“Detective Richards tells me she goes to the Cut ’n’
Curl. You go there, too?”
“No, I just get my sister to clip it for me. She cuts
everybody in the family’s hair.”
“Lucky you,” I said. “You must save a ton of
money.”
She beamed.
“But the new stylist at the Cut ’n’ Curl did a great job
on Mayleen Richards, didn’t she? She looks like a differ-
ent person these days.”
“Yeah, well . . .” Myers gave me a conspiratorial look.
“She’s real happy right now.”
“Oh?” I encouraged.
Within moments, I was hearing how Richards had re-
cently become involved with a “real cute Mexican guy,”
who ran a landscaping business “out towards Cotton
Grove,” someone she’d met last month when investigat-
ing a shooting over that way. A Miguel Diaz. “Mayleen
calls him Mike.”
A naturalized citizen, he had been in North Carolina
for eight or nine years and had bootstrapped himself
up from day laborer to employer who ran several crews
around the area, contracting with some of the smaller
builders to landscape the new developments that were
springing up all over the county.
184
HARD ROW
Faye was under the impression that he wanted to
marry Richards but that she was hanging back because
of her family.
“They’re sort of prejudiced, you know,” the dis-
patcher confided. “But I told Mayleen that’s prob-
ably just because they don’t really know any Mexicans.
Think they’re all up here to take away our jobs and get
drunk on Saturday night. Not that some of ’em don’t.
Get drunk, I mean. But Mike— Oh, wait a minute! You
know something, Judge? You actually talked to him.”
“I did?”
“That guy that stole the tractor and messed up a
bunch of yards ’cause he didn’t know how to lift the
plows? Wasn’t he in your court Friday?”
“That’s her new boyfriend?”
“No, no. Mike was there to speak up for him, least
that’s what one of the bailiffs told me anyhow.”
“Oh yes. I remember now. The Latino who said he’d
see that the rest of the damage was repaired?”
“That’s the one. It’s real nice when people take care
of their own, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t exactly recall Miguel Diaz’s face, but I did
