“I understand that Harris Farms was cited for an OSHA violation six years ago?”
Her hazel eyes narrowed.
“I believe you were fined a couple of thousand dollars?”
She gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Who was responsible for the violation? You or Mr. Harris?”
There was no answer and she met his steady gaze without blinking.
Pete Taylor stirred uneasily, but it was the daughter who caved.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Mother! Tell him.” She turned to Dwight. “I loved my dad, Major Bryant, even though I hated the way he ran the farms. But OSHA and EPA and yes, law people like you not only let him get away with it, it’s as if you almost encouraged him to break the laws.”
“Susan!” her mother said sharply.
“No, Mother. I’m through biting my tongue. From now on I’m going to speak the truth. You think I don’t know the real cost of growing a bushel of tomatoes? That I don’t know how Harris Farms shows such a good profit year after year?”
“Harris Farms sent you to school, miss! Gave you an education that lets you look down on your own parents.”
“Not you, Mother.” She touched her mother’s hand. “Never you. I know you did your best.”
She turned back to Dwight. “Growers like my dad cut against the market every way they can. They ignore the warning labels on chemicals, they ignore phony social security numbers, they turn a blind eye to how labor contractors take advantage of their people, and they don’t give a damn about a migrant’s living conditions or whether or not the children are in school. My mother does. When Harris Farms finally got cited, Mother got involved. She checks the paperwork and makes sure everyone’s documented, she doesn’t let little kids work in the fields, and she made Dad get rid of those squalid trailers he had down there in the back fields of the Buckley place. No decent plumbing and no place to wash off the pesticides. My mother—”
“Your mother’s a bleeding-heart saint,” Mrs. Harris said sarcastically.
“Well, you are, compared to Dad.”
“Only because it’s cheaper in the long run to do the right thing,” her mother said gruffly. “It’s all dollars and cents. I don’t want us shut down or slapped with a big fine.”
“Slapped is the right word,” Susan Hochmann told Dwight. “There aren’t enough inspectors to check out all the camps and farms and follow a case through the courts, so a slap on the wrist was all they got. A puny two-thousand-dollar fine. Nothing to really hurt.”
“You don’t know that’s where it would stop next time,” said Mrs. Harris, “and I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to wake up and see Harris Farms all over the newspapers and television like Ag-Mart. I don’t want anybody making us an example. If playing by the rules or decent plumbing or stoves that work and refrigerators that actually keep food cold can keep us out of court, then it’s worth the few extra dollars.”
“But your husband felt differently?” Dwight asked.
“He grew up poor. We both did. And we both worked hard in the early days. Out there in the fields rain or shine, whether it was hot or cold, doing what had to be done to plant and plow and stake and harvest. Wouldn’t you think he could’ve remembered what it was like to walk in those shoes? Instead, he griped that I was coddling them. I finally had enough and when that little redheaded bitch let him stick his—”
She caught herself before uttering the crude words that were on the tip of her tongue. “That’s when I told him I was through, that I was getting my own lawyer. And damned if he didn’t file papers first so that I’ve had to come to court in Dobbs instead of doing it down in New Bern.”
She sat back in her chair and pursed her lips while Dwight made quick notes on the legal pad.
“What about you, Mrs. Hochmann?” he said. “When did you last speak to your father?”
“Valentine’s Day,” she said promptly. “He didn’t like phones, but he always sent me roses and he called that evening.”
“Was he worried about anything?”
“Worried that someone was going to . . . to—” She could not bring herself to say the words and sat there mutely, shaking her head.
“Mrs. Harris, are you absolutely certain you didn’t see your husband on that Monday?”
“I’m certain.”
“In fact, you tried to avoid all contact with him, right?”
“Right.”
“Yet you went into his house that day and took a shower and left wearing some of his clothes.”
“Yes,” she said.
Susan Hochmann’s head immediately swung around to look at her mother quizzically.
“Would you like to say why?”
Clearly she did not.
“Mother?”
“Oh, for pete’s sake, Susan! Don’t look at me like that. I did not kill Buck and then go sluice his blood off me. I fell in a stupid mud puddle and wrecked the clothes I was wearing. Of course I went in and took a shower. I knew he wouldn’t be there. He was afraid to look me in the eye.”
“Why?” asked Mayleen Richards.
Until now, the deputy had sat so quietly that the others had almost forgotten that she was in the room.
“I beg your pardon?” said Mrs. Harris.
“Everyone says he was a big man with a short fuse and a strong will. Why was he afraid of you?”
“I—I didn’t mean it like that.” For the first time, her voice faltered, but she made a quick recovery. “It was because I could always get the best of him when we argued. That’s all.”
“The last time you spoke to him was last spring, you said?” asked Dwight.
“That’s right.”
“People say you two had a huge fight then. What was that about?”
Mrs. Harris stood up and looked down at Pete Taylor. “Are we done here?”
Her daughter stood, too, a puzzled look on her face. “Mother?”
“It had nothing to do with why he was killed,” she said.
“Was it over his girlfriend?”
“I don’t want to talk about that here, Susan,” she said and swept from the room.
