Southern Discomfort

by Margaret Maron

  "I'll tell him," I promised. "You go on to bed and don't worry

  "I ain't worried," he said again. "It's his mama that's worried. You tell him that, you hear?"

  "I hear," I said gently.

  * * *

  Paramedics were loading Carver Bannerman into an ambulance when we got back to Redbud Lane.

  Every house on the street was lit up like a Christmas tree. Tomorrow might be a workday, but no one was going to miss this. Even the convenience store on the corner had reopened and was doing a brisk business in soft drinks, junk food, and cigarettes as people wandered back and forth between the store and the house, undeterred by the light mist that continued to fall.

  Deputy Jack Jamison was questioning them and taking down names; and as soon as she was free of me, Richards joined him.

  Almost midnight and the temperature was finally beginning to moderate. I'd brought along an unlined wind-breaker made of red water-repellant nylon, but the misty air felt so clean and cool that I slung it in the trunk of my car before ducking under the police line to see what was happening.

  "Here comes trouble," said Dwight when he saw me.

  The man he'd been talking to turned and gave me a considering smile. He was shorter than Dwight, so his light eyes were about on the same level as mine.

  Bowman Poole. Colleton County's sheriff. He's late fifties, thin hair the color of broom straw, the compact build of a gamecock in fighting trim, and a folksy style that's carried the county every election for sixteen years.

  "Your Honor," he said.

  We'd nodded at each other across the crowded meeting over in Makely earlier, but we hadn't actually spoken since my reception and I cocked my head at him. "You acting like a stranger because I'm a judge or because Dwight's told you I'm a suspect?"

  Bo laughed. "The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is Kezzie's. You won't never change, will you, girl?"

  Dwight had brought him up to speed on the killing, but he asked if I'd mind going over it again. Practice makes perfect. This was about my fifth telling and I was getting pretty glib. For Dwight's benefit, I added what Annie Sue had said about hearing a car drive away just before I arrived.

  "Yeah," said Dwight. "The lady across the street told Jack Jamison she saw headlights as she was pulling her shades for the night, but she didn't pay any mind to them. Neighbor next door saw it, too, and thinks a white woman was driving, but he's not sure."

  We talked a few minutes longer, then Dwight sighed. "Reckon I'd better get Jack and Mayleen to go over and talk to Mrs. Bannerman. Unless you want to do it," he said to Bo.

  I knew Dwight never liked to be the one to break bad news to the family.

  Evidently Bo didn't like to either. "Nah, you're handling everything just fine," he said. "Looks like they're about finished in there, so I'll go on now. Talk to you tomorrow."

  As soon as he turned and walked away from us, I pounced on Dwight. "Has anybody seen Reese or A.K.?"

  He shook his head. "I canceled that order as soon as I heard Bannerman was dead. They still out there somewhere?"

  "They must be. A.K. hasn't come home and Andrew's getting worried."

  "They're probably sitting out at a tavern on the truck lane about now and—"

  Our attention was snagged by Jack Jamison lifting the yellow police tape for a couple of young women. I recognized the taller by sight if not by name as the one who'd worn a funny Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt—Rochelle Bannerman's friend, according to Annie Sue and Paige.

  That probably meant that the shorter, pregnant one that Deputy Jamison was escorting so solicitously was Carver Bannerman's widow. Bannerman's very pregnant widow. She wore shorts and a bright yellow T-shirt that read BABY ON BOARD. A big black arrow ended at her bulging middle.

  "They said he was here," she sobbed. "What've y'all done with my husband? Where've y'all got him?"

  Her friend, Opal Grimes, patted her arm like she was trying to soothe her, but there was a self-important near smirk that said she was enjoying the drama. Certainly those pats only seemed to encourage Mrs. Bannerman's hysterics.

  "O, Carver, Carver! My darling!" Despite the humidity, her blonde hair was freshly blow-dried around her pretty face. Her feet were thrust into yellow rubber flip-flops and mud squished between her toes as she clutched her belly and wailed, "What are me and your baby going to do without you?"

  Dwight looked at me helplessly. He really does get spooked by women grieving for their dead.

