"Or tell Retha to hold the mayo on your hamburger at lunch," I added.

O'Connor laughed as he stood up. He wasn't nearly as tall as Dwight, but he certainly did have long legs inside those stovepipe jeans. Long thin fingers, too. They say that men with long fingers- 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 doc.u.ment over the coffee maker, an inspection rating from the Health Department. Retha suddenly appeared from behind the kitchen part.i.tion, 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 rea.s.sure 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 a.r.s.enic 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 a.r.s.enic."

"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 a.r.s.enic, 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' Ba.s.s 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 un.o.btrusively. 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 a.r.s.enic 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.

Dwight walked me out to my car and we stood there in the hot thick sunshine talking.

When they widened the streets a few years ago, they cut down most of the huge old oaks that had shaded the old cracked sidewalks. Now stiff little Bradford pears marched up and down in wire support cages. One of these days they would flower and be pretty in the spring, but they'd never provide the shade those oaks had.

Depressing.

Dwight wasn't too happy with himself for embarra.s.sing Ava. He wanted to blame me for not telling him that Ba.s.s had walked out on her, but that dog wouldn't fight and he knew it. Still, it did remind me.

"You're all the time saying I don't tell you things, but you were out of the county then, too; so do you remember how Ava got burned?"

Like me, he knew only that there'd been a fire. When I told him about why Herman wanted to take part of the blame for Tink's miswiring of the old house, he looked thoughtful. "You thinking one of them-"

"No," I said firmly. "I don't. But we both know people can brood on things and finally do something weird. I still think O'Connor's going to find a perfectly accidental source, but if the Coffee Pot does turn out to be the only eating place they really crossed, you'll find a way to blame me if you don't have all the facts. Besides, didn't Ba.s.s leave last week about the time Herman started feeling bad? Are the two connected? You're the police officer, you tell me."

"But Bannerman had nothing to do with the fire."

"No, but he couldn't keep his fly zipped. If he ate at the Coffee Pot three or four times a week, you can bet money he made at least one pa.s.s at Ava. Just to be friendly if nothing else. She's not even twenty-five yet, and with men like him, every woman under fifty's an automatic hit. Did it flatter her or make her mad? And what did Ba.s.s and Tink think?"

Dwight allowed as how I had a point. So far, he'd had no luck finding out who'd used the hammer on Bannerman.

"Maybe I'll go question Roch.e.l.le Bannerman again. I have to tell her about the a.r.s.enic. Maybe she knows something."

I resisted the temptation to be catty and opened my car door. At the last minute, I remembered what Reese had told me. "Did either of your deputies tell you she wasn't home when Reese and A.K. got out to the trailer park Tuesday?"

"Yeah. She was over at a girlfriend's place."

"The whole evening?"

He shrugged. "You know what the trouble with air-conditioning is? Everybody stays inside with their doors and windows closed and watches television."

"Too bad you didn't have Mayleen Richards go through the Bannerman hamper for his wife's dirty clothes."

"Huh?"

"Think how hot it was Tuesday night. Rainy and muggy. Yet when Mrs. Bannerman arrived at the WomenAid house, her hair and clothes were clean and fresh. Opal Grimes was a mess, but Roch.e.l.le Bannerman looked like she'd just stepped out of a shower. The question is, when? Not after Reese and A.K. got there, that's for sure."

Suddenly, just talking about a shower made me long for one myself and as Dwight drove off to question Mrs. Bannerman, I headed home with my air-conditioning pushed as high as it'd go.

CHAPTER 16.

EXTERIOR WALL INSULATION.

"Insulation also serves a valuable purpose in moisture control, which prevents rot and fungus growth... The fireproofing and vermin-proofing qualities of insulation should also be considered."

Much as I wanted to spend the weekend with K.C. Ma.s.sengill at her lakefront cottage, I didn't see how I could get out from under all my obligations.

"You're gonna do what?" she asked when I called to tell her so Friday night.

"Don't make it worse," I implored. I didn't want to hear about cool swims and shady walks and handsome guys on screened porches, as steaks grilled on the cooker and moons rose romantically over the water.

