Death's Half Acre (12 page)

CHAPTER 8

. . . This is farm country and

You can see the enchantment and the hope that the characters will

Come and make the crops, but all they want to do is play.

—Paul’s Hill,
by Shelby Stephenson

O
n Thursday, I went to the Democratic Women’s luncheon. The speaker was Elaine Marshall, our secretary of state and the first woman ever elected to North Carolina’s Council of State. We were trying to get her to run for the U.S. Senate, but she loved the job she had and seemed quite happy to stay in the area with her husband and friends.

“Hey, Deborah, look at me!” my longtime best friend Portland Brewer called as I crossed the parking lot to the restaurant. She did a happy pirouette on the gravel so that I could admire the fit of her favorite black sheath, which was topped with a lime-green linen jacket.

Ever since the birth of little Carolyn Deborah Brewer, about eighteen hours after she’d served as my matron of honor back in December, Portland had been struggling to get back to her pre-baby size.

“Way to go!” I applauded. “The carrot sticks are on me today.”

Inside, we found seats at a table with Jamie Jacobson and Betty Ann Edgerton. Jamie’s part of an ad agency here in Dobbs and is one of only two Democrats on the county board of commissioners, while Betty Ann is the builder who oversaw work on a WomenAid house I helped build a few years back when I was first appointed to the bench. She’s a good ol’ gal who, with the help of my mother, opened the all-male vo-tech classes at West Colleton up to females, too. She had no interest in the secretarial courses girls were supposed to take back then, but she made straight A’s in woodworking and shop once she was allowed in.

It was a struggle for her the first few years until the building boom hit so hard that developers didn’t care if their builders were male, female, or little green hermaphrodites from Alpha Centauri as long as the houses went up as fast as their profits. Since then, she’s built a pile of them and gives a chunk of money to the Democratic party every year.

Candace Bradshaw’s suicide was still on everyone’s mind and like them, we also speculated on whom the Republicans would choose to succeed her.

“Danny Creedmore could pick himself,” Portland said gloomily.

“No way,” said Betty Ann, who is fifteen years older and wiser than we. “He’d have to recuse himself every time one of his projects came up. Much easier to put in another puppet he can keep claiming is disinterested.”

“What I just can’t get my mind around,” said Jamie, “is why Candace killed herself. She
adored
chairing the board and playing Lady Bountiful. She acted as if the citizens who came to us with requests were asking her permission alone, as if she was doing them a favor with money out of her own pocket. Everybody knows whose pocket she was in—”

“Don’t you mean whose bed?” Betty Ann said cynically.

“Same difference,” Jamie agreed. “My point is, if she was doing something that could be proved to be illegal, then he’d be in it, too, and I’ve heard that Doug Woodall’s cut a deal with Danny Creedmore. If the county Republicans promise not to give his opponent much support, then he won’t rock any boats right now.”

“That may not be a promise he can keep,” I said. “Once her suicide note becomes public, there will have to be an investigation.”

“You’ve read it?”

“You know what’s in it?”

“Did she get specific?”

I held up my hands to block their questions. “Have I read it? No. Has Dwight told me one single word? No. But I’ve heard the same thing the rest of y’all have heard. That she misused her office and took kickbacks. If that’s true, then Doug’s obligated to do a pro forma investigation if nothing else.”

Our food arrived, and talk turned to whether or not Kevin Foster could take Doug’s place as our new DA, the number of turned ankles our friends had gotten from those high-heeled platform wedges (“Ugliest shoe of my lifetime,” said Betty Ann), and did we think Cameron Bradshaw was going to keep the business going long enough for Dee to get her act together and take over?

“I hope so,” said Jamie as she forked through her salad to extract the onions she normally liked. “Meeting with a client this afternoon,” she explained parenthetically. “Much as I hated Candace’s high-handed ways on the board, I have to say that she did give good value for the money when it came to cleaning our office. I once mentioned that I thought they were missing the floor behind the commode in the bathroom and she came in herself the next evening to make sure it was done right.”

