Free Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 06 by Maggody in Manhattan

weapon,” I said sharply—and sincerely. “Most of the group were in the lobby. At some point, Geri mentioned a rehearsal scheduled for this afternoon. Presumably, everyone came upstairs for the night.”
    “You can presume anything you want,” Estelle retorted archly, then stopped and cocked her head. “Do you reckon that’s the elevator?”
    “I don’t care if it’s a newly installed escalator to heaven. What about last night?”
    She opened the door, popped her head out, and with a squeal, vanished into the hall, leaving me to ponder how much damage I could do with a tube of Strawberry Soda Gloss.
     
    “Will the meeting come to order!” Mrs. Jim Bob said, tapping on the desk with a pencil. “Elsie, just pass the cookies along and stop picking at them. Eula, I thought you agreed to take minutes? You’ll have to find something to write with, won’t you?” She turned next to Joyce Lambertino. “We’ll need another pot of coffee.”
    Joyce obediently went to the back room of the PD. She was there only because Jim Bob had bullied her husband, Larry Joe, into promising that she—not he—would come. That meant Larry Joe was obliged to babysit the kids, so it wasn’t the worst thing ever happened to her. She wasn’t real comfortable, since the others looked ready for church and she was wearing jeans and a faded sweatshirt, her hair back in a ponytail, “How many cups shall I fix?” she called.
    Mrs. Jim Bob rolled her eyes for the others’ amusement. “The whole pot, Joyce. Arly should be showing up any minute, and Brother Verber assured me this very afternoon that wild horses couldn’t stop him from coming to our meeting. He was so inspired by the opportunity to go to war against Satan that he went by Raz’s shack to size him up. I expect him any second with a report so we’ll know who and what we’re up against.”
    “Raz Buchanon is who we’re up against,” Elsie said, peering more closely at the plate of cookies. The lemon ones were out; the tiny candy sprinkles always caught under her dentures. But chocolate gave her heartburn, and the sugar cookies looked stale. She poked one. It was harder than a lump of salt, just as she’d suspected.
    “I know that,” snapped Mrs. Jim Bob. She was irritated with the poor turnout for the first meeting of her committee, which she intended to call Christians Against Whiskey, as soon as everybody voted for it. Jim Bob had made up a flimsy story about having to be at the supermarket, although she’d seen right through that and let him know she’d stop by to make sure he was there. Eilene Buchanon had refused flat out, saying she had to stay home to wait for a call. Millicent and her husband were more interested in television than the mortal souls of the youth of Maggody. She’d gone so far as to invite the mothers of the three boys who’d been so disgustingly drunk, so they’d find out what the good citizens of Maggody thought of the way the boys had been reared without regard to solid Christian values. They’d declined—every last one of them, and in outright offended voices.
    While Mrs. Jim Bob waited, she began a mental list of those who’d made it clear which side of the devil’s fence they were on. It never hurt to keep a tally.
    In the back room, Joyce got the coffeepot to gurgling, then, in a spurt of daring, slipped out the back door. It was so quiet and calm that she felt like she was in a cathedral. She wouldn’t have been surprised if a monk stepped out from behind the lilac bush and started chanting away in a low, singsong voice. For a few minutes, she was a million miles away from her never-ending housework, screaming kids, whiny husband, leaky washing machine, blaring television set, not to mention Mrs. Jim Bob and the other self-righteous committee members busily telling each other how sinful everybody else was and how nigh unto saints they were. Joyce figured she was the one who deserved a halo for putting up with them.
    Way up on