Chapter 7

Bay wrote it. Inez signed it. At 9:40 Sunday night, Bay attached the appeal, the refrigeration log, Hollis Bean's statement, and a photograph of a photograph to an email and sent it to the state Office of Environmental Health, and a machine wrote back: Your message has been received.

At ten past ten, headlights swung across the front window.

Dean Prewitt got out of his truck. He wasn't in the golf shirt anymore. He had on a jacket and a tie, and on the lapel was the enamel county commission badge, the kind that comes in a blue box. He came in without knocking and stood in the middle of the empty dining room with his hands in his pockets.

"I heard you called Dandridge."

"I called Dandridge."

"He called me." Prewitt pulled out a chair and sat down like he owned the place, which, in a way, he did. "Inez, I'm going to talk to you like family, because that's what we are. You've got a lot of people in this county who love you. You've got a lot of people who owe you money, and a lot of people who owe you more than money."

"Say what you came to say."

"Take the penalty. Take the offer from Teague. You walk away with money in your hand and your name on the sign over the door for as long as you want it."

"And if I don't?"

Prewitt leaned back. "The county's been patient about your taxes. There's a parking variance on that lot that gets reviewed every three years. There's a building inspector who's never once set foot in this place." He shrugged. "I'm not saying anybody would do anything. I'm saying things get looked at."

"You'd do that."

"I'd hate it," he said. "But I'd vote my conscience."

Inez stood behind the counter with her hands on the register and did not sit down.

"I fed your daddy on credit for eleven months in ninety-three," she said. "He paid me back four dollars at a time."

Prewitt's jaw moved. He stood up and put his chair back and straightened his jacket.

Then he took out a pen to write something on the back of a business card, and he tapped the pen twice on the counter with his right hand.

Silver ring. Heavy. Dark square stone.

From the kitchen doorway, Bay made a sound.

Prewitt looked up. "What?"

"Nothing, sir."

He left. The truck pulled out. The taillights went down the square and turned at the bank.

The commission met the first and third Monday of the month. Tomorrow was the third Monday.

Bay came around the counter with her phone already open, already zoomed, already shaking.

"Grandma."

"I saw it."

"His ring. The ring in the picture. On the hand on the table."

"I saw it, baby."

"That's him. That's the man in the ballroom with the badge."

Inez picked up the register keys, locked the drawer, and put them in her pocket.

"Nine o'clock tomorrow," she said. "We're going to need more chairs."