The whining of an ambulance siren cut her short. The three looked at each other as the sound increased, peaked in an earsplitting shriek as it passed the bar, and abated as it continued down the highway.
"Lord a mercy," Estelle gasped. "Do you think something's happened to Arly?"
"There ain't no reason to think that," Ruby Bee said with a look of warning in Hammet's direction. "Maybe Arly was sent out to investigate an accident on that bad curve just past the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall."
Estelle leaned forward, beckoned for Ruby Bee to do the same, and whispered, "If there's been a wreck or something, then somebody probably called over to the sheriff's office. Why don't you see if you can find out anything. Go on, I'll handle Hammet. " She sat back and smiled at him. "Tell you what, I've got a nice shiny quarter that'll pay for three songs on the jukebox. You can go right over there and pick out what you want to hear."
"I don't wanna hear some dumbshit song," Hammet said, his face wrinkled up like a Pekingese. "If'n Arly's hurt, I gotta go help her."
He jumped down from the stool and ran out the door before Ruby Bee or Estelle could open their mouths. He was a good ways down the road and still going full steam before either of them made it to the door to yell at him. And by the time a truck piled high with chicken crates moved out of the way, he was long gone.
Ruby Bee started for the telephone. "He'll be all right. He knows his way around town by now. I'm going to call LaBelle over at the sheriff's and ask her real politely if she knows where I can find Arly. If that doesn't work, I think I'll mosey on over to Jim Bob's SuperSaver and pick up a package of paper towels and a few other things."
"You got three cases of paper towels in the-" Estelle squared her shoulders and nodded. "I think I might go with you to keep you company."
Brother Verber folded his hands in his lap and gazed sternly at the sinners sitting right there beside each other on chairs he'd brought over from the dinette. He gave them a minute in case they wanted to take off repenting without any prodding on his part, then said, "I am deeply troubled, deeply troubled indeed. Y'all have been coming thrice weekly to the house of the Lord under false pretenses. People what come to the house of the Lord thrice weekly ought to do so without carrying a heavy, burdensome load of sin in their hearts."
Dahlia stared at the wall above his head. "I ain't done nothing," she said flatly.
Kevin twitched as Brother Verber's eyes bored into him. He wished he was almost anyplace else except in the hot, stuffy mobile home parked next to the particular house of the Lord under discussion. Mopping floors was better'n this, he thought glumly. Mopping floors weren't half so bad as being told he was some kind of pervert and sex maniac. However, he couldn't think of anything to say, so he settled for a gulp and a shrug.
"The only way," Brother Verber intoned, "the only way to cleanse yourselves of this sinful, disgusting lust that's sucking on your souls like a tapeworm is to repent. If you don't repent from the beginning and in detail, well…Satan's just waiting around the corner, hoping for two new workers in the eternal furnace. I ain't here to pressure you all, though; you can make up your own minds. Maybe you want to shovel coal into Satan's furnace for all eternity while little red devils poke you with pitchforks till you scream."
"I ain't done nothing," Dahlia repeated. She elbowed Kevin so forcefully, he nearly tumbled off the chair.
"Me, neither," he added hastily. "We was sitting on the swing talking about our new jobs at the supermarket, that's all. Anybody what says different is lying-and that's a sin, too."
He was pretty impressed with his speech, but he could tell just from looking that Brother Verber wasn't. In fact, the more he looked, the more he could see the fat ol' pious pig cranking up to spew out all kinds of stuff. And although Kevin knew there hadn't been any fornicating on the porch swing, he didn't much want to discuss various incidents over the last two years. The outhouse, for instance. The back room of the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe, on numerous occasions. Once, while Dahlia sat on the stool behind the counter and he'd…
Kevin all of a sudden realized that he was about to get hisself in deeper shit, because the same devil that had tormented him on the swing was back for another visit. "I have to go to the men's room," he said in a strangled voice (although it wasn't his voice that felt like it was being strangled-not by a long shot).
Having been prepared for a detailed description of lustful abandon, Brother Verber was unprepared for this and he began to blink like an addled calf. He may have been staring at Kevin, but his mind was in the bathroom. To be precise, it was in the wicker basket beside the commode-along with two insightful issues of his study material. After a minute, he said, "Right now, we'd better get down on our knees and pray for the salvation of your souls. This ain't the time for wordly concerns, not with damnation seeping into the room like swamp gas."
"I got to go."
Dahlia snorted under her breath, but she didn't say anything and Kevin repeated his plaintive request once again. Brother Verber stood up and went down the hall to the bathroom, hoping for a chance to relocate the well-worn June issue of Kittens and Tomcats and the July issue of Rubber Maid, but Kevin was so close behind him, he could feel hot breath on his neck.
"Let me see if the hand towels are clean," Brother Verber said. He stepped inside and closed the door. The room was small and short on hiding places. If he put the magazines in the one cabinet, Kevin might poke around out of idle curiosity, especially if he had business that might take a while.
He waited for a bolt of inspiration, but when nothing struck, he jerked open the window and dropped both issues out. Then he folded a damp towel so it'd look fresh, ascertained there was ample toilet paper, and opened the door.
"Don't be all afternoon in here," he said grimly. "We got some serious praying and repenting to do."
Kevin hurried past him and locked the door. Brother Verber returned to the living room and told Dahlia he needed to step outside for a minute. He didn't have a handy explanation, but she sat in the chair like a great pink Buddha and didn't so much as turn her head. Once outside, he hurried to the back of the mobile home.
The bathroom window was open, of course, and from inside he heard a curious moaning sound that made him wonder if he needed a plumber. He stopped worrying about the sound when he looked down at the patch of brown grass below the window, where there should have been two magazines. He'd dropped them out the window less than a minute earlier. He'd heard them flutter like pigeons.
Brother Verber looked around wildly. Across the street at the Emporium, one of the hippie women came out the back door and dropped a bag in a battered garbage can. She didn't appear to notice him, though, and he figured she couldn't have gotten to the mobile home and back inside the store in that short a time. A truck towing a horse trailer came down the county road, braked momentarily in deference to the stop sign, and pulled onto the highway. A drunk stumbled out of the pool hall, but it was a good block away and the drunk wasn't exactly leaping like a ballerina.
Clasping his hands over his belly, Brother Verber looked skyward skyward. "Why me, Lord?" he said. He waited for a reply, but he didn't hold his breath or anything.
Lissie and I were sitting on the porch steps when Harve and Les Vernon drove up. I told Lissie to wait there, then went over to the car and gave Harve a rundown on what I'd discovered and what I'd done thereafter.
"Jesus H.," he said, taking off his hat to run his hand across his carefully oiled hair. "The little girl's okay?"
"She seems fine. The medics said Buzz was critical. They were more optimistic about Martin, the boy. His color was quite a bit better, and he was semiconscious when they put him in the ambulance. The coroner's on his way with Plover and a couple of men to take prints and photographs."