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
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MARGARET MARON
to see where we were putting our feet and I could al-
most 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 with-
out somebody finding another body part,” I said. “I
was sure you were going to get called out for the miss-
ing 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 re-
tained 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 pass up a Canes game on his own.”
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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 bump
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.”
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MARGARET MARON
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 sud-
den rough huskiness. “I used to try and imagine what
it would be like if hell 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.
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C H A P T E R
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 con-
tain 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 exuber-
antly 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 wind-
ing 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.
129
MARGARET MARON
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 God 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
sexy laugh that men wanted to hear again and again?
She had passed forty with every asset 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 classically 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 unself-
ish 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 damn vie.
Enough was enough.
She stopped for gas on the east side of Raleigh and
bought a Coke for caffeine and a BC powder for her
headache. To hell with Buck Harris. She would go back
to Wilmington, make sure things continued to run
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HARD ROW
smoothly at Jackson House, and then maybe she would
give ol’ what’s-his-name a call. The guy who had de-
veloped 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 hell? 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 motor-
cycle accident for a total of three deaths. Several com-
puters 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 pal-
try 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 ani-
mal cruelty, while—
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MARGARET MARON
“Wait a damn 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 bitch was even less will-
ing 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 depreda-
tions 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 ear-
lier X-rays had discovered, the torso did carry two mark-
ers 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.”
“Thanks for seeing us, Major Bryant,” Reid Stephenson
said formally as he held the door open for a very attrac-
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tive redhead. A handsome six-footer himself, Reid was
well-known for his penchant for knockout redheads,
but this one was even more gorgeous than usual.
Where the hell did he keep finding them? Dwight
wondered as he stood and shook hands with Deborah’s
cousin and former law partner.
“This is Ms. Smith,” Reid said. “Flame Smith, from
Wilmington.”
“Major Bryant,” she said, offering a firm handshake.
Up close, she was still gorgeous, if not quite as young
as her flowing hair, slender figure and tight jeans implied
at first glance. There were laugh lines around her wide
mouth and small crinkles radiated from eyes as green
as the snug sweater she wore beneath a beige leather
jacket.
“What can I do for y’all?” he asked when they were
seated.
Reid leaned forward. “That man, the one with his
legs in one place and his body in another—has he been
identified yet?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because my client has been missing for over a week
now and he fits the general description that’s been re-
leased to the media.”
Dwight frowned. “I thought you said Ms. Smith here
is your client.”
“Actually, I’m his client’s girlfriend,” said the redhead
in a smoky voice that seemed to have Reid enthralled.
“We were supposed to meet here in Dobbs this week
for his divorce settlement, but he never showed up and
I can’t find anyone who’s seen him lately. It’s weird to
think it might be Buck you’ve found, but if it is—”
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MARGARET MARON
“I see,” said Dwight. “Does he have any identifying
marks that you know of?”
“Identifying marks?”
>
“Like a tattoo or scars or something?” Reid said help-
fully.
Flame Smith shook her head.
“Wait a minute!” said Reid. “Isn’t he missing the tip
of one of his fingers?”
“That’s right!” She held up a beautifully manicured
finger. Her long nails were painted a soft coral. “His
right index finger. It got caught in a piece of farm equip-
ment when he was a teenager.”
They looked at Dwight expectantly. The big deputy
frowned as he leafed through the file on the body. “The
right hand we found is missing the tip of the index fin-
ger, but it’s also missing some other joints.”
Flame Smith winced, but she did not go dramatic on
them. Dwight had the impression that this was a woman
who could, when necessary keep her emotions in check,
but he was willing to bet she could also take advantage
of a redhead’s reputation for a blazing tongue and tem-
per if it suited her.
“You say no one’s seen him,” he said. “Who have you
actually asked?”
“Well, first I tried everybody around here I could
think of. I even drove over to the main office in New
Bern thinking something might have come up, but no
one’s seen him there since week before last. His wife’s
been living at their New Bern place since they split and
he’s been staying here.”
“Here?”
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“At the old farmhouse he got from his granddaddy. It
was their first tomato farm.”
“Oh yes,” said Dwight. “I remember now. It be-
longed to his mother’s people, didn’t it? The old Buckley
place?”
“I guess. That’s his middle name. Judson Buckley
Harris, but everybody calls him Buck.” She pushed a
tress of hair away from her eyes. “I tried there first thing
on Wednesday and again on Friday. No sign of him and
the housekeeper says she hasn’t heard anything in over
a week either. But in court Wednesday, I heard his wife
say he might be holed up in the mountains.”
“Deborah’s doing the Harris ED,” Reid murmured
in an aside.
“Deborah?” asked Flame. “Judge Knott? You know
her?”
With a repressive glance at Reid, Dwight nodded.
“So then you—?”
“—drove up to his lodge in the mountains?” she
asked, finishing his question. “Yes. But he wasn’t there
and when I finally caught up with the caretaker Sunday
afternoon, he said he hadn’t heard from Buck in at least
three weeks.”
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