Hard Row dk-13 Read online

  of all clouds. Even the sunlight seemed extra bright,

  and they rode out of Dobbs in companionable silence,

  enjoying the novelty of a clear windshield and no wipers

  swishing back and forth.

  “Everything’s going good then?” Bo asked.

  “Would be better if somebody’d come forward and

  tell us who’s missing.”

  “No, I meant at home. You and Deborah and your

  boy.”

  “He’s handling it better than I would. Bedtimes can

  be a little rough. That seems to be when he misses Jonna

  the most.”

  “How’s Deborah handling it?”

  “Cal and me, we’re real lucky, Bo.”

  “She got any long-range plans for you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some women, they think they want a lawman and

  then when they get him, they don’t want the law

  part.”

  “That happen with you and Marnie?”

  “Naw, but Marnie was special.”

  “So’s Deborah.”

  “All I’m saying is let me know if I need to start look-

  ing me another chief deputy.”

  “And all I’m saying is don’t plan on writing a want ad

  anytime soon.”

  When they pulled onto the shoulder of Jernigan

  Road near the little bridge that crossed Apple Creek

  and stepped out of the truck, a bitter wind whipped

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  through the trees and dead vines that overhung the

  water. It stung their eyes and cut at their bare faces.

  Richards walked up from the creekbank to meet them, a

  wad of tissues in her gloved hand. She had been fighting

  a drippy cold all week and the tip of her nose was raw

  from blowing. Tendrils of cinnamon brown hair worked

  their way loose from her cap and blew across her freck-

  led face until she tucked them back in.

  “Nothing yet, sir,” she reported. “It’s up this way.”

  Thin crusts of ice edged the creek, which was only

  about eight feet wide and slow-moving. At this point it

  was less than eighteen inches deep.

  The two men followed as Richards led the way down

  a narrow rough footpath that paralleled the south bank.

  Nearly impassable here at the end of winter, one would

  almost need a bushaxe to get through it in summer.

  Dried briars tore at their pantlegs and tangled vines

  caught at their feet. All three of them carried slender

  metal rods and they used them as staffs to keep their

  balance and brush back limbs.

  Dwight was pleased to see that Mayleen was a savvy

  enough woodsman to hold back the small tree branches

  she pushed aside till Bo could grab them in turn and

  hold them for Dwight, rather like holding open a set of

  swinging doors to keep them from hitting the person

  behind in the face. It was a reminder that Mayleen grew

  up in this area and that Bo knew her people, which is

  how she talked him into giving her a job.

  “Who’d you say found it?” asked Bo, who kept hav-

  ing to duck low-hanging branches to keep from losing

  his trademark porkpie hat—a dapper black felt in win-

  ter, black straw in the summer.

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  MARGARET MARON

  “Three girls from the local high school.” Richards

  paused to blow her nose. “They were looking for early

  fiddleheads for a science project. One of them’s my

  niece. Shirlee’s oldest daughter?”

  Bo grunted to acknowledge he knew her sister

  Shirlee.

  “Soon as they realized what it was, she called me on

  her cell phone and sent me a picture of it. I’m afraid

  they trampled the ground around it too much for us to

  see any animal tracks.”

  Bo shook his head and Dwight knew it was not over

  the messed up tracks, but that teenagers came equipped

  these days with cell phones that could transmit pictures

  instantaneously.

  “Getting too high tech for me,” he said. “Any day

  now I expect to hear they’ve put a chip in somebody’s

  brain so they can tap right into the Internet without

  having to mess with a keyboard or screen.”

  A few hundred feet or so in from the road, they

  reached the scene, a popular local fishing spot, ac-

  cording to Richards. A ring of stones encircled an old

  campfire and a few drink cans and scraps of paper were

  scattered around.

  “There’s actually a way to drive here closer, but it

  means going around through someone’s fields. That’s

  how the girls got here,” she said.

  Detective Denning was already there taking pictures

  and documenting the find. The hand lay at the edge of

  the water among some ice-glazed leaves.

  “My niece said it had ice on it, too, when they first

  found it,” said Richards. “But when they poked it, the

  ice broke off.”

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  HARD ROW

  It had been in the open so long that the skin was dark

  and desiccated around the white finger bones.

  “Not gonna be easy getting fingerprints,” said

  Denning as they joined them. “I haven’t moved it yet,

  but just eyeballing it?” He gave a pessimistic shrug in-

  side his thick jacket. “Doesn’t look hopeful.”

  “Were the bones hacked or sawed?” Dwight asked.

  “The cartilage is pretty much gone, so it’s hard to say.

  Should I go ahead and bag it?”

  Bo Poole deferred to Dwight, who nodded.

  Abruptly, the sheriff said, “Tell you what, Dwight.

  Let’s you and me take a little drive. I need to see

  something.”

