Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 by Much Ado in Maggody Read Free Book Online Page B

nose and squinted at the form. Some idiotic little podunk town nobody had ever heard of, much less had any interest in. Some two-bit branch bank. God, who'd want to be head teller of such a vile little operation?
    It was about to join the pile on the floor when Carolyn spotted a familiar name. It was very much as if she'd inserted one of her manicured fingertips into an electrical socket. Once she'd stopped waggling her jaw and blinking, she leaned back and began to reread the complaint very, very carefully, her lips curling upward in a smile.
     
     
     
    4
     
    I got Johnna Mae settled in the PD, centered her lethal weapon on my desk, and proceeded to tell her all sorts of things she wasn't real happy to hear, such as the fact she'd committed a class A misdemeanor that carried penalties of as much as a thousand-dollar fine and a year in jail. In my best cop voice, I recited the Miranda warning and took out an arrest form.
    "I can't go to prison," she wailed. "Who's going to take care of Putter and the kids? Who's going to get him his prescription from Farberville? How's he going to pay for Earl Boy's braces or P.J.'s first pair of hightop shoes?"
    "Very possibly not the person who refused to go home and forget about picketing the bank every day from nine until five," I said, slapping down the pencil. "You should have thought of that earlier. Sherman Oliver was willing to forget the whole thing, you know. All you had to do was shut up and go home."
    She held out two pudgy wrists. "Arrest me and drag me off to prison. Will they let Putter bring the kids when he comes to visit on Sunday afternoons?"
    "We haven't quite gotten to that stage, Johnna Mae. I'll fill out the complaint, release you on your own recognizance, and then go over to the bank to talk to Mr. Oliver. He may not want to appear in front of the municipal judge any more than you do, and he may agree to tear the complaint up and let things slide -- if I can assure him that you're sorry and that you won't come back to the bank to picket."
    "He ain't a bad fellow," she allowed with a drawn-out sigh. "We've gotten along real good all the years I've worked at the bank. His wife always sends over a fruitcake or a plate of cookies around Christmastime, and she even dropped off a little baby present for P.J. It's that Bernswallow guy that's causing all the trouble."
    "Why'd he fire you?" I asked curiously.
    Johnna Mae's martyred expression vanished in a blink, although I didn't know how to interpret its replacement. After a moment of studying the floor, she gave me an innocent look and said, "He just told me a bunch of stuff about how my attitude was poor and how I was all the time making errors in my drawer. He acted like a few cents off in the long-and-short was some kind of federal offense. I reckon I said some things back. He got puffed up worse than a horny bullfrog and told me to clean out my work area."
    "Did he offer any severence pay?"
    "No, he said I'd already missed so much work I was lucky he wasn't sending me a bill. Then he said get out and I got out."
    "Did you try to discuss this with Mr. Oliver?"
    "Yeah, I did. I even went over to his house and tried to explain that I was upset about losing my position. Mr. Oliver got all squirmy and apologetic, but he said that Bernswallow was in charge of personnel matters. He was pretty nice about it, so I guess I shouldn't have hit him on the head like that. What I should have done is run Bernswallow down in the truck. Over and over again, until he was flatter than a tabletop and too dead to skin. The highway department would've had to scrape him up with a cake spatula."
    "Don't say things like that, Johnna Mae," I said, rubbing my face and wishing I were on the road to Juneau. Or the Emerald City. Or a nice padded room with bars across the window. "You're in deep enough trouble as it is. Let's fill out the complaint and then I'll try to talk Mr. Oliver into ripping it up for old times' sake. But I want you to promise