I paused to see which pithy statements Lucinda had chosen for her daughter’s walls. “Pride goeth before a fall.” “Honor thy father and thy mother.” “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Not quite as lighthearted as posters and pinups of movie stars, I thought as I returned to the living room.
Buster gave me a photograph of a teenaged girl, her smile as starched as her white blouse. Her hair was pulled back so tightly that there were faint creases at the corners of her eyes, which regarded the camera with contemptuous appraisal. I was not surprised that she wore no makeup or jewelry.
I put the photograph in my shirt pocket. “I’ll return this to you as soon as possible.”
“Here are a few addresses of relatives,” he said as he handed me a piece of paper, “but I’ve already spoken to them and they promised to let me know if Shelley shows up.”
I skimmed the list. “What about Shelley’s aunt in Hiana?”
“She wouldn’t set foot in that place, not with her mother being there.” He looked down for a moment. “The telephone was disconnected, but I’ll run up there this evening and fetch Lucinda. It’s getting too quiet around here with both of them gone.”
I promised to let him know what the police had to say, although I doubted it would amount to much. As I drove away, it occurred to me I’d exchanged a pseudo-missing person for a real one. The reverse would have been more palatable. And Ruby Bee’s scalloped potatoes would have been more palatable than the can of soup I planned to have for dinner, but I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with the thumbscrews served alongside them.
“Guess we got all excited over nothing,” Ruby Bee said with a sigh. “Lucinda came home last night, and sent Buster by first thing this morning with the recipe.” She squinted at the index card. “This won Lucinda a blue ribbon at the county fair last fall. As soon as I get a chance, I’m going to try it.”
Estelle pensively chewed a pretzel. “What did Arly have to say about her little visit yesterday?”
“I haven’t laid eyes on her,” Ruby Bee admitted, wondering if she could get decent rhubarb at the supermarket across the road. “But now that Lucinda’s back, I guess it was nothing but a wild goose chase. Of course, we only have Buster’s word that she really is back.”
“Lottie said she caught a glimpse of her at six fifteen, putting out the garbage by the back door like she always does. She thought Lucinda looked thin, but I suppose all that bother with her sister must be worrisome.”
Ruby Bee put down the recipe, propped her elbows on the bar, and tugged on her chin. “I still don’t know why Buster lied about that. It doesn’t make a whisker of sense, him saying Lucinda was in Hiana with her sister.”
“He was addled,” Estelle said firmly.
This time Ruby Bee did not resort to wiping the counter. Instead, she picked up the card, studied it with a deepening frown, and then, in a peculiar voice, said, “I don’t know, Estelle. I just don’t know.”
I figured I had two options. I could park up by the skeletal remains of Purtle’s Esso Station and nab speeders, or I could sit in the PD and swat flies. Both required physical exertion, and I was taking a nap when Ruby Bee and Estelle stormed through the door.
Ruby Bee banged down a small bowl on my desk. “I told you so.”
In that she told me some fool thing every hour, I wasn’t sure how to field this one. “Told me what?” I finally said.
“I told you that Lucinda Skaggs didn’t visit her sister in Hiana. Just taste this.”
“And don’t be all day about it,” Estelle added. “This is an emergency.”
I leaned forward and studied the goopy red contents of the bowl, then shook my head. “Sorry, ladies, I never taste anything that could be a living organism. A primeval one, to be sure, but perhaps in the midst of some sort of evolutionary breakthrough.”
Ruby Bee put her hands on her hips. “Taste it.”
“Oh, all right, but it better be good.” Trying not to wince, I put my fingers in the goop, plucked out a bite-sized lump, and conveyed it to my mouth without dribbling on my shirt. I regretted it immediately. My lips were sucked into my mouth, and the interior of my cheeks converged on my retreating tongue. Only decorum prevented me from spitting it out. “Yuck! This is awful!”
“No, it’s not,” Ruby Bee said, “or it’s not supposed to be, anyway. It’s Lucinda Skaggs’s spiced rhubarb conserve, and it won a blue ribbon at the county fair last year.”
I washed out my mouth with lukewarm coffee. “If it did, there was a good deal of bribery. This is absolutely awful. Maybe you didn’t follow the recipe correctly, because this nasty stuff could turn someone’s face inside out.”
