anybody making us an example. If playing by the rules
or decent plumbing or stoves that work and refriger-
ators 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 cod-
dling them. I finally had enough and when that little
redheaded bitch let him stick his—”
She caught herself before uttering the crude words
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MARGARET MARON
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
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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 oth-
ers 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 ar-
gued. 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.”
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MARGARET MARON
“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.”
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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
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MARGARET MARON
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 faith-
fully.”
“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 insura
nce company that would pay, he said it
wouldn’t be right to take money when God had an-
swered 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
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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 for-
ever 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 be-
cause 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 feel-
ing 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.”
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31
It is a maxim of the law, based upon common sense and ex-
perience, 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 dif-
ficult 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?”
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“To Sparky’s. For a cheeseburger. He loved cheese-
burgers.”
“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.”
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MARGARET MARON
“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 hum-
ming. 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 tis-
sues.
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 be-
fore 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
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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 oth-
ers 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 my-
self 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.
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32
A farmer’s life is a pretty hard one in some respects, espe-
cially 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 sud-
denly 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
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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 daugh-
ter, 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
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