“Actually, I’m here to talk to Mr. Barefoot,” Dwight said, turning to follow the roofer, “but it’s been good to see you again. Hope y’all have a nice Christmas.”
“You, too,” they said and went to help the woodcutter clear away some of the smaller branches.
“Did you say you wanted to see me?” the roofer asked, pausing until Dwight caught up with him.
Before Dwight could reply, the shriek of the chainsaw split the air again and Barefoot motioned for Dwight to follow him around to the back of the house where they could hear each other’s words.
They sat down on a low brick wall that edged the rear terrace. Barefoot pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered it to Dwight, who shook his head.
“Never picked up the habit?” the older man asked. “Good for you. I’ve tried to quit a hundred times and just can’t seem to do it.”
He took his time lighting the cigarette with an old-fashioned kitchen match. As the smell of sulphur and tobacco smoke drifted between them, he looked Dwight up and down. “I heard you were back and working for the sheriff.”
“Eight years now,” Dwight agreed.
“That long?” He inhaled deeply and let out a thin stream of smoke. “Heard, too, that you married Kezzie Knott’s daughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Barefoot took another slow drag on his cigarette. “Been a long time since you and Jeff played ball together. You still have that hook shot?”
Dwight smiled and shook his head. “Don’t have much time for that anymore.”
“Too bad. I guess you know about Jeff?”
“Yes, sir. I was real sorry. Must have been rough on you and Mrs. Barefoot.”
“And Sarah. Been thinking about her a lot this week. Losing Jeff and now losing her daughter like that.”
“They say her son’s changed his name back to Barefoot.”
“Yeah, that made Edie and me real happy. Lots of Barefoots in the county but I’m the only son of an only son and our line of Barefoots would’ve died out if Charlie had stayed a Johnson. What’s particularly good is that Sarah didn’t try to talk him out of it. I think she knows she made a mistake all those years ago when she let Malcolm Johnson have his way.”
“Sounds like you don’t care much for Malcolm,” Dwight said mildly. “Wasn’t he good to Charlie?”
“He didn’t beat the boy or let him go hungry or naked,” Nelson Barefoot said. “All the same, Charlie’s living with Edie and me now till he finishes school.” He sat with his arms on his knees and watched the ash on his cigarette grow until it fell to the ground. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Charlie or Malcolm either, did you?”
“No, sir. I was wondering what you could tell me about one of your workers. Jason Wentworth?”
“Wentworth?” Barefoot gave a scornful snort. “He doesn’t work for me. I fired his ass a month ago. Lazy, shiftless, and a thief. Lucky for me, I’m bonded and insured for dishonest employees. I knew he’d been in a little trouble, but he shot me a line about wanting to stay on the straight and narrow, learn a good trade. You might not know it, but Jeff went through a stretch when he did some stupid things right after high school, but he straightened up once he and Sarah were married and the baby came along. I’m always willing to give boys like Wentworth a second chance, but if they need a third or fourth chance, they’ll have to go find it with somebody else. Fool me twice? I don’t think so. So what’s he done now to get you asking questions about him?”
When Dwight told him, Nelson Barefoot shook his head grimly. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe if I’d got him a little earlier…? It didn’t have to be like that, did it, Dwight?”
“I guess we all make choices, sir. Can you think why anyone would shoot him down?”
Barefoot frowned, stubbed out his cigarette, dug a shallow hole with the heel of his work boot, and carefully buried the butt. “Sorry, son, but I never get into the personal lives of my men unless I’m invited, and Jason Wentworth didn’t send out any invitations. I didn’t even know he had a brother. Least not a younger one.”
Dwight thanked him and walked past the dismembered oak tree to his truck. As he reached for the door, he heard Diane Hobbs call to him above the noisy chainsaw. “Dwight! Wait a minute!”
She carried a clear plastic pint-sized box tied with silver ribbons. “Am I not right in thinking today or tomorrow’s your anniversary?”
He nodded. “Today, actually.”
The Hobbses had come to the dinner party Bo Poole had thrown for them last December and to the wedding as well.
She thrust the box into his hands. “These are some of my chocolate-covered fried pecans. I was going to say merry Christmas, but happy anniversary’s even better. I hope you’re taking Deborah somewhere fancy tonight?”
“Tomorrow’s our fancy night,” he said. “There’s a dinner dance out at the country club.”
She beamed. “Y’all’re going to that? We are, too! Now you be sure and save a dance for me.”
Although it was now heading for lunchtime, another quick call to Spivey’s Plumbing confirmed that Mr. Spivey was still working on some busted water lines out at the nursery where Dwight had bought twenty crepe myrtles back last spring.
He spotted the plumber’s truck parked beside an empty greenhouse and pulled his own truck up next to it. Inside, he found two men repairing a network of thin black plastic pipes that lay on the ground in an inch or so of muddy water.
“My stupidity,” Herman Forrest told Dwight. “The main water supply comes in here and then feeds to the other greenhouses. I’ve never insulated the pipes here because I’ve never let the temperature drop below fifty, but with the slowdown in the building trade and fewer big landscaping orders, I left these two houses empty and never once thought about them freezing till I noticed that the sprinklers and misters in the other houses weren’t working.”
