Hard Row dk-13 Read online

  going to take third behind the job. These days, though,

  he’s a field supervisor working from a desk and K.C.’s

  come in off the streets, too. She used to work under-

  cover narcotics, one of the most successful agents the

  State Bureau of Investigation ever had. She was abso-

  lutely fearless and so blonde and beautiful that dealers

  fell all over themselves to give her drugs. Somewhat to

  my surprise, they had gotten together late last summer

  and he had moved into her lake house.

  “She keeps swearing it’s just for laughs,” I told

  Dwight, “but this may be fourth time lucky for Terry.”

  “That would be nice,” said Dwight, who likes Terry

  as much as I do.

  I smiled in the darkness. “Now that you’re an old mar-

  ried man, you want everybody else to settle down?”

  “Beats sleeping single in a double bed,” he said as his

  arms tightened around me.

  Next morning, after breakfast, our kitchen filled up

  with short people. During the week, Cal goes home on

  the schoolbus with Mary Pat, the young orphaned ward

  of Dwight’s sister-in-law Kate, who keeps him for the

  hour or so till Dwight or I get home. In return, we

  usually take Mary Pat and Kate’s four-year-old son Jake

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  for a few hours on Saturday so that Kate can have some

  time alone with Rob and their new baby boy.

  It was raining that morning, a cold chill rain that

  threatened to turn to sleet, so I kept them indoors and

  let them help me make cookies. I’m no gourmet chef,

  my biscuits aren’t as tender and flaky as some, and my

  piecrusts come out so soggy and tough that I long ago

  gave up and now buy the frozen ones, but I’ll put my

  chocolate chip cookies up against anybody’s. (The secret

  is to add a little extra sweet butter and then take them

  out of the oven before the center’s fully set. Black wal-

  nuts don’t hurt either, but pecans will do in a pinch.)

  We had a great assembly line going. I did the mixing

  and got them in and out of the oven, Mary Pat and Cal

  spooned little blobs of dough onto the foil-lined cookie

  sheets, while Jake stood on a stool and used a spatula to

  carefully transfer the baked cookies from the foil to the

  wire cooling racks. Of course, they nibbled on the raw

  dough as they worked and their sticky little fingers went

  from mouth to bowl whenever they thought I wasn’t

  looking.

  I pretended not to notice. Didn’t bother me. If there

  were any germs those three hadn’t already shared, the

  heat of the oven would probably take care of them and

  I knew the eggs were safe.

  Once Daddy’s housekeeper Maidie heard about the

  dangers of raw eggs, she kept threatening to stop baking

  altogether until Daddy and her husband Cletus rebuilt

  the old chicken house and started raising Rhode Island

  Reds again. The flock was now big enough to keep the

  whole family in eggs, and when the wind’s right, I can

  hear their rooster crowing in the morning. Every once

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  MARGARET MARON

  in a while, another rooster answers and it’s a comfort-

  ing signal that there are still some other farms in the

  community that haven’t yet given way to a developer’s

  checkbook.

  Whenever I make cookies, I quadruple the recipe, so

  it was almost noon before we finished filling two large

  cake boxes to the brim. I planned to take one box to

  Seth and Minnie’s the next day, I’d send some home

  with Mary Pat and Jake, and I figured the rest should

  last us at least a week if Dwight and Cal didn’t get into

  them too heavily.

  “Ummm. Something in here smells good enough to

  eat,” said Dwight, who was back from helping Haywood

  and Robert pull a mired tractor out of a soggy bottom.

  “Why was Haywood even down there on a tractor

  this time of year? It’s way too wet.”

  “He wants to plant an acre of garden peas.” Dwight

  had left his muddy boots and wet jacket in the garage

  and was in his stocking feet, making hungry noises as

  he lifted the lid on a pot of vegetable soup. I cut him

  off a wedge of the hoop cheese I was using to make

  grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup and it

  disappeared in two bites.

  “Garden peas? A whole acre? What’s he going to do

  with that many peas?”

  “Well you know how your brothers are trying to

  come up with ideas for cash crops in case tobacco goes

  downhill?”

  I nodded.

  “So Haywood’s thinking he might try his hand at a

  little truck farming. He even said something about rais-

  ing leeks for the upscale Cary and Clayton crowds.”

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  “Leeks?” I had to laugh. “Haywood’s heard of

  leeks?”

  “He’s decided they’re just fancy onions and he’s al-

  ready taken a dislike to Vidalias. Says they’re nothing

  but onions for people who don’t really like onions.”

  Privately, I agreed with my brother. What’s the point

  of an onion with so little zest that you could peel a

  dozen without shedding a tear? Give me an onion that

  stands up for itself.

