"The baby's teething and has been howling nonstop for three days. Larry junior's running a temperature, and Traci's acting like she's coming down with something, too. I'm smack in the middle of fixing supper. Larry Joe's off practicing with the SuperSavers, so he won't be home for another hour. I'm real sorry, Arly, but there ain't no way."
I asked if I could use her telephone and then dialed the number of Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill. It was answered with alacrity. "Arly? What in heaven's name is going on? Is it true half the folks in town have been poisoned, including the entire Milvin family? All four of them found dead in their beds?"
"Calm down," I said through clenched teeth. "The grapevine's a little ahead of itself. Yes, there have been a few isolated…problems with items purchased at the SuperSaver. The Milvin family seems to have gotten the worst of it." I stopped for a moment, puzzled. "Where are you getting your information, Ruby Bee?"
"Here and there. In fact, Estelle heard a most astonishing story from Perkins's eldest, who cleaned at Mrs. Jim Bob's this afternoon. I'll be the first to agree that Perkins's eldest may be a few logs shy of a rick, but Estelle said she said Mrs. Jim Bob said-"
"Stop! I don't have time for this-now or ever. Can you and Estelle handle practice for me?"
"Baseball practice?"
"No, parachute practice. The plane's waiting for you out front."
She sputtered for several seconds before she said, "You know I have an aversion to heights. My eyelid starts twitching when I have to ride an escalator. Now why would you think I-"
"Of course I'm talking about baseball practice. I've got to go back to the Milvin house. Have Hammet go to my apartment and get the equipment bag, then trot yourselves out to the pasture and make sure everyone survives. Don't worry about teaching anyone to do anything. just tell them to play catch for an hour."
"But I have to keep the bar open."
"Then tell Estelle to do it. You'll only have seven players today, since neither Milvin child will be there. But the rest of them are probably waiting by now, and you're liable to find fresh blood on home plate if you don't get over there-now."
"But what if they start acting up? What if they ask me about how to play or bat?"
"What if you had wheels? Then you'd be a tea cart, right? For Pete's sake, Ruby Bee, I've got other things to do, and unless you want Georgie McMay's untimely demise on your conscience, you'd better get over to the field." I hung up on her and shrugged at Joyce, who was trying to pretend she hadn't been listening. "I think it's different in the major leagues."
"Me, too," she said. She promised to call me if Lissie remembered anything of importance, and I drove back to the Milvin house.
Brother Verber was sweating like a roofer in August, but it wasn't because of the paltry confessions he'd wrung out of Kevin. Even if he'd been paying attention, hearing stories about a few smooches and a bizarre-sounding encounter in an outhouse (of all the dadgum peculiar places) wasn't going to begin to compete with his study material. Which brought to mind a serious problem, and in spite of himself, Brother Verber let out a groan that sounded like a Greyhound bus belching carbon monoxide.
Kevin stopped in mid-confession. He glanced at Dahlia, who hadn't moved in so long that he was beginning to worry, then he looked back and said, "Are you all right? You look mighty sickly."
"I am wrasslin' in my soul on your behalf," Brother Verber snarled. "If you weren't such a revolting, perverted sex fiend, none of this would have happened."
"You mean we wouldn't be here?" Kevin said, his voice cracking in bewilderment.
Brother Verber couldn't explain exactly, so he nodded and pursed his lips as if he was thinking real hard. "Just get on with your disgusting story, and don't take all day about it. I got better things to do with my time than to listen to you snivel about every little peck and every little pat on the fanny."
"But you said to tell about all that and not skip anything," Kevin pointed out, now so befuddled that he wouldn't have known which end of the fork to scratch his head with. It was out-and-out mystificating, trying to figure out what he was supposed to say and what he wasn't and why Brother Verber kept looking out the window window like he thought there was more sex maniacs loose on the grounds of the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall.
"There was the time we went for a walk out to Boone Creek," he suggested, then waited to see if it qualified or not.
Brother Verber shook himself like a wet dog in a snowstorm. "Okay, okay, let's hear it. But if you're going to describe nature, you'd better make sure you're talking about the birds and the bees. Otherwise, I'll be sorely disappointed, Kevin Buchanon. I may be so sorely disappointed that I'll be obliged to send you away and get to work on my Sunday sermon."
Nervously wetting his lips, Kevin again peeked at Dahlia. She didn't so much as quiver, so he took a deep breath and said, "It was a right pretty evening. The birds was chirping, but I ain't sure we saw any bees. Dahlia had fixed us a nice picnic supper. Deviled eggs, if I recollect rightly, and pimento cheese sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off and double-fudge brownies with icing. The dogwoods were beginning to bloom, and you could smell the sweet evening air like it was perfume."
He continued along these lines, working himself into a veritable poetic frenzy that would have irritated Brother Verber, had he been listening.
Mrs. Jim Bob rang Eilene's doorbell, her foot tapping steadily and the corners of her mouth veering downward with each passing second. "This is most inconsiderate," she said under her breath. She'd driven all the way over to have a talk with Eilene, and now it looked as if Eilene had just gone on her merry way without worrying one bit about keeping people standing on her front porch as if they were peddling burial insurance.
When Eilene opened the door, she didn't appear to appreciate how much she'd vexed Mrs. Jim Bob, who was in the midst of a trying day. "We're having supper," she said with a vague look toward the kitchen.
"I heard about the pin in the cupcake," Mrs. Jim Bob said briskly. "I came over here to talk to you about it. Shall we sit in the front room or out here on the"-she glanced at the porch swing and shuddered-"I believe the front room will do nicely."
"For a minute." Eilene opened the screened door without noticeable enthusiasm and gestured for her visitor to come inside. Once they were seated across from each other, she said, "What have you got to say about the pin?"
Mrs. Jim Bob realized Eilene was not going to be an easy row to hoe, not with her sitting there like she was a judge facing a common criminal. "I heard how you scratched your tongue," she began, sounding as solicitous as possible.
"On a cupcake that came straight from Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less."
"That doesn't mean Jim Bob had anything to do with it, Eilene. Use your head; why would Jim Bob want to make everybody mad at the SuperSaver?"
"I don't know, but he's doing a real fine job of it," Eilene said unhelpfully. Mrs. Jim Bob regretted not wearing her white gloves, since she always believed they gave her an authoritarian air. She went ahead and waggled her finger anyway. "Now, let's not go leaping to wild conclusions. Jim Bob didn't put pins in the cupcakes or poison in the sponge cakes…but I know for a fact who did!" She waited for a moment, but Eilene didn't budge, so she had no choice but to lift her chin and plow ahead. "It was Lamont Petrel, that fellow from Farberville who was Jim Bob's partner. You may not have heard, but he fled the scene of his crime right when everyone started getting sick in the picnic pavilion. His wife called the police yesterday to report him missing."
"I heard. Doesn't mean he did it."
"Then why did he run away? You just tell me that, Eilene Buchanon."