Chapter 3

Saturday morning, Hollis Bean came out from Bean & Son Refrigeration with a toolbox and a bad attitude about being called on a weekend.

He opened the walk-in. He stood inside it for a minute with his hands in his pockets, breathing. Then he put a thermometer in the box and another one in a glass of water and shut the door.

"Thirty-eight," he said when he came out. "Thirty-eight and holding. When's the last time that door was open more than a minute?"

"Yesterday morning. Twenty minutes, carrying in chicken."

"There you go." He tapped the display on the outside of the door - the little digital readout that showed the box temperature. "This thing's got a sensor on the frame. You stand there with the door open, it climbs. Fifty-eight, sixty, whatever. Shut it and it comes back down in ten minutes. It's been doing that since I installed it."

"So the number was real."

"The number was real for about ten minutes," Hollis said. "Anybody who inspects coolers for a living knows that."

Inez stood in her own kitchen with her arms crossed and looked at the flat top she'd already cleaned twice.

At eleven the bank called. At two, Garland Teague from Kettle Creek Markets came in, took off his hat, and sat at the counter like a customer.

"Miss Inez. I heard about your trouble."

"You heard."

"I want you to know the offer stands. It'll stand in September too. A lot of folks in this county would take it and be glad."

"I'm not a lot of folks."

He left his card on the counter anyway.

That evening, after the supper rush that never came, Bay spread the inspection report on the counter under the hanging light and read it out loud.

"'Time in, nine forty a.m. Time out, ten-oh-five a.m. Walk-in cooler holding at fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. Violation, imminent health hazard. Placard posted.'"

"Read the next part."

"'The three-door reach-in on the east wall has a missing handle on the left door. Recommend repair within thirty days.'"

Bay looked up.

Inez was very still.

"That handle," Bay said slowly. "We fixed that. I helped Mr. Hollis put it on. That was-"

"Two summers ago."

"So he's writing about a kitchen that doesn't exist anymore." Bay's voice climbed. "Grandma, that's not a report. That's a story about a report."

Inez took the pages and read them again herself, twice, the way she read a recipe she already knew by heart.

Time in, 9:40 a.m. Time out, 10:05 a.m.

Eleven people had watched Rufus Tillery walk into her dining room at ten past noon.

She folded the report along the staples and put it in her apron pocket.

"He didn't write this Friday," she said. "He wrote it out of something old."