“I’ll give her that,” said Betty Ann. “We don’t use Bradshaw Management ourselves, but the architects that rent in our complex do. I was working late one night last week and as I was leaving, here she came tripping across the parking lot in a fancy embroidered jacket and high heels to check up on one of her new cleaning gals. Tried to give me a sales talk right there in the parking lot about how she could probably give me a better deal than what I was paying.”

“Could she?” asked Jamie.

Betty Ann shrugged. “I didn’t get a quote. It helps out my crew if I hire some of their family members to clean for us. I give the crew chief a flat fee and they work it out between themselves. Don’t you want your peach cobbler, Deborah?”

I virtuously handed it over. No way was I going to let Portland out-skinny me. “John Claude still uses her service,” I said, “but I never remember seeing her there after hours.”

Portland dipped the edge of her napkin into her water glass and tried to sponge away a spot of salad dressing that had dripped on the front of her green jacket. I leaned over to help.

“Candace tried really hard to sell Avery and me on her services,” she said when the worst was out, “but the woman who cleans our house is willing to go by a couple of times a week, so we didn’t bother. Speaking of which, did y’all hear what happened out at that Church of Christ Eternal on Easter morning?”

“Is that the one split off from Jensen Memorial?” I asked.

“The one they built with no windows like they’re barricading themselves against the world?” Betty Ann asked.

“I guess so,” Portland said dubiously. “That’s where my cleaning woman goes. Or rather, where she used to go up until Easter Sunday. Their preacher’s one of those little pricks who think they’re divinely appointed and that men are superior to women.”

“Oh yeah, a guy named McKinney. I’ve heard about him,” said Betty Ann. “The women can’t wear slacks or sleeveless dresses. What’s he done now?”

What she told us was almost unbelievable in this day and age. A man demanding so much obedience that he would order his wife to drink from his water glass after he’d spit in it?

“Don’t tell me she did it?” I said.

Portland nodded. “Rena says she cried, but she drank it.”

For a moment, I thought I was going to throw up and I saw my own horror and disgust mirrored on the faces of my friends.

“Dear Lord!” said Jamie. “Does he make her wear a veil and walk three paces behind him?”

“I don’t know about that, but I do know it finished Rena with that church. She put her pride in her pocket and moved her membership back to Jensen Memorial.”

“Good for her.”

“But isn’t it appalling?” said Portland. “Next thing you know he’ll be telling her to drink the Kool-Aid.”

“Been me,” said Betty Ann, “I’d have put a little more spit in the glass and thrown it right back in his arrogant face.”

Someone at the next table shushed us and we turned our attention to the podium as Elaine Marshall rose to speak. She was her usual witty and intelligent self and she wore a beautifully cut dark red pantsuit.

But then she was never going to get any votes from any Reverend Mr. McKinneys anyhow.

Judge Luther Parker, who was supposed to hold juvenile court that afternoon, had been called away at noon on a family emergency, and because my afternoon load was light enough to shift to the others, I volunteered to sit in for him. His calendar included the type of case that is becoming more and more common these days as town and country keep bumping up against each other. If we were totally suburban, there would be one set of problems with common perceptions, experiences, and assumptions. All country would present a different set, but again, most everyone would be on the same page.

But when you slap a closely built, hundred-house development down in the middle of farming country, neither side completely understands the other.

Today’s case in point: trespass and malicious damage to real property.

Three twelve-and thirteen-year-old boys had been arrested after roaring over a farmer’s field of young soybean plants on four-wheel ATVs, chasing one another in circles. They had torn up so many plants that the whole six acres would have to be disked under and replanted.

The farm was posted with NO TRESPASSING signs and yes, the kids could read and yes, it was thoughtless of them to do that much damage. No farm kid would have dreamed of wrecking a crop—
anybody’s
crop—but these boys were from a nearby development and neither the kids nor their parents seemed to have a smidgen of knowledge of farming.

Several Christmases ago, I chipped in for a couple of ATVs for the nieces and nephews out on the farm. They’ve mostly graduated to cars, and the four-wheelers stay parked at our house these days for Cal and Mary Pat to use; but even at eight, they know to stick to the lanes or they’ll lose their ticket to ride.

