Chapter 1
I was running from a group of drunken deer hunters who had
mistaken me for a buck. I was the buck, panicked, bounding
for cover, bound for safety, bounding over a precipice. I
woke from the nightmare when the buck's death screams
became silent screams I couldn't force through paralyzed
lips, became the whoop of sirens, fire sirens cutting
through the Georgia night.
It's been six years since my husband, Zach, was killed on
that hunting trip and I started having that nightmare.
Usually, now, it only comes when I'm upset or worried, not
just out of the blue like it used to, and I don't spend
nearly as much time as I used to, asleep or awake, dreaming
that if I'd been there I'd have been able to make a
difference in the way things came out.
Shivering, I focused on the reality of the sirens, letting
the dream recede behind the mental exercise of following
the whoops through the town. The sound seemed to come
nearer, then recede, falling silent on the other side of
280, I guessed, and a little east. I visualized each house
in the neighborhood near the elementary school. Naturally,
in my mental picture, none of the houses was on fire. I
knew I wasn't going to fall asleep again, so I rolled out
of bed. The luminous clock on my bedside table said 11:40.
Still groggy, half-in and half-out of my dream, I pulled on
a pair of jeans and a shirt, and moved quietly down the
hall to the kitchen, my sneakers tucked under my arm. It's
a habit I formed for Grandma's sake and can't seem to break
even with her gone.
I put some coffee powder in a mug, added water, and stuck
it in the mircowave. While I waited for it to heat, I
dialed the phone and sat down on a kitchen chair to put my
shoes on.
The calm, deep voice of Brenda Whitson, the night
dispatcher, said, "Ogeechee Police Department. What can we
do for you?" Brenda's rich, smoky voice has a calming
effect on the excited folks who ave a reason to call the
police in the middle of the night. Some people like her
approach so much they call any time they have trouble
sleeping. Ogeechee's Chief of Police, Henry Huckabee, my
cousin Hen, calls it Brenda's All Night Talk Show.
"Brenda, this is Trudy."
"Trudy, what you doin' up? Aren't you coming off days?" Our
shift is 4:30 AM to 4:30 PM, which is more day than night
and puts 11:40 PM right in the middle of sleepytime. It
would be death on a social life, if there were such a thing
in Ogeechee.
"I did, and I was catching z's trying to get my clock
reorganized for a few days of normal life, but the sirens
are making too much noise for me to sleep. Where's the
fire?" The fire department it all volunteer, so the police
dispatcher takes fire calls, forwarding them as necessary.
"Six-seventeen Palm."
"Six-seventeen. Isn't that--"
"Mm-hmm. You've got a good memory. The old CCC."
"Uh-oh." The picture I had now was of a small, squarish
frame house in bad need of a coat of paint and some yard
work. I didn't have to ask who lived there. A few months
earlier Reed Ritter had made a complaint about some
vandalism, and I had been the officer in charge of looking
into it.
The only thing even mildly dangerous, or mildly
interesting, about that investigation had been wondering
when or if one of Reed's piles of old newspapers or stack
of used TV dinner trays might fall over on me. Hen likes to
save assignments like this for me, rather than putting--or
wasting--one of the men on it.
The vandalism has taken the form of the kind of thing boys
at a certain age think proves something about how smart
they are, or how tough or independent--eggs thrown against
the house, porch lights broken out, and the real piece de
resistance, piles of dog poop just outside both doors.
Except for the clue that the perpetrator(s) must have owned
or had access to several dogs, the investigation hadn't
turned up anything. The rest of the police department with
great wit and originality referred to it as Trudy's CCC, my
Canine Crap Case.
"Yeah. The Chief's gone over," Brenda said.
"Why'd you call him?" The microwave pinged and I took out
the boiling coffee.
He was still here finishing some paperwork when the call
came in."
The man never sleeps. Okay. Thanks, Bren. I'm awake now, so
I guess I'll go take a look. You go on back to sleep now."
Brenda chuckled. "Yes'm. I'll try to fit in a nap between
takin' requests from my fans."
I picked up my coffee mug and made my way out, stepping
carefully around the cats who had made themselves a living
minefield all over the glassed-in porch. I headed for town,
enjoying the fresh air, and drove through the stoplight
where the east-west highway, 280, goes by the name of Court
Street and the north-south highway is Main Street. I turned
left past the post office and a few blocks later saw the
fire engines. I swung my car across the street half a block
down from where smoke was pouring from the house at 617
Palm. Sparks and steam and billowing smoke made a hellish
pattern against the night sky.