Susan Hochmann turned to the two deputies with a helpless shrug. “We’ll be staying at Dad’s place for a couple of nights. Please call me if you learn anything else.”
“I will,” said Dwight. “And Mrs. Hochmann?”
“Yes?”
“I hope you’ll call me if you learn anything we should know.”
She nodded and hurried after her mother. Dwight looked at Richards. “What do you think?”
“I think I ought to go back to that migrant camp and see if I can’t find out exactly what the Harrises fought about last spring.”
“Not Flame Smith,” Dwight agreed. “Take Jamison with you.”
“Is he really going to resign?” Richards asked.
Dwight sighed. “’Fraid so.”
CHAPTER 30
It is only from the record of our mistakes in the past that wisdom can ever be derived to lead us to success in the future.
—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890
DEBORAH KNOTT
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 8
The stars were in alignment that day. It wasn’t simply one more case that settled, it was two. I caught up with all my paperwork and even heard one of Luther Parker’s cases—a couple of teenage boys drag racing after school—before wandering downstairs to meet Dwight around three-thirty.
Bo Poole was seated in Dwight’s office and looked particularly sharp in a dark suit, white shirt, and somber tie.
“Hey, Bo,” I said. “Whose funeral?”
He grinned and shook his head at Dwight. “You got my sympathy, son. She don’t miss a thing, does she?”
“I better plead the fifth,” Dwight said, smiling at me.
“So who died?” I asked again. “Anybody I know?”
“They buried poor ol’ Fred Mitchiner this afternoon and I figured I ought to go and pay my respects
. He’s the one showed me how to skin a mink when I wasn’t knee-high to a grasshopper and I feel real bad that we didn’t find him before he drowned in the creek.”
“Surely his family doesn’t blame you for that?”
“Well, I think they do, a little. His daughter does, anyhow. I went by the house afterwards. Thought I’d give her a chance to vent on me. Figure this department owes her that much. McLamb and Dalton were out there yesterday, she said. They’d told her about how somebody cut his hand loose and moved it and she was still pretty hot and bothered about that, as well.”
“Poor Bo,” I said sympathetically. “I guess her son gave you an earful, too. I hear he was over there faithfully.”
“Ennis? Naw. He’s a good kid. I think he’s just glad to have it over with. In fact, I think he’s about talked Lessie out of suing the rest home.”
“Yeah, that’s what McLamb told me,” said Dwight as he gathered up some papers and stuck them in a file folder. “That the staff had been good to his grandfather and he didn’t think they ought to be penalized for the old man’s death.”
Bo said, “Even when Miz Stone told him that it was the insurance company that would pay, he said it wouldn’t be right to take money when God had answered her prayers.”
“God?” I asked.
“Evidently she was on her knees every night since he wandered off, praying to God to let her find out what happened to him, so that she could rest easy. If she turned around and asked for money, too, it’d be like spitting in God’s eye, he told her. Not many teenage boys think like that these days.”
“No,” I said, remembering those boys I’d just had in my courtroom. Not bad kids, but kids. Kids with shiny new drivers’ licenses who think they’re going to live forever because they never think beyond the immediate and—
“Oh,” I said.
“What?” said Dwight.
“The grandson.”
“Huh?”
“He took his grandfather out that day,” I said. “And everybody assumes he brought the old guy back because he always did. But did anyone actually see him?”
Bo frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“You saying he killed his own grandfather?” Dwight asked skeptically.
“No, I’m not saying that. But somebody did move that hand so y’all would backtrack on the creek and find his body, right? Somebody who wanted him found but didn’t want to admit how he got there? Could it have been the boy?”
Bo thought about it a minute, then gave a slow nod. “You know something, Dwight? That makes as much sense as anything else we’ve heard. Could be he’s feeling guilty and that’s the real reason he doesn’t want blood money.” He hoisted himself out of the chair with a sigh. “Reckon I’d better go back and catch him while he’s still strung out from the funeral. See if I can’t find out what really happened.”
CHAPTER 31
It is a maxim of the law, based upon common sense and experience, that for every wrong there is a remedy, but before the remedy can be applied, the cause from whence the evil springs must be definitely ascertained.
—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890
SHERIFF BOWMAN POOLE
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 8
Friends from Mrs. Stone’s church were still at the house when Bo Poole returned and it was not difficult for him to cut young Ennis Stone out of the crowd. “I just want him to retrace the route that last day he took his granddaddy out,” he told her. “Maybe it’ll help him remember something we can use. We won’t be gone long.”
The boy looked apprehensive but got in the sheriff’s van without protest.
“Let’s see now,” said Bo. “You picked him up after school, right?”
“Yessir. About three-thirty.”
“And took him where?”
“To Sparky’s. For a cheeseburger. He loved cheeseburgers.”
“Where’s this Sparky’s?”
Ennis directed him to a fast-food joint on the south side of Black Creek. As Bo suspected, it was only a short distance from the footpath that led down to the creek.
He pulled into the parking lot and said, “Then what?”
The boy shrugged. “Then I took him back to Sunset Meadows.”
