Rituals of the Season

CHAPTER 11

Many men can converse on no other subject than their every day employment. In this case, listen politely, and show your interest. You will probably gain useful information in such conversation.

Florence Hartley, The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, 1873

Dinner at Jerry’s that night was, in many ways, a rerun of the night before except that this time, we were on Dwight’s turf instead of mine. Just as he knows many of the attorneys and judges by sight if not always by name, so too do I know a lot of the deputies and clerks who work out of the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department. Several of them have testified in my court and are familiar faces in the courthouse corridors or around Dwight’s office, but I had met very few of their spouses.

Bowman Poole, of course, I’ve known for ages because he and Daddy are good friends and he often comes out to the farm to hunt or fish. Of course, he wasn’t elected till after Daddy gave up messing with moonshine, but that probably wouldn’t have mattered. Bo would’ve arrested him, given the chance; and Daddy would’ve still voted for him and contributed to his campaign fund. They appreciate each other. I noticed a long time ago that successful lawmen and successful old reprobates are often just two sides of a single coin. It’s the same with brutal cops and thuggish crooks.

Fate and circumstances.

Flip the coin.

Call it while it’s in the air.

What makes a Bo Poole good at catching lawbreakers is the same foxy intelligence that makes men like my daddy hard to catch. (For what it’s worth, the only thing Daddy was ever charged with was evasion of income taxes, back when a couple of the little crossroads stores he fronted bought a lot more wholesale sugar than the records showed they’d actually sold. I don’t say that’s good, I just state the facts.)

Bo’s about my height, late fifties, with thin broomstraw hair, a trim build he carries like a gamecock, and a colorful folksy style that will probably keep getting him elected as long as he wants the job. Of course, colorful and folksy won’t cut it at the ballot box if people don’t feel their sheriff’s competent, and Bo makes sure the department’s clearance rate of violent crimes stays high. He also hound-dogs our county commissioners, always trying for a bigger slice of the budget pie so that he can afford the modern equipment and decent salaries that keep his good officers from being lured off to richer, more urbanized counties.

The quid pro quo is that he requires his people to keep their skills updated through community college courses and the various seminars the SBI or FBI regularly offer.

I respect him for his professionalism, but I love him for lazy summer afternoons out on one of the ponds, dabbling my hand in the still water while he and Daddy cast for bass and regale each other with war stories from their checkered pasts.

Like Daddy, Bo’s a widower, too, so he stood alone at the head of the steps to welcome us where John Claude and Julia had welcomed us the night before.

“Kezzie Knott’s daughter marrying a sheriff’s chief deputy,” he said, with a kiss for me and a warm handshake for Dwight. “I’d’ve never believed it if it was anybody besides Dwight.”

“Anybody besides Dwight and I wouldn’t believe it either,” I assured him.

Deputy Jack Jamison arrived right behind us and introduced me to his wife, Cindy. I knew they’d become parents back in late summer, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember if it was a boy or a girl.

“How’s that baby?” I asked, hoping they’d give me a hint.

“Fine,” said Jamison, both of them beaming. His wife was pretty, fair-haired, and, like her husband, a little on the tubby side, but a cuddlesome armful if the way Jamison was looking at her meant anything.

“This is only the third time we’ve both left him,” she said shyly.

“We’re honored, then,” I said. “Is he sleeping through yet?” (From listening to some of my friends bitch about it, sleeping through the night seems to be the first big thing in a newborn’s development.)

“Finally!” said the proud papa, and she added, “In fact, we may have to leave early so I can feed him before he goes down for the night.”

Which naturally meant that we all immediately cast discreet glances toward her generous bustline. Cindy Jamison seemed like a nice person and I hoped no one else would notice the faint milk stain on the nipple area of her Christmassy gold satin blouse.

“Well, hey, hey, hey!” called several voices as we passed to the bar area, and glasses were raised to us.

Tonight, the bar was stocked with beer and wine only, and it was strictly cash. “But,” said the bartender Jerry had provided, “I was told your money’s no good here tonight, Major Bryant.”

