Hard Row

HARD

ROW

Deborah Knott novels:

HARD ROW

WINTER’S CHILD

RITUALS OF THE SEASON

HIGH COUNTRY FALL

SLOW DOLLAR

UNCOMMON CLAY

STORM TRACK

HOME FIRES

KILLER MARKET

UP JUMPS THE DEVIL

SHOOTING AT LOONS

SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT

BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER

Sigrid Harald novels:

FUGITIVE COLORS

PAST IMPERFECT

CORPUS CHRISTMAS

BABY DOLL GAMES

THE RIGHT JACK

DEATH IN BLUE FOLDERS

DEATH OF A BUTTERFLY

ONE COFFEE WITH

Non-series:

LAST LESSONS OF SUMMER

BLOODY KIN

SUITABLE FOR HANGING

SHOVELING SMOKE

HARD

ROW

%

MARGARET

MARON

Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Maron

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,

no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any

form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior

written permission of the publisher.

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Hachette Book Group USA

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New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

Warner Books and the “W” logo are trademarks of Time Warner Inc. or an affiliated

company. Used under license by Hachette Book Group USA, which is not affiliated

with Time Warner Inc.

First eBook Edition: August 2007

Summary: “As judge Deborah Knott presides over a case involving a barroom

brawl, it becomes clear that deep resentments over race, class, and illegal immigration

are simmering just below the surface in the North Carolina countryside”—Provided

by publisher.

ISBN:

0-446-19825-0

1. Knott, Deborah (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women judges—Fiction.

3. North Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

For Ann Ragan Stephenson,

whose friendship enriches me and

keeps me rooted in reality

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Jay Stephenson, my friend and neigh-

bor, for sharing his practical knowledge and farming

expertise; to Margaret Ruley for insights into stepmoth-

ering; and to my cousin Judy Johnson for giving me

tuberoses. As always, I am indebted to District Court

Judges Shelly S. Holt and Rebecca W. Blackmore, of the

5th Judicial District Court (New Hanover and Pender

Counties, North Carolina), and Special Superior Court

Judge John Smith, who keep a watching brief on

Deborah’s grasp of the law.

That most farmers have had “a hard row to hoe” during the

last few years is a fact which admits of no argument.

The famous poets who never plowed a furrow in their lives

go into raptures over rural life.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

HARD

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D E B O R A H K N O T T ’ S

F A M I L Y T R E E

(stillborn son)

Annie Ruth

1) Ina Faye

Langdon

(1) Robert

m.

2) Doris > Betsy, Robert Jr. (Bobby) >

(1)

grandchildren

(2) Franklin

m.

Mae > children > grandchildren

1) Carol > Olivia > Braz & Val

(3) Andrew

m.

2) Lois

3) April > A.K. & Ruth

m.

(4) Herman*

m.

Nadine > *Reese, *Denise, Edward,

Annie Sue

(5) Haywood* m.

Isabel > at least 3, including Valerie,

Steven, Jane Ann > g’children

(6) Benjamin

m.

Kezzie Knott

(7) Seth

m.

Minnie > at least 3, including John and

Jessica

(8) Jack

m.

1) Patricia (“Trish”)

(9) Will

m.

2) Kathleen

m.

3) Amy > at least 2 children

(2)

(10) Adam*

m.

Karen > 2 sons

Susan

Stephenson

(11) Zach*

m.

Barbara > Lee, Emma

(12) Deborah

m.

Dwight Bryant > stepson Cal

*Twins

January

% El Toro Negro sits next to an abandoned tobacco

warehouse a few feet inside the Dobbs city limits.

Back when the club catered to the country-western

crowd, a mechanical bull used to be one of the attrac-

tions; but after a disgruntled customer took a sledge-

hammer to its motor, the bull was left behind when the

club changed hands. Now it stands atop the flat roof

and someone with more verve than talent has painted a

picture of it on the windowless front wall. As visibly

masculine as his three-dimensional counterpart over-

head, the painted bull is additionally endowed with long

sharp horns. He seems to snort and paw at hot desert

sands although it is a frigid night and more than a thou-

sand miles north of the border. Two weeks into January,

yet a white plastic banner that reads FELIZ NAVIDAD Y

PRÓSPERO AÑO NUEVO still hangs over the entrance. A

chill wind sweeps across the gravel parking lot and sends

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MARGARET MARON

beer cups and empty cigarette packs scudding like tum-

bleweeds until they catch in the bushes that line the

sidewalk.

Every Saturday night, the parking lot is jammed with

work vehicles of all descriptions and tonight is no ex-

ception. Pickup trucks with extended crew cabs pre-

dominate. Pulled up close to the club’s side entrance

is a refurbished schoolbus, its windows and body both

painted a dark purple that looks black under the lone

security light. A rainbow of racing stripes surrounds

the elaborate lettering of the band’s name. Los Cuatro

Reyes del Hidalgo are playing here tonight and when-

ever the door opens, live music with a strong Tejano

beat swirls out on gusts of warm air.

Like most of the Latinos clustered beneath the col-

ored lights around the doorway, the muscular Anglo

who passes them is without a woman on his arm. He

has clearly been drinking and the bouncers at the door

glance at each other, silently conferring if they should

let him in; but he has already handed over his fifteen-

dollar cover charge. They sweep him thoroughly with

their metal detector and make him empty his pockets

when the wand beeps for a handful of coins, then stamp

the back of his hand and let him pass.

Inside, he heads straight to the far end of the long

bar that stretches down the whole length of one wall.

Even though dark faces beneath wide cowboy hats line

the bar three and four deep, they move aside to let him

prop a foot on the wooden rail and order a Corona. In

addition to the hats, most of the other men are wear-

ing tooled cowboy boots, fleece-lined jackets, and belt

buckles as big as tamales. The Anglo is tall enough to

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see over the hats and when his beer comes, he takes a

deep swig and scans the further room.

On a low stage at the back, the Hidalgo Kings are

belting it out on keyboard, drum, and guitars to an en-

thusiastic audience. Colored lights play across the danc-

ers as their bodies keep time to the pulsating rhythm.

Between songs, the click of balls can be heard from the

pool tables in a side room.

The bouncers keep an eye on the Anglo, but the

sprawling club is crowded, men outnumber women at

least four to one, and tempers can flare with little prov-

ocation. A Colombian accuses a Salvadoran of taking his

drink when his back was turned and the bouncers move

in to break it up.

At the bar, the Anglo orders another cerveza, and after

a while, the bouncers relax their surveillance of him.

Shortly before midnight, he leaves his third beer on

the counter and moves through the crowd toward the

restroom just as a woman bundled in a bulky jacket and

knitted hat urgently approaches a knot of men still nurs-

ing their beers.

“¿Dónde está Ernesto?” she asks.

With a tilt of his head, one of the men gestures to-

ward one of the side rooms and the woman hurries over

to the pool table. “¡Ernesto! ¡Date prisa!” she says to

the man who looks up when she speaks. “Es María. Ya

viene el bebe.”

He immediately throws down his cue and follows

her through the crowd. His friends call after him,

“¡Felicitaciones, amigo!”

Inside the bathroom at the far end of the club, the

big Anglo quickly grabs a man waiting his turn at a

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MARGARET MARON

urinal. The man is smaller and shorter, and before he

can defend himself, his white hat goes flying and the

Anglo has his bolo tie in a stranglehold with his left

hand while his right fist delivers a punishing blow to the

victim’s chin.

A second blow opens a gash over his eye. Gasping for

breath as his bolo tightens around his neck, the Latino

fumbles frantically for a beer bottle lying atop others in

the trash bin and in one sweeping motion smashes the

end against the sink.

Several men reach to pull the two apart. Others open

the door and cry out to the bouncers as the bottle

gleams in the dull light.

Blood suddenly spurts across the white cowboy hat

now trampled beneath their feet and the big Anglo

crashes to the floor, writhing in pain.

4

C H A P T E R

1

If a man goes at his work with his fists he is not so successful

as if he goes at it with his head.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Deborah Knott

Friday, February 24

% A cold February morning and the first thing on

my calendar was the State of North Carolina ver-

sus James Braswell and Hector Macedo.

Misdemeanor assault inflicting serious bodily injury.

I vaguely remembered doing first appearances on

them both two or three weeks earlier although I would

have heard only enough facts to set an appropriate bond

and appoint attorneys if they couldn’t afford their own.

According to the papers now before me, Braswell was

a lineman for the local power company and could not

only afford an attorney, but had also made bail immedi-

ately. His co-defendant, here on a legal visa, had needed

an appointed lawyer and he had sat in the Colleton

County jail for eleven days till someone went his bail.

Each was charged with assaulting the other, and while

5

MARGARET MARON

it might have been better to try them separately, Doug

Woodall’s office had decided to join the two cases and

prosecute them together since the charges rose out of

the same brawl. Despite a broken bottle, our DA had

not gone for the more serious charge of felony assault

because keeping them both misdemeanors would save

his office time and the county money, something he was

more conscious of now that he’d decided to run for

governor.

Neither attorney had objected even though it meant

they had to put themselves between the two men scowl-

ing at each other from opposite ends of the defendants’

table.

Braswell’s left hand and wrist had been bandaged last

month. Today, a scabby red line ran diagonally across

the back of his hand and continued down along the

outer edge of his wrist till it disappeared under the cuff

of his jacket. The stitches had been removed, but the

puncture marks on either side were still visible. I’m no

doctor, but it looked as if the jagged glass had barely

missed the veins on the underside of Braswell’s wrist.

The cut over Macedo’s right eye was mostly hidden

by his thick dark eyebrow.

I listened as Julie Walsh finished reading the charges.

Doug’s newest ADA was a recent graduate of Campbell

University’s law school over in Buies Creek. Small-boned,

with light brown hair and blue-green eyes, she dressed

like the perfectly conservative product of a conservative

school except that a delicate tracery of tattooed flowers

circled one thin white wrist and was almost unnotice-

able beneath the leather band of her watch. Rumor said

there was a Japanese symbol for trust at the nape of her

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HARD ROW

neck but because she favored turtleneck sweaters and

wore her long hair down, I couldn’t swear to that.

“How do you plead?” I asked the defendants.

“Not guilty,” said Braswell.

“Guilty with extenuating circumstances,” said Macedo

through his attorney.

While Walsh laid out the State’s case, I thought about

the club where the incident took place.

El Toro Negro. The name brought back a rush of

mental images. I had been there twice myself. Last

spring, back when I still thought of Sheriff Bo Poole’s

chief deputy as a sort of twelfth brother and a handy

escort if both of us were at loose ends, a couple of court

translators had invited me to a Cinco de Mayo fiesta at

the club. My latest romance had gone sour the month

before so I’d asked Dwight if he wanted to join us.

“Yeah, wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look at that

place,” he’d said. “Maybe keep you out of trouble while

I’m at it.”

Knowing that he likes to dance just as much as I do,

I didn’t rise to the bait.

The club was so jammed that the party had spilled

out into the cordoned-off parking lot. It felt as if every

Hispanic in Colleton County had turned out. I hadn’t

realized till then just how many there were—all those

mostly ignored people who had filtered in around the

fringes of our lives. Normally, they wear faded shirts

and mud-stained jeans while working long hours in our

fields or on construction jobs. That night they sported

big white cowboy hats with silver conchos and shiny

belt buckles. The women who stake our tomatoes or

pick up our sweet potatoes alongside their men in the

7

MARGARET MARON

fields or who wear the drab uniforms of fast-food chains

as they wipe down tables or take our orders? They came

in colorful swirling skirts and white scoop-neck blouses

bright with embroidery.

