The drizzle was not making me happy. It was making me clammy and cold. It was making my blanket squishy. It was making my coffee watery and my cornflakes droopy. It was making my mood bleaker than that of a bag lady who'd lost her baggage.
No one had approached the pot patch, which meant I hadn't nabbed a single criminal as of yet. I doubted my perps were foolish enough to appear on a miserable, wet, cold day, harvesttime or not. Perps weren't notoriously clever (or they wouldn't be perps-they'd be investment bankers or Mercedes salesmen), but even the dumbest ole boys had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Squirrels and blue jays and mosquitoes had enough sense to stay in out of the rain. Only chiefs of police were devoid of sense. Not to mention cold and wet and bored and lonesome and apt to come down with pneumonia.
I pulled my jacket more tightly around my shoulders and tried very hard not to succumb to selfpity. I didn't have a whole lot of success. At two o'clock I plodded through the wet leaves to the jeep and called LaBelle. Once we'd gotten through the preliminaries-no, I hadn't seen or heard anything; yes, I was dandy and having a wonderful time; yes, I'd remember rain or sleet to check in-she casually mentioned a telephone call from one Ruby Bee Hanks. "What'd she say?" I asked without enthusiasm.
"Well, she wanted to know where you were and when you'd be back. I told her in no uncertain terms that the information was as confidential as it'd been the first time she asked, and there wasn't any point in badgering me. Then she asked me something I found right peculiar, if you know what I mean."
"I have no idea what you mean, LaBelle."
"She wanted to know if we'd had anything unusual turn up in the lost-and-found department this morning. I told her about the dentures, the pompom, the three-legged hound, and the pair of spectacles, but she said never mind and hung up afore I could find out what she was looking for." LaBelle moistened her lips, then added, "She sounded kind of worried, although she was trying not to."
A particularly icy drip of rain found its way down my collar. "You don't have any idea what she might have lost?"
"I am not a mind reader, Arly. You ought to ask Madam Celeste about that sort of thing; she's real uncanny."
"Did you check with school about Kevin?" I asked, too discouraged to pursue my mother's latest bit of nonsense.
"He did not come to work yesterday, and Earl and Eilene haven't seen him since the night before that. And don't bother to interrupt, because I asked Ruby Bee if she'd heard from Dahlia and she hadn't. Do you want to file a missing persons report?"
"Not if that means someone might find them." I rogered over and out, then went back to my post, which had a puddle in the middle middle of it. I dug through the box of cornflakes for a wishbone, aware that it indicated a deterioration of my mental faculties, and came up with a soggy yellow flake. I decided that I would remain on the job until six o'clock, when it would start getting dark. Then, without telling LaBelle or anyone else, I would slither back to Maggody, take a hot shower, and spend the night in my dry, warm bed. I could be back at the patch by seven the next morning. Since the dopers had no idea the patch was under surveillance, they had no reason to risk a broken axle or a broken ankle by harvesting in the dark.
Once I talked myself into that minor dereliction of duty, I felt a little bit better and a good deal saner. I even managed not to snarl at a squirrel too stupid to stay in out of the rain. Almost pegged him with a walnut, but I figured I was merely assisting him in his nut collection. Damn bushy-tailed rat.
"Arly's going to hit the ceiling," Ruby Bee moaned. "She'll never stop talking about how irresponsible we were to lose that precious little baby. The poor little thing's probably been kidnapped by some degenerate pervert who'll demand money for ransom. I'm going to hate to turn over my life savings to a degenerate pervert, but I suppose we'll have to if he calls."
Estelle looked in the opposite direction. "Let's not cross the Brooklyn Bridge until we come to it. Between the two of us we don't have near enough money to resemble a ransom payment, and I for one don't intend to end up in the county old folks' home. Besides, maybe we'll find Baby before Arly comes back from wherever she is and starts getting all haughty about how you lost the baby."
"How I lost the baby? It seems to me that you put the baby out in the car and said he'd be just fine by his little self. You were so all-fired sure there weren't any Gypsies on the road. You were plumb full of confidence that Madam Celeste would identify the father. You were-"
"What do you think she meant?" Estelle interrupted, not enjoying the drift of Ruby Bee's remarks.
Ruby Bee made a rude little noise to let Estelle know just what she thought of the diversionary tactic, then shook her head. "Lordy, I don't know. Celeste claimed she saw a list, but she couldn't come up with any idea where in tarnation there'd be such a thing. We both agree that the hospital's out, and the welfare office hasn't sent anyone to Robin's cabin in a coon's age. So who has a list?"
"It doesn't make any sense," Estelle said. "I was wondering if we ought to go back out there and ask the madam if she has any visions of where to find Baby, but most likely she still won't answer the door."
They sat in silence for a while, considering options and lists and what to say to Arly when she showed up-which she would, sooner or later. They almost leaped out of their respective skins when the jukebox blared into life and David Allen Wainright joined them at the bar.
"Any word from Arly?" he asked, once he had a beer in front of him and a bowl of popcorn within reach.
"Not recently," Ruby Bee said cagily. "How about you? Did you have any luck interviewing the Buchanon children today?"
He explained how they'd gone off somewhere, and how Mrs. Jim Bob wasn't exactly chewing her fingernails or sweating bullets over their disappearance. He then went on to say that in a way he felt responsible, but he couldn't figure out anything to do about it except have another beer.
Not quite willing to admit the whole truth, Ruby Bee told him how she and Estelle had consulted Madam Celeste concerning the delicate issue of paternity-not that she'd doubted David Allen's professional abilities, mind you, but it never hurt to cover all the bases. Estelle butted in to repeat Celeste's murky pronouncement about a list, and how it didn't make a whit of sense. David Allen was forced to agree.
They had a companionable beer, and then he wandered off. Once the door closed, Estelle jabbed her finger in the air.
"Arly shouldn't have turned over those poor orphans to Mrs. Jim Bob in the first place," she said. "It's no wonder they ran off when they had the opportunity, what with her Bible-thumping and selfrighteous sermonettes and all. Not to mention her pie crust, which personally I find soggy."
"Arly's not going to be pleased," Ruby Bee said with a sigh. "Now all five of the orphans are lost. She'll be fit to be tied when she finds out. She may have my good looks, but she sure does have her daddy's temperament. She'll go on and on about how we wouldn't have lost Baby if we hadn't consulted Madam Celeste, and she'll also claim we were interfering in her investigation by doing so-even though we weren't."
Estelle let out a sigh of her own. "Are you sure LaBelle won't give you any hints about when Arly gets back? I might feel the need to go into Farberville and buy an aqua uniform."