Part 2 (1/2)
”Tell you later, Becca. Over and out.” She hung up the mike with finality.
”Your daughter?”
Again the brusque nod. ”Where you staying on the island?”
”That yellow cottage across from Andy's place, catty-corner from Mahlon Davis's.”
She studied me openly. ”I thought their names was Carlette and Celeste.”
”My cousins. You know them?”
”Not to know,” she said shortly.
I suddenly realized that this was about the longest one-on-one conversation I'd ever had with an island woman. The men might wander over when Carl was on the porch or out in the yard working on his lawn mower or fiddling with some maintenance ch.o.r.es, but seldom the women. If we happened to be hanging our bathing suits out on the line to dry or if we walked into the store when a wife or daughter we knew by sight was also there, they'd nod or speak, but never more than what was absolutely necessary for politeness. Sue had somehow endeared herself to Miss Nellie Em, Mahlon's mother (and Guthrie's great-grandmother), and the old woman will even come inside for a gla.s.s of tea; but she never visits unless Sue is there.
As for the other neighbor women, whether from pride or clannishness, they keep themselves to themselves so far as most upstaters are concerned; and Mahlon's wife, Effrida {his only wife} is almost a pure-out recluse. The only time I ever see her outside is going to or from church or to hang out clothes.
”You knew Andy pretty well?” I asked.
”Whole island knows Andy. Whole sound, for that matter. Even up in Raleigh. He started the Alliance and he used to be on the Marine Fisheries Commission. He quit it though when it got took over too bad by pier owners and dingbatters.”
I was amused. ”You mean sports fishermen from upstate?”
”Sportsmen.” She almost spat the word. ”They'd run us right on off the water and out of the sound if they could.”
Andy Bynum's face was totally awash now. Small fishes darted over his open eyes and explored his half-parted lips. Leave him here three days and there'd be nothing left but bones that would quickly pit and calcify and dissolve back into the ocean.
”Full fathom five thy father lies,” quoted Jay Hadley, unexpectedly paralleling my thoughts.
”Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.”
Okay, I admit it: I stared at her in mouth-open astonishment.
She pulled those mirrored sungla.s.ses back over her eyes. ”We ain't all totally ignorant down here.” Her voice was half-embarra.s.sed, half-belligerent. ”Or maybe you think William Shakespeare's something else that belongs to just you rich upstaters?”
”Of course not,” I answered, stung by how close to the truth she was.
We rocked in the easy swells. A few miles over, the ferry was returning from Cape Lookout to Sh.e.l.l Point at the end of the island. She maneuvered our boat closer to Andy's body and made angry shooing motions with her hands. The little fish scattered.
I tried to look dispa.s.sionately at his sodden s.h.i.+rt.
”Hard to tell if that blood's caused by an entrance or exit wound,” I mused. ”I hope the bullet's still inside him, though, so they'll be able to match the weapon.”
Now it was her turn to stare. ”You something with the law?”
”A judge,” I admitted. ”I'll be holding district court in Beaufort tomorrow.”
Suddenly, Jay Hadley stood and, in one practiced motion, raised the .22 and cracked off a shot into the edge of her clam bed.
”Stingray,” she said blandly.
I twisted in the boat and peered between the piling and the stake over to the far edge of the leased area where the bullet had struck, but I saw nothing. ”Where?”
”Guess I missed. Don't see it now.”
She stowed the rifle on a pair of hooks under the dash and pointed to a sleek white cruiser heading toward us from the northwest, the direction of Beaufort and Morehead City.
”Yonder comes the rescue boat.”
a a a Since becoming an attorney, I've observed the processing of more than one crime scene; and although this was the first time I'd watched police officers do one out on an ocean with the tide coming in, I felt I could mention a few things, even though Dwight Bryant, the sheriff's deputy back in Dobbs, always acts like I'm meddling instead of helping when I suggest things to him.
”Before you move the body,” I said, ”hadn't you ought to take a picture of how he's lying?”
The detective in rolled-up chinos and sports s.h.i.+rt ignored me as he felt for a pulse we all knew was lacking, but the uniformed Marvin Willitt said, ”Guthrie told me y'all turned him over soon as you found him.”
”We did,” I agreed. ”But we didn't s.h.i.+ft him around much, just rolled him straight over from his stomach to his back.”
”You didn't try to resuscitate him?” asked the detective who'd waded over from the rescue boat. It was too big to come in all the way and was anch.o.r.ed out from the sandbar.
I shook my head. ”His skin was cold and it felt like rigor was already beginning when we turned him,” I explained.
They gave me an odd look.
”She's a judge,” said Jay Hadley.
That got me another odd look and I could sense an us versus her line being drawn in the water; but the detective splashed back to the boat and got a Polaroid camera. While another uniformed officer helped Willitt pull a tape measure from Bynum's body to the fixed pilings, the detective measured the temperature of the water and then started sketching a rough diagram of the things he'd just photographed. He drew the position of the heavy rake, the empty bucket, the smooth clams and razor-rough oysters, the position of the anchor, and, of course, Andy's body.
By this time, Jay Hadley's boat had been shoved over beside the rescue boat, the two of us still in it, and a second detective, Quig Smith, hitched her line to one of his cleats so he could question us easily.
Guthrie had not returned, but he'd evidently given the broad outlines to Willitt when he phoned from the local quick stop. Mostly I just confirmed what Guthrie had already told them: no, I hadn't noticed Bynum's skiff till we were nearly on it; no, I hadn't seen another boat leaving that area; no, I wouldn't say that the body was rigid with rigor, merely beginning to stiffen.
Thank you, Judge, and now for Miz Hadley.