Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

25

It is declared… that all marriages contracted by lawful persons in the face of the church, and consummated with bodily knowledge, and fruit of children, shall be indissoluble.

—Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)

Our last session of the day was a lively update on family law by Cheryl Howell, a brainy blonde professor from the School of Government.

Just as Nina Totenberg can clarify and explain to her NPR audience the most arcane rulings of the Supreme Court, so Cheryl manages to make the acts of our legislature sound almost logical. There are times, though, when the lack of clarity in the specific language of a statute causes a disconnect between what the new legislation is supposed to do and what it actually appears to do. Last year we spent an inordinate amount of time on civil no-contact orders (restraining orders in cases other than domestic violence situations). Stalking had earlier been defined as, and I quote, “Following on more than one occasion or otherwise harassing.”

What we needed to know was if the “more than one occasion” applied to harassing or only to the act of following. Could we issue a civil restraining order after one harassment or must it be at least twice?

At such times, even Cheryl throws up her hands and says, “You’ll just have to use your best judgment on this until it comes before the high court and they make a ruling on it.”

It’s the ever-recurring sticky flypaper between what is meant and what is said, which is why we have a Supreme Court still parsing the words of our Constitution more than two hundred years later. Did the framers mean that every citizen could own an assault rifle? Does free speech include hate speech? Does freedom of religion include freedom from religion?

On a more mundane level, today’s thorny issue was parent versus nonparent custody and visitation, as modified by the appellate court’s recent rulings on third-party custody—in other words, the rights, if any, of stepparents, grandparents, blood relations, or any other third parties who have been ceded (or thought they had been ceded) a parent-like relationship to the child by its natural parent.

It’s hard enough making custody and visitation decisions when you start with a traditional two-parent family unit and the third party is a grandparent. Stir in lovers who claim they did all the parenting, or a sibling who’s been raising the children for years, or same-sex couples who are breaking up with the same regularity as heterosexual couples, and you’ve got a witch’s brew of tricky complications.

We were still arguing about certain aspects of the case studies Cheryl had brought us and comparing how we had ruled on similar issues as we spilled out into the lobby at 5:30 and headed up to Room 628 for drinks.

The rain had finally stopped and when the balcony doors were thrown wide, everyone crowded outside to ooh over a vivid rainbow that seemed to touch down in the ocean.

Chuck Teach pointed to that spot and said, “Somebody get me a boat. That pot of gold can’t be more than twenty feet under the water.”

“Anybody heard from Martha?” I asked.

“Yeah, I talked to her at the break,” said Andy Corbett, the chief judge over in the next district from mine. “No change. Fitz is still in a coma and still in intensive care.”

Across the room, Roberta Ouellette was opening a can of soda and I went over to her. She gave a friendly smile and said, “Interesting session, wasn’t it? But I’m sorry. I do think that a blood relationship gives automatic standing and if grandparents want to see their grandchildren on a regular basis and they aren’t pedophiles or raving lunatics, I’m going to keep trying to let them. Children can’t have too much love in their lives.”

“I agree,” I said, adding a light splash of bourbon to my own diet cola. “And what about godparents? There’s often no blood relationship.”

“True,” she sighed. “But again, don’t you find that a little judicial reasoning can sometimes mitigate a vindictive parent’s desire to cut all ties to the past relationship?”

We took our drinks out to the terrace and leaned against the railing to enjoy the return of sunshine. Big patches of blue sky appeared amid the retreating clouds and our rainbow had faded into nothingness.

“When you were telling us how Pete Jeffreys gave custody of that burned child to his father and stepmother, you didn’t mention that he was Bill Hasselberger’s godson,” I said.

Ouellette looked surprised and pleased. “Bill Hasselberger? You know Bill?”

I nodded. “He and a cousin of mine were at Jonah’s the other night. Or rather, on the porch of the restaurant next door to Jonah’s.”

“What’s he doing now, do you know? I’ve lost track of him since he left the bench.”

“He’s in private practice down here. Has a house in Wilmington.”

“Bless his heart. It really all came down on him, didn’t it? Losing his election, losing his wife. But I didn’t know that little boy was his godson.”

“I don’t think he talks about it much. But what about the other cases Jeffreys mishandled?” I asked. “You’re from the Triad area. Anybody here have a personal involvement with, say, the carjacker or the DWI cases that got dismissed?”

She gave me an amused smile. “Have you traded your robe for a detective’s badge?”

“Nope,” I said cheerfully. “Just terminally curious as to why someone killed him down here rather than in Greensboro.”

Her smile turned serious. “You honestly think it was one of us?”

