school of thought. You show that you know your job
and you’re doing it and she leaves you alone.”
“I hear she was out here that Monday when Harris
went missing. You see her?”
“Sure. She came over with the trucks to move the
workers to Farm Number Three. Trucks brought some
new furniture. Two new refrigerators. Well, new to
us. I think she buys everything at the Goodwill store.
Claims it helps them and upgrades us and I reckon she’s
right.”
“She ask about Harris, where he was?”
Lomax shook his head. “Ever since they separated,
it’s like he didn’t exist. She never mentioned him if
she could help it. She just took care of the things she
wanted done and didn’t worry if that’s what he wanted
or not.”
239
MARGARET MARON
“I heard she sat down in a mud puddle around lunch-
time.”
“Yeah?” For a moment he almost smiled. “Didn’t
see it.”
“Hear about it?”
“No. Should I have?”
“The bosslady up to her butt in mud? I’d’ve thought
so.”
“We were pretty busy around then. Where’d it hap-
pen?”
“Somewhere around the camp’s what I heard.”
“Sorry. Maybe you should ask the women.”
“Good idea,” said Dwight, knowing that’s where
Mayleen Richards was at the moment, taking advantage
of the men being tied up here for a while.
But when Richards rejoined them, she had nothing to
confirm or deny the mud puddle story. “The women say
they saw her in the morning when she came with new re-
frigerators for the married quarters and they had to empty
the old ones, which were on their last legs. She asked about
the children and about their health. She had picked up a
couple of bilingual schoolbooks for the women, but after
that they didn’t see her again.”
It was nearing four before they were finished with all
the statements. Denning had bagged the head and what
was left of Harris’s penis. He stopped by the farm man-
ager’s place to tell them that he was taking the remains
over to Chapel Hill. “Don’t know if y’all noticed or not,
but there was a knotted bloody rag around the fence post
where it caught on the wire. Looks to me like it could’ve
been a gag that slipped down when the crows got at him.
Would explain why nobody heard him scream. But unless
