Uncommon Clay (A Deborah Knott Mystery Book 8) Read online

  Margaret Maron

  Uncommon

  CLAY

  A Deborah Knott Mystery

  Uncommon Clay is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Margaret Maron. All rights reserved.

  Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint from the following:

  Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Tradition, by Nancy Sweezy. University of North Carolina Press, 1994. © 1984 by Smithsonian Institution. Used by permission of the author.

  Turners and Burners: The Folk Potters of North Carolina, by Charles G. Zug. University of North Carolina Press. © 1986. Used by permission of the author.

  The pot shown on the cover was made by Claude Graves at Little Mountain Pottery, Tryon, NC.

  In memory of

  Edith Elizabeth Stephenson Johnson,

  who loved blue flowers, writing poetry,

  and staying up late

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Seagrove, North Carolina, is a real town and the surrounding Randolph / Moore / Montgomery County area is populated with real craftsmen, but as usual, I have taken enormous liberties with geography, creating roads and potteries where none exist. A few real people appear in cameo and by their permission. All the others are figments of my imagination and any resemblance to anyone living is purely coincidental.

  As always, I am indebted to many for their help and technical advice, in particular, District Court Judge Lillian O’Briant Jordan and Chief District Court Judge William Neely of District 19B (Randolph, Moore, and Montgomery Counties, North Carolina).

  My thanks to the many potters who talked to me of their craft and its history, especially Boyd Owens of Owens Pottery, Richard Gillson of Holly Hill, Pam and Vernon Owens of Jugtown, Sid Luck of Luck’s Pottery, Ben Owen III of Ben Owen Pottery, Samantha and Bruce Gholson of Bulldawg Pots, Beth Gore and Johannes Mellage of Cady Clay Works, and David Stuempfle. David Garner of Turn and Burn let me get my hands dirty and that lump of recalcitrant clay taught me greater respect for the potters who make it look so incredibly easy.

  Nancy Gottovi and Anne-Kemp Neely took me down rutted lanes and introduced me to potters I’d never have found on my own.

  District Court Judges John W. Smith, Shelly S. Holt, and Rebecca W. Blackmore of the 5th Judicial District Court (New Hanover and Pender Counties, North Carolina) once again gave me invaluable courtroom advice.

  Any errors I have made probably came from not taking it.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Disclaimer

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Table of Contents

  Deborah Knott’s Family Tree

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Also By Margaret Maron

  Find Margaret on the Web

  THE SUPREME COURT OF

  NORTH CAROLINA

  OFFICE OF THE CHIEF JUSTICE

  ORDER AND COMMISSION

  As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, by virtue of authority vested in me by the Constitution of North Carolina, and in accordance with the laws of North Carolina and the rules of the Supreme Court, I do hereby enter the following order(s):

  The Honorable J. H. Corpening II, one of the Regular Judges of the District Court is hereby commissioned and assigned to preside over a session or sessions of District Court in the District Court Judicial District Three A, to begin April 7 and continue One Day or until the business is completed.

  The Honorable T. Yates Dobson, Jr., one of the Regular Judges of the District Court is hereby commissioned and assigned to preside over a session or sessions of District Court in the District Court Judicial District Eight, to begin March 27 and continue Four Days or until the business is completed.

  The Honorable Deborah S. Knott, one of the Regular Judges of the District Court is hereby commissioned and assigned to preside over a session or sessions of District Court in the District Court Judicial District Nineteen B, to begin April 6 and continue Two Days or until the business is completed.

  In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto signed my name as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina:

  The Honorable Henry E. Frye

  Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

  of North Carolina

  CHAPTER

  1

  The high-fired stonewares . . . although far stronger and more vitreous, were less likely to withstand thermal shock and could crack when heated or cooled too rapidly.

  —Turners and Burners, Charles G. Zug III

  April is the cruellest month.

  Who said that?

  —mixing memory and desire.

  (Oh, yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We know all about desire, don’t we? And hurtful memory, too.)

  —breeding lilacs out of the dead land.

  Walt Whitman?

  No, Whitman was When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed.

  There’s a lilac in my own dooryard.

  Maidie Holt, who keeps house for my daddy, gave me one last fall. It’s a sprout off her bush that was itself a sprout off the bush her great-grandmother brought from Richmond after the war.

  The Civil War.

  There were three fat purple blossoms on it this year even though Maidie didn’t think it’d bloom so quickly after being transplanted. I cut one of them, gathered daffodils from the ditch bank and scarlet honeysuckle from the woods, added a few white dogwood blossoms, and stuck them all in a brown earthenware jar that used to hold butter in the springhouse when my daddy was a little boy eighty years ago. The flowers look and smell like Easter.

  —and stands about the woodland ride, wearing white for Eastertide.

