The wail of desperation was lost as a plane roared overhead and went in for a landing.
13
Plover's car was parked beside the PD, and I found him inside telling whimsically gory tales to Hammet about bandits and bank robbers. I sat down behind my desk and made a few desultory notes about my interviews with Ivy and Mandozes. They didn't amount to a hill of beans (organic or refried), and I was mostly just sitting when Plover finished his lurid story, sent Hammet to the back room to play with the radar gun, and sat down across from me.
"Have you heard from the lab?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yeah, but you're not going to leap into my lap and smother me with kisses when you hear what they reported."
"I'm not?"
"Only in my fantasies, I fear. The lab analyzed the contents of Lillith Sinew's stomach and blood and found traces of a toxic compound. Same for the other two victims. To the pathologists' regret, it's not nice, straightforward arsenic or potassium cyanide, or even something charmingly exotic like curare, but some incredibly complicated mess of polysyllabic chemicals. They think it might take several weeks to pin it down."
"Several weeks? What are we supposed to do while they piddle around with their tests? How am I going to identify a poisoner if I don't have any idea where to look? What kind of a lab is it, anyway?" I rattled desk drawers and slammed around pencils and notebooks until I calmed down. "They have no idea what the toxic compound is?"
"Unofficially, my friend said he suspects it'll turn out to be a common industrial pesticide."
"As in ant powder or rat poison or insecticide?" I told him what I'd learned in the last day. "So Ruby Bee, Mandozes, and Ivy Sattering all have access to lethal substances. But so does everyone else in town. Every kitchen has a box of something or other in the cabinet under the sink where curious toddlers can get to it." I sat back and sighed. "I don't know why I'm bothering to conduct an investigation. All I need to do is wait quietly until Eula and Lottie and all the other tongue-flapping magpies figure it out and pass along the solution. Considering the tempo thus far, I ought to have it by baseball practice this afternoon."
Hammet came to the doorway. "The game's tomorrow, you know. I went over to the field at the high school and watched that other team play. I think we got a shitload of trouble, Arly. They kin throw and catch and one of 'em liked to knock the darn hide off the ball."
"All we can do is try. Team effort and that sort of thing. Ruby Bee's serving supper afterward, so at least we'll eat well."
"Where is she?" Plover asked. "I was going to suggest a late lunch, but the bar and grill is closed." I shrugged again. "I am not my mother's keeper, for which I am currently and shall remain eternally grateful. She's off running errands or having her hair colored at Estelle's, I would imagine.
"What color?" Hammet demanded, clearly enchanted with the brightly hued images in his mind.
I shooed him out the door, tilted back in my chair, and propped my feet on the corner of the desk. "This whole thing is a polysyllabic mess. Someone managed to lace the tamale sauce with ipecac, perhaps in front of a dozen people, but nobody saw anything. The store was locked from Saturday at three o'clock until Monday afternoon, and that evening someone left the tampered cake packages on the display rack. All but one had pins or ipecac, which resulted in unpleasantness but not serious injury. One package contained a lethal poison. Why?"
"Beats the hell out of me," Plover said affably. "Why did Lamont Petrel disappear at the grand opening? Why did Jim Bob lie about his whereabouts Monday night? Why did Martin Milvin have the same symptoms as his father and grandmother? Why do fools fall in love?"
"Beats the hell out of me," I said, although not affably. I flipped through my notebook, scowling at the question marks sprinkled here and there as if they'd drifted down from the ceiling, and replaying bits of conversations. I looked up abruptly. "Jim Bob made an odd comment when I went back to tell him what Cherri Lucinda said. He sputtered something about having a hundred witnesses to prove she lied."
"Exhibitionism to an extreme?"
"I don't think so," I said, trying not to visualize Hizzoner and the blonde engaging in sexual antics on the runway. "When's the last time there was a gathering of that many people in Maggody? At the grand opening, of course. And Jim Bob had a really funny expression for a moment-as if he'd spotted a familiar face in the crowd."
"Is this leading somewhere, Chief? What difference does it make if Jim Bob's girlfriend came to the grand opening?"
Plover went into the back room and started the coffeepot, allowing me time to try to come up with an answer to his obnoxiously smug questions. When he returned, I said, "Because she lied. I doubt either of them will admit she was there, but if we're lucky, there is a way to prove it." I told him about the freewheeling cheerleader and the subsequent disaster in the crowd. "The cameraman caught every last squeal and curse. I don't know if it was deemed worthy of the six o'clock news, but he still might have the film. I noticed a blond woman-and I'll bet all three of my bullets it was Cherri Lucinda Crate."
"And?"
"If Jim Bob didn't invite her, maybe someone else did. Lamont's car is parked at the motel, so he didn't drive away. He had a ride."
"So you're theorizing that he left voluntarily with the Crate woman? Any ideas why he'd do that?"
"No," I admitted.
"You could ask her."
"We didn't hit it off real well," I said glumly. I found the telephone book in a bottom drawer under my beloved travel guide, looked up the number of the television station, and persuaded the gumsnapping receptionist to put me through to the cameraman who'd covered the grand opening. He told me the film had been played several times for the amusement of the staff, who'd particularly enjoyed the expletives and one exceptional flash of thigh. The film had then been taped over at a Cub Scouts awards banquet. I hung up and regarded Plover. "Crate might talk to you, especially if you crinkle your nose and produce the boyish grin while staring in awe at her body. "
"You're convinced she knows where Petrel is, then?" Plover said, crinkling his nose and producing the boyish grin but not staring in awe at my body, which was adequate but hardly awesome.
"No, but it's a lead, and we're not exactly swimming in them. We're not even wading in them. All we've got is unsubstantiated gossip and harebrained rumors. Even Hammet is keeping secrets-and from me, his very own coach."
Plover agreed to question Cherri Lucinda Crate and left. I decided to indulge myself with a quick trip to Amsterdam, but not even the flower market and canals could take my mind off the madness in Maggody. I put the book back in the drawer, dealt with a rebellious bobby pin, and went out into the humorless heat of my car.
The Milvin house had the dispirited look of an empty house. The grass looked a little shaggier than I had remembered, and the porch furniture shabbier and less inviting. The seals on both doors were intact, but I had no qualms about ripping one off in order to go inside. The key was under a flowerpot; the only other place it might have been was under the mat. We're not obsessed with security in Maggody. Otherwise, how would your neighbors get in to water your African violets, feed your cats, and snoop through your bedside drawers while you're on vacation?
The house had been bottling up the heat, and the odor was almost enough to send me back outside. I left the door open, yanked open the nearest window, and forced myself to breathe slowly until the odor seemed less oppressive. The recliner was still extended. A magazine lay beside it, offering a glimpse of a football player poised to fling himself at an enemy.