Dwight ordered a glass of Chardonnay for me and, after looking over the selection of beers, settled for a Michelob and added a bill to the tip glass.

“Hey, girl!” said a familiar voice and there was K.C. Massengill, whom I hadn’t seen since Dwight and I announced our engagement. Her hair was still sun-bleached from the summer—she has a place out on Lake Jordan—but she’s always worn it long and now it was cut in a short, sleek style that flattered her slender neck and sparkly chandelier earrings. More surprising than her haircut was her escort—fellow SBI agent Terry Wilson.

Once upon a time several years ago, for about twenty minutes between his second and third wives, I actually considered hooking up with Terry. Then I came to my senses and faced the fact that I would always come third behind his young son and his job as head of the SBI’s unsolved murders team. Somehow we had the good sense to stay friends—probably because he’s another lawman who likes to fish with Daddy. He and Dwight have gotten tight since Dwight came back to Colleton County, so we run into each other fairly often. He swears that he’s known for at least a year that Dwight and I were on a collision course for marriage.

“And another one bites the dust,” said K.C., giving me a hug.

“I like the haircut,” I told her, “but I thought you needed it long so that you could change your looks on stakeouts.”

She smiled. “No more stakeouts. Got promoted last month and now I sit at a desk most of the time.”

“Really? Congratulations!”

Buffing her nails against the tunic of her black velvet pantsuit, she murmured with mock modesty, “Thank you, thank you.”

“Yeah, we’re gonna get old and fat together,” Terry said, referring to the fact that he himself spends more time behind a desk these days than out in the field.

Together? It occurred to me that Terry’s son is a sophomore at NC State and no longer a child. And maybe the job’s not quite as all-consuming now that Terry does more supervising than active investigating.

As for getting old and fat, he might be carrying an extra five or six pounds around his waist, but K.C. was as slim and sexy as ever.

“So what’s going on here?” I asked her later when we were in the ladies’ room, freshening up our lipstick. “Y’all just ride out from Garner together or are you two seeing each other?”

“Well, our offices are in the same wing so, yeah, we do see more of each other these days.”

“C’mon, K.C. This is me. Give.”

“He makes me laugh,” she said.

“And?”

“He’s like that camel that gets his nose under the tent flap, and the next thing you know, the camel’s sleeping in your bed.”

“Y’all are living together?”

“It started out with fishing.” She capped her lipstick and slipped the case back into her black velvet clutch. “I let him put his boat in the water at my landing this summer and one thing sorta led to another. I’m still not completely sure that he’s not in it for the bass.”

“Oh, right,” I said.

She shook her head in bemusement. “I never intended to tie up with somebody on the job.”

“Me either.”

“Oh well, those roads to hell—they do keep getting themselves paved, don’t they?” she said, and we smiled at each other in the mirror.

Tonight, Jerry’s red tablecloths had been replaced by snowy white ones with alternating red and green napkins. The centerpieces were pots of red poinsettias wrapped in green foil.

Although Tracy’s death was again the main topic of conversation around the room, for most of them it was more a matter of professional interest than a sense of personal loss. Yes, Tracy had conferred with many of these officers about various cases under investigation, but that was business. She had not socialized with them.

Among the ones who did have a personal connection were Mike Castleman and Don Whitley, both white, and Eddie Lloyd, black, the three deputies who worked drug interdiction. According to Dwight, out on the interstate, they were like bird dogs in a covey of bobwhites, especially Castleman. “Going sixty-five miles an hour, he can look at two cars you’d swear were identical and point out the one that’s carrying drugs while the other one’s clean as a whistle.”

Indeed, he’d even been in my court before lunch on Friday to testify at a probable cause hearing for a couple of Haitian mules who were being bound over for trial in superior court. Coincidentally, he was on duty Friday evening and was one of the first responding officers, but when he repeated the story again for the group, it was Mei’s death that seemed to bother him more.

