Part 6 (1/2)
He snorted. ”Yeah, that's what was said, but I ain't never seen nothing started by the man that don't end up with money in their pockets.”
Startled, I tried to remember if I'd ever seen Andy linger under Mahlon's boat shed or seen Mahlon over at Andy's. ”You and Andy weren't friends?” I asked.
”He was the man,” he said, as if that explained it all.
Well, if Andy was, I guess it did, diesel engine or no diesel engine.
Mahlon wrapped a piece of plastic around the tip of the caulk gun, secured it with a rubber band, then reached over and turned off the light bulb.
”Reckon I'd better get on in to eat,” he said, reminding me of the chowder I'd left simmering on the stove.
It was full dark but there were enough scattered lights from nearby houses to guide me the few feet down the sh.o.r.eline to the main path once my eyes adjusted. I went slowly, thinking about ”the man.” Not a purely local concept, of course. There was that old Ernie Ford coal miner song about owing one's soul to the company store. And sharecroppers certainly knew about never getting out of debt to the man who bankrolled you to the tools or supplies you needed if you were going to work for him.
Andy Bynum had owned a fish house. Barbara Jean could probably tell me exactly how that made him the man.
As I headed up the path to the cottage, the maniacal cry of a migrant loon rang across the sound.
5.
We are waiting by the river,
We are watching by the sh.o.r.e,
Only waiting for the boatman,
Soon he'll come to bear us o'er.
Though the mist hang o'er the river,
And its billows loudly roar,
Yet we hear the song of angels,
Wafted from the other sh.o.r.e.
-Miss Mary P. Griffin Tuesday's court began slowly as we finished off the traffic violations and moved on to various misdemeanors (which I could hear) and some extra probable-cause felonies (which would have to be bucked up the next level to superior court).
Despite Mahlon's optimistic talk, I wasn't terribly surprised when a familiar figure came up to the defense table and signed the form waiving his rights to an attorney.
Mickey Mantle Davis.
According to the ADA, he sat accused of stealing a bicycle from the deck of the Rainmaker, a forty-footer out of Boston, currently berthed at the dock on Front Street. The state was hoping to prove probable cause to prosecute as a felony burglary.
”How do you plead?” I asked.
He stood up with a happy smile because he had just recognized me. ”Not guilty, Judge, ma'am.”
Technically, I could have recused myself right then and there, but Mickey Mantle Davis would've had to go over to one of the piedmont or mountain districts to find a judge that hadn't heard of him. From the time he was fourteen and buying beer with a stolen driver's license, Guthrie's father has been smas.h.i.+ng up cars and smas.h.i.+ng up boats and smas.h.i.+ng up every second chance people still try to give him because s.h.i.+ftless as he is, he's still a likeable cuss. He'd work hard for a week, then lay out drinking for two weeks; steal your portable TV on Friday night, then bring you a bushel of oysters on Sat.u.r.day-a walking cliche of the good-hearted, good-timing wastrel who had so far managed to stay, if not out of trouble, at least out of a penitentiary.
Good luck to Mahlon keeping him on a trawler the whole of shrimping season.
”Call your first witness,” I told the ADA.
A Beaufort police officer took the stand and, after my recording clerk swore him in, testified how the dispatcher had radioed a description of both the bike and the thief. Within the hour, he'd seen the defendant pedaling such a bike toward the Grayden Paul drawbridge, heading for Morehead City. Upon being stopped and questioned, Mr. Davis had claimed that he'd found the bike by the side of the road and was taking it over to Morehead City to put a found ad in the Carteret County News-Times.
”No further questions,” the ADA said dryly.
”Me neither,” said Mickey Mantle.
”Call Claire Montgomery,” said the ADA.
On the bench behind him sat the three fas.h.i.+on plates I'd noticed at lunch the day before. Claire Montgomery was evidently the blonde ponytailed youngster. As she took the witness box, hand puppet and all, I was surprised to see that she wasn't the eleven-or twelve-year-old I'd originally a.s.sumed, but at least nineteen or twenty. I was so busy s.h.i.+fting mental gears that the clerk had almost finished administering the oath before I registered that it wasn't-strictly speaking-Claire Montgomery's hand which lay on the Bible held up by the bailiff. Instead, her hand was inside the doll's body and she manipulated it so that the puppet raised its right hand and touched the Bible with its left. Although the young woman's lips moved, I a.s.sume it was the puppet's voice that swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
”State your name and address,” said the ADA.
The puppet gave me a courteous nod and seemed to say, ”Our name is Claire Montgomery and we live at Two-Oh-Seven-”
”Just a minute, Miss Montgomery,” I interrupted. ”This is a serious court of law, not a vaudeville stage. I must ask you to put aside the doll.”
”But we saw him take our bicycle,” the puppet protested. Its long blonde ponytail flounced impatiently.
The girl looked only at the puppet, the puppet looked only at me. The girl was so still (except for her lips), the puppet so animated that for an instant, I almost started to argue with the small plastic face-the illusion was that good. Claire Montgomery might not be a ventriloquist, but she was a d.a.m.n fine puppeteer.
”Nevertheless, a man is on trial here,” I said sternly. ”The doll don't bother me none,” said Mickey Mantle Davis from the defense table.
I beckoned to the ADA, who approached with studied nonchalance. When his head was close enough to mine, I whispered, ”Am I the only one who sees something strange about a puppet giving testimony? What the h.e.l.l's going on?”
The ADA, Hollis Whitbread, was a nephew of ”Big Ed” Whitbread back up in Widdington, and he didn't seem to have much more smarts than his uncle. He gave a palms-up shrug and muttered. ”That's her sister and brother-in-law on the front row.”
I glanced over. Mr. and Mrs. Docksider were accompanied by a man in jeans and blue blazer who sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.