  My mind was looping through all the poetry I ever read in college lit courses a million years ago, anything to paper over the memory of last weekend when I’d gone hippity-hopping down to New Bern just like a horny little bunny. I’d even carried along a whimsical basket of erotic goodies, an early Easter treat for Kidd Chapin, the decidedly sexy game warden who had me seriously thinking about marriage for the first time in six years. I had thought I wouldn’t be able to get away till Saturday noon, but then things changed and I found myself impulsively heading east on Highway 70 Friday night, smiling as I thought of how surprised he’d be to see me twelve hours early.

  —like a guilty thing surprised.

  That’s Wordsworth.

  Talking about some bastard like Kidd.

  It was almost two A.M. when I reached New Bern that night. I cut my lights and engine at the top of Kidd’s driveway and just let gravity carry me the rest of the way, coming to rest beside his Dodge Caravan. To my relief, there was no sign of Amber’s Mustang.

  (Kidd’s daughter turne
d sixteen last fall, and having her own car had loosened some of the reins she kept him on, but this didn’t mean she disliked me less or had given up hope her parents would eventually get back together.)

  One of his caged rabbit dogs farther down the slope let out a few yips when it heard my car door open. It barked again as the door latched, then fell silent. The waning moon was lost in the trees that rimmed the western sky and no lights shone from the cabin windows. A floorboard creaked as I walked across the porch. I opened the screen door that he’d left unhooked, inserted my key in the lock of the heavy cedar front door, and quietly let myself into the dark house. The main room—a combination living room, den, and dining room—runs the full width of the house, with a glass wall at the far end that opens onto a deck overlooking the Neuse River.

  There was barely enough moonlight for me to make out the shadowy shapes of furniture as I crossed the room and I stubbed my toe on the runner of an oak rocking chair. From the master bedroom came the sound of Kidd’s soft snores rising and falling. Shivering with anticipation, I shed my clothes, draped them over the nearest chair, and felt my way silently down the short dark hallway.

  The bedroom was almost pitch-black, but I was so familiar with the layout that my bare feet didn’t stumble as I tiptoed over to the king-size bed. A careful sweep of my hand told me that he lay almost in the center of the bed. I lifted the sheet and coverlet and eased in beside him.

  He didn’t move.

  I gently worked my way closer till I could feel the warmth of his smooth shoulder, then in one fluid motion, I cupped my body to his back and slid my arm over his to clasp his chest.

  And touched a woman’s bare breast instead.

  Both of us jerked apart with shrieks that could have waked the dead. They certainly waked Kidd, who’d been dead to the world till that moment.

  Lights came on. She clutched at the sheet, I grabbed the coverlet as I hit the floor, Kidd dived for his pants.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked angrily, pulling the coverlet tightly around my nakedness.

  She glared back at me. “Who the heck are you?”

  Then we both glared at Kidd, who was still blinking in the sudden light.

  “Uh—Deborah? Um, this is Jean,” he said sheepishly.

  “Jean?” I snapped. “As in the former Mrs. Chapin?”

  I don’t know why I hadn’t seen this coming. After the hurricane flooded them out last fall, she and Amber had camped in with Kidd for a couple of weeks. He’d sworn to me that it was nothing more than Good Samaritanism and that there was absolutely no spark left between him and his wife.

  If these were the ashes, damned if I wanted to see the fire.

  And she, now in full possession of the bed, pushed the pillows into a heap and lay back with a smug look.

  “So pleased to meet you, Judge,” she cooed.

  With as much dignity as I could muster, I swept from the room in my coverlet, retrieved my clothes, and ducked into the hall bathroom.

  “Look, you said you weren’t coming till tomorrow noon,” Kidd said when I emerged, fully dressed.

  Shirtless and barefoot, his hair tousled, his tone was half-apologetic, half-accusing. I heard only the accusation.

  “This is my fault?” I snarled. “Because I didn’t give you enough time to let your bed cool off before showing up? How long have you been sleeping with her again?”

  “Aw, come on, honey,” he said coaxingly.

  “Screw it!” I said coarsely. “And screw you, too.”

  With the lights on, I saw their empty glasses, a pair of blue jeans on the hearth, a black bra dangling from the back of the couch, a handful of CD cases—

  “Patsy Cline? Willie Nelson? You made love to her with my CDs?” Somehow that made it even worse.

  I mashed the eject button on his player and scooped them up, along with a half-dozen more that I’d brought along with me over the last few months.

  “You can send me the rest of my stuff,” I said, heading for the door. “And yours’ll be on the next UPS truck.”

  He followed me outside to my car, oblivious to the chilly night air on his bare feet and naked chest.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry. I really am. I was going to tell you tomorrow. It just happened. Jean and me—and what with Amber and all. I mean, it’s like we’ve got all this history, you know? And getting back together would make everything easier, somehow. But I never meant to hurt you, Deb’rah. Honest to God, I didn’t.”

