per if it suited her.
“You say no one’s seen him,” he said. “Who have you
actually asked?”
“Well, first I tried everybody around here I could
think of. I even drove over to the main office in New
Bern thinking something might have come up, but no
one’s seen him there since week before last. His wife’s
been living at their New Bern place since they split and
he’s been staying here.”
“Here?”
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“At the old farmhouse he got from his granddaddy. It
was their first tomato farm.”
“Oh yes,” said Dwight. “I remember now. It be-
longed to his mother’s people, didn’t it? The old Buckley
place?”
“I guess. That’s his middle name. Judson Buckley
Harris, but everybody calls him Buck.” She pushed a
tress of hair away from her eyes. “I tried there first thing
on Wednesday and again on Friday. No sign of him and
the housekeeper says she hasn’t heard anything in over
a week either. But in court Wednesday, I heard his wife
say he might be holed up in the mountains.”
“Deborah’s doing the Harris ED,” Reid murmured
in an aside.
“Deborah?” asked Flame. “Judge Knott? You know
her?”
With a repressive glance at Reid, Dwight nodded.
“So then you—?”
“—drove up to his lodge in the mountains?” she
asked, finishing his question. “Yes. But he wasn’t there
and when I finally caught up with the caretaker Sunday
afternoon, he said he hadn’t heard from Buck in at least
three weeks.”
“You try calling him?”
“Of course I did,” she said impatiently. “That’s why I
drove up to Wilkesboro. The lodge is in an area where
reception is spotty and he never answers a land line. I
thought sure that’s where he’d be.”
“When did you last speak to him, Ms. Smith?”
“Sunday before last. He was all riled up about the set-
tlement and said he was going to be too busy to come
down to Wilmington, but we set it up for me to come
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MARGARET MARON
here. He said the divorce would be final by then and we
could name our wedding date.”
“You didn’t worry when he didn’t call?”
