."

"Yeah," Hammet contributed from the doorway. "It's too fuckin' premature to be visitin' folks."

Mason shrugged helplessly. "You know that and I know that, but my sister refused to listen to any argument. Look, I'm sorry to disturb you. Please just go back to bed and forget about this, Miss Hanks."

"What's all this about?"

"I don't know. One of Celeste's crazy visions." He moved down a step. "Something about a dead woman. Celeste thinks she has information that'll be useful to you, but the whole thing's nonsense and I'm sorry I bothered you." He retreated another few steps.

"Wait a minute." I told Hammet to go to the kitchen and fix himself a bowl of cereal. Once he was gone, I studied Mason while I tried to jolt my brain into a functional state. "What are we talking about-a dead body or a vision of a dead body? And while we're on the subject, whose?"

"I really don't know any more than I've told you. Celeste wanted you to come by the house because she has something to tell you about some woman who may be dead. But Celeste has been kind of screwy since she was a child, and you don't have to listen to her if you don't want to. Please accept my apologies, and forget I was ever here." His face was red and his voice cracking with embarrassment. He kept looking at the top of his car as if he wished nothing more than to be in it and speeding down the highway.

I felt sorry for him, and I was also feeling a little bit curious about this peculiar invitation, especially since he seemed so eager to cancel it. "Why don't you come inside for a cup of coffee while I try to decide what to do? Now that I'm awake, I suppose it won't hurt anything to hear what your sister wants to tell me, although I am fairly skeptical about this sort of thing."

"So am I," he murmured. "But thank you for agreeing to come. Celeste can be difficult when she doesn't get her way."

He had come back up to the landing when a motorcycle roared around the corner. A figure in a helmet braked in a shower of gravel, then imperiously gestured for us to come downstairs. Telling myself this was a truly bizarre dream, I did as requested. As I reached the bottom step, I realized the figure was covered with mud and dripping like a faulty faucet. Ruby Bee's idle gossip came back to me. "Merle?" I said tentatively.

He pulled off his helmet. "Morning, Arly. How are ya?"

"Fine, thank you. What brings you here at this hour?" I fully expected him to pull a dormouse and a March hare out of his pocket and suggest a tea party. I wouldn't have raised so much as an eyebrow.

"I came by last night, but you was out," Merle said, forgiving me with a toothless smile. "Good thing I caught you this morning, 'cause I'm going to be right busy later today over at the creek. I built a ramp outta some scrap lumber, but I jest ain't having any luck so far. I believe I'm gonna have to recalculate my angles."

"Why did you come by last night and again this morning?" I asked, optimistically ignoring the reference to his daredevil antics.

"To tell you what I found yesterday evening just afore dark."

"And what did you find?"

"A dead body, Arly. I found me a dead body. I found some other bodies, too, but they was wanting privacy so's they could commence to court, so I don't reckon I ought to carry tales about 'em." Merle loosed an earshattering cackle. "No, sir, them two kids was sweaty when I happened across them, and real red-faced when they realized they'd been caught."

I looked back at Mason, who was white and clutching the railing for dear life. Taking a deep breath, I said, "The dead body, Merle-tell me about the body."

"Don't you want to hear about the two that was having themselves a fine old time in the front seat? They was doing it in a funny way, but these kids today have some newfangled notions on how to go about procreatin'. Mrs. Hardcock, bless her soul, would of been right scandalized. She always wore a flannel nightgown and covered the face of the alarm clock with a towel when I came a-sniffin' at her."

"Merle, I want to know about the body. Are you going to tell me, or do I have to drag it out of you word by word?"

I had to drag it out of him word by word. Once I learned that he had happened across a dead, bloodied body on the far side of Cotter's Ridge, I ordered him to wait for me at the PD. I told Mason, who was quivering like a molded salad, that I would get back to him later and sent him home. Then, bewildered and thoroughly apprehensive, I went upstairs and told Hammet the news. He shrugged and asked if were Her. I said I didn't know for sure, but that it was likely. He then wanted to know iffen she'd done been et by a bear, and if so, was the bear dead, too? And if that were the case, was they gonna skin the bear and who would get to keep the hide? All in all, he handled it with aplomb.

Aplombless, I dressed, gulped down coffee, called the sheriffs office to report a suspicious death and arrange for a backup, and somehow managed to function like the cop I was supposed to be, although my brain, like Merle's motorcycle, had not yet cleared the creek. I left Hammet in front of the television, enthralled equally by cartoons and commercials, and trotted across the deserted highway to the police department just as the sheriff's deputy drove up in a four-wheel wagon. I ordered Merle to get in the backseat, then climbed in next to the deputy and tried my darndest to explain something I didn't know anything about.

An hour later, after jolting up a wretched logging trail on the north side of Cotter's Ridge while Merle shouted directions in one of my ears and the deputy shouted questions in the other, we parked and got out of the vehicle. Merle led us to a clearing, then stopped and wordlessly pointed at a crumpled and very still figure on the far side. From where we stood, I could see it was what remained of Robin Buchanon. I wasn't totally surprised, but I had to battle the sudden explosion of icicles in my stomach and the flood of sourness in my mouth.

"Goddamn it," I muttered under my breath, thinking about her children. Hammet in particular, since I hadn't been fooled by his casual remarks earlier. A mother is a mother is a mother, even if she's a moonshining, whoring, abusive mountain woman. "What the hell happened to her?"

The deputy caught my arm as I started forward. "Booby traps," he said, pointing down at a thin wire almost lost in the leaves. "The trip wire's attached to some sort of detonation gizmo. The woman must have been in too much of a hurry to watch the ground."

I shook my head as I looked at the rows of fourfoot plants. "I'll bet she was. This must have been the family ginseng patch. She'd have been furious when she saw the marijuana plants, and rushed forward to rip them up." I eased around the perimeter of the clearing, keeping an eye out for wires, buried cans and buckets, dangling fish hooks, and other charming devices, most of which were brought home from the Vietnamese jungle, along with a fondness for marijuana. I won't say much about the odor, but it wasn't anything you could miss, not even from a good fifty feet away. Covering my mouth and nose with a handkerchief, I knelt down at a prudent distance and forced myself to examine the pitiful body. "Yeah, her foot's caught on a trip wire. There's the booby trap in that branch. I saw a diagram of one in a manual at the academy, but I don't guess I've ever seen a real one."

The device was a Rube Goldberg contraption involving the trip wires, a spring-coiled door hinge, a nail, a square of wood with a hole bored in it, and a shotgun shell that had been detonated. That's all I'm going to tell you, and there are no diagrams in the back of the book. Do not go down to the basement and fool around with the above-mentioned items unless you have a perverted secret desire to go through life minus eyes and a smattering of fingers.

The deputy came over to peer at the booby trap. "It's only number six bird shot, but she caught it square in the face. It was probably rigged just to scare the living daylights out of some innocent trespasser, which it sure as hell would of. Bird shot won't kill you unless you get it in the eyes. If she'd been half a dozen inches taller or a few feet farther away, or even turned the other direction, she'd be squawking like a wet hen while she picked pellets out of her bottom."

That wasn't much comfort for Robin Buchanon.

"I'm going to nail the son of a bitch who boobytrapped this patch," I said. My voice must have sounded a mite cold, because the deputy and Merle exchanged cautious looks and stayed quiet. I sucked in a breath through the handkerchief, then continued. "It's one thing to grow a little dope out in the National Forest; God knows it's the number-one cash crop in this part of the state. But this booby trap changes things. We're not going to rip out the plants and haul them to the county incinerator, moaning all the way about lack of manpower. We're going to catch the bastard and hang him on murder one and everything else in the book. He's going to drown in the felony charges we'll come up with."

I stood there and glowered while the deputy radioed in his report. Merle squatted under a tree and did not cackle. After a great deal of staticky conversation, we were told to handle the preliminary investigation ourselves because they doubted they could find us. They had a point.

The deputy and I gingerly examined the scene for evidence, of which there was damn little. Robin's tools and gunnysack were labeled and put into plastic evidence bags, then stashed in the back of the vehicle. The tiny fragments of cardboard from the shotgun shell were treated in a similar fashion. The device that had killed Robin Buchanon was bagged, with a few expressed hopes that fingerprints might be found. The plants were measured, counted, and assessed at more than ten thousand dollars, wholesale alone, although they were short enough to indicate they had been planted as late as midsummer. Retail (a.k.a. street value) could be as much as ten times higher. Six more booby traps were located around the perimeter-and very carefully left intact. At that point the deputy and I grimaced at each other. He returned to the vehicle for a body bag, and we forced ourselves to slide the remains into it. Then each of us found a private spot in the forest in which to vomit. I knelt for a long while afterward, thinking all sorts of crazy things that I still can't put into words. Which goes to show I was about as hard-boiled as the heroine of a Jane Austen novel.

