Hard Row dk-13

by Margaret Maron

  torney will argue that the divorce doesn’t really matter

  because there had been no formal division of property

  yet so the terms of the LLC will still be in effect. On the

  other hand, if the divorce was finalized before he died,

  then the ED could go forward, with his estate taking

  whatever he was awarded. It could be a pretty little legal

  problem. Of course, he did own property and money in

  his own name and his will should stand as to the dispo-

  sition of that part of his estate.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “His personal estate? Maybe three million, give or

  take a few thousand.”

  “So answer me Deb’rah’s question. Who inherits?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Dwight.”

  “Sure you can. Like she said, it’s all going to be pub-

  lic record soon enough. Is Flame Smith in the will?”

  Reid thought about it a minute, then threw up his

  hands in surrender. “Oh yes. To the tune of half a mil-

  lion. Except for a few small bequests, the daughter gets

  everything else, which he thought was going to be half

  of Harris Farms.”

  Dwight leaned back in his chair. “What was Buck Harris

  really like, Reid?”

  “He was okay. Blunt. To the point. Knew what he

  wanted and was willing to pay for it. Expected full value

  for his money though.”

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  “So why would someone take an axe to him like that?”

  “Damned if I know.” Reid took a first swallow of

  his coffee and grimaced. “Y’all need to let Julia Lee

  start buying your coffee beans. This stuff ’s like battery

  acid.”

  “I doubt if Bo’s budget runs to a coffee grinder and

  gourmet beans,” he said, remembering how he used to

  look for excuses to drop by the firm of Lee, Stephenson

  and Knott, before Deborah ran for the bench. Coffee

  was always good for one visit a week and they did have

  the best coffee of any office in town.

  Not that he was ever there for the coffee.

  After Reid left, Dwight phoned Pete Taylor. “I’d ap-

  preciate it if you could get Mrs. Harris to come in and

  see me this afternoon?”

  Taylor promised that he would try.

  Down in the detectives’ squad room, he gave out the

  day’s assignments as to the lines he wanted pursued and

  the people they should interview.

  “One thing, boss,” said Denning. “I found a hammer

  at the back of the shed. There was blood on the peen

  and one strand of hair that I compared with hairs from

  the comb in Harris’s bathroom. I’ve sent them both to

  the state lab, but the hairs look like a match to me.”

  “Which means?”

  “He was probably coldcocked over the head with the

  hammer first. We’ll have to wait till we find the head to

  know for sure.”

  As Dwight returned to his office and the rat’s nest of

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  paperwork awaiting his attention, he heard Jamison say,

  “Talk to you a minute, Major?”

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  The deputy followed and closed the door. There was

  a troubled look on his round face.

  “What’s up?” Dwight asked. He gestured to the chair

  Reid Stephenson had vacated, but Jamison continued

  to stand.

  “I need to tell you that I’m resigning, sir.”

  “What? ”

  “Yes, sir. Effective the end of next week, if that’s okay

  with you.”

  “What the hell’s this about? And for God’s sake, sit

  down.”

  The detective sat, but he looked even more uncom-

  fortable and was having trouble meeting Dwight’s

  eyes.

  Dwight studied him a long moment. “What’s going

  on, Jack? If it’s a better offer from another department,

  you’re about due a raise. I don’t know that we can

  match Raleigh, but—”

  “It’s not Raleigh, Major. It’s Iraq.”

  Dwight frowned. “I didn’t realize you’re in the

  Guard.”

  “I’m not. It’s DynCorp. They’re a private security

  company that—”

  “I know what DynCorp is.” He realized that he should

  have seen this coming. Police departments all over the area

  had lost good men to private security companies. First war

  America’s ever had to contract out, he thought sourly.

  “They’ve accepted me into their training program. If

  I qualify, I’ll be helping to train Iraqi police officers.”

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  “And that’s what you want to do?”

  “Not really but the pay’s too good to pass up, Major.

  We’re just not making it on thirty-seven thousand a year.

  Cindy wants things for our son and I want them, too.

  Over there, I can start at around a hundred-thirty.”

  Dwight leaned back in his chair, feeling older and

  more tired than he had in a long time. “No, we cer-

  tainly can’t match that. But you say you want things for

  your son. What about a father? Civilian personnel are

  getting killed over there.”

  Jamison nodded. “I know. But like Cindy says, police

  officers are getting shot at over here, too.”

  “You ever been shot at?”

  “Well, no sir, but it does happen, doesn’t it? A couple

  or three inches more and Mayleen could have died back

  in January. Anyhow, I figure two years and we’ll be out

  of debt with enough saved up to put a good down pay-

  ment on a real house. It’s worth the risk.” He took a

  deep breath. “And if I do get killed, she’ll get a quarter

  million in insurance. That should be enough to get Jay

  through college.”

