Southern Discomfort

by Margaret Maron

  Besides, today she wanted to hear all about how Paige Byrd was the one who'd killed Carver Bannerman. When I told Daddy the night before while we were sitting on the porch swing after our walk, his first response was, "You reckon her mama'll need help with Zack's fees?"

  As far as he was concerned, Paige had just saved the Knotts from having to pay a defense attorney themselves. Sooner or later, one of his sons or grandsons would have found Bannerman and beat him senseless. She simply got there first, so it was only fitting to offer to pay for Zack's services.

  "I never heard nothing good about Judge Byrd," said Maidie as we finished eating, "but I reckon he raised his daughter to do right."

  "Probably was her mama did the raising," said Daddy, reaching for a final hot biscuit.

  "Whoever." Maidie put the last piece of sausage on my plate and carried the dish over to the sink.

  I was too full to eat another crumb, so I slipped the sausage inside a biscuit and wrapped them in a piece of plastic wrap. One of my nephews would probably be rummaging in this refrigerator before the sun went down. Teenage boys always seem hungry.

  As I put away the blackberry jam, the phone rang and Maidie answered. Her lips curved in an easy smile. "Doing just fine, Miss Zell. How 'bout you? . . . Yes, ma’ma she's here all right... You, too, now."

  She handed the phone to me and I heard Aunt Zell say, "Deborah? I told her I bet that's where you were."

  "Her who?"

  "Gladys McGee. I told her I'd track you down and get you to call her. She wants you to sign an exhumation order."

  "A what?"

  "You heard right. She wants to dig up Ralph and have him autopsied. She's convinced he was poisoned, too."

  CHAPTER 19

  CHECKING AND CRACKING

  "Checking and cracking describe breaks in the paint film which are formed as the paint becomes hard and brittle... Both are the result of stresses in the paint film which exceed the strength of the coating."

  I had never been in Gladys McGee's living room before, but I could have described it beforehand: everything beige and rose and pretty. Every blonde oak tabletop polished, every piece of glass shining. Beige wall-to-wall, a beige couch in front of a fireplace that had never burned a single log, a rose-flowered wing chair on either side of the couch, a blonde oak coffee table in the middle, and a pink glass ashtray in the middle of the table. Polished brass candlesticks on the sidetable. Pink candles.

  A pink-faced Cindy saying, "Mom, please don't do this!"

  Cindy's recently married, less-recently pregnant sister saying, "I can't believe you're going to do this to us. What is the point?"

  "The point is that your father may have been deliberately poisoned."

  Gladys sat in one of the floral-upholstered wing chairs and looked with bewilderment from one daughter to the next. "Don't you girls care?"

  "Mo-ther." Ginger sighed with exaggerated patience. "Dad had a heart attack. Two doctors said so."

  "Not two American doctors," Gladys said stubbornly. "Dr. Bhagat was born in New Jersey, for God's sake!" said Cindy.

  "Cindy Elaine McGee, I will not have you use the Lord's name in that manner!"

  "But, Mom—"

  "But me no buts, young lady."

  I was seated in the other wing chair and she turned to me with stubborn determination. "You remember, Deborah? Just week before last, at your reception—you yourself remarked what a shock it was to everybody when Ralph just dropped dead, remember? And I told you he'd had the summer flu?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "It was just like what happened with Herman. Nadine says that's what he thought he had at first—summer flu. And here they've found him full of arsenic! If he'd gone on and died, I bet they'd be thinking it was a heart attack, too. Am I wrong?"

  "No," I admitted. Ginger gave me a disgusted look and Cindy appeared on the verge of tears.

  Gladys leaned forward with a confidential air. "I never did trust that Tink Dupree. He swore it was an honest mistake, but three years in a row? He was just lucky Ralph kept him out of jail. Am I wrong?"

  I didn't know what Gladys was talking about, but she was happy to explain.

  Ralph had prepared the Coffee Pot's taxes ever since the Duprees bought the place. Last year, he discovered that Tink and Retha Dupree were running an unlicensed sandwich stand at a flea market every weekend and sequestering their profits. It wasn't a regulated market, just a crossroads out in the country where people gathered on pretty Saturday mornings and sold stuff out of the back of their cars. Since it was so informal and since vendors didn't pay sales taxes on their wares, the Duprees assumed they were somehow exempt, as well. Or so they claimed.

