Hard Row dk-13

by Margaret Maron

  around with him.”

  “What about Mrs. Harris?”

  “What about her? They split up, but that doesn’t mean

  she hated him enough to do something like that.”

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  MARGARET MARON

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Maybe Christmas?” The housekeeper got up and

  used a paper towel to clean a smudge on the window

  glass over the sink. With her back to them, she said,

  “She brought some presents for the children here and

  she always remembers me at Christmas, too.”

  “She was the one who actually hired you here, wasn’t

  she?”

  “That’s right.” A fingerprint on the front of the

  stainless-steel refrigerator seemed to need her attention,

  too.

  “Mrs. Samuelson.”

  “I’m listening. I can listen and work, too.”

  He got up and went over to look down into her face.

  “She was here the day he went missing, wasn’t she?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “A bunch of people saw her.”

  She took a deep breath and came back to the table.

  “All right. Yes. She was here that Monday, but there is

  no way under God’s blue sky that she could have done

  that awful thing.”

  “She came to the house?”

  Mrs. Samuelson gave a reluctant nod.

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t in the house when I came

  in that morning and I didn’t see his car, so I thought

  he’d taken off. I figured she’d be coming over to bring

  some stuff for the camp when the trucks came to move

  most of the crew back to New Bern, and I reckon he

  did, too. For all his big talk, she could always get the

  best of him in an argument and anytime she was coming

  to check up on things, he’d clear out.”

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  She gestured to a door off the kitchen. “There’s a

  little room in there with a television and a lounge chair

  so I can take a rest without going out to my apartment.

  I fixed lunch and then I went in to put my feet up for

  a few minutes. Only I went to sleep. And when I woke

  up, she was upstairs taking a shower.”

  “She came all the way from New Bern to take a

  shower?”

  Mrs. Samuelson gave an impatient shake of her head.

  “There was a mud puddle down by the camp. Had ice

  across it, but it wasn’t solid and she backed into it ac-

  cidentally and wound up sitting down in it. Got soaked

  to the skin, she said. Cut her leg and her hand, too, so

  she came over here and took a shower and changed into

  one of his shirts and an old pair of jeans.”

  “What did she do with her own clothes?”

  “Took ’em home to wash, I reckon. They went out of

  here in a garbage bag. And before you ask me, it was her

  own shoes she went out in and they certainly weren’t

  bloody.”

  Dwight raised a skeptical eyebrow at Mrs. Samuelson’s

  assertions. “Anybody see her take this tumble?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one of the women helping

  me?” She stood as if to go call them.

  “In a minute,” Dwight said. “Your apartment. It’s

  over the garage, you said?”

  She nodded.

  “So you would hear the door open and Mr. Harris’s

  car start up?”

  “If it was in the garage. A lot of times he parked

  around by the side door.”

  “Where you could see it from your windows?”

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  “If I was looking. If he was gone and I didn’t hear him

  come in during the night, then I’d look out the window

  first thing every morning to see whether I needed to

  come over and start breakfast. There’s an intercom, too,

  and sometimes he’d buzz me and say he wanted break-

  fast earlier than usual.”

  “So when’s the last time you heard or saw his car?”

  She frowned in concentration, then shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, Major Bryant. He came and went at all hours

  and I just can’t fix it in my mind. All I can say is that

  it wasn’t there Monday morning and I really did put it

  down to Mrs. Harris coming. Now can I please get back

  to my work?”

  Dwight nodded. “One thing more though. Who did

  you really work for, Mrs. Samuelson? Buck Harris or his

  ex-wife?”

  “He signed my paycheck,” she said promptly.

  “But?”

  She returned his gaze without answering.

  “Is there a Mr. Samuelson? Or do you and Mrs. Harris

  have that in common as well?”

  Tight-lipped, the housekeeper stood up. “Which one

  of those women you want to talk to first?”

  Before he could answer, his pager went off and he im-

  mediately called in. “Yeah, Faye?”

  “Aren’t you out there at the Harris Farm?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a Sid Lomax screaming in my ear for you

  to come. He says he’s out there in the field. They just

  found a head.”

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  C H A P T E R

  26

  Successful farmers do not break up a cart or so, and kill

  a mule or so during each year, and then curse their crops

  because the price is not high enough to pay for their extrava-

  gance.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  % A clearly shaken Sid Lomax waited in his truck for

  them at a cut through some woods that separated

  one of the large fields from the other.

  As Dwight stopped even with him, the farm manager

  pulled the bill of his cap lower on his forehead. His

  leathery face was pale beneath its tan and his only com-

  ment was a terse, “Follow me,” as his tires dug off in the

  soft dirt to lead them up a lane at the edge of the field.

