Southern Discomfort

'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.'