Once the vehicle was loaded, I went back to make sure we hadn't missed anything. The marijuana plants were swaying just a bit in the breeze, like proud, bushy, green plumes. Once the investigation was closed and the son of a bitch was doing a string of consecutive sentences for murder, manufacture of a controlled substance, trafficking, reckless endangerment, and an assortment of federal charges, the patch would be cleared and burned. Maybe the ginseng would come back, I thought with a wry smile. If it did, I'd bring Hammet et al to the spot and show them their family legacy. Their mother's estate, so to speak.

I went back to the wagon. Merle was perched on the edge of the backseat, not real pleased by the bags (and odor) behind him. Sympathizing, I got in the front, rolled down the window, and told the deputy I was finished for the time being. As he drove our makeshift hearse down the road, I stared out the window. "This is my case, you know," I said without turning my head.

"So the sheriff figured you'd say. It's as much your jurisdiction as anybody's, and you did know the deceased. He may be being so generous because we're shorthanded, overworked, and underpaid. Ain't none of us had a decent vacation in the last six months."

I considered suggesting they take so-called vacations instead, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

"Looky there," Merle said suddenly, bruising my ear as he stuck his hand out the window to point at a clump of firs. "Do you recollect how I said earlier that I'd seen some kids courting along the road? Looks like they couldn't get their jeep to working again."

I'd forgotten about the courters. And I didn't like the word "jeep," which brought to mind the one that was supposedly parked in front of the PD. Because it now occurred to me-a mere three hours after the fact-that it hadn't been there earlier, when I'd raced over to meet the deputy. It hadn't been there the night before, when David Allen had driven us past too quickly for me to decide what was wrong. That flash of insight was a mere fourteen hours after the fact. Perspicacity is not among my sins.

The deputy jammed on the brakes. "It's under those firs. You got to look real hard to see it, but you can see a flash of red and the sunlight glinting on a taillight."

"Red jeep," I said, sighing. "Just for the record, Merle-who were these two lovebirds you met last night?"

He confirmed my worst fears. The three of us pushed through the brush to the jeep, which was empty of all signs of humanity except for a square of wax paper on the floorboard in front of the passenger's seat. At that moment I caught myself wishing the twosome had been et by a bear, but I put the fantasy aside and yelled their names. Pretty soon the deputy and Merle started yelling, but nobody waddled or stumbled out of the woods.

"They're damn lucky they're not here," I said through clenched teeth. "I've got a murder investigation on my hands; the last thing I need is a missing team of car thieves. If Kevin fell out of a tree in front of me right now, I swear I'd strangle him. If I could get my hands around Dahlia's neck, I'd strangle her, too."

"Shall I call in a grand theft auto?" the deputy suggested. "Destruction of government property? Malicious mischief? How about we put out an APB on 'em?"

"Do that, and stress that they're liable to be armed and dangerous. Maybe some trigger-happy cop'll save me the bother." I leaned back against the hood of the jeep and rubbed my face until it hurt. "This whole mess is too damn much for me. I've got a murder, a bunch of orphans, a stolen vehicle, two missing morons, a town full of loonies who communicate with dead ancestors, and a psychic who seems to know more than I do. I don't return my calls, my lipstick's crooked, and my mother thinks I'm a stagnant pond. I don't need this, guys."

I didn't burst into tears, but I toyed with the idea all the way back to town.

Mrs. Jim Bob nearly had a stroke when the telephone rang. She stared at it for three or four rings, almost scared to answer it in case it was possessed by the devil hisself. At last she snatched up the receiver and banged it against her ear. "Arly?" she squawked.

"Sorry, honey, this is LaBelle. I just thought you might like to know what's going on. It's been right crazy all afternoon, since Arly and one of the deputies got back to report. Why, when I took my coffee break a while ago, you'd have thought the department was a dadburned beehive."

"Arly's at your office? Let me speak to her right this minute, LaBelle."

"I'm afraid I can't oblige you. I was going to grab her and give her your messages in person, but first she hightailed it to the backroom to do official business, and then she holed up with the sheriff. I stepped away from my desk for one tiny minute to take care of a personal need, which has been happening more than I care to admit since I came down with this pesky bladder infection. Anyway, when I came back, she and Merle Hardcock had gone off in another one of our department vehicles. It seems to me she already has one, but-"

"Gone off where?" Mrs. Jim Bob demanded, fighting off a wave of panic that made her dizzy and queasy and a lot of other unpleasant things. "Why was she with Merle Hardcock? What's going on over there? Did she say she'd call me?"

LaBelle licked her lips so loudly, Mrs. Jim Bob could hear it. "Well," she said at last, "I can't tell you anything about the murder, because it's confidential."

"Murder? What murder?"

"I am not at liberty to disclose that information to a civilian. I am privy to a lot of classified information due to my position, but I'm not supposed to breathe a word of it to anyone."

"Just like I'm not supposed to breathe a word of how you entered your sister-in-law's corn relish in the county fair, then took home that blue ribbon without saying one thing about who made it?" Mrs. Jim Bob figured that the emergency justified playing hardball this one time, although she doubted she could find the precise scripture in the Good Book.

"You promised not to repeat that," LaBelle gasped.

"I'm waiting to hear about this murder," Mrs. Jim Bob replied smugly. "I'd appreciate all the details, LaBelle. After all, you know everything that happens in the whole county, don't you?"

LaBelle felt obliged to agree.

"And if you don't mend your ways, why-you'll all spend eternity in the blazing fires of hell," Mrs. Jim Bob concluded in a pious spray of spittle. Steeling herself to be charitable about the big rip in the upholstery of her sofa, she folded her hands in her lap and gazed at the nearest Buchanon bastard, who happened to be Sissie. "Now, just what do you who have to say for yourself?"

"How do I know you ain't lying?"

"Because, young lady, I am a God-fearing Christian woman who was brought up to tell the truth if I didn't want to be beaten on the buttocks by my father's leather strap. I was not reared in some filthy pigsty by a woman with no morals or sense of decency. And now that's she dead and burning forever in the fiery furnace of damnation, you'd better heed what all I say to you." She turned to stare at Bubba, who held a sniveling Sukie on his lap. "And as for you, young man, you're likely to spend your life on this earth in a rat-infested prison cell if you don't mend your ways, not to mention enduring ever-lasting torment after you die some terrible death."

"Big fuckin' deal," Bubba said. "I still think you're a-lyin' about what happened to Her. We don't have to pay any mind to what lies you tell us, or listen to all this shit about devils and fires and furnaces." He pushed Sukie off his lap and stood up. "Come on, y'all. We're gittin' out of here. This holyfied lady's jest tryin' to bumfuzzle us."

Mrs. Jim Bob resisted an urge to smack the smirk off his face, because that wouldn't be charitable in his hour of grief. "If you don't believe me, I'll call Brother Verber to come over here and tell you all the details of how you'll burn in hell until you look worse than a charred marshmallow. But let me point out that you were brought here by the police, which means you're arrested and in my custody. For another thing, you don't have anywhere to go. Your mother is dead, and there's no one in this entire world who has one whit of concern about any of you. If you had any sense at all, you'd drop to your knees and beg my forgiveness for all the wretched, horrible sins you've committed against me, right here in my own home. I'm liable to throw you out myself, and let you sit in the cold night until you all starve to death."

Sissie looked at her brother. "Do you think Her is really dead? Iffen she is, we hafta do something."

Sukie got up off the floor and stuck a finger in her mouth. "Where's Hammet?" she whined, as saliva dribbled down her wrist like a brown crayon mark.

Mrs. Jim Bob stopped being righteous long enough to run a head count. "Where is that little heathen? Did he have the nerve to leave my house without asking permission?"

"You was upstairs," Bubba said. "He'll come back when he's a mind to." He wrinkled his brow for a minute, then frowned at Sissie. "Where the fuck is Baby? You was supposed to watch out for him, and I don't recollect hearing him howl for a long while. I ought to whup you up the side of the head for losing Baby."

He took a step toward her, his hand raised. Shrieking, Sissie dashed behind the sofa and lit out for the kitchen. Sukie began to moan and hiccup, sending more rivulets of brown down her arm to collect on her elbow. Bubba yelled at Sissie to get her ass back afore he kicked it across the county. Sissie yelled that he was gonna be shit-faced sorry, 'cause she was coming back with a goddamn butcher knife to carve out his heart and feed it to the hawgs. Bubba began to stalk toward the kitchen as he loudly opined that she had a fat chance of doin' that.

From her perch on the sofa, Mrs. Jim Bob took in the action. She was still in control, she told herself in a level voice. One or two of the bastards might have wandered off, but she was down from the bedroom and clearly held the upper hand. The bastards were orphans; they were at the mercy of her generosity and hospitality, not to mention the fact she could have all of them thrown in jail for what they'd done to her newly carpeted downstairs. If she was kindhearted enough to allow them to work off the damage, they'd be cutting the grass and scrubbing the floors until they were middle-aged. And cleaning those disgusting smears off the plate glass. And gluing together shattered dishes. And polishing the wood until it positively gleamed. And scraping food off the wallpaper, although the flocked swirls would never look all that pretty again.