  They had been doing this for three years before a horrified Ralph realized they'd been charging expenses to the Coffee Pot, which he'd dutifully listed, which in turn lowered their apparent taxable profits, thereby making him an unwitting accomplice.

  "Ralph said if ever one of those hotshot state auditors took a good look at their books, they could say that Ralph was cooking the figures and maybe pull his license. Ralph was really mad about it because never in a million years would he've done anything to risk that.

  "He told Tink and Retha that if they didn't make voluntary restitution, he was going to turn them in. I forget how much money it took before they were straight with the state."

  "Get real, Mother," said Ginger. "Even if the Duprees were mad at Dad, there's no way Tink Dupree would wait almost a year to put arsenic in Dad's iced tea."

  "Well, who else would have a reason to?" Gladys asked.

  "Nobody!" Cindy howled. "He wasn't poisoned. He had a heart attack."

  Gladys leaned over and patted her younger daughter's knee. "I know it's hard for you to understand how somebody could deliberately hurt Dad, but you have to be brave, sweetie."

  She turned back to me. "And another thing, Deborah. Ava Dupree says she ran Bass off and that he's gone back to Georgia, but how do we know that's what happened to him? Has anybody heard pea-turkey from him since Ava says he left?"

  "I don't believe this," Ginger kept muttering. "I do not believe this. Tommy's parents are going to have a cow. This is the tackiest thing anybody's mother ever did."

  "Dad would just hate it," Cindy moaned.

  "Seems to me certain people have forgotten what else their father would have hated," Gladys said with a significant look at Ginger's bulging tummy and an equally accusing look at Cindy. "Am I wrong?"

  "This is totally different," Ginger said huffily. "What Cindy and I did or did not do isn't going to be in the newspaper or on television. This will."

  Gladys pursed her lips. "He'd hate it even more if Tink Dupree got away with killing him."

  Nothing the girls said was going to dissuade Gladys, and, in a cockeyed way, I didn't blame her. Herman had ingested poison, so had Bannerman; and both, like Ralph, had eaten frequently at the Coffee Pot. If my husband had died as unexpectedly as Ralph had, maybe I'd be putting two and two together same as she was.

  "The thing is," I told her, "I can't give you an exhumation order. You'll have to talk to one of the superior court judges."

  As I left, she was dialing Ned O'Donnell's home phone. I suggested she inform Dwight or Bo Poole and I gave her Gordon O'Connor's name and number as well. As happy as he'd been to hear about Bannerman's arsenic, he'd probably do handstands if Ralph got added to the list.

  Cindy followed me out to my car disconsolately. She'd been on the phone all morning with Annie Sue.

  "Paige called her late last night." There was an unconscious tinge of jealousy in her voice that Annie Sue had been called and not her. "I've tried and tried to call Paige, but nobody's answering the phone. What's going to happen to her?"

  I explained the elements of self-defense and how unlikely it was that Paige would be convicted under the circumstances.

  "I hate the way everything's turning out," Cindy said petulantly. "I wish Annie Sue'd never mentioned that old WomenAid house to us."

&nb
sp; I was getting a little tired of Cindy's attitude. "Neither Annie Sue nor that house is to blame for Carver Bannerman getting the wrong idea," I said coldly. "And if half the things we heard about that man is true, I personally would be over at the hospital asking for an HIV test."

  She drew back as if I'd slapped her, glared at me, then suddenly burst into tears and fled back inside the house.

  "Why don't you just go on home and pull wings off flies for a while?" sighed the preacher.

  "Sounds like a good idea to me," said the pragmatist.

  * * *

  Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash were gone when I got there. The puppy was wide awake in his box and let me know he wouldn't mind some company. He still didn't have a name.

  After a day or two of comedians (Cosby, Seinfeld, Groucho), Aunt Zell had been trying out imperial Roman names lately (Augustus, Caesar, Pompey), but so far, nothing really struck her as appropriate.

