The six-foot four-inch Grady and the two men stumbled all over each other trying to get out the door and wound up back on the sidewalk, with Opal glaring at them through the foggy window.
Grady put the photograph of Frank Bennett back in his pocket and said, “Well, that’s one place he ain’t been in, that’s for damn sure.”
The three men pulled up their collars and headed across the tracks.
DECEMBER 21, 1930
Three days after the two men from Georgia had first arrived in town asking questions about Frank Bennett, the skinny one, Curtis Smoote, came in by himself and ordered another barbecue and an Orange Crush.
When Idgie brought it over to the booth, she said, “Between Grady and your partner, ya’ll are about to eat up all my barbecue. That makes ten you three have had today!”
He squinted at her and said, in his high nasal little voice, “Have a seat.”
Idgie looked around the room and saw that it wasn’t busy, and then sat down across from him.
He took a bite of his sandwich and looked at her, hard.
“How ya doing?” Idgie said. “Found that man you was looking for yet?”
This time he glanced around the room and then leaned across the table, his face like a razor. “You’re not fooling me, girlie girl. I know who you are. Don’t think for a minute you’re fooling me.… You gotta get up early in the morning to put one over on Curtis Smoote. Yes sir, the first time I come in here, I knowed I’d seen you somewhere before, but I couldn’t place you. So I made a few phone calls, and last night it come to me who you were.”
He sat back and continued eating, never taking his eyes off her. Idgie, not batting an eye, waited for him to continue.
“Now, I got me a sworn statement from this fellow Jake, that works out at the Bennett place, that someone answering the description of you and that big black buck you got out in the back, there, come over with a bunch and took Bennett’s wife off, and that nigger threatened Bennett with a knife.”
He picked a piece of dark meat out of his sandwich and put it on his plate and looked at it. “Besides that, I was in the back of the barbershop that day, and me and a whole bunch heard you threaten to kill him. Now, if I can remember, you can be damn sure the rest of them will.”
He took a swig of his cold drink and wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. “Now, I cain’t say Frank Bennett was no particular friend of mine … no sir. I got my oldest girl living in a shack, outside of town, with a kid, because of him, and I heard tell of what was going on out at his place. And I would venture a guess that there’s others that wouldn’t shed a tear if he was to show up dead. But it looks to me, girlie girl, that you would be in a whole passel of trouble if he did, ’cause the fact that you threatened him twice is in the official record, and I can tell you right now, that don’t look too good in black and white.
“What we’re talking about here, girlie, is murder … running afoul of the law. And nobody can get away with that.”
He leaned back in the booth and took on a casual air. “Now, of course, just hypothetically speaking, of course, if it was me in your shoes, why, I’d figure it would do me a whole lot of good if that body didn’t show up at all. Yes, a whole lot of good … or if anything that belonged to him was to be found, for that matter. I’d figure it wouldn’t bode well if anybody could prove that Frank Bennett had been over here at all, you understand, and I’d figure, if I was smart, that is, it would be real important to make sure there wasn’t nothing to find.”
He glanced up at Idgie to make sure she was listening. She was.
“Yes sir, that would be too bad, ’cause I’d have to come back over here and arrest you and your colored man on suspicion. Now, I’d hate to come back over here after you, but I will, ’cause I’m the law and I’m sworn to uphold it. You cain’t beat the law. Do you understand that?”
Idgie said, “Yes sir.”
Having made his point, he pulled a quarter out of his pocket and threw it on the table, put his hat on, and said as he was leaving, “Of course, Grady may be right. He may just show back up at home one of these days. But I ain’t gonna hold my breath.”
JANUARY 7, 1931
Local Man Feared Dead
The search for Frank Bennett, 38, a lifelong resident of Valdosta, missing from his home since early morning December 13 of last year, has officially ended. The extensive search, conducted by Detective Curtis Smoote, and Detective Wendell Riggins, led to people being questioned as to Bennett’s whereabouts as far away as Tennessee and Alabama. However, neither Bennett nor the truck in which he was traveling at the time of the disappearance has been recovered.
“We left no stone unturned,” said Officer Smoote in an interview early today. “He just seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.”
MARCH 19, 1931
Sad News for All of Us
After having lost their daddy a year before, it was another sad trip home for Leona, Mildred, Patsy Ruth, and Edward Threadgoode, who all came back home for their mother’s funeral.
After the service, we all went over to the Threadgoode house, and everyone in town must have been there to pay their respects to Momma Threadgoode. Half the people here practically grew up over at the Threadgoode house with she and Poppa. I can never forget the good times we had over there and how she always made us feel so welcome. As for me, I met my better half over there at one of their big Fourth of July parties. We courted with Cleo and Ninny, and many an hour was spent sitting on that front porch after church.
Everybody is going to miss her and the place is not going to seem the same without her.
… Dot Weems …
MAY 11, 1986
Evelyn Couch opened the plastic Baggie full of carrot sticks and celery she had brought for herself and offered them to her friend. Mrs. Threadgoode declined, but went on eating her orange-marshmallow peanuts. “No thank you, honey, raw food just doesn’t sit well with me. Why’re you eating raw food, anyway?”
“It’s Weight Watchers, well, kind of. I can eat anything I want as long as it doesn’t have fat or sugar in it.”
“Are you trying to slim down again?”
“Yes. I’m going to try. But it’s hard. I’ve gotten so fat.”
“Well, you do what you want to, but I still say you look fine to me.”
“Oh Mrs. Threadgoode, you’re sweet to say so, but I’ve gotten up to a size sixteen.”
“You don’t look heavy to me. Essie Rue … now, she was heavyset. But then, she was always inclined in that direction, ever since she was a little girl. But I guess at one time she got up to well over two hundred pounds.”
“She did?”
“Oh yes, but she never let it bother her, and she always dressed up in the best-looking outfits and always had a little flower in her hair to match. Everybody used to say that Essie Rue looked like she had just stepped out of a bandbox, and she had the cutest little hands and feet. Everybody in Birmingham used to talk about what cute little feet she had when she got her job playing the mighty Wurlitzer …”
“The what?”
“The mighty Wurlitzer organ. They had it down at the Alabama Theater for years. They said it was the largest organ in the south, and I believe they were right. We’d all get on the streetcar and go over and see the picture show. I’d always go when Ginger Rogers was playing. She was my favorite player. That girl is the most talented one they got out there in Hollywood. I don’t even care to see a picture if she’s not in it … she can do it alclass="underline" dance, sing, act … what have you …