Hard Row Part 6

"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, according to Richards. A ring of stones encircled an old campfire and a few drink cans and sc.r.a.ps 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 doc.u.menting 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."

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 inside 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 the dark-skinned children who played outside stopped to stare as the two white men pa.s.sed.

The dirt road ended in a cable stretched between uprights that looked like sawed-off light poles. Beyond the cable, the land dropped off sharply in a tangle of blackberry bushes and trash trees strangled in kudzu and honeysuckle vines. A well-worn footpath began beside the left upright and disappeared in the undergrowth.

Bo looked back down the dirt road to the low buildings cl.u.s.tered 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 followed 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 b.u.t.ts 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.

He pocketed the bottle for later attention and hurried 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 pa.s.s.

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 standing by the water's edge. At his feet was what at first appeared 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 remains that lay in the shallows. "And here's where poor ol' Fred Mitchiner wandered off to."

CHAPTER 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 anything more about that first set of body parts, figuring that if fresh rumors were circulating through the courthouse 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 committing them to the fire, and a gruesome image filled my head of a pickup truck b.u.mping around the county, strewing body parts as it went. Careless drivers are forever 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, jiggling little R.W. on her shoulder with soothing pats as Cal went upstairs with Mary Pat to retrieve his backpack. 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, Maria, 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, senora."

"Thanks, Maria. See you on Monday?"

"Monday, si."

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 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 feelings 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 father," I protested weakly.

"And you're his stepmother. In loco maternis or whatever 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."

I knew she was right. Nevertheless, I was so apprehensive about this aspect of parenting, that we were almost 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 handle 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?"

"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 before his nine o'clock bedtime.

"The thing is," Dwight said as he got up to pour us a second cup of coffee, "are you likely to be the judge for a half-million civil lawsuit?"

"Probably not," I said, my curiosity really piqued now. "Something that big usually goes to superior court. Unless both parties agree to it, most of our judgments are capped at ten thousand."

"Okay then," he said and settled back to tell me how Bo Poole started thinking about his teenage years when he used to run a trapline along the creeks in the southern part of the county, especially Black Creek.

"He wasn't the only one and it dawned on him that Fred Mitchiner used to trap animals and sell the pelts, too."

"Who's Fred Mitchiner?"

"That eighty-year-old with Alzheimer's who wandered away from the nursing home right before Christmas, remember?"

I shook my head. "That whole week was a haze. Except for our wedding and Christmas itself, about all I remember is that you took two weeks off and Bo wouldn't let you come into work."

Dwight cut his eyes at me. "That's all you remember?"

I couldn't repress my own smile as his big hand covered mine and his thumb gently stroked the inside of my wrist.

"Don't change the subject," I said, with a glance into the living room where Cal seemed absorbed by the game. "Fred Mitchiner."

"Once Mitchiner slipped away from the nursing home, it would have been a long walk for him, but they do say Alzheimer's patients often try to find their way back to where they were happy. Bo figures the old guy probably thought he'd go check his traps, fell in the water, and either drowned or died of exposure. High water and animals did the rest. It wasn't murder."

"But it does sound like negligence," I said. "Is that what his family feel?"

He shrugged. "We haven't told them yet. Bo wants to wait till we get an official ID; but yeah, that's the talk."

CHAPTER 10.

There is something always preying on something, and nothing is free from disaster in this sublunary world.

-Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890 Friday's criminal court is usually a catchall day for me-the minor felonies and misdemeanors that don't fit in elsewhere. Sometimes I think Doug Woodall, our current DA, goes out of his way to see that the weird ones wind up on my Friday docket. On the other hand, sometimes his sense of humor matches mine and when I entered the courtroom that morning and saw Dr. Linda Allred seated in the center aisle, it was hard not to smile.

"All rise," said Cleve Overby, the most punctilious of the bailiffs, and before she'd finished giving him a rueful hands-up motion from her motorized wheelchair, he grinned and added, "all except Dr. Allred. Oyez, oyez, oyez. This honorable court for the County of Colleton is now open and sitting for the dispatch of its business. G.o.d save the State and this honorable court, the Honorable Judge Deborah Knott presiding. Be seated."

I ran my finger down the calendar and found the case she was probably there for, then sat back and listened as ADA Kevin Foster pulled the first shuck on Anthony Barkley, a nineteen-year-old black kid who had ridden through a parking lot on his bicycle and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a woman's purse. Before the shoulder strap fully left her arm, she gave it a sharp yank, which sent him sprawling into the path of a slow-moving car. The car immediately flattened his bike and the man who jumped out to see what was going on had proceeded to flatten the youthful thief.

"Fifteen days suspended, forty hours of community service," I said.