Read Online Southern Discomfort by Margaret Maron - Free Book Online
Authors: Margaret Maron
Tags: Fiction, General, LEGAL, Mystery & Detective, Mystery Fiction, Missing Persons, Knott; Deborah (Fictitious Character), Women Judges
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turned to Ally Mycroft. "Did you forget to give me some add-ons?" I asked coldly.
"Oh, I'm
so
sorry, Your Honor," said that whited sepulcher as she handed up the proper sheet.
I barely had time to scan the amended form when Doug Woodall said, "Line three of the add-ons, Your Honor. State versus Elizabeth Hamilton Englert."
Immediately, Ambrose Daughtridge, the county's most courtly silver-haired attorney, entered through the double doors at the rear of the courtroom, his hand on Mrs. Englert's elbow, as if she might trip on her way down the aisle to the bar of justice. Ambrose couldn't have been more lofty and dignified than if he were escorting her to a concert, but I thought I detected a slightly self-conscious expression on Mrs. Englert's patrician face, the sort of look she might wear if she'd arrived at the concert after the conductor had begun the first movement, so that she now had to inconvenience those already seated and wrapped in music. Ambrose shepherded her to a chair at the defense table as Doug began reading the charge.
I kept my face serene and interested, but inside I was seething. Those bastards. Reid and Dwight.
Wait'll I get my hands on you, I promised them silently.
The other attorneys might think it funny that Kezzie Knott's daughter was going to have to pass judgment on one of Dobbs's most prominent women for possession of untaxed liquor; but of those present, only Reid and Dwight knew that Mrs. Englert had personally squashed the matrimonial designs her son had on me a few years back. A bootlegger's daughter had been deemed an unsuitable vessel by which to convey Hamilton-Englert genes into the twenty-first century.
Not that I would have had Randolph Englert as a present on a Christmas tree, but it should have been my decision, not his mother's. Unfortunately, Reid and Dwight were both there in the lounge of the Holiday Inn the night Randolph suggested that we cool it for a while till his mother came around. I told him our relationship was already cold enough to keep his reptilian relatives in hibernation till the next glacier hit town; then, just in case he still had any hots for me, I dumped an ice bucket in his lap and walked out.
Next day Reid left a package of Frosty Morn frozen sausages on my desk. Said it was Dwight's idea.
Sophomoric enough to be something Dwight'd think up—especially when you look at how teeny those sausages are.
Doug finished reading the charge: unlawful possession of untaxed liquor.
"How does the defendant plead?" I asked.
Ambrose came majestically to his feet. "Not guilty, Your Honor."
"Call Major Dwight Bryant to the stand," said Doug.
Theoretically, I could have disqualified myself since I'd already heard Dwight describe the circumstances under which he'd found two half-gallon Mason jars of white whiskey in Elizabeth Hamilton Englert's basement. On the other hand, Ambrose would be hard put to find a judge in the district who hadn't heard. Any time the mighty get humbled, the story goes around faster than blue mold through a tobacco field, particularly when circumstances were this ridiculous.
From time out of mind, Hamiltons had led the fight for an alcohol-free county. Every generation threw up at least one preacher or congressman or state senator who'd ride that hobbyhorse far as he could to the exclusion of all others.
Englerts tended to be less vocal but generally more adamant about the evils of drunkenness. Every Englert generation threw up at least one backslider.
Elizabeth Hamilton had unwittingly married her generation's backslider.
Not that Lawrence Englert was intemperate by normal standards; just that by Hamilton-Englert principles, anybody who looked upon the wine when it was red (or whiskey when it was white, for that matter) was a potential degenerate perched atop the slippery slopes of hell.
So Mr. Englert in his day, like his son Randolph in this generation, had done his drinking on the sly. He had cultivated a connoisseur's taste for
"Oh, I'm
so
sorry, Your Honor," said that whited sepulcher as she handed up the proper sheet.
I barely had time to scan the amended form when Doug Woodall said, "Line three of the add-ons, Your Honor. State versus Elizabeth Hamilton Englert."
Immediately, Ambrose Daughtridge, the county's most courtly silver-haired attorney, entered through the double doors at the rear of the courtroom, his hand on Mrs. Englert's elbow, as if she might trip on her way down the aisle to the bar of justice. Ambrose couldn't have been more lofty and dignified than if he were escorting her to a concert, but I thought I detected a slightly self-conscious expression on Mrs. Englert's patrician face, the sort of look she might wear if she'd arrived at the concert after the conductor had begun the first movement, so that she now had to inconvenience those already seated and wrapped in music. Ambrose shepherded her to a chair at the defense table as Doug began reading the charge.
I kept my face serene and interested, but inside I was seething. Those bastards. Reid and Dwight.
Wait'll I get my hands on you, I promised them silently.
The other attorneys might think it funny that Kezzie Knott's daughter was going to have to pass judgment on one of Dobbs's most prominent women for possession of untaxed liquor; but of those present, only Reid and Dwight knew that Mrs. Englert had personally squashed the matrimonial designs her son had on me a few years back. A bootlegger's daughter had been deemed an unsuitable vessel by which to convey Hamilton-Englert genes into the twenty-first century.
Not that I would have had Randolph Englert as a present on a Christmas tree, but it should have been my decision, not his mother's. Unfortunately, Reid and Dwight were both there in the lounge of the Holiday Inn the night Randolph suggested that we cool it for a while till his mother came around. I told him our relationship was already cold enough to keep his reptilian relatives in hibernation till the next glacier hit town; then, just in case he still had any hots for me, I dumped an ice bucket in his lap and walked out.
Next day Reid left a package of Frosty Morn frozen sausages on my desk. Said it was Dwight's idea.
Sophomoric enough to be something Dwight'd think up—especially when you look at how teeny those sausages are.
Doug finished reading the charge: unlawful possession of untaxed liquor.
"How does the defendant plead?" I asked.
Ambrose came majestically to his feet. "Not guilty, Your Honor."
"Call Major Dwight Bryant to the stand," said Doug.
Theoretically, I could have disqualified myself since I'd already heard Dwight describe the circumstances under which he'd found two half-gallon Mason jars of white whiskey in Elizabeth Hamilton Englert's basement. On the other hand, Ambrose would be hard put to find a judge in the district who hadn't heard. Any time the mighty get humbled, the story goes around faster than blue mold through a tobacco field, particularly when circumstances were this ridiculous.
From time out of mind, Hamiltons had led the fight for an alcohol-free county. Every generation threw up at least one preacher or congressman or state senator who'd ride that hobbyhorse far as he could to the exclusion of all others.
Englerts tended to be less vocal but generally more adamant about the evils of drunkenness. Every Englert generation threw up at least one backslider.
Elizabeth Hamilton had unwittingly married her generation's backslider.
Not that Lawrence Englert was intemperate by normal standards; just that by Hamilton-Englert principles, anybody who looked upon the wine when it was red (or whiskey when it was white, for that matter) was a potential degenerate perched atop the slippery slopes of hell.
So Mr. Englert in his day, like his son Randolph in this generation, had done his drinking on the sly. He had cultivated a connoisseur's taste for
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