Southern Discomfort dk-2 Page 11

  Tears streamed down Annie Sue's battered face when I told her Herman and Nadine weren't there, but she didn't argue as I turned my car toward the hospital. * * *

  I parked at the emergency entrance and the nurse who came forward as we hurried in out of the rain was Bambi Cobb. Her sister Sherry manages the law office I'd shared with Reid and John Claude and from what I'd seen of Bambi, she was every bit as sharp as Sherry. No dramatics, no superfluous lamentations, just a real efficient professional.

  "We want a full rape kit workup," I said.

  She nodded, then put her arm around Annie Sue and led her down the hall to an examination room.

  I ducked into a nearby rest room, and one look at the mirror made me wonder that Bambi hadn't asked if I needed help, too. I washed my face and hands and did what I could with my sandy blonde hair—in wet weather, it thickens up even more and tries to curl instead of falling smoothly around my face. My soggy coral sandals had walked through so many puddles tonight that they were ruined. Paper towels helped with my muddy feet, but nothing could be done about the smudges on my coral silk blouse. As for my no-longer-white skirt, how did I get so much mud and—were those blood stains? No cuts on my hands. Annie Sue?

  The skirt was full enough to let me briefly consider turning it around.

  "Right," said the pragmatist who could remember every humiliation of junior high. "That's all we need—Colleton County's first female judge walking around with blood-stains on the back of her white skirt."

  "Only dirty minds think dirty thoughts," the preacher said primly.

  I left my skirt where it was, slashed on fresh lipstick and went on down to the waiting room.

  And stopped short.

  There stood Nadine with tearstained, anxious face and beside her stood Dwight Bryant. Both of them stared back at me.

  "What are you doing here?" we asked each other. "Herman's had a heart attack," Nadine said tremulously.

  Dwight cocked a professional eye at my white skirt and frowned. "Is that blood?"

  CHAPTER 10

  DEAD LOAD

  "The total dead load is the total weight of the structure, which gradually increases as the structure rises and remains constant once it is completed. The total live load is the total weight of movable objects (such as people, furniture, bridge traffic or the like) which the structure happens to be supporting at a particular instant."

  I looked down at my white skirt and Dwight's question triggered a memory of how I'd wiped my hand across it before I reached for Annie Sue tonight.

  "The hammer," I said.

  "Hammer?" he asked, but I brushed him aside.

  "Herman had a heart attack? When? How bad is it?"

  "They don't know yet," said Nadine. "They found him collapsed behind the steering wheel of his truck. Just a few minutes ago." She glanced at the clock on the wall above us and shook her head in bewilderment over how much time had passed. An hour ago."

  Dwight took her by the arm and led her over to a dark purple couch. "Come sit down, Nadine."

  It seemed to be a quiet night. Except for an elderly man half-dozing in an easy chair near the door and a nurse absorbed in paperwork, we were the only ones here in the waiting room as I followed Dwight across the polished vinyl tile and took an adjacent armchair. All the chairs and couches were harmonizing shades of plums and grays that simulated soft leather but were really wipe-down vinyl.

  "I heard the Dobbs dispatcher and recognized the description of Herman's truck," Dwight told me. "Soon as they identified him and said they were going to bring him here, I went and got Nadine."

  "Annie Sue!" Nadine exclaimed. "I didn't leave her a note or anything. She'll be worried to death. And I should call Reese and Haywood, too."

  "I just did that," Dwight reminded her.

  "But how's Herman?" I insisted.

  "They're still trying to get him stabilized," said Dwight.

  "Dr. Worley's in there with him. And another doctor. I tried to make him come. For over a week. Didn't I? I told Dr. Worley I tried to make him come. You know I did, Deb'rah!"

  I patted her arm sympathetically. "You did everything you could."

  "You saw him drop that hymn book in church Sunday?"

  I nodded.

  "He said the ends of his fingers just went numb on him all of a sudden. Like they went to sleep or something. And his toes keep feeling sort of numb, too."

