“So?” I could almost hear Portland’s shrug.
“So here’s the kicker, Por. She wanted to know if marrying Bo Poole’s chief deputy wasn’t going to compromise my impartiality, make me more inclined to believe police testimony over a defendant’s witnesses. She’s not the first one to ask that, but for some reason it really ticked me off this time. I told her that I’d just ruled against you and you were going to be my matron of honor. Anyhow, now that I look back on it, I can’t help wondering if she decided not to ask me what she’d started to because of Dwight.”
“If ends justify means?” Portland mused. “Are there any big cases coming up? Dwight arrested anybody that she was going to prosecute?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Just the usual run-of-the-mill stuff.”
Major criminal cases don’t wind up in my court. Oh, I might do an occasional probable cause hearing, but Dwight hadn’t testified before me anytime recently and I really didn’t have a clue as to the makeup of his caseload these days.
This is not due to a lack of communication on his side or a lack of interest on mine. No, it’s part of the evolving ground rules we set up back in October. I’ve already told our clerk of court and my chief judge that I’d be recusing myself from any case that might require Dwight’s testimony and that we’ve agreed not to discuss any district court cases arising from his department’s investigations until after the case has been tried. Privately, Dwight and I had further agreed that I wouldn’t bitch about frivolous charges and flimsy evidence if he wouldn’t second-guess my rulings. The agreement’s been in force for only two months, but so far it seems to be working.
Portland and I kicked it around some more before the baby kicked so hard that she couldn’t concentrate. “See you tomorrow night,” she said as we hung up.
Tomorrow night?
For a minute, my mind blanked; then I looked at the calendar hanging over Dwight’s phone. There in the square for Saturday night was “Jerry’s. 7 pm. Bar Ass’n,” a reminder in my very own handwriting that our local bar association was hosting a dinner for Dwight and me. Almost every other square from now till Christmas had something scrawled on it. Amusingly, Sunday night was also “Jerry’s. 7 pm. Bo.” I had laughed when Dwight told me that Sheriff Bo Poole wanted to give us a dinner party at Jerry’s, too.
“Want me to tell him to pick another place or time?” Dwight had asked.
“Not on my account,” I’d said. Jerry’s specialized in steak and catfish and I figured we could have steak one night and catfish the next. It was sweet that so many people wanted to celebrate our wedding, but I was beginning to feel as if we were running a marathon, with the twenty-second as our finish line. The day before the wedding, the twenty-first, was simply marked “Cal” and “rehearsal dinner.” That’s when we hoped to spend a quiet afternoon with Dwight’s son. I’d seen him only once since the engagement and that was the last time he was down, back in late October. He seemed pretty cool with the situation, but it’s hard to know what’s going on in an eight-year-old’s head.
Dwight’s brother Rob had volunteered to drive up to Virginia to bring the child back as soon as his school let out for the holidays. For reasons still unknown, Dwight’s ex-wife was actually cooperating with our plans and had agreed to let Cal spend Christmas with Dwight for the first time since their divorce.
Some of my sisters-in-law think it’s weird that we’re going to stay home after the wedding and celebrate Christmas out on the farm with the usual family get-
togethers instead of taking an elaborate honeymoon trip somewhere, but Dwight and I both feel it’s important to demonstrate to Cal as soon as possible that he’s a welcome part of our new life.
I gave the stew another stir. It needed salt and a bay leaf. Salt was easy, but the only spices in Dwight’s cabinets were pepper, a bottle of Texas Pete, a box of celery seeds, and a jar of garlic powder.
With the wedding less than two weeks away, his cupboards were getting downright bare. Moving him out to the farm wasn’t going to take much more than a couple of pickup trucks, his and maybe one of my brothers’. Cartons filled with CDs, videotapes, DVDs, books, and summer clothes lined one wall. He didn’t want to dismantle his sound system or pack up his large flat-screen television until the last minute, but all his beer-making equipment—carboys, kegs, and four cartons of empty bottles—was already taking up a corner of my garage.
Dwight called shortly after ten to say he was on his way.
“Any word on Mei?” I asked.
His silence and then the long intake of breath told me all I needed to know.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
“Looks like the impact bounced a heavy Christmas present off her head. Probably internal bleeding.” In the background, I could hear staticky bursts from various car radios.
“Was the shooting really deliberate?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Come on home,” I said.
“Fifteen minutes,” he promised.
With tears streaming down my cheeks, I finished making up the dough for dumplings while children sang of Santa Claus and jingle bells. What kind of monster would deliberately shoot a woman with a sick child in her car? And why there and then—on the interstate where the speed limit was seventy miles an hour? Why not wait till she was alone, walking across a parking lot, say, or unloading groceries from her car?
I had just spooned the dumplings over the top of the stew and put the lid back on to steam them when there was a knock at the door.
“Dwight?” I hurried to unlock it, assuming that he’d left his keys in the truck.
“It’s me,” a familiar voice said. “Let me in.”
I opened the door and there was my cousin Reid. Despite the raw December night, his overcoat was unbuttoned, his shirt had come untucked, and the odor of sourmash almost knocked me over. He was totally hammered.
