the hard cash the land would probably bring if they ever
put it on the market. As I approached, I saw patrol cars
down on the turnpike, but I didn’t spot Dwight.
(“Not that you’re looking for him, ” my inner preacher
reminded me sternly.)
As is still the custom out here, I followed the drive
around to the back rather than parking out front. A
single light tap of my horn brought Mr. Frank to the
door and he held it wide for us to run through the icy
raindrops. Taffy was right there at his heels ready for a
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friendly pat or ear scratch and smelling faintly of baby
shampoo.
“If she’s ever seen a stranger, she’s never let us know,”
said Miss Phyllis, coming out to the sun porch to give
me a welcoming hug. “But you’ve been a stranger lately,
Deborah. I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen you
since the wedding.”
She’s small and bird-boned and always makes me feel
like an Amazon even though I’m only five-six. After a
quick look of appraisal, she smiled and said, “Married
life must suit you.”
“It does,” I agreed.
“And Zell tells me that you’re a full-time stepmother,
too? Poor little boy. That’s so sad about his mother.
How’s he doing?”
“Pretty good, everything considered,” I said as Mr.
Frank took our coats and we went on through the warm
and cheerful kitchen to the dining room where the table
was set with five places even though there were only
four of us. “It helps that his cousins are close by. And
Dwight’s mother, too, of course. It’s not as if he’s had
to adjust to a bunch of strangers.”
“All the same, it has to be hard on him. On you and
Dwight, too,” Miss Phyllis said wisely. “You’ve both
suddenly become full-time parents without the usual
nine months to get used to the idea.”
“There are times when I wish I could ask Mother
how she did it,” I admitted. “At least Dwight and I
have known each other long enough to be used to each
other’s good and bad points, but how on earth did she
find time to get to know Daddy with eight young boys
in the house?”
51
MARGARET MARON
“You’ll figure it out,” said Mr. Frank. “You’re a lot
like Sue, isn’t she, Zell?”
Aunt Zell smiled and squeezed my hand, then we got
to work unpacking the lunch. I filled the five glasses
with ice cubes and poured tea while she set out a large
earthenware casserole, a side dish of baby butter beans
that she’d frozen last summer, and a basket of fresh hot
yeast rolls. Miss Phyllis brought in butter and a dish of
crisp sweet pickles.
By the time we sat down at the table, I had heard all
about the severed hand Taffy found.
“I let her out as usual around seven this morning,”
said Miss Phyllis. “Most days, Frank and I will take a
cup of coffee and walk around the edge of the woods
with her, but it was so raw and wet this morning that
we let her go alone. I have no idea where she went, but
as muddy and drenched as she was when she came back,
I’m sure she was over splashing in the creek.”
“She’ll do that if we’re not with her,” said Mr. Frank,
smoothing down silky white hair that still bore the
marks of the hat he must have worn earlier. “Doesn’t
matter how cold it is.”
“She was out there a good forty-five minutes,” his
wife continued, “and I was loading the dishwasher when
I saw her, through the kitchen window, coming across
the backyard with something in her mouth. At first I
thought it was somebody’s old brown leather work
glove or an oddly shaped piece of wood. As soon as I
opened the door for her, I told her to drop it because
whatever it was, I didn’t want it on my clean floor. She
left it on the step and came on in. I keep an old towel
out there on the sun porch to wipe her off if she comes
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back muddy and she knows to stand still for me, but this
morning, she kept nosing at the door like she wanted
“I finally opened the door to see what was so inter-
esting to her and as soon as I took a good look, I just
screamed for Frank. It was horrible, Deborah! A hand
chopped off at the wrist. Yuck!”
“I called 911,” said Mr. Frank.
“And I took Taffy right out to the garage for a good
soapy bath. I even washed out her mouth. I couldn’t
bear to think of her licking me with a tongue that had
licked at that thing.”
She shuddered and almost spilled the glass of tea
when she took a sip to steady her nerves.
“Try not to think about that part,” said Aunt Zell.
“I’m sure her mouth is nice and sweet again.”
With a heartiness that fooled no one, Mr. Frank said,
“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. This looks delicious,
Zell.”
Miss Phyllis allowed herself to be distracted from that
grisly image and indicated where we were to sit.
“Is someone else coming?” I asked as I sat down next
to the extra chair and unfolded my napkin.
Mr. Frank nodded. “I did tell Dwight that lunch
would be here when he was ready to eat, but he said for
us not to wait on him.”
