Officer Hugh Collins knocked on Miss Missy Rafferty’s deep orange front door. He didn’t use the lion head knocker, just his bare knuckles.
“Miss Rafferty, may I come in? It’s Officer Hugh Collins from the New Bern Police Department.”
“Yes, officer. I’m in the kitchen. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No, thank you,” he said as he walked quickly into the relatively small pine cupboard kitchen. Given the size of the house, he’d imagined the room where the food was prepared would be larger. He didn’t see the larder around the corner. He felt his presence filling the room.
“I don’t believe I’ve met you before, Officer Collins. You must be new. Are you related to Lieutenant Newell Collins?” she asked as she emptied and refilled the kettle.
“Yes, he’s my uncle. I wanted to ask you…”
“Has he retired? I remember when he came out here after all the chickens were slaughtered by a crazy marauder. And then again when they found the meth lab in the trailers over on the Andersons’ land. Then, of course, I see him every year at the annual Policeman’s Ball. How long have you been on the force?”
“Ma’am, I just came to ask you a few questions.”
“Because I am some form of witness.” She chuckled at the religious implication of the word. “If you think I am a suspect, I will have to ring Joe Rafferty. You know my Uncle Joe, don’t you?”
Cousin Missy didn’t imply her power often. She didn’t have to. But she had not seen young Collins since a Halloween school parade twenty years earlier where he marched around as Batman with a shiny black cape and matching mask. From his stiff stance and refusal of tea, she figured that he was fresh out of the academy and following a rulebook that most of New Bern’s elite understood to be a very loose guideline for keeping the peace. What Miss Missy would have referred to as “a rather messy first draft” during her years as an editor in New York.
Hugh had never really been properly introduced to Missy’s uncle, Joseph Rafferty, Esquire. He had delivered his newspaper—“On the porch, laddy, if you want your Christmas bonus” was the extent of their communication. Few boys made it to their first Christmas on the run that included the big homes along the river. Hugh lasted through his adolescence because he had a good arm and could get the paper over the tall fence and onto the porch without hitting the door or, god forbid, a window. Everybody who lived in Riverfront Estates wanted a newspaper boy from the baseball team who had good aim.
The whole class system of New Bern, North Carolina, could be diagrammed with the high school baseball team. There were the athletes with the good arm, good catch, or fast legs. And there were the second-string players who were really first-string players in waiting because their daddies owned the town. Hugh knew very well who Miss Missy Rafferty was referring to when she asked him whether he had met her Uncle Joe. Joe—Joe Rafferty, as he was known in his youth—had been both athletic and rich, so the ball team revered him as a near legend.
In small southern towns, a good lawyer can take care of a lot of business so it never has to reach a politician’s or a judge’s desk. Attorneys act as a sort of de facto investigator, judge, and jury. Really a pre-judge and jury. Officer Collins wasn’t the brightest new bulb on the force but, in those few seconds before he spoke, he knew that his refusal to take up Miss Missy on her tea meant that he wouldn’t have to drink something that reminded him of damp socks burning, but also that he would might never get a straight answer from this short woman with close-cropped white hair.
“No, Miss Rafferty, you are not a suspect,” he fibbed. “I just need to ask you a few basic questions.” He was relieved to be in the air-conditioned pine kitchen.
She chuckled again to herself as she remembered George Orwell’s essay on tea from 1946. Orwell would not approve of her stinky Chinese tea, only Indian or Ceylon tea would suffice. But she always poured milk in after the tea. She had placed three spoonfuls of tea into the little pot. Almost whispering, she said to herself , ”One for me, one for Collins, one for the pot.” He noted that she didn’t say “officer” when counting out the spoonfuls of tea. Officer Collins watched Missy Rafferty make the brew and wondered why she didn’t just put a Lipton bag in a cup. “It will take just six minutes to brew. Do you have a short question?”
“What time did you find your cousin’s body?”
She knew this was going to take a good deal longer than six minutes.
