Hard Row Part 10

It wasn't all work. The year before, my nephews and nieces had installed a regulation height basketball hoop at the peak of the garage roof so that they could use the concrete ap.r.o.n in front for a half-court. Dwight lowered the hoop from ten feet to eight, inflated four of the collapsed b.a.l.l.s stashed in a bushel basket beneath the work bench, and showed the kids the hook shot that could have let him play for Carolina had he not joined the army instead.

Cal and a chastened Mary Pat were on their best behavior with Jake. Being outdoors in the milder weather helped, of course. Running, jumping, digging in the dirt, riding their bikes, or using the hose to water in the new plants doesn't take fine motor skills and there's no squabbling over b.a.l.l.s when every kid has one. It also helped that Robert had brought his grandson Bert along and that Bert was the same age as Jake. It took a lot of pressure off the two older children.

Some of the farm dogs showed up and there was a flurry of snarls and growls and bared teeth before they backed down and acknowledged that Bandit did indeed own the territory around the house, territory he'd spent the last few weeks a.s.siduously marking.

Will and his wife Amy came out from town and Will got sucked into work while I stomped the dirt off my shoes and went inside with Amy. Will's three brothers up from me; Amy is his third wife. She's also the head of Human Resources at Dobbs Memorial Hospital and she was in the process of writing a grant proposal to fund a pilot program for servicing their Hispanic patients. I had told her that I would vet the proposal and that we could use my Lexis Nexis account to look up pertinent case law as it pertains to undoc.u.mented aliens.

"Doc.u.mented or not, we're getting so many people in our emergency room and at the well-baby clinic that we need more translators to work every s.h.i.+ft," she said. "It scares the bejeebers out of some of the doctors and nurses when they're trying to explain a complicated drug regimen and the only translator may be the patient's first-grade child. How can they be sure that a six-year-old understands enough to tell her mother that she needs to take the pills in increasing and decreasing dosages? And don't get me started on ID cards. We almost killed a man the other day. The record attached to that particular ID card said that he wasn't allergic to penicillin, but guess what? The man who presented the card that day was deathly allergic. We almost lost him."

I showed her how to get into the site and suggested key words that might pull up the info she was after.

I like Amy. She's small and dark and claims to have Latin blood somewhere in her background despite not speaking a word of anything except English. She has a firecracker fuse and gets pa.s.sionate about causes, but she also has a raucous sense of humor, all necessary traits to stay married to Will.

He's the oldest of my mother's four children and a bit of a rounder. Will's good-looking and has a silver tongue that could charm birds out of the trees or dollars out of your pocket, which is why he's such a good auctioneer and just the person you want if you're selling off the furnis.h.i.+ngs of your grandmother's house. He doesn't exactly lie, but d.a.m.ned if he can't make your granny's circa 1980 pressed gla.s.s pitcher sound almost as desirable as a piece of Waterford crystal.

While Amy roamed the Internet looking for factoids to bolster her proposal, I read over what she had so far, put some of her layman's language into more precise legalese, and marked a few places where specific examples would help illuminate the point she was making.

As she printed out the pieces she wanted to save, we talked about the migrant problem. Floods of undoc.u.mented aliens have poured into North Carolina in such a very short time and not all are "Messicans" as Haywood calls any Latino.

"I heard Seth telling Will about y'all's meeting last Sunday." She grinned. "Ostriches?"

We giggled about Isabel's thinking hogs would be more natural and about Robert's reaction to the idea of s.h.i.+take mushrooms.

"Seth said something about giving the kids some land to grow some chemical-free crops?"

"They won't be able to market their crops as organic for a few years," I said, "but it's a start."

"And bless them for it." Amy gathered up the printouts, blocked their edges, and pushed back from the computer. "It absolutely infuriates me to see how cavalier some of the growers are with pesticides."

"Well, Haywood and Robert can remember when they had to worm and sucker tobacco by hand," I said as we moved into the living room. I added another log to the fire and we sat down on the couch in front of the crackling flames. "No wonder they love being able to run a tractor through the fields pulling a sprayer that'll take care of everything chemically."