"You!" she said, snatching Sukie's arm to dislodge the finger. "You are a nasty little orphan girl. If you don't beg my forgiveness, you're going to be right sorry for the rest of your life."

"Let go my hair or I'll kill you!" Sissie shrieked from the kitchen.

"I'm fixin' to rip out every goddamn hair on your head!" Bubba replied in kind. "And kick your butt till you cain't walk no more!"

"Oh, yeah? How about I cut off your dick?"

Mrs. Jim Bob tightened her grip on Sukie's arm. "Did you understand me, young lady? You just get on your knees and start begging."

Sukie lifted her free hand to consider which finger held the most promise. Once she made her selection, she stuck it her mouth. "Fuck you, lady," she said wetly.

Mrs. Jim Bob was formulating a reply when she heard a knock at the front door, although it was a miracle she heard it over the din from the kitchen. She went to the door, smoothing her skirt along the way, flipped on the porch light, and opened the door with a vague smile.

"Why, David Allen, how nice of you to come by for a visit," she said as she stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her. There was no reason for him to be forced to listen to those vile screeches, she told herself. After all, someone who was unacquainted with the personal sacrifices she'd made by taking in the bastards would be likely to misinterpret what all was going on in her kitchen.

"Good evening," David Allen said, wondering what the holy hell was going on in her kitchen. It sure didn't sound like a meeting of the ladies' missionary society-unless they were role-playing heathen savages.

"I'm afraid I wasn't expecting company just now. Did you drop by unannounced to have a word with Mr. Jim Bob? He's out of town at the moment, but I'd be glad to take a message. Or is there something I can do for you?"

David Allen began to tell her about Robin's death, but she cut him off almost immediately. "I already know about the murder and the booby trap," she said. "I have informed the children, who seem to be taking it well. Of course, they were as aware as the rest of us that the woman was an ignorant, immoral, filthyminded whore and therefore hardly a great loss."

"She were not," Hammet said from behind David Allen.

"There you are, you wicked, wicked child!" Mrs. Jim Bob said. "How dare you sneak away like some slimy snake?"

Before Hammet could point out that snakes wasn't slimy, Sissie opened the front door. "There's some man a-bellowin' for you on this contraption. Sounds like a right ornery peckerwood." Which ruled out Arly and LaBelle, who weren't men, and Brother Verber, who never sounded like an ornery peckerwood. Squaring her shoulders in much the same way the Christians had when ushered into the presence of lions, Mrs. Jim Bob told David Allen that he would simply have to come back in the morning when she could receive him. She went inside and locked the front door, then crossed the living room to the telephone in order to have a word with her husband, who was all the way down in Hot Springs at a municipal league meeting. At least she dearly prayed he was.

David Allen stood on the porch for a while, then finally got into his wagon and drove over to Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill, where over a beer and a cheeseburger he related his news to an interested party.

"I thought you were going to Starley City to get the crystal shipment," Rainbow said, coming into the Emporium office.

Nate was sprawled on the couch, a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. "I hafta to hang around for a call," he said through a yawn. "I'll get over there Monday."

"A long-distance call?"

"Just a call." Nate yawned again, and settled himself farther down in the cushions. "Don't bother to ask, because I don't want to discuss it. Or share it, as you'd say. It's personal business." And it would get him out of this godawful town and back into the pool halls of Farberville, where he belonged. Hell, he'd have enough bread to hit all the pool halls in the state, if not the whole damn country. Cold beer and hot women. No more of this aren't-we-centered crap. No more screwing a woman who shrieked about cosmic convergence when she came, or half listening to her discussion afterward about the starlit seeds vibrating in her womb, of all goofy things. No more nonsense-if, of course, his partner was right about being able to predict the moment the policewoman abandoned the stakeout long enough for them to chop the dope and get it out of there.

Too bad his partner was opposed to just going up there and doing whatever was necessary to the woman. They were already facing a murder-two rap at worst, a negligent homicide at best. They were waist deep in shit; one more death wouldn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference. He realized Rainbow was staring at him. "What's wrong with you?" he said, scowling at her.

"You're not one of us," she said as she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. "Your soul is still tortured from bad experiences in the past, isn't it? You're not capable of seeking a higher spiritual plane; you're not even able to explore the present physical reality. You'll never be able to counterbalance those discreative intentions or cleanse your inner channels."

"Blah, blah, blah. You know what-you make me sick. Every time you start gabbling about spiritual planes and cosmic harmony, I want to puke. Hell, maybe I'm pregnant like our fat little friend out behind the counter."

Rainbow's smile tightened until her lips ached. "Then why are you a member of our family, Nate? Why don't you pack your tattered duffel bag and find some new friends more like yourself?"

"When I get the word from my astrologer, maybe I will. Like when Capricorn rises in Gemini, the moon is in the seventh house, Jupiter aligns with Mars, and all that crap, maybe I will." Laughing, he turned his face to the back of the couch.

Rainbow went to the front of the store and dug through a drawer for her astrological miniguide. She was frowning at the squiggles when Poppy waddled over to her. "Capricorn doesn't rise in Gemini," she murmured, puzzled.

"I never said it did," Poppy said. "So what?"

"I was just checking. When's your appointment with the midwife?"

"I was supposed to go this afternoon, but Nate said not to take the truck. My ankles are so swollen I doubt I can walk all the way out there. I guess I'll try to go tomorrow or the next day." Poppy ran her hand over her bulging belly. "If it's not too late."

"You think…? This would be a very auspicious day for a birth, astrologically. Nate's mutters made no sense, but anyone can see that a child born today will have a very solid basis in Scorpio. Oh, Poppy, let's align our vibrations and see if we can induce labor!"

Poppy wasn't all that eager to induce labor, a.k.a. labor pains, but she managed a smile as she closed her eyes and began to hum through her nose. It would be nice to have a Scorpio baby; Scorpios could be very determined and levelheaded.

It was dark by the time I hit the highway to Maggody, which was just fine with me since I intended to sneak into town like the cowardly wimp I was. Everything looked dead (normal), but as I braked for a possum in front of the Emporium, the dark-haired distaff hippie came dashing out the door to the side of the road. She gestured for me to pull over, and I obliged, albeit reluctantly.

"Oh, thank God," she gasped, clinging to the jeep. "Poppy's gone into labor, and we have no way to fetch the midwife."

"How far along is she?" I asked, albeit reluctantly.

"According to the manual we ordered from the feminists' commune near Bugscuffle, she could have the baby anytime now. Unless you know how to deliver babies, we've got to get the midwife!"

"We certainly do," I said briskly (and without a trace of reluctance). "Tell me where to find her, and I'll run out there while you-ah-read the manual and time the contractions and boil the water."

"Don't you think you'd better come inside for a minute? Poppy's in the back room on the sofa. She's white and in a lot of pain."

I wasn't going to fall for that one. "I'll go for the midwife. Your friend might be better off at home in bed, you know, or on the way to the hospital."

"Poppy doesn't want to have our baby in a sterile environment with a bunch of strangers poking and prodding her," Rainbow said in a shocked voice.

"Hospital delivery rooms are politically and morally incorrect, and symptomatic of the exploitation of women by male doctors concerned with their own convenience and their ill-disguised need to subjugate women. Natural childbirth is a step in the cyclical cosmic framework that carries us from birth to death and beyond to our next life. Birth should be a joyous family experience in the woman's own bed, where the child was first conceived." When I raised my eyebrows, she added, "Nate left in the truck, and it's too late to move her."

"Where does the midwife live?"

She gave me convoluted directions that began at the edge of town, continued along the county road, and ended on some narrow, unpaved lane that would take me to the top of the hill and the midwife's house. I was informed that I couldn't possibly miss the turnoff, even though it was your basic dark and stormy night. It wasn't the time to suggest a small wager, so I said I'd be back as soon as humanly possible and drove down the county road.

Estelle's house was dark. I'd hoped that I might spot Estelle and Ruby Bee inside, doing something perfectly innocent in the front room. It was not written in the stars (and no doubt they were at the Bar and Grill, since it was Saturday night). The psychic's house was dark, too, but there was a dim glow in what I presumed was the solarium. I idly considered stopping for a bit of astrophysical advice about the turnoff, but drove on like an unenlightened innocent abroad.

For the next two hours I drove up and down every narrow, unpaved lane north of Boone Creek. I knocked on doors and talked to people with more interest in television sitcoms than in the imminent delivery of babies on the sofa of the Emporium office. Nobody had any idea where any midwife lived. It made for some interesting exchanges on rainy porches, but it didn't get me any closer to the midwife.

I finally gave up and drove back toward the Emporium. Once I was on pavement, I realized it was time for a bulletin, so I took one hand off the steering wheel to fiddle with the radio.