After lecturing the kids about respect for private property, I turned to their parents.

“Your houses sit on quarter-acre lots,” I said. “When you bought your sons these four-wheelers, where did you think they were going to ride them? It’s illegal for them to be on the road and you don’t have any land. What were you thinking?”

All I got were indifferent shrugs.

“I see by their records that this is the second time these three boys have been cited, which means that you had notice of their prior misuse of the ATVs.”

Again, looks of indifference.

“In other words, Mom and Dad, your failure to supervise is negligence and makes you liable for all the damages and leaves you open to the possibility of being prosecuted for contributing to their delinquency.”

Now I had their attention.

I leafed through their case folders and read over Luther Parker’s notes. It took me a few minutes to process what he’d planned to do and when I next glanced up, two of the parents appeared distinctly worried.

“Last time, your sons got a very light slap on the wrist and there was no inconvenience to you. This time, I’m ordering that they be sent for a mental health evaluation, for which you will be billed.”

I glanced over at the farmer whose beans had been destroyed. “Mr. Bell estimates the damage at fifteen hundred dollars, which is extremely reasonable, if not downright generous of him.”

I then put the boys under the supervision of a juvenile court counselor, and ordered them to pay damages, to stay off Mr. Bell’s property, and not to ride their ATVs anywhere that wasn’t legally sanctioned.

Some of the parents were huffing by this time, but I warned them that if their sons came back to court again for misuse of their ATVs, they themselves would also face charges. “And penalties in adult courts are a lot tougher than here.”

“Don’t worry, Your Honor,” said one of the mothers. “His four-wheeling days are over. There’s going to be a FOR SALE sign on it this afternoon.”

“Aw, Mo-om!” the twelve-year-old whined.

“You heard her,” his father said sternly. “And your part of that fifteen hundred is coming out of
your
savings account, not ours.”

Juvenile court can be a real downer at times and that afternoon, I dealt with a bully who’s well on his way to spending his life in prison if someone doesn’t shoot him first. I signed an order that would return a rebellious fourteen-year-old runaway to her family in Virginia, sent three repeat teenagers to a minimum security youth center, and arranged protective custody for two little girls whose foster dad was waiting trial for raping them.

At least I hoped I was giving them protection.

When Luther signed the papers that put those girls in that last foster home, he must surely have thought they would be safer there than where they were. I suppose you could say he was right if you call being raped safer than being beaten to a bloody pulp by their birth father, who’s now serving life for killing their baby brother.

By the end of the session, I was totally drained. As I sat down at the defense table to read over a search warrant a Dobbs police officer wanted me to sign, a pair of familiar hands began to massage the muscles that had knotted in my neck. For once, the search warrant was properly filled out and I signed it without a murmur.

When we were alone in the courtroom, I looked up into Dwight’s warm brown eyes. “Ummm. If I were a cat, I’d be purring about now.”

“Rough day?” he asked as he kneaded the tension from my neck.

“Just this last half. How come you’re still here? Where’s Cal?”

“Kate called me. He’s over at the farm with Jake and Mary Pat, helping to set out those tuberoses the kids are gonna grow.”

Seth, Daddy, and I had given some of my nieces and nephews a twenty-acre field to try to grow an economically feasible organic crop. They planned to put five acres in tuberoses and sunflowers, and the rest in soybeans.

I glanced at my watch. Almost five-thirty. “Will someone give them supper?”

“Supper and a sleepover at Seth and Minnie’s. Tomorrow’s a teacher work day, so the kids’re gonna pick up a couple of pizzas and watch one of Jess’s favorite horse movies.”

His eyes twinkled and a bolt of happy anticipation shot through me. I do love Dwight’s son, but hey! Dwight and I have been married only four months.

“You mean we have the whole evening to ourselves?”

“Want to drive into Raleigh? Drinks at Miss Molly’s, then dinner or a movie?”

I shook my head. “Nope. I want to pick up something on our way home, then make popcorn and watch an old video the way we used to before I knew you loved me.”