I ran my finger down the calendar. "Are they being separately charged for that offense?"

"No, Your Honor," the trooper grinned. "'Cause it worn't a alligator they shot and put in the back of their truck. It was a four-foot retread off'n one of them big tractor-trailer tires."

I was laughing so hard I had to pick myself up off the floor before I could gavel everybody else in the courtroom back to order.

"Put up a big fight, did it?" I asked when the two Bodies rose to speak in their own defense.

In the end, I judged them guilty of a level five offense and gave them sixty days suspended, a hundred-dollar fine plus court costs, and twenty-four hours of community service as punishment for trying to shoot a protected species to the public endangerment. "And you'd just better be grateful there's no law against killing retreads," I told them.

Another dozen cases of speeding, failure to stop at stop signs or flashing red lights, unsafe movements, inspection violations, and driving without valid licenses carried us to twelve noon and lunch recess.

a a a By 12:08 Chet and Barbara Jean Winberry and I were seated at a window table in the Ritchie House, a lovely old nineteenth-century building that had been refurbished and modernized so sensitively that it retained all its original charm and seaside grace. Despite the pricey rates, the guest suites on the second and third floor stayed booked year-round, and reservations were recommended for lunch and dinner both. Our table overlooked the marina, where several million dollars' worth of boats were moored. April sunlight sparkled off the water and glistened on gleaming white hulls and polished teak decks.

A waitress had brought our iced tea and a basket of hot and crisp hushpuppies as soon as we sat down, and Barbara Jean had already heard my account of finding her old colleague/ally/thorn in her side-I couldn't quite get an exact fix on their relationship, but maybe that was because she didn't seem to have one herself.

I've known and liked the Winberrys six or eight years even though they're both more than ten years older than me. Barbara Jean had inherited her family's menhaden fish-meal factory from her father; but she spent a lot of time running back and forth between Beaufort and Raleigh when Chet was appointed to a state commission during Governor Hardison's first term of office. The happiest day of their lives was when the governor appointed Chet a superior court judge down here in the First Division so they could both get out of Raleigh and come back to Beaufort to live full time.

There was a married daughter living on the western edge of Harkers Island and a baby grandson named for Barbara Jean's grandfather, the one who'd started the factory. Between all my older brothers and most of my friends, I've looked at an awful lot of baby pictures over the years. This one was still in the tadpole stage, but when Barbara Jean and Chet both brought out their wallets, I made appropriate cooing noises.

The restaurant was light and airy, pale pink cloths and nosegays of sea oats graced the tables, white paddle ceiling fans circulated the air overhead. The few suits and ties in the room were worn by lawyer types. Everyone else seemed to have on canvas deckshoes, white duck or khaki pants, and pullovers or silky windbreakers that featured broad bands of turquoise or coral. Surely they couldn't all be sailing yachts back to Newport or Martha's Vineyard?

Several tables over were a handsome fortyish couple that could've stepped out of a Docksider ad. Between them, with her back to me, sat what looked like their daughter. Next to the woman, a little boy of two or three sat in a booster chair. All four had thick, straight blond hair. The man's was clipped short, as was the boy's; the woman's blunt cut brushed the shoulder pads of her white sweater, while the girl's long ponytail ended halfway down her back. Amusingly, the girl had brought along a hand puppet that was her twin in miniature: same long blonde ponytail, same coral-and-white nylon jumpsuit.

"Isn't she just precious?" agreed Barbara Jean, who'd followed my gaze. She bit into a crispy hushpuppy and said, "What'd you think of Jay Hadley?"

I c.o.c.ked a cynical eye at Chet. "So now I'll ask her how she knows Jay Hadley and she'll tell me everybody down here knows Jay Hadley, right?"

"Well, most everybody who fishes for their livelihood." He gathered up the menus the waitress had handed us and said to her, "We're in sort of a hurry, darlin', so why don't you bring us each a nice bowl of your she-crab soup, then a big plate of fried oysters and side dishes of slaw all around. That okay with you, Deborah? Honey?"

Barbara Jean and I agreed it sounded delicious to us.

Her roots go way back to Beaufort's beginnings, while Chet's people were carpetbaggers who came south after the Civil War. Even though Chet teases her that she married down, both are still more boardroom and resort town than leased bottoms and clam rakes, and it surprised me that she'd know Jay Hadley.

"Jay's real active in the Independent Fishers Alliance that Andy Bynum helped start. I'm a member, too."

"See, what's been happening down here," said Chet, "is that tempers have been getting more and more frayed these last few years."

"And with good cause," Barbara Jean chimed in.

"Everybody wants a slice of the resources and everybody thinks his wants are more justified than anyone else's."

"Well, some are!" Barbara Jean said hotly.

Chet grinned at me. "See? And she's one of the reasonable ones. Eat your soup, honey," he said as the waitress distributed wonderfully fragrant bowls of hot ambrosia.

She-crab soup is something like New England clam chowder, only made with the yellow roe and luscious back fins of female crabs.

Barbara Jean obediently savored a spoonful before diving back into a recitation of the area's conflicts.

"See, Deborah, for years the water here belonged to the people who worked it. We took out what we wanted, when we wanted, and as much as we wanted because fish and sh.e.l.lfish were plentiful and there weren't many rules or limits. Fishing was the backbone of Carteret County's economy. In fact, Beaufort was even called Fishtowne at one point. Then they started in with all the rules and regulations-"

"Because the water's overfished and varieties are declining," said Chet.

