Martin gave me a startled look as I came into his hospital room. I sat down at the end of the bed, patted his leg, and said, "The nurse said you were about ready to go home. We're going to need you tomorrow at the big game."
"Gran's dead."
"Yes, and I'm sorry, Martin. You pa's going to be okay, but he'll have to remain here for a few more days. Lissie's been staying at the Lambertinos' house. I'll ask if you can stay there, too, until your pa gets home and everybody can be together."
He jerked his leg out of reach, then stared out the window and surreptitiously swiped at the wetness on his cheeks. "Yeah, that'll be swell."
"Would you rather stay with me? Hammet sleeps on the couch, but we can fix up something on the floor for you, and I'm sure Hammet would enjoy the company."
"Okay," he said hoarsely. "Did they find what killed Gran and made Pa and me sick?"
"I wanted to talk to you about it yesterday. You and Lissie had breakfast, then she watched television all morning. What about you?"
"I didn't do nothing, just hung around and didn't do nothing special."
"The two of you had spaghetti and corn bread for lunch, right?" He nodded, watching me closely. "At some point in the afternoon, your pa woke up and told Lissie to go outside and play. That left you, your pa, and Gran in the house. We think someone may have tampered with a package of coconut cakes from the supermarket. Did you eat part of one, Martin?"
"No. Pa and Gran might have, but all I had was a root beer and some crackers. I went into my room to work on an airplane model, but later I started feeling bad and lied down on my bed. The next thing I knew, you was squeezing my hand and then I was in an ambulance and then I was here."
My great theory went up in smoke or down the drain, whichever. "You're sure you didn't eat a cake?" I asked.
He gave me an impatient frown. "All I had was a root beer and a handful of crackers, Miss Arly."
The door opened and a young doctor with shiny black hair and a baby face came into the room, humming to himself and swinging a clipboard. When he saw me, however, he stopped abruptly. "Are you this boy's mother?"
"My ma's dead," Martin said. "This is Miss Arly."
"I'm a police officer," I added. "I'm investigating the poisonings."
"And my patient's bruises?" the doctor said angrily.
"Bruises?" I echoed. I tried to think whether Martin had participated in the brawls we referred to as baseball practice. I didn't think he had, but I'd been in the thick of it most of the time and there'd been arms, legs, knees, and fists flying. "Where'd you get bruises, Martin?"
"I fell out of that walnut tree at the side of the house," he said. "I already told this doctor fellow about it. I was chasing after a gimpy squirrel when my foot slipped and I fell on my rear end."
I told the doctor I'd wait in the hall, said goodbye to Martin, and stood by the door until the doctor came out. "I didn't know about any bruises," I said in a low voice. "Could they have resulted from the fall he described?"
"They could have." The doctor glanced at his watch, made a note on his clipboard, and gave me a cool look. "I was planning to call the Department of Human Services to request an inquiry, but I'll leave that up to you. I've been on call for thirty-six hours and I need to crash."
"Then you don't think the bruises came from an accident?" I said, unable to assimilate the possibilities. "You think there's been physical abuse?"
"I don't know. The boy says he fell, and that may be the truth. Or he may have been paddled with a flat object hard enough to leave some big bruises. If you'll excuse me, I want to finish my rounds and get to bed."
The doctor went into the next room. I hesitated, then went into Martin's room and said, "I forgot to tell you that I'll be here tomorrow morning to take you back to Farberville. You want to stay with Hammet and me?"
"Yeah," he said from the bed, his voice so faint I could barely hear it.
I stood beside the bed and looked down at his pale face and watery eyes. "Did you get into trouble with your pa yesterday morning? Lissie said you went to the back bedroom to talk with him. Did he spank you?"
"Nobody touched me. Pa was pissed because I hadn't done my chores the day before. I did 'em all, but Pa said the toolshed was still messy and someone had left the hammer and a handful of nails on the floor. He didn't believe me when I said it must've been Lissie."
"Was it Lissie?"
"I don't rightly recall," he muttered. "But all Pa did was yell at me about putting tools away properly and not skipping my chores again. I said okay and went outside, and that's when I saw the gimpy squirrel in the walnut tree. I was trying to catch him so I could take care of him until his back leg healed up, but then my foot slipped and I fell. The squirrel was in the next county by the time I got my breath back."
"So your pa didn't spank you?" I persisted.
"I fell out of the tree. Pa doesn't ever whip me or Lissie. He just yells. Gran was too sickly to do anything except gripe about her heart and her very close veins and her red spots. If you don't believe me, ask Lissie."
"I believe you," I said, then told him I'd be back the next day and took the elevator to the basement and the intensive-care ward. Through the glass wall of the cubicle, I could see Buzz's gray face under a lot of plastic tubes and wires. The nurse told me he was past the threat of respiratory or cardiac failure, but that they would monitor him for at least another twenty-four hours.
As I drove back to Farberville, I tried to think how Martin had taken a dose of the poison that had killed his grandmother and almost done the same to his father. Root beer and crackers. But Martin had the same symptoms the others had evinced, and he clearly had ingested the poison-not at breakfast, not at lunch, and not for high tea.
I was scowling so hard that I didn't even turn my head as I drove past the Airport Arms Apartments.
12
Mrs. Jim Bob was madder than a coon in a poke. She had a list of grievances as long as her arm, and thus far hadn't had any success with any of them. For starters, Brother Verber had dropped off the face of the earth, and just when she wanted to find out if he'd properly chastised Dahlia O'Neill and Kevin Buchanon for their disgraceful behavior.
She'd been of a mind to discuss it with Eilene, but then Eilene had started making unsettling and distinctly un-Christian remarks about lawyers and Mrs. Jim Bob had allowed herself to be distracted. But that didn't give Brother Verber an excuse not to be in his mobile home or at the Assembly Hall in her hour of need.
Then Jim Bob had allowed Petrel to poison half the missionary society, and although everybody knew who was responsible, they were still acting funny about it and refusing her generous invitations for coffee and cake on the sun porch. What's more, no one had called all morning, and Mrs. Jim Bob was beginning to feel as though her fingers had slipped off the pulse of the town.
Furthermore, Jim Bob still hadn't called the sheriff to tell him about Petrel, and instead, he'd had a conversation with snippety Arly Hanks out in the yard, where you couldn't hear a single word, not even from behind the drape in the living room. He'd been downright odd afterward and wouldn't even explain it to his own wife, who deserved an explanation more than anyone else. Then he'd announced (announced, mind you) that he was going to the pool hall and just marched out the door.
To make things worse, Ruby Bee's baseball team was scheduled to play against the upstanding boys of the Jim Bob's SuperSavers, and for all she knew, there'd be an orgy on the field and somehow it would be her fault and she'd be obliged to resign from the presidency of the missionary society.
Perkins's eldest had skipped the top of the refrigerator, and from the looks of it, for several months. There wasn't any way to make a condolence call at the Milvins' house and find out the details of what had happened, because there wasn't anybody home to offer condolence to. Now that the Kwik-Stoppe-Shoppe had been torn down and the SuperSaver built in its place and then closed, Mrs. Jim Bob was going to have to go all the way into Farberville to buy a simple head of lettuce.