Dwight commiserated with him, but before he could explain why he was there, the nurseryman said, “So. You here to start redeeming your gift certificate?”
“My what?”
Consternation flooded the man’s face like the water on the dirt floor of this greenhouse. “Oh, Lord! Please, Major Bryant. Forget you heard me say that.”
With a broad smile, Dwight said, “I’m getting a gift certificate for Christmas?”
“When I saw you drive up, I was sure that your wife gave it to you already and that you were here to pick out another tree or something.”
Still smiling, Dwight shook his head.
“Look, promise you won’t tell her I shot off my big mouth, please?”
“She’ll never hear it from me.”
“So how can I help you? I don’t suppose you came to get her a gift certificate?”
“No, I want to talk to Mr. Spivey, but as long as I’m here, maybe I’ll take a look around later and see what you’ve got blooming besides poinsettias.”
“Sorry, Major. This time of year, it’s all poinsettias.”
Although he had continued to work while Dwight and the nurseryman talked, the plumber, a short burly man of late middle age, had obviously been listening; and when Forrest walked away, he stood up and wiped his hands on a muddy rag. “Oren Spivey,” he said. “I’d offer to shake hands but then you’d have to go wash yours.”
“Major Bryant, Mr. Spivey. Sheriff’s department. Sorry to interrupt your work.”
“ ’Sokay.” He turned and gave his assistant some instructions, then led the way through the greenhouse and out into the sunshine. “You’d never know it was freezing last night, would you? This is what I love about North Carolina.”
“You’re not from here?” Dwight asked politely even though the man’s accent had given him away as soon as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Michigan. Been here twelve years and I’m never going back.” He gestured toward the mess of mud and pipes visible through the open door. “In there’s a piece of cake compared to crawling under houses in minus-five-degree weather, using
blowtorches to thaw a line that’s buried a foot deep in frozen mud. So how can I help you, Major?”
“I was wondering what you could tell me about one of your workers. Willie Faison?”
“Willie? He’s been with me about a year now. Hard worker. Reliable. At least he was reliable till this morning. First time he’s missed without calling in.”
“Part of that’s my fault,” Dwight said and told him how Faison had discovered the bodies of the two Wentworths and then wound up drinking himself into oblivion. “See, the thing is, their stepmother thought they went hunting with Faison one day last week. You remember what day that was?”
Spivey frowned. Sunshine fell full of his broad square face and he squinted when he looked up at Dwight. “Sorry, Major Bryant. Somebody’s got their times mixed up. Willie put in a full eight hours every day last week.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Dwight thanked him and walked slowly back to his truck, trying to reason it out. It would appear that Faison had told the truth when he said he did not go hunting with the Wentworths on Wednesday. Dwight had interviewed enough young men like Faison to have a pretty good sense of when they were lying. He was quite certain that something about that Wednesday deer hunt was a lie.
But what?
The deer stand?
Trespassing to hunt on posted land?
CHAPTER 18
“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night… and had to clear away this morning.”
—A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Court for me that Monday morning meant handling first appearances for those who had been arrested over the weekend. State law requires that they be brought before a district court judge within ninety-six hours. The jury box held today’s first group of orange jumpsuits. All of them male. All charged with felonies.
I smiled at them pleasantly.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said. “My name is Judge Knott. If this is your first time here, let me explain that this is not a trial court. You have the right to silence, and it’s not in your interest to talk about the facts right now with the DA sitting there. If you go to trial, that’s when you’ll get a chance to be heard. This session is designed to review your bond, to tell you what you’re charged with, and to inform you as to what your punishment can be. This does not mean that’s the punishment you’ll actually receive. That will be determined if you do wind up going to trial after talking to your attorney and if you are found guilty there. When your name is called, please step forward. I’ll read the charges against you, tell you the maximum penalties, and ask if you’re going to hire your own attorney or need the court to appoint one for you.”
Most felons know to keep their mouths shut until they’ve spoken to an attorney, although someone will occasionally insist on trying to plead guilty then and there. I review their bonds and set a court date, usually about fifteen days out, depending on the arresting officer’s next regularly scheduled court date. The whole transaction takes about three minutes.
When the felonies were disposed of, the jury box filled again with misdemeanors and minor charges and I went through my spiel once more, something I would do each time a new group was brought up from the jail below.
Repeat offenders know the drill, of course. And for misdemeanors, they’ll step right up and plead guilty without the benefit of an attorney, but first-timers are less confident about the outcome.
Like today.
I looked at the defendant who was next in line. White. Male. Twenty-nine. Brown hair. A good haircut now growing out, which would indicate that he was in the early downward slide toward losing his personal pride. Half defiant, half sheepish. The shuck I held in my hand—the envelope that held his record and that I would not look at until I’d reached the disposition stage—was so thin that this was probably his first offense.
