Hard Row dk-13 Page 10
mediately pulled out a third disposable bowl and waved
a plastic fork. “She got one for you, too.”
“Thanks,” I said, unzipping my robe. “I meant to
bring my lunch today, but Cal couldn’t find his spelling
book this morning and I didn’t have time. Good to see
you again, Dr. Allred.”
She rolled her eyes at Portland. “When is she going
to start calling me Linda?”
“Probably when you stop hauling assholes up before
her in court,” Portland said, and speared a cherry to-
mato on the end of her fork. “Wonder if the baby’s al-
lergic to tomatoes?”
“Yes,” I said, and plucked it from her fork. Like most
tomatoes this time of year, it had been picked way too
92
HARD ROW
early and was almost tasteless, but the morning’s session
had left me hungry and soon I was digging into my own
salad.
“So what were y’all laughing about?” I asked.
“Tell her,” Portland urged.
The professor smiled and an impish gleam lit her face.
“It was outside the café where I picked up our salads
just now. First this dilapidated wreck of a pickup with a
crushed front fender and a closed-in topper slides into
the curb and parks.”
“In a handicap spot?”
“Yep. And no, they didn’t have a tag.”
“Are we to assume a tow truck’s on the way even as
we eat?”
Dr. Allred shook her head. “I didn’t have the heart.
See, the driver’s door opens and a grizzled old man gets
out. He’s got one foot in a cast and his arm’s in one of
those rigid slings where his elbow is on the same level
as his shoulder.”
She demonstrated the awkward angle.
“Then the passenger door opens and out comes a
pair of crutches, followed by a woman with both legs
in casts.”
I laughed. “You’re making that up.”
“Word of honor. They then help each other hobble
around to the back, open up the door and a dog jumps
out.”
“Don’t tell me the dog’s wearing a cast?”
“No, but it’s only got three legs.”
“No way,” I protested.
Eyes twinkling, she crossed her heart. “True story.
Now how could I write those poor folks a ticket?”
93
MARGARET MARON
“You’re all heart,” I told her.
She laughed and finished off the last of her salad.
“Gotta go. If you need any more data, Portland, just
give me a call. Good seeing both of you.”
I held the door for her, but more than that she would
not allow. Fortunately the courthouse is completely ac-
cessible and I knew that her van was equipped with full
hydraulics so that she could manage easily.
“What was all that about?” I asked when she was
gone.
Portland wiped a small dollop of mayo from her upper
lip and handed me a manila folder. “She brought me a
rough draft of the statistical analysis she’s doing on do-
mestic violence. Especially as it relates to threats made
and threats carried out.”
I leafed through the graphs and charts and row of
numbers that were meaningless to me.
“Bottom line?” Portland said grimly. “Once physical
violence accelerates, if the violent partner threatens to
kill the significant other, there’s damn little the authori-
ties can do to stop it. I plan to show these figures to Bo
and Dwight and see if they can’t prove her wrong in the
case of Karen Braswell.”
94
C H A P T E R
11
If all farmers were true to principle with respect to the dis-
posal of their products, there would be less perversion of the
good and useful.
—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890
% Friday night found Dwight and me heading in op-
posite directions. Uncle Ash had brought home a
mess of rainbow trout from the mountains and Aunt
Zell had invited us to supper, but the Canes were back
in Raleigh for a home game, so Dwight said he’d pick
Cal up and head on into town for a supper that was
something other than pizza.
“Did Portland talk to you about her client?” I asked.
It was my afternoon break and I had caught him still
at his desk, reading through reports.
“And that ex-husband who keeps harassing her? Yeah.
Like I told her though, there’s not much we can do if he
decides to punch her out, but at least Portland doesn’t
have to worry about him shooting her client. Judge
Parker sent over an order for us to search Braswell’s
place and confiscate any guns we found. We got a shot-
gun, a .22 rifle and a .9-millimeter automatic. It’s too
95
MARGARET MARON
bad though, that she and her mother can’t move to an-
other state before he gets out next week.”
“Why should she be the one to run?” I asked indig-
nantly. “He’s the problem, not her.”
“Hey, I’m not saying she’s at fault,” he said, holding
up his hands to fend off my irritation. “I’m just say-
ing we can’t provide round-the-clock protection and if
the woman’s that worried . . . Be fair, Deb’rah. You live
on the beach and you know a hurricane’s coming, you
know you need to move to high ground till the storm’s
over, right?”
“I guess,” I said glumly.
