"I had no idea Robin's disappearance had any thing to do with the…ah, agricultural venture, but I was worried about you wandering all over the ridge and stumbling onto the marijuana patch by accident."
"I told you that I had given up."
"And then you told me that you were going to ask the sheriff to bring in a posse. I figured you'd dog them every step of the way."
At last someone with a high opinion of my dedication-to-duty level. "I might have tagged along," I admitted.
"After I dropped you two off that night, Nate came by to discuss the details of the sale to a student in Farberville. I told him how worried I was, and he said it was a damn shame we couldn't keep track of your movements on the ridge, since we wouldn't know whether or not it would be safe to go back to the patch to harvest. I said it would be easy if I could convince you to carry one of my model rockets in your pocket. One thing led to another, I suppose. But I didn't put your beeper in the glove compartment with any evil intent; I did that because it was bothering you."
"How'd the dope end up in the chicken house?" I asked.
"Nate spotted it several months ago, when he was driving the pregnant girl to see the midwife. Listen, Arly, he was a classic case of paranoia, right out of a college textbook. I didn't know he was going to pull that stunt with the light bulbs in the chicken house anymore than I knew he had booby-trapped the clearing. You know I would have told you about the booby traps if I'd known about them, don't you?"
I told myself he would have. "If he hadn't put in the booby traps, none of this would have happened. But he did, and two women died because of it. That makes you an accomplice."
"David Allen kilt my ma?" Hammet squeaked.
"No," he answered quickly, looking at us, "I wouldn't have done that. I needed money desperately. My medical insurance covers a lot of the treatments, but my son has a chance for a normal life if he has a transplant, which is considered experimental. I never intended for anyone to get hurt. You've got to believe that, Hammet."
"Yeah, okay," Hammet said graciously. "What the fuck."
I told David Allen that a deputy was waiting downstairs. He gave me a small smile, patted Hammet on the head, and left. Hammet offered me a piece of candy, and the two of us sat there in silence until the box was empty.
"Heather, you'll never believe this!" Carol Ann squealed into the telephone receiver. "It is the most amazing thing. You're going to absolutely pee in your pants when I tell you."
"Go ahead." Heather gazed at the wall, thinking about poor Mr. Wainright and all his troubles. He hadn't even known how mature she, Heather Riley, was, or how concerned and deeply-
"So when I graduate, we're going to get married! Isn't that the most fantastic thing you heard?"
"You and Bo?" Heather hazarded.
"No silly, me and Mason Dickerson. Didn't you ever hear what I was telling you? He inherited all of Madam Celeste's tarot cards and sand. He says we're going to live in a great big manor house and have servants and six darling children and a shiny red Camaro convertible for me to drive." Carol Alice stopped to take a steadying breath. "Don't you just want to die!"
Heather did not tell her best friend in the whole world that she actually did, sort of. On the other hand, she wondered what it would feel like to kiss a harelip. Or Bo Swiggins.
Kevin Buchanon grabbed his beloved's hand. "Hurry, my pumpkin, we've got to hide! I hear a car coming up the road. It might be those murderers coming back to get us real good this time." Dahlia peered out the cabin window. "I don't hear nothing. I don't want to go squish ourselves up again, Kevin. The smell like to kilt me the last time."
He tugged her to the door and pushed her outside. "We have to hide," he said in a wheedling voice. "I can't defend you from murderers if they have guns and chain saws."
"Well, at least let's take some catalogue pages this time."
By the time the deputies arrived at the cabin, the door swung in the breeze but there was no sign of inhabitancy. After a while they closed the door and padlocked it, then drove back down the hill.
Rainbow, Zachery, and Poppy lay naked on the bed, with an equally naked Daffodil Sunshine on a pillow.
"He's definitely got Zachery's eyes and chin," Rainbow said firmly. "That, along with Jupiter and the quadruplicity, convinces me that Zachery has to be the father."
Poppy looked away for a minute, then turned back with a determined smile. "Absolutely. I knew it all along, but I didn't want to hurt Nate's feelIngs. I could tell the exact moment of conception. It was as if a light began to glow in my womb."
Zachery gazed at said womb as he took a drag off the joint in his hand. "Like-like wow."
Estelle nervously opened her front door and eyed the stranger with the mustache. "Can I help you?"
"Verissimo, but you are so breathtaking that I must pause to catch my breath," he said in a thick accent. "That pastel color makes me want to sing an aria. My heart, he is accelerando."
"You are a mite pale. Do you want a glass of water?"
"No, I do not wish to trouble you. Perhaps if I could rest for only a minute…?"
Estelle let him inside, but settled him on the chair by the door in case he had any funny ideas. She insisted on bringing him a glass of water. When she came back from the kitchen, he'd already opened a suitcase and arranged the contents in a semicircle on the floor.
"I knew when first I saw you, my bellissima, that you would want only the finest vacuum cleaner with all the attachments, including the carpet shampooer and drapery brush. A lady as beautiful as you would want only the best."
Estelle put her hands on her hips. By the time she finished discussing what all he could do with his vacuum cleaner and all its attachments, his face was about the same shade as her aquamarine uniform.
"Do I really have to go live with that guy in Emmet?" Hammet asked.
"The social worker said he's agreed to take you. We've been over it a hundred times. You can come visit me whenever you want, and I'll come see you, too. It's really better for you to live with a normal family."
"But I like it here. It'll be boring over there. Nothing ever happens in Emmet."
I put my arm around him and gave him a hug. "Don't be silly. Everybody knows that nothing, and I repeat, nothing ever happens in Maggody."
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.