We danced to the infectious music, drank Mexican

beer from longnecked bottles, danced some more, then

stuffed ourselves at the fast-food taquerías that lined

the parking lot. I bought piñatas for an upcoming fam-

ily birthday party, and Dwight bought a hammered sil-

ver belt buckle for his young son.

It was such a festive, fun evening that he and I went

back again after we were engaged. The club was crowded

and the music was okay, but it felt like ten men for every

woman and when they began to hit on me, I had to get

Dwight out of there before he arrested somebody.

So I could picture the club’s interior as Walsh called

her first witness to the stand.

“¿Habla inglés? ” she asked.

Despite his prompt Sí, Macedo’s attorney asked that

I allow a translator because his own client’s English was

shaky.

I agreed and Elena Smith took a seat directly be-

hind Macedo, where she kept up a low-pitched, steady

obligato to all that was said.

“State your name and address.”

The middle-aged witness twisted a billed cap in his

callused hands as he gave his name and an address on

the outskirts of Cotton Grove. His nails were as ragged

and stained as his jeans. In English that was adequate,

if heavily accented, he described how he’d entered the

restroom immediately after Hector Macedo.

8

HARD ROW

“Then that man”—here he pointed at Braswell—“he

push me away and grab him—”

“Mr. Macedo?” the ADA prompted.

“Sí. And he hit him and hit him. Many times.”

“Did Mr. Macedo hit him back?”

“He try to get away, but that one too big. Too

strong.”

“Then what happened?”

“Hector, he break a bottle and cut that one. Then

he let go and there is much blood. Then the bouncers

come. And la policía.”

“No further questions, Your Honor,” said the ADA.

Braswell’s attorney declined to cross-examine the wit-

ness, but Macedo’s had him flesh out the narrative so as to

make it clear to me that the smaller man had acted in self-

defense when Braswell left him with no other options.

A second witness took the stand and his account

echoed the first. When Walsh started to call a third wit-

ness, Braswell’s attorney stood up. “We’re willing to

stipulate as to the sequence of events, Your Honor,”

whereupon the State rested.

Macedo, a subcontractor for a drywall service, went

first for the defense. Speaking through the interpreter,

he swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and noth-

ing but the truth. According to his testimony, he had

been minding his own business when Braswell attacked

him for no good reason. He did not even know who

Braswell was until after they were both arrested.

Under questioning by Braswell’s lawyer, he admit-

ted that he was at the club that night with one Karen

Braswell. Yes, that would be the other defendant’s ex-

wife although he had not known it at the time. Besides,

9

MARGARET MARON

it wasn’t a real date. She worked with his sister at the

Bojangles in Dobbs and the two women had made up

a casual foursome with himself and a friend. He’d had

no clue that she had a husband who was still in the

picture till the man began choking and pounding him.

Macedo’s attorney called the sister, who sat in the first

row behind her brother and strained to hear the transla-

tor, but Braswell’s attorney objected and I sustained.

“Defense rests.”

“Call your first witness,” I told Braswell’s attorney.

“No witnesses, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Braswell,” I said as his attorney nudged him to

stand. “I find you guilty as charged.”

“Your Honor,” said his attorney, “I would ask you

to take into consideration my client’s natural distress at

seeing his wife out with another man while he was still

trying to save their marriage.”

“I thought they were divorced,” I said.

“In his mind they’re still married, Your Honor.”

“Ms. Walsh?”

“Your Honor, I think it’s relevant that you should

know Mr. Braswell was under a restraining order not to

contact Mrs. Braswell or go near her.”

“Is this true?” I asked the man, who was now stand-

ing with his attorney.

He gave a noncommittal shrug and there was a faint

sneer on his lips.

“Was a warrant issued for this violation?”

“Yes, Your Honor, but he made bail. He’s due in

court next week. Judge Parker.”

“What was the bail?”

“Five thousand.”

10

HARD ROW

I could have increased the bail, but it was moot. He

wasn’t going to have an opportunity to hassle his ex

before Luther Parker saw him next week. Not if I had

anything to say about it.

“Ten days active time,” I told Braswell. “Bailiff, you

will take the prisoner in custody.”

“Now, wait just a damn minute here!” he cried; but

before he could resist, the bailiff and a uniformed offi-

cer had him in a strong-arm grip and marched him out

the door that would lead to the jail.

Macedo stood beside his attorney and his face was

impassive as he waited for me to pass judgment. I found

him guilty of misdemeanor assault and because he’d al-

ready sat in jail for eleven days, I reduced his sentence

to time served and no fine, just court costs.

He showed no emotion as the translator repeated my

remarks in Spanish, but his sister’s smile was radiant.

“Gracias,” she whispered to me as they headed out to

the back hall to pay the clerk.

“De nada,” I told her.

“State versus Rasheed King,” said Julie Walsh, calling

her next case. “Misdemeanor assault with a vehicle.”

A pugnacious young black man came to stand next to

his lawyer at the defendant’s table.

“How do you plead?”

“Hey, his truck bumped me first, Judge.”

“Sorry, Your Honor,” said his attorney.

“You’ll get a chance to tell your story, Mr. King,” I

said, “but for our records, are you pleading guilty or

not guilty?”

“Not guilty, ma’am.”

It was going to be one of those days.

11

C H A P T E R

2

It should be borne in mind that “home” is not merely a

place of shelter from the storms and cold of winter and the

heat of summer—a place in which to sleep securely at night

and labor by day. It is a place where the children receive

their first and most lasting impressions, those that go far in

molding and forming the character of the man and woman

in after life.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

% The year had turned and days were supposed to

be getting longer. Nevertheless, it was full dark

before I got home.

When things are normal, Dwight’s work day begins an

hour earlier than mine and ends an hour sooner, which

means he often starts supper. I half expected to see him

at the stove and to smell food. Instead, the kitchen was

empty and the stove bare of any pots or pans as I let

myself in through the garage door. The television was

on mute in the living room though and Cal looked up

from some school papers spread across the coffee table.

A brown-eyed towhead, he’s tall for his age and as awk-

ward as a young colt. In his haste to neaten up, sev-

eral sheets of papers slid to the floor. His dog Bandit,

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HARD ROW

a smooth-haired terrier with a brown eye mask, side-

stepped the papers and trotted over to greet me.

Cal wore a red sweatshirt emblazoned with a big white

12 and he gave me a guilty smile as he gathered up his

third-grade homework and tried to make a single tidy

pile. A Friday night, he was already on his homework,

yet he was worried about messing up the living room?

I’m no neat freak and a little clutter doesn’t bother

me. Dwight either. But Cal was still walking on eggs

with us, almost as if he was afraid that if he stepped an

inch out of line, someone would yell at him.

Neither Dwight nor I are much for yelling, but when

you’re eight years old and your whole world turns up-

side down overnight, I guess it makes you cautious.

Six months ago he was living with his mother up in

Virginia and I had been footloose and fancy free. I lived

alone and came and went as I chose, accountable to no

one except the state of North Carolina, which did ex-

pect me to show up in court on a regular basis. Then in

blurred succession came an October engagement, fol-

lowed by a Christmas wedding, followed by the mur-

der of Dwight’s first wife before the ink was completely

dry on our marriage certificate. Now my no-strings life

suddenly included two guys and a dog with their own

individual needs and obligations.

As soon as I saw Cal’s shirt though, I remembered why

I was on my own for supper tonight, and a quick glance

at the calendar hanging on the refrigerator confirmed it.

Pencilled there in today’s square was HURRICANES—7 PM.

Dwight came down the hall from our bedroom, zip-

ping his heavy jacket and carrying Cal’s hockey stick

under his arm.

13

MARGARET MARON

“Oh, hey!” A smile warmed his brown eyes. “I was

afraid we’d have to leave before you got home. You

’bout ready, buddy?”

Cal nodded. “Just have to get my jacket and a Sharpie.

I’m gonna try to get Rod Brind’Amour’s autograph

tonight.”

As he picked up his books and scurried off to his

room, Dwight hooked me with the hockey stick and

drew me close. I’ve kissed my share of men in my time,

but his slow kisses are blue-ribbon-best-in-show. “Wish

you were coming with us,” he said, nuzzling my neck.

“No, you don’t,” I assured him. “I promised to

honor and love. There was nothing in the vows about

hockey.”

“You sure you read the fine print?”

“That’s the first thing an attorney does read, my

friend.”

I adore ACC basketball, I pull for the Atlanta Braves,

and I can follow a football game without asking too

many dumb questions, but ice hockey leaves me cold in

more ways than one. When you grow up in the south

on a dirt road, you don’t even learn to roller skate. Yes,

we have ponds and yes, they do occasionally freeze over,

but the ice is seldom thick enough to trust and the clos-

est I ever got to live ice-skating was once when the Ice

Capades came to Raleigh and Mother and Aunt Zell

took me and some of the younger boys to see them. We

all agreed the circus was a better show. My preadoles-

cent brothers preferred hot trapeze artists to cool ice

goddesses and I kept waiting for the elephants.

But Cal had played street hockey on skates up in

Shaysville and had become hooked on the Canes when

14

HARD ROW

he spent Christmas with us and watched four televised

games.

Four.

In one week.

He and Dwight didn’t miss a single one. I’d wanted

to bond (not to mention snuggle in next to my new hus-

band), so I joined them on the extra-long leather couch

Dwight had brought over from his bachelor apartment.

I honestly tried to follow along, but the terminology

was indecipherable and I never knew where the puck

was nor why someone had been sent to the penalty box

or why they would abruptly stop play for no discernible

reason to have a jump ball.

That made Cal laugh. “Not jump ball,” he had told

me kindly. “It’s a face-off.”

Two grown men fighting for possession of a small

round object, right? Same thing in my book.

But now that Cal was living with us permanently, it

had become their thing. I went off and puttered happily

by myself when they were watching a game, and I had

scored a couple of decent seats for the last half of the

season with the help of Karen Prince, a former client

who now worked in the Hurricanes ticket office.

“The drive back and forth to Raleigh will give you

and Cal a chance to be alone together and talk. Kids

open up in a car,” I told Dwight when he questioned

why I hadn’t badgered Karen for three seats.

I really did think they needed the time and space to

help Cal cope with all the changes in his young life,

but it wasn’t unadulterated altruism. Put myself where

I couldn’t read a book or catch up on paperwork? Get

real.

15

MARGARET MARON

Dwight laughed and gave me another quick kiss as

Cal came back ready to go.

“Have fun,” I said and when the door had closed be-

hind them, I happily contemplated the evening’s syba-

ritic possibilities.

“So what do you think, Bandit?” I asked the dog.

“Popcorn and a chick flick video, or a long soak in the

tub followed by a manicure?”

Or I could bake a cake to take for Sunday dinner at

Minnie and Seth’s house. Seth is five brothers up from

me, the one I’ve always felt closest to, and his wife has

acted as my political advisor from the day I first decided

to run for a seat on the district court bench.

I unzipped my high heel boots and had just kicked

one off when the door opened again. Dwight had the

phone pressed to his ear and there was a glum look on

Cal’s face.

“Tell Denning and Richards I’ll meet them there in

ten minutes.” Dwight flipped the phone shut. “Sorry,

Cal, but I have to go. It’s my job.”

He headed for our bedroom where he keeps his hand-

gun locked up when he’s off duty and I followed.

“What’s happened?” I asked as he holstered the gun

on his belt.

“They’ve found two legs in a ditch near Bethel

Baptist,” he said grimly.

Bethel Baptist Church is on a back road about half-

way between our house and Dobbs, Colleton’s county

seat. My mind fought with the grisly image of severed

limbs. “Human legs?”

“White male’s all I know for now.”

16

HARD ROW

And it was clear that he didn’t want to say any more.

Not with Cal standing disconsolately in the doorway.

Dwight sighed and laid the hockey tickets on the

dresser. “I really am sorry, son.”

