CHAPTER
3
When the down elevator stopped at my floor, the car was crowded. “Make room for the lady in red,” called a voice from the back.
“Thanks, Chuck,” I said as I squeezed on.
Judge Charles Teach from further up the coast is well named although he’s better looking than Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard. Still there’s something piratical about those flashing dark eyes and the black-as-tar beard that he keeps trimmed to a neat Vandyke instead of the greasy curls his namesake favored. Early forties and still a bachelor, his reputation as a brilliant, hard-working jurist is tempered by his reputation as a womanizer who plays as hard as he works. And yes, there might have been some heavy breathing on both our parts one year at fall conference, but lust turned to liking before things got out of hand or into bed.
He usually shares a suite that automatically turns into party central. Indeed, when our elevator reached the lobby, two of his suitemates were there to get on. Steve Shaber and Julian Cannell, colleagues from the Fort Bragg/Fayetteville area, had commandeered a valet’s luggage cart and, judging by that large cooler and some lumpy brown paper bags, they had brought enough supplies to stock a small saloon.
I got warm hugs from both of them and even warmer injunctions to come up to Room 628 after dinner.
A couple of judges from out near Asheville were waiting for Chuck and, as we headed for our cars, they invited me to join them.
“Thanks, but I’m meeting Chelsea Ann Pierce and Rosemary Emerson over on the river,” I told them.
“Jonah’s? That’s where we’re going,” Chuck said. “You can ride with us.”
Fifteen minutes later we had crossed the causeway, and were soon driving down one of the port city’s main thoroughfares. That part of Market Street nearest I-40 begins with block after block of small businesses, fast-food joints, and cheap motels, but it winds up in the old part of town to become a beautiful divided street with stately homes on either side, historical markers, and live oaks whose limbs drip with Spanish moss and almost touch overhead to form a dark green tunnel.
The street ends at the Cape Fear River where Chuck turned left and drove along Water Street till he reached a graveled parking lot. This early in the evening there were still a few places left beneath the huge old mulberry trees along the riverbank, and he wedged his car in next to a black SUV with an NCDCJ license plate that belonged to Chelsea Ann. Across the water from us, the superstructure of the USS
Instead of walking along uneven cobblestones to the front entrance of Jonah’s, we took some nearby wooden steps up to the Riverwalk, a wide promenade of treated lumber that stretches about a mile, connecting Chandler’s Wharf with its shops and restaurants at the south end to the Chamber of Commerce at the north end. In contrast to the old battleship permanently moored as a museum, a modern supertanker had just cleared the raised bridge downriver.
We watched for a minute and were moving on when, from behind us, we heard a dog’s bark, then a sharp yelp and men’s voices hot with anger.
“He didn’t touch you!” cried a young man, who tugged on a retractable leash to restrain a lunging brown boxer. “Dammit all, you didn’t have to kick him.”
“Just get him the hell away from me or I’ll have you arrested,” the older man snarled.
It was Pete Jeffreys. “Frickin’ dog tried to bite me,” he told us as he mounted the steps, trailed by Cynthia Blankenthorpe.
“Like hell!” shouted the dog’s owner. “You’re the one needs arresting, kicking him like that.”
Jeffreys started to turn back and answer him, but Judge Blankenthorpe caught him by the arm. “Let it go, Pete. Don’t push it.”
Still muttering angrily, Jeffreys allowed her to lead him away. I looked back and saw the ruggedly handsome man kneel beside his dog and run his hands over its head as if to make certain nothing was damaged. There was something about the man’s face that made me look again although I was sure that he was no one I knew.
At the restaurant, the host who greeted us was a fresh-faced collegiate-looking kid who led us over to outdoor tables overlooking the river where Rosemary and Chelsea Ann were at work on frozen margaritas.
“Dave not coming?” I asked Rosemary when I realized that her husband wasn’t there.
“He’s skipping summer conference this year,” Chelsea Ann said. “It’s just Thelma and Louise this time.”
“Actually, he’s here,” said Rosemary.
“What?” Chelsea Ann stared at her in open-mouthed surprise and Rosemary flushed brick-red. Both sisters had fair skin and green eyes but Rosemary’s hair was more strawberry than golden and she reddened more easily when flustered.
“It was a last-minute change of plans,” she said.
“How last-minute?” Chelsea Ann asked tightly.
“That was who called me while we were in the Cotton Exchange. He thought we’d be eating at the hotel and he was going to surprise us, but someone told him we were over here.”
“So he’s coming?” I asked, thinking to diffuse whatever was happening between them.
Rosemary shook her head. “He thinks he may have had one too many beers to drive, so he’s going to chill out in his Jacuzzi and then grab a sandwich or something at the hotel bar.”
“Let’s hope that’s all he grabs,” Chelsea Ann muttered in my ear.