“Well, she needs to get out of his way till he gets
over her. Give him time to get interested in another
woman or something. And that’s what Bo and I told
Portland.”
I could just imagine what her response to that had
been.
When I got to Aunt Zell’s that night, I found that
she had taken pity on my cousin Reid and invited him
to join us. He claims not to know how to boil water and
he’s always glad to accept the offer of a home-cooked
meal. The grilled trout were hot and crispy and Aunt Zell
had made cornbread the way Mother and Maidie often
did it: a mush of cornmeal, chopped onions, and milk
poured into a black iron skillet after a little oil’s heated
to the smoking point, then baked at 400º till the bottom
is crusty brown. Turned onto a plate and cut into pie
wedges, it doesn’t need butter to melt in your mouth.
Uncle Ash is tall and slim. Like his brother, who is
96
HARD ROW
Portland’s dad, he had the Smith family’s tight curly
hair, only his was now completely white. He had
brought home a copy of the High Country Courier be-
cause it carried a story about a murder that had taken
place when I was up there last October. One killer had
been sentenced to twelve years after pleading guilty.
The other was going to walk away free.
No surprises there.
We caught up on family news. Uncle Ash’s whole ca-
reer had been with the marketing side of tobacco and he
was i
nterested to hear that my brothers were going to
tread water by growing it on contract for another year.
“But if they’re really interested in doing something
different, the first cars ran on alcohol, you know,” he
said with a sly grin. “Kezzie say anything about y’all
maybe distilling a little motor fuel?”
“Oh, Ash,” said Aunt Zell, who is always embar-
rassed for me whenever anyone alludes to Daddy’s for-
mer profession.
“Now, Uncle Ash, you know well and good that my
daddy wouldn’t do anything illegal like that,” I said,
unable to control my own grin. “Besides, to run a car,
it’d have to be a hundred-and-ninety proof, almost pure
alcohol. I don’t think he ever got anything that pure.”
“Would they really legalize the home brewing of
something that potent?” asked Reid, helping himself to
another wedge of cornbread.
“If gas keeps going up, who knows?” said Uncle Ash.
“Soon as you mention alcohol, though, lawmakers get
nervous. It’s like when they made farmers quit growing
hemp about seventy years ago.”
97
MARGARET MARON
Industrial hemp was one of Uncle Ash’s favorite
hobby horses and he was off and riding.
“We spend millions importing something that we
could grow right in our own country, right here in
Colleton County. You can make dozens of useful things
from it—paper, food, paint, medicine, even fuel. And
they say that hemp seed oil is one of the most balanced
in the world for the ratio of omega-sixes to omega-
threes. It’s friendly to the environment, doesn’t take a
lot of water or fertilizer to grow, and it’s easy to harvest.
But those spineless jellyfish who call themselves states-
men? Soon as they see the word ‘hemp,’ they’re afraid
their voters will see ‘cannabis.’ ”
“Ash, dear, you’re raising your voice again,” said
Aunt Zell.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly and got up to help her
make coffee and bring in the pecan pie I had seen cool-
ing in the kitchen earlier.
“So what’s with you and Flame Smith?” I asked Reid
as I set out coffee cups.
“You know her?”
“Not me. Portland. She ran into us at lunch yester-
day. Just before you got there. Please tell me you’re not
putting the moves on your client’s girlfriend.”
His blue eyes widened innocently. “It was strictly
business and excuse me, Your Honor, but should we be
having this ex parte discussion?”
I hate it when he scores a legal point off my curiosity.
I was home by nine and immediately switched on the
hockey game. Amazing how much easier it was to fol-
98
HARD ROW
low now that I’d attended an actual game. During the
commercials, I managed to wash and dry two loads of
laundry and had piles of folded underwear on the couch
beside me by the time Dwight and Cal returned. The
game had been a blowout. Unfortunately, it was the
Canes that got stomped.
Aunt Zell had sent the rest of the pie home for them
and Cal had taken his into the living room to watch
WRAL’ s recap of the game when Dwight’s phone rang.
He listened intently, then said, “I’m on my way.”
I quit pouring his milk. “What’s happened?”
Dwight reached for his jacket with a grim face. “They
just found another damn hand.”
99
C H A P T E R
12
While money making is one of the great desiderata with
most men, it is not the chief good in life, neither does it con-
stitute the sum total to earthly happiness as men, by their
lives, seem to regard it.