“It’s okay,” Cal said gamely. “Brind’Amour might

not even be playing tonight.”

“Don’t wait supper,” Dwight told me as he started

back down the hall. “This could take a while.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “And if you get home first,

you don’t have to wait up for us.”

That stopped them both in their tracks and Cal looked

at me in sudden hope as he saw the tickets in my

hand.

I smiled back at him. “Well, I’ve got a driver’s license,

too, you know. And I know how to get to the RBC

Center. You just have to promise not to get embarrassed

if I yell ‘High sticking!’ at the wrong time, okay?”

“O kay!”

Home court for NC State’s basketball team and

home ice for the Carolina Hurricanes, the RBC Center

is named for the Royal Bank of Canada—part of the

global economy we keep hearing about. It’s less than

ten years old and sits on eighty acres that used to be

farms and woodlands, just west of Raleigh and easily

accessible by I-40. It was supposed to cost $66 mil-

lion and seat 23,000. It wound up costing $158 million

and seats only 20,000. Was there ever a public proj-

ect that didn’t cost at least twice as much as originally

estimated?

17

MARGARET MARON

When Dwight and Seth and I were figuring how

much it’d cost to add on a new master bedroom, we

actually overestimated by a thousand. Either we’re

smarter than those professional consultants who get

paid big money out of the state’s budget or else those

consultants maybe fudge the figures so that legislators

won’t panic and refuse to fund a project until it’s too

late to back out.

Even though I’m a Carolina fan, I don’t begrudge

the Wolfpack their new arena. I just wish it could’ve

been named for something a little less commercial than

a Canadian bank.

On the drive in, Cal tried to bring me up to speed on

the rules and logic of the game and I really did try to

concentrate, but it was so much gobbledygook.

When we got to the entrance, orange-colored plas-

tic cones divided the various lanes and he knew which

lane would get us to the parking lot closest to our seats.

Inside, we bought pizza and soft drinks, then found

our seats in the club section, which was sort of like first

balcony in a regular theater. Up above us, the retired

jerseys of various NCSU basketball players hung from

the rafters. Down below us, red-garbed hockey players

warmed up on the gleaming white ice.

Don’t ask me who the Hurricanes played that night. I

don’t have a clue. But a couple of minutes into play, the

Canes scored the first goal and the whole building went

crazy. Cal and every other kid in the place jumped to

their feet and waved their hockey sticks. Men high-fived,

women hugged and screamed, horns blared, and the

18

HARD ROW

near-capacity crowd roared maniacal cheers of triumph,

while flashing colored lights chased themselves around

the rim of our section in eye-dazzling brilliance.

Wow!

19

C H A P T E R

3

Shall we ask, Am I my brother’s keeper? Or say in the lan-

guage of a former cabinet officer, “Gentlemen, this is not

my funeral.”

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Dwight Bryant

Friday Night, February 24

% Even before he turned onto Ward Dairy Road,

Dwight could see flashing lights in the distance.

When he got there, state troopers were directing

homeward-bound commuter traffic through a single lane

around the scene, so he turned on his own flashers behind

the grille of his truck, slowed to a crawl as he approached,

and flipped down the sun visor to show the card that iden-

tified him as an officer of the Colleton County Sheriff’s

Department. Activity seemed to be centered directly in

front of Bethel Baptist, between the entrance and exit

driveways that circled the churchyard. He started to power

down his window, but the troopers recognized him and

immediately shunted him into the first drive. He parked

and pulled on the new wool gloves Deborah had given

20

HARD ROW

him for Christmas, grabbed his flashlight, and walked over

toward the others.

Most of the county roads had wide shoulders and

this one was no exception. Even with the yellow tape

that delineated the crime scene, there would have

been enough room for two cars to pass had there not

been so many official vehicles gathered around like a

flock of buzzards there for the kill, as his father-in-

law would say.

Trooper Ollie Harrold gave him an informal two fin-

ger salute. “Over here, Major Bryant,” he said, illumi-

nating a path for Dwight with his torch.

Yellow tape had been looped across a shallow ditch and

was secured to the low illuminated church sign a few feet

away. Inside the tape’s perimeter, the focus of all their at-

tention, two brawny legs lay side by side—male, to judge

by their muscular hairiness. Even in the fitful play of flash-

lights, Dwight could see that they were a ghastly white,

drained of all blood. He aimed his own flash at the upper

thighs. The bones that protruded were mangled and splin-

tered as if hacked from the victim’s torso with an axe or

heavy cleaver. No clean-sawn cut. No apparent blood on

the wintry brown grass beneath them either, which indi-

cated that the butchery had taken place elsewhere.

The pasty-faced man who had reported them was a

thoroughly shaken local who worked at a nearby auto

repair shop and who now stood shivering in a thin jacket

that did not offer much protection against the sharp

February wind.

“I was riding home,” he said, “when I saw ’em a-laying

there in the ditch. Almost fell in the ditch myself a-look-

ing so hard ’cause I couldn’t believe what I was a-seeing.

21

MARGARET MARON

I went straight home and called y’all, then came back

here to wait.”

Dwight glanced at the rusty beat-up bicycle propped

against one of the patrol cars behind them. “Bit chilly

to be riding a bike.”

“Yeah, well . . .” The words trailed off in a shame-

faced shrug.

“Lost your license?”

“Used to be, you had to blow a ten to have ’em take

it.” The man sounded aggrieved. “I only blew a eight-

five, but the judge still took it. I’m due to get it back

next month.”

“There’s no light on your bike,” Dwight said, look-

ing from the bicycle to the grisly limbs in the shallow

ditch.

“I know, but I got reflecting tape on the pedals and

fenders and on my jacket, too. See?” He turned around

to show them. “Didn’t need my own light to see that,

though. People don’t dim their high beams for bicycles.”

“You ride past here on your way to work?”

The man nodded. “And ’fore you ask, no, they won’t

here this morning. I’m certain sure I’d’ve seen ’em.”

The officer assigned to patrol this area was already on

the scene and others of Dwight’s people started to ar-

rive. Detective Mayleen Richards was first, followed by

Jamison and Denning on the crime scene van. As they

set up floodlights so that Percy Denning could photo-

graph the remains from all angles, Richards took down

the witness’s name and address and the few pertinent

facts he could tell them, then Dwight thanked him for

his help and told him he was free to go.

“I can get someone to run you home.”

22

HARD ROW

“Naw, that’s all right. Like I say, I just live around the

curve yonder.” He seemed reluctant to leave.

An EMT truck was called to transport the legs over to

Chapel Hill to see what the ME could tell them from a

medical viewpoint.

“We already checked with the county hospitals,”

Detective Jack Jamison reported. “No double amputees

so far. McLamb’s calling Raleigh, Smithfield, Fuquay,

and Fayetteville.”

“We have any missing persons at the moment?”

Dwight asked.

“Just that old man with Alzheimer’s that walked away

from that nursing home down in Black Creek around

Christmas. His daughter’s still on the phone to us al-

most every day.”

Despite an intensive search with a helicopter and

dogs, the old man had never been found.

“I hear the family’s suing the place for a half a million

dollars,” said Mayleen Richards.

“A half-million dollars for an eighty-year-old man?”

Jamison was incredulous.

“Well, a nursing home in Dobbs wound up paying fifty

thousand for the woman they lost and she was in her nine-

ties. And think if it was your granddaddy,” said Richards,

a touch of cynicism in her voice. “Wouldn’t it take a half-

million to wipe out your pain and mental anguish?”

Jamison took another look at those sturdy legs. In the

glare of Denning’s floodlight, they looked whiter than

ever. “That old guy was black, though, and they said he

didn’t weigh but about a hundred pounds.”

“Too bad we don’t have even some shoes and socks

23

MARGARET MARON

to give us a lead on who he was or what he did,” said

Richards. “You reckon he’s workboots or loafers?”

She leaned in for a closer look. “No corns or calluses

and the toenails are clean. Trimmed, too. I doubt if they

gave him a pedicure first.”

It was another half hour before the EMT truck ar-

rived. While they waited, Denning carefully searched

the grass inside the perimeter. “Not even a cigarette

butt,” he said morosely.

The patrol officer was equally empty-handed. “I

drove down this road a little after four,” he reported.

“It was still light then. I can’t swear they weren’t there

then, but shallow as that ditch is, I do believe I’d’ve

noticed.”

A reporter from the Dobbs Ledger stood chatting with

someone from a local TV station. Because neither was

bumping up against an early deadline, they had waited

unobtrusively until Dwight could walk over and give

them as much as he had.

The television reporter repositioned her photogenic

scarf, removed her unphotogenic woolly hat, and fluffed

up her hair before the tape began to roll. “Talking with

us here is Major Dwight Bryant from the Colleton

County Sheriff ’s Department. Major Bryant, can you

give us the victim’s approximate age?”

Dwight shook his head. “He could be anything from

a highschool football player to a vigorous sixty-year-old.

It’s too soon to say.” Looking straight into the camera,

he added, “The main thing is that if you know of any

white male that might be missing, you should contact

the Sheriff ’s Department as soon as possible.”

24

HARD ROW

Both reporters promised they would run the depart-

ment’s phone numbers with their stories.

Eventually, the emergency medical techs arrived, drew

on latex gloves, bagged the legs separately, then left for

Chapel Hill. The yellow tape was taken down and the

reporters and patrol cars dispersed, along with their wit-

ness, who pedaled off into the night.

“We probably won’t hear much from the ME till we

find the rest of him,” Mayleen Richards said.

“Well-nourished white male,” Denning agreed.

“They’ll give us his blood type, but what good’s that

without a face or fingerprints?”

“We’re bound to hear something soon,” Dwight said.

He grinned at Richards. “Men with clean toenails usu-

ally have a woman around. Sooner or later, she’ll start

wondering where he is.”

As he turned toward his truck, he paused beside the

dimly lit church sign. Beneath the church name, the

pastor’s name, and the hours of service was a quotation

from Matthew that entreated mercy and brotherhood

and reminded passersby that “With what measure you

mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

Not for the last time, he was to wonder what measure

their victim had meted to provoke such violence against

him.

Back at the house, Dwight let Bandit out of his crate,

put a couple of logs on the fire, then switched on the

television. End of the second period and the Canes were

behind 3 to 2. He went back to the kitchen and rum-

maged around in the refrigerator until he found a bowl

25

MARGARET MARON

of chili that one of Deborah’s sisters-in-law had brought

by the day before. While it heated in the microwave, he

drew himself a glass of homemade lager from the refrig-

erated tap, a wedding present from his father-in-law.

Every time he used the tap or held his glass up to the

light to admire the color and clarity he had achieved

with his home brew, he thought again of the potent

crystal clear liquid Kezzie Knott used to produce.

He hoped that “used to produce” was an accurate

assessment. Deborah would not be happy with either

one of them if he had to arrest her daddy for the illegal

production of untaxed moonshine, but with that old

reprobate, anything was possible.

The microwave dinged and he carried his supper into

the living room to watch the game. Bandit jumped up

on the leather couch beside him and curled in along his

thigh as if prepared to cheer the Canes on to victory.

Going into the third period, they tied it 3-all. Cal was

probably swinging from the rafters about now, Dwight

thought. He hoped Deborah was not too bored.

He finished eating, then stretched out on the couch

and stuffed a pillow behind his head. Tie games can

be exciting, but it had been a long day. The chili was

hearty, the beer relaxing, the room comfortably warm.

The fire gently crackled and popped as flames danced

up from the oak logs.

The next thing he knew, the kitchen door banged

open and Cal erupted through the door from the ga-

rage, his brown eyes shining, his arms full of Hurricanes

paraphernalia. Deborah followed, a Canes’ cap on her

light brown hair.

