She smiled in memory. “If you yell ‘Hey Rube,’ everyone drops everything to assist. I mean, games are empty, rides stop in midturn, food’s left to burn on the grill, so it’s a serious thing. I’ve only seen about five in all my years.”

As she spoke, her husband and son rounded the corner of the women’s bunkhouse.

The boy gave me a curt nod and went on into their trailer, but Arnold Ames sank down into one of the webbed chairs.

“Judge,” he said.

“Please. Call me Deborah.”

“She’s no judge here, Arnie, okay?” Tally said.

He shrugged.

“Get you a beer, hon?”

“That’d taste good.”

“Deborah, you ready yet?”

Again I passed and she stepped inside the trailer.

“I probably ought to be going,” I told her husband. “But it’s been good getting to know Tally.”

“Don’t leave on my account,” said Ames.

I listened for the sarcasm beneath his words, but there didn’t seem to be any. He had a nice face. Not handsome, but pleasant. I guessed him to be midforties. A receding hairline. Shrewd green eyes. The hard wiry build of a man who does physical work outside.

Tally struck me as a complete pragmatist, a woman who’d seen too much crap to put up with anything she didn’t like for very long. If she’d stayed married to Arnold Ames for going on twenty years, it had to be because he was good to her. That was enough for me to cut him all the slack he needed tonight.

Tally came back with an opened bottle of beer, and he thirstily chugalugged several swallows.

“TV people were all over the front end,” he said. “They get back here?”

Tally shook her head. “What’s happening with Polly?”

“They’ve taken her to Chapel Hill. They think she killed herself.”

“Why?”

He reached out to touch her hand. “They’re not saying, but from the questions they asked, and the way they were being extra careful to bag up her shoes...”

“What?” Tally prodded.

“They may be thinking she’s the one killed Braz.”

CHAPTER 16

MONDAY NIGHT (CONTINUED)

It was a little past nine when I left Tally and Arnie. People were gathering around the two trailers, bringing lawn chairs and coolers, ready to spend the rest of the evening talking about Polly and Braz and offering what comfort they could. Even though Tally seemed to accept me now, I knew my presence would make the others uncomfortable, so I drew a map to show Arnie how to get to the farm, then I hugged Tally goodnight and repeated April’s invitation to bring as many of their friends tomorrow as wanted to be there.

Windy Raines, with rough courtesy, offered to walk me to my car, but I told him I’d be fine.

As indeed I was. Officers still milled around the Plate Pitch, but the reporters with their cameras seemed to have moved on and there was no sign of Dwight, either, till I got to my car and found a prowl car parked along side. The window was down, and he seemed to be catching a cat nap behind the steering wheel.