Southern Discomfort

'I didn't get a chance to tell you before,' he said as we drove the short distance home through the hot, still night. 'The lab report came right after you left my office this evening. No arsenic in Ralph McGee's body.'

'They dug up the wrong man. It's Perry Byrd that should be exhumed.'

'You think?'

'Yes. Remember when he had that first stroke and everybody thought he was going to die? She must have realized that if he did die, she'd be free of him. Because he was getting better, remember? Then suddenly, he just keeled over again.'

For the last hour, I'd been facing the fact that I got Perry Byrd's seat mainly because his daughter had poisoned him.

'I can sort of understand why she'd slip arsenic in Bannerman's drink after he laid Cindy, but why poor old Herman? Was she starting an orphans' club or something?'

'She almost told me the night she confessed to killing Bannerman—and isn't that bizarre? Start to kill a man with slow poison and then wind up doing him in with a hammer.'

'Herman,' Dwight reminded me, turning down my street.

'Herman,' I said, feeling tears begin to slide down my cheek. 'She did it for Annie Sue and I wish to God Annie Sue never had to know. Because if she hadn't dramatized it, if she hadn't—if—'

'Hey,' said Dwight. He parked the car in the side driveway, cut the motor, handed me his handkerchief, and opened his arms.

I was grateful for both.

'Paige misunderstood the way Herman yells and how Annie Sue always overreacts. If you ever heard her, you'd think he was David Copperfield's wicked stepfather and kept her chained in the basement. Because Annie Sue was the first best friend she'd ever had—you know about teenage girls and their best friends?'

'Tell me,' he said, gently smoothing my hair.

'It's hard to find the words because it isn't sexual, even though it's almost as romantic as first love. Oh hell, who am I fooling? It is first love! With all that pre-Freudian intensity. Flirting with each other. Telling innermost secrets. The hurts and jealousies if you think she likes a another girl better than you. You spend hours analyzing hairstyles and clothes, and then you spend even more time analyzing each other. You know her thoughts and moods as well as you know your own—better than your own maybe, because at that age you usually don't like your body very much and you certainly don't like the dark disturbing thoughts that are rolling around in your head. And you're protective as the devil if anything or anyone threatens her. I guess she thought Herman was abusing Annie Sue and, since she'd already stopped the abuse in her own life, why not make Herman sick and stop it in Annie Sue's?'

'Not kill him?'

I shrugged. 'She could have just given him one big dose instead of several small ones. Maybe she thought if he felt a little sick, he'd leave Annie Sue alone. At the hospital Saturday night, though. That's when she finally realized there was nothing perverted between Annie Sue and Herman, and that's the real reason she couldn't stay in that hospital room.' *      *      *

They found Paige's car parked in front of Miss Sallie Anderson's the next day. An empty bottle of Terro Ant Killer was in a little box under the front seat.

Her neck wasn't broken, but it was four days before she came out of the coma. There's residual paralysis on her left side and the fingers of her left hand tend to curl, but they're hoping therapy will help. She says she doesn't remember a thing about that night and that these past few months have a dreamlike quality, as if they happened to someone else. Paige doesn't deny what she's done, she just doesn't quite understand why.

Considering the severity of her head injury, her doctors say she's probably telling the truth. Zack Young's counting on their testimony when she goes to trial this fall. He thinks it'll be a mitigating factor in her sentencing.

Annie Sue and Cindy have rallied around. They say Paige isn't quite the same. Quieter. Maybe not quite as sharp as before she hurt her head. 'But still real sweet.'

They don't hear the pity in their own young voices.

CHAPTER 23

TRIM WORK

'The part of the finish which is purely ornamental is called trim.'

BeeBee Powell's house was dedicated at a ceremony the weekend before Labor Day.

Living room, large kitchen, three small bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths. The siding was painted pale creamy yellow with black shutters and porch railings, and a burnt orange door. Inside, everything was fresh and clean and sparkled almost as brightly as Kaneesha's snaggle-toothed grin.

She and Anthony Carl had colored two bright THANK YOU!! posters and hung them by the front door.

Retha Dupree and Ava donated the Coffee Pot's services and catered a picnic in the yard. (After pulling a two-week drunk in South Carolina, Bass Langley had sweet-talked his way back into Ava's good graces and was back lifting and toting and washing dishes again.)

Mr. Ou hadn't put in the grass yet, but neat borders of liriope lined the new front walk, and azaleas were mixed with Korean boxwoods around the foundation. People were trying not to step on anything.

Everyone who worked on the house was there, including a few who merely donated money or materials. Not Paige, though. She was at a rehab place over in Durham, not far from the detox center where Graham Ogburn had stashed his son to wait for his jury trial.