26

HARD ROW

“It was awesome, Dad! We won! Tie game, overtime,

and a shootout! Did you watch it?”

They both glanced at the television screen just in time

for Dwight to see himself on the late newscast. He hit

the mute button.

Talking more excitedly than Dwight had seen him

since he came to live with them, Cal unloaded a souve-

nir book, a flag for the car window, a couple of Canes

Go Cups, and a long-sleeved red T-shirt with a number

6 on it onto the coffee table.

“Who’s number six?” Dwight asked.

“Bret Hedican. He signed it for me. Well, not for me.

It’s Deborah’s. And I got Rod Brind’Amour to sign my

stick, too. Look!”

“New cap?”

“Yeah, and she got you one, too.”

He laughed. “So I see.”

Deborah’s face was flushed and her blue eyes sparkled

with an excitement that matched Cal’s.

“That was absolutely amazing, Dwight! It’s so dif-

ferent seeing a live game. Did you know that Hedican’s

married to Kristi Yamaguchi?”

“I knew it. I’m surprised that you do.”

“He scored the tying goal at the beginning of the

third period,” she told him.

“Yeah, Dad,” Cal chimed in. “He was awesome. Just

drove down the ice and slapped it in.”

“So we had a tie game—”

“—then the tie-breaker—”

“—but no one scored so we had to have a shoot-

out.”

“Ward blocked their shot, then Williams put it in!”

27

MARGARET MARON

“Yes!” Deborah exclaimed and they high-fived.

Dwight shook his head at the pair of them. “Did I

just lose my seat here?”

“Deborah says that next year we’re getting three

seats,” Cal told him. “For the whole season.”

28

C H A P T E R

4

There are few things that have so important a bearing upon

the success or failure of the farmer’s business as the choice of

crops to be produced.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Deborah Knott

Friday Night, February 24

% Cal called to Bandit and went to bed soon after

we got home, totally worn out and nearly hoarse

from cheering the Canes to victory, but it took me till

almost midnight to come back down from the high of

my first live hockey game, and it wasn’t till Dwight and

I were in bed ourselves that I remembered the reason I

had gone instead of him.

Lying beside him with my head on his chest in the

soft darkness of our bedroom, I asked about the legs

that had been found in front of Bethel Baptist and he

described the scene, right down to the bare feet.

“None of your friends are missing a man, are they?”

he asked.

“Not like that,” I said. “Although K.C. was grumbling

29

MARGARET MARON

about Terry being gone all week to teach some training

seminar up in Chicago.”

Terry Wilson’s an SBI agent, a man who could make

me laugh so hard that I seriously considered hooking

up with him a few years ago. He was between wives at

the time, still working undercover. While I was almost

willing to take second place to his son, no way was I

going to take third behind the job. These days, though,

he’s a field supervisor working from a desk and K.C.’s

come in off the streets, too. She used to work under-

cover narcotics, one of the most successful agents the

State Bureau of Investigation ever had. She was abso-

lutely fearless and so blonde and beautiful that dealers

fell all over themselves to give her drugs. Somewhat to

my surprise, they had gotten together late last summer

and he had moved into her lake house.

“She keeps swearing it’s just for laughs,” I told

Dwight, “but this may be fourth time lucky for Terry.”

“That would be nice,” said Dwight, who likes Terry

as much as I do.

I smiled in the darkness. “Now that you’re an old mar-

ried man, you want everybody else to settle down?”

“Beats sleeping single in a double bed,” he said as his

arms tightened around me.

Next morning, after breakfast, our kitchen filled up

with short people. During the week, Cal goes home on

the schoolbus with Mary Pat, the young orphaned ward

of Dwight’s sister-in-law Kate, who keeps him for the

hour or so till Dwight or I get home. In return, we

usually take Mary Pat and Kate’s four-year-old son Jake

30

HARD ROW

for a few hours on Saturday so that Kate can have some

time alone with Rob and their new baby boy.

It was raining that morning, a cold chill rain that

threatened to turn to sleet, so I kept them indoors and

let them help me make cookies. I’m no gourmet chef,

my biscuits aren’t as tender and flaky as some, and my

piecrusts come out so soggy and tough that I long ago

gave up and now buy the frozen ones, but I’ll put my

chocolate chip cookies up against anybody’s. (The secret

is to add a little extra sweet butter and then take them

out of the oven before the center’s fully set. Black wal-

nuts don’t hurt either, but pecans will do in a pinch.)

We had a great assembly line going. I did the mixing

and got them in and out of the oven, Mary Pat and Cal

spooned little blobs of dough onto the foil-lined cookie

sheets, while Jake stood on a stool and used a spatula to

carefully transfer the baked cookies from the foil to the

wire cooling racks. Of course, they nibbled on the raw

dough as they worked and their sticky little fingers went

from mouth to bowl whenever they thought I wasn’t

looking.

I pretended not to notice. Didn’t bother me. If there

were any germs those three hadn’t already shared, the

heat of the oven would probably take care of them and

I knew the eggs were safe.

Once Daddy’s housekeeper Maidie heard about the

dangers of raw eggs, she kept threatening to stop baking

altogether until Daddy and her husband Cletus rebuilt

the old chicken house and started raising Rhode Island

Reds again. The flock was now big enough to keep the

whole family in eggs, and when the wind’s right, I can

hear their rooster crowing in the morning. Every once

31

MARGARET MARON

in a while, another rooster answers and it’s a comfort-

ing signal that there are still some other farms in the

community that haven’t yet given way to a developer’s

checkbook.

Whenever I make cookies, I quadruple the recipe, so

it was almost noon before we finished filling two large

cake boxes to the brim. I planned to take one box to

Seth and Minnie’s the next day, I’d send some home

with Mary Pat and Jake, and I figured the rest should

last us at least a week if Dwight and Cal didn’t get into

them too heavily.

“Ummm. Something in here smells good enough to

eat,” said Dwight, who was back from helping Haywood

and Robert pull a mired tractor out of a soggy bottom.

“Why was Haywood even down there on a tractor

this time of year? It’s way too wet.”

“He wants to plant an acre of garden peas.” Dwight

had left his muddy boots and wet jacket in the garage

and was in his stocking feet, making hungry noises as

he lifted the lid on a pot of vegetable soup. I cut him

off a wedge of the hoop cheese I was using to make

grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup and it

disappeared in two bites.

“Garden peas? A whole acre? What’s he going to do

with that many peas?”

“Well you know how your brothers are trying to

come up with ideas for cash crops in case tobacco goes

downhill?”

I nodded.

“So Haywood’s thinking he might try his hand at a

little truck farming. He even said something about rais-

ing leeks for the upscale Cary and Clayton crowds.”

32

HARD ROW

“Leeks?” I had to laugh. “Haywood’s heard of

leeks?”

“He’s decided they’re just fancy onions and he’s al-

ready taken a dislike to Vidalias. Says they’re nothing

but onions for people who don’t really like onions.”

Privately, I agreed with my brother. What’s the point

of an onion with so little zest that you could peel a

dozen without shedding a tear? Give me an onion that

stands up for itself.

After so much cookie dough, the children weren’t

very hungry and asked to be excused to go play in Cal’s

room. When we were alone, Dwight told me that he’d

heard from Chapel Hill. The ME could not give them a

specific time. Depending on whether or not those legs

were outdoors and exposed to the freezing night tem-

peratures or inside, the hacking had been done as recent

as forty-eight hours or as long ago as a full week. The

dismemberment had been accomplished with a heavy

blade that was consistent with an axe or hatchet. And

yes, the legs did indeed come from a well-nourished

white male, probably between forty and sixty, a male

with blood type O.

“The most common type in the world,” he sighed,

reaching for the untouched half of Cal’s grilled cheese.

“Maybe someone will call in by Monday,” I said and

slid the rest of my own sandwich onto his plate.

After lunch, Dwight volunteered to take the children

to a new multiplex that recently opened about ten miles

from us. I grumble about all the changes that growth

has brought, but I have to admit that sometimes it’s

33

MARGARET MARON

nice not to have to drive thirty miles for a movie. With

the house quiet and empty, I finally got to do some

personal weekend pampering. I put Bandit in his crate

out in the utility room, gave him a new strip of rawhide

to chew on, then took a lazy bubblebath, followed by a

manicure. And as long as I had clippers and polish out,

I decided to paint my toenails as well.

The phone rang when I was about halfway through.

Portland Brewer. My best friend since forever and, most

recently, my matron of honor.

“Why are you putting me on speaker phone?” she im-

mediately asked. “Who else is with you?”

“No one,” I assured her. “But I’m giving myself a

pedicure and I need both hands. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. I’m just sitting here nursing the

deduction while Avery works on our income tax. You

know how anal he is about getting it done early.”

The deduction, little Carolyn Deborah, is about

eighteen hours younger than my marriage. Back in

December, my brothers were making book on whether

or not Portland would deliver during the ceremony.

“How’d it go this week?” I asked.

After the baby’s birth, she’d taken off for two months

and this was her first week of easing back into the prac-

tice she and Avery shared. He did civil cases and a little

tax work; she did whatever else came along, although

she was particularly good in juried criminal cases.

“It’s okay. I hate leaving the baby, but she doesn’t

seem to mind one bottle feeding a day as long as I’m

here for the others. And let’s face it, after working fifty-

and sixty-hour weeks, thirty hours is a piece of cake.”

She told me about the new nanny (“a jewel”), how

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HARD ROW

her diet was coming if she expected to get into a decent

bathing suit by the summer (“I’m an absolute cow and if

anybody gives me one more ‘got milk?’ joke, I’m gonna

stomp him”), and whether or not Reid Stephenson, my

cousin and former law partner, was having an affair with

that new courthouse clerk (“I saw them going into one

of the conference rooms at lunch yesterday”).

I told her about my newfound hockey enthusiasm

(“Did you know Bret Hedican’s married to Kristi

Yamaguchi?”), how Cal was settling in (“He still acts

like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,

but I think we really connected last night”), and what

my docket had looked like yesterday (“Doesn’t anybody

just talk anymore? Why does it always have to be knives

or fists or baseball bats?”).

“That reminds me,” said Portland. “I have a new cli-

ent. Karen Braswell. Was her ex one of your cases yes-

terday? A James Braswell? Assault?”

“Assault?”

“A Mexican took a broken beer bottle to his arm out

at that Latino club. El Toro Negro.”

“Oh, yes.” The details were coming back to me. “Your

client’s his ex-wife? That’s right. He violated a restrain-

ing order she took out against him? He’s supposed to

come up before Luther Parker the first of the week, but

I’ve got him cooling his heels in jail till then.”

“Good. She’s really scared of him, Deborah. That’s

why she’s retained me to speak for her when his case

comes up. I just hope Judge Parker will put the fear of

the law in him.”

Our talk moved on to other subjects till the baby

35

MARGARET MARON

started fussing. “Lunch sometime this week?” Portland

asked before hanging up.

I agreed and put the finishing dab of polish on my

toenails. It was a fiery red with just a hint of orange.

Later that evening, I wiggled my bare toes at Dwight.

“It’s called Hot, Hot, Hot,” I told him. “What do you

think?”

He patted the couch beside him. “Come over here

and let me show you.”

Cool!

36

C H A P T E R

5

If farmers wish their sons to be attached to the farm home

and farm life they must make that farm home and farm life

sufficiently attractive to induce some of their boys to stay.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

% “What’s wrong with garden peas?” my brother

Haywood asked belligerently as he reached for an-

other of my chocolate chip cookies next day. “Everybody

I know likes ’em, they don’t have no pests and they’re

easy to grow.”

“Which is why they wholesale for less than a dollar

a pound in season,” Zach said patiently. “And picking

them is labor intensive. After we pay for help, what sort

of return would we get on our investment?”

