Southern Discomfort

Dwight was looking at me and I stopped that train of thought before it could roll on into the station. Judges really do have to be discreet.

Especially lady judges.

On the other hand...

'How 'bout I introduce you to Tink?' I volunteered.

'I'll do it,' Dwight said firmly. 'I probably ought to tag along for this anyhow.'

In the end, we both tagged along. I don't know if O'Connor sensed what was going on, but when Dwight starts acting like he's been commissioned to keep me from doing something rash, it naturally makes me want to throw discretion out the back window. *      *      *

'I'm afraid we already went and cut off the grill,' Tink apologized when the three of us entered the Coffee Pot. 'We still got some cold chicken salad, though. I could make y'all a sandwich and there's a fresh pitcher of tea if y'all are just thirsty.'

'That's okay, Tink,' I said. 'We're not here as customers. This is Gordon O'Connor from Environmental Health in Raleigh.'

As soon as he heard the word health mentioned, Tink gazed fearfully at a framed document over the coffee maker, an inspection rating from the Health Department. Retha suddenly appeared from behind the kitchen partition, wiping her rawboned hands on a clean dishtowel. Without that high rating, they wouldn't have a business.

Dwight explained about Herman and Bannerman.

'And since both men frequented your place,' said O'Connor, 'I thought I'd begin here.'

The Duprees just gazed back at him numbly.

'It doesn't mean a thing,' I soothed, trying to reassure them. 'Somebody's got to be first and y'all just happen to be it.'

O'Connor already had his check sheet out and was clicking his ballpoint pen in and out.

'Let's just start with a few routine questions,' he said. 'What sort of pesticides do you use in the kitchen?' *      *      *

Eventually the Duprees quit acting like deer caught in a jacklight and started answering his questions. They took him back to the kitchen and showed him the ant and roach traps, 'but mostly we just try to keep everything clean and swept up,' said Retha. 'It's a whole lot easier to keep it so you don't never get pests than it is to get shet of 'em after they get started good.'

'Ever use any Terro Ant Killer?' asked O'Connor.

The question sounded almost as casual as the others, but I thought I sensed that quivering intensity again. Retha screwed up her face and said she couldn't remember.

Ava came in from the back alley where she'd been putting out the garbage and sweeping up around the barrels. Again the introductions and explanations. She'd heard the last question and said, 'Stuff's hardly worth bringing home anymore. No arsenic in it, if that's what you mean. Just borax.'

'Really?' asked Retha. Like Tink, she'd quit school in the eighth grade and was constantly amazed by all the things that Ava, who'd finished high school, seemed to know. 'You can kill ants with borax?'

'Not very good,' said her daughter. 'Not like with arsenic.'

'My granny used to strew red pepper on the threshold,' Tink said. 'In her pantry, too. Don't nothing like to crawl through red pepper.'

That reminded Retha of the tansy her granny had used. O'Connor just listened with one ear while continuing to poke around in the cupboards. He found corrosive drain cleaners and spray cans of pyrethrin-based insecticides—enough stuff to wipe out half of Dobbs if the Duprees were so minded. In short, the usual deadly concoctions found in your average American kitchen.

Nothing with arsenic, though, and neither Tink, Retha, nor Ava could think of anything Bannerman and Herman might have ordered in their cafe that no one else had.

'Are there any other employees?'

An awkward silence.

'Not right now,' Tink said.

'Why sure there is.' Dwight gave him a jocular grin. 'You're forgetting your own son-in-law. Where is ol' Bass anyhow. Haven't seen him around town lately.'

It was too late to kick him even if I'd been close enough to do it unobtrusively. Instead I had to stand and watch as Ava flushed a painful red and the mottled scar tissue became terribly noticeable. Retha moved toward her protectively, but Ava's chin came up.

'He ain't here no more,' she said defiantly. 'Gone back to Georgia. I run him off last week.'

'He didn't never touch the plates anyhow,' Retha chimed in. 'We're filling in with a Mexican dishwasher part- time now, but just me and Tink and Ava are the only ones ever handle food here.' *      *      *

According to the preliminary autopsy report, Bannerman had probably ingested his trace of arsenic sometime during the previous weekend, Dwight said, so O'Connor went off to the county inspector's office to get a list of houses on the dead man's schedule.