That was all I needed to hear and as soon as he’d
said grace, I excused myself and went out to the sun
porch to call. Taffy followed, her fur soft and shining
clean. Nevertheless, I did not put my hand out for her
to lick.
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MARGARET MARON
“Just wanted you to know that lunch is on the table,”
I said when Dwight answered.
“Sorry, shug. I can’t leave now. I’ll have to grab a
sandwich or something back in town.” He let two beats
of silence go by, then said, “What? No questions?”
I couldn’t help smiling. “No. Mr. Frank and Miss
Phyllis have already told me everything.”
“Not everything,” he said and hung up before I could
say another word.
Mindful that I had to get back to court yet solicitous
of Dwight who had been out in the cold and wet for
hours, Phyllis Ward said she’d carry Aunt Zell back to
town if I wanted to swing down and take him some
lunch. Because she was already pulling out bread and
lettuce and sliced ham from the refrigerator, and be-
cause Aunt Zell seemed to be settling in for a nice long
visit, I really had no choice except to thank her for her
thoughtfulness and do as I was told.
“I hope he’s dressed warm enough,” she worried
aloud as she saw me off. “I’d send him one of Frank’s
white sweaters if he wasn’t twice as big as Frank.”
The rain had pretty much stopped as I drove the hun-
dred yards or so down the highway, then turned into
&n
bsp; the rutted lane. A few yards off the road, a left fork
continued on down the slope into the woods and pre-
sumably to the creek. The right one ran along the far
edge of fields green with winter rye and would eventu-
ally lead over to Ward Dairy Road, so named for the
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original dairy farm. A knot of patrol cars blocked the
left lane, which seemed to be the center of activity, so I
did a U-turn and backed into the other one.
As I expected, someone alerted Dwight and in a cou-
ple of minutes he slung his raincoat in back and eased
his tall frame into the front seat beside me with a head-
shaking smile. “Couldn’t resist it, could you?”
“Not me,” I said, handing him the sandwiches and hot
coffee. His brown hair was dark from the rain. “I’d’ve
let you stay out here and starve, but Miss Phyllis was
worried about you. I think she feels guilty that Taffy
brought you out on such a cold wet day.”
“Who’s Taffy?” he asked around a mouthful of ham
and lettuce.
“Their dog. The one that found the hand. Was it a
left or right?”
He uncapped the coffee and took a long drink, then
grinned at me. “I thought you said the Wards told you
everything.”
“I forgot to ask them that particular detail. Miss
Phyllis was freaking just thinking about it in Taffy’s
mouth.”
“It’s a right hand.”
“Too bad it wasn’t the left. A ring might have given
you a lead if he was wearing one.”
We both glanced at the gold band gleaming on
his own left hand. The words I’d had engraved there
wouldn’t have helped anyone identify the owner, but
the date could narrow it down a bit.
“I just hope the guy’s prints are on file.” He finished
the first sandwich and unwrapped the second.
“The fingertips are still intact?”
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MARGARET MARON
“Some of them.” He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t
ask. “The cold weather helps. We found the left arm
about an hour ago. Makes us think that the other arm
and hand might be here but some animal could have
dragged them off. Coons or possums or more dogs
maybe. Their tracks are all over and something’s been
at it.”
He continued to eat, his appetite unaffected by a situ-
ation that would make my skin crawl if I allowed myself
to dwell on it.
“This lane connects to Ward Dairy Road,” I said.
He nodded, already there before me. “And Ward
Dairy runs right by Bethel Baptist, less than five miles
from where those legs were found. When we finish up
here, I’m going to have our patrol cars eyeball all the
ditches between here and there.”
I glanced at my watch and realized that I was going
to be late if I didn’t hurry.
“Yeah, I need to get back to work, too,” Dwight said.
He put the wrappings in the bag Miss Phyllis had sent
the sandwiches in, wiped his mouth with the napkins
she’d provided and leaned over to kiss me. “The roads
are slick, so don’t speed, okay?”
“Okay.”
He raised a cynical eyebrow. “You say it, but do you
really mean it?”
Fortunately, there were no slow-moving tractors out
on the road this first day of March and I made it back
to court with a few minutes to spare and without going
more than five or six miles over the limit. To my sur-
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prise, the litigating parties had indeed decided to settle,
and after I signed all the orders, we moved on to the
next item on the docket, which was more complicated.