Three men stood near where I stopped, hands in pockets,
quietly critiquing the fire and the performance of the
firefighters. I waved.
"Hey, Trudy," one of the men greeted me softly, as though
speaking out loud might disturb the neighborhood even more.
Nearer the fire, a couple of boys who looked to be about
seven or eight years old were crouched behind a lush
hydrangea, presumably under the illusion the heavy pink
blooms made them invisible. I didn't wave at them. Why
spoil it?
Directly across the street fromthe fire, Miss Sarah
Kennedy, swaddled in a purple velour housecoat, watched
from the womf crackle of the flames was punctuated by the
hiss of water and the calls of the men who were wrestling
hoses into position.
I joined Miss Smith, sitting on the porch and leaning
against the wooden rail aat the top of the steps. Her gaze
flickered just enough to acknowledge my company, then
returned to the scene across the street.
"That old place was doomed from the first spark," she said
in the commanding voice I remembered so well from tenth
grade American History, when she had been known in my
circle as The Terror of Ogeechee High School.
The "old place" was decades younger than Miss Sarah's own,
probably built in the early fifties. It had even been a
reasonably nice place not too long ago, before Reed let it
run down.
"I don't see Reed," I said.
"No, I haven't seen him, either," Miss Sarah said.
"Wouldn't he be home this time of night?"
"He usually is, but his car's not here."
As part of the investigation of the CCC, I had talked with
Miss Sarah. We had sat in her living room drinking iced
tea, our chairs positioned so that we both had a view of
Reed's house through the tall windows. I liked the fact
that she hadn't bothered to pretend she didn't keep an eye
on Reed's house, but of course we didn't get right down to
talking about Reed. First we had to talk about how I liked
being back in Ogeechee and how my job was working out,
working for Hen and all. Those are both topics I try to
avoid, since in the first place bad-mouthing somebody's
home town, even if it also happens to be your own, is
generally considered rude, and in the second place there
are a lot of people in Ogeechee who think Henry Huckabee
hung the moon, and as far as I know Miss Sarah is one of
them.
Childhood training being what it is, I couldn't quite lie
to Miss Sarah, but my answers to her questions must have
been unenthusiastic enough to give her a hint. She changed
the subject on her own.
"Poor boy," she said, meaning Reed. Reed was thirty-five
years old but to Miss Sarah he'd always be a high school
student with promise, as all her students had been. No
matter that his marriage had dissolved messily, he lived in
a place a goat couldn't stomach, and he had a job only at
the whim of his ex-father-in-law. All that just meant the
promise was still to be fulfilled. "Poor boy. He doesn't
need all this nonsense."
As if anybody did, but I knew what she meant.
"Do you know who's been messing up his place?" I asked.
"I have a notion."
"Do you want to tell me? I could have a talk with him.
Them?"
"It's pretty definitely them,' but I'm not sure and I
wouldn't want to have the police scaring the daylights out
of the wrong boys." I might as well have argued with her
over whether she would turn in those high-spirited
hooligans who threw the tea into Boston Harbor.
"I'm glad you think I'm scary," I had said. "Hen isn't
convinced."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry much about Hen. He's always been
tractable."
If I was drawing up a list of words to use to describe
Hen, "tractable" would come way down, somewhere
after "stubborn," "chauvinistic," "spoiled," and even, when
he feels like it, "entertaining." "Tractable" might not
make the list at all, but I decided to remember it and try
it out on him sometime.
"So you don't want to tell me?" I asked Miss Sarah then.
"No, not right now. But when I do get ready to tattle,
you'll be the one I tell."
And that had been that. The investigation languished and
the vandalism, for all I knew, continued to thrive. All I
knew for sure was that Reed had quit calling the police
about it.
Now, on this April night, sitting with Miss Sarah on her
porch and watching the fire, I thought about that earlier
talk. "Did you ever find out for sure who was bothering
Reed?" I asked.
"Not for sure." But as she spoke her eyes cut over to the
hydrangea bushes and she seemed to have a worried,
thoughtful look. "You know, Trudy, it's pretty late for
boys that young to be out."
"No."
Hm. I stood up and stretched, very casually. "Excuse me,
Miss Sarah. I'll go see about them." I started strolling in
the direction of my car, then angled toward the hydrangea.
Hen's voice interrupted my sidelong advance on the more-or-
less alleged vandals. "Hey there, Deputy Roundtree."
