"Like a cesspool being dredged after fifty years," Estelle contributed as she came across the room. "Not to mention the coffee grounds in your hair, and that curlicue of apple peel hanging off your ear, and the big ol' brown splotch on your dress, and-"
"Thank you so much for not mentioning any of that," Ruby Bee snapped. "Do you happen to recollect whose brilliant idea it was for me to climb into that nasty thing? Do you?"
Estelle tilted her head and pretended to think. "It seems to me it was a matter of height and who was going to be able to boost the other one over the side and help her out, Miss Five Foot Three On Her Tiptoes."
"Why did you climb in the dumpster?" I asked. "Plover said you claimed that you were going after evidence, but he wasn't clear what it was or why it would be in the dumpster, or even whether or not you found it."
"I was merely investigating. I was hoping to find proof that Petrel was hiding in that awful woman's apartment. I didn't, but she admitted he had been there, so it doesn't matter, does it?"
"What kind of proof?" I said, not buying a word of it.
"I really couldn't say. You realize the big game's this afternoon, doncha? I got your pink Flamingo shirt in the kitchen; wait and I'll fetch it for you."
I waited, and when she returned, tried my damnedest to badger a straight story out of her and/or Estelle. It paled after a while, so I switched to the less threatening topic of current gossip. What I heard was enough to peel the paint off a '57 Chevy. "Do you believe any of this?" I demanded.
Ruby Bee shook her head. "To tell the truth, I don't rightly know what to believe. I know Petrel wasn't breaking into Joyce's house, and I can't figure out why he'd tamper with the little cakes at his own store, much less put enough poison in one to kill Lillith Smew. But Elsie told Estelle that the Riley girl now claims he raped her-but that doesn't fit in with what Lottie said happened." She frowned at Estelle. "Do you think there were two different cheerleader tryouts?"
Estelle chewed on her lip. "Doesn't make an ounce of sense that there would be. Why would that girl go back after what happened between her and Jim Bob?"
"It's puzzling," Ruby Bee admitted, "but no more so than imagining Kevin and Dahlia carrying on like everybody said they was, and doing it right there on the porch swing, with Eilene and Earl watching television in the living room. I don't think the swing's all that wide."
"Not as wide as Dahlia," Estelle said. "But that's what Johnna Mae Nookim heard when she was buying a broom at the Emporium. She said Perkins's eldest heard all about it while she was cleaning at Mrs. Jim Bob's last week."
"But she told Elsie that she heard it from a woman in the Homemakers' Extension in Hasty not one day ago," Ruby Bee said doubtfully.
"They serve sherry after the meetings."
"During, from what I hear."
I couldn't take any more of it. I left them debating the relative merits of their sources and drove to the hospital in Farberville to pick up my shortstop. As I passed the Airport Arms, I couldn't keep from staring at the dumpster. I was still chuckling when I reached the hospital. To this day, I get a little smirky when I see one. Ruby Bee, on the other hand, gets very grim.
"The missionary society will be selling canned sodas and cookies," Mrs. Jim Bob said to herself. She made a checkmark by that item and moved on. "Brother Verber will make the opening invocation about playing baseball for Jesus. If he should happen to add a comment or two about the immorality of the other team, I think it might be appropriate, don't you?"
Jim Bob glanced up from the paperwork spread out in front of him on the dining room table. "Yeah, what the"-he caught himself-"heck, let him blast into Ruby Bee and Arly. Might be amusing."
"We are speaking of a religious invocation, not a stand-up comedian's routine."
"Right." He looked back down at the papers, wondering how the bankers could generate such quantities of small print without going blind, fer chrissake. He'd managed to appease the wholesale grocer with a partial payment and the promise of the rest of it that afternoon, 'cause now he knew where Lamont was, or figured he had a pretty damn good idea, anyways. He also figured Lamont was going to be a sight more cooperative about putting up his share of the cash. The loan closing wasn't until after the game, and Jim Bob had scraped together his share. Now that Lamont was back (sort of), there'd be enough money to pay the goddamn points, pay off the wholesaler, and maybe pay off the health inspectors and get Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less open again.
He realized, however, he was going to have trouble with Arly Hanks, who'd run whining to the sheriff and her pet trooper. Not being employees of his, they might be less inclined to take orders from him.
"Then Lottie Estes leads the singing of the national anthem," Mrs. Jim Bob said, making yet another checkmark. She was in a much better mood now that she was running the show again, which of course was only fitting since she was the mayor's wife and the president of the missionary society-and was more than prepared to tackle the tricky passage from Corinthians II when the moment arose.
"Is the band playing?" Jim Bob asked, wrinkling his nose.
"I've already explained that we shall use a tape player. I do not trust that group of pimply pubescents to play the sacred strains of the national anthem. I shall hold the flag, and all the players will line up with their caps on their chests as a sign of respect."
"Yeah, I forgot."
"Then I throw out the first ball and we get this game over and done with as quickly as possible. Afterward, there'll be a nice buffet supper at the Assembly Hall for the players and their parents. Perkins's eldest has fixed several quarts of chicken salad and her fair-to-middlin' homemade cinnamon rolls. You will present the trophy, which will then be displayed in the front window of the SuperSaver-if it ever reopens, that is."
"It'll reopen," Jim Bob said in a cold voice. "Just you wait. Lamont'll show up this afternoon and we'll hustle ourselves to the bank to close the loan. Then Arly can arrest him for tampering with the cakes and maybe even for murdering the Smew woman, if he did it on purpose. When he disappears this time, it'll be to a lice-infested cell with a bunch of fags the size of gorillas. They'll learn him a thing or two about trying to pull a quick one on his partner."
Luckily, she'd stopped listening to him. "Does Arly know when she's supposed to arrest him?" she asked as she frowned at her list. There was no reference to Lamont's impending arrest and she wasn't quite sure where it best fit into her schedule. If it took place before the game, it might distract the players, but if it took place afterward, she'd be obliged to make small talk with a criminal for all those dreary innings.
"After the closing. It has to be after the closing, which is set for four o'clock. Arly'd better not so much as look cross-eyed at him until we've closed the loan." Jim Bob realized he sounded a shade frantic, and warned himself to settle down. "We can't accuse him until everything's settled at the bank. I've got my share, but I need his. If the loan folks get spooked, gawd knows what they'll do."
"We do not take the Lord's name in vain in this house," she said mechanically, still wishing she could make a note about the arrest, if only for her own peace of mind. "Perhaps we might plan on having him arrested after you award the trophy," she suggested. "Then we'll have the players clean up the plates and forks and we can all go home knowing justice was served, along with chicken salad and cinnamon rolls." The telephone rang. Confident that it was for her, Mrs. Jim Bob answered with a curt "Yes?" Fifteen minutes later when she sat back down on the newly re-covered divan, she looked as bumfuzzled as he'd ever seen her. Her eyes were zipping back and forth, and her normally tight mouth was nigh onto invisible. It was rare that she needed to think things over, since she pretty much always had her mind made up in advance.