"I won't be more'n a minute, Marjorie," said a voice from the darkness outside the cave. "Change the radio station if ye be a mind to."
"Who's that?" Mrs. Jim Bob hissed, clutching the collar of her scarlet nightie.
Brother Verber's privates turned icy. "I reckon we're hearing things on account of being cold and hungry. Why, there's no way anybody would be wandering around this godforsaken place in weather like this."
He was going to add more, or at least repeat his words with increased assurance, when a flashlight beam hit him square in the face. The beam moved down slowly, illuminating the lace of the nightgown and his quivery knees, then darted across the cave to linger on Mrs. Jim Bob's stricken expression.
"Well, what does we got here?" The figure silhouetted in the mouth of the cave cackled and spat. "Marjorie, git over here and have yerself a look at the preacher man and his floozy. You ain't gonna believe your eyes!"
Marjorie was most amazed.
"Fishing?" Larry Joe Lambertino said, studying the note with a bewildered frown. "Joyce hates fishing. This doesn't make a lick of sense. Are you sure she didn't say anything before she left?"
Saralee had her head in the refrigerator, rooting for food, so her voice was a little muffled. "Not a word, Uncle Larry Joe. All she did was make us go out to the treehouse in the backyard and have a tea party. Now my stomach aches awful, Uncle Larry Joe. I think I'm gonna throw up."
She was right.
"You know," Simmons (senior) said, balancing his drink on his belly while he paddled the raft toward the edge of the pool, "this place has class. Costs a goddamn fortune, but at least you get your value for your money."
Fleecum sat in a deck chair, a cap on his head and a damp towel draped around his neck. The lights around the pool glittered gently, as did the moonlight on the beach and the stars reflected in the water. "Value's a big seller these days. We stress value in all the major projects, even when the product's like that crap you make. Consumers like to be told they're getting good value, just like you said a minute ago." He gestured at a waiter. "Want to see about an early tee time tomorrow?"
"Whatever," Simmons said, handing his empty glass to the waiter and paddling back out to the middle of the water, where he could admire the moon hiding behind the palm fronds.
"I knew you were stupid the minute I laid eyes on you," Dahlia said from under the stool where she'd been tied so tightly her fingers were numb.
Her remark was aimed at Clark Rhodes, who was tied to the next stool and dressed only in his underwear. His sock had slipped down around his ankle like snakeskin, but he'd tried once to catch it with his teeth and bitten himself. "He had a gun, and I didn't have a whole heck of a lot of options. How was I supposed to know he was going to pull this kind of stunt? I'm a statistician. I do numbers in a nice, clean office in Quantico, and then I drive home to my suburban home and have a martini on the deck and read the newspaper with my wife. Did I mention that she's pregnant?"
"Stupider than dog doo-doo," Dahlia said, not touched by this poignant scene of domestic bliss. Kevin was still over in the corner somewheres, but it was pitch-black with the blinds closed, and she didn't care anyway. "Stupider than Kevin," she added for good measure, "and that's as stupid as it gits."
"Beloved," Kevin called from wherever it was he'd most recently gotten stuck. "I'm on my way to gnaw clean through your ropes and set you free."
"Wire, Kevin, and unless you got tools in your pocket like Ira Pickerel, all you'll do is chip a tooth."
Rhodes was beginning to realize how grim his situation was. Marvel had promised to tell the police that he had persuaded the terrorist to come out at sunrise and surrender, which meant they might get suspicious by noon or so. Rhodes had hoped the police would notice the switched identity, but they hadn't. One brother looked just like the next one, especially in the dark. The real problem, he thought with a sigh, was that he was going to spend up to twelve hours being told how stupid he was, how stupid Kevin was, and how smart Ira Pickerel was. Rhodes already hated Ira Pickerel.
Marvel didn't hate Ira Pickerel anymore, now that he was tooling down the road in Kevin's car, having cited agency policy when he confiscated it for evidence. He was munching cookies out of the picnic basket, fiddling with the radio every now and then to get away from the redneck wails, and on his way to Niagara Falls, via Cleveland. The jacket was spread out neatly in the backseat, along with the dark red tie. Special Agent Clark "Marvel" Rhodes didn't know when next he might need to flash his badge, but when he did, he wanted to look slick.
"I don't want to file a report," Geri howled, standing beside her Mercedes. "Whoever did this is welcome to my luggage and the spare tire. Just let us go!"
Kyle winced at the harsh marks on the trunk. "Come on, Officer, it's not as though you're going to catch the guy, so why don't you allow Miss Gebhearn to come by the precinct when we return to the city. In the meantime, she'll send you a copy of the insurance and registration papers, and you can start the report with them."
"No, sir, that's impossible," the police officer said. "You have to come down now and fill out the paper work. Otherwise, your insurance company won't pay up and you'll be amazed at how much this kind of damage costs."
"I feel as though I'm being taken hostage," Geri said, glaring at the officer and wishing Mother had instilled some tips about this sort of degradation.
"Sorry, ma'am."
Kyle took her arm and eased her into the passenger's side. "We'll be out of the city in no time. How long can paperwork take, after all?"
"Would you like some more peanuts?" the stewardess asked so eagerly that I wondered if she were on commission.
I took a package, but Ruby Bee stonily stared at the back of the seat, her hands grasped tightly on the armrests and her mouth clamped shut. Estelle also accepted another package, but she wasn't any chattier than her cohort in crime.
"So it wasn't cash," I said for the millionth time.
"And what am I supposed to do with a lifetime supply of Krazy KoKo-Nut? I don't care what they say about its value, it's nasty and gawdawful and I wouldn't even use it for compost. Just thinking about it arriving year after year's enough to push me in an early grave." Fresh out of suggestions, I looked down at the clouds, then smiled as I realized I was longing to get back to Maggody, where nothing ever happened.
Joan Hess
Joan Hess is the author of both the Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. She is a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
