Southern Discomfort (9 page)

"Say you want somebody to do what?" asked their moronic dispatcher.

Patiently I again described the minor vandalism and how it would be nice if this street were added to the nightly patrol route. My words wouldn't penetrate his lead-shielded brain. Exasperated, I called Lu Bingham over at the WomenAid shelter, explained what had happened, and sicced her on Lonnie's dispatcher. She'd get some action.

"Bet it was those Norris young'uns," said the store clerk when I thanked her for the use of her phone. If people didn't want other people to hear, they'd use the pay phone outside, right? That was Patsy Reddick's sensible attitude. She was the same teenager who'd relayed Nadine's message to Annie Sue Saturday evening and she didn't pretend she hadn't listened to every word I said. "Were they white?"

"They might have been," I answered. "Who are the Norrises?"

Patsy glanced around. Even though the store was empty, she lowered her voice. "You won't tell anybody it was me that said it, will you?"

I promised.

"There's three of 'em. Their mother's Kimberly Norris. I heard that when Miz Bingham and them were studying who was going to get the first house, it was almost a tie between her and BeeBee Powell, only BeeBee won. Kimmer's helping work on this one so she can get the next one, but her kids were mean-mouthing here in the store Saturday that the only reason BeeBee got picked first was 'cause she's black and Kimmer's white."

The same old same old.

When I walked back to the WomenAid site, Annie Sue had already drilled a bunch of holes as big as my thumb through the studs and ceiling plates. I told her what I'd done, then fetched a fifty-foot tape from the truck and helped measure off lengths of the flat white electrical cable that would run from the main breaker panel to all the outlets and fixtures.

It wasn't very long before Lu Bingham came by to survey the damage, followed shortly thereafter by one of Lonnie Revell's men. I repeated my vague description of the children but didn't mention the name Norris till after he'd left.

"Do you think the Norris kids are capable of this?" I asked Lu.

"Capable? Of
course
they're capable," she promptly replied. "That's why they were my personal choice this first house."

Vintage Lu. Put little vandals in a nice house?

"Sure. Give 'em something to be proud of. They'd take care of it," she said and explained that the Norris woman and her children live over in what's called Seaboard City, a handful of dilapidated, cold-water trailers strung along the railroad track less than a quarter mile from where we stood.

"They're at such risk," said Lu. "Another year may be too late for them. The Powell children are living all squashed in with their aunts and cousins and BeeBee certainly deserves better as hard as she works, but at least they're in a caring environment with relatives who love them. The Norris kids have nobody but their mother and she's working just as hard as BeeBee to make a better life for them."

Despite her impassioned pleas, the WomenAid board had decided that a black woman and her better-behaved children would be a more persuasive advertisement for further houses.

"Bunch of amateurs," Lu sighed. "And mostly white. White do-gooders seem to have a harder time with the concept of white poverty. Weird, isn't it? If Kimmer and her kids were down on their luck because of a calamity—if they'd had a major illness or accident, if her house had burned down—that'd get their sympathy. But because she's made 'poor life choices'—? Kaneesha's father was white. Did you notice?"

Actually I hadn't. "And the Norris children?"

She nodded. "The father of Kimmer's first child was black. It's okay for a white man to sleep with a black woman—that's been going on here for two hundred years—but a white woman with a black man..."

Her voice took on the saccharine earnestness we'd heard from otherwise do-good ladies our whole growing-up lives, "'Now, honey, we don't want to look like we're
rewarding
miscegenation, do we?' Oh, well, at least they promised that Kimmer will be next. If we can get money for a next."

For a moment, her normal optimism seemed to dim and her shoulders slumped tiredly. "They always say money's not the problem, but darned if it wouldn't be fun to have enough just once in my life. I do believe I could take care of some of the worst blights. Save a few children anyhow."

Her eyes narrowed speculatively. "Which brings us to my next point."

"Yes?"

"Walk me out to my car?" She smiled up at Annie Sue, who was perched atop a step ladder to install a ceiling box over our heads, and said, "Looking good, kid."

No breeze outside either and the hazy, late afternoon sun kept the humid air heavy, although I thought I heard far-off rumbles of thunder in the western sky. Hopeful images of a cooling rain flickered through my mind as I waited warily to hear what Lu wanted out of me this time. Money or more time?

"See, the thing is, we don't have trouble getting volunteers to come work," she said earnestly, brushing back a lock of sweat damp hair. Her blue chambray sundress showed darker half-circles at the armholes. "We could begin another house tomorrow if we could afford to buy the materials."

I mentally reached for my checkbook. "I can't give you very much right now, but—"

Lu shook her head impatiently. "No, no. I don't want money from you. But you could—if you
would
—clear the way for Kimmer Norris's house."

