"Yeah, back in the little office, but it doesn't work. While you were upstairs with Darla Jean, I tried to call Joyce to make sure she was okay. Lightning must have hit a transformer somewhere."
This was not good, but I was encouraged to see the lights were back on inside.
"Wait here," I said to Larry Joe, then went over to Estelle's station wagon. As I'd hoped, the key was in the ignition, which was standard behavior in Maggody. "I'm going into Dunkicker to tell the deputy what we found. Let's hope he can get some backup from the sheriff's department. What I need you to do is go inside and see if Heather's there. If not, go down to the girls' cabin and tell her that we found Darla Jean."
"Wouldn't it be better if one of the other girls went?"
"I don't want any of them setting foot out of the lodge until we know for sure that…" I dribbled off, unable to think of a tactful way to finish the sentence.
Larry Joe grunted. "That there's not a crazy killer hiding in the woods, spying on us and waiting to attack somebody else? Is that what you mean?" I shrugged. "What am I supposed to tell Mrs. Jim Bob this time? You decided to do some night fishin' and stole Estelle's station wagon to go into Dunkicker and buy bait?"
"As good as anything else," I said. "Just make sure everybody stays inside until I get back. It's liable to be several hours."
I left him standing on the porch and drove away, desperately hoping I wouldn't go through a puddle deep enough to stall out the engine. There I'd be, sitting in the station wagon, lightning and thunder all around me, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the guy in the hockey mask (or, in this case, perhaps a catcher's mask).
I kept a death grip on the steering wheel and my mind on the road until I arrived on pavement. Letting out the breath I'd held for at least five minutes, I turned toward Dunkicker. Surely someone at the Welcome Y'all Cafe could help me find Corporal Robarts.
Parking places were not at a premium, in that one lone pickup dominated the gravel expanse. Cold bullets of rain chased me inside the building. I pulled off the poncho and left it by the door, then brushed ineffectually at the mud caked on my pants. "Some storm," I murmured inanely.
"I'd say. Want a cup of coffee?"
I looked up and saw Rachael behind the counter, somewhat friendlier than she'd been earlier and clearly alive and kicking. "That'd be great." I sat down on a stool and wrapped my hands around the ceramic mug she put down on the counter. "I'll have to pay you tomorrow."
"You look like you might ought to be drinking it right now. Something to eat?"
"No, thank you," I said, obediently sipping. I glanced around. All the tables were vacant, with the exception of the three toothless wonders to be found at every cafe in the South, cackling, drooling, and arguing about their dawgs. Now that I had seen Rachael, I was even more bewildered. It did not, however, seem appropriate to discuss it. "I'm looking for Corporal Robarts."
"Anthony usually has his supper at home on Saturday night." Rachael refilled my mug. "You sure you don't want another eighteen cheeseburgers? Scrawny girl like you needs her calories."
"As do ten teenagers," I said, and told her about the group. "We have a situation at Camp Pearly Gates, and the telephone's out because of the storm. Can you tell me how to find Corporal Robarts?"
"You want I should call him and tell him to get over here?"
"Please."
Rachael went around the corner to a short hallway and fed a coin into a pay phone. I sat on the stool, drinking coffee and doing my best not to listen to the conversation from the booth, which was now centered on professional wrasslin' and the remote possibility that it might just be rigged. I tuned it out as best I could. The ghastliness of what Larry Joe and I had found came flooding over me as both my body and brain began to thaw. The body had not been who I had assumed her to be. But a second woman with a shaved head and magenta lipstick, dressed in a white robe? And the child? Had there been one, or had Darla Jean conjured up the spectral presence of Cousin Emory for some reason?
Rachael came back and told me that Corporal Robarts was on his way, then went to the corner table to top off coffee and ask if anyone wanted another piece of pecan pie.
I simply sat, trying to assimilate what I'd seen, what I'd done, what I should have done, what I needed to do. Back at the ranch, so to speak, I was short one teenager. Both Brother Verber and Ruby Bee claimed to have seen something disturbing, although it seemed possible that they had seen the now deceased woman hiding in the woods. The woman with Rachael's sense of style. That woman, yeah.
A few minutes later Corporal Robarts came in and sat down on the stool beside me. "Heard you're looking for me," he said. "Just as well you came into town, saving me from driving all the way out to the camp in weather like this. I got one of yours locked up at the police department. I was gonna hunt you up soon as I had my supper. Ma always has pork chops and gravy on Saturday. Warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. It just doesn't get any better than that."
I hated to break it to Corporal Robarts, but his evening was destined to go downhill.
Like a bobsled.
7
"One of mine?" I said, surprised. I would have argued that I wasn't missing one, but I was. However, Heather had shown no inclination to hoof it into Dunkicker, much less get herself arrested.
Corporal Robarts grinned, allowing me a view of clumps of pork stuck between his teeth. "A good ol' boy, name of Duluth Buchanon-funny yellow eyes, forehead like somebody'd squashed his head. I picked him up about an hour ago and left him to sleep it off over at the police department."
I damn near rocked off the stool. "Duluth Buchanon, here? What was he doing?"
"Crawling alongside the road and braying like a Jackass. I would have let him be, but it was rainin' and I figured he'd be better off in a cell than facedown in a ditch. I couldn't find his vehicle, but he must have left it somewhere. The municipal judge'll be here Tuesday, fine him fifty dollars for public drunkenness, and let him go."
"Duluth Buchanon?"
"That's what it said on the driver's license in his pocket. I reckon that's not why you was looking for me."
"No," I said, smiling gratefully at Rachael as she refilled my mug and left a couple of cookies on the edge of the saucer. I waited until she had moved away, then said, "I found a dead body in the woods at Camp Pearly Gates. A woman. She had the same shaved head and makeup as Rachael, but she was dressed in some sort of white robe."
"You sure she was dead?"
Rachael made a small noise. It was impossible to determine if she'd turned white, considering that she already had the complexion of someone who'd been chipped out of a glacier after a few thousand years.
I turned back to Corporal Robarts. "Real sure. I went to take a look after one of the girls in our group claimed to have stumbled over the body a few minutes after the storm came in."
"What was the girl doing out there by herself?"
"It's pretty complicated. Why don't you call the sheriff's department and request backup? While we're waiting, I'll tell you what I know."
"I ain't about to call the sheriff's department or anybody else on account of what you think you may have seen. For all I know, you brought a dozen bottles of field whiskey in the back of that blue bus of yours. Was Duluth Buchanon your driver? That might explain why he's drunker'n a skunk." He shook his head resolutely. "I'll call Chief Panknine in the morning and see what he sez."
I resisted the impulse to fling coffee in his smug face. "I saw the body, dammit! Somebody shattered the back of her head with a softball bat. You are not equipped to handle this investigation on your own. We need a forensics team from the sheriff's department, and"-I forced myself to add-"a couple of dogs. There may be a lost child."