  Dwight shook his head. “Do the math, Jack. Divide

  a quarter million by eighteen years. Cindy won’t have

  enough left to pay your son’s application fees.”

  By the determined look on Jamison’s face, his mind

  was clearly made up.

  “So. The end of next week?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. I’m really sorry you feel you need to do this,

  but notify human resources and make sure your paper-

  work’s caught up.”

  Jamison came to his feet. “Thank you, Major. And I

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  really do appreciate all you’ve done for me, making me

  a detective and all. Maybe when I get back . . .”

  “We’ll see. You’re not gone yet though, and I expect

  another full week of work from you, so get out there

  and see what you can dig up on the Harris murder.”

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  C H A P T E R

  21

  It is a matter of paramount importance to the prosperity of

  any community or State to have its surplus lands occupied

  by an industrious, enterprising, and moral population.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  Deborah Knott

  Tuesday Morning, March 7

  % Because I had nearly forty-five minutes to kill after

  leaving Dwight and Reid, I stopped by
the dis-

  patcher’s desk out in the main lobby where Faye Myers

  was on duty.

  Faye’s in her early thirties, a heavyset blonde who strains

  every seam of her uniform. She has a pretty face, a flaw-

  less complexion that seems to glow from within, and the

  good-hearted friendliness of a two-month-old puppy. She’s

  married to Flip Myers, an equally plump EMS tech, and

  between them, they have a finger on almost every emer-

  gency call in the county, which means she also has the best

  gossip—not from maliciousness but because she genuinely

  likes people and finds them endlessly fascinating.

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  MARGARET MARON

  “New hairdo?” I asked with what I hoped was a guile-

  less tone. “Looks nice.”

  She immediately touched her shining curls. “Well,

  thank you, Judge. No, it’s the same style I’ve had since

  Thanksgiving. I did get a trim yesterday but I might

  should’ve waited ’cause this wet weather’s making it

  curl up more than usual.”

  “Detective Richards tells me she goes to the Cut ’n’

  Curl. You go there, too?”

  “No, I just get my sister to clip it for me. She cuts

  everybody in the family’s hair.”

  “Lucky you,” I said. “You must save a ton of

  money.”

  She beamed.

  “But the new stylist at the Cut ’n’ Curl did a great job

  on Mayleen Richards, didn’t she? She looks like a differ-

  ent person these days.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Myers gave me a conspiratorial look.

  “She’s real happy right now.”

  “Oh?” I encouraged.

  Within moments, I was hearing how Richards had re-

  cently become involved with a “real cute Mexican guy,”

  who ran a landscaping business “out towards Cotton

  Grove,” someone she’d met last month when investigat-

  ing a shooting over that way. A Miguel Diaz. “Mayleen

  calls him Mike.”

  A naturalized citizen, he had been in North Carolina

  for eight or nine years and had bootstrapped himself

  up from day laborer to employer who ran several crews

  around the area, contracting with some of the smaller

  builders to landscape the new developments that were

  springing up all over the county.

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  Faye was under the impression that he wanted to

  marry Richards but that she was hanging back because

  of her family.

  “They’re sort of prejudiced, you know,” the dis-

  patcher confided. “But I told Mayleen that’s prob-

  ably just because they don’t really know any Mexicans.

  Think they’re all up here to take away our jobs and get

  drunk on Saturday night. Not that some of ’em don’t.

  Get drunk, I mean. But Mike— Oh, wait a minute! You

  know something, Judge? You actually talked to him.”

  “I did?”

  “That guy that stole the tractor and messed up a

  bunch of yards ’cause he didn’t know how to lift the

  plows? Wasn’t he in your court Friday?”

  “That’s her new boyfriend?”

  “No, no. Mike was there to speak up for him, least

  that’s what one of the bailiffs told me anyhow.”

  “Oh yes. I remember now. The Latino who said he’d

  see that the rest of the damage was repaired?”

  “That’s the one. It’s real nice when people take care

  of their own, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t exactly recall Miguel Diaz’s face, but I did

  retain an impression of responsibility and I remember

  being surprised by how fluent his English was.

  “Mayleen says Mike felt so sorry for the man, what

  with all his troubles, that he’s hired him on after he got

  kicked out of the camp he was staying at.”

  “That’s right,” I said, as more of the details came

  back to me. “His wife left him, didn’t she?”

  “Went right back to Mexico after their baby died.”