"Better living through chemistry?" Amy slipped off her boots and tucked her short legs under her. "Except that it isn't. I wish they had to see some of the migrants who come into the emergency room, covered with pesticides, their clothes green with it. The rashes on their skin. The coughs. The headaches and memory loss and G.o.d alone knows how many strokes, cancers, and heart attacks have been triggered by careless handling. They're not supposed to go back in the fields for forty-eight hours after some of those chemicals are used, yet we've had women tell us that they've actually been sprayed while they were out there working. Most times they don't even know what they've been doused with. Birth defects are up. It's criminal. We've called EPA and the US Department of Agriculture on some of the employers, but there's not enough teeth in the laws to make the growers back off."

Her tirade broke off as the children came in, hungry and needing to use the bathroom. I had set out a tray of raw vegetables and sliced apples with a yogurt-based dip, but Mary Pat spotted the bowl of oranges and immediately asked if I'd cut a hole in the top so she could suck out the juice. The three boys thought that was a great idea and they all headed back outside, oranges in hand, noisily sucking.

"She's a pistol, that one." Amy laughed. "Kate's going to have her hands full."

"She already does," I said ruefully.

We took the children back to Kate and Rob's on Sunday evening, tired and dirty and ready for bath and bed. Kate, on the other hand, looked the most relaxed I'd seen her since R.W. was born. There was color in her pretty face and her honey brown hair had been cut and styled since yesterday morning. The haircut echoed her old glamour and reminded me that she had been a New York fas.h.i.+on model before she married Jake's dad and switched from modeling clothes to designing the fabric for those clothes.

"You could still be a model," I said when we were alone together in the kitchen, putting together coffee and dessert while Dwight and Rob discussed the virtues of planting more than two varieties of blueberries.

She made a face. "For what? Plus sizes? Thanks, but no thanks."

"You're not fat," I protested. "And you were way too skinny before. In fact, the first time Bessie Stewart saw you she told Maidie they could just stick two grains of corn on a hoe handle and use that as your dress form."

Bessie Stewart is our mother-in-law's housekeeper and a plainspoken country woman.

Kate laughed. "I know. She's still trying to fatten me up. You certainly don't think I made this custard pie, do you? Skinny or fat, I'm comfortable where I am, though, and I appreciate you and Miss Emily giving me this weekend to put it all in perspective. I'm not superwoman and I've been hovering over the kids too much instead of letting them work it out. I'm sorry I snapped at you yesterday."

"No, you were right to. It doesn't hurt to teach older children to be patient with younger ones. All the same, Kate, you need to understand-"

"You don't have to say it. Rob admits that he was a pain in the b.u.t.t to Dwight and Beth, and that Nancy Faye used to irritate the h.e.l.l out of all of them in turn. I never had brothers or sisters, so I never saw that give and take. Anyhow, things are going to get better. Rob's finally convinced me that the children won't grow up to be axe-murderers if I get back in my studio and work on some designs I've been mulling around in my head."

She filled the cream pitcher with half-and-half and added it to the tray.

"We haven't touched Lacy's room since he died last year." A shadow flitted across her face for that cantankerous old man, her first husband's uncle.

Lacy Honeycutt had initially resented Kate as an interloper who bewitched Jake and kept him in New York almost against his will. It had been hard for Lacy to realize that it was Jake's compet.i.tive zest for the New York Stock Exchange and not Kate alone that kept him away from the farm. When Kate inherited the place after his death and came down to await little Jake's birth, she had needed all her persuasive charm to bring Lacy around. He had approved of Rob, though, and so adored his infant great-nephew that he continued to live in the room he'd been born in, even after Kate and Rob were married.

"We're going to fix up Lacy's room and hire a live-in nanny," Kate said. "Mary Pat's trustees have already agreed to kick in with part of the cost."

"Great!" I said. "But does this mean that we have to find another place for Cal after school?"

She shook her head and gave me a mischievous smile. "Nope. It does mean that I'm going to bill you and Dwight for a prorated share of her salary, though."

"Deal," I said.

We solemnly shook hands on it, then carried the pie and coffee out to the living room.

