High Country Fall

“Without eating anything? We made Granny Knott’s baked toast.”

So that was the source of the familiar aroma. When chickens almost stopped laying in the winter and breakfast rations for her hungry brood were scanty except for milk and butter from their cow, Daddy’s mother created the dish as a way to stretch the eggs and to use up the bread ends before they got too stale and hard. She’d never heard of French toast, but this was a close version: thick slabs of bread are laid on a base of butter and brown sugar in a deep casserole dish, then left to sit in the refrigerator overnight in a batter of milk, eggs, and vanilla, and finally baked in a medium-hot oven till the edges crisp and the brown sugar caramelizes on the bottom.

Although she died long years before I was born and none of us keeps a milk cow anymore, her recipe was passed down and it’s still comfort food in our family. Mother used to make it at least once a week when several of the boys were still at home and that aroma drifting up to our bedrooms was enough to roust out the sleepiest head.

The twins must have put one together last night from the leftover bread they brought home from the restaurant.

By the time I was dressed and ready to leave, Danny Freeman was in the bedroom across the hall with his back to the door as he pulled furniture away from the wall. I went silently down the hall with my laptop in one hand and my judicial robe in the other.

At the dining table, there was one serving of baked toast left in the casserole and a link of cured sausage. June deftly transferred both to a plate and waved it under my weak-willed nose until I put down robe and laptop and took it from her hand.

The others had finished eating except for final cups of coffee, and they covered the strain of my presence by speaking of classes and professors and Parents’ Day, which I gathered was upcoming in another week or so. For some reason, the two guys thought it was funny that Beverly and Fred were coming up, too, and kept needling the twins about it until June flat told them to knock it off. I had the impression that my cousins had drafted extra help so that Beverly wouldn’t blast them for not getting the painting done by the time they arrived.

They introduced me to Gary, a blue-eyed, corn-fed, pre-law student from West Virginia, and to the dark-eyed psych major named Duc, although at first I thought they were saying “Duck.” “And you already met Danny, right?”

I looked up in dismay. Not realizing I was there, that young man had returned for another cup of coffee, and he halted in the archway as if unsure whether to retreat or keep coming.

He opted for brazening it out. “I guess this is the first time you ever ate breakfast with a killer in the house.”

“Danny!” May and June protested together.

“Aw, come on, man,” said Duc, who was clearly of Asian descent despite his southern drawl.

“Then you’d guess wrong,” I told Freeman, matching his cool. “Besides, you did plead ‘Not guilty’ yesterday.”

“But you didn’t believe me.”

“What I believed was irrelevant,” I said stiffly. “My job yesterday was to look at the evidence, listen to the arguments, and rule on whether or not the State had enough cause to take you to trial. They showed me that you were there at the right time, you had the doctor’s blood on your clothes, he was trying to end your relationship with his daughter, and you’d fought with him.”

“Hell, half the people in Lafayette County have fought with him!”

“Then your attorney will undoubtedly depose them and present that as part of her argument when it goes to trial,” I said, sipping my coffee with more calmness than I felt.

Tension was building in the room, and the others looked uneasy.

“If you were still a lawyer,” said June, “could you have gotten him off?”

I considered everything I’d heard yesterday. “Given the circumstantial evidence and lack of a more viable suspect, he would have still had to stand trial, but yes, I can see all sorts of issues that could raise enough reasonable doubt to ensure a not-guilty verdict.”

“Then you don’t think Danny did it!” May exclaimed.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

“See?” Freeman said, looking around the table with a fatalistic air. “The baby’s going to grow up thinking I killed its grandfather.”

“Oh, it is not!” snapped June.

“No, he’s right,” said Duc, already sounding like a psychologist. “It’s human nature. They don’t find out who really used that hammer, then even if Danny’s lawyer gets him off, people are always going to wonder.”

Freeman nodded. “I don’t want my kids looking at me the way O.J.’s kids must look at him.”

“It’s a mess,” Gary agreed. “The police think they have their man, so they’re not going to look for anybody else unless you do get off. And even then …”

“You mean they’re not still investigating?” May asked indignantly.

She and June fixed me with accusing eyes, as I lifted the last forkful of Granny K’s baked toast to my lips.

“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I have absolutely no connection with the sheriff’s department here.”

“You couldn’t get Dwight to give ’em a nudge?” asked June.

“Sorry. He wasn’t even sure who the sheriff of Lafayette County is.”

“But somebody should be working on this,” May protested.

“Ms. Delorey said I ought to hire a private detective,” said Freeman, “but my mom’s already taken out a second