“All I know is that Lucinda hasn’t been seen in nearly two weeks now.” In retaliation for the skeptical reception, Ruby Bee pretended to polish the metal napkin holder while surreptitiously inching the pretzels out of Estelle’s reach. “Lottie said you can set your watch by Lucinda’s comings and goings. She’s real big on ‘early to bed, early to rise,’ and Lottie says not one morning goes by that Lucinda doesn’t snap on the kitchen light at six sharp, put out the garbage at six fifteen, and—”
Estelle recaptured the pretzels. “I’m not interested in Lucinda Skaggs’s schedule, and I’m a mite surprised Lottie and certain other people, present company included, find it so fascinating. If you’re so dadburned worried about Lucinda — and I don’t know why you should be, what with her being so holier-than-thou and more than willing to cast the first stone — why don’t you call her and ask her if she’s had a touch of the stomach flu?”
“I might just do that,” Ruby Bee muttered, wishing she’d thought of it herself but not about to admit it. “When I get around to it, anyway.”
She went into the kitchen and stayed there for a good five minutes, rattling pots and pans and banging cabinet doors so Estelle would know she was way too busy to fool with calling folks on the telephone to inquire about their health. When she returned, the stool at the end of the bar was unoccupied, which was what she’d been hoping for, so she hunted up the telephone number and dialed it.
“Buster,” she began real nicely, “this is Ruby Bee Hanks over at the bar and grill. I was wondering if I might speak to Lucinda about a recipe?”
Estelle pranced out of the ladies’ room and slid onto the bar stool. She waited with a smirky look on her face until Ruby Bee hung up the receiver. “Glad you found time in your busy schedule to call over at the Skaggses’ house. What’d she say?”
“I didn’t talk to her. Buster says she’s gone to visit her sister up in Hiana.” She hesitated, frowning. “I seem to recollect Lucinda telling me that her sister was doing so poorly they had no choice but to put her in a nursing home in Springfield.”
“Maybe she’s back home now.”
Ruby Bee tapped her temple with her forefinger. “It was a case of her being able to hide her own Easter eggs, if you know what I mean. Lucinda was real upset about it, but there wasn’t any way her sister could take care of herself. ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ Lucinda said to me awhile back at the supermarket, over in the produce section, ‘but all my sister’s helping herself to is costume jewelry at the five and dime when she thinks nobody’s watching.’ Why would Buster lie about it?”
“He’s most likely confused,” Estelle said, yawning so hard her beehive hairdo almost wobbled, but not quite. “She could have gone to visit her sister in the nursing home, or she had to see to some family business in Hiana, or—”
“I don’t think so,” said Ruby Bee. She picked up the damp dishrag and began to wipe the counter, drawing glittery swaths that caught the pastel light from the neon signs on the wall behind her.
I stared at my mother, who, among other things, is the infamous Ruby Bee. The other things include being a dedicated and undeniably adept meddler, an incurable gossip, and a critic of my hair, my clothes, my face, and my life in general. I’ll admit my hair was in a no-nonsense bun, my pants were baggy, my use of makeup was minimal, and my life was as exciting as molded gelatin salad, but I didn’t need to hear about it on a daily basis.
I took a gulp of iced tea and said, “You want me to arrest Buster Skaggs because you couldn’t get Lucinda’s recipe for spiced rhubarb conserve? Doesn’t that seem a little extreme — even to you?”
“I didn’t say to arrest him,” Ruby Bee said. “I said to question him, that’s all.”
“He probably doesn’t know her recipe. Why don’t you wheedle it out of the chef herself?”
Ruby Bee sniffed as if I were a stalk of ragweed polluting the barroom. “I would, Miss Smart Mouth, but no one’s laid eyes on Lucinda for a good two weeks, and when I called and asked to speak to her, Buster had the audacity to say she was visiting her sister in Hiana.”
“Oh,” I said wisely. “How about a grilled cheese sandwich and a refill on the tea?”
“I wish you’d stop worrying about your stomach and listen to me,” Ruby Bee said in her unfriendliest voice. “You are the chief of police, aren’t you? It seems to me you’d be a little bit worried when someone ups and disappears like this, but all you care about is feeding your face and hiding out in that filthy little apartment of yours. That is no kind of life for a passably attractive girl who could, if she’d make the slightest effort, find herself a nice man and settle down like all her high school friends have. Did I tell you that Joyce is expecting in October, by the way?”
I was torn between stomping out in a snit and staying there to feed my face, about which I cared very dearly. For the record, my apartment was dingy but not filthy, and I may have been reading a lot lately, but I was in no way hiding out. Hiding out would imply someone was looking for me, and as far as I could tell, no one was.
“Okay,” I said, “you win. I’ll put a real live bullet in my gun and march over to the Skaggses’ house. If Buster refuses to divulge the recipe for rhubarb conserve, I’ll blow his head off right there on the spot. About that sandwich...”
“I just told you Buster said Lucinda was visiting her sister in Hiana. I happen to know Lucinda’s sister is in a nursing home in Springfield.”
The conversation careened for a while, with me being called various names and being accused several times of failing to behave in a seemly fashion (a.k.a. one resulting in wedding vows and procreation). I participated only to needle her, and when the dust settled back on the barroom floor, I was standing on Lucinda Skaggs’s front porch. The paint was bubbling off the trim like crocodile skin and the screen was rusted, but behind me the grass was trimmed, the flower beds were bright with annuals, and the vegetable garden in the side yard was weedless and neatly mulched.
“Hey, Arly,” Buster said as he opened the door. “What can I do for you?” He was a small but muscular man with short gray hair and a face that sagged whenever his smile slipped. He was regarding me curiously, but without hostility.
I could have saved time by asking him if he’d murdered his wife, but it seemed less than neighborly. “Do you mind if I visit for a minute?”
“Sure, come on in.” He pulled the door back and gestured at me. “You’ll have to forgive the mess. Lucinda’s been gone a couple of weeks, and I’m not much of a housekeeper.”
With the exception of a newspaper and a beer can on the floor, the living room was immaculate. The throw pillows on the sofa were as smooth and plump as marshmallows, the arrangement of wildflowers was centered on the coffee table, the carpet still rippled from the vacuum cleaner. No magazines or books were in view, and unlike most living rooms in Maggody, no television set dominated the decor. On one wall an embroidered sampler declared that this was home, sweet home. Another hypothesized that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, and a third, ringed with coy pink storks, proclaimed that Shelley Belinda Skaggs had weighed seven pounds two ounces on November third, 1975.
“Lucinda’s hobby,” Buster said as I leaned forward to feign admiration for the tiny stitches. “She says that it relaxes her, and that the devil finds work for idle hands.”
“They’re very nice,” I murmured. I sat down on the sofa and declined iced tea, coffee, and a beer. “I understand Lucinda’s visiting her sister.”
He gave me a wary look, but I chalked it up to the inanity of my remark. “Yeah, she’s strong on family ties. There’s a sampler in the kitchen that says, ‘The family that prays together stays together.’ I guess she and her sister have been on their knees going on two weeks now.”