  I would have tried to help, but as soon as I stepped toward her, the Grimes woman whispered in her ear and her tears dried up as she turned on me.

  "You the bitch judge Carver told me about?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "You heard me! Think just because you sit up there on that bench you can cut the balls off a man and he won't notice?"

  "Now just a minute," Dwight said.

  But she was beyond listening. "And then when your niece gets the hots for him, you send your brothers over to beat him up and now you've killed him and O Carver, baby!"

  And here came the tears again.

  CHAPTER 13

  BRIDGING

  "The system of bracing the joists to each other is called bridging. The chief purpose of bridging is to hold the joists plumb and in correct alignment, but bridging also serves to distribute part of a concentrated heavy load over several joists next to those directly under the load."

  Nosy as I generally am, it was no sacrifice when Dwight excluded me from his interview with Rochelle Bannerman.

  Besides, he hit the high spots for me afterwards while we were splitting a Pepsi in Aunt Zell's cheerful kitchen: two glasses filled with ice, one Pepsi, and a bottle of Uncle Ash's best Jack Daniel's on the table between us.

  Soon as I got home, I'd gone up and tapped on Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's door to see if they'd heard any news of Herman.

  "No change," said Aunt Zell from the darkened room. "We're going over first thing in the morning."

  "I'll come, too, soon as court's adjourned."

  She raised up on her arm. "If you're still going to be up in a half hour, would you feed that puppy?"

  "Damn thing's more trouble than a real baby," Uncle Ash rumbled from his side of the bed.

  "How 'bout I take care of him all night?" I volunteered.

  "You need your sleep," Aunt Zell protested weakly.

  "So do you!" Uncle Ash and I chorused.

  "Well, if you're sure... ?"

  "Sleep tight," I said.

  * * *

  Back downstairs, Dwight had already taken the little guy on his lap and I warmed the bottle and handed it to him.

  News always travels fast in Dobbs and news of this death was no different, according to Dwight. One of the residents of Redbud Lane had called Opal Grimes in Magnolia Mobile Home Park, and Opal immediately hightailed it over to the Bannerman trailer where she found Rochelle Bannerman fending off questions about Bannerman's whereabouts from an enraged Reese and A. K.

  I suppose I had Opal Grimes to thank for connecting me to those two peckerwoods; and if Bannerman had told his wife that I'd treated him unfairly in court, well, no wonder that young woman felt as if Knotts had it in for Bannermans. On the other hand, if she was going to keep interpreting her so-recently-late husband's attempted rape as attempted man snatching by my niece, she wasn't going to win any prizes from me for Euclidian logic. Besides, it was Cindy McGee who wanted to snatch him away, not Annie Sue.

  "Let her go worry Gladys," I told Dwight.

  "She probably will before it's all over," he sighed.

  I suddenly remembered I hadn't mentioned Cindy before and glanced at Dwight with guilt all over my face like yolk on an egg-sucker.

  "Yeah," he said reproachfully. "Sure do 'preciate you telling me about little Cindy McGee getting it on with Bannerman."

  "How'd you hear? Mrs. Bannerman? Who told her?"

  "He did. Not straight out in words, of course, but she and that Grimes woman followed him to the dance Saturda
y night. Saw him cut Cindy out of the herd, asked someone who she was, then followed them all the way to the Days Inn over near Fuquay."

  Dwight shook his head. "I tell you, that Grimes woman is wasted babysitting trailer rats. She's watched so many cop shows she knows every tailing trick in the book."

  Dwight finished feeding the pup, tucked it back in its box, then poured himself a hair more sour mash. "Got another Pepsi?"

  I rooted around in the refrigerator and found one. "They didn't happen to follow him tonight, did they?"

  "She says they didn't, but I sent Jack over to the trailer park to ask about 'em."

  He sipped his drink, then added, "Sent Mayleen Richards to talk to little Cindy."

  My heart sank. "Aw, Dwight, she's just a kid."

  "Not after Saturday night, she's not," he said cynically.

  "I was thinking about poor Gladys McGee. Losing Ralph and now to have to hear how her daughter's mixed up in this."