“Not really.” I hesitated. Detective Edwards hadn’t told me not to mention the waiter, and if he’d told Martha Fitzhume, then it was a safe bet everyone else would soon know. “Does the name Kyle Armstrong mean anything to you?”

Ouellette shook her head. “Who’s he?”

“A waiter at Jonah’s. Owns the car that ran Fitz down.”

She frowned. “He killed Judge Jeffreys and then tried to kill Judge Fitzhume? Why?”

“I was hoping you might’ve have heard of a connection to them.”

She turned the name over again. “Kyle Armstrong? Sorry. Have you tried Joe Turner or Bill Neely?”

Both were chief judges in neighboring Triad districts. I’d actually spoken to both of them during the afternoon break and had gotten equally blank looks. But the Triad stretches from Winston to Greensboro to High Point and holds over a million people. Even though the judicial community is relatively small and gossipy, how likely was it that any judge would know another’s enemy? Especially if that enemy was a seemingly innocuous waiter with aspirations to stardom?

All sorts of fantastic scenarios scrolled through my head. Maybe there wasn’t a connection between Jeffreys and the waiter. Maybe it really was a local, someone like Hasselberger, who killed Jeffreys in the heat of the moment and then stole Armstrong’s car to run down Fitz. If the waiter was a cyclist, wouldn’t he normally leave his car parked somewhere for days on end and ride his bike back and forth to work? I myself have never actually hot-wired a car, but most of my brothers know how.

As does Allen.

Allen?

“Oh, please!” said the preacher, who was getting tired of this fruitless round and round. ��He had his children with him that night, remember?”

“Yeah, but he left early enough that he could have brought the children back here to the hotel and then returned to the parking lot,” said the pragmatist, who couldn’t leave it alone. “If Fitz saw him, Allen could’ve read the schedule at his leisure and would’ve known when Fitz would be crossing the parking lot.”

“And what’s his motive for killing Jeffreys?”

“How the hell do I know? I’m looking at opportunity right now.”

“Half of Wilmington had opportunity. Give me a motive.”

By now Roberta Ouellette had been swept into a conversation with Shelley Desvouges and Yates Dobson, who were looking at pictures of Aubrey Hamilton’s cats. I dumped my unfinished drink and decided to get out of the hotel for a while.

When I stepped out of the elevator into the hotel lobby, I saw Detective Gary Edwards standing by the touching tank that had been abandoned by the child guests now that the sun was out again.

He smiled at me and returned a sand dollar to the tank. “I was hoping I’d see you.”

“Wish I had some information for you,” I said, “but if there’s a connection between Kyle Armstrong and Pete Jeffreys, I can’t find it. Any luck locating him or his car?”

“Unfortunately.” With a grim face he told me that Kyle Armstrong was dead.

I was shocked. “What happened?”

“Looks like he loaded up all his things and was going to skip town when he ran off an exit ramp near Castle Hayne and crashed into a tree. If you and Chel—I mean, Judge Pierce—haven’t picked up on anything substantive, I doubt if we’ll ever learn why he killed the judge.”

“So that’s it? You’re closing the case?”

“As soon as we get the autopsy results and write the report.” His eyes strayed past my shoulder and his face lit up.

I turned and saw Chelsea Ann emerge from the elevator, her blonde curls shiny, fresh lipstick and eye shadow, a lowcut yellow dress with a swirly skirt. She carried my white cotton sweater over one arm.

“Hope you don’t mind if I borrow it for one more night,” she said, smiling up at Edwards. “Gary and I are going to take a dinner cruise.”

“Have fun,” I said.

Other colleagues came by on their way out to dinner or to gatherings further down the island and several invited me to join them, but I had other plans.

I stopped by an ATM to replenish the cash in my wallet and twenty minutes later I was in the ICU waiting room at the New Hanover Medical Center. I was not the first judge to come by that evening, but none of them had been able to persuade Martha Fitzhume to break her vigil. She had been there since sunrise, almost as if it were her personal willpower that was keeping Fitz alive. I was encouraged to hear that his condition had been upgraded from critical to serious even though he was still in a coma.

Martha herself was moving a little stiffly after the tumble she had taken. One of the nurses had given her an antiseptic ointment for the scrape on her face and it was starting to fade a bit, but there were dark circles under her eyes.

She told me that Gary Edwards had been by earlier and had told her of Kyle Armstrong’s death.

“Maybe I’ll be able to pray for him later,” Martha said. “Right now I’m still so angry for what he did to Fitz that there’s not an ounce of pity in my heart.”