“And helped him lie down for a rest?”
“Yessir.” He pointed down the street. “That’s the way we went.”
But Bo did not move the car. Instead, he looked back at Sparky’s. It seemed to be a popular hangout. There were video games at one end and teenagers came and went. A couple of girls waved to Ennis, but he barely acknowledged them.
“Friends of yours?”
He nodded.
After a minute, Bo shifted from neutral and drove down the street, but instead of turning left, back into town, he turned right and continued on till he reached the cable where the street dead-ended.
“Your granddaddy used to run a trapline along the creek down there. Did you know that?”
“Yessir.” It was barely a whisper.
Bo switched off the engine and turned to look at the boy, who seemed to shrink against the door.
“You want to tell me what really happened, Ennis?”
“I told you. I got him a cheeseburger and then I took him back. I don’t know what happened after that.”
“Yes, you do,” Bo said gently.
The boy’s brown eyes dropped before that steady gaze and tears welled up in them.
“He liked to sit and watch the water,” he said, his voice choked with grief. “He’d sit there for hours if I’d let him. Just sit and hum and watch the water. I’d get us a cheeseburger and walk down to where there was a log to sit on and we’d eat our burgers and he’d start humming. He loved it. Was like he was watching television or something. Once he started humming, he could sit all day. He’d even try to fight me when it was time to get up and go. That’s why I thought it’d be okay. Every time we ever came, he never moved. Honest, Sheriff!”
Bo fumbled under the seat till he found a box of tissues.
Ennis blew his nose but tears continued to streak down his cheeks.
“I just ran back for some fries and I meant to come right back, but DeeDee— I mean, a friend of mine was there, you know? And we talked for a minute. I swear to God I wasn’t gone fifteen minutes.”
“And he wasn’t here when you got back?”
“I couldn’t believe it. I ran upstream first to where the underbrush clears out and I couldn’t see him, so then I went downstream and . . . and . . . he was lying there in the cold water. Dead. I just about died, too. I didn’t know what to do.”
He broke down again and it was several minutes before he could continue. “I couldn’t go home and tell my mom that I’d left him alone to let him go die like that. She’d have told it in church, had everybody praying for my sin like I was a stupid-ass creep. I know I should have gone for help, but he was dead and it wasn’t going to bring him back. It was dumb. I know it was dumb! But I figured he’d be missed real quick and then everybody’d be out looking and I was sure he’d be found right away but then he wasn’t and after that it was too late for me to say I’d lied.”
Ennis pulled another handful of tissues from the box and Bo waited till his sobs quieted into sniffles, as he had waited out the sorrow and remorse of so many others over the years—
“I only left the baby for a minute.”
“I didn’t know it was loaded.”
“I thought he could swim, but—”
“Better tell me the rest of it, son.”
“Mom was crying every night and praying to just let him be found. I couldn’t take it any longer. I heard some girls in my biology class say they were going to go look for ferns down at the fishing hole on Apple Creek the next day. I thought if I could move him down there . . . but I couldn’t, so then I thought if they found his hand . . . like they found that other hand . . . but . . .” He broke off and took several long deep breaths. “I had to use my knife. I kept telling myself he couldn’t
feel anything . . . but . . .”
He looked at Bo helplessly. “You going to tell my mom?”
“Somebody needs to,” Bo said. “Don’t you think?”
Ennis nodded, misery etched in every line of his face. “Am I in trouble with the law, too?”
Bo thought about the man-hours spent searching. The helicopter. The dogs.
“We’ll see,” he said.
CHAPTER 32
A farmer’s life is a pretty hard one in some respects, especially if he has a sorry farm and he is a sorry farmer, but the average farmer can be about as happy as anybody.
—Profitable Farming in the Southern States, 1890
DEBORAH KNOTT
WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH 8
We were a couple of miles out of Dobbs, each of us immersed in our own thoughts, when I suddenly remembered that I’d meant to pick up something for supper.
“Tonight’s Wednesday,” Dwight said. “How ’bout we go for barbecue?”
“Really?” As soon as he’d said it, my gloom started to lift. A Wednesday night at Paulie’s Barbecue House was exactly what I needed. “You won’t be bored?”
Dwight doesn’t play an instrument although he has a good singing voice.
“Nope. You haven’t been since Cal came and I bet he’d like it, too. Give him some more names to add to that list he started this morning.”
I had to laugh. It was bad enough that I had eleven brothers. Wait till he realized exactly how many aunts and uncles and cousins there were, too.
“We have to plant the potatoes first,” he warned.
“Deal,” I said happily.
By the time we got to Jimmy’s, I had heard about Dwight’s interview with Mrs. Harris and her daughter, who seemed to disdain the money her parents had made.
“Not so disdainful that she’s not going to take it,” I said. “Reid told me she wants to turn the house into a migrant center or something. If Amy doesn’t get her grant for the hospital, I’m thinking somebody ought to introduce them to each other.”
“While Reid was talking, he happen to say what Buck Harris did to so seriously piss off his ex-wife last spring? Assuming she is his ex-wife and not his widow.”
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