  "Well, it's not like Mayleen's going to show up flashing a scarlet A. She'll be tactful. Gladys won't have to know a thing, if Cindy keeps her head. After all, she and the Byrd girl were both there with Annie Sue earlier, right? It's the most natural thing in the world to ask them if they saw anything. If Cindy went straight home, then she's got nothing to worry about. If not—"

  He shrugged and sipped his drink and left me to finish his thought.

  Teenagers can be creatures of impulse. I knew that. And I'd sat in enough courtrooms to know that children can kill if they act before they think.

  "I guess I can see Cindy or Rochelle Bannerman doing it quicker than I can see Herman," I said.

  "How you figure?"

  "All three of them might've grabbed up the hammer and smashed Bannerman over the head if they walked in on him while he was trying to rape Annie Sue, but Herman wouldn't panic and run. No way would he have left her lying there."

  Dwight looked skeptical.

  "Think how you'd feel if it was Cal." Even though he didn't get to see his young son very often—Jonna had custody of Cal and they lived up in Shaysville, Virginia, now—I knew how he felt about the boy. "Would you just leave him there?"

  "Maybe not," he admitted. "Okay. No, I wouldn't. Not unless I was on the verge of a heart attack or stroke maybe."

  Thinking about the damage Bannerman could keep inflicting after his death made me broody. "Used to be they hanged first-degree rapists in this state."

  "Used to be a lot of things they did in this state they don't do anymore." Dwight drained his glass. "And you can either thank the Lord or curse the devil."

  I gestured toward the bottles, but he shook his head and stood up to go. "Now there's nothing else that may have slipped your mind to tell me, is there?"

  "No."

  "You sure?"

  "I'm positive," I said and honestly believed I was telling him the truth.

  * * *

  Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash were leaving as I brought the puppy downstairs for its breakfast next morning.

  "Herman's awake and talking a little," Aunt Zell reported, "but he's still awfully weak and they still don't know why."

  "Tell Nadine I'll come this evening," I said, "but call me if there's any change. I'll cancel court if I need to. And don't worry about your hound. I'll come home and feed him at lunchtime."

  "And don't forget to wash his little bottom."

  Uncle Ash laughed and left to back the car out of the garage.

  "I'm dithering, aren't I?" Aunt Zell asked ruefully. "Here I was planning to get my hair done and then run into Raleigh for a new nightgown to take to Paris, and now—but listen, honey. Sallie said you could bring him down to her if you think you're going to be tied up."

  "We'll be just fine. Hug Herman for me, okay?" I gave her a hug, too, and pushed her out the door.

  Almost three weeks old now, the puppy was as cute and appealing as any baby animal, a fat brown and white beagle with a white tail no bigger than my little finger that stood straight up when it tried to walk on its Jell-O legs; but tending to its needs at both ends of its alimentary canal left me with no appetite for the fruit and cereal Aunt Zell had set out on the counter. I decided to take Miss Sallie up on her offer to babysit in case I did get busy later in the day.

  When I stopped off on my way downtown, she was out in her soggy front yard directing the rejuvenation of her ingrown bed of irises after all the rain. She employed the same lawn service as Aunt Zell, and Mr. Ou smiled and ducked his head at my greeting and continued to separate the tubers while Miss Sallie popped the puppy into the carton with its sibling, the only pup she had left after farming out the others with dog-loving friends.

  "It does fret me not to know what happened to poor old Queenie," she said as she walked me out to my car. The sun was already converting rain puddles to steam. Beneath the broad straw brim of her gardening hat, her beautiful wrinkled face was pink and troubled. "Alice Castleberry's bull terrier's been missing two weeks now. Some man was coming up from Wilmington to mate his bitch with him and now he's got to find another registered champion. You don't reckon that sorry dogman's back sneaking around town?"

  At one time, "dogmen" ("catmen," too, for that matter) use to roam the countryside picking up any stray they could find to sell to various laboratories as test animals. Public outcry eventually put a stop to their activities, and testing regulations have changed so drastically since then that few labs are willing to chance the penalties that illegally obtained animals can bring.

  "Surely not," I said.

  "I hope you're right," said Miss Sallie. "It'd purely break my heart to find out Queenie's hooked up to some horrible old machine just to see if mascara or nose drops hurt her eyes."