Actually, what he said was more like "Deppity." He can
speak English as well as anybody and he had a law degree,
but he likes to act like a hick and give people a chance to
underestimate him. His blue uniform shirt was a little
rumpled, his thinning blond hair was in disarray, and his
chin showed a faint shiny stubble, but the long day he'd
put in didn't affect his innately irritating manner.
He hitched up his britches and nodded toward my car
crosswise in the street. "I suppose the idea is to keep
traffic back out of the way?"
The only traffic since I arrived had been a couple of dogs
and one slow-moving car that had turned off two blocks
away. I hitched up my britches in return and grinned at
him. He hates being reminded that his belly is beginning to
force his britches into a position where they need to be
hitched. "I saw it on Kojak when I was at an impressionable
age," I told him. "Didn't see what it could hurt."
"Unless some citizen runs into your car, not expecting it.
Miz Wolters down at the corner doesn't look where she's
going anymore, figures people can look out for her for a
change."
"She ought to be in bed asleep by now. Bad fire," I added.
"Uh-huh."
"Where's Reed?"
"No telling. Haven't seen him. His car's not here. Gonna be
a blow to him when he does come home. Won't be much worth
saving."
From what I remember, there wasn't much in there worth
saving even without a fire," I said. "Beats me how he ever
noticed a little vandalism. Hen, I swear he hadn't swept
the floor or thrown out a newspaper since Rhett walked out
on Scarlett."
Hen watched the fire, rubbing at his throat with the back
of his hand as though gauging the length of his
whiskers. "Looks like they've got it under control," he
said.
"Maybe I'll cruise a little and see if I can find Reed," I
suggested.
"Good idea. Be a shame for him to stumble up on this
without any warning. He drives a pre-divorce Chrysler,
about a ninety-three. Red."
As if I wouldn't know what kind of car Reed drove. But I
let it pass. "Okay. I'll go look. And Hen? Can you tell who
that is?" I nodded toward the hydrangea.
He squinted in the light of the fire. "Looks like Dawsons.
Daniel and David are about that size. What in the world are
they doing way over here this late?"
"Slumming?" The Dawsons are the town's rich folks. Just
coincidentally, Daniel and David's Aunt Vivi used to be
married to Reed Ritter.
Hen snorted and stared thoughtfully at the hydrangea.
"I'll give them a ride home," I said.
"They won't appreciate it much."
"No," I agreed. "But their parents might. See you later."
Hen turned his attention back to the fire and I went to
extend my invitation to the boys, but by the time I reached
their hiding place they were gone. Well, they'd found their
way here, I guessed they could find their way back. I tried
to decide where to start looking for Reed. There wouldn't
be too many options in Ogeechee this time of night.
When I came back to Ogeechee from Atlanta a couple of years
ago I'd taken a fresh look at the town and been surprised
to see how little it had changed in my lifetime.
Thirty years in Atlanta had seen suburbs pop up like
chigger bites, superhighways writhe around the edges like
nightcrawlers, and the construction of a knock-'em-dead
airport that Aunt Lulu compares to Disney World, but
there'd been no reason for Ogeechee to change much.. It's
too far from Savannah for the land developers to be after
it, and nobody has discovered gold or oil nearby. Ogeechee
is in one of the four counties that can grow honest-to-
goodness Vidalia onions, so the economy picked up a little
when they got to be popular, but that boom was really more
like a rat-a-tat-tat. A dress shop opened up a few years
ago, but it didn't thrive since people were already in the
habit of driving someplace where they could have some
choices. There are still only two grocery stores, if you
don't count the four newish mini-markets on the outlying
arms of the highways. There are no more than a dozen places
to "eat out," and to get up to that you have to include
Kathi's Koffee Kup and the Daytime Deli, which is only open
for lunch and caters mostly to people who have courthouse
business. The same five churches--to Baptist (Missionary
and Southern), one United Methodist, one Church of God, and
the Abundant Light Pentecostal Holiness--still hold their
ground, but the last time one of them (the Southern
Baptist) had a Together We Build campaign was when I was in
seventh grade.
I decided to cruise the outskirts, so back at Main Street I
turned left, driving south toward the edge of town to look
in the parking lot of the Twilight Inn and the Jive Joint,
wondering as I drove if Vivi Dawson, the ex-Mrs. Reed
Ritter, would have been petty enough to put her nephews up
to the vandalism that had been perpetrated on Reed Ritter's
property, and if it had gotten out of hand. It sounded a
little childish for Vivi, Miss I'm-Rich-and-You-Aren't, but
you never know.