"It's a good thing you called when you did," LaBelle chirped. "I was on my way home, and the second shift's not supposed to know what all you're up to. Harvey says not to check in until tomorrow morning."

I noticed that she didn't bother to ask if I'd nabbed the perps as of yet. I agreed not to harass the second-shift dispatcher and was about to ask if she'd heard from Ruby Bee when I almost ran into a pickup truck just before Estelle's house. For a moment it seemed as if we'd end up in our respective ditches, but the other driver squeaked past me. I braked to gulp down a breath and mutter a few caustic comments about fools who drove in the rain without headlights. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to get back to the Emporium, I'd have chased the fool all the way to the far side of hell in order to escort him to the county jail in Farberville (Maggody lacks overnight accommodations).

"Why'd you gasp?" LaBelle demanded. She let her voice drop to a throaty whisper, and I could almost see her licking her lips in anticipation of some wonderfully dramatic spate of gunfire to which she would be an earwitness. "Oh, my Lord, Arly-did you see something suspicious? Are they sneaking up on you? How many are there of them? Are they armed? Are you in some kind of danger?"

In that I was supposed to be on the ridge in a parked jeep, I couldn't explain the traffic situation. "A rabid squirrel," I said, then went on to say I'd report the next morning, and cut her off. Estelle still wasn't home, I noticed as I drove past her house on my way back to the Emporium to report failure.

The front door was unlocked, and light shone through the curtain that covered the doorway to the office. It blocked the view, but did nothing to muffle the shriek of pain that greeted me. I reverted to reluctant mode as I squared my shoulders and pushed aside the curtain.

Poppy was on the couch, her eyes closed and sweat dotting her face like early morning frost. Every few seconds she moaned and twitched. Rainbow stood over her with a washcloth in her hand. Sitting cross-legged on the desk was a man with a wispy beard, a ponytail, and a broad smile. "Like wow," he murmured, watching Poppy as if waiting for her to levitate or glow. She opted for a more prosaic shriek.

I took a step back. "I couldn't find the midwife. Don't you think we'd better find someone who knows how to do this sort of thing? Anyone who knows how to-"

"No strangers!" Poppy cried. "Please, no strangers."

Rainbow gave her an approving smile. "No strangers; I promise. Arly, Zachery, and I will help you. You just go with the flow, as though you were adrift in a current of love and sharing."

"Where's the manual?" I said grimly.

Imagine, if you will, the gossamer rays of pink and orange streaming from the eastern horizon as the sun begins its journey across the sky, lavender now but soon to change to a delicate clear blue. The early birds hop from leaf to leaf, trilling bright little songs of optimism and goodwill, of promised sunlight, of rebirth. Squirrels scamper about on the branches. Raindrops sparkle like rubies and sapphires as the morning light catches them. Idyllic, no?

Now we must mar the bucolic beauty by the addition of one tired, rumpled woman. Her hair has been pinned up without the benefit of a mirror, and her clothes are wrinkled and somewhat dirty. Her face has not enjoyed the improvement of lipstick or mascara. Her shoes are muddy. Yes, it is the upholder of law and order in a small Arkansas hamlet, a police officer dedicated to the apprehension of a vile murderer at any personal sacrifice, the defender of the faith, all that. She is standing by a clearing, her hands curled into fists and her face frozen in a decidedly unattractive expression of disbelief, horror, and outrage (to list only a few). She is so angry that her body quivers like a plucked violin string. Her eyes are dry from the unblinking stare. Her mouth is slightly agape, but her lips do not move despite the little noises that emanate from deep within her. At last we hear two words.

"Holy shit."

This is said not in a loud voice, but in a coarse whisper. The fact that the words are intelligible is to be both noted and commended, because the woman has been incoherent for several minutes. As well we all would be…

…because they had chopped the marijuana plants. The clearing was nothing but rows of stubble. The sons of bitches had come during the brief time I was gone, and they had stolen their plants. Not exactly from under my nose, since my nose had been occupied with the delivery of a baby. But pretty damn close.

I sank down and leaned against a tree, ignoring the immediate sensation of cold wetness that engulfed my rear end. It could not be. I'd been on the stakeout since Friday night, expecting, or at least hoping for, some activity either Saturday or Sunday. But during daylight, for Pete's sake! They had to be escapees from a loony bin to drive up the trail in the dark. Kevin and Dahlia hadn't made it in full sunlight; I'd survived only because I had a sturdy four-wheel jeep and enough sense to creep so slowly I could have been lapped by a snail.

And then there was the sheer coincidence-which was too much. I'd waited around for twenty-four hours, vigilant and alert and all that professional stuff. Had they so much as driven halfway up the trail, I'd have been ready for them. Had a foot snapped a twig, I'd have had my camera focused. But no one had appeared. I'd waited until dark and gone into town for maybe nine hours total. The sons of bitches had come and gone during those nine hours. Not a minute too early, not a minute too late. Just as though I were an airplane and they were air-traffic controllers watching my blip on a radar screen. And I'd gone blip, blip, blip down the road and all the way home.

I dragged myself to my feet and went over to the trail. I could see the water-filled ruts their vehicle had left. The tracks from my vehicle ran over theirs, however, so it was clear that they'd come while I was gone. There were two sets of footprints, but no one had dropped a calling card. I glared at the trail and ground my teeth for a long while, then went back to the cleared clearing and ground my teeth some more. I said some things that scorched little tufted ears. I went all around the perimeter to search for evidence, then methodically examined every inch of stubbly ground. On my hands and knees.

After I finished not finding so much as a turtle dropping, I thought of some more things to say, some of them about my night visitors and some about my dereliction and its resultant disaster. Some about my avowal to the sheriff that I'd catch the sons of bitches who had murdered Robin Buchanon with their lethal toy. Harve had taken a risk by allowing me to stake out the marijuana patch without any backup. We both knew what the standard procedure was, but I'd been so damned eloquent and sincere and charming that he'd let me do it.

I'd blown it. I went to my campsite, made another cup of instant coffee, and gulped it down. It was so hot, it scalded my tongue and brought tears to my eyes. That's what I told myself, anyway, as I angrily rubbed my cheeks.

David Allen, Hammet, and I slipped outside. Even beside the highway we could hear the accusations flying inside the building, with Mrs. Jim Bob the most audible. By a long shot.

"Interesting timing," I said to Hammet.

He gave me a grin of great innocence and shrugged. "We was going to wait until afterward, but he was saying all them low-down things. It jest seemed like the time."

David Allen nodded. "I thought it was well staged, myself. But what about your father, pal? Wasn't he in there cowering behind a pew?"

"No, he used to live over in Emmet, but I think he moved away a few years back. He weren't all that bad. He gived me a dollar once, but of course Her found it and like to slap me silly."

"Do you know his name?" David Allen asked.

"It's in the goddamn Bible." Hammet sighed, then looked up at me with his puppy-dog expression. "Iffen we can't find him, can I live with you? You might get married sometime to a father what wants a sibling for his own little boy-iffen his little boy gets well."

I bent down and hugged him until he squirmed. "Listen," I said gently, "you know you can't live with me. But we'll find your father and let him know about you. You yourself said he wasn't all that bad. And you can come visit me whenever you want-if you don't complain about sleeping on the sofa or being left alone all day while I do police work."

Which I needed to do. I was in the middle of asking David Allen if he'd keep Hammet for an hour when a pickup truck drove past us and stopped in front of the Emporium across the road. My whiskery, dope-smoking friend got out of the truck and waved a half-eaten ice-cream cone at me. I told everybody to sit tight and went across the street.

"How are Poppy and the baby?" I asked.

"They're cool. How about you?"

A dark-haired man with the motions of a panther came out of the store, a gasoline can in one hand and a package of light bulbs in the other. Ignoring me, he glowered at Zachery. "I told you to be back an hour ago. What the hell kept you? Are you trying to fuck with me for some reason?"

"Hey, man, don't come down on me. Rainbow told me to wash the truck. It was so dusty she thought it might contaminate the bottled water or something screwy like that." He grinned at me. "Have you met Nate here?"

"You're the one who wasn't around last night to fetch the midwife," I said pleasantly, considering. "You'd gone off in the truck, so I ended up driving all over the county to find her."

"Yeah, tough luck," he muttered.

I looked at the truck, which was blue and battered-and familiar. "I saw you in the truck last night, by the way. Remember the jeep you almost ran off the road right down there by Estelle's Hair Fantasies?"

"You didn't nosedive into the ditch, lady. You ought to pay more attention when you drive, instead of trying to pin something on me."

"I was talking on the radio, and I might not have been watching too carefully. However, I did have my headlights on. If yours are broken, I doubt those light bulbs will fit. Where were you going? There's nothing down that way until Hasty, which is hardly worth a visit on a bright, clear day. It's unthinkable on a rainy night. It's suicidal on a rainy night without headlights."

"The headlights were on. You've got a loose screw, lady." He put his things under a tarp in the truck bed and started to walk away, but Zachery caught his arm.