“Messicans work cheap,” Haywood said, “and they

can pick a hell of a lot of peas in a hour.”

His wife Isabel rolled her eyes at the use of profanity

on a Sunday, but it was Daddy who frowned and mur-

mured, “Watch your mouth, boy.” Not because it was

Sunday but because there were “ladies” present and the

older he gets, the more he holds with old-fashioned be-

liefs about the delicacy of our ladylike ears. (For Daddy,

all respectable women, whatever our race or color, are

37

MARGARET MARON

ladies. The only time he huffs and mutters “You women!”

is when we try his patience to total exasperation.)

Seth and Minnie had called this meeting for those

of us who still live out here on the farm. Even though

Dwight and I are not directly involved with crops,

what’s grown here is certainly of interest to us since

we’re surrounded by the family fields and woodlands.

Both of us grew up working in tobacco—hard, physical,

dirty work. From picking up dropped leaves at the barn

when we were toddlers, to driving the tractors that fer-

ried the leaves from field to barn as preteens, to actually

pulling the leaves (Dwight) or racking them (me), we

each did our part to help get the family’s money crop

to market. We never needed lectures at school to know

about the tar in tobacco. After working in it for a few

hours, we could roll up marble sized balls of black sticky

gum from our hands.

Now the old way of marketing has changed. The

farm subsidy program has ended and the money’s been

used to buy out the farmers who had always raised it.

Instead of the old colorful auctions where competitive

bids could net a grower top dollar for a particularly at-

tractive sheet of soft golden leaves, tobacco companies

now contract directly with the growers for what’s pretty

much a take-it-or-leave-it offer that can be galling to

independent farmers who are more conservative than

cats when it comes to change.

My eleven brothers and I had grown up in tobacco

without questioning it. Tobacco fed and clothed us, and

those who stayed to farm with Daddy—Seth, Haywood,

Andrew, Robert, and Zach—pooled their labor and

equipment to grow more poundage every year and buy

38

HARD ROW

more land until we now collectively own a few thousand

acres in fields, woods, and some soggy wetlands.

The morality of tobacco itself was something else

we didn’t question. Our parents smoked. Daddy and

some of the boys still do. But only one or two of their

children have picked up the habit. Those grandchildren

who hope to stay and wrest a living from the land were

hoping to find an economically feasible alternative to

tobacco.

Each of my farming brothers has his own specialty

on the side. Haywood loves to grow watermelons, can-

taloupes, and pumpkins even though he makes so little

profit that by the time he pays his fertilizer bills, he’s

working for way less than minimum wage. Andrew and

Robert raise a few extra hogs every year and they get

top dollar for their corn-fed, free-range pork. Those

two and Daddy also raise rabbit dogs, and Zach’s bee-

keeping hobby now turns a modest profit because he

rents his hives to truck farmers and fruit growers. Seth

and I have leased some of our piney woods to landscap-

ers who rake the straw for mulch, and Seth’s daughter

Jessica boards a couple of horses to pay for the upkeep

on her own horse.

Today, we were all gathered at Seth and Minnie’s to

try to reach an agreement as to what the main money

crop would be. Outside, the weather was raw and wintry

with a forecast of freezing rain. Inside things were start-

ing to heat up. The boys planned to apply for a grant to

help make the changeover to a different use of the farm,

if they could agree on what that use should be.

It was a very big if and today was not the first time

Haywood and Zach had butted heads on this.

39

MARGARET MARON

Zach is one of the “little twins,” so called because he

and Adam are younger than Haywood and Herman, the

“big twins,” and Haywood does not like being lectured

to by a younger brother even if Zach is an assistant prin-

cipal at West Colleton High, where he himself barely

scraped through years earlier. Andrew and Robert are

even older than Haywood, but they listen when Zach

and Seth speak.

Seth is probably the quietest of my eleven older broth-

ers and the most even-tempered. I would never admit

to anybody that I love one of them more than the oth-

ers but I have always felt a special connection to Seth.

He didn’t finish college like Adam, Zach, and I did, but

he reads and listens and, like Daddy, he thinks on things

before he acts. Even Haywood listens to Seth.

So far today, we had discussed the pros and cons of

pick-your-own strawberries, blueberries, blackberries,

or grapes. Someone halfheartedly raised the possibility

of timbering some of the stands of pines. That would

yield a few thousand an acre but was pretty much a one-

time sale, given how long it takes to grow a pine to

market size. Daddy still mourned the longleaf pines that

had to be cut to pay the bills when he was a boy and

“Y’all can do what you like about what’s your’n,” he

said firmly, “but I ain’t interested in selling any more

of mine,” which pretty much scotched that possibility

since none of us wanted to go against him.

“Too bad we can’t grow hemp,” Seth said and my

brothers nodded in gloomy agreement. Hemp is a

wonderful source material of paper and cloth and our

soil and climate would make it a perfect alternative to

tobacco. If it had first been called the paper weed or

40

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something equally innocuous, North Carolina would

be a huge producer. With a name like hemp though,

our legislators are scared to death to promote it even

though you’d have to smoke a ton of the stuff to get a

decent buzz.

Zach and Barbara’s kids had been all over the Internet

scouting out alternatives and they had brought print-

outs to share with us.

“What about shiitakes?” Emma said now, passing out

diagrams of stacked logs.

“She-whatys?” asked her Uncle Robert.

“Shiitake mushrooms. You take oak logs, drill holes

in them, put the spores in the holes and plug the holes

with wax. They grow pretty good here because they like

a warm, moist climate and that’s our summers, right?”

Her brother Lee added, “We could convert the

bulk barns to mini greenhouses and grow them year

’round.”

“Right now, a cord of wood can produce about two

thousand dollars’ worth of mushrooms,” said Emma.

“Two thousand?” That got Haywood’s attention.

Andrew frowned as he looked at the diagrams. “But

what’s the cost of growing ’em?”

“According to the info put out by State’s forestry ser-

vice, the net return is anywhere from five hundred to a

thousand a cord. But they do warn that the profit may

go down if a lot of people get into growing them.”

“That’s going to be the case with anything,” said

Seth. “What else you find?”

“Ostriches,” Lee said.

Across the room, Dwight winked at me and sat back

to enjoy the fun.

41

MARGARET MARON

“Ostriches?” Robert’s wife Doris and Haywood were

both predictably taken aback by the suggestion.

Andrew’s son A.K. laughed and said, “Big as they are,

we could let Jessie here put saddles on them and give

kiddie rides.”

Isabel said, “Ostriches? What kind of outlandish fool-

ery is that?”

“Some of the restaurants and grocery stores are

starting to sell the meat over in Cary,” said Seth and

Minnie’s son John, a teenager who hadn’t yet com-

mitted to farming, but was taking surveying classes at

Colleton Community College.

“Oh, well, Cary.” Doris’s voice dripped sarcasm. For

most of my family, the name of that upscale, manicured

town just west of Raleigh was an acronym: Containment

Area for Relocated Yankees, although Clayton, over in

Johnston County, was fast becoming a Cary clone with

even better acronymic possibilities.

Isabel said, “If y’all’re thinking about raising animals,

what’s wrong with hogs?”

“Ostriches are easier,” said Lee. “They don’t need

routine shots, there’s a strong market for their hide and

they’re a red meat that’s lower in fat and cholesterol

than pork.”

“Plus their waste is not a problem,” said Emma,

wrinkling her pretty little nose. “They don’t stink like

hogs.”

“Yeah, but hogs is more natural,” said Isabel.

“Think of the pretty feather dusters,” I said, playing

devil’s advocate.

“You laugh,” said Lee, “but did you know that some

manufacturers use ostrich feathers to dust their com-

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puter chips? They attract microscopic dust particles yet

they don’t have any oils like other birds.”

“You can even sell the blown egg shells at craft fairs,”

said Emma.

As they touted the bird’s good points, Isabel kept

shaking her head. “I’d be plumb embarrassed to tell

folks we was raising ostriches.”

“But it’s something we can think about,” Seth

said and added them to the list he was making on his

notepad.

“What about cotton or peanuts?” asked Andrew.

“We’d maybe have to invest in a picker or harvester,

but neither one of ’em would be all that different from

tobacco.”

Robert’s youngest son Bobby had been listening qui-

etly. Now he said, “Don’t y’all think it’d be good if

we could switch over to something that doesn’t require

tons of pesticides on every acre?”

“Everything’s got pests that you gotta poison,” said

his father.

“Not if we went organic.”

The other kids nodded enthusiastically. “The way the

area’s growing, the market’s only going to get stronger

for organic foods.”

“You young’uns act like we’re some sort of crimi-

nals ’cause we didn’t sit around and let the crops get

eat up with worms and bugs and wilts and nematodes,”

Haywood huffed. “Every time we find something that

works, the government comes and takes it away.”

“Because it doesn’t really work,” said Bobby. “All

we’re doing is breeding more resistant pests and endan-

gering our own health.”

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MARGARET MARON

Haywood’s broad face turned red. “There you go

again. Like our generation poisoned the world.”

“Some of your generation has,” said Jessie. “Crop

dusters filling the air we breathe. PCBs causing can-

cer. Look at the way some farmers still sneak and use

methyl bromide even though it’s supposed to be illegal

now. And then they make their guest workers go in right

away.”

Her indignant young voice italicized the word

“guest.” She knows as well as any of my brothers that

migrant workers are but the newest batch of labor-

ers to be exploited. I remember my own school days

when I first learned that expendable Irish immigrants

were used to drain the malaria-ridden swamps down in

South Carolina because slaves were too valuable to be

risked. To claim that undocumented aliens do the work

Americans are unwilling to do ignores the unspoken

corollary—“unwilling to do it for that kind of money.”

Hey, the balance sheet can look real good when you

don’t have to pay minimum wage.

But if Haywood was unwilling to be lectured by

Zach, no way was he going to be lectured by nieces or

nephews.

Or by me either, for that matter.

“We ain’t here to argue about what other people are

doing on their land,” he said hotly. “We’re here to talk

about what we’re gonna do on ours.”

Robert sighed. “I just wish we didn’t have to quit

raising tobacco.”

Andrew and Haywood nodded in gloomy agreement.

“We don’t,” Seth said. “At least not right away. We

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won’t really lose money if we sign contracts for another

couple of years.”

Andrew brightened. “At least get a little more return

outten them bulk barns.”

My nieces and nephews looked at each other in dis-

may at the prospect of sweating out tobacco crops for

another two or three years.

“But it wouldn’t hurt to start cleansing some of our

land,” I said. “It takes about five years of chemical-free

use to get certified, right?”

Lee shook his head. “Only thirty-six months.”

“Well, if you guys want to do the paperwork, you

can start with my seven acres on the other side of the

creek.”

“The Grimes piece?” asked Seth.

I nodded.

“I’ve got eight acres that touch her piece that you can

use,” he told the kids, and he and I looked expectantly

at Daddy, who held title to the rest of the Grimes land.

The field under discussion was isolated by woods on

two sides and wetlands on the other, so it would be a

good candidate for organic management.

“Yeah, all right,” he said. “You can have mine, too.

That’ll give y’all about twenty-two acres to play with.”

Some of the cousins still wanted to grumble, but Lee,

Bobby and Emma thanked us with glowing faces. “Wait’ll

you see what we can do with twenty-two acres!”

Haywood, Robert, and Andrew were still looking

skeptical.

“Have some cookies,” I said and passed them the

cake box.

45

C H A P T E R

6

It is a wonder that everybody don’t go to farming. Lawyers

and doctors have to sit about town and play checkers and

talk politics, and wait for somebody to quarrel or fight or

get sick.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

% On Wednesday morning, the first day of March,

I was in the middle of a civil case that involved

dogs and garbage cans when my clerk leaned over dur-

ing a lull and whispered, “Talking about dogs, Faye

Myers just IM’d me. The Wards’ dog found a hand

this morning.”

