"Get money from where?"
"You wanna talk to Norella's mother, you call her. Any chance of getting a six-pack?"
"You drove over the River Styx on your way here," I said. "Live with it."
He was grousing as I went back into the office. Corporal Robarts looked no more genial than the prisoner, but I presumed he wasn't worried about wetting his pants.
"Is your mother expecting us?" I asked.
"Yeah, she's pleased as punch. You planning to scrape the shit off your shoes before we go?"
He was a boy whom only his mother could love. "What a charming idea," I gushed. "Willetta and I had a most intriguing conversation over fried chicken earlier today. She thinks you need a firm hand."
His face turned pink. "She didn't start on that, did she?"
"On what?" I asked. When he was unable to respond, I said, "Let's go, shall we?"
We took separate vehicles to his house. Willetta was in the foyer, her hands intertwined as if she'd been offering a prayer.
"How lovely of you to join us, Arly," she said. "Don't you agree, Anthony?"
"Yeah, right." He stomped upstairs; moments later, a door slammed.
"Anthony is so sensitive," she said as she took me to the dining room. "He was inconsolable when his puppy died last year."
She did not seem to realize the incongruity of her remark. I smiled and sat midway down the table. Beaming at me, she prattled on as though we were discussing brands of potting soil or the price of begonias. "May I assume you've solved this grisly crime? Dunkicker has always been a quiet little community. We've never had any violence of this sort."
"I wanted to ask you about Ester," I said.
"Ester?" she echoed.
"She cleaned for you, right?"
"Yes, but she was unsatisfactory. It's my understanding that she's gone. Ruth was the name of the woman who was killed yesterday. Why would you ask about Ester?"
"Why was she unsatisfactory?"
Willetta poured a glass of iced tea and put it by me. "Ester was a nice enough girl, reasonably attractive, soft-spoken, and really quite pleasant in her own way, but…"
Anthony came into the dining room and sat down. "Just tell her, Mother. It's not like she's gonna sue you for badmouthin' her."
Willetta winced. "I offered Ester the opportunity to clean and cook, despite her lack of domestic skills. Within a week I began to notice things missing. At first, it was nothing more than change from my handbag or a trinket from my jewelry box. I tried to sit down with her, but she was defiant and angry. Then, well, sadly, the telephone bill came. Ester had made several long-distance calls that were charged to our account."
"Who did she call?" I asked.
"She'd made half a dozen calls to a number in Florida," Anthony said as he chomped down on a drumstick. "When we confronted her, she broke down and admitted it. She wouldn't say why, though, so Mother had no choice but to fire her. I guess I should have saved the bill but I thought the matter was resolved."
"Did you report this to Deborah?" I asked.
Willetta shook her head. "I didn't want to further embarrass the girl. We didn't know anything about her background, so maybe this was an habitual thing, like shoplifting or kleptomania. I even gave her a week's salary as severance pay, although I would have been well within my rights to demand that she make reparations. I still feel bad about it. If I could have helped her, I would have. She was very unhappy."
"But she decided to forsake her commitment to the Daughters of the Moon and abandon her children?"
Anthony stared at me over the remains of the gnawed drumstick. "Three days later she asked me to take her to the bus station in Starley City. She cried all the way and said she'd send for her children when she could afford it. What was I supposed to do-tell her to walk?"
"Did you go into the bus station with her?"
"She told me to drop her off out front. I was wearing my uniform, so I guess she didn't want to be seen with me. She said she had enough money for a ticket. I took her suitcase out of the trunk and set it on the sidewalk, then drove off."
"Well, she didn't exactly blend in, even with a scarf around her head," I said. "I'll have the sheriff send a deputy there tomorrow to see if anyone remembers which bus she took. We ought to be able to trace her all the way to Florida, if that's where she went."
"Why bother?" he asked, grabbing another piece of chicken. "She's probably found a job and is saving up to arrange for her children to join her. She was convinced that she could do it in a few weeks."
"I'd like to know if she has any idea who might have been stalking Ruth."
"Stalking Ruth?" said Willetta. "Don't you have her ex-husband in custody? Shouldn't you be starting with him?"
"He's the most likely," I admitted, "but he keeps swearing he never went out to Camp Pearly Gates. Ruth said that she was going to look for her son just as the storm hit, but I don't see how her ex-husband would have known this. It seems more likely that she had arranged to…"
"Meet somebody?" suggested Willetta.
"Yes," I said, "and I can almost put a name to it. This has been lovely, but I need to go now."
She put down her glass. "Now, Arly, I realize you're used to having free run in Maggody, but we do things differently in Dunkicker."
"Why don't you drop by the lodge and share your grievances with Mrs. Jim Bob? She seems to think I need to consult her every time I issue a speeding ticket. Corporal Robarts, stop by the café and drive Sarah back to the Beamers' site with you. You're under orders to spend the night there. I'll ask Les to stay at the PD and read a bedtime story to the prisoner. I have a feeling they'll enjoy the illustrations."
I left before either of them could sputter.
Everything seemed peaceful at the lodge. Les had removed the visible vestiges of his profession and was flinging a Frisbee with Parwell, Big Mac, Billy Dick, and Larry Joe. The girls had flopped over to maximize tanning. Bonita had taken off her shoes and socks and was wading along the edge of the lake; I could see from her expression that she shared Darla Jean's theory about perfidious minnows.
On one end of the porch, Mrs. Jim Bob appeared to be dozing, although it may have been a ruse. Brother Verber sat on the opposite end, an open Bible in his lap and a notebook nearby in case he stumbled across inspiration.
I gestured at Larry Joe to join me. "Where's Jarvis?" I asked him.
"He went ballistic when Big Mac splashed him. I sent him to the cabin to put on dry clothes and cool off. Yeah, I know you said to keep 'em together, but Jarvis can take care of himself. Wish I could say the same about Big Mac. One of these days that boy's gonna smart off to a gorilla on a Harley and end up walking bow-legged the rest of his life."
"I'm going to talk to Jarvis," I said. "Don't let anyone else go to the cabin."
I walked down the path and along the shore of the lake until I found the cabin. Jarvis was perched on a picnic table out front, throwing bits of gravel into the water.
I sat down beside him. "There's something I have to ask you."
"About Norella?"
"How'd you find out?"
"Mrs. Jim Bob started bawling out Brother Verber, then he got all pathetic about how he was forced to go to the morgue in Little Rock to identify her body. A couple of the girls had gone into the lodge and were scared to go back out to the porch, so they heard it all."
"Norella taught your Sunday school class, didn't she?"
"For a couple of months. She thought she could impress us by talking about Sodom and Gomorrah, Jezebel, Job, biblical stories like that. Kind of pathetic, if you ask me, but more entertaining than Elsie McMay. She thought we should be able to detect secret recipes in the New Testament if we'd put our minds to it."