"She's a cop," he said in what was supposed to be a whisper.

"Tough shit." Nate shrugged off the hand, then went into the Emporium and slammed the door hard enough to set off the wind chimes that hung in front of the window. Shaking his head, Zachery took out a package of cigarette papers and a Baggie of green leaves. He then remembered who I was, wiggled his eyebrows in apology, and strolled around the corner of the store. A soft "wow" wafted in his wake.

I went back to the lawn of the church. Ruby Bee and Estelle had joined David Allen and Hammet, and the four of them were studying the front page of the Bible.

I tapped Ruby Bee on the shoulder. "Where'd you find that?"

"On the table in the cabin. It was right there in plain sight. I'm astounded you didn't take it when you were there, forcing others of us to run your errands for you."

"Raz Buchanon took you up there in his truck?"

"No, he didn't," Estelle said. "We went most of the way up there in my station wagon, if you must know. Then the engine got all hot and wouldn't go any farther, so we had to hike the rest of the way up the mountain-and all the way down this morning. Once we got to the highway, we stuck out our thumbs and tried to hitchhike a ride for the longest time. Finally Raz happened by and was kind enough to give us a lift for fifty cents."

"And this is how you didn't interfere in my police investigation?" I asked, smiling sweetly.

Estelle warily returned the smile. "For reasons best left unspoken, we decided it was real urgent to learn the names of the Buchanon children's fathers. We went to Madam Celeste, who told us she saw a list of names. Once we thought about it, we realized just where to go. We hadn't counted on my station wagon giving out so that we'd have to spend the night in a haunted cabin."

Hammet glanced up. "It ain't haunted. I done lived there for eleven years and I never seen any ghosts or spooks."

An earlier remark came back to me. I took Hammet's shoulder and propelled him away from the others. Then I bent down so I could watch his eyes as I said, "On Friday I told you that your mother had been killed in a hunting accident. Before the church service started, you said that she'd been murdered. Why'd you say that?"

"That's what the holyfied lady told me and my siblings. They already knew afore David Allen and I got there. She said Her'd been blown to kingdom come by some kind of booby trap."

I had a pretty good idea how Mrs. Jim Bob had learned that tidbit. After all, she'd called LaBelle for two solid days trying to reach me. It was difficult to picture Mrs. Jim Bob growing marijuana in the National Forest, or slithering up in the dark to chop the plants while yours truly was otherwise occupied in town. I concluded (admittedly with a flicker of disappointment) that she was not my air-traffic controller.

"Did you or any of your siblings tell anyone that your mother was murdered?" I asked Hammet.

"No, we din't say nuthin'. After we left the lady's house, we went to your apartment and watched television 'til it got late and they started showing this picture that stayed the same. That's when we decided to see about this foster crap and decide iffen we wanted to do that or tell about our pappies. We knowed all along; we jest wasn't sure if it were the thing to do."

I, too, would have had reservations about claiming a filial relationship with Verber and/or Jim Bob Buchanon. "So David Allen convinced you to confess?"

"When he got home, he said all kinds of stuff about how we might get sent to other places and not necessarily get a bicycle. It were mighty scary, so I told him we'd tell him after church."

"But instead you prodded Bubba and the others into a public display that caused all sorts of embarrassment for the two fathers," I said, trying not to smile.

"We was gettin' tired of hearing how we was sinners going right to hell on an express train and everybody else was so friggin' perfect they was going to heaven to play harps and dumb shit like that. We decided mebbe some other folks might be on the same train."

Never underestimate the cunning of a Buchanon bush colt.

I returned him to David Allen's custody and went back inside the church. I found Mrs. Jim Bob in the foyer, a tissue clutched in her hand. She gave me a tight frown and said, "What do you want? Did you come to make snide remarks about my husband? Did you come to snicker at me?"

Moi? I shook my head and lectured myself to avoid any temptation to snicker until I was alone, at which time I'd let loose like a gross of candy bars. "No, I came to ask you a question. I know that LaBelle told you about Robin Buchanon's murder up on the ridge. I need to know if you told anyone else, anyone at all."

"LaBelle did mention something about it late Friday afternoon. In that I am not a common gossip, I did not repeat one syllable of it to another living soul."

"You told the Buchanon children."

She turned on her beadiest look. "I had experienced some difficulty in dealing with them. I called several times for you so I could tell you to fetch them, but you didn't have the common courtesy to return my calls. In fact, I called more than a dozen times and LaBelle swore she beeped you without fail." She glanced down at the beeper clipped to my belt. "I guess you're too deaf to hear that thing. Or maybe you think you're too important to answer the mayor's wife's calls. Anyway, I found it necessary to tell those vile bastards about their mother's well-deserved fate. It was the only way I could get them under control."

I realized how much I loathed the woman. However, it was not the time to mention as much, so I settled for a grim stare. "Did you tell anyone else about the murder?"

"Do you think I'd converse with the cleaning girl? Of course I didn't tell anyone else. I was occupied with the mess those bastards left. There are going to have to be some repairs done at my house, and I'm holding you responsible, Arly Hanks. My husband will have a little chat with you later concerning upholstery and paint and carpet cleaners."

"No problem. Let's do the nursery first, shall we? Baby simply adores blue. Sukie, on the other hand, favors brown."

I went back outside, armed with the useless information that neither she nor the Buchanon children had told anyone about the murder. But someone had known that Robin's body had been discovered by the pot patch, and that it was probable that I'd stake out the scene of the crime. Otherwise the gardeners would have wandered up the road to harvest the crop in broad daylight, not the least bit concerned about being caught. The only reason they hadn't-and had managed to track my movements was because they knew I knew. Only I didn't know what I needed to know. Such as: Who? How? Where was the dope now? Why did I feel as though I was in the land of Oz?

As I stood there waiting for a round-trip ticket for a tornado ride, a high school girl rushed up to David Allen.

"Oh, Mr. Wainright," she gasped, "I'm so grateful to find you. The most terrible thing happened. Carol Alice Plummer went back to Madam Celeste! Now she's all despondent and talking about suicide and killing herself and not marrying Bo Swiggins. She won't even eat. Her pa's madder than a wet hen, both at Carol Alice for being such a silly goose to believe that stuff, and at Madam Celeste for saying it in the first place."

David Allen wrinkled his forehead. "When did she have this session?"

"Yesterday evening. I went over to look through magazines with her, and she was on her bed moaning about suicide. I didn't have any idea how to talk her out of it. I tried to call you, then Carol Alice's pa called me and I told him everything." Snuffles gave way to a flood of tears. "I wish I didn't have anything to do with this!"

He glanced at me as he handed a folded handkerchief to the wailing girl. "This woman causes a lot of problems. Isn't there some way to convince her to conduct her seances elsewhere?"

Ruby Bee bristled. "Carol Alice is too immature, that's all. Madam Celeste has been very helpful to Estelle and me, not to mention to Gladys and Elsie and plenty of other folks. We wouldn't have this Bible if Madam Celeste hadn't told us she saw a list."

"That's right," Estelle added.

The whole thing was driving me crazy, crazy, crazy. I poked a finger at Ruby Bee's chest. "Estelle said earlier that there was some urgent need to learn the identity of the children's fathers. You were so frantic that you consulted Madam Celeste. Why?"

"We were trying to help," she sniffed, retreating under my maniacal glare. Estelle, a loyal sort, retreated along with her.

David Allen stopped patting Heather's shoulder long enough to say, "I bet I know why, Arly. Hammet and his sibs took Baby out of a station wagon and carried him off. I doubt they left a little note."

By this time, most of the congregation not directly involved in the paternity dispute had wandered outside. Everyone seemed to think the second act had started on the gravel stage, and managed to drift a little closer for optimum rubbernecking. Across the street Nate and Zachery came out of the Emporium and stopped to watch us. I was surprised the news vans didn't roll up, or the Goodyear blimp drift across the sky.

"You lost Baby?" I said. "Is that what sent you to Robin Buchanon's cabin yesterday afternoon? You thought that his father might have kidnapped him?"

"We would have gone anyway," Ruby Bee snapped. "The child cries night and day, and I'm too old to be forced to put up with it. If you hadn't dumped him in my lap, I wouldn't have-misplaced the little dumpling."

Estelle nodded. "It was a terrible strain on your mother. Why, she's sprouted dozens of gray hairs since you abandoned Baby on her doorstep."

"I did what?" I howled.

"Dozens of gray hairs?" Ruby Bee howled.

"What about Carol Alice?" Heather howled.

"You'll never touch me again as long as I live," Mrs. Jim Bob howled (from inside the church building, presumably to her husband-but you never know).

"She was a Jezebel," Brother Verber howled (same locale).

Lupine madness provided some degree of catharsis, not to mention a great deal of satisfaction to the audience. Once things quieted down, I told everybody to have a nice day, got in the jeep, and drove sedately down the highway to the PD. For all I knew or cared, they could have formed a pack and loped into the forest to eat bunny rabbits for Sunday dinner.

