was wrestling something out of the ditch. They’d just got it th’owed in the back of the truck when I stepped around to the side where they were and asked them what was going on.”
At that point, the trooper glanced at me and slipped into automatic pilot. “There was a strong odor of alcohol on and about the breath and persons of both suspects. Both were glassy-eyed, talkative, incoherent of speech, and unsteady of motion.”
I nodded encouragingly and the ADA said, “Then what?”
“Then I relieved Mr. James Bodie of his rifle and took them both into custody.”
“Did either defendant make a statement?”
“Mr. Felton Bodie said they were driving home to Gloucester when they saw an alligator on the side of the road and decided to shoot it. Mr. James Bodie said they were going to skin it out and sell the skin.”
The two Bodie brothers sat at the defense table with egg-sucking looks of embarrassment on their faces.
Puzzled, I asked, “Aren’t alligators a protected species?”
“Yes, ma’am, they sure are, Judge,” said the ADA, waiting for me to step all the way in it.
I ran my finger down the calendar. “Are they being separately charged for that offense?”
“No, Your Honor,” the trooper grinned. “‘Cause it worn’t a alligator they shot and put in the back of their truck. It was a four-foot retread off’n one of them big tractor-trailer tires.”
I was laughing so hard I had to pick myself up off the floor before I could gavel everybody else in the courtroom back to order.
“Put up a big fight, did it?” I asked when the two Bodies rose to speak in their own defense.
In the end, I judged them guilty of a level five offense and gave them sixty days suspended, a hundred-dollar fine plus court costs, and twenty-four hours of community service as punishment for trying to shoot a protected species to the public endangerment. “And you’d just better be grateful there’s no law against killing retreads,” I told them.
Another dozen cases of speeding, failure to stop at stop signs or flashing red lights, unsafe movements, inspection violations, and driving without valid licenses carried us to twelve noon and lunch recess.
• • •
By 12:08 Chet and Barbara Jean Winberry and I were seated at a window table in the Ritchie House, a lovely old nineteenth-century building that had been refurbished and modernized so sensitively that it retained all its original charm and seaside grace. Despite the pricey rates, the guest suites on the second and third floor stayed booked year-round, and reservations were recommended for lunch and dinner both. Our table overlooked the marina, where several million dollars’ worth of boats were moored. April sunlight sparkled off the water and glistened on gleaming white hulls and polished teak decks.
A waitress had brought our iced tea and a basket of hot and crisp hushpuppies as soon as we sat down, and Barbara Jean had already heard my account of finding her old colleague/ally/thorn in her side—I couldn’t quite get an exact fix on their relationship, but maybe that was because she didn’t seem to have one herself.
I’ve known and liked the Winberrys six or eight years even though they’re both more than ten years older than me. Barbara Jean had inherited her family’s menhaden fish-meal factory from her father; but she spent a lot of time running back and forth between Beaufort and Raleigh when Chet was appointed to a state commission during Governor Hardison’s first term of office. The happiest day of their lives was when the governor appointed Chet a superior court judge down here in the First Division so they could both get out of Raleigh and come back to Beaufort to live full time.
There was a married daughter living on the western edge of Harkers Island and a baby grandson named for Barbara Jean’s grandfather, the one who’d started the factory. Between all my older brothers and most of my friends, I’ve looked at an awful lot of baby pictures over the years. This one was still in the tadpole stage, but when Barbara Jean and Chet both brought out their wallets, I made appropriate cooing noises.
The restaurant was light and airy, pale pink cloths and nosegays of sea oats graced the tables, white paddle ceiling fans circulated the air overhead. The few suits and ties in the room were worn by lawyer types. Everyone else seemed to have on canvas deckshoes, white duck or khaki pants, and pullovers or silky windbreakers that featured broad bands of turquoise or coral. Surely they couldn’t all be sailing yachts back to Newport or Martha’s Vineyard?
Several tables over were a handsome fortyish couple that could’ve stepped out of a Docksider ad. Between them, with her back to me, sat what looked like their daughter. Next to the woman, a little boy of two or three sat in a booster chair. All four had thick, straight blond hair. The man’s was clipped short, as was the boy’s; the woman’s blunt cut brushed the shoulder pads of her white sweater, while the girl’s long ponytail ended halfway down her back. Amusingly, the girl had brought along a hand puppet that was her twin in miniature: same long blonde ponytail, same coral-and-white nylon jumpsuit.
“Isn’t she just precious?” agreed Barbara Jean, who’d followed my gaze. She bit into a crispy hushpuppy and said, “What’d you think of Jay Hadley?”
I cocked a cynical eye at Chet. “So now I’ll ask her how she knows Jay Hadley and she’ll tell me everybody down here knows Jay Hadley, right?”
“Well, most everybody who fishes for their livelihood.” He gathered up the menus the waitress had handed us and said to her, “We’re in sort of a hurry, darlin’, so why don’t you bring us each a nice bowl of your she-crab soup, then a big plate of fried oysters and side dishes of slaw all around. That okay with you, Deborah? Honey?”
Barbara Jean and I agreed it sounded delicious to us.
Her roots go way back to Beaufort’s beginnings, while Chet’s people were carpetbaggers who came south after the Civil War. Even though Chet teases her that she married down, both are still more boardroom and resort town than leased bottoms and clam rakes, and it surprised me that she’d know Jay Hadley.
“Jay’s real active in the Independent Fishers Alliance that Andy Bynum helped start. I’m a member, too.”
“See, what’s been happening down here,” said Chet, “is that tempers have been getting more and more frayed these last few years.”
