I told him, and was told to go to the dining room and wait. Ruby Bee and Estelle were told to wait in their room, and they hurried toward the elevator without so much as a word of compassion for yours truly. I did as ordered and was sipping coffee as a middle-aged man in a brown suit came to the doorway. He had the jaw of a pitbull and the manners to match. "You Arly Hanks?" he demanded.
I wiggled my fingers and said, "I am."
"Where the hell have you been for the last hour and a half? Sightseeing? Shopping? Did it occur to you that you might have stayed around the hotel until we arrived? You may be some toad-suckin' hick from Arkansas, but surely you've seen enough cop shows on television to know you're supposed to wait for the police?"
This was not a good beginning for a deep and abiding friendship. I looked at him for a minute, then took a breath and in my twangiest voice, said, "Shit, Mr. Policeman, I dun reckon I was out there, just agawking and a-gaping 'cause I ain't never seen buildings higher than three stories. My eyeballs dun near popped out like a bullfrog's, and I was nigh onto swallowing my tongue, lemme tell you."
He harrumphed as he turned around to converse with a younger man in an equally drab suit. After papers were exchanged, he turned back and said, "I'm Lieutenant Henbit of the homicide division. If we could cut the crap, I'd like to know what you heard last night when you were skulking in the hall upstairs."
"Skulking, Lieutenant Henbit?"
"According to"-he consulted a paper-"Kyle Simmons, you told him that you overheard a conversation between the deceased and his wife, during which harsh words were exchanged."
"I reckon I might have told him that," I said, the hayseed still firmly between my teeth. "Course Bubba and Elmer are always saying I'm tetched in the head. Bubba's my uncle, and my brother, too, on account of our family tree bein' a mite short on branches. Elmer ain't related to nobody what we can figure, but he lollygags out back a-tryin' to court the prettier heifers."
"I apologize, Ms. Hanks," he said, his voice as strained as his smile. "I'm sure whatever errand you went on was justified, and I had no business making any wisecracks about your state. We are investigating a murder, and I would appreciate your full cooperation."
I related what I'd heard through the Appletons' door and described the scene earlier in the morning when Brenda had been bullied out of the bathroom. "She really did seem to think he was on his way to South America," I concluded.
"He's on his way to the morgue, " Henbit said as he fixed himself coffee and sat down across from me. "She, on the other hand, seems to have disappeared." He was trying to be affable, but his jaw trembled and his eyes were intent. "The doorman said she left before the body was discovered. Do you have any idea where she is?"
"Try the Xanadu Club," I said, giving him the address. "She was in the back room not too long ago, talking to a man with short blond hair."
He gave up on the affability business. "How do you know that, Ms. Hanks?"
"I saw them through the window. I don't know why she was there or what was being said, and I didn't actually hang around outside outside very long. The garbage cans seemed an ideal home for rats." I paused as Durmond came into the dining room. "Have you heard about Jerome?"
"Yes, indeed." He glanced at Henbit. "May I join you, or would you prefer that I wait in my room?"
Henbit shrugged. "Sit, Mr. Pilverman, and join in the fun. I was just about to ask Ms. Hanks why she was in the alley behind the Xanadu. She's quite witty. You might enjoy her response as much as I know I will."
"In the alley behind the Xanadu?" Durmond echoed. "Is this true, Arly?"
I was chewing on my tongue and trying to concoct a mildly plausible story to explain my presence without indicting my mother. "It's true," I said. "I was looking for Gaylene. I couldn't go to her apartment because her telephone's unlisted. She'd mentioned that she worked there. The front door was locked, so I went around to see about the back door." There may have been a little hole in the story, about the size of a tank, but it was the best I could do on such short notice.
"Stay here," Henbit said. He went to the door and sent his minion away to fetch Brenda Appleton.
"Why were you looking for Gaylene?" Durmond asked in a low voice.
Henbit returned to loom over me like a tombstone with an epitaph mentioning my name. "A very good question."
I wished I had a very good answer. "There's something fishy about her. She's hardly the sort to enter a cooking contest. If she owns an apron, it's liable to be made of leather." I glanced at Durmond. "I happened to see her leave the hotel late this morning. I wondered where she was going and decided to try the Xanadu."
"This is after the body was found in the dumpster?"
Henbit said. "You didn't have anything else to do, so you decided to stroll over to some nightclub to see if one of the fishier contestants happened to be there? You have fertile imaginations in the backwoods, don't you?" Sighing, he stood up and straightened his tie. "If you think of anything else, please don't hesitate to share it with me, Ms. Hanks. I would be most grateful."
I could think of a couple of little things I'd omitted, but I smiled sweetly and watched him stomp away. Once he was gone, I said, "Gaylene's not the only one I saw leave the hotel this morning, by the way. At one point, I characterized it as a damn parade."
"Did you, now?" he murmured, then gave me a look that bordered on reproachful. "Did you happen to tell the lieutenant about what Ruby Bee claimed to discover in the kitchen very early this morning?"
"Don't change the subject," I snapped.
"It's really much better if I do, Arly. The situation's a bit more complex than what you're accustomed to in Maggody. More complex, and more dangerous. It's unfortunate that you went to the Xanadu and saw Brenda, but it can't be helped now. Tell yourself she put on a nice blue dress and went to apply for a job. You'd better downplay your involvement for your mother's sake, if for no other reason, and let the lieutenant investigate in his own way."
I opened my mouth to offer a polite rebuttal when Henbit came to the door. His jaw was out as far as it could go, and his expression was noticeably less than genial. "I've had a call from the Xanadu. We don't have a positive I.D., but we're fairly certain that Craig Lisbon, who appears to be the manager, was shot and killed within the last hour. If you're not willing to be candid with us, Ms. Hanks, we'll book you as a material witness and let you cool your heels for a day or two. I'm sorry we can't offer more luxurious accommodations, but we're jammed and you'll have to share a cell with hookers, derelicts, perverts, and whatever psychotics we've invited to join us."
"Is Brenda there?" I asked, struggling not to envision his scenario.
"No, but when we pick her up, she'll be held pending charges for first-degree murder. It may take a little longer, but we'll probably get enough to book her for her husband's death, too. This is in no way going to alleviate your responsibility to tell me the whole goddamn story. Understand, Ms. Hanks?"
"Not at all," I admitted.
Chapter Twelve
Refusing to be bullied, I stuck to my story that I had followed Gaylene to the Xanadu because I suspected her motives in entering the contest. I explained how I'd happened to meet Ruby Bee and Estelle while they were exploring the neighborhood, glossing over a few details and stressing that I'd left Mr. Lisbon in good health inside his club. Due in small part to Durmond's bland gaze, and in large part to my real aversion to jail cells, I finally got around to the events of four o'clock in the morning.