Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (2 page)

"What?" Jim Bob barked, annoyed at being interrupted while he was working.

Kevin tugged at his collar. "Kin I ask you something, Jim Bob?"

"You just did."

This resulted in a momentary silence while Kevin tried to sort this out. He finally gave up and said, "About the new schedule, I mean. It says I'm supposed to work every day from four till midnight."

"Where'd you learn to read, boy? On weekends you're working from three till midnight."

"Oh, I dint see that. Anyways, now that I have a wife, I was hoping I could have some nights off so we could go to the picture show in Starley City or even just stay home and watch television together."

"Are you implying your television set doesn't work during the day? Mrs. Jim Bob turns on those gabby morning shows the minute she gets up, and her soaps are on when I go home for lunch. Maybe you'd better get yourself a new television set."

"That ain't what I mean, Jim Bob. Dahlia's kinda moping around these days on account of not having anything much to do except things like laundry and washing dishes and -- "

"Spare me the details. I got a whole pile of paperwork to do by the end of the day. If I don't get it done, I can't start figuring the paychecks. Do you want to explain this delay to all the dumbshits out there who are counting on getting paid on Friday?"

Kevin shook his head and went back to the bucket and mop in the produce aisle. He thought mebbe later he'd sneak out to the pay phone in front of the store and call his beloved in hopes of brightening up her dreary day. He knew it was dreary because she told him so every evening when he got home, sometimes explaining for the better part of an hour before she gave him his supper. He had a feeling she wasn't gonna clap her hands when he told her about the night shift.

"Get this," Darla Jean McIlhancy said to Heather Riley, both of them flopped across the bed and so bored they'd painted their toenails three times. Now they were reduced to hunting for stories in the Weekly Examiner about grotesque sexual practices. "This scientist in Germany has discovered a new diet that's guaranteed to make you lose ten pounds in one week."

Heather reached for the fingernail polish remover and a tissue. "Does it involve self-cannibalism?"

Darla Jean squinted at the print. She knew she needed glasses, but she was damned if she was going to get 'em and be the laughingstock of Farberville High School. Not one cheerleader or member of the pom-pom squad wore glasses. Last year's homecoming queen wore contacts, but there wasn't any way her own pa would pay for 'em. "No, it says all you're allowed to eat are hot dogs and ice cream, but you can have as much of them as you want. There's some enzyme that goes to work and explodes fat cells like they were little firecrackers. Read it yourself."

Heather obeyed, but she wasn't nearly as impressed. "What about that unit on nutrition last fall? Miss Estes made it real clear that none of these crazy diets work."

"Then why does this German scientist swear it does? Miss Estes is just a teacher. She can't keep up with every scientific breakthrough."

"Go ahead and try it," Heather muttered as she kept reading. "Now what kind of crazy woman would steal Elvis's body, have it cremated, and use the ashes for breast implants?"

Darla Jean was about to offer an opinion when the phone rang out in the hall. It turned out to be a sight more intriguing than breast implants. "That was Reggie Pellitory," she said as she strolled back into her bedroom and pretended she was looking for something on her dressing table. "He broke up with Gracie last night, and he wants me to go out with him after supper. He's gonna borrow his cousin's four-wheel so we can go riding around."

Heather wrinkled her nose. "You better be careful, Darla Jean. When Gracie let him do it, Reggie did everything but announce it over the PA system at school. She liked to have died."

"Who says I'm gonna let him do it?"

"Well, everybody in town knows it wouldn't be the first time," Heather pointed out tartly. "Last Saturday night Beau saw you and Dwayne heading toward the creek with a six-pack and a blanket. Did y'all go out there to count lightning bugs?"

Darla Jean decided she needed to wash her hair again.

Raz Buchanon was mulling over something real important. He was also scratching and spitting and doing other less fascinating things that involved bodily functions and infestations, but they can be left unspecified. He was doing all this in the cab of his truck, which was parked outside a café in Hasty. Inside the café the waitress and the owner were discussing whether they should disinfect the booth or have it replaced altogether.

"I'll tell ya, Marjorie," Raz said, "it might jest work. Bizness was mighty slow last winter, and that's my best time of year. Come hot weather, folks prefer cold beer over my I shine, and I don't rightly blame 'em." He glanced timidly at his companion. "Now, Marjorie, don't git all fractious jest because you had to wait out here while I talked with that feller what's slicker than a preacher's ass. There weren't no way they were gonna let you inside."

Marjorie stared out the window.

Raz sighed. "Iffen I pull this off, I was thinkin' we might look into one of those fancy satellite dishes that sucks in channels from all over the world. I hear tell ye can git movies all night long, and they don't cost you nuthin'. You'd like that, wouldn't ye?"

Marjorie's beady pink eyes blinked.

"What's more, we kin have our picture in the Probe, jest like that woman what had ever' last drop of blood sucked out of her body by vampire mosquitoes."

Marjorie relented, but only after he went back inside and bought her a candy bar.

Way down in Little Rock, which was only two hundred miles away but could have been on another planet, Cynthia Dodder checked in the bathroom mirror to make sure her gray hair was neat and her nose powdered. After further deliberation she removed her brooch and put it away in her jewelry box. As the featured speaker at the UFORIA meeting she knew it was important to present herself as a detached professional investigator.

She went to the kitchen table, currently covered with newspaper clippings and magazine articles, each marked with a date and ready to be filed. There were also journals and newsletters, letters begging her attention, and a list of telephone calls to be made when she had time.

Cynthia Dodder felt strongly about keeping her priorities straight, however, and her speech was in the forefront of her mind as she made sure the back door of the apartment was bolted and the porch light shining to ward off burglars. The neighborhood had deteriorated over the last twenty years to the point she hardly recognized anyone and spoke to no one. Had her budget allowed it, she would have moved to a nicer area, one inhabited by respectable folks like herself rather than whiny welfare mothers and impertinent young men of a different racial persuasion.

