It was enough to drive even the most saintly woman to tears, and she was heading that way when the telephone rang. She jerked up the receiver. "What is it?"
Eula sounded breathless, and she was talking so fast, her dentures clicked like castanets. "Just lock your doors and windows and stay inside. He's in town; Joyce saw him."
Mrs. Jim Bob wasn't in the mood for silliness. "Stop blathering like an orphaned calf and calm yourself down, Eula. I'm in the middle of doing my shopping list, and I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Petrel," Eula said, getting control of herself and her upper plate. "He's already raped a dozen women, and now he's in Joyce Lambertino's backyard under the forsythia bushes, watching the house. She's scared witless, of course, but who wouldn't be?"
"She was born witless, and I'm beginning to wonder about certain other folks. We all know that Lamont Petrel poisoned everybody, but the last I heard, he disappeared and the state police can't find hide nor hair of him. You're saying he's been raping women and is hiding in Joyce's yard?" Even Mrs. Jim Bob was having trouble with that one, but she waited for Eula to elaborate.
Eula elaborated at length about Petrel's rampage and Joyce's terror.
"Then why doesn't she call the police?" Mrs. Jim Bob asked, still having trouble, She'd met Petrel on a few occasions, and he'd been right gentlemanly; she'd been surprised herself when she realized he was the poisoner and she was obliged to pass it along. Men that drove nice black Cadillacs were hardly the rapist sort. Embezzlement, maybe, or stealing from the country club's bank account, or even telling lies to widows to get their life savings-but not rape. Rape was-well, common.
Eula was still dithering. "Arly's off somewhere, and Joyce's husband's getting ready for school to start and is over there way back in the auto shop where he can't hear the telephone. Someone's got to go to Joyce's house and do something."
"Well, I'm not going over there," Mrs. Jim Bob snapped. "I've got to get salad for dinner, and since I have to drive all the way to Farberville, I thought I'd run by the mall and see if winter coats are on sale. My good wool coat's starting to look a little frayed at the cuffs; I thought I'd ask Perkins's eldest if she wanted to buy it from me cheap."
"But what about Joyce?" Eula wailed.
"Oh, all right. " Mrs. Jim Bob punched down the button to cut off the wailing, then dialed the operator and demanded to be put through to the sheriff's department. She briskly told LaBelle about the crazed madman in the act of breaking into the Lambertinos' house with rape on his perverted mind, then hung up and left the house.
I drove to the Satterings' produce stand and parked in the shade. Jackie was in the yard, tossing up a ball and attempting to catch it if it came down in his vicinity.
"Where's your ma?" I asked as I walked into the yard.
"She and Pa are down by the apple trees," he said. He threw the ball up; it came down hard on his shoulder and rolled under the side of the house. He was standing there with a puzzled look as I went around the house, past several good-sized vegetable beds, and through the gate to the orchard that sloped away from the house. I caught sight of a figure toward the back row of gnarly trees, and as I approached, I heard what sounded like an argument. I halted, of course, being a professional and all. "Then you shouldn't have opened the package," Ivy said. She was not visible, and after a moment I realized she was on a ladder and hidden by the foliage. "What you don't know can't hurt you."
"But I thought it was my ladybugs," Alex said, his back to me. "For all I knew, they might suffocate. You can't use that stuff, damn it! All our produce is organically grown and guaranteed to be free from pesticides. Just because they haven't proved it doesn't mean that stuff can't cause cancer or even build up in your system and kill you."
"Balderdash," came Ivy's voice from above his head. "Starvation's going to kill us first, if we can't get productivity up. The SuperSaver was selling lettuce for less than a dollar a pound, and if they bring in apples from the West Coast, they'll undercut us with those, too."
He grabbed the ladder and began to shake it fiercely. "You've already used some of that pesticide," he said with sudden venom. "What'd you use it on? The squash? The last of the turnips? Whatever it is, I'm going to pull it up and throw it away."
"I used it on everything, Alex. You'd better get an ax and start chopping down the trees. Get a bulldozer and level all the gardens. And don't think about the vegetable soup we had last night. I thought the organophosphates gave it a nice flavor."
I brushed past him and grabbed the ladder to steady it. Ignoring his gurgle of surprise, I called, "Ivy, it's Arly Hanks. I came by to ask you all a few questions."
She came down the ladder, her expression supremely unruffled, and gave me a smile. "Howdy, Arly. I was inspecting the tree for damage from that late frost last spring. Looks okay to me. Alex, take the ladder back to the barn and then set the sprinkler on the yellow squash. Go on, take the ladder to the barn."
He hesitated, regarding her with a flat expression, then nodded to me, took the ladder, and trudged up the slope. Ivy ran her fingers through her hair, sighed, and said, "He'll leave the ladder in the middle of the yard and set the sprinkler on the tomatoes." She frowned. "But I shouldn't underestimate him. Might be dangerous one of these days."
"I happened to overhear some of the conversation," I said cautiously. "You're using pesticides now?"
"I got tired of catering to the insect world. The stuff's used very commonly, and all you have to do is wash the produce before you eat it. Alex is still having flashbacks to the sixties, I'm afraid. He thinks organic is groovy. He thinks ladybugs are the hottest thing since the Beatles."
"I wanted to ask you about Monday evening," I said. "I guess you heard about the pins and so forth?"
She started for the house, forcing me to trail after her. "I heard about Lillith Smew, too. I don't reckon I ever met her, but it's a damn shame."
"I'm talking to everyone who was in the SuperSaver Monday evening," I said to her back. "Someone said you were there for a time, Ivy. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously-returning items to the display, for instance, or looking worried about being observed?"
She glanced over her shoulder but continued walking briskly up the slope. "Can't say I did. I just went to compare prices, then left when I realized that every last one of them was a damn sight less than what we can sell for."
"When did the pesticide package come?"
"Monday morning. I was way down at the end of the orchard, and Alex happened to have gone to the house for a minute. He was so excited about his box of ladybugs that he didn't stop to look at the return address. His box came the next morning, and he spent the day sprinkling the orange polka-dotted things on what's left of the late-summer crop. He was surprised when they bellied-up, but I wasn't. The pesticide worked real well."
We'd reached the gate, but I was seriously out of breath and my shirt was glued to my back. "Wait a minute," I said. "One more question, Ivy. Do you keep syrup of ipecac in the house?"
I finally had her attention. She turned back, scratching her chin with dirt-caked fingernails, and said, "I have a bottle in the medicine cabinet. I also have pins in the sewing box. I was real perturbed when the SuperSaver opened, and real relieved when it was closed down. I've got no fondness for Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon or his self-righteous wife, and I'd just as soon take a tablespoon of ipecac as give either of them the time of day. The brand of organophosphates I'm using is deadly in small doses, and the container's been opened. Any more questions, Arly?"