Circling around behind the Twilight Inn, I came up on a
group of young people huddled around a rusty old Pontiac
Catalina that I knew could outrun any horsepower the town
owned. I recognized Half Pint Conroy and his big brother
Pint. I had been disappointed to learn that the rest of the
large Conroy family weren't measurements--say Tablespoon or
Liter--but a series of botanical names like Wisteria was
the most ordinary. Mrs. Conroy was apparently an old-
fashioned kind of woman with interests the centered around
children, canning, and gardening.
The last time I'd seen Pint was over at the courthouse
where I watched with interest as Judge Griner tried to
explain to him the puncturing people with screwdrivers
would almost always irritate them. Pint had seemed to be
bored at the time, bearing little resemblance to the
smiling young stud he was at the moment.
"Hey there, Fuzz Lady," he called, giving me a friendly
wave I figured was designed to show me he held no grudges
and to show his friends he was on good terms with the law,
which is pretty much true. Except for their occasional
lapses from socially approved behavior, I like the Conroys.
His brother and the girls inside the car all smiled and
waved, too.
"Hey Pint. Half Pint. Having a party?"
They all laughed. "Yeah. We talking about riding over to
Vidalia. Wanna come? Half Pint here ain't got no date."
Half Pint poked at his brother, and the girls giggled at
Pint's nerve.
"That whole carload of women for you, Pint?"
"Oh, yeah. Cain't fight em off."
"Well, thanks anyway. Maybe another time. Right now I'm
looking for a red Chrysler four or five years old. Seen
it?"
They all looked at each other, faces blank. Then,
apparently deciding it couldn't bring unwanted attention to
any of their friends, one of the girls spoke up.
"Was one at Billy Watson's a while ago. It'll still be
there." They all laughed.
"Thanks. Y'all behave yourselves now." I eased the car back
toward the middle of town and turned left on Court Street,
wondering what was so funny. I hate it when I don't get a
joke. If Reed wasn't at Billy Watson's, I'd call off my
search and go back home to bed. Reed might not even be in
town, and I wasn't on duty anyhow.
Billy Watson's Fish Place is one of the few eating places
in town where you can sit down and have dinner. This late
at night, Billy had turned out the neon beer signs and
roadside flashing lights that tell people when it's open.
The building is ramshackle and unpainted. Driving past when
it's closed, anybody who didn't know better would think it
was just sitting there waiting for demolition.
A few cars were parked in front, none of them the one I was
looking for. I swung around the building to head back to
town, and there it was, parked at the back edge of the
shell-and-sand patch that Billy calls a parking lot. All
four tires were flat. So now I knew what was so funny. It
was too juvenile a stunt for Pint Conroy's Southside Gang
to have bothered with, but they weren't too sophisticated
to enjoy it.
Pulling back around in front, I parked the car and pushed
open the plank door. The smell of grease and fried catfish
was strong, but the lights and the noise level were lower
than they would have been earlier in the evening. At this
hour, without hungry patrons digging into catfish and
hushpuppies, and covering up the deficiencies in the decor
with their presence, the place looked worn-out and dreary.
Billy called to me from a booth where he was playing cards
with three other people. He showed all eight of his teeth
in a friendly grin. "What can I do for you? We're closed,
just waiting for Idella to finish cleaning up, but we might
could find you a leftover hushpuppy."
A clatter of metal on metal from the kitchen punctuating
his offer indicated that Idella, Billy's wife and
Ogeechee's unchallenged kitchen queen, was listening.
For a restaurateur, Billy is remarkably skinny, as though
the constant familiarity with his food has bred contempt.
Or maybe the fact that he'd dentally challenged slows him
down. His work uniform is a pair of denim overalls. In
winter he wears flannel shirts with it; in summer, T-
shirts. On Sundays, year round, he wears a long-sleeved
white dress shirt, which is only slightly paler than Billy
himself. He chooses a necktie from a collection he hangs
from a nail-studded beam in the dining room. Faithful
customers sometimes contribute particularly interesting
specimens to the collection and watch to see when they turn
up on Billy. Hen has been known to say that Billy Watson's
necktie collection is the closest the town can come to a
porn shop. In fact, Hen once confiscated a particularly
lurid one Billy indiscreetly wore on a Sunday when Hen took
Teri and Delcie there for dinner after church. Tonight, a
Tuesday night in springs, Billy wore a modest, long-sleeved
yellow-and-blue striped T-shirt with his overalls.
Besides Billy, the only people I could see were the three
playing cards with im, two rough-looking men I had never
seen before and Vivi Dawson Ritter. Coincidence was working
overtime on the Ritter-Dawson connection.