Every word she spoke set my suspicions quivering like a blue tick on point and I waited for the gunshot that would drop the bird.

"Graham Ogburn called me this afternoon," she said, and everything went up like a covey of bobwhites. "He saw that story about us in the paper yesterday. Your picture."

"No, no, and no!" I said.

"Would you quit shaking your head and just listen? He'll give us all everything for another house just like this one. At his cost. Kimmer and her kids could be out of that broken-down trailer before Christmas."

"Don't do this to me, Lu."

"He's not asking you to drop the charges. He's not even asking for no bail. Just something he can reasonably raise. Heck, Deborah! Even murderers get a fair bail."

"Layton Ogburn was just one step away from murdering someone with a car."

"But he didn't, did he? And his father promises he'll keep him out from under a steering wheel till he comes up for trial. It's tearing his wife apart to see their only son sitting in a jail cell. Come on, Deborah. Show a little Christian compassion, okay?"

"Think of Laura Ogburn's ravaged face," whispered the preacher.

"Sooner or later, Zack Young's gonna find a superior court judge who'll give him his writ of habeas corpus," said the pragmatist. "Might as well let Lu get something for WomenAid out of it while she can."

"Okay," I said at last. "Tell Mr. Ogburn I'll enter an order for reduction of bond first thing in the morning."

"How much?"

"I'll drop it to fifty thousand. And I'll let him post a surety bond."

"Neat-o!" Lu beamed. Her slang's always been ten years out of date. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, as if she'd never had any doubt that she'd persuade me. "Well, I'd better go lay it on the line to those Norris young'uns. Don't y'all work too hard, now."

"The ability of the earth to support a load... varies considerably with different types of soil, and a soil of given bearing capacity will bear a heavier load on a wide foundation or footing than it will on a narrow one."

Despite Lu Bingham's parting injunction, Annie Sue kept me busy fetching and carrying for another hour till she had a lot of the preliminaries done. Paige Byrd came by looking for her and she, too, wound up pulling stiff cables across the ceiling joists or threading them through the drilled holes.

Each time I saw Paige these days, she seemed another pound thinner and just a little more self-confident as she emerged further and further out of her shell. Annie Sue assured me that when the three girls were alone together, Paige could get almost as intense as Cindy at times. (Not by the littlest twitch of my lips did I let on how funny this sounded coming from someone who could make a broken fingernail sound like a major disaster.)

Paige's fingers were still chubby as she pulled and poked, and her lingering plumpness gave her skin a creamy transparency that did little to disguise her emotions.

When Annie Sue told her that Carver Bannerman was married, Paige flushed with partisan indignation, and work almost came to a full stop.

"I knew it!" She rocked back on her heels and tucked behind her ears the locks of red-gold hair that kept falling over the broad planes of her face. "I just knew it! That nasty, whoremongering adulterer!"

Irrelevantly, I couldn't help noting that, if nothing else, a strict church upbringing certainly does provide a richer assortment of synonyms than the variations of "that cheatin' summanabitch" I usually hear in court.

"Does Cindy know?"

"Not unless he told her," said Annie Sue. "You think we ought to go over there after supper?"

"Too late. She said he was picking her up after work. And she just laughed when I asked where they were going."

They stared at each other grimly.

"He's older than we thought, too," said Annie Sue. "Twenty-five, didn't you say, Deborah?"

"Or twenty-six. Reid wasn't sure."

There was an appalled silence. At sixteen, older men were nineteen-year-old college freshmen. Someone ten years older?

"I
knew
he was no good," Paige said again, but there was no satisfaction in her tone.

They didn't ask my advice and there was nothing I could say that would make any difference. They might not be grown, but they weren't children either and there was no way to put raging hormones back in the box once they were loose.

By the time Annie Sue was ready to admit that it was getting too dark to see, mosquitoes were about to eat us alive and all the wall boxes had wires to them although nothing was actually hooked to the panel box yet.

As we loaded tools and ladders back into the truck in the gathering dusk, Herman drove up in the company's newest truck. I saw right off that he wasn't in the best of moods, but I couldn't tell whether it was because he'd had a hard day or because he was half sick.

He was determined to inspect Annie Sue's work and snapped at her impatiently when she couldn't put her hands on the big flashlight that was supposed to be in the back of the truck. Annie Sue got tight-jawed and defensive, and Paige went beet red with sympathetic impotence. It didn't help Herman's temper when I spotted the missing flashlight on the seat of his truck—right where he'd left it.