“Come on, Martha,” I said. “You need to get out of here for an hour and breathe a little fresh air. The rain’s stopped and it’s a beautiful evening. Come have supper with me. We’ll go eat a crab in Fitz’s honor.”

That got a smile and her son chimed in.

“Yeah, Mom. Go. You could use a break and I’ll be right here till you get back.”

“I don’t know, Chad. What if he—?” She stood up as if to come, then sat back down a moment later. “I don’t think I should. I’m not very hungry.”

Chad shook his head. “C’mon, Mom. It’s not going to help Dad for you to keep skipping meals.”

I was surprised and saddened to see her this indecisive. It was so unlike Martha to dither. She stood again. “You’ll call me if there’s any change?”

“I’ll call,” he said patiently.

“All right then. Let me just take one more look at him,” she said. “Do you want to see him, Deborah?”

It was as bad as I’d imagined. Poor Fitz had a huge bruise on the side of his pale face and there seemed to be a dozen different tubes and wires attached to his body—drainage tubes from his surgery, an IV drip to keep him hydrated, catheter, heart monitor, and God knows what else.

“His color’s so much better tonight,” Martha said to the nurse. “Don’t you think?”

“I do,” the nurse said kindly.

Martha walked over to him, took his hand, and in a normal tone of voice said, “Deborah’s here to see you, sweetheart. Can you open your eyes and say hey to her?”

To my total amazement, not to mention Martha’s, Fitz’s eyelids fluttered and actually opened. He tried to speak but his words were unintelligible. He squeezed Martha’s hand and tried again.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Martha crooned with tears in her eyes. “You’re in the hospital. You got hit by a car but you’re going to be all right.”

The nurse who was monitoring him came over to the other side and fiddled with the dials on the equipment. “How you doing, Judge Fitzhume?”

More slurred syllables, then his eyes closed again and his grip loosened.

“His blood pressure and pulse rate are looking better,” the nurse said. “And his heartbeat’s almost back to normal.”

Martha was more reluctant than ever to leave, but the nurse finally convinced her that Fitz needed to rest undisturbed after his first exertion. “For all we know about comas, he could be wide awake tomorrow morning or it may take him another few weeks, but I think the doctor will say this is encouraging.”

It was a little after seven before we got to a nearby seafood restaurant recommended by the nurse.

When we were seated and a waiter came over to bring us our menus, Martha didn’t look up while he told us that his name was Michael and that he’d be our waiter and if there was anything special we needed—

“I’ll have a vodka collins,” she interrupted coldly. “What about you, Deborah?”

“A glass of Riesling, please.”

When he had gone away to get our drinks, Martha said, “Between Kyle the actor and Jenna the slut, I’m through making nice to waiters. From now on, I don’t give a damn where they go to school or what they want to do when they finish growing up. If you hear me ask this Michael one single thing other than if the soft-shelled crabs are fresh or frozen, please kick me.”

I laughed. The old Martha was back.

* * *

We were assured that the crabs were indeed fresh and we both ordered them. When they came, Martha dug into hers with relish.

“I guess I was hungrier than I realized,” she said sheepishly.

Fitz’s attempt to speak had her almost giddy with relief.

“I don’t mind telling you, Deborah. I’ve been really, really scared.”

“Of course you were. Who wouldn’t be?”

“I know that Fitz and I are down to the short rows—no, don’t look at me like that. Death is a fact of life, sugar. I’m not being morbid and I don’t need you or anybody else to pat my hand and tell me that these are the best years. They’re not. The best years were when the kids were little and there was a lifetime of those golden possibilities ahead for Fitz and me. Things to do, places to go, young bodies and young muscles to go and do with. No arthritis, no daily pills, life stretching out endlessly before us.” She finished her vodka collins in two swallows. “No, these sure as hell are not the best years. All the same, they’re our years and every minute is still precious. Everything ends. That’s life. But for that—that creature to try and kill Fitz to cover up what he’d done? I hope he’s roasting in hell.”

Michael breezed over about then. “Everything all right here?” he asked cheerily.

Martha held up her empty glass. “Another one of these, please.”

They both glanced at my wineglass. It was still half full.

“I’m driving,” I said.

When we finished eating and the bill came, Martha insisted on paying.

“Then I’ll leave the tip,” I said.

I opened my wallet to fish out some bills and a small slip of paper floated to the floor. It was the ATM receipt.

Martha saw me frown and asked, “Something wrong, sugar?”

“Not really,” I answered.

What I had remembered could wait. No point in wrecking Chelsea Ann’s evening by calling Detective Edwards in the middle of their supper cruise, and it probably wasn’t important anyhow.