“When we talked about my testimony that morning, Ms. Johnson did say she was taking off early, but you never expect it to be somebody you know,” he said. “But the baby. God! I didn’t even see her at first. You automatically go for the driver or a front-seat passenger. Check for vitals, you know? When they told me there was a baby in the backseat—” He shook his head and took a deep breath. “Man, all I could think about was Heidi.”

Heidi? I raised my eyebrows at Dwight.

“His daughter,” Dwight murmured in my ear. “Grown now, but she hung the moon for him.”

I knew he was divorced and I had him pegged more for a good-timing lover than a doting daddy. Early forties with thick curly black hair and dark flashing eyes, Castleman had even cast one of those eyes my way back while I was still in private practice and he testified against one of my clients, but I was involved with someone else at the time and wasn’t interested.

He was personable and funny as a rule, but there was nothing funny about his story of coming up on Tracy’s wrecked car. Eddie Lloyd had been off duty that night and listened without his usual hip-hop flippancy. When standing on a street corner in the seedier parts of Makely or Widdington, Lloyd could look like a strung-out user in bad need of a hit. Tonight he was sharp in a black turtleneck and dark gray jacket.

Don Whitley sat off at the end of the table and he didn’t have much to say either.

“That’s right,” Dwight said to Don. “You and Tracy worked pretty closely on that carjacking case, back in the spring, didn’t you?”

Whitley nodded sadly. “She was one smart lady.”

The case had come to trial last month, and although I hadn’t followed it closely, I knew that Tracy had gotten stiff sentences for all the perps involved, thanks to the meticulous case Whitley had built for her. He was mid-thirties and nowhere near as flashy as Castleman or Lloyd. In fact, I barely knew him except by sight, but Dwight had given him a commendation for that piece of work, and whenever he talked about the productive members of the department, Whitley, Lloyd, and Castleman were always mentioned. Between them, they were responsible for confiscating close to a hundred thousand dollars in drug money last year, which was partly why the department got a new crime scene van and was able to provide Kevlar vests for everyone.

Lloyd and Castleman seemed stone-cold sober but Whitley had clearly had more than one. He wasn’t drunk, but he didn’t seem in control of his emotions either. “She’s the reason I’m going for my associate degree,” he said mournfully. “She encouraged me to do it.”

We were joined by Deputy Mayleen Richards, recently promoted to detective and one of those investigating Tracy’s death. She’s four or five years younger, a few inches taller, and always reminds me of a half-grown filly that still has moments of coltish, lurching awkwardness. For some reason, she often gets tongue-tied around me, and tonight was worse than usual. With shoulder-length hair the color of cinnamon and thick freckles, she turned brick red and only briefly met my eyes when she shook my hand and wished us happiness. It was with visible relief that she turned to Castleman and asked if he’d noticed a Palm Pilot in Tracy’s car. “We know she owned one, but we haven’t been able to locate it.”

Castleman shook his head. “The window was open on the passenger side. Maybe it bounced out and one of the gawkers grabbed it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Richards sighed and glanced up at Dwight. “We have a list of the bystanders, though, and we’ll check it out. Maybe we’ll find an honest person who’ll give it back.”

I’ve never used one of those electronic schedulers, but I remembered Tracy singing their praises when she first got hers.

“I can see why you’d want it,” I said. “She used it for everything: address book, calendar, notes. She told me she’d thrown her old Rolodex in the trash. Everything was computerized.”

Since Dwight was distracted by something another deputy was telling him, I sneaked in a question of my own. “Do you know who she was seeing?”

“Not yet. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Sorry. Maybe he’s just a figment of our imagination.”

“Figments don’t get you pregnant,” Richards blurted just as Dwight turned back to us. She flushed an even brighter red and looked at him like a guilty kid with her hand in the cookie jar. “Oh gosh! That was really dumb of me.”

