“I don’t suppose Ames knew what the tosser was looking for?”

“Says not.”

“Remember I told you about Tally Ames being in my courtroom this month?”

“Yeah. Someone vandalized her slide. So?”

I recapped the case for him in more detail. Since he’d been the one who arrested the Lincoln brothers on the larceny charge that sent them away two years ago, he listened intently.

“Don’t you see? They were so mad at Arnold Ames for buying their tools when they defaulted on the storage locker fees that they tracked him down and slashed his ride. What if Braz Hartley bought the locker contents that belonged to somebody who was even more violent than the Lincoln boys?”

“You reckon?” Dwight said thoughtfully. “Mayleen and Jack have been hearing that he and his brother didn’t get along. Don’t forget that more people are murdered by family members than by strangers.”

“So who was the stranger that punched him in the nose the first time last night?” I gibed.

“Who told you that?” he asked sharply. “Mrs. Ames?”

“No, it was the guy running the Lucky Ducky duck pond. Skee Matusik is his name. Said he didn’t see it actually happen, but a woman across the way did. A woman named Polly? Runs that game where you try to land coins on a plate?”

“We’re looking into it,” he said. “Leave it alone, Deb’rah.”

Usually when he’s warning me to mind my own business, there’s a blend of exasperation and amusement in his voice. This time I heard something different there. A real No Trespassing sign.

And suddenly I remembered Stevie. Who hadn’t given his name to either deputy last night.

And Eric Holt. Who could fit the description of some young black guy whose friends had pulled him of Braz and hustled him away.

CHAPTER 7

SATURDAY AFTERNOON (CONTINUED)

As soon as I got back to my car, I took out my cell phone and called Daddy’s number. Not surprisingly, Maidie answered. Technically, she doesn’t work on the weekends, but nobody ever put up a time clock for her to punch at the kitchen door, and since she and Cletus live just down the lane from Daddy’s shabby old farmhouse, she’s in and out whenever it suits her. If she happens to be in when the phone rings, she answers it automatically because my father doesn’t like talking on the phone and won’t pick up if he knows she’s around.

“Is Daddy there?” I asked.

“Him and Cletus just got back from the long pond with a mess of brim for supper,” she said. “Don’t you want to come eat some? They’s plenty.”

“Sure,” I said promptly, knowing that pond fish meant Maidie’s crispy cornbread and a medley of late summer vegetables, including the best fried okra in North Carolina. “And while I have you, are Eric and his parents still coming out for dinner after church with y’all tomorrow?”

“Far as I know they are. Why?”