  After so much cookie dough, the children weren’t

  very hungry and asked to be excused to go play in Cal’s

  room. When we were alone, Dwight told me that he’d

  heard from Chapel Hill. The ME could not give them a

  specific time. Depending on whether or not those legs

  were outdoors and exposed to the freezing night tem-

  peratures or inside, the hacking had been done as recent

  as forty-eight hours or as long ago as a full week. The

  dismemberment had been accomplished with a heavy

  blade that was consistent with an axe or hatchet. And

  yes, the legs did indeed come from a well-nourished

  white male, probably between forty and sixty, a male

  with blood type O.

  “The most common type in the world,” he sighed,

  reaching for the untouched half of Cal’s grilled cheese.

  “Maybe someone will call in by Monday,” I said and

  slid the rest of my own sandwich onto his plate.

  After lunch, Dwight volunteered to take the children

  to a new multiplex that recently opened about ten miles

  from us. I grumble about all the changes that growth

  has brought, but I have to admit that sometimes it’s

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  MARGARET MARON

  nice not to have to drive thirty miles for a movie. With

  the house quiet and empty, I finally got to do some

  personal weekend pampering. I put Bandit in his crate

  out in the utility room, gave him a new strip of rawhide

  to chew on, then took a lazy bubblebath, followed by a

  manicure. And as long as I had clippers and polish out,

  I decided to paint my toenails as well.

  The phone rang when I was about halfway through.

  Portland Brewer. My best friend since forever and, most

 
recently, my matron of honor.

  “Why are you putting me on speaker phone?” she im-

  mediately asked. “Who else is with you?”

  “No one,” I assured her. “But I’m giving myself a

  pedicure and I need both hands. What’s up?”

  “Nothing much. I’m just sitting here nursing the

  deduction while Avery works on our income tax. You

  know how anal he is about getting it done early.”

  The deduction, little Carolyn Deborah, is about

  eighteen hours younger than my marriage. Back in

  December, my brothers were making book on whether

  or not Portland would deliver during the ceremony.

  “How’d it go this week?” I asked.

  After the baby’s birth, she’d taken off for two months

  and this was her first week of easing back into the prac-

  tice she and Avery shared. He did civil cases and a little

  tax work; she did whatever else came along, although

  she was particularly good in juried criminal cases.

  “It’s okay. I hate leaving the baby, but she doesn’t

  seem to mind one bottle feeding a day as long as I’m

  here for the others. And let’s face it, after working fifty-

  and sixty-hour weeks, thirty hours is a piece of cake.”

  She told me about the new nanny (“a jewel”), how

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  her diet was coming if she expected to get into a decent

  bathing suit by the summer (“I’m an absolute cow and if

  anybody gives me one more ‘got milk?’ joke, I’m gonna

  stomp him”), and whether or not Reid Stephenson, my

  cousin and former law partner, was having an affair with

  that new courthouse clerk (“I saw them going into one

  of the conference rooms at lunch yesterday”).

  I told her about my newfound hockey enthusiasm

  (“Did you know Bret Hedican’s married to Kristi

  Yamaguchi?”), how Cal was settling in (“He still acts

  like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,

  but I think we really connected last night”), and what

  my docket had looked like yesterday (“Doesn’t anybody

  just talk anymore? Why does it always have to be knives

  or fists or baseball bats?”).

  “That reminds me,” said Portland. “I have a new cli-

  ent. Karen Braswell. Was her ex one of your cases yes-

  terday? A James Braswell? Assault?”

  “Assault?”

  “A Mexican took a broken beer bottle to his arm out

  at that Latino club. El Toro Negro.”

  “Oh, yes.” The details were coming back to me. “Your

  client’s his ex-wife? That’s right. He violated a restrain-

  ing order she took out against him? He’s supposed to

  come up before Luther Parker the first of the week, but

  I’ve got him cooling his heels in jail till then.”

  “Good. She’s really scared of him, Deborah. That’s

  why she’s retained me to speak for her when his case

  comes up. I just hope Judge Parker will put the fear of

  the law in him.”

  Our talk moved on to other subjects till the baby

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  MARGARET MARON

  started fussing. “Lunch sometime this week?” Portland

  asked before hanging up.

  I agreed and put the finishing dab of polish on my

  toenails. It was a fiery red with just a hint of orange.

  Later that evening, I wiggled my bare toes at Dwight.

  “It’s called Hot, Hot, Hot,” I told him. “What do you

  think?”

  He patted the couch beside him. “Come over here

  and let me show you.”

  Cool!

  36

  C H A P T E R

  5

  If farmers wish their sons to be attached to the farm home

  and farm life they must make that farm home and farm life

  sufficiently attractive to induce some of their boys to stay.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  % “What’s wrong with garden peas?” my brother

  Haywood asked belligerently as he reached for an-

  other of my chocolate chip cookies next day. “Everybody

  I know likes ’em, they don’t have no pests and they’re

  easy to grow.”