“Yes, it was,” said Dwight, and his face was as stern as I’d ever seen it. He looked around the small circle of officers, fixing each of them with his eyes. “This goes no further. Understood? If I hear even a whisper of this before we get the ME’s official findings, I’ll put every one of you on report. Is that clear?”

There were murmurs of “Yessir” and uncomfortable glances towards Richards, who stood there looking as if she could burst into tears.

Stunned as I was by hearing that Tracy had been pregnant, I nevertheless put my hand on Dwight’s arm. “You’d put me on report, too?”

He relaxed enough to grin down at me. “Damn straight.”

I made a face and that broke the tension. Except for Richards, the others laughed, and talk moved on to a series of break-ins in the Cotton Grove area that had them baffled.

Since Thanksgiving, there had been a systematic looting of houses around Cotton Grove and nobody had a clue who was doing it. In each incident, the owners had been gone for at least three or four days, either on vacation or traveling for business or pleasure during this holiday season. All the houses were without burglar alarms, in middle-class neighborhoods, and entry was always by breaking through a rear door or window. The only items taken were money, jewelry, and small electronics that were easily fenced. From their talk, I gathered that there were no fingerprints and nothing to indicate whether it was the work of a single person or a whole gang. The biggest puzzle was trying to figure out how the perps knew which houses would be empty, especially since all the victims had taken sensible precautions. They had stopped delivery of mail and newspapers, they had used timers to turn lamps on and off at normal hours, they had even alerted neighbors to keep an eye out. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be working.

“What about the post office?” Mike Castleman asked. “Loose lips? The mail carrier?”

“We’re talking two separate postal zones,” said Raeford McLamb, the black deputy in charge of the investigation.

“Newspapers?”

“Three papers and at least four or five carriers.”

Before others could offer suggestions, Bo Poole asked us to be seated so the waiters could take our orders. I wound up between Bo and Terry with Dwight across the table from us, next to K.C.

I chose broiled catfish and Dwight ordered fried oysters, then Terry caught us up on news of Stanton. Sounded as if his son was breaking hearts rather than breaking a sweat over his grades, “But hell, I never averaged better than a low B or a high C myself, so I can’t cuss at him too bad. Besides, he found my old grade cards up in the attic and every time I say something about whether or not he’s hitting the books hard enough, he reminds me of that D in calculus.”

Dwight laughed and turned to answer a question Bo had about work, so I quickly asked Terry if he knew anything about Martha Hurst. He gave me a puzzled look. “Naw, like I told Dwight just now, when she called me this week, I had to go look up our records.”

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. “Martha Hurst called you?”

“No, Tracy Johnson. Didn’t you hear me tell Dwight?”

“Tell Dwight what?”

“Aw, no, that’s right. That must’ve been when you and K.C. went to powder y’all’s noses. Tracy called me about some other stuff this week, and before we hung up, she asked me, same as you, if I worked the Roy Hurst homicide.”

“Did you?”

He shook his head. “I might’ve interviewed some of the witnesses, but the only reason I remembered the case even after I looked it up is because of how that woman took her bat to his balls. Scotty Underwood was our point man on that one. I don’t know if Tracy ever got in touch with him or not.”

It was a good thing we’d driven over to Jerry’s in Dwight’s truck. When all the after-dinner toasts to wish us a long and happy marriage were finished, Jack Jamison and Raeford McLamb carried in the gift everyone had chipped in on. Wrapped in a green plastic tarp and tied with a huge red satin ribbon, it was clearly heavy and quite large—six feet long, eighteen inches wide, and a couple of feet tall—and it clanked when they set it down.

They made Dwight and me unwrap it right there and then, and I was delighted to see it was a bench swing, complete with long chains and sturdy hooks.

Beaming, Bo explained to those unfamiliar with the farm that there were two large trees on the bank of the pond below the house. “If they hang it there, then next summer they can sit and swing and fish from the shade.”

“Or,” said K.C. with a mischievous smile, “they could pad it with a few cushions and forget about fish.”

I kept my mouth shut and let Dwight respond to that one.