  I held the squirming little butterball to my face and said, "So how's it going, Julius?"

  He licked my nose.

  "Visiting Herman," said a note held to the refrigerator door by a tobacco leaf magnet. "Stevie brought over your tape."

  I tucked Marcus Aurelius under one arm and took the video cassette up to my room, stuck it into my VCR, pushed PLAY; then Nero and I settled into my lounge chair to watch. Piled on the low table nearby was a sheaf of rulings that the chief district judge had sent over for all district judges to read. Claudius gnawed on the manila folder while I watched my swearing-in ceremony with only half an eye; especially the part where Ellis Glover was introducing half the county.

  Every time I see myself on tape, I vow to quit eating for a week. Much as I love that splashy red print dress, it certainly does emphasize every extra ounce. But I was right, it did make a nice symbolic contrast when I zipped up that black robe over it. I loved the way Stevie had zoomed in on Daddy's face at that moment. He honestly does look like an Old Testament patriarch at times.

  I pressed the remote's REWIND and rolled it back a couple of minutes so I could watch his face and Aunt Zell's. She really is very dear. Mother without the wild streak.

  Then FAST FORWARD to the reception in the courthouse rotunda. Stevie had gotten there before me and panned over the lace-covered serving table with the silver platters of finger foods, the cutglass punch bowl, the Martha Circle and their helpers—all in readiness before the first guest walked down the row and destroyed the pretty symmetry.

  And now, there I am with Frances Tripp, talking, talking every minute. The hugs, the handshakes. Lu Bingham stuffing pecan puffs with one hand and twisting my arm with the other. I found myself smiling all over again.

  And there among the dignitaries, guests, and Marthas were Annie Sue, Cindy and Paige, scurrying around to fetch fresh cups of punch and take away the empty ones. How strange to think of all that had happened to those girls in only two weeks!

  And look at Herman posing with them, a glass punch cup in one big hand, a plate piled high with cucumber sandwiches in the other. I couldn't bear to think that he might never walk alone again.

  Was it possible that his poisoning had been deliberate? The Coffee Pot? Had Bass's leaving—"IF he's left," said the pragmatist—made Ava or Retha flip out?

  I sighed, flicked off the VCR and picked up Judge Longmire's assigned readings.

  Heliogabalus fell asleep sucking on my finger.

  CHAPTER 20

  PLUGGING THE HOLES

  "A nail set is used to set (meaning to countersink slightly below the surface) the heads of nails in finish carpentry. The purpose of setting is to improve the appearance of the work by concealing the nail heads.... The small surface hole above the head is usually plugged with putty"

  It was one of the fastest exhumations I ever heard of. I don't know if it was a combination of Dwight, Terry, and Gordon O'Connor all pushing, but by midmorning on Monday, Ralph McGee had been dug up, relevant tissue samples had been collected, and his body was back under six feet of dirt again out at Centenary Cemetery where most of the best people in Dobbs were buried.

  Results of the tests would take a while. As I understand it, proving arsenic's in a body is a fairly simple reactive test; proving it isn't there is a bit more complicated. Still, we were hoping to hear by Wednesday at the latest.

  Rumors were flying all over Dobbs, especially since Bo Poole's office had queried Bass Langley's brother in Georgia and the brother said no, he hadn't heard a thing about Bass supposed to be coming home. "He hain't showed up here. Y'all ask Ava where he mought be?"

  "Something 'bout that boy makes me think Bass got all the brains in his family," said Dwight as he went off to query the Duprees again.

  Wasn't like he had to fight his way through hordes of lunchtime customers, he told me later. The only ones sitting at the Coffee Pot's counter were two out-of-town salesmen, our in-town drunk, and Gordon O'Connor, who was eating the same thing Ralph McGee usually ordered: a rare hamburger all the way and a glass of sweet iced tea.

  In most small places, there's always a cousin or a neighbor's elderly sister who'll tell you—for your own good, of course—what folks are whispering behind your back and Dobbs was no different. Retha was red-eyed, Tink seemed bewildered, and Ava acted belligerent when Dwight came in to ask them where else Bass might be, since he wasn't in Georgia, far as they could tell.