  “Which is why they wholesale for less than a dollar

  a pound in season,” Zach said patiently. “And picking

  them is labor intensive. After we pay for help, what sort

  of return would we get on our investment?”

  “Messicans work cheap,” Haywood said, “and they

  can pick a hell of a lot of peas in a hour.”

  His wife Isabel rolled her eyes at the use of profanity

  on a Sunday, but it was Daddy who frowned and mur-

  mured, “Watch your mouth, boy.” Not because it was

  Sunday but because there were “ladies” present and the

  older he gets, the more he holds with old-fashioned be-

  liefs about the delicacy of our ladylike ears. (For Daddy,

  all respectable women, whatever our race or color, are

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  MARGARET MARON

  ladies. The only time he huffs and mutters “You women!”

  is when we try his patience to total exasperation.)

  Seth and Minnie had called this meeting for those

  of us who still live out here on the farm. Even though

  Dwight and I are not directly involved with crops,

  what’s grown here is certainly of interest to us since

  we’re surrounded by the family fields and woodlands.

  Both of us grew up working in tobacco—hard, physical,

  dirty work. From picking up dropped leaves at the barn

  when we were toddlers, to driving the tractors that fer-

  ried the leaves from field to barn as preteens, to actually

  pulling the leaves (Dwight) or racking them (me), we

  each did our part to help get the family’s money crop

  to market. We never needed lectures at school to know

  about the tar in tobacco. After working in it for a few

  hours, we could roll up marble sized balls of black sticky

  gum from our hands.

  Now the old way of marketing has changed. The

  farm subsidy program has ended and the money’s been

  used to buy out the farmers who had always raised it.

  Instead of the old colorful auctions where competitive

  bids could net a grower top dollar for a particularly at-

  tractive sheet of soft golden leaves, tobacco companies

  now contract directly with the growers for what’s pretty

  much a take-it-or-leave-it offer that can be galling to

  independent farmers who are more conservative than

  cats when it comes to change.

  My eleven brothers and I had grown up in tobacco

  without questioning it. Tobacco fed and clothed us, and

  those who stayed to farm with Daddy—Seth, Haywood,

  Andrew, Robert, and Zach—pooled their labor and

  equipment to grow more poundage every year and buy

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  more land until we now collectively own a few thousand

  acres in fields, woods, and some soggy wetlands.

  The morality of tobacco itself was something else

  we didn’t question. Our parents smoked. Daddy and

  some of the boys still do. But only one or two of their

  children have picked up the habit. Those grandchildren
r />   who hope to stay and wrest a living from the land were

  hoping to find an economically feasible alternative to

  tobacco.

  Each of my farming brothers has his own specialty

  on the side. Haywood loves to grow watermelons, can-

  taloupes, and pumpkins even though he makes so little

  profit that by the time he pays his fertilizer bills, he’s

  working for way less than minimum wage. Andrew and

  Robert raise a few extra hogs every year and they get

  top dollar for their corn-fed, free-range pork. Those

  two and Daddy also raise rabbit dogs, and Zach’s bee-

  keeping hobby now turns a modest profit because he

  rents his hives to truck farmers and fruit growers. Seth

  and I have leased some of our piney woods to landscap-

  ers who rake the straw for mulch, and Seth’s daughter

  Jessica boards a couple of horses to pay for the upkeep

  on her own horse.

  Today, we were all gathered at Seth and Minnie’s to

  try to reach an agreement as to what the main money

  crop would be. Outside, the weather was raw and wintry

  with a forecast of freezing rain. Inside things were start-

  ing to heat up. The boys planned to apply for a grant to

  help make the changeover to a different use of the farm,

  if they could agree on what that use should be.

  It was a very big if and today was not the first time

  Haywood and Zach had butted heads on this.

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  MARGARET MARON

  Zach is one of the “little twins,” so called because he

  and Adam are younger than Haywood and Herman, the

  “big twins,” and Haywood does not like being lectured

  to by a younger brother even if Zach is an assistant prin-

  cipal at West Colleton High, where he himself barely

  scraped through years earlier. Andrew and Robert are

  even older than Haywood, but they listen when Zach

  and Seth speak.

  Seth is probably the quietest of my eleven older broth-

  ers and the most even-tempered. I would never admit

  to anybody that I love one of them more than the oth-

  ers but I have always felt a special connection to Seth.

  He didn’t finish college like Adam, Zach, and I did, but

  he reads and listens and, like Daddy, he thinks on things

  before he acts. Even Haywood listens to Seth.

  So far today, we had discussed the pros and cons of

  pick-your-own strawberries, blueberries, blackberries,

  or grapes. Someone halfheartedly raised the possibility

  of timbering some of the stands of pines. That would