  * * *

  It was still early when I got to the courthouse, so I circled around and pulled into the parking lot next to the Coffee Pot. I only meant to have a cup of coffee, but the smells of fried sausage and hot bread suddenly made me ravenous.

  Herman's Reese was seated at the counter, and as I slid into the empty stool beside him, I told Tink Dupree, "I'll have the regular if I can get it in five minutes."

  "Only take three" he assured me and hollered through the kitchen pass-through, "Retha! One fast reg’lar for the judge!"

  "Coming up!" she sang back.

  Ava came around the corner of the counter and smiled shyly before disappearing behind the partition with a trayload of dirty dishes from the four booths along the back wall.

  "You feel as rough as you look?" I asked Reese.

  He stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a blue tin coffee pot, pushed his cap to the back of his head, and gave a sheepish grin. "Yep. Makes me glad I'm only going to be crawling around a hundred-degree attic rewiring an old house today, 'stead of out in a field priming sand lugs like A.K."

  Tink set a mug of coffee in front of me. It was just the way I liked it: hot as hell and black as sin. I sipped cautiously as Reese mashed another pat of butter into his grits.

  "Talked to your mother today?"

  "That's why I'm here and not over at the hospital. Annie Sue and me, we've got to keep the business going. Mama says Dad's some better, but they've got to finish up some more tests. She says we can do more good here than there."

  He swallowed some sausage and glanced at me sideways. "You don't look bad for somebody that found a dead man last night."

  As Tink brought me my breakfast plate, he caught the end of Reese's remarks. “Y’all talking about Carver Bannerman? He eats lunch here three or four times a week. Was you really the one found him, Miss Deb'rah?"

  His question was polite formality. The Coffee Pot opens at six A.M. and I was sure he'd had the details a dozen times by seven. Hearing it all over again from one of the horses' mouths would make fresh gossip for the lunch trade; but I wasn't sure if Annie Sue's involvement was generally known, and I certainly didn't want to broadcast it.

  "Bastard got what he deserved,” Reese growled and Tink nodded in such sympathetic agreement that I realiz
ed Reese'd already mouthed off.

  "Was he really buck naked when you found him?" asked Ava. Trade was slack at the moment, since most of their customers begin work at eight, and she had wiped up spills and straightened all the sugar bowls and creamers along the long counter till she'd worked her way down to us.

  Although Ava Dupree is only in her early twenties, her long thin face has little of youth's glowing elasticity. Plastic surgery smoothed away most of the burn damage there, but the skin on her neck is mottled pink and red where it disappears beneath her high, long-sleeved smock, and shiny scar tissue on her hands has pulled and tightened until they look like the hands of someone old and crippled with arthritis. Was that why Bass Langley ran out on her? Not wanting to make love to that body? Not wanting those hands to touch him anymore?

  Normally, I don't look twice at her scars. Except for wearing long sleeves year-round, Ava never seems self-conscious about her looks. But this was the first time I'd been in the Coffee Pot since last Thursday when Herman reminded me about the fire, and I busied myself with egg, sausages, and grits till I could get over my own self-consciousness.

  "I heard he didn't have a stitch on," Ava nudged.

  She took back the grape jelly Tink'd given me and rummaged in the jam basket till she found my favorite orange marmalade.

  I always appreciate people remembering things like that and suddenly she was just Ava again, another human being trying to get along in the world, a good-hearted waitress who enjoys good gossip.

  "No, he had on all his clothes," I said, "but he was flopped over a sawbench like a bag of fertilizer."

  Between bites of biscuit and egg, I told her so many gory details about Bannerman's body and the bloody hammer and how my skirt was ruined that I finished eating and had paid my bill and Reese's too and we were both out the door without Annie Sue's name even being mentioned.

  "Court's due to start in fifteen minutes," I told Reese as he unlocked the shop next door, "so tell me quick: you and A.K. get yourselves in any trouble last night?"

  He swore they hadn't.

  "We went over and parked in front of Bannerman's trailer till his wife came home. And then we'd hardly started asking where he was till her girlfriend came running up saying he was killed."