  "What's the matter, Deputy?" said Ava. "You think we poisoned him, too? You want to look out back in the dumpster?"

  "Now, Ava—"

  "Mrs. Langley to you, Deputy Bryant," she snapped.

  "Now, Ava," said Tink. "No need to get huffy with the customers. What'll you have, Dwight?"

  Up until that minute, Dwight says he hadn't really given it much thought as to whether the Coffee Pot actually was the source of the arsenic. He hesitated and saw Gordon O'Connor watching him through those shiny glasses. The epidemiologist picked up the succulent hamburger Retha had made him and bit into it with exaggerated relish.

  ("Well, he could, couldn't he?" Dwight asked me defensively. "They certainly weren't going to poison somebody from the Health Department.")

  "I could sure use some iced tea, thank you, Tink."

  "You like it sweet, don't you?"

  But that far, Dwight was not prepared to go. He has a flat belly but he patted it anyhow and said he thought he'd better start cutting back on sugar.

  "Humph!" said Ava and went outside to wash the windows, the better to glare at the townspeople who hadn't stopped in for their usual morning snacks.

  * * *

  While everyone might've been walking around the Duprees, Paige Byrd was suffering from too much attention. She and her mother had unplugged all the phones and fled to her Aunt Faith's house the night before. Friends and relatives quickly figured it out though, and by noon on Monday, they had crowded into Faith Taylor's house to lend aid and comfort and hear all the titillating details firsthand.

  The consensus seemed to be that Paige had done what she had to when she defended her honor and Annie Sue's; and while it was too bad that she'd panicked and run, well, shoot! She was only sixteen, not even over her daddy's death good, and had never said boo to a goose. Who knew if they'd've done any smarter?

  Paige stood it as long as she could, then called Annie Sue, who swung by on her way to run a line of 220 wire for a customer's new air-conditioning unit. The customer was an elderly farm woman who, after her husband's early demise, had managed eight acres of tobacco, thirty acres of sweet potatoes, plus the usual corn and soybeans till her sons were old enough to take over the farm.

  No big deal, right?

  But she thought it was just wonderful the way young women today could do so many things. Imagine being electricians! She was so impressed. And couldn't she just fix them a plate of cookies and a Pepsi?

  * * *

  On Tuesday morning, I awoke to the sound of Mr. Ou's lawn mower. The deep back gardens are overlooked by screened verandas that run the width of the house upstairs and down, and I p
ushed open my bedroom doors and stepped outside. A lacy screen of clematis shaded my part of the veranda and I looked down onto beds of splashy summer flowers at the height of their colors and riotous beauty.

  Aunt Zell has never gone in for exotic plantings. She prefers sturdy common annuals and old-fashioned perennials: zinnias of every color and height from multicolored miniatures to four-foot red giants, clear yellow marigolds, white and pink cosmos, blue salvia, more blue in the speedwell, clumps of old-time daylilies, and stiff purple phlox.

  In the middle of the yard, in a long diagonal from the house, is Uncle Ash's lap pool, forty feet long by six feet wide and only four feet deep. A narrow footbridge arches over the center to a weathered gazebo almost hidden in its tangle of purple clematis.

  Along the side wall, rhododendrons had finished blooming, but hydrangeas sported deep blue blossom heads bigger than honeydew melons.

  Except for a wide swath that meanders through the flowerbeds and strips each side of the lap pool, there isn't much grass here in the back; and one of Mr. Ou's adolescent sons guided the power mower along the path while he and another child weeded and a third boy used an electric edger to trim where the mower couldn't reach. A much younger child gravely lopped off dead flower heads with a pair of hand clippers.

  All wore khaki shorts and shirts, brown leather sandals, and cloth hats against the July sun. Mr. Ou himself was so young that I found myself suddenly taking another look at the three older boys. They were quite close in height and build. Too close, in fact, to be brothers unless they were triplets. Perhaps cousins?

  In the mad scramble to get out of the refugee camps, Mr. Ou, hardly more than a boy himself, might well have wound up claiming younger brothers or nephews as his own sons. Difficult to imagine all the hardships they must have endured before fetching up here in Colleton County—exiled to a strange land, their future entrusted to strangers.