Southern Discomfort

by Margaret Maron

  "Half-joke, no fooling," the preacher said starchily.

  "Forgotten what it's like to be sixteen?" asked the pragmatist.

  Trouble was, I remembered only too well. Still... "Yeah, he was cute," I said. "Too bad he's too old for you guys."

  "He asked for our phone numbers."

  "Oh?"

  She looked so poised and mature, her hands relaxed and in control of the truck's steering wheel. "Cindy gave them to him."

  "You wouldn't go out with him, would you?"

  "He probably won't ask me." She sighed wistfully and suddenly looked fourteen. "Anyhow, Dad would kill me!"

  CHAPTER 8

  FRAMING SQUARES

  "The framing square consists of a wide and long member called the blade and a narrower and shorter member called the tongue, which forms a right angle with the blade... The problems that can be solved with the square are so many and varied that... only a few of the more common uses of the square can be presented here."

  New Deliverance was borderline charismatic and not the sort of church I felt comfortable attending; but at lunch the day before, Nadine had caught me off guard—a fudge delight cookie has the power to cloud minds—and laid on the guilt. "Isabel says you went to her and Haywood's church last Sunday and to Seth and Minnie's Sunday before last, but you haven't been to ours in almost two years."

  With Jacob's pottage rich and chocolaty on my tongue, I had no quick words with which to resist.

  "Besides," said Nadine. "I know Zell and Ash are driving down to Southern Pines to visit Brix Junior tomorrow, so you can come have Sunday dinner with us afterwards."

  Which is how I wound up sitting in the unadorned plainness of New Deliverance on Sunday morning listening to a man who'd dropped out of high school in the tenth grade preaching from I Timothy 2:9-15, my least-favorite passage in the Bible.

  "—because Adam was not deceived, my friends. He was doing what God told him to do. It was the woman who listened to the serpent, it was the woman who picked the apple, and it was the woman who talked Adam into eating it. Woe unto mankind the day poor weak Adam listened to the wo-man."

  I was accustomed to how women my age and older could sit quietly and listen to sanctimonious fossils expound on how woman brought the first sin into the world by tempting man, and how women continue to tempt men by "adorning themselves in contrariness to God's holy ordinance." But when I looked at the Young Folks Choir seated directly behind him, I saw no rebellion or repressed resentment on any of the female faces, teenage faces that were certainly adorned with lipstick, eye shadow, earrings, and necklaces.

  On the other hand, most of them didn't seem to be listening very hard. From the half-frown on her lips and the faraway glaze in her eyes, Annie Sue for sure had something else on her mind besides a sermon underpinned by St. Paul's view of woman's place.

  There was no way this paternalistic pair of jockey shorts could have known I'd be there this morning, so I didn't have to take his choice of text personally. In this part of the world, antifeminism is but another club with which to bash the hydra-headed beast of secular humanism. As long as a woman knows her place—on a pedestal or on her back—men of the preacher's generation will give her protection and a thousand courtly courtesies. But let her try to climb down or stand up—aagghh!

  As soon as he started in on "suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence," I knew I either had to tune out or walk out. On the pew beside me, Herman's sigh almost masked mine.

  There was a gray drawn look about his face today that made me uneasy. It was so unlike him not to check in behind Annie Sue last night. Even though she hadn't drilled a single hole or put a piece of wire on anything except the utility box, if he'd been able to drag one foot in front of the other, he'd have been there to look over her plans.

  It'd be different this week if she followed through on her plan to try to finish the rough-in before Saturday. Last night there'd been an invitation on my answering machine from K.C. Massengill, inviting me up to her place on the lake next weekend. If I helped Annie Sue during the week, surely that would excuse me from stuffing fiberglass insulation in the walls next Saturday? And then—

  To my relief, I suddenly realized that the preacher had called for the closing hymn. The pianist swung into a toe-tapping rendition of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," and we reached for our hymnals. Herman's slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. Nadine fished it out and I saw her anxious look as we all stood to sing.

  "You okay?" I murmured to him.