  “Call me if they find anything else,” Dwight said,

  then followed Bo back out to the road and his truck.

  “Which way, Bo?” he asked, putting the truck in

  gear.

  “Let’s head over to Black Creek.”

  They drove north along Jernigan Road until they

  neared a crossroads, at which point, Bo told him to

  turn left toward the setting sun. As they approached

  the backside of the unincorporated little town of Black

  Creek, population around 600 give or take a handful,

  the empty land gave way to houses.

  “Slow down a hair,” said Bo and his porkpie hat

  swung back and forth as he studied both sides.

  Dwight knew Bo was enjoying himself so he did not

  spoil that enjoyment by asking questions.

  “There!” Bo said suddenly, pointing to a narrow dirt

  road that led south. “Let’s see how far down you can

  get your truck.”

  The houses here were not much more than shacks and

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  MARGARET MARON

  the dark-skinned children who played outside stopped

  to stare as the two white men passed.

  The dirt road ended in a cable stretched between up-

  rights that looked like sawed-off light poles. Beyond the

  cable, the land dropped off sharply in a tangle of black-

  berry bushes and trash trees strangled in kudzu and

  honeysuckle vines. A well-worn footpath began beside

  the left upright and disappeared in the undergrowth.

&
nbsp; Bo looked back down the dirt road to the low build-

  ings clustered in the distance, then nodded to himself

  and struck off down the path.

  Dwight followed.

  In a few minutes, they reached the creek that gave

  the little town its name and the path split to run in both

  directions along the bank. Without hesitation, Bo fol-

  lowed the flow of water that ran deep and swift after so

  much rain.

  They came upon the charred remains of a campfire

  built in a scooped-out hollow edged with creek stones

  next to a fallen tree that had probably toppled during

  the last big hurricane and that now probably served as

  a bench for the kids who had cleared the site. A dirt

  bike with a twisted frame lay on the far side of the log.

  Scattered around were several beer cans, an empty wine

  bottle, cigarette butts and some fast-food wrappers.

  There were also a couple of roach clips and an empty

  plastic prescription bottle that had held a relatively mild

  painkiller, which Dwight picked up. The owner’s name

  was no longer legible, but the name of the pharmacy

  was there and so was most of the prescription number.

  If this was all the kids were into though, things weren’t

  too bad in this neighborhood.

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  HARD ROW

  He pocketed the bottle for later attention and hur-

  ried after Bo, who had not paused at the campfire, but

  kept walking as if he were late for his own wedding,

  ducking beneath the tree branches, his small trim body

  barely disturbing the bushes on either side of the path

  that pulled at Dwight’s bulk as he tried to pass.

  The creek deepened and narrowed and the path made

  by casual fishermen and adventurous kids petered out in

  even rougher underbrush, yet Bo pushed on.

  When Dwight finally caught up, his boss was stand-

  ing by the water’s edge. At his feet was what at first ap-

  peared to be a half-submerged log.

  “Over yonder’s where Apple Creek wanders off,” he

  told Dwight, pointing downstream to the other side of

  the creek just as one of their people broke through the

  underbrush and stopped in surprise in seeing them on

  that side of the fork. Then he looked down at the re-

  mains that lay in the shallows. “And here’s where poor

  ol’ Fred Mitchiner wandered off to.”

  77

  C H A P T E R

  9

  The world seeks no stronger evidence of a man’s goodness of

  heart than kindness.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  Deborah Knott

  Thursday Evening, March 2

  % I did not repeat what Dwight had told me, but at

  adjournment, I asked my clerk if she’d heard any-

  thing more about that first set of body parts, figuring

  that if fresh rumors were circulating through the court-

  house about another hand, she would mention it.

  Instead, she shook her head.

  “And Faye’s off today, so I wouldn’t anyhow. Lavon’s

  on duty and he never talks.”

  As I left the parking lot behind the courthouse, I

  didn’t spot Dwight’s truck, but there seemed to be no

  more activity than the usual coming and going of patrol

  cars. A second hand though? Where were the bodies?

  I thought of that crematorium down in Georgia that

  stashed bodies all over its grounds rather than commit-

  ting them to the fire, and a gruesome image filled my

  head of a pickup truck bumping around the county,

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  HARD ROW

  strewing body parts as it went. Careless drivers are for-

  ever hauling unsecured loads of trash that blow off and

  litter our roadsides. Was this another example?

  I switched my car radio to a local news station, but

  heard nothing on this latest development.

  After picking up Bandit’s heartworm pills at the vet’s,

  I swung by Kate and Rob’s to collect Cal. The new baby

  was fussing and Kate had dark circles under her eyes.

  “He got me up four times last night,” she said, jig-

  gling little R.W. on her shoulder with soothing pats as

  Cal went upstairs with Mary Pat to retrieve his back-

  pack. Through the archway to the den, I saw young

  Jake watch them go, then he settled back on the couch

  and turned his eyes to the video playing on the TV.