Not when I was going to be laboring again at the WomenAid house. I had visions of sweat-damp work clothes and itchy pink fibergla.s.s particles sticking to my skin.

Actually, Sat.u.r.day turned out not to be all that bad. A high pressure system came through early in the morning and left behind crystal clear dry air. The previous Sat.u.r.day had seen temperature and humidity both in the nineties. This weekend, it never got out of the low eighties and humidity was way, way down.

Nor did I have to put on a mask and coveralls or wrestle with rolls of fibergla.s.s. Must be part of the covered-dish-dinner syndrome. Tell a bunch of women to bring a vegetable, a meat or a dessert to a community meal and you'll always-not once in a while, but always-get a balanced selection. Volunteering for specific jobs seems to work the same way. There were women who actually wanted to tack six-inch-thick insulation batts between all the exterior studs and joists, and I certainly wasn't going to get in their way. Another crew swarmed onto the roof and had all the shingles on before lunch. I myself got to help set the two exterior doors and nine windows, which was sort of fun.

In and around cries for more nails. "Head's up!" and "Nail it 'fore it grows," Carver Bannerman's death was the big topic of conversation. Of equal interest were the doses of a.r.s.enic he and Herman had ingested. Had it only been Herman, human nature being what it is, Annie Sue and I might have worked all morning surrounded by a coc.o.o.n of speculative silence. Enough Tar Heel wives have laced their husband's food that you couldn't blame even good friends for wondering if Nadine had suddenly decided to exchange wedded bliss for widowhood. Luckily for Nadine, young Carver Bannerman's quasi-victimship kept Herman's firmly in the realm of accidental.

Yes, poison was a woman's weapon of choice; yes, most women-most convicted women-seldom stopped with one victim; but since there seemed to be no connection between Herman and Bannerman, people felt free to exclaim and question.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," said everyone who'd heard of Bannerman's attack on Annie Sue.

He was being buried over in Goldsboro that morning, so his wife's friend, Opal Grimes, wasn't around to crimp the lively discussion. If asked, most of the women wouldn't have recognized either Carver or Roch.e.l.le, but that didn't stop the cheerfully catty gossip as we hammered and sawed in the cool morning sunlight. Lazy but shrewd was the general a.s.sessment of Roch.e.l.le. a.s.suming he was a prize worth having-a man for whom every woman was a potential s.e.xual conquest-she had skillfully played the cards she'd been dealt and had won the gold ring.

A car had been seen arriving and then leaving again in the rainy twilight just minutes before I got there. A woman down the street thought for sure the driver was a young woman, and her description of the car was enough like Roch.e.l.le Bannerman's that I figured Dwight was looking very carefully into her account of how she'd spent the evening. Not that he was sharing that information with me.

"He sure was handsome," conceded the woman who had approved a bank mortgage on his trailer, "but can you imagine going to bed with him?" She pounded a final nail into her end of the siding. "One of my clerks heard he'd lay anything with a v.a.g.i.n.a. Wouldn't you be terrified of waking up with some nasty infection? To say nothing of AIDS?"

"Well, I heard-"

"My brother-in-law said-"

"-and her husband was right there in the room!"

None of the volunteers acted as if they knew of Cindy McGee's involvement with the dead man because the dirt was dished too freely as she moved back and forth from one task to another. Except for Paige and Annie Sue, I seemed to be the only one who noticed her drawn face and her lack of chatter.

Attention was showered on Annie Sue. She got praise for her bravery and commiseration both for the attack and for Herman's illness. Her self-esteem had lots of bolstering that day.

Poor Cindy had nothing; and every time another comment about Bannerman's womanizing went round, Paige Byrd flushed crimson and looked equally miserable. Sympathetic mortification for her friend, no doubt. Yet she, too, had to hold her tongue.

Somehow they got through the morning and at lunchtime, one of the women from Paige's church called upon the three girls for a song. They were scheduled to sing at services the next morning, "but I've got to go to Greensboro tonight, so I won't get to hear you," she said.

