Southern Discomfort

by Margaret Maron

  At the age of twelve Annie Sue rewired her bedroom with outlets every three feet and installed stereo speakers under her bed. Once when she was mad at her parents, she fixed it so that every time Nadine adjusted a stove burner, the front doorbell would ring. Nadine's not the brightest woman God ever made, so it took her two days to realize there was a connection between turning off the peas and running to answer the door when no one was there. Herman thought it was sort of funny till he went to plug in his razor and the bathroom lights went off and on in rhythmical sequence.

  He switched her legs good for it, but I heard him bragging about how much aptitude those monkey tricks took and how he wished Reese or Edward showed half as much.

  Reese could pull wire, but he's not really interested in the finer points. Being an electrician is just a paycheck, something that puts beer and barbecue in his belly, new radials on his Corvette, and his half the rent in his trashy girlfriend's hand—none of which meet Herman's approval.

  Edward, on the other hand, had no intention of wallowing around under houses, rewiring old fuse boxes. He studied electrical engineering at State and now works with a big outfit headquartered in Charlotte where he designs lighting systems on a grand industrial scale.

  Denise worked in the business every summer, too, but she never got out of the office. She still acts like she's not real sure which end of an extension cord plugs into a wall. Not that she'll ever need to know, long as there's a man around to do it for her. And not that Herman ever expected her to. She's a girl, isn't she? True to form—and confirming his second worst fear—right out of high school she married an insurance salesman a bare eight months before the baby came. (Poor Herman's worst fear is that a daughter of his would have a child and no wedding. In Dobbs, "nice" girls still don't.)

  Denise now lives in Greensboro, a hundred miles away from her parents' judgmental eyes; but her near brush with scandal has made Herman twice as strict with his younger daughter and she's never been allowed off on anything less than a double date.

  Annie Sue gripes loudly to anybody who'll listen that Herman doesn't trust her. She's right. He doesn't. We can tell him he's wrong till our tongues get blisters, he just can't believe she won't make dumb decisions about her life.

  * * *

  Annie Sue returned with a tray that held four glasses of ice and a big plastic pitcher of tea. Nadine followed.

  "Hey there, Deborah. I didn't know you were out here till Annie Sue told me." She handed Herman the antacid tablets and smiled at the big cat in my lap. "Goldie ever come back?"

  I returned her smile. Nadine's all right. We're not terribly close. She's seventeen years older, practically a whole generation ahead of me. Too, she's one of those Blalocks from Black Creek and more straitlaced than most of the Knotts, but that seems to suit Herman. They don't go in for public shows of affection, but their marriage has never caused much gossip in the family. Although Herman's tighter with a dollar than most of the boys, nobody ever hears Nadine complain that she doesn't have everything she needs or wants.

  "No," I answered, stroking Mo-Cat (because he purrs like an electric motor all the time). Goldie, short for Goldenrod, was Aunt Zell's big yellow cat that disappeared back in May. "Aunt Zell thinks she must've been hit by a car or something. Miss Sallie's talked her into taking a puppy. Her mama dog strayed off last week, and Miss Sallie was stuck trying to hand-feed four beagle pups around the clock."

  We watched Herman take two tablets and wash them down with a big swig of tea.

  "Stomach still bothering you, hon?"

  "You're not feeling well?" I asked him.

  "I'm fine. Just a little stomach virus I can't seem to shake. It comes and goes."

  My eyes met Nadine's. "It comes more than it goes," she said. "Awful cramps. He had a real bad spell Monday night after your swearing-in, but will he see a doctor? I think it's a bleeding ulcer, but he won't let me look at his stool and—"

  "Oh, hey now, woman!" Herman had an old-fashioned delicacy about some things and he fumed in embarrassment. "Deb'rah sure didn't come over here to listen to us talk about something like that."

  Unspoken was the sudden question of why I had come.

  "Actually, I guess I'm here for the same thing you and Annie Sue were fussing about before," I told Herman. "I was hoping you'd let me borrow some of your tools Saturday morning. Uncle Ash is so picky and I'm supposed to work on that WomenAid house, too. What about you, Nadine?"

  "Oh, I'm not doing any building, but I did say I'd help some of the other ladies with the picnic lunch."

