The men with Mahlon dispersed and all was quiet for an hour or two.

a a a Guthrie came over at first dark. He stopped out in the yard and said, "Grandpap brought home some oysters today and Granny says do you want some since you didn't get clams?"

"Thank her for me, but I don't think so."

He started back.

"Guthrie?"

"I can't stay," he called over his shoulders. "Granny said come right back."

a a a It was full dark, the wind was blowing straight in off the sound, and I was half sloshed when they materialized at the end of the porch, two shapes silhouetted against the security light out at the east edge of the yard.

It'd been so long since I'd seen them to know who I was looking at, that I wouldn't have recognized them.

"Evening," I said. "It's Drew and Maxton, isn't it?"

"Evening," said Andy's older son. "They say you're a judge now."

"Yes."

"They said you found him," said the younger.

"Me and Guthrie."

"Yeah, well."

"We'd rather hear it from you," said Maxton.

"If you don't mind," Drew added.

So again I told them exactly how we'd gone out to the sandbar and how we'd found their father lying in the water, stone dead. "I'm really sorry," I told them, when I'd finished. "I didn't know him very well, but what I knew, I liked. Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, thank you, ma'am."

"But we thank you for asking."

And then they were gone.

Without going on over to talk to Guthrie.

Inside the phone began to ring. I got up unsteadily and followed the trill to Sue and Carl's bedside table.

"Judge Knott?" asked a quietly cultured voice. "Judge Deborah Knott?"

"Yes?"

"Oh I am so glad I caught you! This is Linville Pope of Pope Properties? Judge Mercer is a real good friend of mine and he said for me to look after you. Could you possibly stop by on Tuesday after court for c.o.c.ktails? I have asked some friends in and I know they would just love to meet you."

I looked down at my empty gla.s.s. My daddy used to lecture me about drinking alone.

"Why certainly," I said, putting on my own cultured voice. "How kind of you to ask me."

3.

From Greenland's icy mountains,

From India's coral strand,

Where Afric's sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand:

From many an ancient river,

From many a palmy plain,

They call us to deliver

Their land from error's chain.

-Reginald Heber After Bath in Beaufort County and New Bern in Craven County, Carteret County's Beaufort is the third oldest town in North Carolina, established in 1721. (And that's Bo-fort, with a long o, thank you very much; not Bu-fort like that other coastal town so far down the sh.o.r.es of South Carolina that it's almost in Georgia.) For years our Beaufort was just a sleepy little fishing village on the Intracoastal Waterway. Then in the late seventies they tore down most of the ramshackle fish houses alongside Taylors Creek, rebuilt the piers, painted everything on Front Street in Williamsburg colors and now boats from all over the world-fishing boats, yachts, sailboats, even occasional tall ships-tie up at its docks and come ash.o.r.e to drink in its bars and rummage through its self-consciously quaint shops.

Retirees have drifted in from all over, wealthy businessmen have built themselves second homes along the quiet coves and sheltered inlets, developers started calling our sh.o.r.eline the Crystal Coast, and now tourism's a year-round industry.

Back away from the waterfront, the town itself hasn't changed all that much from what it was in my childhood except for the historical markers on more of the old white wooden houses. The courthouse still stands foursquare in a shady grove of live oaks a few blocks inland. It was built in 1907, red brick with tall white Doric columns on both its east-and south-facing porches. As with the old Colleton County courthouse back in Dobbs, modern courtrooms have been grafted onto the old building here and a new jail complex is rising out back.

A bailiff was waiting for me at the east porch. He gestured me toward an otherwise illegal parking s.p.a.ce beneath one of the live oaks, took my briefcase and robe, and ushered me inside.

"Miz Leonard's office is down there on the right," he told me diplomatically.

Though she'd been elected on the Democratic ticket, Carteret's Clerk of Court wasn't terribly political and I knew her only by sight and reputation.

Her small reception room was empty; but as I approached the open inner door to her office, I was nearly knocked over by a short, very angry, barrel-shaped man. He pushed past with a muttered apology and I caught an expression of perplexed dismay on Darlene Leonard's face.

It changed to a warm smile as she stood to welcome me from behind a desk cluttered with manila folders, computer printouts, pictures of children and grand-children, and a cut-gla.s.s vase of pansies. The office wasn't much wider than the desk, but tall windows stretched toward an even taller ceiling and lent a sense of s.p.a.cious amplitude.

Things were slow enough back in Colleton County that when District Court Judge Roydon Mercer suddenly underwent emergency bypa.s.s heart surgery three days ago, my chief judge, E Roger Longmire, volunteered me for a subst.i.tute. "They've never had a woman sit on a Beaufort bench," Roger said when he asked me to go. "Should be an interesting experience."

I forgot to ask him who was expected to find it interesting.

Evidently Darlene Leonard did.