News and gossip usually flies around the courthouse

with the speed of sound but these days, with one of the

dispatchers in the sheriff ’s department now armed with

instant messaging, it’s more like the speed of light.

“A what?”

“A man’s hand,” the clerk repeated.

“Phyllis Ward’s Taffy?” The Wards were good friends

of my Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash, and I’ve known Taffy

since she was a pup. They live a couple of miles out from

Dobbs in a section that is still semirural and I drive by

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HARD ROW

their house whenever I hold court here, so I often see

one of them out with Taffy when I pass.

“I don’t know the dog’s name. All Faye said was that

a Mr. Frank Ward called in to report that their dog came

home just now with a man’s hand in its mouth.”

Taffy’s a white-and-tan mixed breed with enough re-

triever in her that Mr. Frank had once taken her duck

hunting in the hope that she would turn out to be a

worker as well as a pet. She loved the thirty-mile drive

to his favorite marshland, she loved being in the marsh,

she loved splashing in the water, but as soon as he fired

the first shot, she took off like a rocket. He called and

whistled for hours.

No Taffy.

Eventually, he had to drive the thirty miles back and

face Miss Phyllis, who hadn’t wanted him to take their

house pet hunting in the first place. It was a miserable

eternity for him until Taffy finally dragged herself home

a week later, footsore and muddy.

Even though he never again took her hunting, the

dog did prove to be an excellent retriever. A rutted sandy

lane bisects the farm. Locals call it the Ward Turnpike

and use it as a shortcut between two paved highways.

According to Aunt Zell, Taffy’s always coming back

from her morning runs with drink cups or greasy ham-

burger papers that litterbugs throw out. Over the years,

she’s brought home golf balls, disposable diapers, mit-

tens and ballcaps, a large rubber squeaky frog, a plastic

flamingo, the bottom half of a red bikini, and a paper-

back mystery novel titled Murder on the Iditarod Trail.

“Phyllis said it was a right interesting book,” Aunt

Zell reported.

47

MARGARET MARON

But a man’s hand?

Even though the Wards’ place was five or six miles

east of Bethel Baptist, surely that hand had to go with

those legs that had been found Friday night. Unless

we’ve suddenly thrown up a serial butcher?

Dwight was probably already out there and it would

be unprofessional of me to bother him, but I was sup-

posed to be having lunch with Aunt Zell and nobody

could fault me for calling her during the morning break

to let her know when I’d be there, right? Burning curi-

osity had nothing to do with it.

(“Yeah and I’ve got twenty million in a Nigerian bank

I’d like to split with you, ” said the disapproving preacher

who lives in the back of my skull. “Just send me your

social security number and the number of your own bank

account. ”)

“Deborah? Oh, good!” Aunt Zell exclaimed. “Did

you hear about Phyllis and Taffy? Is this not the most

gruesome thing you’ve ever heard? First those legs and

now this hand? Cold as it is, Phyllis said she had to give

Taffy a bath in the garage before she could let her back

in the house. I hope you don’t mind, but I told her I’d

bring them lunch if I could get you to carry me out

there? Ash is still up in the mountains and the roads are

icy all the way east to Burlington so I made him promise

not to drive till it melts.”

“Of course I’ll take you,” I said.

“Thanks, honey. I do appreciate it.”

(“It’s always nice to get extra credit for something you

want to do anyhow, ” my interior pragmatist said, happily

thumbing his nose at the preacher.)

When the clock approached noon, I told the warring

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attorneys to try to work out a compromise during lunch

and recessed fifteen minutes earlier than usual. I called

Aunt Zell again from my car and she opened the door

as soon as I turned into her drive. The rain had slacked

to a light drizzle. Nevertheless, I grabbed my umbrella

to shelter her back to the car.

Aunt Zell is my mother without Mother’s streak of

recklessness or that tart wry humor that kept Daddy off

balance from the day he met her till the day she died.

Although she never had children, Aunt Zell was the duti-

ful daughter who did everything else that was expected of

her. She finished college. She married a respectable man

in her own social rank. She joined the town’s usual ser-

vice organizations and volunteers wherever an extra pair

of hands are needed. She not only lives by the rules, she

agrees with those rules. Never in a million years would she

have shocked the rest of the family and half the county

by marrying a bootlegger with a houseful of motherless

sons. But she adored my mother and she had immedi-

ately embraced those boys as if they were blood nephews.

Furthermore, she’s always treated Daddy as if he was the

same upright pillar of the community as Uncle Ash.

When my wheels fell off after Mother died, she was

the one family member I kept in touch with and she was

the one who took me in without reproach or questions

when I was finally ready to come home.

So, yes, I would drive her to Alaska if she asked me

to, whether or not I had ulterior reasons for going to

Alaska.

Like me, Aunt Zell wore black wool slacks and boots

today, but my car coat was bright red while her parka

was a hunter green. She had the hood up against the

49

MARGARET MARON

arctic wind and a halo of soft white curls blew around

her pretty face.

“March sure didn’t come in like a lamb, did it?” she

asked by way of greeting.

I held the rear door for her and she carefully set a gal-

lon jug of tea and an insulated bag on the floor before

getting into the front seat. Even though the bag was

zipped shut, the entrancing aroma of a bubbling hot

chicken casserole filled my car and reminded me that I’d

only had a piece of dry toast and coffee for breakfast.

The Ward place was a much-remodeled farmhouse

that had been built by Mr. Frank’s grandfather when

this was a dairy farm. There had once been a smaller

house over by the road that took its name from the

farm, but when a tree fell on it during a hurricane, the

grandfather had sited a larger house on the opposite

side of the farm, away from the bustling dairy. The cows

and the dairy were long gone, but the hay pastures re-

mained and so did the Wards, who valued heritage over

the hard cash the land would probably bring if they ever

put it on the market. As I approached, I saw patrol cars

down on the turnpike, but I didn’t spot Dwight.

(“Not that you’re looking for him, ” my inner preacher

reminded me sternly.)

As is still the custom out here, I followed the drive

around to the back rather than parking out front. A

single light tap of my horn brought Mr. Frank to the

door and he held it wide for us to run through the icy

raindrops. Taffy was right there at his heels ready for a

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HARD ROW

friendly pat or ear scratch and smelling faintly of baby

shampoo.

“If she’s ever seen a stranger, she’s never let us know,”

said Miss Phyllis, coming out to the sun porch to give

me a welcoming hug. “But you’ve been a stranger lately,

Deborah. I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen you

since the wedding.”

She’s small and bird-boned and always makes me feel

like an Amazon even though I’m only five-six. After a

quick look of appraisal, she smiled and said, “Married

life must suit you.”

“It does,” I agreed.

“And Zell tells me that you’re a full-time stepmother,

too? Poor little boy. That’s so sad about his mother.

How’s he doing?”

“Pretty good, everything considered,” I said as Mr.

Frank took our coats and we went on through the warm

and cheerful kitchen to the dining room where the table

was set with five places even though there were only

four of us. “It helps that his cousins are close by. And

Dwight’s mother, too, of course. It’s not as if he’s had

to adjust to a bunch of strangers.”

“All the same, it has to be hard on him. On you and

Dwight, too,” Miss Phyllis said wisely. “You’ve both

suddenly become full-time parents without the usual

nine months to get used to the idea.”

“There are times when I wish I could ask Mother

how she did it,” I admitted. “At least Dwight and I

have known each other long enough to be used to each

other’s good and bad points, but how on earth did she

find time to get to know Daddy with eight young boys

in the house?”

51

MARGARET MARON

“You’ll figure it out,” said Mr. Frank. “You’re a lot

like Sue, isn’t she, Zell?”

Aunt Zell smiled and squeezed my hand, then we got

to work unpacking the lunch. I filled the five glasses

with ice cubes and poured tea while she set out a large

earthenware casserole, a side dish of baby butter beans

that she’d frozen last summer, and a basket of fresh hot

yeast rolls. Miss Phyllis brought in butter and a dish of

crisp sweet pickles.

By the time we sat down at the table, I had heard all

about the severed hand Taffy found.

“I let her out as usual around seven this morning,”

said Miss Phyllis. “Most days, Frank and I will take a

cup of coffee and walk around the edge of the woods

with her, but it was so raw and wet this morning that

we let her go alone. I have no idea where she went, but

as muddy and drenched as she was when she came back,

I’m sure she was over splashing in the creek.”

“She’ll do that if we’re not with her,” said Mr. Frank,

smoothing down silky white hair that still bore the

marks of the hat he must have worn earlier. “Doesn’t

matter how cold it is.”

“She was out there a good forty-five minutes,” his

wife continued, “and I was loading the dishwasher when

I saw her, through the kitchen window, coming across

the backyard with something in her mouth. At first I

thought it was somebody’s old brown leather work

glove or an oddly shaped piece of wood. As soon as I

opened the door for her, I told her to drop it because

whatever it was, I didn’t want it on my clean floor. She

left it on the step and came on in. I keep an old towel

out there on the sun porch to wipe her off if she comes

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HARD ROW

back muddy and she knows to stand still for me, but this

morning, she kept nosing at the door like she wanted

her find.

“I finally opened the door to see what was so inter-

esting to her and as soon as I took a good look, I just

screamed for Frank. It was horrible, Deborah! A hand

chopped off at the wrist. Yuck!”

“I called 911,” said Mr. Frank.

“And I took Taffy right out to the garage for a good

soapy bath. I even washed out her mouth. I couldn’t

bear to think of her licking me with a tongue that had

licked at that thing.”

She shuddered and almost spilled the glass of tea

when she took a sip to steady her nerves.

“Try not to think about that part,” said Aunt Zell.

“I’m sure her mouth is nice and sweet again.”

With a heartiness that fooled no one, Mr. Frank said,

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. This looks delicious,

Zell.”

Miss Phyllis allowed herself to be distracted from that

grisly image and indicated where we were to sit.

“Is someone else coming?” I asked as I sat down next

to the extra chair and unfolded my napkin.

Mr. Frank nodded. “I did tell Dwight that lunch

would be here when he was ready to eat, but he said for

us not to wait on him.”

That was all I needed to hear and as soon as he’d

said grace, I excused myself and went out to the sun

porch to call. Taffy followed, her fur soft and shining

clean. Nevertheless, I did not put my hand out for her

to lick.

53

MARGARET MARON

“Just wanted you to know that lunch is on the table,”

I said when Dwight answered.

“Sorry, shug. I can’t leave now. I’ll have to grab a

sandwich or something back in town.” He let two beats

of silence go by, then said, “What? No questions?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “No. Mr. Frank and Miss

Phyllis have already told me everything.”

“Not everything,” he said and hung up before I could

say another word.

Mindful that I had to get back to court yet solicitous

of Dwight who had been out in the cold and wet for

hours, Phyllis Ward said she’d carry Aunt Zell back to

town if I wanted to swing down and take him some

lunch. Because she was already pulling out bread and

lettuce and sliced ham from the refrigerator, and be-

cause Aunt Zell seemed to be settling in for a nice long

visit, I really had no choice except to thank her for her

thoughtfulness and do as I was told.

“I hope he’s dressed warm enough,” she worried

aloud as she saw me off. “I’d send him one of Frank’s

white sweaters if he wasn’t twice as big as Frank.”

The rain had pretty much stopped as I drove the hun-

dred yards or so down the highway, then turned into

the rutted lane. A few yards off the road, a left fork

continued on down the slope into the woods and pre-

sumably to the creek. The right one ran along the far

edge of fields green with winter rye and would eventu-

ally lead over to Ward Dairy Road, so named for the

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original dairy farm. A knot of patrol cars blocked the

left lane, which seemed to be the center of activity, so I

did a U-turn and backed into the other one.

