"We're going," I said before he wet his pants in front of us. "Take it easy, Kyle. Brenda and Jerome were bickering last night. I didn't hang around for the finale, but it's likely that he stormed away to his house, or to his office, or even to another hotel. Of course she's upset about it. That doesn't mean she's going to end it all by drinking an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol."
"She sure was upset at the reception," Estelle contributed thoughtfully. "She might be depressed enough to slash her wrists like Fizzy Westend did when his third wife ran off with that janitor at the high school. I can still see him staggering down the road like a three-legged calf, and bleating like one, too, while the blood spurted out like ribbons."
I grabbed her elbow and hustled her to the stairwell before she could come up with any more bright ideas. I knew we were both thinking about the purported corpse and the missing man, and I was not ready to dismiss it as a whimsical coincidence-if there had been a body. Estelle was convinced Ruby Bee had seen one, but she was as gullible as the local girls who swore you couldn't get pregnant if you were drunk. We have a lot of youthful mothers in Maggody.
I opened the door of 211 and cautiously said, "Brenda? Are you okay?"
Opting for the less delicate approach, Estelle pushed past me and knocked briskly on the bathroom door. "Brenda, honey, it's Estelle and Arly. Kyle said you were upset, and we thought we'd better come up and see if there's anything we can do for you."
The only response was the flushing of the toilet. While Estelle continued to make soothing noises to the scarred door, I ascertained that the only clothes hanging in the closet were Brenda's. All the shoes were pastel pumps. There were no manly items on the top of the dresser, and only one bed had been disturbed. "He's gone," I reported quietly. "It's obvious he packed his bags and left at some point last night. We're dealing with a straightforward marital problem, not some dark mystery. They fought, he left, and she's crying her eyes out in the bathroom."
Estelle nodded, then raised her voice. "Brenda, there's no point in staying in that little bitty room for the rest of your life, just because your husband walked out on you. Why doncha come out? You could call your daughters. Wouldn't it make you feel better to talk to them?" She waited for an answer that failed to arrive, and she tried a new approach. "If I have to, I'll stay out here beating on the door the rest of the day. Unless you want to be responsible for some bruised knuckles, you wash your face and come out here on the double, you hear?"
The door opened, and Brenda emerged, her face blotched and puffy, her eyelids so swollen they were almost closed. Her hair was damp, as was her nightgown, and she was shivering despite the feebleness of the air conditioner.
Estelle took her arm and solicitously placed her on the bed. "That's being more sensible. You want me to dial the telephone for you?"
"I don't want to call them," Brenda said dully. "It's not going to make me feel better to tell Vernie and Deb that their father's a satyr and a sadist. They probably know it, but I'm not going to be the one to say it aloud."
"Oh, honey," Estelle said, sitting beside her to hold her hand, "you and Jerome just had a spat, that's all. All married couples do, even newlyweds on their honeymoons. He'll come back before long, his tail between his legs, and apologize for being such a brute. I'll bet he's already sitting at his desk, feeling guilty and fretting over what to say when he calls you. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up real soon with flowers and a box of candy."
"I would be," she said in the same listless voice. "For one thing, he and his girlfriend are on an airplane to some city in South America…Rio, I think. I can just see them with their champagne and caviar, chuckling about how poor, stupid Brenda never knew a thing until he was packed and halfway out the door. All I can say is she'd better keep an eye on him, or she'll find herself replaced by the next young thing that rumbas into the room and snuggles in his lap."
"That's awful, but maybe it's for the best. You've still got your girls, and your house, and your bridge game, and your volunteer work. You'll stay so busy you won't even miss him."
Brenda toyed with her wedding ring but sounded a bit brighter as she said, "Jerome insisted on watching ball games on television every night. I've always been fond of those exotic nature programs, myself."
"Like the mating rituals of insects?" Estelle suggested. "I saw the most amazing thing…"
I let myself out of the room, relieved we hadn't found Jerome wrapped in a shower curtain and Brenda attempting to drown herself in the commode. As I'd tried to tell Kyle, it was nothing more than a man with a midlife crisis and a sudden interest in the mating rituals of younger women. Not all of them flew to Rio to play out their pathetic fantasies; I personally knew of one who'd settled for a seedy residential hotel two blocks away from his paramour until she could dispose of her spouse and free up some closet space.
I went to my room and lay down on the bed to think-not of the maladies of marriage but of more current events. Jerome was not missing, in a manner of speaking, and therefore no longer qualified as our mischievous corpse. Perhaps Ruby Bee had been sleepwalking, I proposed to myself. She'd managed to get outside the room, gripped by her bloody vision, and awakened when she found herself in the corridor. It had taken her an hour to persuade Estelle to buy her story, and then they'd come knocking on my door.
As for the missing cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut, it was more likely that Geri or Rick had arranged for them to be moved to a less obtrusive location, such as the pantry. All the other odd little things that had happened didn't matter one damn bit. Durmond had been mugged by an overly conscientious sort who wanted to make him comfortable in Ruby Bee's bed. Mr. Cambria was a doorman in Miami, and this was a busman's holiday. Magazine reporters were earthy.
The telephone rang. Remaining supine (mentally as well as physically), I fumbled for the receiver and said, "Yes?"
"Oh, Arly, it's awful!" Eilene shrieked, nearly piercing my eardrums. "There was gunfire at the café last night! Nobody's real clear what happened, but the police haven't seen either of the kids this morning!" She began to hiccup so loudly that I could barely understand her. "The killer's not dead, though. The police know that much."
"How do they know that?"
"He ordered a pizza. A large supreme with anchovies and extra cheese. The delivery boy had to take it right up to the door, hand it over, and then run for his life. The deputy said the poor boy had the tip clutched in his hand so tightly they had to pry his fingers open."
I searched the ceiling for guidance, but all I saw were waterstains, one of which bore an eerie resemblance to a pizza. "Well," I said weakly, "it sounds as if everybody's okay. They're certainly not starving if they've got pizza."
"But, Arly," she wailed, "Kevin hates anchovies!"
It occurred to me that despite my earlier bout of self-congratulatory analysis, I didn't exactly have things under control.
Mrs. Jim Bob figured no one could possibly recognize her, not dressed as she was in a shapeless tan raincoat, drab scarf, and sunglasses. She'd driven all the way to Fort Smith just so she could do her business in private. In that she was the brightest beacon of the congregation, along with being the president of both the Missionary Society and Citizens Against Whiskey, she didn't want to risk letting any of the more impressionable members get the wrong idea.
She parked on the far side of the lot on the off chance someone might see her car and start speculating about why it was parked in front of a store called "Naughty Nights." Clutching her handbag with the tenacity of a quarterback, she darted across the lot and into the store, and only when she was well away from the window did she take a breath.