“Anything we can do to help,” Kate said, “let us know.”
“If it gets rough, I’ll come borrow Jake and Mary Pat,”
I told them.
Because it was a school night, we cut the evening short.
Cal was apprehensive about what his new teacher and classmates would be like, but Miss Emily had used her position as a principal in the school system to ensure that Cal would be in the same classroom as Mary Pat.
“You’ll really like Mrs. Ferncliff,” she promised Cal.
“She’s going to be my teacher when I get to third grade,” said Jake, who wasn’t even in kindergarten yet.
When we turned onto our road that night, the headlights picked up the green-and-white sign on the shoulder that announced that it had been adopted by the Kezzie Knott famil.
yAs Cal read it aloud, I spotted a fast-food cup lying at the base of the sign.
“Better stop and let me get it up before Reese sees it and wants you to process it for fingerprints,” I told Dwight.
“Why?” asked Cal when I was back in the car with the cup.
I explained what adopting a road meant and how we’d picked up all the debris on Saturday morning. “But when we were coming back from lunch, I was riding with my nephew Reese and we saw somebody throw trash out their car window. Well, Reese went absolutely ballistic and chased down the car and—oh!”
“What?” asked Dwight.
“He went ballistic,” I said again. “Only he didn’t have a gun.”
“Oh,” said Dwight.
“What’s ballistic?” Cal asked from the backseat.
“Means lose your temper,” Dwight said slowly. “Do crazy things.”
“So what did Reese do when y’all caught him?” Cal asked me.
I explained that the he was a she and that Reese had shamed her into going back and picking up the trash she’d tossed, but all the time, I was watching Dwight play with the possibilities.
Back at the house, while Cal went on into his room to brush his teeth and get ready for bed, I said, “Is it possible?”
“She had a bunch of her father’s marksmanship medals 31 framed on the wall,” Dwight said. “He might have hung on to his service revolver and maybe he taught her to shoot, too. She certainly was devoted to him. And Richards says she reamed a guy out for dumping an occasional beer can. The cab of J.D.’s truck had no trash in it and we know he’d drunk at least one beer.”
“And didn’t you say his right-hand window was halfway down? What if he flung a can out right there in front of her every evening?”
Littering seemed like a bizarre reason to shoot someone, but I remembered Reese’s rage. He’s such an impulsive hothead that I could see him try to shoot out that girl’s taillight if he’d been on foot.
And if he’d had a gun.
Dwight called Mayleen Richards from the kitchen phone, and when he came back, he gave a shrug to my lifted eyebrow. “She doesn’t think it’s so crazy. Wanted to know if you’d sign a search warrant or if she should ask someone else.”
“I hope you told her someone else.”
“I did.”
Our separation of powers treaty was back in place.
But both of us went in to say good night to Cal. He was snuggled down under the covers and Bandit nestled at his feet as if he’d been sleeping there for years.
I dropped a light kiss on Cal’s forehead and left so that Dwight could have a few quiet minutes alone with him.
He was looking a little weepy-eyed and I had caught a glimpse of Carson’s plush ear sticking out from under the pillow.
Made me feel a little weepy-eyed, too.
C H A P T E R
35
Tuesday night, 25 January
At nine-thirty that evening, Deputies Mayleen Richards, Raeford McLamb, and Jack Jamison rang the bell at the small neat house in Holly Ridge. Immediately, they heard the sharp bark of the little corgi. A moment later, Mrs. Lydia Harper opened the door and blinked as she saw the three standing there.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Harper,” said Richards, “but we have a warrant to search your house for a forty-five-caliber revolver.”