Tension crackled like heat lightning in the starless sky, but I was too hot and tired to play the thankless role of peacemaker. A mosquito whined in my ear, another was gnawing on my ankle, and my deodorant threw in the towel as perspiration trickled down between my breasts. Suddenly, all I could think of was how nice it'd feel to be floating in Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash's pool, a bourbon and Pepsi floating in an untippable tumbler beside me, far, far away from quarrelsome people.

"See you tomorrow," I said and left them to it.

When I called that evening to tell Ned O'Donnell that I was reducing Layton Ogburn's bail, he was suspicious. "Don't you do it on my account."

"A little ol' district court judge doing favors for a superior court judge? Never in a million years, Your Honor."

I told Zack Young the same thing when he stuck his head in during the midmorning recess next day and thanked me for my cooperation.

"Raising that much cash would've cost your client more than his profits on a WomenAid house," I said, pouring another glass of ice water. "Better in their pocket than in a mortgage company's."

"If it came to that," Zack agreed blandly. "I had an appointment with a superior judge over in Wake County this afternoon. You just saved me a trip to Raleigh."

The day continued overcast and heavy, but the rain held off, tormenting us with a promise of relief that wouldn't come. I sweated through morning court in my heavy robe, then drove home at lunch, took off all my underwear and panty hose, and drove back to court wearing only an opaque cotton sundress and sandals under that horse blanket.

On the afternoon docket, a flasher was followed by a thief who'd stolen his next-door neighbor's air conditioner right out of the window. Both pleaded the heat as a mitigating circumstance. I sent the flasher for a Mental Health evaluation and sent the thief to an air-conditioned jail cell for forty-eight hours.

When I met Annie Sue after work, I warned her that I'd have to leave early for a political meeting over in Makely. She seemed as listless and dispirited as the weather.

"Your dad give you a hard time last night?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Not really. In fact, at breakfast this morning, he told Mom I was doing good. I don't know why he couldn't just tell me though. Why does he have to be like that?"

"At the risk of sounding sexist, honey, that's just the way some men are."

Her smile was wan. "Yeah."

"Did you talk to Cindy?"

She grimaced. "For all the good it did. Guess what? He doesn't love his wife. They're going to get a divorce. 'And what about the baby?' Paige asked her."

"Baby?"

"That's what Cindy said. Yeah, baby. Paige did some asking around. Remember Saturday, that tall black-haired woman? She had on that funny Calvin and Hobbes T-shirt you liked?"

I nodded.

"Well, she lives in the same trailer park as them and she's friends with Rochelle Bannerman. She told Paige that Rochelle and Carver were going through a rocky time of it 'cause neither of them wanted a baby this quickly—they've only been married about a year—but Rochelle's never said anything about a divorce.
And
he's still living with her."

Annie Sue climbed up on the stepladder and started splicing wires into a ceiling box. "We told Cindy all that, but she won't listen. She's talking about dropping out of school and marrying that creep."

Her fingers worked furiously the whole time and as she finished one box and moved her ladder into the dining area to begin on another, thunder rumbled and drops of rain began to fall, tentatively at first, then gathering in volume and tempo till there was a steady drumming on the tar-papered roof over our heads.

We raced out to close the windows on the car and truck and came back damp and cooler as the wind rose and sheets of rain swept down the road in front and even blew vagrant drops onto us as we stood in the doorway and watched. The trees around the house swayed and danced, their leaves turning inside out, and lightning popped somewhere nearby.

After the first rush, the skies lightened somewhat and the winds died down, but rain continued to fall steadily as if it were fixing to set in and go all night. Annie Sue had rigged a droplight so that we had no trouble seeing what we were doing, but it made me lose track of time. Suddenly I realized I only had an hour to shower, change, and get to Makely before the meeting started.

"Want me to help you put this stuff away?" I asked.

"I'll do it. I just need to finish up a couple of more things."

Even though this was a stable, low-crime neighborhood and even though there was plenty of daylight left, I hesitated. "I don't know, honey. I don't think you ought to be here alone."

"It's okay. Besides, Paige's coming. We're going to practice some harmony on a song we're doing at her church next Sunday. She should've already been here." She smiled down at me from her perch. "Don't worry. If she doesn't come soon, I'll pack up and go before dark. Promise."

Just to be on the safe side, I stopped at the convenience store and got Patsy Reddick to lend me the phone again. Eleanor Byrd, Perry Byrd's widow answered on the third ring. I didn't identify myself, just asked for Paige.

"Paige? She left a little while ago to go help work on that WomenAid house." She didn't ask who I was, so I thanked her, hung up, and headed off for a very dull, very routine, but thankfully very short meeting.

It was only a little past eight-thirty when I got back to Dobbs. Had the skies been clear, it wouldn't even be full dark yet. All evening, one storm after another had rolled across the Triangle, misty showers followed by frog-strangling gully washers. At the moment, it was raining fairly hard, but straight down. The temperature hadn't dropped much and I had my window lowered to enjoy the cool wetness on my arm.