Cal went to bed soon after we got home, but before Dwight and I called it a night, we let Bandit out for a run and walked outside ourselves to admire what we'd accomplished that weekend.

The night breeze lacked the bone chilling edge it had carried only two days ago, yet the cool air still required jackets and gloves. A quarter moon gave enough light to see where we were putting our feet and I could almost smell spring in the air.

In one of our few quiet moments the day before, Dwight had explained why he was so late getting back Friday night.

"I can't believe we've had this whole weekend without somebody finding another body part," I said. "I was sure you were going to get called out for the missing head."

"I just hope the ME's preliminary report's on my desk tomorrow morning and that it says they've found a tattoo or a prominent scar or anything that'll help us make a positive ID. The only thing halfway unique to this guy is that an X-ray of his right arm shows that he broke the ulna about ten years ago. I bet at least twenty percent of the guys in this country have broken a right arm sometime in their lives."

He told me that the Alzheimer patient's family had been notified and yeah, he'd heard that they'd retained Zack Young to file a civil suit against the nursing home.

I told him that Kate and Rob were going to hire a live-in nanny and that we'd need to share the cost. "It'll still be cheaper than putting Cal in formal after-school care. Better for him, too."

"You ever gonna say what yesterday morning was all about?"

"What do you mean?"

"C'mon, Deb'rah. I may not have been a full-time dad after Jonna and I divorced, but I got up there at least twice a month and I know my son well enough to know he wouldn't pa.s.s up a Canes game on his own."

I was silent.

"He's not giving you a hard time, is he? Talking back when I'm not around? Disobeying?"

"Nothing like that. Honest. It was just a little b.u.mp in the road and we agreed that this is the way to smooth it out. If it was something serious, I'd certainly tell you, but I gave him my word and I don't want to go back on it, okay?"

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

He looked down at me with a rueful smile. "Got more than you bargained for, didn't you, shug?"

"I'm sorry Jonna's dead," I said honestly. "And I'm sorry for the way this happened, but Portland and I had already planned on getting the custody arrangement amended so that you could have Cal here for holidays and summers."

He shook his head. "Poor Jonna. She wouldn't have stood a chance with you two." Then his smile faded. "I'm just glad we didn't have to put Cal through a court battle, glad he didn't have to choose between us."

I squeezed his hand and we walked down the drive to where the young crepe myrtles began. In this silvery light, they were a double row of pale slender sticks and leafless twigs.

"I'll probably be sore tomorrow from all the work we did today, but they're going to be beautiful," I said.

Dwight turned and looked back toward the house. "I was thinking we could put more pecans on the south side. They'll shade both bedrooms in the summer, but they won't interfere with the solar panels or the power lines."

I smiled.

"What?" he said with an answering smile.

"I was just thinking how old we'd be before any trees get tall enough to interfere with the wires."

"Less than fifteen years if we keep them watered and fertilized." He gave a contented sigh. "We really are married, aren't we?"

I laughed out loud. "It takes trees to convince you?"

He stopped and I turned to look up into his face. What I saw there made my heart turn over.

"Dwight? Sweetheart?"

He put his arms around me and his voice had a sudden rough huskiness. "I used to try and imagine what it would be like if h.e.l.l froze solid and I actually got you to marry me."

"And?"

"And this is better than I ever imagined."

Our lips met in the moonlight.

"Much better," he said and kissed me again.

Despite the cool night air, I began to feel warm all over.

Dwight never needed to have a diagram drawn for him. "Why don't we take this inside?" he murmured and whistled for the dog.

CHAPTER 15.

We must take things as we find them, making a choice of such as seem to us, by the use of our best judgment, to contain the most good and the fewest evils.

-Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890 FLAME SMITH.

MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 6.

Flame Smith was tired, angry, and fighting a dull headache, the direct result of driving east with the morning sun in her eyes for three hours. All weekend she had waited at Buck Harris's mountain lodge, willing him to pull up in the drive and honk the horn exuberantly upon seeing her car there.