Judson “Buck” Harris, a large commercial grower,
had divorced his wife, Suzanne “Suzu” Poynter Harris,
a middle-aged woman who might have been attractive
in her youth but had now let herself go. A bad hair color
was showing at least an inch of gray roots, her skin had
faced too many hours of wind and sun without moistur-
izers, and her boxy navy blue suit and navy overblouse
did nothing to disguise the extra thirty pounds she was
carrying.
The divorce had been finalized a week or so ago and
we were now trying to make an equitable division of
their jointly held assets. “Trying to” because, to my an-
noyance, there was no Mr. Harris at the other attorney’s
table. Said attorney was my cousin Reid Stephenson, a
younger partner at my old law firm and someone who
knows me well enough to know when I’m unhappy with
a situation.
“Your Honor,” he said, giving me a hopeful look of
boyish entreaty, “I would ask the court’s patience and
request one final continuance.”
“Objection,” snapped Mrs. Harris’s lawyer.
Pete Taylor was just as problematic for me as Reid,
even though he, too, had agreed to my hearing this
case. Pete’s the current president of the District Bar
Association and he was one of my early supporters when
I first decided to run for the bench. And yes, there are
times when practicing law in this district can feel almost
incestuous. But if every judge recused himself because
57
MARGARET MARON
of personal connections, our dockets would never be
cleared.
“Is Mr. Harris ill or physically unable to come to
court?” I asked Reid as I looked around the almost
empty courtroom.
“Not to my knowledge, Your Honor, but I haven’t
been able to reach him this week.”
Pete Taylor straightened his bright red bow tie, one
of dozens that he owns, and got to his feet. “Your
Honor, this matter has dragged on three months lon-
ger than necessary because Mr. Harris can’t seem to re-
member court dates. Today’s hearing is to establish his
financial worth and this is the third time that Mr. Lee
has been called to testify as to the validity and accuracy
of Mr. Harris’s bank records. Unless my worthy oppo-
nent plans to challenge Mr. Lee’s veracity, I submit that
there is no substantive reason not to begin without Mr.
Harris’s presence and hope he will arrive before we get
to disputed matters.”
“I agree,” I said. “Call your witness, Mr. Taylor.”
Before he could do so, Mrs. Harris tugged at his
sleeve and when he bent to hear what she wanted to
ask, it was clear from her body language that she was
upset about something and that Pete’s answer did not
please her. She immediately let go his sleeve and spoke
to me directly.
“Your Honor?”
“Yes, Mrs. Harris?”
“Can’t this be more private?”
“More private?”
“Mr. Lee’s going to be talking about personal stuff,
about how much money we have and how much land
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we own, and I don’t see why it has to be said
in front of
a lot of people.”
A lot of people?
At this point, except for the participants in the case,
there were only five others in the courtroom, a man and
four women. I recognized two of the women, elderly
regulars who prefer courtroom drama to afternoon
television. The young man sat three rows in front of
the third woman, but a current seemed to run between
them. No doubt this was the divorcing couple sched-
uled to follow the Harris hearing. The fourth woman
was unfamiliar to me.
In her anger, Mrs. Harris spoke with a good old
Colleton County twang like someone raised on a local
farm. I didn’t know much about the Harrises except by
hearsay, but I gathered that she had worked right along-
side her husband back when he was out in the fields,
plowing and planting and growing the produce that was
now sold in grocery chains from Maryland to Maine.
There might be diamonds on her big-knuckled fingers
and those might be real pearls around her neck, but this
was clearly someone who had spent her youth in hard
work and plain dealing.
She turned to glare accusingly at the woman seated
alone on the last bench in the courtroom. “I don’t want
her here while this is going on.”
The woman returned her glare with level eyes that
were vaguely—arrogantly?—amused. Wearing jeans and
a chocolate brown turtleneck sweater, with a fleece-lined
beige leather jacket draped over her slender shoulders,
she lounged against the armrest at the end of the bench
and seemed completely at ease. From where I sat, she
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MARGARET MARON
looked to be my age—late thirties. She wasn’t classically
beautiful, yet there was something that made you take a
second look and it wasn’t just the flaming red hair that
flowed in loose waves to her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harris. This is a public hearing.”
She wasn’t the first person to cringe at the realization
that what had been private was now going to become
public knowledge, but her animosity was so palpable
that I had a feeling that the redhead back there must
have played a starring role in the disintegration of the
Harris partnership.
Mrs. Harris flounced back around in her chair and
I nodded to her attorney. “Call your witness, Mr.
Taylor.”
As expected, that witness was Denton Lee, an execu-
tive at Dobbs Fidelity Trust and one good-looking man.