The office was dusty, which reminded me that I really needed to do something about Kevin and Dahlia-just as soon as I dealt with the dopers. Having resolved that for the moment, I sat back in my comfy old chair and called the sheriff. We had a long talk about the disastrous stakeout, and he was kind enough to say he'd probably have done the same thing. Neither of us believed it, but it was a nice gesture. He then put me on hold and went to talk to the treacherous LaBelle. When he came back, he said he was confident she had not spilled the beans to anyone except Mrs. Jim Bob. He said he'd do something about the missing lovebirds and suggested I take a well-deserved nap. I told him I didn't deserve anything, sympathy included, and hung up.

The dim light and utter quiet were conducive to thought, so I thought for a long while. I thought about who'd planted the dope and subsequently chopped it. You're undoubtedly screeching Nate's name at this page of this book, because that much was pretty obvious: Zachery's steady supply of dope, Nate's absence at the critical moment, the lightless truck on the road.

That didn't explain how he knew when to return to his patch, however, or who was with him, or where the dope was at the moment. And it didn't prove a damned thing. Obviousness doesn't equate with evidence. And I really did want to nail the sons of bitches for Robin's murder.

I went across the street and up the stairs to my apartment, wondering how much of a mess the Buchanon children had left. As Hammet had promised, it wasn't all that much worse than usual (my feckless Manhattan housekeeper refused to follow me to Maggody, and I never was one for scrubbing toilets; Ruby Bee says I'll get typhoid one of these days). I took a shower, changed into clean clothes, ate a bowl of cornflakes (the only edible item that hadn't been devoured by my guests), and drove back to the Emporium.

The truck was gone. I went inside and found Rainbow in the office. We discussed Poppy's baby and the miracle of birth and the cosmic truth or consequences of Jupiter in the eighth house. I then asked her where I might find Nate.

"I don't know," she said, her smile slipping just a bit. "He's been impossible lately, and if you ask me, his karma has been rotten. He's not the least harmonic. He either lies around the office waiting for mysterious telephone calls, or he vanishes in the truck. He missed Daffodil Sunshine's birth, you know. It was a vital family experience. We were supposed to share!"

"Was he lying around the office yesterday waiting for a call?" I asked.

"Yes, and then about the time it got dark he got his call. He announced he had something to do and drove away. I told him Poppy was having contractions, but he laughed and said it was gas. Now that's rotten karma if there ever was one."

I agreed. After once again declining to have my chart done, I went back to the jeep and myopically gazed at the Voice of the Almighty while I tried to determine my next brilliant move. When nothing struck, I drove down the country road where I'd seen the truck. I doubted Nate could have stashed a hundred pot plants in Estelle's back bedroom without her noticing. I wasn't particularly pleased with Madam Celeste, but I had no reason to think she and Mason were involved in felonious activities. Past their house there was only the rusty car, the dilapidated chicken house, the low-water bridge, and Hasty-ten miles down the road.

Surely he hadn't planned to drive all the way to Hasty without headlights, I told myself as I turned around and drove back toward Maggody. As I approached the psychic's house, I saw Mason pull into the driveway.

"Everybody says ask Madam Celeste," I said aloud, tightening my fingers around the steering wheel until it would have yelped, had it been capable of yelps. "I'll ask Madam Celeste."

I parked by the mailbox and went over to Mason, who was unloading groceries. "Sorry I didn't get back to you on Friday," I said. "Something came up and I had to leave town."

"I shouldn't have knocked on your door at six in the morning. Celeste has been so darn weird about this dead woman's face that I'm scared not to do what she says. She sits in the solarium night and day, laying out tarot cards or shaking the Mesopotamian sand and then reading it. She even canceled all her appointments."

"Except for Carol Alice Plummer. That's the one she should have canceled."

A sack of groceries hit the ground. "Oh, no," he groaned. "Did Celeste get that sweet little girl all upset again? She was sniveling in the solarium the other day, so I made up some silly predictions to cheer her up. Why didn't she just stay away?"

I handed him a can of corn that had rolled between my feet. "The girl's suicidal, which doesn't sit well with her parents or her boyfriend. I guess I'd better have a word with your sister; she really can't upset the local girls like this." And slip in a question about activity on the road the previous night.

Mason said he'd go over to Carol Alice's house and see if he could calm her down with some jovial fortune-telling. The front door was unlocked and there were sodas in the refrigerator, he told me as he drove away.

Madam Celeste was still in the solarium, the cards spread in front of her on the Formica table. When I'd first met her, she'd been sparkling and fizzing like a glass of champagne. Now she looked gray and exhausted. There were black smudges under her eyes, and her hair hung limply on her thin shoulder. I sat down across from her. She regarded me without interest, then moved a picture card a fraction of an inch and let her hand fall away.

"I understand you helped the police in Nevada," I said softly.

"I did, but they resented it."

"I wouldn't resent help. I need all the help I can get. Did Mason tell you that a woman's body was found in the woods south of town?"

"He did."

"I've been investigating the death."

This time her eyes were brighter, although narrowed to slits. "Then you saw this woman's face?" When I nodded, she said, "There had been an explosion, no? Her eyes were opened in shock, her nostrils clotted with blood, her lips cracked and covered with flies?"

"That's a reasonable description," I said cautiously. "Mason said that you'd seen the face before-in a trance."

"I saw a face, but I do not know whose it was. A woman, yes, and dead. The cards insist that there is evil afoot in this town, that there are men who lie and stir up mischief. Not childish mischief, but malicious mischief for their own dark purposes."

"Do you know their names?" Dumb, naive, foolish, but I had to ask. Hell, she might have whipped out a list for me, perps in alphabetical order. Footnoted with addresses and telephone numbers. Not exactly courtroom evidence, but at least a nudge to get me going in the right direction. And it couldn't hurt. So there. Stop smirking.

"Of course not," she said in an irritated voice. "If I knew their names, I would have insisted you come here at once to receive my information and act on it."

"Oh," I said, wondering if I looked all that compliant. "Well, I agree that something's going on in Maggody. Did you happen to see or hear anything last night shortly after nine o'clock?"

"I was here, studying the cards. I saw the King of Wands, the Nine of Swords, and-"

"No, I mean out on the road. A truck. Voices. Lights."

She stood up and went to the window. "I saw no lights in the pasture, but cows do not have flashlights, nor do they converse or drive around. There is nothing out there except the fossils left by the chicken farmer who once worked that land. He is an interesting fellow, by the way."

"Does he live nearby?"

"He lived in this house for forty years, and died in the bedroom where Mason sleeps. He says Mason snores louder than his wife did." She spun around to stare at me. "I cannot help you. You have found the dead woman. Both of us have seen her face-perhaps. I am sure now that it was not that silly high school girl."

Wishing she'd made it plainer to Carol Alice, I went over to the window and studied the pasture, the chicken house, and the distant windbreak of trees. My eyes went back to the chicken house. "Did you hear anything from down that way?" I asked, pointing at the sorry structure. "Maybe a car door slam, or a voice?"

Madam Celeste turned back and followed my finger. "Yes. I heard a thud, but I presumed the rain had loosened a board." Before I could inquire further, she opened the back door and went down the few stairs to the grass. Then, as if pulled by a magnet, she walked toward the chicken house in the far corner of the field.

"Wait a minute," I called as I hurried after her.

She moved ahead purposefully, oblivious to my presence, with all her attention on the building. Although her gaze was directed straight ahead, she did not stumble on the clumps of weeds or snakish vines. I checked once or twice to make sure her feet were making contact with the ground. I couldn't help it.

Once we got there, she stopped several yards from the door. Others of us panted and tried to control our imaginations. I did have enough of my wits intact to see tire tracks in the mud, along with many footprints, as though an army had marched past. Or two men had made numerous trips between the vehicle and the chicken house.

I touched the psychic's arm. "Don't go any farther. I'm fairly sure that there's a half acre of marijuana plants drying in there, and I don't want to screw up the evidence." She brushed off my hand and walked across the evidence to the door. "Yes, green plants rooted in the sky. I have already seen them. There is malevolence inside this place. I can feel it. It frightens me."

She was not alone. I plowed through the evidence and again tried to pull her back. "I don't think we ought to even open the door, Celeste. Let's go back to the house so I can call the sheriff for a backup. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?"

"I must open the door."

She did. For a minute the two of us gaped at darkness, although I could make out the shadowy forms of inverted plants dangling all the way into the darkness. Celeste felt on the wall just inside the door, saying, "There is light somewhere. Very hot, very bright."

Light bulbs and gasoline. "Don't turn on the light!" I screeched, grabbing at her arm.

"I must." She shoved me so hard, I tumbled backward and sprawled into the mud, breathless. Then she felt the wall again. I heard a click. Beyond her the room lit up, and the marijuana plants were spotlighted. A male voice yelled something in alarm.