  "What sort of tools?" asked Herman cautiously.

  "Just a hammer," I assured him. "Maybe a nail apron if you've got an extra."

  "I reckon I could do that right now Annie Sue, you want to look in that side bin for your aunt?"

  "Or I could just drive the truck over Saturday and Deborah could help me string wire."

  "Annie Sue—"

  Anger was tightening his jaws, but she couldn't let it alone.

  "I just don't see why's it such a big deal that I don't have a license. Don't I work for you, too?"

  Normally I don't get between my brothers and their children, but I thought Annie Sue was being reasonable.

  Each company has to have at least one licensed electrician on staff, and the others are empowered to work under that. Sometimes though, the person who holds the license never does a lick of field work. In fact there's a company at the other end of the county that occasionally swaps work with Herman. Their holder of record is the owner's wife. He can put electricity anywhere you want it, but he couldn't pass the written examination. She could. And did.

  "So are y'all furnishing any of the materials?" I asked, hoping to find some ground for compromise.

  "They're buying the fixtures and outlets, but we had some extra coils of wire left over from another job," Herman grunted. "I told Lu I'd just donate it. Along with my services," he added heavily.

  "But don't you see, Dad?" Annie Sue broke in. She sat with her heels resting on the edge of her chair, her hands clasped around suntanned legs drawn up in front. "It's supposed to be only women that's building the house. To make a statement."

  "And just what kind of statement, daughter? That women don't need men for anything?"

  "Oh, now, hon," said Nadine as I stirred uncomfortably in my chair. "She didn't mean that."

  "Yes, ma'am, she did. Just look at her."

  Annie Sue had showered since work and was dressed in a cool blue sundress because she had a date later. White sandals on her feet, pale pink polish on her nails, her shining chestnut hair clipped up off her neck. A stranger might have seen only a sturdy young woman who hadn't yet lost all her baby fat, sitting in respectful silence; but there was nothing respectful about the set of her lips or those hot blue eyes.

  I waded in with flags flying. "And just what's wrong with women proving they can be self-sufficient?"

  His big hand tightened around his glass of half-melted ice. "Now don't you start on me, Deb'rah."

  The exact tone of defensive exasperation, even his choice of words, made me smile. "You sound just like Daddy when he gets cranky."

  The anger went out of Herman's jaw. He loves our father. So does Annie Sue. She put fresh ice cubes in Herman's glass and filled it up again with tea.

  "Look," I said. "What I'm hearing is that you're afraid it'll endanger your license if Annie Sue screws up the wiring, right?"

  "No, it's because I don't want another Mary Dupree on my conscience." As soon as he'd blurted it out, I could tell he wished he'd kept that thought to himself.

  "Why, Herman Knott!" exclaimed Nadine, clearly surprised. "You still worrying about that after all these years when you know good and well that wasn't your fault?"

  "Who's Mary Dupree?" Annie Sue and I asked.

  "Tink Dupree that owns the Coffee Pot's mother."

  The Coffee Pot is next door to Herman and Nadine's office. It's only open for breakfast and lunch, but half the town walks in and
out between six and two. Herman stops off there for a cup of coffee every morning and I think Nadine takes her midmorning break there. It's a family business—Tink and his wife, Retha, and their daughter, Ava—but I didn't remember seeing his mother.

  "Happened about ten years ago. During that time you lived off," said Herman. (All my brothers walk gingerly around that patch of wild oats I'd sown back then.) "Tink and Retha were working at the Coffee Pot, but they didn't own it then."

  "Didn't have two nickels to rub together," Nadine said, stirring more sugar into her tea.

  "His daddy used to work on the base at Fort Bragg and one night they were driving back down to Fayetteville and got in a bad wreck. It was raining and he run off the road and got killed. His mama got banged up so bad she had to come up to stay with Tink and Retha while her leg healed, Tink being their only child and all."

  Annie Sue was waiting impatiently to hear what Tink Dupree's mother had to do with wiring the WomenAid house, but Mo-Cat rearranged his bulk on my lap so I could stroke his other side for a while.