  He nodded and began to, well, it wasn't what a purist could call singing exactly—in a music-loving family, Herman was the one who could never stay on pitch—but it was certainly a conscientious effort toward making a joyful noise unto the Lord.

  A benediction followed, then the preacher placed himself in the doorway and shook everyone's hand as we left. When it was my turn, his craggy face broke into a genuine smile.

  "Judge Deborah!" he exclaimed. "We're all just so proud of you!"

  Go figure, as Lev Schuster used to tell me.

  * * *

  "Mom's going to try and make Dad see Dr. Worley tomorrow," said Annie Sue as she rode home with me from New Deliverance. She was so quiet in the car that I remembered her withdrawn look earlier.

  "Something bothering you?" I asked.

  "Oh, no," she answered hastily. "I'm just a little tired, I guess."

  "So how was the dance last night?"

  "Okay."

  There was a cherry red zit on her chin. It'd started the morning covered with makeup, but she'd touched it so much during preaching that it blazed now. As her hand strayed toward her chin again, I reached over, pushed it down, and asked with a smile, "Did what's his name—Bannerman?—show up?"

  There was a stricken silence.

  "Honey?"

  She twisted in her seat to look me in the face. "Can I tell you something and you won't tell Mom and Dad?"

  "Depends." I took my foot off the gas and slowed down a little. "If you're in trouble—"

  "Not me. A friend."

  "Cindy or Paige?"

  "Cindy," she admitted. "Carver Bannerman did drop by the dance last night, and he was coming on strong to all three of us, but Cindy liked him best and she let him take her home."

  "And?"

  "He didn't take her home. I called over there this morning and Miss Gladys said Cindy was spending the night with Paige. So I called Paige, but she didn't."

  "I see," I said slowly. "You think she went home with Bannerman?"

  She didn't answer.

  "He's lucky. Sixteen used to be statutory rape if a parent found out and wanted to bring charges."

  Annie Sue groaned. "I swear I just don't know what's got into Cindy. Ever since her daddy died, it's like she's been on speed or something. I mean, she was always crying about how mean and strict Mr. Ralph was, when I don't think he was half as mean as Judge Byrd and I know he wasn't as strict as Dad. But this past month, it's like she's been let out of prison for the first time in her life. If Paige and I didn't pull her in—"

  "You can't hold yourself responsible for her bad decisions," I said.

  "She swears this is going to be the summer she loses her virginity. That's so stupid."

  "And these days pretty dangerous."

  "We know." Annie Sue leaned over and patted my hand on the steering wheel. "Honest. We do get AIDS lectures."

  "Yeah, but does Cindy listen?"

  She shrugged. "The thing is, what if it's not that? What if they had a wreck or something?"

  "Maybe she's called Paige by now," I suggested. "If you don't hear from her in the next couple of hours though, I think you're going to have to tell her mother."

  * * *

  Annie Sue'd had to put away her choir robe and I'd been stopped by a dozen people who had seen the story on the WomenAid house in the morning paper (I was in the foreground of the picture and, yes, they'd spelled my name right) and either wanted to
know if I'd ever met Rosalynn Carter ("She and Jimmy are doing such fine work with Habitat") or wanted to know how I liked being a judge. As a result, we were a good fifteen minutes later than Nadine and Herman in getting away from church.

  By the time we arrived, the kitchen smelled of biscuits in the oven and a fresh ham roast sat on a platter waiting to be carved. Nadine wore a butcher's apron over her Sunday dress and her plump face was flushed.

  "Oh, good," she said when we stepped through the back door. "Annie Sue, Cindy's called twice since we got home. Would you please go call her and tell her not to call back till after dinner?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Annie Sue said and darted down the hall to her bedroom.

  I took an apron from the pantry and moved to the sink to finish grating the carrots for Nadine's vegetable salad. "Where's Herman?"

  "In the den. He said to watch the news, but I think he just wanted to stretch out a minute." She quit stirring the gravy and looked at me with anxious eyes. "I'm starting to get real worried about him, Deb'rah. He's never been sick hardly a day in his life and he just won't admit he is now and I never could make him do something he didn't want to."