  Dwight put his truck in four-wheel drive and glanced

  in his mirror. Denning had caught up with him and

  Richards and Jamison were with him. She must have re-

  alized that a car might mire down out here after all the

  rain. They topped a small rise, then down a gentle slope

  to where two tractors with heavy turning plows blocked

  their initial view of a fence post at the far corner of the

  field.

  The treated post was approximately five feet high

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  and about half as thick as a telephone pole. Several men

  were clustered upwind from it. As Lomax and the depu-

  ties got out of their vehicles, the men edged back and

  they had a clear view. For a split second, looking at the

  thing rammed down on the top of the post, Dwight was

  reminded of a rotting jack-o’-lantern several days past

  Halloween when the pumpkin head verged on collapse.

  This head was worse—a thatch of graying hair, darkened

  skin, empty eye sockets, and a ghastly array of grinning

  teeth because most of the lips were gone as well.

  Crows? Buzzards?

  Blowflies buzzed and hummed in the warm afternoon

  sun and a few early yellow j
ackets were there as well. A

  thick rope of red ants snaked up one side of the post.

  “Oh dear God in the morning!” Denning murmured

  as he moved in with his camera. With his eye on the

  viewfinder, he zoomed in on what was nailed to the

  post almost exactly halfway between the grisly head and

  the ground. “Was that his dick?”

  If so, there was almost nothing left of it now except

  where a nail held a flaccid strip of skin that fluttered in

  the light spring breeze.

  In the next hour, Dwight had called the sheriff in

  Jones County, then sent two detectives down to start in-

  terviewing the migrants who had been transferred over

  to Harris Farm #3 between Kinston and New Bern. He

  had pulled Raeford McLamb and Sam Dalton out of

  Black Creek and they were now helping Jamison and a

  translator question everyone who still worked here on

  the Buckley place. Sid Lomax had volunteered his office

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  desk and his kitchen table for their use. He was under

  the impression that Juan Santos could be trusted to help

  translate accurately, “But hell, bo,” he told Dwight wea-

  rily. “At this point, I don’t know who’s telling the truth

  and who’s lying through his rotten teeth. It’s gotta be

  one of ’em though, doesn’t it?”

  “Somebody familiar with the farm, for sure,” Dwight

  agreed and led Lomax through a retelling of how they

  had discovered Buck Harris’s head.

  “Between the cold and then the rain, we’re behind

  schedule on the plowing. This field’s so sandy though,

  the rain drains right through it and I thought it’d be

  okay to finally get the tractors out here this afternoon.

  First pass they made, Vazquez spotted it. Santos had

  the walkie-talkie and as soon as he saw that post, he

  called me. Ten minutes later, I was on the horn to 911.

  I thought your people had already left. Man, was I glad

  to hear they were still here and you were, too.”

  Mayleen Richards had given Dwight the third set of

  names that Lomax had run off for them and he held

  them out to the farm manager now. “How ’bout you

  save us some time and put a check mark by every name

  that ever had words with Harris.”

  “I’m telling you. None of ’em had that much to do

  with him. Yeah, he’d come out in the fields once in a

  while, plow a few rounds on the tractor, haul a truck-

  load of tomatoes to the warehouse, but he didn’t speak

  a word of their lingo. Harris was one of those who think

  if people are going to come work in this country, it’s up

  to them to learn English, not for him to have to speak

  Spanish. He’d talk real loud to them. If they didn’t

  understand enough to answer, then he didn’t bother

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  with them. Not that he did much, even with those that

  could.”

  “Like Juan Santos?”

  “Nothing more than to ask how the work was going,

  were the tomatoes ripening up on schedule, how bad

  were the worms? I’ll be honest with you, Bryant. I don’t

  think Harris thought of these people as fully human.

  More like work animals. Just a couple of notches up

  from horses or mules. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Harris

  and OSHA, I believe he’d have worked them like mules

  and stabled them like mules, too. The only time he re-

  ally put his hand in for more than a day, though, was

  last spring when my parents were out in California and

  Dad had a heart attack so I had to fly out. I thought we

  ought to bring somebody over from Kinston, but he

  said he could handle it for a few days. My dad died, and

  it was over a week before I could get back. He wasn’t

  too happy about that, but he did keep everything on

  schedule. God knows what actually went on. Santos

  never said much, just that Mrs. Harris was out here and

  they had a big fight about something. They were legally

  separated by then, though.”

  “You think he got on Santos’s ass about something

  while you were gone?”

