Storm Track

The radio was even less informative.

What I really needed was a newspaper.

When I lived with Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash, the News and Observer was lying on the breakfast table every morning when I came down. The Dobbs Ledger, too, if it were Monday, Wednesday or Friday. (With all the new people and new businesses coming into the county, the Ledger has also grown. Back in June, Linsey Thomas started publishing it three times a week instead of twice.)

Now that I have my own house, I also have my own subscriptions and both papers are delivered right on schedule.

The difference is that Aunt Zell has merely to open her front door and pick up the papers from her welcome mat. My mail and paper boxes are just over half a mile away from my front door, down a long and winding driveway, and this presents me with something of a moral problem.

Only a total sloth would use a car for a one-mile round trip, but I’m a pitiful jogger and walking takes too long. So I half-walk, half-run and when I get back, all hot and sweaty, with Ledger newsprint smearing my hands because Linsey won’t change the presses over to smudgeless ink, I might as well jump in the pond and swim till I’m out of breath before I shower and shampoo my hair.

Keep in mind that I am not a morning person. Before eight o’clock, all I really want is a reviving cup of coffee and a quiet moment to read the paper. Being forced to work out first thing is not my idea of how to start the day, although I have to admit that the new regime’s done wonders for my muscle tone.

Some days, if I’m pressed for time, I do drive down, but I always feel so guilty that it takes the edge off the morning. You think it’s silly to equate walking with righteousness and driving with sin?

Me, too.

But my Southern Baptist upbringing is such that nine mornings out of ten will find me puffing down the long drive. Which is why I was standing in a clump of yellow coreopsis at the edge of the road reading about Lynn Bullock’s death when Dwight drove by around nine that morning and stopped to ask if I wanted a lift back to the house.

“Sure,” I said, opening the passenger door of his cruiser. (Riding in someone else’s car doesn’t seem to bother my conscience.)

I was wearing sneakers, a sports bra and denim shorts with no underpants because I planned to swim as soon as I got back and half the time I don’t bother with a suit.

“So who killed the Bullock woman?” I asked. By then I’d scanned both papers and seen little new since both went to press before the victim’s identity had been announced.

“Now you know I can’t talk to you about this.”

“Sure you can,” I wheedled. “I don’t gossip—”

He snorted at that.

“I’ve never repeated anything you ever asked me to keep to myself,” I said indignantly, “and you know it.”

“True.”

“And homicide cases are never heard in district court, so it’s not as if you’re tainting a trial judge.”

“Also true.” He gently braked and I felt the underside of the car scrape dirt as we eased over a patch where the tire ruts were deeper than the middle.

“Well, then?”

“You need to get Robert or Haywood to take a tractor blade to this drive again,” he said.

“Dwight!”

“Okay, okay. Not that there’s much to tell yet. Bullock gave me his sister-in-law’s number up in Roxboro, but she never answered her phone till this morning. Said she hadn’t talked to Mrs. Bullock since Tuesday night. Didn’t know anything about a trip to Danville this weekend. She herself spent the weekend with a sailor in Norfolk.”

Dwight pulled into my yard and cut the engine when I invited him in for coffee. I’d turned on the coffeemaker just as I left for the papers and it was fresh and hot. I poured us each a mugful, toasted a couple of English muffins, added figs from Daddy’s bush and the last of the blueberries from Minnie and Seth’s and then carried the full tray out to the porch table. Dwight had switched on the paddle fan overhead and it stirred the air enough to make the difference between pleasant and uncomfortable.

Hurricane Edouard was still dumping water on New England, but here in Colleton County the skies were bright blue with a few puffy clouds scattered overhead.

We buttered our muffins and topped each bite with the fresh fruits.

“Anybody see anything at the motel?”

“We don’t have statements from all the help yet, but so far, nothing. That unit was the end one on the back side of the building and the trees and bushes back there are so thick that Sherman’s army could’ve camped for a week without anybody seeing ’em. The people in the nearby units checked out yesterday before the body was found and we’re trying to contact all of them. The O’Days run a clean business, but if someone wants to pay by cash, they don’t ask to see ID and that’s what happened with the guy in the next unit. Connecticut license plate. We’re just hoping he didn’t lie about his plate number.”

“How’s Jason really taking it?” I asked, popping a plump and juicy blueberry against the roof of my mouth.

“’Bout like you’d expect. Doesn’t know whether to be mad or sad. She was his wife, but she was screwing around on him.”

“Any chance he could’ve done it?”

We’re both cynical enough to put spouses at the top of any list of suspects.