As I expected, someone alerted Dwight and in a cou-

ple of minutes he slung his raincoat in back and eased

his tall frame into the front seat beside me with a head-

shaking smile. “Couldn’t resist it, could you?”

“Not me,” I said, handing him the sandwiches and hot

coffee. His brown hair was dark from the rain. “I’d’ve

let you stay out here and starve, but Miss Phyllis was

worried about you. I think she feels guilty that Taffy

brought you out on such a cold wet day.”

“Who’s Taffy?” he asked around a mouthful of ham

and lettuce.

“Their dog. The one that found the hand. Was it a

left or right?”

He uncapped the coffee and took a long drink, then

grinned at me. “I thought you said the Wards told you

everything.”

“I forgot to ask them that particular detail. Miss

Phyllis was freaking just thinking about it in Taffy’s

mouth.”

“It’s a right hand.”

“Too bad it wasn’t the left. A ring might have given

you a lead if he was wearing one.”

We both glanced at the gold band gleaming on

his own left hand. The words I’d had engraved there

wouldn’t have helped anyone identify the owner, but

the date could narrow it down a bit.

“I just hope the guy’s prints are on file.” He finished

the first sandwich and unwrapped the second.

“The fingertips are still intact?”

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MARGARET MARON

“Some of them.” He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t

ask. “The cold weather helps. We found the left arm

about an hour ago. Makes us think that the other arm

and hand might be here but some animal could have

dragged them off. Coons or possums or more dogs

maybe. Their tracks are all over and something’s been

at it.”

He continued to eat, his appetite unaffected by a situ-

ation that would make my skin crawl if I allowed myself

to dwell on it.

“This lane connects to Ward Dairy Road,” I said.

He nodded, already there before me. “And Ward

Dairy runs right by Bethel Baptist, less than five miles

from where those legs were found. When we finish up

here, I’m going to have our patrol cars eyeball all the

ditches between here and there.”

I glanced at my watch and realized that I was going

to be late if I didn’t hurry.

“Yeah, I need to get back to work, too,” Dwight said.

He put the wrappings in the bag Miss Phyllis had sent

the sandwiches in, wiped his mouth with the napkins

she’d provided and leaned over to kiss me. “The roads

are slick, so don’t speed, okay?”

“Okay.”

He raised a cynical eyebrow. “You say it, but do you

really mean it?”

Fortunately, there were no slow-moving tractors out

on the road this first day of March and I made it back

to court with a few minutes to spare and without going

more than five or six miles over the limit. To my sur-

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prise, the litigating parties had indeed decided to settle,

and after I signed all the orders, we moved on to the

next item on the docket, which was more complicated.

Judson “Buck” Harris, a large commercial grower,

had divorced his wife, Suzanne “Suzu” Poynter Harris,

a middle-aged woman who might have been attractive

in her youth but had now let herself go. A bad hair color

was showing at least an inch of gray roots, her skin had

faced too many hours of wind and sun without moistur-

izers, and her boxy navy blue suit and navy overblouse

did nothing to disguise the extra thirty pounds she was

carrying.

The divorce had been finalized a week or so ago and

we were now trying to make an equitable division of

their jointly held assets. “Trying to” because, to my an-

noyance, there was no Mr. Harris at the other attorney’s

table. Said attorney was my cousin Reid Stephenson, a

younger partner at my old law firm and someone who

knows me well enough to know when I’m unhappy with

a situation.

“Your Honor,” he said, giving me a hopeful look of

boyish entreaty, “I would ask the court’s patience and

request one final continuance.”

“Objection,” snapped Mrs. Harris’s lawyer.

Pete Taylor was just as problematic for me as Reid,

even though he, too, had agreed to my hearing this

case. Pete’s the current president of the District Bar

Association and he was one of my early supporters when

I first decided to run for the bench. And yes, there are

times when practicing law in this district can feel almost

incestuous. But if every judge recused himself because

57

MARGARET MARON

of personal connections, our dockets would never be

cleared.

“Is Mr. Harris ill or physically unable to come to

court?” I asked Reid as I looked around the almost

empty courtroom.

“Not to my knowledge, Your Honor, but I haven’t

been able to reach him this week.”

Pete Taylor straightened his bright red bow tie, one

of dozens that he owns, and got to his feet. “Your

Honor, this matter has dragged on three months lon-

ger than necessary because Mr. Harris can’t seem to re-

member court dates. Today’s hearing is to establish his

financial worth and this is the third time that Mr. Lee

has been called to testify as to the validity and accuracy

of Mr. Harris’s bank records. Unless my worthy oppo-

nent plans to challenge Mr. Lee’s veracity, I submit that

there is no substantive reason not to begin without Mr.

Harris’s presence and hope he will arrive before we get

to disputed matters.”

“I agree,” I said. “Call your witness, Mr. Taylor.”

Before he could do so, Mrs. Harris tugged at his

sleeve and when he bent to hear what she wanted to

ask, it was clear from her body language that she was

upset about something and that Pete’s answer did not

please her. She immediately let go his sleeve and spoke

to me directly.

“Your Honor?”

“Yes, Mrs. Harris?”

“Can’t this be more private?”

“More private?”

“Mr. Lee’s going to be talking about personal stuff,

about how much money we have and how much land

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we own, and I don’t see why it has to be said in front of

a lot of people.”

A lot of people?

At this point, except for the participants in the case,

there were only five others in the courtroom, a man and

four women. I recognized two of the women, elderly

regulars who prefer courtroom drama to afternoon

television. The young man sat three rows in front of

the third woman, but a current seemed to run between

them. No doubt this was the divorcing couple sched-

uled to follow the Harris hearing. The fourth woman

was unfamiliar to me.

In her anger, Mrs. Harris spoke with a good old

Colleton County twang like someone raised on a local

farm. I didn’t know much about the Harrises except by

hearsay, but I gathered that she had worked right along-

side her husband back when he was out in the fields,

plowing and planting and growing the produce that was

now sold in grocery chains from Maryland to Maine.

There might be diamonds on her big-knuckled fingers

and those might be real pearls around her neck, but this

was clearly someone who had spent her youth in hard

work and plain dealing.

She turned to glare accusingly at the woman seated

alone on the last bench in the courtroom. “I don’t want

her here while this is going on.”

The woman returned her glare with level eyes that

were vaguely—arrogantly?—amused. Wearing jeans and

a chocolate brown turtleneck sweater, with a fleece-lined

beige leather jacket draped over her slender shoulders,

she lounged against the armrest at the end of the bench

and seemed completely at ease. From where I sat, she

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MARGARET MARON

looked to be my age—late thirties. She wasn’t classically

beautiful, yet there was something that made you take a

second look and it wasn’t just the flaming red hair that

flowed in loose waves to her shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harris. This is a public hearing.”

She wasn’t the first person to cringe at the realization

that what had been private was now going to become

public knowledge, but her animosity was so palpable

that I had a feeling that the redhead back there must

have played a starring role in the disintegration of the

Harris partnership.

Mrs. Harris flounced back around in her chair and

I nodded to her attorney. “Call your witness, Mr.

Taylor.”

As expected, that witness was Denton Lee, an execu-

tive at Dobbs Fidelity Trust and one good-looking man.

Dent’s a few years older than me but even though he’s

a distant cousin by way of my former law partner, John

Claude Lee, I hadn’t known him when I was growing

up, so I was devastated to come back to Dobbs and dis-

cover that the most stone-cold gorgeous man in town

was happily married and the father of two equally beau-

tiful children. Like all the Colleton County Lees, his

hair is prematurely white which goes very nicely with his

piercing blue eyes and fair skin.

After firmly reminding myself that I was a married

woman now (“Married but not brain dead,” my interior

pragmatist said tartly), I put aside those memories of

past regrets and concentrated on his testimony as to the

financial holdings of Harris Farms.

In front of me was a thick sheaf of records that de-

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HARD ROW

tailed the checks deposited and the withdrawals made

from the three accounts that the bank handled.

In clear, direct testimony, Dent explained for the rec-

ord precisely how these statements had been generated,

the technology used, the validity and accuracy of the

data. This was not the first time he had come to court

with such testimony and I was no more inclined to dis-

trust his expertise than was my cousin Reid.

The Harrises may have started with a single thirty-

acre farm here in the county, but their tomatoes now

grew in huge fields that sprawled from Cotton Grove

to the other side of New Bern. Yet, despite the amount

of money trundling in and out of their accounts, the

Harrises ran what was still basically a mom-and-pop or-

ganization. Yes, there was a layer of accountants and

clerks to track expenses and taxes; overseers who di-

rected the planting, cultivation, and harvesting out on

the land; mechanics who kept the equipment in good

repair; managers who kept the migrant camps up to fed-

eral standards; and marketing personnel, too, but Harris

Farms was a limited liability company, which meant that

the Harrises owned all the “shares.” Mr. Harris was said

to be a hands-on farmer who still got on a tractor oc-

casionally or rode out to the fields himself.

The gross take from fresh produce they’d sold to the

grocery chain was astonishing, but my eyes really widened

when I saw the size of the check from a major cannery

for the bulk of last year’s tomato crop. Maybe Haywood

was right. Maybe my brothers could do with garden peas

what the Harrises had done with tomatoes.

“Thank you, Mr. Lee,” Pete Taylor said when the

banker finished speaking.

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MARGARET MARON

“No questions,” said Reid.

Next came testimony from their chief accountant,

then Reid asked for a recess to see if he could contact

his client.

“Good luck on that!” I heard Mrs. Harris say. “If he’s

still holed up in the mountains, we don’t get good cell

service there and he never answers a land line.”

As Reid stepped out to place his call, I signaled to

the divorcing couple. It was a do-it-yourself filing. Both

were only twenty-two. No children, no marital prop-

erty to divide, no request for alimony by either party. I

looked at the two of them.

“According to these papers, you were only married

four months before you called it quits. Are you sure you

gave it enough time?”

“Oh yes, ma’am,” said the woman. “We lived to-

gether two years before we got married.”

The man gave a silent shrug.

His soon-to-be-ex-wife said, “Marriage always changes

things, doesn’t it?”

I couldn’t argue with that. I signed the documents

that would dissolve their legal bond and wished them

both better luck next time.

“Won’t be a next time,” the young man said quietly.

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C H A P T E R

7

The farmer must be vigilant and sensible to all that hap-

pens upon his land.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

% On Thursday, I had lunch with Portland at a Tex-

Mex restaurant that’s recently opened up only two

blocks from the courthouse. Although the sun was fi-

nally shining, the mercury wasn’t supposed to climb

higher than the mid-thirties, which made chile rellenos

and jalapeño cornbread sound appealing to me.

Portland was game even though she couldn’t eat any-

thing very hot or spicy.

As we were shown to our table, she tried to remem-

ber just how many times this place had changed hands

in the last eight or nine years since the original longtime

owner died and his heirs put it up for sale.

“First it was Peggy’s Pantry, then the Souper Sandwich

House, but wasn’t there something else right after

Peggy’s?”

“The Sunshine Café?” I hazarded.

“No, that was two doors down from here, where the

new card shop’s opened.”

Neither of us could remember and our waitress spoke

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MARGARET MARON

too little English to be of help. She handed us menus,

took our drink orders and went off to fetch them.

“I swear I feel just like Clover,” Portland complained

as she looked through the menu for something bland.

“Clover?”

“You remember Clover. My grandmother’s last cow?

Every spring she’d get into the wild garlic and the milk

would taste awful. That’s me these days. Anything fun

to eat goes straight through my nipples and gives the

baby colic or diarrhea.”