  “I thought he was sleeping six hours at a stretch

  now.”

  “So did I,” she said wearily. “I was wrong.”

  A middle-aged Hispanic woman came down the hall.

  Kate’s cleaning woman, María, whose last name I can

  never remember. She wore a heavy winter coat and drew

  on a pair of thick knitted gloves. She gave me a shy smile

  of greeting and said to Kate, “I go now, señora.”

  “Thanks, María. See you on Monday?”

  “Monday, sí.”

  She let herself out the kitchen door and Kate said, “I

  don’t know how I’d manage without her.”

  She transferred the fretful baby to her other shoulder.

  “Before this one, I only needed her every other week

  and still put in a twenty-five-hour week in my studio.”

  Kate was a freelance fabric designer and had remodeled

  the farm’s old packhouse into a modern studio. “Now

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  MARGARET MARON

  she’s here twice a week and I still haven’t done a lick of

  drawing since R.W. was born.”

  “Slacker,” I said.

  She gave me a wan smile.

  “Kate, he’s not even two months old. Give yourself a

  break. Are you sure it’s not too much to have Cal here

  every afternoon?”

  “He’s no real extra trouble.”

  “But?” I asked, hearing something in her voice.

  “It’s only the usual bickering,” she sighed. “The

  four-year age difference. And it’s probably Mary Pat’s

  fault more than Cal’s. She’s just not as patient with Jake

  now that she has Cal to play with. He’s so happy when

  they get home from school and it really hurts his feel-

  ings when they exclude him. I had to give her a time-

  out this afternoon and we’re going to have a serious

  sit-down tonight after Jake goes to bed, so maybe you

  could speak to Cal?”

  “I’ll tell Dwight,” I said.

  Kate shook her head in disapproval. “Come on,

  Deborah. I’m not asking you to beat him with a stick or

  send him to bed without supper. I’m just asking you to

  reinforce the scolding I gave him and Mary Pat.”

  “But Dwight’s the one to speak to him. He’s his fa-

  ther,” I protested weakly.

  “And you’re his stepmother. In loco maternis or what-

  ever the Latin phrase would be. Sooner or later, you’re

  going to have to help with discipline and you might as

  well get started now. Besides, if you think Cal’s going to

  resent your talking to him about something this minor,

  imagine how he’s going to feel if you tattle to Dwight

  and it gets blown out of proportion.”

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  HARD ROW

&nb
sp; I knew she was right. Nevertheless, I was so appre-

  hensive about this aspect of parenting, that we were al-

  most to the turn-in at the long drive that leads from the

  road to the house before I got up enough nerve to say,

  “Aunt Kate tells me that you and Mary Pat are having a

  problem with Jake.”

  Cal gave me a wary glance. “Not really.”

  “That’s not what she says.”

  “I’ll get the mail,” he said, reaching for the door han-

  dle as I slowed to a stop by the mailbox. I waited till he

  was back in the car with our magazines and first of the

  month bills, then drove on down the lane, easing over

  the low dikes that keep the lane from washing away.

  “She says that you and Mary Pat aren’t treating

  him very nicely. That you don’t want him to play with

  you.”

  “He can play, but he doesn’t know how. He’s a baby.”

  “He’s four years old,” I said gently. “If he doesn’t

  know how, then you should take the time to teach

  him.”

  “But he can’t even read yet.”

  “I know it’s hard to be patient when he can’t keep

  up, Cal, but think how you’d feel if you went over there

  and he and Mary Pat wouldn’t play with you. Think

  how it makes Aunt Kate feel. This is a stressful time for

  her with a fussy new baby. If you won’t do it for Jake,

  do it for Aunt Kate.”

  He was quiet as he flicked the remote to open the

  garage door for us.

  “Are you going to tell Dad?”

  “Not if you and Mary Pat start cutting Jake some

  slack, okay?”

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  MARGARET MARON

  “Okay,” he said, visibly relieved.

  Inside the house, he hurried down to the utility room

  to let Bandit out for a short run in the early evening

  twilight and I let out the breath I’d been metaphorically

  holding.

  “See? That wasn’t bad,” said my internal preacher.

  “Piece of cake,” crowed the pragmatist.

  By the time Dwight got home, smothered pork chops

  and sweet potatoes were baking in the oven, string beans

  awaited a quick steaming in a saucepan, the rolls were

  ready to brown and I was checking over Cal’s math

  homework while he finished studying for tomorrow’s

  spelling test.

  I was dying to hear about the latest developments,

  but I kept my curiosity in hand until after supper when

  Cal went to take his shower and get into his pajamas

  before the Hurricanes game came on. Tonight was an

  away game and Cal didn’t want to miss a single minute