Hard Row dk-13
Hard Row
( Deborah Knott - 13 )
Margaret Maron
Hard Row Deborah Knott Mystery [13] Margaret Maron Grand Central Publishing (2008) Tags: Cozy Mystery, Contemporary
Cozy Mysteryttt Contemporaryttt
Fans of Edgar-winner Maron's reliably pleasing Deborah Knott series will be glad to see the North Carolina judge back on the bench in this intriguing 13th mystery Deborah has to decide a high-stakes divorce case with a no-show husband as well as preside over a growing caseload involving migrant workers pitted against locals. Meanwhile, body parts begin to appear in rural Colleton County that turn out to belong to Buck Harris, a farmer known for his exploitation of cheap immigrant labor who happens to be Deborah's missing divorce plaintiff. When Knott's new husband, sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant, investigates the immigrants living on the Harris farm, he uncovers a sequence of events that suggest something much more damaging than the sheer indifference the victim had shown to his workers. As Deborah adjusts to becoming the stepmother of Dwight's motherless eight-year-old son, Cal, her large extended family debates the future of their own family farm. Readers will eagerly await further developments in the next book. (Aug.)
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From
North Carolina judge Deborah Knott is adjusting to her recent marriage to sheriff's department investigator Dwight Bryant and the addition to her household of a stepson, Cal, when human body parts begin appearing throughout the county. Bryant is charged with identifying the victim and finding his killer. Also, an elderly man has disappeared from a nursing home, and his daughter is frantic. Bryant, with Deborah's help, identifies the victim, a man who was not well liked in the community. While the search for the killer continues, Deborah deals with the challenges of learning to mother and discipline a stepson and to be part of a couple after years of living on her own. In this long-running series, now in its thirteenth installment, Maron continues to produce an effective mix of mystery and domestic drama, drawing on Deborah's large extended family (she is the youngest of 12 children and the only girl) for nicely individualized secondary characters. There is an established audience for this series, and they will welcome the latest. O'Brien, Sue
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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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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
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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 l
eft 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
2
HARD ROW
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 do
wn 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
6
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