And then the building exploded with a blinding flash and a wave of searing heat. Celeste was knocked back on top of me. Flames shot toward the sky. Boards cracked as the heat intensified, then seemed to shatter into red splinters. Brilliant sparks streamed like roman candles. The noise was worse than a train in a tunnel.

I managed to roll Celeste off me, then grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the fire as best I could, in that my body was screaming, my eyes tearing, my legs wobbling so wildly I was surprised they held me. Celeste seemed to weigh several tons, and the mud was treacherously slick. I pulled and slipped and fell and struggled up and pulled again for what felt like hours, all the while cursing at the top of my lungs. To this day I have no idea what I said; I have only a vague memory of the scene, as if it were from a movie watched in childhood.

At last we reached the weedy edge of the pasture. I dropped her arm and collapsed beside her. The chicken house continued to burn; the noise was deafening, the light painfully bright. More explosions sent fireballs rolling upward. The smoke was black. I numbly noticed my hands and arms were black and wondered if the flesh had been burned.

I got to my knees and bent over Celeste's body. Shards of wood protruded from her chest and abdomen. Her eyes were open but unfocused. Blood had already began to clot around her nostrils, perhaps from the furious heat. Her mouth was slightly open, her lips cut and bloodied. As I stared, a fly spiraled down and lit on the lower lip. I shooed it away, then fell back in the weeds, and that was all.

Ruby Bee came into my bedroom, a tray in her hands. "I brought you some supper, and I want you to finish every bite of it."

The first two days of being waited on hand and foot had not disturbed me. I'd meekly allowed myself to be bullied, due to lack of any desires more complicated than sleep and liquids to wash down pills. By now it was paling. I felt awful, but not so awful that I wanted this regressive state to become permanent. My burns had been diagnosed as a good assortment of first degree, second degree superficial, and second degree deep. The last would leave scars, mostly on the palms of my hands, since it seems I'd instinctively thrown up my hands to protect my face. For the most part. I wouldn't need mascara or an eyebrow pencil for a long time, nor would I need blusher. A paper bag with eyeholes would suffice.

"What's in the vase?" I said.

"Dried weeds from your little admirer-sorrel and wild marigolds, he said when he brought them." Ruby Bee fluffed my pillows, noted the cover of the book I was reading with a snort of disapproval (escapist stuff, which was exactly what I needed), then put the tray in my lap. "He's been coming over every morning and afternoon to see you, but I told him you were too sick for company. I didn't think you'd want anyone to see you while you look like this. As much as I hate to say it, I've seen stewed tomatoes that looked better than you."

"Thank you for that heartening assessment, Ruby Bee Nightingale. I think I'm up to managing my social calendar from now on. Has the sheriff called?"

"He did earlier this afternoon. I told him you were asleep. The doctor said for you to stay in bed for several days, and I intend to see that you do it. You may have my good looks, but you've always had your father's streak of mulishness. Now are you going to eat your supper or shall I feed you?"

This inspired me to put the tray on the end of the bed, throw back the covers, and struggle to my feet. While Ruby Bee squawked and waggled her finger and predicted all sorts of fatal relapses, I went into the living room and called the sheriff's office.

"Why, Arly," LaBelle said in a noticeably frigid voice. "How are you getting along?"

"Not too badly for a stewed tomato. Is Harve there?"

He came on the line and said he had received the lab reports from the boys in Little Rock at the state crime lab. The explosions had been started by gasoline-filled light bulbs, as I'd guessed. A devilishly clever booby trap designed to destroy the evidence should someone unwittingly flip the light switch. The fact that it destroyed the flippee made it all the more clever. Nate's only mistake was being in the back of the chicken house at an inauspicious moment. I was glad I hadn't been at his autopsy. I get squeamish at wienie roasts.

"So I guess you solved your case," Harve concluded. "The evidence went up in smoke, but your perp did, too. Damn shame about that woman."

"Damn shame," I said dispiritedly. I agreed to come in to write up all the paperwork in a day or two, replaced the receiver, and then gingerly sat down on the sofa and wiggled around until nothing hurt too much. I didn't much feel like crowing over the resolution of the case, however. It didn't feel resolved. It felt frayed, and the little ends were tickling me.

Ruby Bee came into the living room and put the tray in my lap. "You know what the doctor said," she began, her hands on her hips. It is one of her least flattering poses. "You'd better-"

"What police investigation didn't you interfere in?" I asked abruptly.

"Well, yours, of course. I didn't want you to think Estelle and I were involved in Robin Buchanon's murder. We were working on the identities of the fathers. Producing an illegitimate child isn't a crime."

"Did you know where I was most of the weekend?"

"I can't keep track of you when you're all the time running off on these so-called vacations. That darn LaBelle wouldn't tell me, either."

"Did she tell you that Robin had been murdered?"

"She wouldn't give me the time of day," Ruby Bee said with a snort. "All I can say about that is she'd better not enter any counterfeit corn relish in the county fair next year. Not if she values her reputation. Why, do you know she won a blue ribbon this September for-"

"Who told you?" I interrupted.

"One of the judges. He said he recognized the handwriting on the label, even though she'd written over it in ink. He said-"

"Who told you that Robin Buchanon was murdered?"

Don't think for a moment that she didn't know what she was doing. The woman was a pro in the fine art of driving me up the wall, and every once in a while she felt a compulsion to remind me of it. She looked at the tray and said, "Will you eat your supper?"

"Yes, I will eat as much of it as I can. Now will you tell me who told you about the murder?" I shoved a spoonful of chicken soup into my mouth and glared up at her.

"I'll have to think about it, but I'm sure I'll recollect before too long. I don't see what difference it makes. That dark-haired hippie is the one who set the booby traps, isn't he? You practically caught him red-handed in the chicken house. Why does it matter who mentioned the murder to Estelle and me?"

I realized I would have to tell her if I wanted to jar her conveniently muddied memory. "There were two sets of footprints at the pot patch. Nate was psychotic enough to rig the booby traps, but he had a partner. Besides, he was waiting for a telephone call late Saturday afternoon, presumably a tipoff that the patch was no longer under surveillance. When he received the call, he and his partner drove to the ridge, chopped the plants, and were heading for the chicken house by the time I drove back to the Emporium. When I got back to the ridge, I didn't go check to make sure the plants were there; I just crawled into bed and spent a blissful night with the bugs and my beeper for company."

"The sheriff's men found your beeper buried in the mud near the chicken house. A deputy brought it by a day or so ago, and I put it in a drawer somewhere. It was all burned and twisted, and it's not going to beep anymore." I tried to jiggle the conversation back to the point. "I won't mourn its demise. I would like to discover the identity of Nate's partner, though. Two innocent people died because of someone's greed. Neither Robin nor Celeste had anything to do with it."

"Madam Celeste saw her own face, didn't she? Are you still so sure you know everything, Miss Skeptical?"

"The only thing I'm sure of is that I'm going to start screaming all sorts of terrible things if you continue this petty ploy," I said through a rigid smile. By this time I had a pretty good idea whose name she would finally say. There had been no astonishment from someone when there should have been.

"I don't understand why you're so all fired up, Arly. I was just trying to discuss the case with you in an adult fashion, like they do on television. But if you're determined to be snippety, you might as well know it was only David Allen who told us. He heard it from Mrs. Jim Bob, who said something to Hammet while they were on the porch. So you got all riled up over nothing, didn't you?"

"I guess so," I said, sighing. I couldn't imagine David Allen being involved with Nate, nor could I fathom a way he-or anyone else-could have tracked my movements so perfectly. I tried to lead myself through a scenario that was decidedly mazy. Okay, I told myself, David Allen certainly could use the money, since his child's medical bills were apt to rival the trade deficit. He'd hooked up with Nate, and the two had planted the dope in Robin Buchanon's ginseng patch. One or both had rigged the booby traps as a line of defense. Then two things happened Friday. David Allen learned that Robin Buchanon had been killed by a booby trap; it wouldn't have required a leap of the imagination to realize where it had happened. And I left on a mysterious trip-mysterious because I should have been in town to deal with Robin's children, reports, and investigative things. But I'd said that I was trotting away for the weekend, see you later. Again, no quantum leap. Surely no one thought I was that irresponsible.

"Where's Hammet?" I said suddenly.

"I believe he said he was going back to David Allen's house. He's been sleeping over in #2 next to me, but he's right enchanted with some macaroni dish David Allen seems to serve him."

I picked up the receiver and slowly dialed the number of the sheriff's department. Harve and I talked for a while, then he transferred me to some young whiz kid who was very patient with my lack of knowledge in his field of expertise. It didn't bruise my ego too badly. The kid probably couldn't handle the subway system in New York, much less the crosstown buses or Pakistani cab drivers.