Vivi was sitting back in the corner of the booth with one
foot on the seat and a denim-clad knee bent up between her
and the table in what looked like an extremely
uncomfortable position and would have been impossible
except that she was so thin, all angles. If I could give
her ten pounds we'd both be better off.
Her right hand rested on the table and held her folded
cards. A cigarette trailing smoke dangled from between the
long, thin fingers of the left hand. What had to be acrylic
fingernails were painted the same carmine as her mouth.
With her sculptured short black hair, intense black eyes,
and pale skin, she looked like she should have been in a
cosmetic ad, not killing time with a couple of red-necks in
a ramshackle small-town fish joint. That's how she's always
been, too dramatic for Ogeechee. Even in jeans, obviously
making no effort to be glamorous, she had it. Me, now, I
could pull a sequined tank top over my 34Bs, sprinkle
glitter in my short brown hair and paint green smudges
around my bright blue eyes and all I'd look like was
somebody who was trying to look glamorous but had no clue
how to go about it.
"I'll come back Sunday for some catfish, Billy," I
said. "Right now I'm looking for Reed Ritter. Is that his
car around back?"
"What's the matter? Reed stand you up?" Vivi asked, lazily
fishing a shred of tobacco from the end of her tongue with
her carmine tongs. "I wouldn't have said you were his
type." Vivi and her friends laughed at this even though it
didn't seem particularly witty to me.
"I didn't think you ever figured out his type," I
said. "Anyway, this is business."
"Business?"
They all laughed again and cut their eyes at each other, we-
get-the-joke-and-it's-on-you. Ha. Ha. I still didn't see
anything funny.
"Police business," I said, determined not to give them a
reaction. "Is he here?"
"The police are after ol' Reed? I never thought he had
enough imagination to do anything that would interest the
police. Or anybody else."
"Is he here?" I yawned. It was a natural yawn that sneaked
up on me but I liked the effect so much I did it again on
purpose. I was getting a little tired of the question, not
to mention the company.
"Nah. Left-what would you say?" Billy appealed to the
others. "About nine?"
"About nine, I guess." Vivi volunteered. "Who'd notice?"
She dreamily ran one of those fingernails across the back
of the neck of the man sitting next to her. It didn't seem
to bother him, but it made me shiver.
"How'd he leave? His car's still here."
"With Gordie. Tool polluted to drive." Vivi had noticed
that much and seemed pleased to report it.
"Gordon Albritton?"
"Uh-huh. But you still didn't tell us why you want Reed."
"There's a fire at his place, and I thought he'd like to
know about it."
Vivi folded her hand again. All four cardplayers looked
up. "Bad fire?"
"Looks pretty bad. Do you know where he and Gordie were
going?"
All four shook their heads. "Your turn, Billy," one of the
strangers said. Compassionate bunch.
"Thanks for your help."
As the plank door squeaked shut behind me, I heard them
laughing again.
I swung by Reed's in case he'd turned up there and I found
an entirely different scene from the one I'd left not so
much earlier. The fire was out. The rushing water and
shouting men had quieted. Grimy firefighters stood in twos
and threes, except for one who was sitting behind the
hydrangea where the boys had been, his head hanging between
his knees. Dwight Wilkes, the police officer on night duty,
had joined the crowd and was standing with Hen and Fire
Chief Phil Pittman.
As I came to a stop, I saw Phil walk over to the man behind
the hydrangea. Hen made some final comment to Dwight and
trudged in my direction, every minute of his long day
showing now. Some trick of my tiredness or the night light
even made him look smaller.
He leaned against the car, his arms making a frame for his
head as he bent and peered down at me through the window. I
began to report.
"The Conroy boys are over at the Twilight with some sweet
young things, all of them high on something, and I guess it
could be spring and romance and being out of jail, but
that's probably not all. They sent me to Billy Watson's."
Hen waggled a hand as though to cut me off, but I went
on. "Reed's car's there at Billy's but they said Reed left
with Gordon Albritton. If he hasn't come back here, I could
see if he's at Albritton's or I could go home and go to
bed. You could, too. Do you ever sleep in a bed, or do you
just nap at the office?"
"You through?"
"That's about it."
"Good. You can quit worrying about finding Reed."
"Oh, he's here? Good. When did he turn up?"
"Just a few minutes ago."
"Where'd he been?"
"In the house." Hen took a deep breath and straightened up,
arching his back until it popped. He jerked his head to
indicate the man on his knees behind the
hydrangea. "Wallace found him."