  So what else was new about most of these Knott men? Nadine could fuss and nag like the rest of my sisters-in-law, but so far as I know, Mother was the only female who could ever turn them all west when they had their minds set to head east.

  Dinner was strained. Herman filled his plate with sliced meat and vegetables and pretended that his appetite was normal so Nadine wouldn't fuss, even though it was clear he was merely pushing the food around his plate. Nadine pretended she wasn't noticing, and she and Annie Sue both pretended they were interested in the conversation I was pretending—well, you get the idea.

  As soon as I'd helped clear the table and the dishwasher was loaded, I pleaded things to do, told Annie Sue I'd give her a call after court the next day, and escaped.

  It was just as well that I went home early. The phone in my sitting room is on a separate line from Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's and there was a message on my machine from Ned O'Donnell.

  "Had calls from Zack Young and Graham Ogburn yesterday," he said when I returned his call.

  "Oh?" Graham Ogburn was the influential owner of Tri-County Building Supply and father of Layton, Zack's young DWI to whom I'd given that ninety-day jail sentence.

  "Zack's petitioned me for a writ of habeas corpus. You mind telling me how come you set such a high bail?"

  As a superior court judge, O'Donnell had the power to overrule me and we both knew it. As objectively as possible, I detailed Layton Ogburn's DWI priors. "I figured a half-million cash bond might keep him off the road a while."

  There was a long silence at the other end of the wire. Finally I heard O'Donnell sigh. "Well, if that's what you're aiming for, I reckon it will."

  "Well, well, well!" said the pragmatist.

  "See?" said the preacher. "Not everybody goes by what's politically expedient. Go thou and do likewise."

  * * *

  Monday's court was last Tuesday all over again: same song, different singers. During one of the breaks, I collared Reid and cross-questioned him about Carver Bannerman.

  "Bannerman? What about him?"

  "For starters, how old is he? What's his background?"

  My cousin wrinkled his handsome brow and tried to remember details. "Twenty-five or -six. Comes from Goldsboro originally. Took civil engineering at State. I think he has a double-wide over in Magnolia Park off Seventy. That's where his wife lives, anyhow."

  "Wife?"

  "Yeah. He's sort of married."

  "How can you be sort of married? As if I didn't know."

  "Well then, hell, Deborah. Why you asking me?"

  "I just love listening to how you rationalize things like that."

  "Don't go laying Bannerman's morals on me," Reid said righteously. "Why do you want to know about him anyhow? From the way you came down on him about those traffic violations, I thought maybe he rubbed you the wrong way. What'd he do? Wait around to carry your briefcase after court?"

  "If I came down on him, it was nothing more than he deserved," I said. "Flying through a residential zone where some child could have been playing? Failure to pull over for an ambulance? Shows a real selfish lack of concern for anybody besides himself, don't you think?"

  Reid tapped his watch. "Didn't you tell them you'd resume court at ten-thirty?"

  He hates lectures. And smart as he is, he's never caught on to that's how John Claude and I avoided answering some of his questions.

  So Carver Bannerman was "sort of married," was he?

  I wondered if Cindy McGee knew?

  * * *

  "Married?" Annie Sue was stunned when we met at the WomenAid house that evening. "But he wasn't wearing a ring. We looked."

  She handed me the long stud drill from a bin inside the van and got out carrying a looped extension cord on one shoulder and a coil of heavy duty wire on the other. Hand tools dangled from the leather utility belt around her sturdy waist.

  "Cindy's going to just die! She said he was so sweet once they were alone. And gentle. None of that macho raunchy stuff. Oh, golly, Deb'rah! She gave it to a married man? She'll flip. She'll absolutely flip."

  Distressed, she followed me across the grass. We had a couple of hours of daylight left, but the interior of the skeletal house was darker than I'd expected because someone had worked there that day and nailed on rigid sheets of silver-backed foam insulation.

  Mistake.