  Lomax let out a long breath and settled his cap more

  firmly on his head. He met Dwight’s eyes without blink-

  ing. “You’re asking me if Santos could’ve done this.

  Ol’ son, I don’t know anybody that could’ve done it.

  Besides, that was almost a year ago. If Harris still had

  a beef with him, he’d’ve fired him. And if Juan Santos

  had a beef with him, I do believe he’d’ve quit or done

  something about it long before this, don’t you? Who

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  has a hate this big that waits a year to get even? Besides,

  I thought you had fingerprints.”

  “We do,” Dwight conceded. “But we don’t have

  comparison prints for everyone who ever walked across

  this land. So tell me about Mrs. Harris?”

  “What about her?”

  “She get along with everybody?”

  “She’s a hard-nosed businesswoman, if that’s what

  you mean, but she treats her people fair. Sees that the

  housing’s up to government standards, makes sure the

  kids go to school. Expects value for her dollar, but

  doesn’t forget that these are human beings, not work

  animals. She used to work out in the fields when they

  were first married, so she knows what it takes to make a

  crop. Even better, she’s from the ‘trust ’em or bust ’em’

  school of thought. You show that you know your job

  and you’re doing it and she leaves you alone.”

  “I hear she was out here that Monday when Harris

  went missing. You see her?”

  “Sure. She came over with the trucks to move the

  workers to Farm Number Three. Trucks brought some

  new furniture. Two new refrigerators. Well, new to

  us. I think she buys everything at the Goodwill store.

  Claims it helps them and upgrades us and I reckon she’s

  right.”

  “She ask about Harris, where he was?”

  Lomax shook his head. “Ever since they separated,

  it’s like he didn’t exist. She never mentioned him if

  she could help it. She just took care of the things she

  wanted done and didn’t worry if that’s what he wanted

  or not.”

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  “I heard she sat down in a mud puddle around lunch-

  time.”

  “Yeah?” For a moment he almost smiled. “Didn’t

  see it.”

  “Hear about it?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “The bosslady up to her butt in mud? I’d’ve thought

  so.”

  “We were pretty busy around then. Where’d it hap-

  pen?”

  “Somewhere around the camp’s what I heard.”

  “Sorry. Maybe you should ask the women.”

  “Good idea,” said Dwight, knowing that’s where

  Mayleen Richards was at the moment, taking advantage

  of the men being tied up here for a while.

  But when Richards rejoined them, she had nothing to
<
br />   confirm or deny the mud puddle story. “The women say

  they saw her in the morning when she came with new re-

  frigerators for the married quarters and they had to empty

  the old ones, which were on their last legs. She asked about

  the children and about their health. She had picked up a

  couple of bilingual schoolbooks for the women, but after

  that they didn’t see her again.”

  It was nearing four before they were finished with all

  the statements. Denning had bagged the head and what

  was left of Harris’s penis. He stopped by the farm man-

  ager’s place to tell them that he was taking the remains

  over to Chapel Hill. “Don’t know if y’all noticed or not,

  but there was a knotted bloody rag around the fence post

  where it caught on the wire. Looks to me like it could’ve

  been a gag that slipped down when the crows got at him.

  Would explain why nobody heard him scream. But unless

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  there’s a bullet hole I’m not seeing in this head, I don’t

  know that it’ll tell the ME anything he didn’t already

  know but I guess we ought to go through all the mo-

  tions.”

  Dwight nodded. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard any-

  thing back on those fingerprints yet?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “What about Santos or Sanaugustin?”

  “Yessir. I did a quick and dirty on the men. No match.

  Haven’t had a chance to compare the prints on the axe

  with the women’s prints yet. I can let you know by in

  the morning though.”

  “Good.”

  McLamb and Dalton volunteered to go back to Black

  Creek to interview Mrs. Stone and her son. “See if we

  can’t pick up a lead from them.”

  “Fine,” Dwight said. “I’ll authorize the overtime.”

  Rather than go all the way back to Dobbs himself,

  he called Bo and brought the sheriff up to date, then

  headed off to pick up his son.

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  C H A P T E R

  27

  When a young man gets married, and the little chaps come

  along according to nature, he ought to get on a farm to

  raise them.

  —Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890

  Deborah Knott

  Tuesday Night, March 7

  % That night was a bar association dinner in Makely,

  and Portland and I drove down together. Avery

  had opted to skip the dinner and stay home with his

  daughter, but we still left late because she had to nurse

  little Carolyn first.

  Avery asked me about the rumors flying around the

  courthouse that they’d found Buck Harris’s head stuck