Suddenly I was reevaluating the figure I’d chased last night. Could it have been a woman? More specifically, Linville Pope? Barbara Jean’s accusations began to take on a tinge of reality.
Since it would be almost as quick to swing back past the island as to leave straight for Beaufort, I planned to wait till after court to pack and clean up. Unless Jay Hadley told (and why would she?), no one else knew I had half of Andy’s papers; but I’ve always thought it better to set the glass back on a sturdy table than cry over spilt milk, even though the cottage offered few places to hide a bundle of files. I briefly considered and rejected the linen closet with its neat stacks of sheets and towels, the oven, or between the mattresses.
In the end, I went for Poe’s solution. Neatly stacked for recycling beside the kitchen garbage basket were all the newspapers I’d read that week, both the News and Observer and the Carteret County News-Times. Quickly, I divided the files between several of the newspapers, replaced them in the stack, and convinced myself that no one would give the papers a second glance.
Outside, grinding gears announced the arrival of a large white truck in the field next to Mahlon’s. The door panel read COASTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT CORP, MOREHEAD CITY. Two muscular men stepped out, surveyed the scope of the job, then began tossing junk into the back of the truck. I saw Mickey Mantle go over and speak to them, then a few minutes later, he was tugging at those gamecock pens and moving them one at a time back nearer the house.
Looked like Linville Pope was serious about cleaning up her property. What was it she’d said yesterday? “I do not threaten. I merely state.”
No joke.
• • •
As I crossed the causeway to the mainland, I passed Quig Smith and he gave me a big wave.
At the courthouse, Chet did a double take when he saw my face. “My God, girl! You look like you ought to be standing in front of the bench instead of sitting on it.”
“Oh come on, it doesn’t look that bad, does it?” I examined my face again in the mirror. My hair half hid the scratch on my forehead and makeup almost covered the deeper one on my cheek.
He shook his head. “What happened?”
“I fell into a yucca plant.”
“Ouch!” He flinched in sympathy. “Just jumped up and bit you, huh?”
“What I get for playing Nancy Drew,” I said and told him about chasing the burglar who’d broken into Andy Bynum’s house. With some editing, of course. I didn’t need stories getting back to my family, and he didn’t need to know about the papers or Kidd Chapin either, which meant I had to fudge about what Quig Smith knew.
“I hope you won’t mention this to anybody. I didn’t want to get hung up down here, maybe have to stay over an extra day to answer dumb questions, so I didn’t give my name when I reported it,” I lied.
“You’re lucky they didn’t take a shot at you. Would you know him if you saw him again?”
I shook my head. “I’m not even sure if it was a man or a woman.”
“What about Mahlon Davis or Mickey Mantle?”
“You know them?”
“Everybody knows them. They’ve never showed up in my courtroom yet. Probably just a matter of time. Although, to give the devil his due, they’re both brilliant woodworkers, even if they are morally retarded. Mickey Mantle did some cabinet work for us last fall. Long as we could keep him sober...”
“Yeah. It wasn’t Mahlon, though, because he was home in bed. But that reminds me. Before I leave this time, I need to speak to somebody in Social Services about his grandson Guthrie. I want to know if Mahlon treats him too rough.”
“That’d be Shelby Spivey. And she probably already has a file started on him if he lives with Mahlon.”
I made a note of the name and number, as Chet glanced at his watch and stood to go to his courtroom.
“What happened to you?” I said, noticing how he favored his right leg.
“Pulled a muscle when I jogged up for my paper this morning.” He grinned. “We’re the walking wounded, aren’t we, girl? I’ll be finished by mid-morning, so in case I don’t see you ‘fore you leave—” He gave me a warm hug. “Drive careful and come back real soon, you hear?”
“Thanks, Chet. Say ’bye to Barbara Jean for me. I hope it all works out about the fishery.”
• • •
Chet may have been finished by mid-morning, but I wasn’t far behind. When the last judgment had been rendered and the last paper signed, I stopped by the Clerk of Court’s office to thank her for her courtesies and to see if there were any last-minute details I’d missed before I left.
Darlene Leonard laughed as I entered. “Well, speak of the Devil and up she jumps!”
“Somebody been taking my name in vain?” I asked.
She said she’d just hung up from talking to the chief district court judge and he’d spoken to my chief, who said, and I quote: “We’ll bring Harrison Hobart out of retirement to handle Judge Knott’s schedule here next week, so, yes, you can keep her an extra week.”
Just like that. Not “Do you want to?” Not “Would you mind?”
“What’d you do to tick off F Roger Longmire?” asked the pragmatist, who usually kept track of where I stood with my district’s chief judge.
“It must have been that smartass remark you made about his brown shoes last week,” said the preacher. “One of these days you’re gonna learn—”
Before I could work up a good head of steam, Darlene Leonard said, “Judge Longmire sent word for you to get a good rest and enjoy the beach next week. He said you’ve earned it.”
So much for pragmatism and preaching.
With the folders Jay Hadley had given me still uppermost in my mind, I asked, “You knew Andy Bynum, didn’t you?”
“I knew who he was,” she answered, “but I can’t say I really knew him.”
“Someone said he’d been digging through some old deeds and such. Would you have helped him?”
“No, that would have been over at the Register of Deeds,” she said and gave me directions to the office.
There, a helpful young clerk remembered Andy clearly. “Sure, Mr. Bynum was in and out almost every day right up till about a week before he was killed. Wasn’t it just awful? He was such a nice man.”
She had no idea what he was after specifically, “But he started with a piece of property Mrs. Pope had acquired over on Harkers Island last month and pulled most everything he could find on Pope Properties, right back to when she handled the sale of the Ritchie House.”
“Which piece of Harkers Island property?” I asked.
She very nicely pulled out the right deed book on her first try. As I’d suspected, it was the land adjacent to Chet and Barbara Jean’s daughter, formerly owned by one Gilbert Epson. So Andy had known about the sale at least a week before Linville told Barbara Jean.
Interesting, but what was the significance?
“Mr. Bynum wanted photocopies of everything,” said the clerk. “Want me to make you a copy, too?”
I thanked her but declined the offer. No point duplicating what I already had. And it looked like I’d have a nice quiet weekend to finish reading the rest of the stack.
I commandeered an unoccupied phone and left a message on Aunt Zell’s machine as to why I wouldn’t be home that weekend. I’ve had my own set of rooms in Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash’s house since Mother died; and although I come and go freely, I do try to let her know my general plans. It tickles me that a childless, un-employed woman nearing seventy is so actively in her world that she needs an answering machine.
Next I called Social Services and got through to the Shelby Spivey Chet had mentioned. She sighed when I told her who I was and why I was calling.