"I don't know."
"Who do ya think called my office?"
"I don't know," she repeated meekly.
"But you were on the phone?" I said, fighting back a grin because I figured Harve wouldn't appreciate it one bit. "Who all did you call, Joyce?"
"I felt obliged to warn some of my friends. I called Ruby Bee, Eula, Elsie, and Millicent McIlhaney-but she wasn't home, so I left a message with Darla Jean. I was talking to Lottie when I heard the sirens. She said she'd let everybody else know what was happening."
"So now," I said to Harve, unable to hold back my grin, "threequarters of the locals are convinced our missing person is in the act of raping Joyce while making a list of his next dozen potential victims. If you listen real carefully, you can hear those telephone wires humming across the county, and by tomorrow, they'll be barricading the doors in Texarkana."
Harve harrumphed at Joyce, then stalked across the porch and down the sidewalk to his car. I caught up with him before he could drive away, and said, "Somebody'd better find Petrel before a lynch mob of husbands, uncles, and brothers beats us to him. Every last one of them will be a hundred percent convinced Petrel raped some woman someplace."
"Think you can run the rumor back to its source?"
"Sure, Harve, sure. I don't have anything to do for the next year or two. I was going to keep working on the poisoning investigation, but if you want me to start calling the roster of the missionary society, I'll be delighted to oblige."
"You know what? Sometimes you got a real smart mouth."
Harve left me standing in a cloud of dust, but I hardly noticed.
Brother Verber had searched every inch of the mobile home, and he was fairly sure he'd gotten all his study material together-except for the two missing issues, which sure as heck weren't under the mobile home or lying in the grass beside it or anyplace of which he could even begin to think.
Their disappearance into thin air was why he was sweating like a pear-shaped pitcher of iced tea. Droplets of sweat were running down his face, some of them curling around his nostrils and gathering on the corners of his mouth like foam from a rabid dog. His back was wet and his armpits downright soggy. He kept wiping his palms on his trousers, but it didn't last long enough to be worth the effort.
He stared at the gray plastic garbage bag filled with back issues of study material. He couldn't set it in the metal can outside the Voice of the Almighty, because there was obviously a devious burglar in and around the grounds. He wasn't about to put it under his bed or in his closet. He considered putting it in the can behind the Emporium, but as he glanced out the window, he saw the hippie woman stacking crates and decided she looked like the kind of person who knew exactly what was supposed to be in her garbage cans and what wasn't.
It was a vexing problem, and to make it worse, he didn't know where Mrs. Jim Bob was or when she was likely to come banging on his door again.
Brother Verber mopped whatever body surfaces were readily available, squared his shoulders, and picked up the garbage bag. Maggody was too small. He was going to have to take a ride to a place where the garbage cans were anonymous and their contents unlikely to be scrutinized by anyone who would then point the finger finger of accusation in his direction, even though he had a perfectly legitimate reason for possessing half a dozen issues of Rubber Maid and twice that many of Kittens and Tomcats, less two, of course. The August issue of Of Human Bondage. A collection of paperback novels, all selected in order to acquaint him with the steamier sins of his flock and featuring characters named Rod and Dick and Pussy Wantsit. And his most recent addition, Suzie Squeezums, neatly deflated and tucked away in her plastic carrying case.
He went out to his car, tossed the bag in the backseat, and drove out of Maggody, sweating all the more as he fondly thought about his little Suzie.
There was a pickup truck in front of the Dairee Dee-Lishus as I drove up and parked. A group of teenaged boys were jostling each other in front of the counter window, including the mutant Buchanon who'd tangled with Saralee during the grand opening. He glowered at me, muttered to his companions, and slunk away behind the truck as I approached. The others waited, their expressions wary.
"So what you want?" Mandozes barked at them through the window. "You want to admire the scenery, you take a hike. Here is where you order food and drinks."
"Forget it, spic," one of them said. He looked at me. "Is it true about this Petrel guy?"
"Is what true?"
"He raped a bunch of women, escaped from the cops, broke into Mr. Lambertino's house earlier today, and shot a deputy when he escaped again, is it true?"
"You're worse than the missionary society," I said irritably. "Petrel was last seen at the grand opening of the SuperSaver, and no one's admitted seeing him since then. No rapes have been reported to me or to the sheriff. No one broke into the Lambertinos' house and no one's been shot. Where'd you hear this crazy story?"
One of them said his ma, another his sister. The most cocky of the pack said he'd heard it at the pool hall, and from someone who ought to know.
"And who might that be?" I said.
"I don't remember," he said, snickering.
Before I could insist, they piled in the pickup truck and drove away. I went to the counter window and said, "Sorry, Mr. Mandozes. I didn't mean to run them off before they ordered."
"The cheap little sons of puntas only buy drinks," he said without inflection.
"I need to ask you a few questions. Is there a place in back where we can speak?"
"Go around," he said, jabbing toward the corner with his thumb. "I will allow you in my fine, private office. We can sit at my grand walnut desk and allow my secretary to serve refreshments on a silver tray."
I went around to the back and Mandozes opened a door. His office was no more than eight feet square, and dominated by sacks of cornmeal, a case of hot-dog buns, boxes of paper goods, plastic bottles of cleaning supplies, a collection of mops and brooms in the corner, and a card table littered with bills and invoices.
"This is a fine private office," I said gravely. "I only wish mine were as fine as this."
He pulled a chair out for me. "Then you must sit at my desk while we speak. My secretary is gone at the moment, but when she gets back, she will shine the tray. In the meantime, can I offer you a limeade?"
I nodded. He went to the front, leaving me to contemplate a calendar with a winter scene and a drawing of a cactus done by an immature but sincere hand. I was about to admire the latter when a small furry thing darted from under the mop head and regarded me appraisingly.
I did not shriek, although I did get my feet off the floor pretty damn quick. "You have a visitor," I called.
"Vaya!" Mandozes said sharply.
I wasn't sure to whom the command was directed, but the mouse scuttled back to the corner and disappeared. I looked more closely at the shelf of cleaning supplies, and was not surprised to see a box of rat poison next to a bottle of bleach. When Mandozes returned with my drink, I said, "I guess you have a running battle with mice?"
"Yes, but it is the least of my worries. I have also a running battle with the wholesale grocer in Starley City, who wants me to pay his bills with money I do not have." He sat down across from me and twirled the end of his mustache like a bandito. "You have questions, you said?"
"You were at the SuperSaver Monday evening, right?"
"I was. I asked the checker when the deli would open, but he claimed to have no knowledge of such things. I am curious how many tamales they think they will serve after what happened."