“Mr. Anderson, you’re here today charged with public intoxication,” I said. “I see that you were arrested Friday night, but you appear to have sobered up now. Do you intend to plead guilty or not guilty?”
He hesitated. “Not guilty?”
In a whisper that was clearly audible to everyone in the courtroom, the young black man standing behind him said, “Fool! You wanna get out today? Say guilty.”
He was right. The usual penalty for a minor charge like this is three days in jail plus court costs. If I give credit for time served, it saves taxpayer dollars and frees up space in the jail.
Anderson shrugged. “Guilty, ma’am.”
“I sentence you to three days in jail,” I said, “and give you credit for time.”
During the morning break, I ran into superior court judge Ned O’Donnell at the drink machine.
“How’s it going?” I asked. I knew he was presiding over a jury case, vehicular homicide by someone who had lost his license in a DWI case a few months before he smashed into another car and killed the mother of two small children. “You look harried,” I told him.
“Thanks,” he said dryly as he popped the tab on a Dr Pepper. “I have Ellen Hamilton sitting on the front row as close as she can get to the jury box. I’ve already had to warn her twice about huffing out loud every time Zack Young tries to make a point for the defense, but I can’t stop her from rolling her eyes and making faces.”
Young is one of the best attorneys in this part of the state and I’m sure Ellen is well aware of his win record in juried DWI cases.
“Better your court than mine,” I said and returned to my own in a lighter mood, ready for the next group of prisoners.
With the holidays upon us, many were there because they had started celebrating a little too early and a little too well. Several had used their five-finger discount to go Christmas shopping, while others had cut, shot at, or punched out a fellow citizen, but most of them limited their words to “Guilty” or “Not guilty” when asked for a plea and to a simple “Yes” or “No” on the question of an attorney, and things moved along at a fast clip.
When I first announced that I was going to run for the bench, Daddy was so opposed that it added another row of bricks to the wall that had grown up between us since my mother died. He hadn’t wanted me to study law in the first place. He thought there were too many unsavory characters wandering in and out of law offices, as he well knew, having wandered in and out of them many times himself back before I was born, when he was actively running a large bootlegging operation.
If he’d had his way, I would have stayed under his protective wing, teaching Sunday school or kindergarten, until he delivered me virginal and innocent into holy matrimony with someone who would be equally protective. It was bad enough that I was an attorney, representing clients who might or might not be innocent, but at least they were men and women who could afford my services and who could technically claim to be upstanding pillars of the community. As far as he was concerned, district court handled the dregs of humanity, and he did not want his baby girl mucking around in a cesspool.
Eventually, we reconciled enough that I could tell him about the miscarriage of justice that motivated me to run, and he even wound up using a combination of influence and blackmail to help me onto the bench. He’s still not happy about it, though; and I haven’t been able to convince him that trying to give justice to people who may never have had their fair share is the most satisfying career I could imagine.
Which is why doing first appearances never bores me.
I read through the charges, asked my questions, set court dates, and made sure the paperwork was in order so that there would be no holdup on my part that would prevent any eligible prisoners from a chance to be back in their own clothes by Christmas morning.
When the last paper slipper had shuffled out of the courtroom and I had signed the last document, both hands of the clock over the rear door stood straight up on twelve.
I tapped my gavel. “Court is adjourned till one-thirty,” I said and scooted out before anyone could grab the sleeve of my robe and hold me up
.
Three minutes later, I was in my car, headed for the sprawling outlet center near the interstate just south of Dobbs.
The parking lot out there covers three or four acres and finding a space is not normally a problem. We’re about halfway between New York and Miami, though, so the place was jammed today with out-of-state license plates attached to huge RVs. Christmas week is when the whole East Coast seems to play fruit basket, and this is a logical place to stop for lunch and grab some last-minute presents at discount prices.
A loudspeaker was booming out “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow,” but here at midday, the air was so mild when I opened the door that I left my heavy coat in the car so it wouldn’t slow me down and hurried over to the card shop, where I immediately picked out another roll of wrapping paper and a bag of stick-on bows. With everything else that was starting to pile up, I’m grateful that Santa Claus leaves all his presents unwrapped, but Dwight and I still needed to wrap the odds and ends that we’re giving Cal.
My family is so large that everyone’s name—children and adults alike—goes into a hat and we draw them out at Thanksgiving amid much secrecy. If you draw the name of someone in your own immediate family, you put it back or exchange with someone else.
I had drawn Will’s name this year. For years, he’s run his auction and antiques business by the seat of his pants, aided by nothing more than an eye for quality and some avaricious common sense, and yeah, okay, maybe a few cut corners. His shabby old building, a former tobacco warehouse, burned down last year. He used the insurance money to replace it with a slightly smaller, slightly nicer place, and he’s become more interested in learning to identify what passes through his hands. Will is never going to go so upscale that other dealers quit coming around, hoping to find unexpected bargains, but his wife Amy told me that he’d actually started reading up on some of his finds. I called a bookstore in Raleigh and a clerk recommended an encyclopedia of silver manufacturers with detailed illustrations of hallmarks, reduced to $19.99.
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