Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

15

… If calculated deceit is involved, an action for fraud is in order.

—Ulpian (ca. AD 170–228)

The door to Room 628 was once again on the latch, but the voices and laughter were more subdued. Everyone using their indoor voices. I wondered if Allen or his ex-wife had come down and asked for quiet during the children’s naps. Like me, some twenty-five or thirty people were skipping lunch for a handful of nuts, chips, the fruit tray, and a soft drink. A few were nursing beers or a glass of wine, but the hard stuff sat unopened on the sideboard.

Hard politics had been abandoned, too. I had spotted Roberta Ouellette, the judge from Jeffreys’s district, out on the balcony in conversation with Addie Rawls from District 11 and some man who had his back to the door, so I circled past various animated groups, exchanging smiles and handshakes as I went. The snatches of conversations I overheard seemed to be about vacation plans, children and their college applications, the speeding ticket one judge had gotten while passing through the district of his mortal enemy, and an impassioned defense of her beloved Cleveland Indians by Shelly Holt, who will quit the bench in a heartbeat and run for baseball commissioner if it ever becomes an elective position.

Becky Blackmore, also from Wilmington, was using a ballpoint pen on Mark Galloway’s hand to illustrate the symbols certain gang members tattoo on their knuckles while Joe Setzer and Hank Willis wished him luck in washing them off before he had to pass sentence on a Crip or Blood.

Just as I was about walk through the open French doors, I recognized the other judge who was talking to Roberta.

Last spring, a year ago, while still reeling from my breakup with the game warden, I was specialed into Asheboro to adjudicate the equitable distribution of marital property between two high-profile couples, a pair of prominent attorneys and two well-connected potters from nearby Sea-grove. ^* I was invited to the local bar association dinner and it was there that I met Will Blackstone, a newly appointed judge. No relation to the famous jurist of the eighteenth century, he quickly told me. We were both at loose ends and when he asked me to dinner a few nights later and followed it up with an offer to show me his pottery collection, I accepted even though I figured that showing me his pottery would be the Seagrove equivalent of showing me his etchings.

Three minutes after he left to slip into something more comfortable, he was back wearing nothing but his brand-new judicial robe and a bronze-colored condom. I told him I’d get my own robe from my car and we could do the kinky judge-on-judge scenario he had planned. While he mixed us another round of drinks, I hopped in my car and drove away as fast as I could. I do have some judicial standards, thank you very much, and I knew I’d never be able to wear that robe again had I gone along with that session.

I decided that I could catch Roberta later. No way did I want to make small talk with Will Blackstone.

Steve Shaber was restocking the ice buckets when I reached the door. “Hey, didn’t you just get here?” he asked. “Was it something I said?”

“Something you didn’t say,” I told him. “Like where you and Judge Cannell stashed the caviar and smoked salmon.”

He gave a look of mock indignation. “You mean you didn’t see them right beside the goose-liver pâté and the Dom Pérignon?”

“Well, I did see the champagne, but those plastic flutes are so tacky I couldn’t bring myself to pour any.”

He laughed and told me to come back later. “We’ll have room service send up a case of Baccarat crystal just for you.”

Down in the lobby I had paused to watch some children play with the creatures in the touching tank when Chelsea Ann, Rosemary, and Dave strolled in.

“Oh, good!” said Rosemary. “We were going to come find you. See if you wanted to come to Airlie Gardens with us.”

“Airlie Gardens?” asked Martha Fitzhume, who was seated in one of the overstuffed lobby chairs. “May I come, too? I’ve never visited it and Fitz is meeting with the other chief judges this afternoon, so it would be a good opportunity. Unless five of us are too many for one car?”

“Not a bit,” said Rosemary. “Dave’s already begged off. Gardens always bore him.” Her husband gave a what-can-I-tell-you? shrug.

“There’s a tearoom I’ve been wanting to try, as well,” Rosemary said. “So why don’t we do the garden, get tea, and then plan to be back here when the chiefs’ meeting breaks up around six?” She glanced at her watch. “That’ll give us almost three hours. You don’t mind, do you, darling?”

“Not a bit, honey.” He leaned in to give her a husbandly peck on the cheek. “Y’all have fun and don’t worry about me. I’ll find something to do.”

Airlie Gardens is one of Wilmington’s jewels. Like many public gardens, this one started as the hobby and playpretty of a rich woman. Originally part of a huge estate, the gardens now cover sixty-seven acres, ten of them in freshwater lakes and water gardens. One bed of typical Southern perennials flows beautifully into another. Despite the late spring, most of the azaleas had finished blooming, but enough blooms were left to let us imagine the massed glory of a month earlier. Dark green camellia bushes with their shiny leaves formed a backdrop for daylilies of every size and color except blue. I made a mental note not to ever bring Dwight here. Bad as he is for planting trees and bushes, he’d go nuts for the huge, centuries-old live oaks that punctuated the wide lawns, and I could see him enlisting my brothers and their backhoes and trucks to try and transplant a couple to our place.

What really caught our fancy though was the Bottle Chapel, a whimsical gazebo-like structure built of stucco and hundreds of colored glass bottles as a tribute to Minnie Evans, a visionary artist who once worked at the gardens as a gatekeeper and who sold her pictures on the side for a few dollars each. They go for thousands today. Cobalt blue, ruby red, and funky shapes of clear glass caught the sun in an exuberant brilliance.

Less than an hour after we got there, though, Martha was clearly winded and we wound up accepting a ride back to the car from a passing golf cart. “This getting old is for the birds,” she complained as she climbed out of the cart.

Rosemary glanced at her watch and said, “Instead of having tea out somewhere, let’s go back to the hotel. Dave bought a huge box of pastries for our breakfast this morning and we barely put a dent in them. We can sit on the balcony and put our feet up. Besides, I want to show you the beautiful roses he brought me.”

Martha laughed. “No diamond earrings? No pearls? That man’s got a lot to learn about getting out of the doghouse.”

“Well,” said Rosemary, trying to look modest. “He did say something about a new car.”

At the hotel, we trailed Rosemary down the hall to the room she now shared with Dave. She waited for us at the door, key card in hand, and when we had caught up with her, she swiped the card and pushed open the door.

From within came the sound of a bubbling Jacuzzi, a squeal of panic, frantic splashing, and Dave’s “What the hell—?”

Rosemary stepped inside, then stopped short. The entryway and the sliding closet doors were faced with mirrors and the Jacuzzi sat in a mirrored alcove just beyond. Martha Fitzhume was in front of me, but reflected in the mirror were multiple images of a head of bright red hair as it disappeared beneath the soap bubbles. Dave was chest-deep in bubbles and his face was almost the same shade of red.

“You bastard!” Rosemary wailed. “I do not believe this!”

Unable to hold her breath any longer, Jenna the wannabe SBI agent surfaced long enough to see the shock on our faces and immediately submerged again.

Martha put her arm around Rosemary. “Come on, sugar. Unless you want us to drown ’em both for you, you don’t need to stay here.”

As she herded us out, I couldn’t resist one backward look. Dave’s face said it all: punitive alimony, generous child support, and at least half of everything he currently owned.