Hammet answered the telephone at David Allen's house. I thanked him for the dried arrangement and invited him over for cookies and milk. When he asked if David Allen could come along, I said most certainly, then said good-bye before my voice betrayed me. Ruby Bee reminded me that I was wearing an army surplus T-shirt and that my face was shinier than a red billiard ball.

I changed clothes, but I couldn't figure out how to change faces. Ruby Bee left to see how Estelle was doing behind the bar, pausing only to make a comment about the quantity of soup left in the bowl and the way some people went back on their word, even with their own flesh and blood. I shooed her out, then settled on the sofa. When I heard a tap on the door, I yelled for them to come in.

"Hi, Arly," Hammet said. He took a handful of weeds from behind his back and held them out. "More sorrel and some starworts that ain't too buggy."

David Allen came in behind him and offered me a box of candy. "This is from both of us. We figured if you had some aversion to chocolate-covered cherries, we could eat them for you."

"Thank you," I said as I accepted my presents. "You'll have to forgive my appearance. Ruby Bee can't decide if I'm a billiard ball or a stewed tomato. I'm not real thrilled to be either, but only time will help."

"I think you look prettier than a skillet of red-eye gravy," Hammet said, always the gentleman.

I rewarded his effort with the box of candy and told him to sit next to me. As David Allen perched on a nearby chair, I heard a car pull up next to the store. "Hey, Hammet," I said, "let me ask you something. You and your siblings came back here Saturday afternoon, right? You hung around and watched television until it was so late the channels stopped, then you went over to David Allen's and stayed there. All that right?"

He nodded mutely, since his mouth was full of candy.

David Allen gave me a quizzical smile. "I didn't want to call Mrs. Jim Bob so late, and I doubted she'd care where the children were, anyway. She washed her hands of them in the grand style of Pontius Pilate. Should I have bolted my door and left them out in the rain or something?"

"Of course not," I said soothingly. "Once you got home, all you could do was let them in for the night. It was admirable, considering how exhausted you must have been."

"Drinking a beer doesn't require much exertion," he said.

"At Ruby Bee's Bar and Grill?"

"Why're are you asking me all this? I thought we were friends, Arly, so if you've got something to say, just go ahead and say it."

I leaned back and tried to look pained, which wasn't all that hard. "The sheriff ordered me to ask where everybody was that night. It seems there was a holdup in a convenience store just this side of Starley City. Man in his thirties or early forties, blond hair. I know perfectly well it wasn't you, but Harve made me swear I'd get everybody's whereabouts." I was already hating myself before I asked the next question. "Were you at Ruby Bee's having a beer?"

He wasn't convinced by my fanciful story of collecting alibis, but I suppose he thought it was due to my injuries. "That's right, but I don't know if I can prove it. It's always so darn crowded and noisy on Saturday nights that you can't talk to anyone, and the only lights are those dreadful pink things over the dance floor. I don't know that many of the regular customers."

He also didn't know Ruby Bee's had been closed because the proprietress and her sister in crime were climbing the hill to Robin Buchanon's cabin. He'd seen the two earlier in the day, so he had no reason to think they had disappeared shortly thereafter. His lie made me feel a little better.

"I'll assure Harve that you're not a holdup man," I said. "If he insists, we can always dig up some of the regulars; somebody must have seen you. I'm sorry I had to ask."

"No problem," he said, visibly relieved.

I touched Hammet's arm. "So how's it working out with your siblings? Is everybody making friends with his newly found father?"

"That preacher man sent Bubba and Sissie to his cousin's house in the next county, but they were right pleased. The lady has a big house and cooks good. He's just an old fart. Who'd want to live with him?"

"Not I," I said, grinning at him. "How about Sukie and Baby?"

"They're at the holyfied lady's house. Sukie said the lady's been locked in her bedroom since they first got there, and her pa stands at the door and talks to hisself. They got some other woman what cleans and cooks. It din't make a whole hell of a lot of sense to me, but Sukie don't mind, and Baby don't know better."

"And your pa?"

Hammet gave me a long-suffering look. "This social worker woman says she's a-gonna find him if she has to look under every rock between Emmet and the state line. She's likely as not to find him under one."

I glanced at David Allen. "I feel really badly about all this. The worst thing is that we may never learn who Nate's partner was. It had to be someone local, you know. Whoever it was telephoned Nate the minute I was out of the way. They were up and back in less than three hours."

"If we didn't know it was impossible, I'd say they had you under surveillance," he murmured.

Hammet swallowed the gooey mess in his mouth. "How'd they know you was up there to begin with, and how'd they know when you left?"

"A very good question," I said. I limped across the room and poured him a glass of milk. When David Allen declined a beer, I limped back and sat down, hoping I wasn't trembling so hard he could see it. "The first problem, Hammet, is that no one should have known about the murder. But the dispatcher blabbed to Mrs. Jim Bob, who blabbed to you and to David Allen, who blabbed to Ruby Bee and Estelle. I doubt it went any farther than that." I looked across the coffee table. "You didn't tell anyone else, did you?"

"No, I only told those two because of Baby. I didn't realize it was a secret, but I spent the rest of the day fooling around in my garage."

"And then went to the bar?" I said, inviting a repetition of the lie to remind myself not to feel so damn guilty. When he nodded, I continued. "Well, let's presume this partner found out some way and realized that I was staking out the marijuana patch. The next problem is that he seemed to know the minute I started to drive back down the road." Hammet wrinkled his forehead. "How'd the sumbitch know that?"

"That is the zillion-dollar question. At one point I asked myself if I was an airplane being tracked on a radar screen. But I'm not an airplane, am I?" Hammet shook his head, eyeing me warily in case I really did think I was one. "But," I added, "I did have something sort of like an airplane. Earlier I told my mother I spent the night with bugs and my beeper, but I was wrong. I spent the night with a bugged beeper."

"What's that?" Hammet gasped.

I kept my eyes on him. "Well, a beeper has all these circuits inside it. One of them is called an oscillator circuit, and it can be modified with one little chip. Not a corn chip, mind you. A computer chip."

"Why'd someone be fool enough to modify this oscillator chip?"

"Because then the beeper would emit a special radio frequency that could be tracked just like it was a tiny airplane-or a model rocket. You'd need a radio directional finder, but some people with expensive hobbies have them so they won't lose their toys. Since the beeper was always on my belt, I could be tracked, too."

Hammet's eyes narrowed. "But it weren't always on your belt."

"I know." I forced myself to look at David Allen, who'd turned pale during my electronics lesson. "You took it while we were at the drive-in, and kept it until the next afternoon."

"Yeah," Hammet growled, scooting next to me in a show of strength.

"That doesn't prove anything," David Allen said. "It stayed in the glove compartment right up until I remembered to return it to you."

"That's good to know. That means there's no way your fingerprints might be found inside my beeper, doesn't it) They won't be on the chip or on the inside of the case. It means my theory is the product of shell shock from the explosion."

He looked at his fingertips for a long while. "I didn't even know about the booby traps. The guy was flipped out, a real paranoid."

"You bugged the beeper before Robin's body was discovered."

"I had no idea Robin's disappearance had any thing to do with the…ah, agricultural venture, but I was worried about you wandering all over the ridge and stumbling onto the marijuana patch by accident."

"I told you that I had given up."

"And then you told me that you were going to ask the sheriff to bring in a posse. I figured you'd dog them every step of the way."

At last someone with a high opinion of my dedication-to-duty level. "I might have tagged along," I admitted.

"After I dropped you two off that night, Nate came by to discuss the details of the sale to a student in Farberville. I told him how worried I was, and he said it was a damn shame we couldn't keep track of your movements on the ridge, since we wouldn't know whether or not it would be safe to go back to the patch to harvest. I said it would be easy if I could convince you to carry one of my model rockets in your pocket. One thing led to another, I suppose. But I didn't put your beeper in the glove compartment with any evil intent; I did that because it was bothering you."

"How'd the dope end up in the chicken house?" I asked.

"Nate spotted it several months ago, when he was driving the pregnant girl to see the midwife. Listen, Arly, he was a classic case of paranoia, right out of a college textbook. I didn't know he was going to pull that stunt with the light bulbs in the chicken house anymore than I knew he had booby-trapped the clearing. You know I would have told you about the booby traps if I'd known about them, don't you?"

I told myself he would have. "If he hadn't put in the booby traps, none of this would have happened. But he did, and two women died because of it. That makes you an accomplice."

"David Allen kilt my ma?" Hammet squeaked.

"No," he answered quickly, looking at us, "I wouldn't have done that. I needed money desperately. My medical insurance covers a lot of the treatments, but my son has a chance for a normal life if he has a transplant, which is considered experimental. I never intended for anyone to get hurt. You've got to believe that, Hammet."

"Yeah, okay," Hammet said graciously. "What the fuck."

I told David Allen that a deputy was waiting downstairs. He gave me a small smile, patted Hammet on the head, and left. Hammet offered me a piece of candy, and the two of us sat there in silence until the box was empty.

Joan Hess is the author of both the Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. She is a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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