  “Go to hell!” I shoved the car in gear and backed out so fast Kidd had to jump away to keep me from running over his bare toes.

  I must have been doing fifty when I hit the top of his drive and the car fishtailed so hard when I turned onto the road that I almost lost control and flipped it. All I needed, right? Having to get him to come haul me out of the ditch.

  That was five days ago. As I drove west toward Asheboro, I still felt a hot flush of mortification every time I thought about crawling into that bed, snuggling up to his wife. That I could have been so stupid. Left myself open to such humiliation. Allowed a game warden to trifle with my emotions just because he was good in bed. When was I going to quit letting my hormones rule my head and start—

  A sharp horn blast off my left shoulder jerked me back to the present. Even though I had set the cruise control, I’d overtaken the car ahead and was automatically starting to pass without checking my blind spot to see that a pickup truck was about to pass me. If I didn’t quit stressing over Kidd and get my mind back on my driving, I was going to be roadkill right beside the possums and gray squirrels that littered this stretch of U.S. 64.

  I had no business driving over fifty-five anyhow, what with all the construction going on. They’ve been trying to four-lane this highway forever, but seems like they only got serious about it these last couple of years. Some of the bits had been graded so long ago that they were fully grassed over and small trees were starting to grow up again. But lately, yellow bulldozers and backhoes had been busy here. Wide strips of land lay open in bright red gashes against the new green grass of spring. Over in Colleton County, our soil has so much sand in it that it’s almost like the beach, beige to black in color. Here in the piedmont, the heavy earth of eastern Randolph County was nothing but bright red clay.

  With all this raw material lying free for the digging, it’s no wonder the area has produced so many potters, potters like the—I glanced at the tab of the folder on the seat beside me—like the Nordans. Sandra Kay Nordan, Plaintiff, versus James Lucas Nordan, Defendant. Both potters, married for almost twenty-five years, and now the marriage was completely over except for a judge putting the final stamp on the equitable distribution of their marital property.

  Me.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Virtually all the folk potters in North Carolina have resided in the Piedmont.

  —Turners and Burners, Charles G. Zug III

  From Manteo on Roanoke Island to Murphy out in the mountains is more than five hundred miles, and Asheboro comes pretty close to being North Carolina’s geographical center. They even built the state zoo here so it could be accessible to all our schoolchildren, coastal or mountain.

  I’ve never been much interested in zoos myself. Too much television, I suppose. When you grow up on a working farm with cows and horses, goats, pigs, and chickens, it’s easy to extrapolate from all those National Geographic and nature specials. My appetite for elephants and zebras and hippopotami is more than satisfied by panoramic views of animals living wild on the Serengeti with a David Ogden Stiers voice-over to explain their habits and eccentricities. I don’t need to get within smelling distance of African wildlife, even in a state-of-the-art “zoological park.”

  No, for me, the main attraction of Asheboro is that it’s only a few miles north of Seagrove, home to more than a hundred potters bunched along the Randolph/Moore County line. This trip out, I was hoping to find a big serving platter for my new house.

  The potters have
a festival every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving and I’ve been over a few times with my Aunt Zell or some of my sisters-in-law. Pottery makes a great Christmas present, and some of the prettiest pieces in the world are created up these narrow rural lanes and down graveled drives, often at kilns that haven’t changed much in the last two hundred years. I’ve bought fat little piggy banks for various family babies from Owens Pottery, sturdy white Christmas candlesticks from Holly Hill, and a charming cat-head jar from Pam Owens at Jugtown.

  I’d even bought a set of green-and-gray soup bowls for a friend in New York from the Nordan Pottery last year. They were expensive, but next to Jugtown, Nordan’s is the second most famous pottery outside the area. It’s certainly one of the oldest. Their ware is exquisitely made— relatively thin and beautifully glazed and painted. The lids fit snugly and their three-legged pots sit squarely without a wobble.

  None of the Nordans had been in the showroom the day we were there, which had disappointed my brother Adam’s wife. (Adam’s the success story in our family: Ph.D., electronic whiz, enjoying the good life in Silicon Valley, and partner in a new software company of his own.) Karen’s not really a professional southerner, one of those Dixie belles whose drawl becomes more pronounced each year they’re away, but living on the West Coast has turned her into something of a North Carolina history buff. Her most recent enthusiasm that year was a book about the “turners and burners” of the state, and there’d been many references to James Lucas Nordan’s father Amos and grandfather Lucas. They had been famous for their glazes, especially their cardinal ware, so called because its bright clear red exactly matched the adult male plumage of our state bird.

  I’ve forgotten the details, but I do remember Karen reading me snippets about some secret family formulas that Amos had improved upon and passed along to his son. She had wanted to touch a bit of that history, talk to Amos’s son, perhaps try to buy a piece of Amos’s glowing cardinal ware that was in the museum section of their showroom and labeled “Not for Sale.”