She watched them now as they gathered out in the parking lot, laughing and passing around a bottle in a brown paper bag. If any of them had dared set foot in the exclusive dress shop where she'd been a clerk for forty years, he or she would have been escorted out the door by a security guard.

It was nearly seven o'clock, and surely Rosemary was aware that it took more than half an hour to drive to the library. She needed time to review her notes before she called the meeting to order promptly at eight. Tonight's agenda would be brief because of the portentous content of her speech, during which she would prove conclusively that NASA officials had destroyed the Mars Observer spacecraft rather than allow it to transmit pictures of an ancient alien citadel. The real question was why NASA had sent the probe in the first place, since it and other government agencies (the CIA, FBI, USAF, and the top secret Majestic Twelve commission commission, just for starters) possessed physical evidence of an alien presence and had covered it up for forty-five years.

Cynthia was on the verge of calling Rosemary when a familiar white compact chugged into the lot. She picked up her purse, manila folders, clipboard, and packet of blurry photographs and let herself out, making sure the door was securely locked behind her. It was unfortunate that the hoodlums could watch her as she left, but there was nothing to be done about it.

"Sorry I'm late," Rosemary said as she maneuvered out of the parking lot. "I locked myself out of the car at the grocery store. The manager finally got it open with a coat hanger, but by then it was after six. I barely had time to eat a bite of supper and clean Stan's litter box before I came rushing here to pick you up."

"That stoplight was red, Rosemary," Cynthia said as the car lurched along the street like a three-legged dog. "Please pay attention to the traffic. I, too, am sorry you were late, but now it's more important that we arrive at the library in one piece. If you don't mind, I'd like to study my speech."

She took out a stack of index cards, but it was almost impossible to concentrate over Rosemary's atonal humming and occasional mumbles to herself about approaching intersections. Really, Cynthia thought with a sigh, it was so very challenging to imagine Rosemary Tant as one of ufology's most vital contributors. She was scatterbrained and forever late. She dressed with no attempt to downplay her thin shoulders and heavy hips. Her hair was a particularly drab shade of brown, her long face perpetually riddled with anxiety, her voice tremulous and uncertain even when discussing the weather.

But she was.

CHAPTER TWO

"Okay," I said into the telephone receiver, "I'll write up the damn accident report by the end of the week and drop it by, but you owe me, you manipulative bastard."

Harve Dorfer chuckled, but he could afford to be amiable since he'd just won the skirmish. He's perfected the role of redneck southern sheriff, replete with straw hat, beer belly, splintery cigar butt, and mirrored sunglasses, but he's a pretty sharp guy. He's a really sharp guy in election years, when he and his deputies manage to discover marijuana fields and caches of illegal arms every week. On the basis of the number of press conferences he conducts, criminal activity appears to peak right before a primary. And you probably thought there was a correlation with the full moon.

"It ain't that I don't want to do it myself," he said, "but your prose is a sight prettier than mine. You ever wonder if you should have been an author rather than a cop? You'd be rolling in dough, riding around in a limousine, appearing on morning talk shows, being wined and dined in New York City."

"No, Harve, I have way too much fun trying to run a hick town in the hinterlands," I said, not bothering to mention the limousine with the tinted windows that had been spotted several weeks ago. It hadn't seemed significant then, and even the grapevine had quit speculating and moved on to other perennial favorites-like my lack of a potential husband. "As for New York, there's more whining than anything else. I lived there, remember?"

"Hey, did ya hear what we were called in on a couple of days ago? One of the deputies liked to heave up his guts, and I felt a little queasy myself."

If I could have stopped him from telling me, I would have. However, the most expedient way to get him off the phone was to let him have his say. "What?" I said without enthusiasm, hoping I wasn't going to be regaled with the olfactory impact of the latest floater in the reservoir or the details of some gawd-awful sex abuse case.

"You ever heard talk of cattle mutilations?"

"Awhile back I saw some stories in the newspaper. Everything was taking place over in Stonecrop County, so I didn't pay much attention."

"This one woulda caught your attention," Harve muttered. I heard a scritching sound as he paused to light one of his notoriously cheap cigars; I was thankful I was twenty miles upwind. "According to some material that showed up on my desk the next morning, we were treated to what's called a classic case. One eye plucked out like it was a marble in a leather pouch; the tongue, lips, and sexual organs removed; a triangular patch of hide cut off the belly. The cow'd been dead for the better part of a week, but for some reason the scavengers hadn't found it -- despite the stench and the flies." He puffed on the cigar for a moment, perhaps to give me time to assimilate the significance of his remark. When my only response was a yawn, he continued. "There were a couple of other odd things about the carcass. The cuts were all real clean, like they'd been done with a scalpel, and there was no blood on 'em or on the ground."

"Maybe they'd been done with a scalpel or a more prosaic pocketknife. I haven't heard anything about a new satanic group, but you know how the kids are when the weather turns nice. They'll jump on any excuse to make themselves feel like beleaguered social mavericks, piss off their parents, and go sneaking around after dark. You can bet the farm their rituals involve a lot of beer, pot, and pairing off. Then again, you could be dealing with a pack of wild dogs with exceptionally keen canines."

"What about the lack of blood?"

I gazed longingly out the window in the direction of Ruby Bee's, where a blue plate special had my name written on it. "Have you talked to the county extension office, Harve? I seem to recall they investigated the incidents in Stonecrop County and concluded they were all caused by common predators and predictable physiological responses. Maybe all the bleeding occurred internally."

"I don't know," he said uncomfortably. "This literature is kinda spooky. There's a group that's been investigating these mutilations for years, and they -- "