  Faye looked around to make sure no one was near and

  leaned even closer. “I might not ought to be telling this,

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  but Flip was on call that night and he helped deliver the

  baby and he said—”

  Her phone rang then and, judging by the sudden

  professional seriousness of her voice, it sounded like an

  emergency for someone, so I gave her a catch-you-later

  wave because Reid walked past at that moment.

  He held the door for me and we walked around to

  the stairs. When we reached the atrium on the ground

  floor that connects the old courthouse to the new ad-

  ditions, the marble tiles were slick where people had

  tracked in muddy water. A custodian brought out long

  runners and laid them down to cover the most direct

  paths from one doorway to another before tackling the

  floor with a mop.

  We paused to speak to a couple of attorneys, then sat

  on the edge of one of the brick planters filled with lush

  green plants to finish our coffee and enjoy the rain that

  was sluicing down the sides of the soaring glass above

  us. At least, Reid was enjoying it. My agenda was to get

  him to tell me everything he’d told Dwight.

  “I suppose his daughter scoops the lot? His house-

  keeper told Dwight that he was close to her. Poor Flame

  Smith.”

  “Not too poor,” said Reid, half-distracted by the

  weather he was going to have to brave to keep an ap-

  pointment back at his office. “The daughter’s the resid-

  ual beneficiary, but Flame’ll get half a million. I don’t

  suppose you’ve got an umbrella you could lend me?

  Flame took mine and John Claude keeps his locked up

  for some reason.”

  I had to laugh. I know exactly why John Claude

  keeps his umbrella in a locked closet and I immediately

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  HARD ROW

  began to chant the exasperated verse our older cousin

  always quoted whenever he discovered that Reid had

  once again “borrowed” his umbrella:

  “The rain it raineth every day

  Upon the just and unjust fellow,

  But more upon the just, because

  The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.”

  “Very funny,” Reid said grumpily as he stood to dump

  our cups in the nearest trash bin. He spotted Portland

  Brewer coming up the marble steps outside and, ever

  the gentleman, he rushed over to hold the heavy outer

  door for her. Her small red umbrella hadn’t warded off

  all the wet, but she was so angry, it’s a wonder the rain-

  drops didn’t sizzle as soon as they touched any exposed

  skin. “Dammit, Deborah! I thought Bo and Dwight

  were going to take away all of James Braswell’s guns!”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “He got out of jail yesterday morning and last night

  he shot up Karen’s condo.”

  “What? Is she okay?”

  “No, she’s freaking not okay! She’s scared out of her

  mind.”

  I made sympathetic noises, but Por was too wound

  up to be easily calmed. The rai
n had curled her black

  hair into tight little wire springs. Reid took her dripping

  umbrella and made a show of holding it over the green

  leaves.

  “You in court this morning?” he asked her.

  “After I get through blasting Dwight and Bo. Why?”

  Too riled to give him her full attention, she continued

  venting at me. “The only reason Karen’s still alive is that

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  she’s been staying at her mother’s. She could have been

  killed for all they care.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “That’s not fair. They

  can’t put a twenty-four-hour watch on her. And besides,

  how do you know it was Braswell?”

  “Who else would it be? You think a sweet kid who

  works at a Bojangles and takes care of an invalid mother

  has that kind of enemies? Hey! Where’re you going with

  my umbrella?” she called as Reid pushed open the door

  for one of our clerks and kept walking.

  “I’ll drop it off at your office,” he called back and

  hurried down the marble steps and out into the unre-

  lenting rain, Portland’s umbrella a small circle of red

  over his head.

  As Por stormed off in one direction, I was joined on

  my walk upstairs by Ally Mycroft, a prisspot clerk who

  had pointedly worn my opponent’s button during the

  last election whenever she had to work my courtroom.

  Making polite chatter, I asked, “You working for

  Judge Parker today?”

  “No,” she said, with equally phony politeness. “I’ll

  be with you today.”

  I made a mental note to drop by Ellis Glover’s office

  sometime today, see if it was me our Clerk of Court was

  annoyed with or Ally Mycroft.

  “In fact,” Ally said, “Mr. Glover has assigned me to

  your courtroom for the rest of the week.”

  In my head, Brook Benton began singing his world-

  weary “Rainy Night in Georgia.”

  “Lord, I feel like it’s rainin’ all over the world.”

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  22

  I’ve got an old mare who will quit a good pasture to go into

  a poor one, and it’s just because she got into a habit of let-

  ting the bars down.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  Deputies McLamb and Dalton

  Tuesday Morning, March 7

  % “Better not block the driveway,” Deputy Raeford

  McLamb said and Sam Dalton, the department’s

  newest detective trainee, parked at the curb in front of a

  shabby little house in sad need of paint. A white Honda