The following December, a hard frost damaged both the Ardullo and the Crimmins crops. Butch Ardullo said, "You've got to be philosophical, ride out the bad times with the good." No comment from Carson Crimmins.

March 1975. The death of Butch Ardullo. Two extra pages in a memorial issue. This time, Scott stood alone in the cemetery. Carson Crimmins said, "We had our differences, but he was a man's man."

June 1976. Announcement of Crimmins's marriage to "the former Sybil Noonan, of Los Angeles. As we all know, Miss Noonan, a thespian who has acted under the name Cheryl Norman, met Mr. C. on a cruise to the Bahamas. The nuptials took place at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills. Maid of honor was the bride's sister, Charity Hernandez, and cc-best men were Mr. C.'s sons, Carson Jr. and Derrick. The newlyweds are honeymooning in the Cayman Islands."

Two photos. Finally a look at Carson Crimmins. Black tie. In the first shot, he and his new wife cut a five-tiered cake. He looked to be around sixty, tall, stooped, bald, with a too-small face completely overpowered by a beak of a nose. The nose bore down upon a fleshless upper lip. A pencil mustache added movie-villain overtones. Tiny, dark eyes glanced somewhere to the left-away from the bride. His smile was painful. A wary owl in a tuxedo.

The second Mrs. Crimmins-she who'd narrowed Jacob Haas's eyes and hardened his voice-was in her late thirties, short, with full arms and a lush body packed into a tight silk sheath of a sleeveless wedding dress. What looked to be a deep tan. Spiky tiara perched upon a pile of platinum hair. Lots of teeth, lipstick, and eye shadow, a generous offering of cleavage. No ambivalence in her thousand-watt smile. Maybe it was true love, or perhaps the rock on her finger had something to do with it.

The second picture showed the Crimmins boys flanking the newlyweds. On the left was Carson Junior, around seventeen. Haas had said Derrick was younger, but that was hard to tell. Both boys were thin, rangy, with prominent noses and a touch of their father's avian look. Better-looking than their father-stronger chins, broader shoulders. The same thin lips. Carson Junior was already his father's height, Derrick slightly taller. Junior's hair was wild, blond, curly, Derrick's dark and straight, hanging past his shoulders. Neither boy seemed to share the joy of the day. Both projected that immovable sullenness unique to teenagers and mug-shot criminals.

April 1978. The front-page story was a visit to Treadway by representatives of a company called Leisure Time Development. Carson Crimmins's invitation. Scott Ardullo said, "It's a free country. People can sell what's theirs. But they can also show some guts and hold fast to the farming tradition." No follow-up progress reports.