"I've given you the judge's chamber that has its own private washroom." The sparkle in her eye announced an amused sensitivity to one of the biggest grumbles I hear from some of my male colleagues. They claim they're getting gun-shy about using any bathroom that has a connecting door because sometimes I forget to knock. We chatted a minute or two about inconsequentials-if she'd heard of the murder off Harkers Island, she didn't seem to connect it with me. Her a.s.sistant interrupted to say an expected phone call was on the line, and Mrs. Leonard said, "Now you be sure and let me know if there's anything you need."

I said I would.

Superior court was in session, too, the bailiff told me as we crossed into the modern section of the courthouse. "Insurance fraud. It'll probably go to the jury today."

In fact, I was zipping up my robe when Superior Court Judge Chester Amos Winberry tapped at my door and poked his head in without waiting for me to answer.

"What if I'd been standing here in my slip?" I asked sternly.

"I'd say when did you start wearing slips?" he grinned.

He had me there. I only own one: a black lace thing that keeps my black silk dress from clinging too tightly when I wear it to funerals; but I never thought anybody'd noticed the other times. Guess I'm going to have to start checking my silhouette against a brighter light.

Chet's a competent enough jurist. Some of us feel he goes a little too easy on white collar crime and a little too hard on blue collars, but that's not an unpopular mix down here. He's getting some gray now and the laugh lines no longer go away when he stops laughing; nevertheless, at fifty he's still a s.e.xy man, knows it, and loves to act the cowboy. Most of the time, his wife, Barbara Jean, keeps him reined in; but she'll never break him from calling every female "darlin'," "honey," or "sugar."

"Heard you were down," he said. "Also heard you found Andy Bynum shot dead out by the banks. Are you okay?"

I nodded. "Did you know him?"

"h.e.l.l, everybody knew ol' Andy." He shook his head. "Bad, sad thing. Barbara Jean's all torn up about it. He was one of the few people that everybody listened to."

"About what?" I rummaged in my briefcase for a legal pad and a pen in case I needed to make notes to myself.

"About everything. How 'bout you recess at twelve sharp and let me and Barbara Jean take you out for some of the best she-crab soup you ever dipped a spoon in?"

"Can we cram that much lunch into an hour?"

"Oh, I always give my juries ninety minutes," he said magnanimously.

"Sounds about right to me," I told him.

We walked down a maze of short hallways and I entered the front of my courtroom from a door beside the bench.

"All rise," said the bailiff.

a a a Most vehicular violations follow a predictable pattern across the state and Beaufort district court began no differently. There were the usual charges of speeding, driving under the influence, driving with suspended licenses, failure to wear a seat belt or to provide proper child restraints. (That last is something I take pretty seriously. It's one thing to risk your own life, but you don't want me on the bench if you're caught risking the life of a child.) One after another came calendared cases that could be duplicated from the mountains to the sandhills.

About mid-morning though, I hit something that could only occur at the coast: Felton Keith Bodie and James Gordon Bodie. Brothers. Twenty-two and nineteen, respectively. Charged with driving while intoxicated, impeding traffic, and unlawfully discharging a firearm to the public endangerment.

In simple English, according to the trooper who testified against them, he'd come across a small traffic jam off Highway 70, heading for Gloucester, shortly before midnight last Tuesday night. I'm familiar with that road and I know that stretches of it can get pretty dark and deserted. Too, there are deep drainage ditches on either side, so if anything blocks the road, it's hard to get by.

"Please describe to the court what you found," said the a.s.sistant district attorney.

"Well," said the trooper, referring to his notebook in a distinctive Down East accent, "these two were operating a 1986 F-150 Ford XL pickup. At the time I arrived on the scene, the pickup was skewed across the road and blocking traffic from both directions. Mr. Felton Bodie was trying to aim a spotlight mounted on the side of the truck and Mr. James Bodie was shooting at something on the edge of the road."

"And did you ascertain what their target might be?" asked the ADA.

"Well, I didn't have time to see anything at first, because as I was heading over to the driver's side of the truck, Mr. Felton Bodie yelled, 'You got him!' and then he jumped out of the truck and ran over to where Mr. James Bodie was wrestling something out of the ditch. They'd just got it th'owed in the back of the truck when I stepped around to the side where they were and asked them what was going on."

At that point, the trooper glanced at me and slipped into automatic pilot. "There was a strong odor of alcohol on and about the breath and persons of both suspects. Both were gla.s.sy-eyed, talkative, incoherent of speech, and unsteady of motion."

I nodded encouragingly and the ADA said, "Then what?"

"Then I relieved Mr. James Bodie of his rifle and took them both into custody."

"Did either defendant make a statement?"

"Mr. Felton Bodie said they were driving home to Gloucester when they saw an alligator on the side of the road and decided to shoot it. Mr. James Bodie said they were going to skin it out and sell the skin."

The two Bodie brothers sat at the defense table with egg-sucking looks of embarra.s.sment on their faces.

Puzzled, I asked, "Aren't alligators a protected species?"

"Yes, ma'am, they sure are, Judge," said the ADA, waiting for me to step all the way in it.