  As we stepped onto the porch, we heard running footsteps inside. Believing that only the wicked flee when no man pursueth, I instinctively raced through the house in time to see three kids disappearing into the underbrush at the rear of the lot. They couldn't have been more than eight or ten years old, but whether black or suntanned white, male or female was impossible to tell because they had dark hair and wore the summer uniform of pre-adolescence: shorts, T-shirts and sneakers.

  From behind me, Annie Sue was fuming. "Look what they did!"

  All along the back wall, big holes had been punched in the insulation. Yes, the sheets were rigid; yes, they had a high R-rating. Nevertheless, they were as fragile as a piece of paper and were supposed to be protected by siding soon after installation. Even a baby could put a fist through them, and the kids I chased had been long enough past infancy to know right from wrong.

  No one answered my knock at the house diagonally across the street or next door, so I walked on down to the convenience store, where I borrowed their phone to call Lonnie Revell's office. I don't have as much confidence in Dobbs's sheriff as I do in Bo Poole, our county sheriff, but these things have to go through channels.

  "Say you want somebody to do what?" asked their moronic dispatcher.

  Patiently I again described the minor vandalism and how it would be nice if this street were added to the nightly patrol route. My words wouldn't penetrate his lead-shielded brain. Exasperated, I called Lu Bingham over at the WomenAid shelter, explained what had happened, and sicced her on Lonnie's dispatcher. She'd get some action.

  "Bet it was those Norris young'uns," said the store clerk when I thanked her for the use of her phone. If people didn't want other people to hear, they'd use the pay phone outside, right? That was Patsy Reddick's sensible attitude. She was the same teenager who'd relayed Nadine's message to Annie Sue Saturday evening and she didn't pretend she hadn't listened to every word I said. "Were they white?"

  "They might have been," I answered. "Who are the Norrises?"

  Patsy glanced around. Even though the store was empty, she lowered her voice. "You won't tell anybody it was me that said it, will you?"

  I promised.

  "There's three of 'em. Their mother's Kimberly Norris. I heard that when Miz Bingham and them were studying who was going to get the first house, it was almost a tie between her and BeeBee Powell, only BeeBee won. Kimmer's helping work on this one so she can get the next one, but her kids were mean-mouthing here in the store Saturd
ay that the only reason BeeBee got picked first was 'cause she's black and Kimmer's white."

  The same old same old.

  * * *

  When I walked back to the WomenAid site, Annie Sue had already drilled a bunch of holes as big as my thumb through the studs and ceiling plates. I told her what I'd done, then fetched a fifty-foot tape from the truck and helped measure off lengths of the flat white electrical cable that would run from the main breaker panel to all the outlets and fixtures.

  It wasn't very long before Lu Bingham came by to survey the damage, followed shortly thereafter by one of Lonnie Revell's men. I repeated my vague description of the children but didn't mention the name Norris till after he'd left.

  "Do you think the Norris kids are capable of this?" I asked Lu.

  "Capable? Of course they're capable," she promptly replied. "That's why they were my personal choice this first house."

  Vintage Lu. Put little vandals in a nice house?

  "Sure. Give 'em something to be proud of. They'd take care of it," she said and explained that the Norris woman and her children live over in what's called Seaboard City, a handful of dilapidated, cold-water trailers strung along the railroad track less than a quarter mile from where we stood.

  "They're at such risk," said Lu. "Another year may be too late for them. The Powell children are living all squashed in with their aunts and cousins and BeeBee certainly deserves better as hard as she works, but at least they're in a caring environment with relatives who love them. The Norris kids have nobody but their mother and she's working just as hard as BeeBee to make a better life for them."

  Despite her impassioned pleas, the WomenAid board had decided that a black woman and her better-behaved children would be a more persuasive advertisement for further houses.

  "Bunch of amateurs," Lu sighed. "And mostly white. White do-gooders seem to have a harder time with the concept of white poverty. Weird, isn't it? If Kimmer and her kids were down on their luck because of a calamity—if they'd had a major illness or accident, if her house had burned down—that'd get their sympathy. But because she's made 'poor life choices'—? Kaneesha's father was white. Did you notice?"