Madness In Maggody Read Online Free PDF Page A

managed to cover an awkward problem by crossing his legs and folding his hands in his lap like he did at church. He couldn't think of a single thing to say, which was probably just as well.
     
    *****
     
    And now, sated with wine and moonlit nights at the Colosseum, it was time for me to say "Arrivederci, Roma" and take a train to Venice. The weather had been glorious thus far, but I was hoping there might be a gray drizzle when I arrived in Venice. It seemed more appropriate for the darkly romantic decadence of the neglected palazzi, the narrow canals, the Bridge of Sighs, the haunting lament of a gondolier guiding his craft in a—
    The telephone rang. "Police department," I said in my darkly romantic, decadent voice as the gondolier gazed up at me with a sad, knowing smile.
    "You coming down with a summer cold?" Ruby Bee demanded.
    With a sad, knowing smile, I put the travel book aside and propped my feet on my desk. "I'm thinking about it."
    "Sometimes I just don't know what gets into you. I really don't. If you're so all-fired bored, why don't you go have your hair fancied up or buy yourself some decent clothes. No man's gonna look twice at a girl who wears her hair in a bun like a schoolteacher and walks around in baggy pants and a faded shirt.
    "It's official police camouflage," I said, "designed to allow me to blend into a baggy, faded town where nothing happens. Well, that's not true. Raz Buchanon came by to lodge another complaint against Perkins, who's been slandering Raz's prize sow, Marjorie, by casting aspersions on her purported pedigree. Raz says he has the papers to prove—"
    "You need to come down here. There's something important I need to talk to you about, and Joyce can't wait around all afternoon while you make smart-alecky remarks."
    "I didn't start this," I pointed out in an admirably reasonable voice. "I was exchanging looks with a swarthy gondolier named Riccardo. I was thinking of meeting him at a tiny outdoor café for a glass of chianti. You called me, Ruby Bee."
    "Because you need to come down here. I already told you that Joyce can't wait all afternoon. She needs to strip the kitchen floor on account of company coming this weekend."
    I admitted defeat, promised Riccardo I'd be back, and went down the highway to Ruby Bee's to find out what was important enough to make Joyce Lambertino delay stripping the kitchen floor.
    Joyce was sitting at the bar, dressed as usual in worn jeans and a high-school sweatshirt that had seen the tenth reunion but might not make it to the twentieth. Her face had acquired a few more lines and her ponytail quite a few more gray hairs. She gave me a wan smile as I perched on the stool next to her.
    "Sorry I got Ruby Bee all stirred up," she said in a low voice.
    "Don't worry about it, Joyce. Last season, they named three hurricanes after her. What's the problem?"
    A tropical storm slammed out of the kitchen, banged a glass of iced tea in front of Joyce, and turned inland on yours truly. "Did Joyce tell you about this outrageous business?" I shook my head, Joyce opened her mouth, and Ruby Bee continued. "It seems that Mayor Jim Bob Buchanon, in a fit of civic pride, has decided Maggody is going to enter a baseball team in a tournament in Starley City. What's more, in this same civic fit, he and the town council voted to pay for the team's uniforms and equipment out of the budget. Now isn't that the most generous thing you ever heard?"
    "It's not the most outrageous thing I ever heard," I said cautiously.
    "Oh, no?" Ruby Bee rolled her eyes around for a minute, no doubt wondering how she could have produced such an obviously dimwitted offspring. "Would you like to hear about these uniforms the town's buying? I'm just a simple widow woman, and I haven't ever been to college or lived in Noow Yark, but I assumed when Joyce started telling me this that the uniforms would have the town's name across the back. But I'm just a simple widow woman, so there isn't any way I should