  It didn't sound good. Numbness in the extremities—didn't that mean serious blockage in the veins? I remembered when I went to call him for dinner Sunday and found him stretched full length on the couch in front of a televised news program. His eyes were closed, his face was a putty gray, his breathing labored.

  "You should have just picked him up and hauled him to a doctor right then," scolded the I-told-you-so voice of the preacher.

  "You and whose army?" the pragmatist asked sarcastically. Nadine was struggling to her feet again. "Annie Sue," she murmured.

  I took a deep breath and caught her hand. "Wait, Nadine. She's not at home. She's here."

  She and Dwight both looked around blankly, then Dwight's eyes searched mine and immediately dropped to the ghastly stains on my skirt.

  "She's okay. At least, she's going to be okay." There was no gentle way to put it. "She's been raped."

  Nadine lost color. Her legs buckled and she sank back onto the couch.

  Before I could say more, Bambi came down the hall, followed by a tired-looking intern in a rumpled blue lab coat. They crossed the large room and paused discreetly until I motioned them over.

  "This is my niece's mother," I said. "Nadine, this is Bambi Cobb. She's been taking care of Annie Sue."

  "Is she all right? Where is she?" Nadine said, struggling to her feet.

  "She's going to be just fine," said the doctor who was on ER duty that night.

  "Did Deborah tell you?" Bambi asked.

  "That someone—" Nadine couldn't make herself say the horrible words.

  Impulsively, Bambi took her hand. "It's okay, Mrs. Knott. She wasn't raped."

  "What?" I was dumbfounded.

  "She was assaulted," the doctor said grimly. "Facial contusions, bruises to her upper extremities, but there was no penetration, no semen smears, no bruising in the vaginal area itself. And the hymen is still intact. Your daughter has a mild concussion—it would appear that she was thrown down rather violently—but I'd guess that he panicked and fled when he realized she was unconscious."

  Nadine was suddenly an enraged mother tiger ready to kill. "I want to see my baby. Now!"

  "Of course," the intern agreed. "I've given her a tranquilizer and I want to check her blood pressure again, but then she can go home."

  As they left the waiting room, Dwight turned to me. "What happened, Deb'rah? Who did it?"

  I gave him as many details as I could remember, carefully editing out Cindy McGee's involvement with that hound's leavings. No point smearing her with his slime.

  "I'll try to get Nadine to swear out a warrant against Bannerman," I said, "but she may not want to if she thinks it'll hurt Annie Sue. And with Herman—how is he really, Dwight?"

  He shrugged bleakly and held out an arm to me. "Don't look good, shug."

  I've known Dwight since I was a little girl and he was one of the gang of neighborhood boys that used to hang out at the farm and play whatever ball my brothers were tossing around at the moment. He fusses at me, tries to watch out for me, comforts me just like one of them; and I let myself be enfolded by his big arm because sometimes you just need to lay your burdens down for a few minutes and take refuge in a loving human hug.

  I leaned against his broad chest and tucked my head under his chin as reaction set in.

  "I swear to God," I told him, "if that slug had come back for his car right then, I'd have bashed his head in with Herman's hammer."

  "Shh," said Dwight, his voice muffled by my hair.

  But my words suddenly registered in both our heads and we pulled apart.

  "Bl
ood!" I said.

  "His car?" asked Dwight.

  "I'll bet he hit Annie Sue with that hammer," I said. "That's why there's blood on my skirt."

  "Hold on a minute," he said. "How come Bannerman left his car there?"

  Before I could speculate, the waiting room was flooded with Knotts.

  Reese and his girlfriend tumbled through the door one step ahead of Haywood and Isabel and two of their kids. Andrew and April came with A.K. and Ruth. Seth, Minnie and their kids arrived moments later because Minnie had stopped to call one of Nadine's sisters. Will and Amy were right behind them and they'd brought Daddy, who came in grim-faced and resigned to hear the worst. Soon I saw Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash and some New Deliverance Church people.