It never happened and she was now so furious with Buck that had she met him as she drove down the winding private road, she would have rammed her Jeep into his BMW hard enough that the hood would be smashed all the way back to the steering wheel in such neat little even pleats that he would be playing it like an accordion.

The image gave her a sour pleasure. So did the image of chasing him back down the mountain with the .357 Magnum she kept in the console beside her.

In her forty-odd years, she had been chased by many men. Had even let a few catch her. Usually on her terms. Wasn't that why G.o.d had given her a mane of fiery red curls, flawless skin with a light dusting of freckles across an upturned nose in the middle of a lovely face, a nicely proportioned body with a twenty-inch waist, and a low s.e.xy laugh that men wanted to hear again and again?

She had pa.s.sed forty with every a.s.set still intact, so why was she chasing around the state of North Carolina looking for this particular man? Yes, he had money and yes, she was tired of worrying about how she was going to pay the mortgage on Jackson House, her B&B down in Wilmington; but he was not the first man with money to want to put a ring on her finger and another one through her nose. He was not cla.s.sically handsome, he needed to lose at least twenty pounds, he could be crude and rough, and like many self-made men she had known, he seemed to have the ethics of a polecat. But he was hung like a prize bull, he was surprisingly unselfish in bed, and he made her laugh.

The older she got, the more important that was becoming.

All the same, if he thought she was going to sit around cooling her heels while he took his sweet time to let her know why he'd broken both their date and his word, he had another thought coming, she told herself. It could have been fun for both of them, but c'est la d.a.m.n vie. Enough was enough.

She stopped for gas on the east side of Raleigh and bought a c.o.ke for caffeine and a BC powder for her headache. To h.e.l.l with Buck Harris. She would go back to Wilmington, make sure things continued to run smoothly at Jackson House, and then maybe she would give ol' what's-his-name a call. The guy who had developed one of the first planned communities along the river. The one who kept sending her orchids and roses. What the devil was his name? He wasn't as rowdy as Buck, but what the h.e.l.l? Maybe solid and dependable would wear better in the long run.

As I-40 veered southeast through Colleton County, her headache eased off and she flipped on the radio, turning the dial to an amusing local country station. Solemn organ music played softly beneath a somber voice that enunciated proper names, followed by the name of a funeral home.

Flame had to laugh. Just what she needed-the local obituaries. "Add Mr. Effin' Buck Harris to your list," she told the announcer. "From now on that SOB is dead to me."

Obituaries were followed by the latest county news: the weekend had produced four car wrecks and a motorcycle accident for a total of three deaths. Several computers had been stolen from a Dobbs middle school. An employee with the county's planning board had been charged with embezzling almost four thousand dollars.

Stupid cow, thought Flame. Wreck your life for a paltry four thousand?

Still no identification for the dismembered body of a muscular Caucasian male. The Colleton County Sheriff's Department again urged the public to report any missing man between the age of thirty and sixty. Eighteen dogs had been confiscated in Black Creek and their owner charged with felony dog fighting and animal cruelty, while- "Wait a d.a.m.n minute here!" Flame exclaimed. She was almost past the Dobbs exit, but she flashed her turn signal, yanked on her steering wheel and slid in front of a van that was trying to make its own sedate exit. The van honked angrily and veered to avoid rear-ending the Jeep, but Flame barely heard.

It was crazy, but what if that b.i.t.c.h was even less willing than Buck to share what they had built?

"Major Bryant?"

Dwight looked up to see one of the departmental clerks standing in his doorway.

"Mr. Stephenson's here with a client and they'd like to speak to you if you have a minute?"

"Sure," he said, laying aside the ME's report on the torso, a report which confirmed that it really was part and parcel of the other appendages they'd collected. If there had been scars, tattoos, or anything else unique to this body, they were obliterated by animal depredations or by the heavy blade that had dismembered it. Said blade, incidentally, appeared to be approximately six inches wide with a slight curvature of the cutting edge, all consistent with an ordinary axe.

Nevertheless, in addition to the broken right ulna earlier X-rays had discovered, the torso did carry two markers that might help distinguish this body from another.

First, there was a small mole just below the navel.

Second was what the ME described as "a protrusive umbilicus."