"Yes, do sing for us!" others urged.

Cindy and Paige both looked like they'd just as soon go eat worms, but when Annie Sue stepped up onto the porch, they didn't have much choice.

I'd never heard the girls sing together and their close harmony was a pleasant surprise. No accompaniment, just an a cappella rendering of some old hymns. Annie Sue had always enjoyed the spotlight, and I was glad to see an easing of tension in Cindy's face. Even Paige seemed to lose herself in the melody. Their fresh young voices twined in and out, point and counterpoint, until they infected the rest of us.

A black woman beside me began to croon along. Another joined in with a more solid gospel swing. I've always adored sing-alongs-never do I feel so connected to other people around me as when my voice lifts with theirs-and soon we were all so much into it that BeeBee Powell's new front yard sounded like the Benson Singing Grove over in Johnston County.

Lu Bingham had served a Peace Corps stint, and she taught us a women's work song from West Africa. We went back to our tools more refreshed than if we'd spent the whole lunch hour resting. Throughout the afternoon, occasional bursts of song spurred us on. Everything from Michael, Row the Boat Ash.o.r.e to There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly. Lu had to cut us off after one chorus of We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, though, because our hammers went from a brisk 78 rpm to a lugubrious 33 .

After a quick shower that evening, I drove over to Chapel Hill while it was still light, taking back roads that wound past stands of lush green corn and fields of half-cropped tobacco. Almost every yard was lined with watermelon red crepe myrtles or yellow daylilies. Knee-deep in summer! Whoever wrote that knew about ditch banks tumbled with yellow sneezeweeds and wild pink roses, about powerlines and bridge abutments draped in camouflage curtains of kudzu vines, about jack oaks heavy with broad dark leaves.

Near Holly Springs, I got stuck behind a farm truck piled high with huge burlap bundles of cured tobacco, but I was in no hurry and didn't really mind. Occasionally, a beautiful yellow leaf would work its way out of a bundle and drift back past my windshield like an exotic golden b.u.t.terfly.

Daddy always shakes his head when he sends tobacco off to market like that-"like bundles of dirty clothes," he says-because he was a grown man with sons working alongside him before farmers quit marketing tobacco in the old way.

First the cured leaves went from stick barns to the packhouse where they were gently stripped from the four-foot-six sticks, each leaf sorted according to grade, then hand-gathered into bundles thick as a woman's wrist and the stem ends hidden by wrapping them in a smooth "tie leaf." Next, each bundle was hung back over the stick and packed onto the truck's flatbed for the drive to market. At the warehouse, the sticks were unloaded and carefully piled in a neat stack on the market floor. "And any young'un who carelessly stepped on a bundle of prime-grade leaf was lucky not to get a switching," my brother Andrew tells me.

By the time I came along and started helping by driving tractor, Daddy and my brothers had switched over to gas-fired bulk barns that look like the box trailers of an eighteen-wheeler. No more tying the leaves onto sticks, no more hand-grading. Just dump the cured leaves out onto big burlap squares, knot the four corners and toss them onto a truck headed for Fuquay or Wilson.

Herman was cranked up in bed when I got to the hospital and he looked more alert than I'd yet seen him. His feet and legs had sustained the most neurological damage. They had started physical therapy, but it was still too soon to know what the final outcome might be.

"I'll be clomping up and down the hall with one of them metal walkers like an old crippled person," Herman said ruefully.

"Better than a wheelchair," said Nadine.

But it might be a wheelchair.

It was his first stay ever in a hospital; and, since Nadine was probably the only woman who'd touched his body since he was married, he was finding the experience almost as embarra.s.sing as it was interesting. Certainly it was a novelty to have a pretty young physical therapist manipulate his legs and ma.s.sage his hands and feet.

The tips of his fingers were still numb, too. He was aware of pressure, but not tactile discernment. He could handle a fork well enough to do justice to his supper tray, "but I don't know as I'll ever be able to hold little screws again."

"Sure you will," said Nadine.