  "Won't enough room in that old house to cuss a cat without getting hair in your mouth," said Herman, "so they give Ava's room to Miss Mary and they made a little attic room for Ava. It was around Thanksgiving, so that worked out okay as far as it being warm enough up there. Heat rises. She'd've burned up if it'd been summer. But they figured either Miss Mary'd be back in her own house by then or that they'd just build 'em on another room if they needed to. Ava won't happy about having to move, of course, and she pitched a fit to have her hair dryer and her stereo and all the other stuff girls think they've got to have."

  Annie Sue rolled her eyes again. I knew what Ava Dupree looked like now, and now I remembered hearin how she got that way; but Herman was so deep into his tale that, like the Ancient Mariner, he was constrained to finish.

  "Tink got me to come in and show him how to add another circuit for the attic. That fuse box of his was so old and rusty, I told him right off I didn't feel good about adding anything else to it. But he kept on and on at me, swore it had to be done or Ava wouldn't give him no peace, promised they'd be careful about overloads, and then said he was going to do it whether I helped him or not. The long and short of it was that I told him how it could be done and I give him a good price on the stuff to do it with, but I said not to come blaming me if his house burned down—never for a minute thinking it would."

  "And he didn't," Nadine said loyally, —cause it wasn't your fault."

  "So you say and so says Tink." Herman set his empty glass back on the tray. "But every time I look at the scars on Ava's face and arms—every time I think of Miss Mary dead in that fire— Well, I know and Tink knows, too, who bears half the blame."

  "If I recall," I said, "it was her insurance policy that gave Tink the money to buy the Coffee Pot?"

  "That and selling her mobile home down in Fayetteville," said Nadine. "The insurance wasn't supposed to be all that much but it paid double because of the way she did die. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, doesn't he? Miss Mary used to fret about Tink and Retha living hand to mouth and then she was the cause of them getting the Coffee Pot. I thought they did a real good job fixing Ava's face, don't you? You can't hardly tell she was ever in a fire at all."

  "Mother!" Annie Sue was appalled. "You look at her arms and her hands!"

  "Well that's her own choosing. Retha says they've tried to get her to let the plastic surgeon fix those, but she won't and I can't say as I blame her. Long as her face looks all right. Didn't keep her from getting a husband, did it?"

  Bass Langley wasn't much of a husband, far as I could tell. Amiable enough, but a full two slices short of a loaf. Did the heavy lifting and cleaning at the Coffee Pot.

  "Might've got him, but couldn't keep him," said Herman gloomily. "He's gone."

  "Who's gone?" asked Nadine. "Bass? When? Where?"

  "Don't know where. He took off last week sometime. Just packed all his things and left without a word to anybody. Tink was sort of telling me about it around the edges when Ava wasn't nearby."

  "So that's why she was so short with me yesterday," Nadine mused. "How come you didn't tell me?"

  Herman shrugged. "Only reason Tink told me was because I was sitting there when somebody came in and said he'd come about a help wanted ad in the paper."

  Nadine clearly wanted to cross-question Herman about the details, but the sun was almost down, mosquitoes were starting to rise, and Annie Sue was still champing at the bit.

  "Listen," I said to her, "it's all very well to want all the work done by women, honey, but in this county, all the building inspectors are men. Long as one man's going to be inspecting it, what's the harm in a second?"

  I turned back to Herman. "What if you just come over and look at what she's done after we knock off Saturday night? Would that ease your mind?"

  "I reckon," he said grudgingly.

  Not the most gracious acquiescence, but enough to erase Annie Sue's scowl.

  I myself was right pleased. I'd come to borrow a hammer and had wound up with the use of a whole truckful of tools.

  Maybe I'd have to rethink that chromosome chart.

  CHAPTER 4

  HARD HAT ZONES

  "When men... are directly below other men working above, the men below must be sheltered against possible falling objects by a protective covering. The men below MUST wear protective headgear."

  Superior court had a jury still deliberating Friday morning, but I should have realized that didn't account for so many attorneys cluttering up the hall when I came through robed and ready. Yet even when I saw Doug Woodall himself waiting there to prosecute, no alarm bells went off.

  Doug's in his second term and he runs as a "hands on" district attorney, so if I gave his presence a second thought, it was merely that he was a considerate boss who'd let Cyl DeGraffenried and the other ADAs get an early start on their weekend.