—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890
Dwight Bryant
Friday Night, March 3
% Ward Dairy Road again, but this time it was not a
dog or a human who found a body part.
It was a buzzard.
“Damnedest thing,” said the man who had called
them. “My wife and I were running late this morning
and as we headed out to the car, there were some buz-
zards over there in those weeds at the edge of the field.
One of them flew up with something when I started
the engine and then I heard a clunk on the top of the
car. Sounded almost like a rock, only not as heavy,
you know? My wife saw it bounce way under the holly
bushes over there but we didn’t have time to stop and
see what it was. After work, we went out to supper and
a movie, but as soon as we got home, my wife wanted
100
HARD ROW
me to take the shovel and find whatever it was before
we let the dogs out and they got into something nasty.
They’re bad for rolling in roadkill.”
He had left his find on the shovel by the holly bushes
and their flashlights showed a large and presumably
male left hand, much the worse for wear. It seemed
to be frozen solid, yet flesh had been pecked from the
bones and several finger joints were missing. If the third
finger had ever worn a wedding band, there was no sign
of one now. Dwight was surprised the buzzard hadn’t
come back for it. Unless there was something else out
there beyond their flashlights?
They would have to wait for the ME’s determination,
but it looked to him like the mate to the first hand they
had found exactly one week ago.
A full week and they were no nearer an identity.
The man indicated the general area where he had first
seen the buzzards and they approached gingerly, sweep-
ing the ground before them with their lights. They saw
nothing of interest in the weeds and nothing on the
shoulder of the road, but when they walked in the op-
posite direction, shining their flashlights in the ditches,
Detective Jack Jamison noticed that water had ponded
up and frozen solid behind a clogged culvert. He started
to walk on, but something seemed to be embedded in
the dirty ice.
“I think it’s the other arm!” he called.
The others quickly joined him on the edge of the road.
Three flashlights focused on the ice, and the shape was
so similar to what they hoped to find that it took a poke
with the shovel to confirm that the object was only part
of a tree branch that had broken off and lodged there.
101
MARGARET MARON
Disappointed, they walked on.
“At least it’s on a line with the other parts,” Deputy
Richards said. Despite a red nose and cheeks, her cold
seemed to be drying up and she had turned out when
Dwight paged her, even though technically not on
duty.
There was something different about her tonight,
Dwight thought. She wore jeans instead of her usual
utilitarian slacks and the turtleneck sweater peeping out
of her black suede jacket was a soft pink. And was that
perfume drifting o
n the chill night air?
He gave himself a mental kick in the pants. Of course!
Friday night? Young single woman?
“Sorry for messing up your evening,” he said.
She shrugged. “That’s okay. Goes with the job,
doesn’t it?”
And that was something else new. Heretofore, when-
ever he addressed a personal remark to Richards, she
usually turned a fiery red. He realized now that it had
not happened in the last few weeks. She was a good of-
ficer, but he had begun to think she was never going
to be able to join in the department’s easy give-and-
take, yet she had finally adapted and he had not even
noticed.
Just as Dwight was ready to call it a night, Jamison’s
light caught something amid a curtain of dead kudzu
vines that entangled a clump of young pines growing
on the ditchbank. He thought at first that it was an old
weatherstained cardboard box. Nevertheless, he walked
over to check it out.
“Oh dear Lord in the morning!” said Richards, who
102
HARD ROW
had crossed the road to shine her own light on his
find.
There, hidden from casual view was a naked torso
that was armless, legless, and headless as well. Because
it was lying on its back, it took them a moment to ori-
ent themselves, to realize that the three black stumps
nearest them were probably the neck and what was left
of the upper arms, which meant that the opposite end
should have been the sex organs. It was probably male
like the earlier parts they had found. There was a mat of
hair between the flat breasts, but nothing was left in the
genital area except a dark ugly gouge.
Denning drove the crime scene van down to the site
and set up his floodlights. As he surveyed what was left
of the body before taking pictures, he shook his head
and said to Dwight, “You know something, Major? We
got ourselves one pissed-off killer.”
Every man in the group felt a painful twinge of sym-
pathetic horror as they gazed down at the mutilated vic-
tim. Dwight, too. Once again, he thought of the church
sign where they had found the first hand.
With what measure you mete, it shall be measured
to you again.
What the hell had the guy done to wind up like this,
with his personal parts strewn across the county?
At the other end of the state, Flame Smith turned off
the main highway and shifted to low gear. The engine
protested against the steep climb ahead and her tires