“Could I first tell you how much I love you?” I asked softly.
The chair came down with a bang and he leaned across with his big hands braced on the table to steady himself so our lips could meet. Barley malt, shaving cream, and soap mingled together with something indefinable that could only be the essence of his skin. His kisses are as slow and deliberate as his driving and I never want them to end.
“Okay,” he said at last, settling back in his chair again. “Tell me about Martha Hurst.”
When I finished telling Dwight all I’d gleaned from the files about Martha Hurst’s arrest and trial, he said, “Sounds pretty open and shut to me. Any idea why Tracy would want to take another look at it?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “The only thing I can think of in Martha Hurst’s favor besides the pawn ticket still in his pocket is that I don’t see anything about bloody clothes in the list of items that the deputies removed from the trailer.”
“Who worked the case?” Dwight asked.
I looked at the signature on the report. “Silas Lee Jones.”
Dwight made a face. I’d heard his opinion on Jones before. Not sloppy enough to fire for cause, not one to bust his bustle either.
“Look at these pictures,” I said. “See all that blood? Whoever did this, you know they had to have blood on their hands, their shoes, their clothes, and yet there’s nothing here about it or those items.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be if he came in on her again while she was still buck naked from her second shower,” said Dwight. “Did that point come up at the trial?”
“Who knows? This isn’t a transcript, only Brix Junior’s notes. He did put her on the stand, though.”
“So?”
“Against his will. Which means he really did think she was guilty. But she insisted on testifying and he let her. According to his notes—not to mention the verdict—she didn’t make a very good impression on the jury. I gather that Doug Woodall got her to contradict herself about her whereabouts at the time of death, but I’d have to read the transcript to see exactly how she screwed up.”
“You got time to do that?” he asked.
I sighed. “Probably not, but I’ll make time if you want me to.”
“That’s okay. I’ll get one of my detectives to do it if we don’t find out why Tracy was interested in Hurst by the time we finish questioning everyone in Woodall’s office.”
I was dying to know what they’d found at Tracy’s house, but a pact is a pact and I’d already pushed it with the files.
CHAPTER 11
Florence Hartley,
Dinner at Jerry’s that night was, in many ways, a rerun of the night before except that this time, we were on Dwight’s turf instead of mine. Just as he knows many of the attorneys and judges by sight if not always by name, so too do I know a lot of the deputies and clerks who work out of the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department. Several of them have testified in my court and are familiar faces in the courthouse corridors or around Dwight’s office, but I had met very few of their spouses.
Bowman Poole, of course, I’ve known for ages because he and Daddy are good friends and he often comes out to the farm to hunt or fish. Of course, he wasn’t elected till after Daddy gave up messing with moonshine, but that probably wouldn’t have mattered. Bo would’ve arrested him, given the chance; and Daddy would’ve still voted for him and contributed to his campaign fund. They appreciate each other. I noticed a long time ago that successful lawmen and successful old reprobates are often just two sides of a single coin. It’s the same with brutal cops and thuggish crooks.
Fate and circumstances.
Flip the coin.
Call it while it’s in the air.
What makes a Bo Poole good at catching lawbreakers is the same foxy intelligence that makes men like my daddy hard to catch. (For what it’s worth, the only thing Daddy was ever charged with was evasion of income taxes, back when a couple of the little crossroads stores he fronted bought a lot more wholesale sugar than the records showed they’d actually sold. I don’t say that’s good, I just state the facts.)
Bo’s about my height, late fifties, with thin broomstraw hair, a trim build he carries like a gamecock, and a colorful folksy style that will probably keep getting him elected as long as he wants the job. Of course, colorful and folksy won’t cut it at the ballot box if people don’t feel their sheriff’s competent, and Bo makes sure the department’s clearance rate of violent crimes stays high. He also hound-dogs our county commissioners, always trying for a bigger slice of the budget pie so that he can afford the modern equipment and decent salaries that keep his good officers from being lured off to richer, more urbanized counties.
The quid pro quo is that he requires his people to keep their skills updated through community college courses and the various seminars the SBI or FBI regularly offer.
I respect him for his professionalism, but I love him for lazy summer afternoons out on one of the ponds, dabbling my hand in the still water while he and Daddy cast for bass and regale each other with war stories from their checkered pasts.
Like Daddy, Bo’s a widower, too, so he stood alone at the head of the steps to welcome us where John Claude and Julia had welcomed us the night before.
“Kezzie Knott’s daughter marrying a sheriff’s chief deputy,” he said, with a kiss for me and a warm handshake for Dwight. “I’d’ve never believed it if it was anybody besides Dwight.”