  Brothers who lived away had been called and were just waiting for the word to get on plane or car, but by the time Nadine appeared with her arm around a shaky Annie Sue, every Knott in that end of Colleton County knew everything we knew about what had happened to both my brother and my niece. The women rushed to comfort Nadine and Annie Sue; the men buzzed around like an overturned hornet nest. My brothers were talking horse-whips; their sons and daughters were talking hanging trees.

  They all fell silent though when Dr. Worley appeared in the doorway. For a moment, he seemed taken aback by so many of Herman's kinfolks, but we moved aside automatically and he made his way to Nadine, who sat between Daddy and Annie Sue. Someone gave the doctor a chair so he could face all three of them, then we all circled around so we could hear, too.

  "We've got him stabilized," he told Nadine. "But frankly, I don't know for how long. It's not his heart, although there may be some peripheral involvement. His white blood count's way down and there's definite neurological damage. It may have been a stroke, but there's some kidney blockage—it's a medical nightmare. Frankly, all we can do right now is treat the symptoms until we can do more tests. And Dobbs Memorial just isn't equipped for what he needs. I want to airlift him to Chapel Hill."

  "Airlift?" Nadine looked around our circle of faces.

  "Helicopter," said Daddy. "That sounds pretty serious, son."

  "It is, Mr. Kezzie."

  Their eyes met and Daddy nodded.

  "Whatever it takes, whatever it costs—" He broke off and put his gnarled hand over Nadine's. "But it ain't mine to say. You're his wife, girl. You want them to do this?"

  "Yes!" she said. "Of course, yes. Only"—her eyes sought out the preacher, who'd come as soon as her sister had called him—"could we have a prayer first?"

  The only times I'd heard New Deliverance's preacher pray, he'd struck me as overly long-winded. Tonight, he was brief and to the point as we all joined hands and bowed our heads: "Lord God who hears us when we cry thy name, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, but we pray mercy on this family, Lord, and on thy good and faithful servant Herman. In Jesus' name we pray it. Amen."

  "Amen," we echoed. * * *

  It was quickly arranged after that. Nadine would go in the helicopter with Herman. Some of the girl cousins would drive Annie Sue home to bathe and change and pack a suitcase for her mother, then they would drive her over to Chapel Hill, which was about an hour or so west of us. Reese called Charlotte and Greensboro to let Edward and Denise know what was happening. Everyone else would either go on home to wait for news or head over to Chapel Hill to sit with Nadine.

  Dwight had waylaid Nadine and Annie Sue for a few quiet words and before the rest completely scattered, he had another few quiet words for my hotheaded relatives.

  "I don't want anybody here doing anything stupid, you boys hear what I'm saying? I'll take care of Bannerman as soon as I can swear out a warrant. It's gonna be done legal and by the book, so I want all y'all to give me your word you'll leave it alone."

  "Too late for Reese's word," said Stevie. "He and A.K.'ve already gone looking for him."

  As Dwight headed out to his car to radio for someone to head Reese off at the trailer park, I snagged Stevie.

  "One of Herman's trucks is over at the WomenAid house," I told him. "I'll run you over and help you pick up the tools Annie Sue was using and you can drive it home, okay?"

  "Sure," he said. * * *

  By the time we got to Redbud Lane, it was after ten, the rain had dwindled to a thin drizzle, and the convenience store on the corner was locked and dimly lit. Bannerman's Jeep was still parked beside the white van and I suppose we could thank the rain that the van hadn't been stripped because neither Annie Sue nor I had thought to lock it when we left.

  All my brothers and I are in the habit of leaving our keys under the front seat if we aren't locking up, and Annie Sue had evidently picked up the same habit. Stevie, too, because he went right to the floor, fumbled around and came up with them jingling in his hand.

  I found a flashlight and we went inside. He folded up the overturned stepladder and carried it out to the truck while I started gathering up the scattered tools. When we'd almost finished, I remembered the hammer I'd dropped at the rear of the house where I found Annie Sue.

  Okay, easy enough to say I should have realized as soon as I first touched the hammer hours earlier, but dammit, my niece was battered and bloody. I thought she'd been raped. And then Herman—

  But yeah, I suppose the minute I saw that stupid red phallic symbol still parked in the yard, I should have known Carver Bannerman had never left.