With impeccable timing, a plate of something that

involved black bean paste arrived at the next table.

“A few less graphics here, please,” I said.

“Sorry. I don’t suppose you want to talk about body

parts either, huh?”

I sighed. “Not particularly. Without the head and

torso, Dwight and Bo are beginning to think they may

never get an identity. The fingerprints aren’t in any offi-

cial databases and there don’t seem to be any men miss-

ing who match the body type the medical examiner’s

postulated, based on two legs, a hand, and an arm.”

We ordered, then talked about the baby, about Cal,

about Dwight and Avery, about the Mideast situation

and the President’s latest imbecilic pronouncements

until our food came. Our talk was the usual bouncing

from subject to subject that friends do when they know

each other so well they can almost finish each other’s

sentences. She laughed when I told her Haywood and

Isabel’s reaction to the idea of raising ostriches and she

shared a bit of catty gossip about a woman attorney

that neither of us likes. We worried briefly about Luther

Parker, a judge that we do like, and how it was lucky

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he’d only twisted his ankle when he fell on the ice yes-

terday.

“How did he rule on that violation of the restraining

order by—what’s his name? Braswell? Your client’s ex-

husband?” I asked.

“James Braswell,” she said. “Imposed another fine

and gave him ten more days in jail, but since it’s to

run concurrent with what you gave him, he’ll be out

again by the middle of next week. If he violates it again,

Parker warned him that he could be doing some serious

time. I hope this convinces him to stay away because

Karen’s really scared of him, Deborah.”

“Any children?”

“No, but she’s got a sick mother that she’s caring for,

so she doesn’t feel she can just cut and run even though

that’s what her gut’s telling her.”

This was not the first time we’d had this discussion

about why some men can’t accept that a relationship is

over when the woman says it’s over.

“At least Judge Parker’s going to take away his

guns.”

“That’s a step in the right direction,” I said trying to

ignore the dish of butter between us that cried out to be

spread on the last of my cornbread.

My back was to the door so I didn’t immediately

see the woman who spoke to Portland by name as she

started to pass our table.

Portland looked up and did a double take. “Well, I’ll

be darned! Hey, girl! What brings you up to Dobbs?”

“A man, of course,” the laughing voice said. “Isn’t it

always?”

65

MARGARET MARON

I half-turned in my seat and immediately recognized

the redhead who had been in my courtroom yesterday.

“Deborah,” said Portland, “do y’all know each other?

Robbie-Lane Smith?”

I smiled and shook my head.

“Well, you’ve heard me talk about her. Deborah

Knott, meet Robbie-Lane Smith. She managed that res-

taurant down at Wrightsville Beach where I worked two

summers.”

“I thought her name was Flame—? Oh, right. The

hair.”

The woman laughed. “A lot of people still call me

that.”

Portland arched an eyebrow at her old roommate.

“People of the male persuasion?”

A noncommittal shrug didn’t exactly deny it. She

wore jeans again today and carried her tan fleece-lined

jacket over one arm. Her silk shirt was a dark copper

that did nice things for her green eyes and fair complex-

ion even as I realized that she was probably mid-forties

instead of the late thirties I’d first thought her.

“Are you by yourself?” Portland gestured to the

empty chair at our table. “Deborah and I are almost

finished, but why don’t you join us?”

“Sorry. I’m meeting someone.” She pulled a card

from her pocket. “Here’s my cell number and email,

though, and why don’t you give me yours? It looks like

I’m going to be around for a couple of days. Maybe we

could get together for drinks or something?”

“Sure.” Portland rummaged in her purse and came

up with one of her own cards.

“Portland Brewer now? You’re married?”

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HARD ROW

“And the mother of a two-and-a-half-month-old,”

she said proudly. “You still at the restaurant?”

“Nope. I own a B&B just two blocks from the River

Walk down in Wilmington. We have some serious catch-

ing up to do.” She turned to follow the waitress who

had been waiting to show her to a booth in the back.

“Call me, okay? Nice meeting you, Judge.”

“Oh, God, look at those hips!” Portland murmured

enviously as the other woman walked away. “She’s at

least five years older than me and I never looked that

sexy in jeans. I’m a cow!”

“You are not a cow,” I soothed. “Besides, didn’t you

say you’d lost another two pounds?”

Her face brightened beneath her mop of short black

curls. “True. And I didn’t eat any bread or butter

today.”

“There you go, then.”

I signaled our waitress that we were ready for our

check and we gathered up our coats and scarves.

“How did Flame know you’re a judge?” asked

Portland as we were leaving.

I explained that she’d been in my court the after-

noon before. “The Harris Farms divorce,” I said. “And

Mrs. Harris was furious that she was there. I get the

impression that your friend Flame is Buck Harris’s new

flame.”

“Really? I’ve heard tales about him for years but I

never met him. Is he good-looking?”

“I’ve only seen him once and he’s not our type—

musclebound with a thick neck as I recall. I’ve had to

grant four continuances because he just won’t come to

court. Reid’s his attorney and I warned him yesterday

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MARGARET MARON

that if Harris doesn’t show up next week, I’m going to

try the case without him.”

“Speak of the devil and up he jumps,” said Portland,

and we watched as my cousin Reid Stephenson entered

the restaurant and went straight on back to join Flame

Smith in a rear booth.

“If Buck Harris doesn’t get himself down from the

mountains and tend to business, he’s liable to find Reid

warming her bed.”

“You’re getting cynical in your old age,” Portland

said. “She’s got at least ten years on him.”

“You’re the one who said how sexy she looked in

those jeans,” I reminded her. “And we both know

Reid’s weakness for redheads.”

“Not to mention blondes and brunettes,” Portland

murmured.

“Now who’s being cynical?”

At the afternoon break, I called Dwight’s number.

He answered on the first ring. “Bryant here.” His

tone was brusque.

“And hey to you, too,” I said. “Does this mean the

honeymoon’s over?”

“Sorry. I didn’t check my screen.” Warmth came back

into his voice. “I assumed it was Richards calling back.

What’s up?”

“I just wanted to know if you remembered to pick up

Bandit’s heartworm pills from the vet? Or should I do

it on my way home?”

“Could you?” he asked. “And call Kate to let her

know I’m running late?”

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HARD ROW

“Don’t worry. I’ll pick Cal up, too.”

I heard voices in the background. “What’s going

on?”

“Another hand’s been reported,” he said grimly. “At

the edge of Apple Creek, just off Jernigan Road.”

“Jernigan Road? That’s nowhere near Ward Dairy.

Was there a wedding ring on the finger?”

“I doubt it,” Dwight said. “They say it’s another

right.”

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C H A P T E R

8

Cold does not injure the vitality of seeds, but moisture is

detrimental to all kinds.

—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

Dwight Bryant

Thursday Afternoon, March 2

% Dwight hung up the phone as several officers

crowded into his office to get their instructions.

Using the large topographical map of the county that

covered most of one wall, he located Apple Creek and

traced it with his finger till it crossed Jernigan Road. It

was well south and east of Dobbs and, as Deborah had

just pointed out, nowhere near Ward Dairy Road or

Bethel Baptist where the other limbs had been found.

“Here’s where the kids found the hand. Most animals

won’t usually carry something all that far, but it could

have washed down, so for starters, I want you walking

at least a half-mile up the creek and maybe a quarter-

mile down. Both sides. Pay particular attention here

and here, where there’re lanes that get close enough

to the creek that a body could be easily dumped from

a vehicle. And keep your eyes open for anything out of

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the ordinary that might give a clue to whoever did the

dumping. Mel, you and your team take it north and

the rest of you go south. Richards says it looks like that

hand’s been out there a while, so take some rods and

check anything that looks like a log.”

“Not much of a creek, as I remember,” said Sheriff

Bo Poole when the room was clear. “Just a little off-

shoot of Black Creek.”

“Best I recall, it pretty much dries up every August,”

Dwight agreed, “but we’ve had a right wet winter and

I’ve heard it can pool up in places.”

Bo nodded. “Beaver dams.”

He was a small trim man, but he carried his authority

like a six-footer. “I used to run a trapline through there

when I was a boy. Muskrats and beavers, even the oc-

casional mink.”

He went over to the map and looked at it so intently

that Dwight was sure his boss was walking the creek

again in his mind.

While Dwight called Detective Mayleen Richards to

tell her reinforcements were on the way and how she

should deploy them, he watched as Bo put his finger on

the creek and traced it a little further west.

“Here’s where it flows out of Black Creek. Used to

be good trapping along in here, too.” He looked up at

Dwight. “You fixing to head out there?”

Dwight nodded.

“Let me get my hat. Maybe I’ll ride along with

you.”

71

MARGARET MARON

After so many gray days, the blue sky was washed clean

of all clouds. Even the sunlight seemed extra bright,

and they rode out of Dobbs in companionable silence,

enjoying the novelty of a clear windshield and no wipers

swishing back and forth.

“Everything’s going good then?” Bo asked.

“Would be better if somebody’d come forward and

tell us who’s missing.”

“No, I meant at home. You and Deborah and your

boy.”

“He’s handling it better than I would. Bedtimes can

be a little rough. That seems to be when he misses Jonna

the most.”

“How’s Deborah handling it?”

“Cal and me, we’re real lucky, Bo.”

“She got any long-range plans for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Some women, they think they want a lawman and

then when they get him, they don’t want the law

part.”

“That happen with you and Marnie?”

“Naw, but Marnie was special.”

“So’s Deborah.”

“All I’m saying is let me know if I need to start look-

ing me another chief deputy.”

“And all I’m saying is don’t plan on writing a want ad

anytime soon.”

When they pulled onto the shoulder of Jernigan

Road near the little bridge that crossed Apple Creek

and stepped out of the truck, a bitter wind whipped

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HARD ROW

through the trees and dead vines that overhung the

water. It stung their eyes and cut at their bare faces.

Richards walked up from the creekbank to meet them, a

wad of tissues in her gloved hand. She had been fighting

a drippy cold all week and the tip of her nose was raw

from blowing. Tendrils of cinnamon brown hair worked

their way loose from her cap and blew across her freck-

led face until she tucked them back in.

“Nothing yet, sir,” she reported. “It’s up this way.”

Thin crusts of ice edged the creek, which was only

about eight feet wide and slow-moving. At this point it

was less than eighteen inches deep.

The two men followed as Richards led the way down

a narrow rough footpath that paralleled the south bank.

Nearly impassable here at the end of winter, one would

almost need a bushaxe to get through it in summer.

Dried briars tore at their pantlegs and tangled vines

caught at their feet. All three of them carried slender

metal rods and they used them as staffs to keep their

balance and brush back limbs.

Dwight was pleased to see that Mayleen was a savvy

enough woodsman to hold back the small tree branches

she pushed aside till Bo could grab them in turn and

hold them for Dwight, rather like holding open a set of

swinging doors to keep them from hitting the person

behind in the face. It was a reminder that Mayleen grew

up in this area and that Bo knew her people, which is

how she talked him into giving her a job.

“Who’d you say found it?” asked Bo, who kept hav-

ing to duck low-hanging branches to keep from losing

his trademark porkpie hat—a dapper black felt in win-

ter, black straw in the summer.

73

MARGARET MARON

“Three girls from the local high school.” Richards

paused to blow her nose. “They were looking for early

fiddleheads for a science project. One of them’s my

niece. Shirlee’s oldest daughter?”

Bo grunted to acknowledge he knew her sister

Shirlee.

“Soon as they realized what it was, she called me on

her cell phone and sent me a picture of it. I’m afraid

they trampled the ground around it too much for us to

see any animal tracks.”

Bo shook his head and Dwight knew it was not over

the messed up tracks, but that teenagers came equipped

these days with cell phones that could transmit pictures