Death's Half Acre

“Glad to meet you both,” the other said heartily in a broad Midwestern accent. “My name’s Witkowski, Trevor Witkowski, and you’re just the ones I was hoping to see.”

“Oh?” said Haywood Knott from his perch atop a large green tractor hitched to a set of gang disks. A big friendly man who had never seen a stranger, he was less suspicious than Robert and always ready to be entertained. He pushed his porkpie hat to the back of his head and said, “How’s that?”

“I moved into Grayson Village about three weeks ago and I’ve spent the past few days driving around this neck of the woods to get my bearings. One thing I noticed right off the bat. This looks like prime hunting land, but every square foot of it seems to be posted.”

Haywood nodded while Robert kept a stolid silence.

“The signs say the land’s leased by the Possum Creek Hunt Club. That right?”

Haywood grinned. “That’s right, Mr. W’kowski.”

“Witkowski,” he said, emphasizing the t, “but call me Trevor. Please.”

“So what can we do for you, Trevor?” Robert asked bluntly.

“Well, I couldn’t find the club listed in the phone book and people tell me that you Knotts are the ones to see about joining. I went over to the Kezzie Knott house, but he wasn’t there and his black servant gal sent me here.”

The brothers glanced at each other and Trevor Witkowski was perceptive enough to catch it. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Naw,” said Haywood. “It’s just that we don’t never think of Maidie Holt as a servant gal.”

“Oh. Sorry. Anyhow, I was wondering what sort of game your club hunts here?”

“Deer, squirrel, rabbits,” said Robert. “Sometimes possums.”

“Any birds?”

“Bobwhites and doves in the fall.”

“Pheasants?”

“ ’Fraid not,” said Haywood. “You more a bird hunter than a meat man, huh?”

“I wouldn’t mind getting a nice big buck for my office,” Witkowski said, “but mostly, I find the birds more challenging. Now can you tell me how I’d go about joining?”

“It’s a thousand-dollar initiation fee,” Haywood said promptly, “but we’d have to put you on the waiting list and they’s about twenty-five ahead of you.”

“I see. So how often do memberships open up?”

Both men shrugged and Robert said, “I gotta be honest with you, Trevor. That don’t happen very often. Last one was more’n a year ago, back when—when was it Jap Stancil died, Haywood?”

“Been at least two years ago, ain’t it?”

“Tell you what,” Witkowski said as he pulled out a wallet thick with credit cards and greenbacks. “How about I make it worth your while to jump me up to the front of your waiting list?”

Sitting high above him on the tractor, Haywood could see into the small man’s wallet without really trying and he looked with interest at the hundred-dollar bills Witkowski was fingering.

“Well now, we couldn’t put you at the very front,” he said, but before he could decide how much it was safe to ask the man for, his brother stiffened and shook his head.

“Sorry, Trevor,” Robert said. He glared at Haywood, who gave a sheepish grin. “Our club president knows every name on that list and he’d have our hides if we took money to jump up a stranger.”

“Tell you what though,” Haywood said to Witkowski. “They’s a hunt club over in Johnston County that might have room for you.”

“But—”

“We’d like to stay and talk, but we got right much plowing to do today,” Robert said firmly.

Haywood pulled his hat back down to shade his eyes and gave the stranger a cheerful wave. “Been real nice talking to you,” he said and turned the key in the tractor’s ignition.

At the house where Candace Bradshaw died, Deputy Detectives Mayleen Richards and Sam Dalton walked through the public rooms, giving them only cursory glances. Everything was coordinated around a color scheme of dark rose and white, with touches of green. Natural light flooded through the many windows and skylights, and the place looked like an illustration out of a magazine, not a home where real people lived and relaxed and littered every surface with newspapers and dirty dishes. Even the kitchen was immaculate.

“She must have dumped her old furniture,” Dalton said. “All of this looks brand-new.”

He was very much aware that his promotion to detective was provisional and he tried not to sound too much of an eager beaver newbie.

Richards nodded. Sam Dalton was about five years younger than the deputy she had partnered most often before he signed up with a civilian company to work in Iraq—and every time a car bomb exploded in Baghdad, she worried until Jack Jamison’s wife dropped a casual mention of something he’d e-mailed her about. But Dalton had the same chunky build and the same willingness to carry his share of the load. Much as she missed Jamison, she had to admit that Dalton was shaping into a competent detective who could be trusted to do a thorough search.

At the master bedroom where the body had been found, she said, “You take this room. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a diary full of names.”

He gave a lopsided grin. “You think?”