I nodded.
“I’ve got eight acres that touch her piece that you can
use,” he told the kids, and he and I looked expectantly
at Daddy, who held title to the rest of the Grimes land.
The field under discussion was isolated by woods on
two sides and wetlands on the other, so it would be a
good candidate for organic management.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “You can have mine, too.
That’ll give y’all about twenty-two acres to play with.”
Some of the cousins still wanted to grumble, but Lee,
Bobby and Emma thanked us with glowing faces. “Wait’ll
you see what we can do with twenty-two acres!”
Haywood, Robert, and Andrew were still looking
skeptical.
“Have some cookies,” I said and passed them the
cake box.
45
C H A P T E R
6
% On Wednesday morning, the first day of March,
I was in the middle of a civil case that involved
dogs and garbage cans when my clerk leaned over dur-
ing a lull and whispered, “Talking about dogs, Faye
Myers just IM’d me. The Wards’ dog found a hand
this morning.”
News and gossip usually flies around the courthouse
with the speed of sound but these days, with one of the
dispatchers in the sheriff ’s department now armed with
instant messaging, it’s more like the speed of light.
“A what?”
“A man’s hand,” the clerk repeated.
“Phyllis Ward’s Taffy?” The Wards were good friends
of my Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash, and I’ve known Taffy
since she was a pup. They live a couple of miles out from
Dobbs in a section that is still semirural and I drive by
46
HARD ROW
their house whenever I hold court here, so I often see
one of them out with Taffy when I pass.
“I don’t know the dog’s name. All Faye said was that
a Mr. Frank Ward called in to report that their dog came
home just now with a man’s hand in its mouth.”
Taffy’s a white-and-tan mixed breed with enough re-
triever in her that Mr. Frank had once taken her duck
