“Was Ledwig your doctor?” I asked.
“Carlyle?”
“Oh, no,” said Joyce. “Carlyle wasn’t an internist. His specialty was geriatrics.”
She passed me the bread basket, but when I turned back the napkin, all those hot rolls were gone. I’d already had one and knew I shouldn’t have a second, but I didn’t protest when Bobby caught our waiter’s eye and held up the basket.
I asked them what it was like growing up here in the mountains, and it sounded a lot like my daddy’s tales of his childhood—privations, yes, but a sense of rootedness. Hard work, where even children were expected to carry their share of the load, but time for music and storytelling, too.
When I asked if they knew Richard Granger or Hank Smith, Bobby began to laugh.
“Hell, yes! You hear about Dick shooting Hank’s ear off last month?”
“They were both in my courtroom today,” I said. Since Granger’s trial, like the trial of the Tuzzolinos, was now public record, I could speak freely about it.
“I hope you went easy on Dick,” Joyce said in quick sympathy. “He and his wife are having it rough since he got hurt at the chip mill. They’re too proud to take charity, but when she brought one of her mother’s quilts to ask me what I thought it should fetch at the craft gallery, I did manage to convince her to sell it to me for about twice what it was really worth.”
Bobby looked at her quizzically. “Did I know this?”
“Oops!” she said with a smile.
“They don’t have to live that close to the bone,” he said. “Dick and Sarah Granger are living on one of the prettiest pieces of land on Laudermilk Creek. They could sell out tomorrow and live in ease the rest of their lives.”
“Live where?” asked Joyce. “You know they’d die if you took them off that mountain.”
“All the same,” he said, “I believe I’ll take a ride out there next week, see if I can interest him in selling.”
“Bobby, no!” she protested.
“I know, honey, I know,” he said soothingly, “but if not me, it’ll be somebody else. Somebody who might not give him as good a price.”
When I got back to the condo, all it really needed to be ready to rent were fresher curtains and a carpet cleaning. The kitchen cabinets sparkled with new enamel, and all traces of paint buckets, brushes, and drop cloths were gone. Fred and Beverly should be pleased about this much, at least.
I checked my e-mail again. Still nothing from Dwight. Well, what did I expect?
There was also nothing on television, nothing in the condo’s selection of videos that I wanted to watch, and nothing I wanted to do.
Nobody to talk to either.
“Good thing, too,” said the pragmatist. “The way you’re feeling right now, you’d just be spoiling for a fight.”
“Go to bed,” said the preacher.
“Go to hell!” I told them both.
And went to bed.
CHAPTER 25
With no paint crew to cook breakfast for, the twins opted to sleep in the next morning. Hard as they’d been working, I certainly couldn’t blame them, and I tiptoed around quietly. Wouldn’t hurt me to make do with orange juice and an apple after those rolls last night.
Besides, I knew that the usual carafe of coffee would be waiting for me.
“The way you and Mr. Deeck are zipping through the calendar,” said Mary Kay, “it looks like tomorrow’s going to be early getaway.”
Now there was a thought. If I finished by lunch tomorrow, I could be home before dark.
Before Dwight left for Virginia.
Morning court was a brisk array of the usual, and at noon I went down to the Tea Room and scrounged a salad from the twins, who seemed strangely uninterested in discussing the murders.
“Of course, Carla and Trish still want to know who killed their dad,” June said, “but we were only asking around because Danny couldn’t afford a real detective.”
“And now that he’s going to be off the hook—” said May.
“—we can leave it to the police,” said June.
What mainly seemed to occupy their thoughts was where they were going to live after Parents’ Day at Tanser-MacLeod College. Beverly was bringing up the new curtains she’d made, and a new couch and chairs would be delivered at the same time. Fred had already contacted the management office about renting out the condo for the tail end of leaf season.
“We were going to crash on friends at our old dorm anyhow, but that’s just for the weekend.”
I cast a glance up at the pressed tin ceiling. “What’s up on the second floor here? Could you camp out up there?”
“Lord, no, don’t even think about it,” said May.
“It’s jammed with all the junk that came out of the ground floor,” June chimed in.
“Dirty.”
“Cold.”
“Spiderwebs.”
“I think I saw a mouse when we carried up the last load.”
“And anyhow, there’s no water up there.”
“And no shower in the ladies’ room down here.”
“Besides, if the Health Department caught us—”
“—not to mention the zoning people—”
“—we could lose our restaurant permit.”
“So where will you go?” I asked.
“We’ll think of something,” said June.
“Here, have a cruller,” May said.
Afternoon court was a repeat of the morning, until shortly before three, when I was presented with a couple of judgment-impaired twenty-one-year-olds from Tanser-MacLeod College who had gotten drunk and disorderly in a Howards Ford bar, where they did six hundred dollars’ worth of damage to the mirrors and bottles behind the bar. Both were white, both had that slightly arrogant stance of kids who were used to doing what they liked, knowing that their parents would clean up the mess. Indeed, Matt Dodson, an attorney I’d met at the Ashe party, presented documents that showed me that restitution had already been paid.
I listened to their guilty plea and their pro forma apologies and I heard what the prosecutor was recommending, then Dodson made a game plea for a low fine and community service.
Nice try, but I’d caught a good glimpse of the first youth when he swaggered up to the defense table in a preppy, long-sleeved rugby shirt, khaki shorts, moccasins, and no socks even though it was a cool fall day.
“Step out from behind the table,” I told him when both stood to hear my ruling.
There on his leg, from his ankle to his knee, was a tattoo of an extremely explicit nude with her legs spread wide. A full frontal view.
“Do you really think that tattoo is appropriate for a courtroom?” I asked.
He shrugged and with a nod toward Dodson said, “Well, he did tell me maybe I ought to be wearing long pants today.”
“You should have listened to him,” I said.
At least his partner in crime wore clothes a bit more appropriate: long cargo pants and a navy blue sweatshirt that read, “If you don’t love the South …”
“Excuse me, Your Honor,” the bailiff murmured, “but you might want to ask him to turn around.”
The young man glared at the bailiff and then reluctantly turned around when I made a circular motion with my finger.
There on the back was “… then you can suck my Dixie.”
Both had previous convictions for DWIs, so I fined them a thousand each with the stipulation that they pay the fines out of their own earnings and provide proof of it, but instead of suspending the full forty-five days as I might normally do, I decided that serving two days of it in jail this coming weekend might be a better attitude adjuster. I’m pretty sure I saw an amused gleam in Matt Dodson’s dark eyes as he thanked me for my leniency.
“Jail?” snarled the tattooed one, angrily shaking off Dodson’s hand when the attorney tried to restrain him. “Hey, I know my rights. My tattoo’s protected under the First Amendment. Don’t I have freedom of speech?”