  We found him draped over a saw-bench at the back of the house with his head smashed in.

  Like Herman, he got sent to Chapel Hill that night, too.

  Except that Herman went to Intensive Care and Bannerman went to the medical examiner's morgue.

  CHAPTER 11

  LINE LEVELS

  "The line level is used to test whether a line or cord is level. It is particularly useful when the distance between two points to be checked for level is too long to permit the use of a board and the carpenter's level. However, the line level will show a disadvantage at a long distance because the line has a tendency to sag."

  Few crime scenes are what Aunt Zell would call neat, but the WomenAid house was a real mess.

  Literally.

  The yard was a muddy pigmire. Although it had been crisscrossed with car tracks and footprints, hours of rain had blurred them into a sameness impossible to differentiate.

  Inside, the floors were littered with scraps of two-by-fours, bent nails, pieces of tar paper and insulation, and plastic drink cups. Plastic tarps lay crumpled in the corners or draped over the wall spacers. When we were there working in the late afternoon, Annie Sue and I had mucked back and forth to the truck, through the sawdust that had drifted over the concrete floor; and every time Stevie and I went in and out with stepladder and tools, we'd tracked yet another load of wet mud.

  Dwight's crime scene people brought portable floodlights and they began to photograph every inch of the place inside and out, but I couldn't see as how they'd find much to help them. The heat they generated made the humid air even steamier.

  I showed Dwight exactly where I thought I'd stumbled on the hammer near the front door. As it turned out, when I carried it back to where I found Annie Sue, I wound up dropping it less than three feet from where Carver Bannerman's body still lay, slumped over a sawbench like one of the plastic tarps, his pants unzipped but still in place.

  "And you didn't see him lying there?" Dwight asked skeptically.

  "Oh sure, you can say that, lit up like it is now. When I came in, though, there was nothing but my car lights. Everything was dark and shadowy. I told you I sort of thought Annie Sue was a roll of tar paper till I heard her moan, remember? And after that, taking care of her was all I thought about. It certainly didn't occur to me to start fumbling around to see if any of those other dark lumps were human bodies."

  "Come here a minute," he said and took me off to the far side of the small house, out of earshot of his officers. His brown eyes were troubled as he looked deeply into mine. "Now listen, Deb'rah, and don't mouth off at me, 'cause this is for real. You sure t
his is the way you want to tell it?"

  "What?"

  "Well, think about it. If Annie Sue was the one who bashed his head in, it seems to me it'd be a clear-cut case of self-defense. The doctor can attest to her bruises and that blow on her head. She might not even have realized what she was doing. Fighting him off and all, what if she just grabbed the hammer and flailed away?"

  "And then carried the hammer out to the living room for me to trip over and came back in here to pass out close to his body?"

  "People with concussions do crazy things," he said stubbornly.

  "True. But then wouldn't her hand be even bloodier than mine was?" I asked.

  "Did she wash or—"

  I was shaking my head. "No, no, and no. That's why I took her straight to the hospital instead of home. I wanted every scrap of physical evidence to remain on her body until it was documented. You and I both know that the first thing rape victims want to do is take a long hot shower, get clean again."

  He nodded.

  "I didn't want her near a bathroom till a nurse with a rape kit had gone over her body with a fine tooth comb." I winced at the cliché, suddenly remembering that it wasn't a trite figure of speech: Annie Sue's pubic area would indeed have been combed for foreign hairs.

  "Bambi probably took fingernail scrapings, too," I said. "Even if Annie Sue'd rinsed her hands in the rain, his blood would still be there."

  "I'll check," said Dwight. "But if Annie Sue didn't do it..." His voice trailed off and his face got even gloomier.

  I was incredulous.

  "You think I killed him?"

  "Your fingerprints will be on the hammer. That's probably his blood on your skirt," Dwight said. "Say you came back and found Bannerman in the act of raping your niece. Say you had a hammer in your hand. Wouldn't you have smacked him over the head with it?"