  On the other hand, Ally Mycroft was clerking, not Phyllis Raynor. Ally's a two-faced priss pot who simpers and coos over male attorneys and gives short shrift to females.

  An anticipatory air hung over the crowded front benches. John Claude wasn't there, but Reid was. I beetled my eyebrows at him and he gave a don't-blame-me shrug.

  "Whatever's up can't be too bad if your own cousin didn't warn you," the preacher comforted.

  "Don't bet on it," the pragmatist said sourly. "He's left you holding the sack at the end of more dirt roads than one."

  "Fair's fair," said the preacher. "Just remember how many snipe hunts you've taken him on."

  Suppressing a grin at the memory of sticking Reid with the Castleberry sisters—grandmothers now but still at each other's throats under an unbreakable trust that would yoke them till they died—I waited for the bailiff to finish his Oyez, oyez routine and took my chair.

  Only five or six people were scattered around the courtroom beyond the rail, yet the attorney's bench was jammed. And there crammed in amongst all the seer-sucker and linen suits was Dwight Bryant in his summer uniform as detective chief of Colleton County's sheriff's department. He appeared a little embarrassed and wouldn't meet my eyes even though I've known him all my life from when he was a gangly teenager shooting baskets down at the barn with my older brothers.

  What the hell—? I looked at my calendar. Nowhere was Dwight listed as a prosecuting witness.

  I turned to Ally Mycroft. "Did you forget to give me some add-ons?" I asked coldly.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry, Your Honor," said that whited sepulcher as she handed up the proper sheet.

  I barely had time to scan the amended form when Doug Woodall said, "Line three of the add-ons, Your Honor. State versus Elizabeth Hamilton Englert."

  Immediately, Ambrose Daughtridge, the county's most courtly silver-haired attorney, entered through the double doors at the rear of the courtroom, his hand on Mrs. Englert's elbow, as if she might trip on her way down the aisle to the bar of justice. Ambrose couldn't have been more lofty and dignified than if he were es
corting her to a concert, but I thought I detected a slightly self-conscious expression on Mrs. Englert's patrician face, the sort of look she might wear if she'd arrived at the concert after the conductor had begun the first movement, so that she now had to inconvenience those already seated and wrapped in music. Ambrose shepherded her to a chair at the defense table as Doug began reading the charge.

  I kept my face serene and interested, but inside I was seething. Those bastards. Reid and Dwight. Wait'll I get my hands on you, I promised them silently.

  The other attorneys might think it funny that Kezzie Knott's daughter was going to have to pass judgment on one of Dobbs's most prominent women for possession of untaxed liquor; but of those present, only Reid and Dwight knew that Mrs. Englert had personally squashed the matrimonial designs her son had on me a few years back. A bootlegger's daughter had been deemed an unsuitable vessel by which to convey Hamilton-Englert genes into the twenty-first century.

  Not that I would have had Randolph Englert as a present on a Christmas tree, but it should have been my decision, not his mother's. Unfortunately, Reid and Dwight were both there in the lounge of the Holiday Inn the night Randolph suggested that we cool it for a while till his mother came around. I told him our relationship was already cold enough to keep his reptilian relatives in hibernation till the next glacier hit town; then, just in case he still had any hots for me, I dumped an ice bucket in his lap and walked out.

  Next day Reid left a package of Frosty Morn frozen sausages on my desk. Said it was Dwight's idea.

  Sophomoric enough to be something Dwight'd think up—especially when you look at how teeny those sausages are.

  Doug finished reading the charge: unlawful possession of untaxed liquor.

  "How does the defendant plead?" I asked.

  Ambrose came majestically to his feet. "Not guilty, Your Honor."

  "Call Major Dwight Bryant to the stand," said Doug.

  Theoretically, I could have disqualified myself since I'd already heard Dwight describe the circumstances under which he'd found two half-gallon Mason jars of white whiskey in Elizabeth Hamilton Englert's basement. On the other hand, Ambrose would be hard put to find a judge in the district who hadn't heard. Any time the mighty get humbled, the story goes around faster than blue mold through a tobacco field, particularly when circumstances were this ridiculous.