My route through town took me only a few blocks from the construction site, and a guilty memory had surfaced on my drive back: I had left Herman's fifty-foot tape measure and brand-new hammer up on one of the cross-braces in the living room. I was sure Annie Sue would overlook them in the twilight; I was equally sure that three little sharp-eyed Norris vandals wouldn't if they disobeyed Lu and came back in the daylight.

There was nothing for it but to go by and pick them up. The convenience store was still open as I turned up Redbud Lane and a light was on in the house diagonally across the way. I pulled into the muddy yard so I could shine my car lights in through the open door space.

To my surprise, Annie Sue's van was still parked there. So was Carver Bannerman's red Jeep. At least I assumed it was his vehicle, only now it was covered by a black vinyl snap-on top.

No one appeared in the doorway and I could see no light. I splashed through the rain and onto the covered porch where I paused to call Annie Sue's name.

No answer.

My car lights did little to illuminate the front room and I nearly tripped on something.

Herman's hammer.

When I picked it up, the handle felt as if someone with greasy hands had been using it, but I barely noticed as I called again.

Rain drummed on the rooftop but beneath the steady pounding, I thought I heard a moan. Something moved at the far end of the house. At first glance it appeared to be a roll of tar paper propped in the corner, then I saw the pale oval of her face.

"Annie Sue?"

"Deb'rah? Dad?" Her voice sounded dazed.

My eyes had become accustomed to the dark and now I saw the overturned stepladder. Broken glass twinkled in the car lights from the smashed light bulb that had been her droplight.

"What's wrong?" I cried, stubbing my toe and banging my shins as I threaded a path through the normal building rubble.

She started to cry as I reached her. "Daddy?"

"He's not here, honey. It's just me. What's happened? Are you all right?" I dropped the hammer and reached to help her stand.

Even in the poor light, she was shocking to see. Her hair was wild, her cheek was scraped, the front of her shirt gaped open, and her shorts and panties were down around her ankles.

She felt her nakedness and groped for her clothes as a wave of nausea hit her. Aflame with a murderous anger I didn't know I could feel, I held her until her stomach was empty and only dry heaves wracked her body.

That bastard. That—

"Did he do it?" Annie Sue sobbed. "Oh sweet Jesus, please don't let me get pregnant! Please, Jesus! Oh Deborah, Mommy and Daddy are going to be so mad at me. I tried to kick him in the—you know—but he just laughed, and I fought and I tried to get away and please, Jesus, don't let me get AIDS!"

Making soothing noises, I helped her pull up her shorts, then coaxed her through the house and out to my car.

"It's okay, honey," I said, smoothing her hair as she cried in my arms. "It's going to be all right, but you have to tell me now what happened. Did Carver Bannerman do this to you?"

She gulped back another sob and nodded.

"You were here all by yourself? Where was Paige?"

"She and Cindy—Dad— They don't like him much. And when he started on me, they left."

"When who started?"

"Dad." Old resentments mingled with misery in her voice. "He was mad at Reese because he'd fouled up a job and then he got over here and I'd wired the kitchen stove outlet to the same circuit as the air conditioner instead of putting them separate and I
knew
it was wrong as soon as I showed it to him, but he could've just said. He didn't have to yell in front of my friends. So they left and then he left and I was so mad I stayed to fix it right and then
he
came in."

"Bannerman?"

"I think I want to go home now," she whimpered.

"We will," I soothed. "Just as soon as you finish telling me."

"I didn't know he was anywhere around. It was raining hard and I didn't hear him come in. I was almost finished and when I turned around, there he was. I told him if he was looking for Cindy, she'd already gone and how come he was out tomcatting around to dances anyhow when he had a pregnant wife at home?"

She shivered and pulled away from me to roll down the window and take long deep breaths of the wet night air. "Oh, God, Deb'rah! What if I
do
get pregnant?"

"What happened next?" I prodded.

"He said, 'What's the matter, dollface? You jealous?' I told him not to be a jerk, but he started bragging about how he'd made a woman of Cindy and I probably wanted him to do me, too. I thought maybe he'd been drinking or was on dope or something and I tried to change the subject. Told him if he was there to inspect the rough-in, I was all finished. I was picking up my tools and he said something nasty about inspecting
my
wiring first and he grabbed me. I tried to get away and that's when the ladder tipped over and smashed the light bulb. He started cursing me and pulled me toward the back of the house. I fought and kicked and he yanked at my shirt and threw me down on the floor and next I must have hit my head because I don't remember anything else till you came and oh, please, Deborah. Let's go home! Please?"