"For which we get all the blame. Never mind all the sportsmen coming down taking whatever they want, or developers destroying natural habitats, or the pier owners and the jet ski rentals and the tackle shop owners who don't want any nets or big boats in the sound because they say we're driving away the tourists. They particularly don't want any trawlers. You won't believe the propaganda they put out about us!"

I'd never seen her this vehement back in Raleigh.

"They're going to kill our menhaden industry. Thank G.o.d Chet's got a head for investments or we'd be out in the street. And what's going to happen to the men we employ? Twenty-three black families and-"

"And she's one of the reasonable ones?" I asked Chet.

"Maybe not as reasonable as Andy Bynum," he conceded as he reached for another hushpuppy.

"The government calls it protection and management of the resources," said Barbara Jean, "when it's nothing in the world but meddling and restrictive and economic murder."

"All the same," said Chet, "when the state started Marine Fisheries-"

"Marine Fisheries Commission," I murmured knowingly.

"-Andy made sure he was one of the commercial fishermen who got a seat on it. He was realistic enough to know that times really were a-changing. 'Regulations are coming,' he'd say, 'whether you want 'em or not.' And he figured he'd rather be on the inside helping to shape those regulations than on the outside watching commercial interests get swamped. Some of the watermen thought he was a traitor to their cause."

Barbara Jean nodded. "I was one of them at first. But some of what he had to say made sense. So many other interests are pulling at Core Sound now-developers, pier owners, the motels that cater to sportsmen, all those upstate surf fishers who say that trawling and netting interfere with their fun and then those Dare County millionaires with their pet legislators've got into it..." She shook her head in exasperation. "But Andy can-could-see all sides and most people on all sides would at least listen to him. I don't know who's going to take his place."

"Jay Hadley?" I asked.

Barbara Jean snorted. "A woman? Honey, you're talking the last bastion of male supremacy here. My daddy's been dead twelve years but they still call my company Wash Neville's plant."

I savored a final spoonful of soup. "The Hadley woman seemed pretty much in control when she came roaring out there yesterday with a .22 to see who was messing 'round their leased bottom. And what about that Alliance you mentioned?"

"Independent Fishers Alliance. That was Andy's idea. Most watermen work alone or in one-or two-man operations unless it's an established family business. I guess you'd call us a bit independent down here."

"Independent?" Chet shook his head as he began to divvy up the huge plate of oysters the waitress had set down in front of him. "p.r.i.c.kly as sea urchins and suspicious as hermit crabs."

"But Andy got us all together and gave us a coastal version of Abraham Lincoln," said Barbara Jean. "A boat divided against itself could not sail: united we might float, divided we'd surely drown. Jay Hadley did a lot of the secretarial work when it was getting started a few years back; and I think she still goes in a few times a week to pick up the slack when Andy's away. She's bright, Jay is. If she could've gone to college, no telling where she'd be now. Her husband started out like a lot of the old-timer proggers-"

"Proggers?" I'd occasionally heard the word over the years but never given it much thought.

"That's another of those Elizabethan remnants of speech," said Chet. "Means folks who forage around the water's edge, poking, or 'progging' at things."

Barbara Jean nodded. "That was Jay's husband all right-a traditional independent fisherman who thought he'd fish the cycle like his daddy and his granddaddy before him. It's taken her five years to convince Heston Hadley that leased bottoms could work, but she finally talked him into selling his big boat two years ago and putting the money into seed clams and mesh bags. They're going to make twice the money with half the effort if things keep going the way they have."

The oysters had arrived in sizzling perfection-crisp on the outside, plump and meltingly tender on the inside-and the next few minutes were devoted to a proper appreciation of Core Sound's continuing bounty.

"They're growing oysters on leased bottoms, too," Barbara Jean said between mouthfuls. "On ladders."

She was prepared to go into more details, but I didn't want to hear. "Will your Alliance continue without Bynum?"

She considered. "Who knows? Short-term? Maybe. Long-term? Till somebody's oars don't reach the water and Andy's not here to lift the ocean for them. Till all commercial fishing gets pushed slam out of the sound and off the banks, or the trawlers hear that they have to keep using turtle excluders and shrimpers don't. Jay can do the paperwork and maybe keep up with all the rules and regulations that keep rolling in till they can find some man to sit in Andy's chair, but finding someone that everybody trusts-"

Barbara Jean's words trailed off as her attention was diverted. I turned to see a stocky male stride through the crowded restaurant, jostling tables and diners and nearly causing a waitress to drop her tray. It was the same man who'd almost barreled me over at the Clerk of Court's office and he seemed even angrier now than he had earlier as he made his way over to a table halfway across the room from us.

It was occupied by a lone woman, another blonde (ash, this time), very pet.i.te, with oversized pale blue gla.s.ses that covered much of her face. Her hair fell in a loose pageboy along her chin line as she tilted her head toward the man, but her slender hand held its place in the papers she had been reading when he interrupted. No smile on her thin lips; no encouraging or conciliatory body language either. She sat absolutely motionless until he began to run out of steam, then turned back to her papers, clearly dismissing him.

He glared at her, thick hands on his hips, and anger deepened his voice. Everyone quit eating and flat-out stared.

"By G.o.d, I'll sue you for criminal fraud!" he shouted. "You knew I was going to turn it into a party boat."

She turned those pale blue gla.s.ses on him again. "You bought the Lucky Linville as is," she said calmly. "What you planned to do with her was not my concern."

She never raised her voice and if the room hadn't gone so silent, I wouldn't have been able to hear her. The manager and two hefty busboys surrounded the stocky man who by now was nearly apoplectic with rage.

As they hustled him out, the rest of us pretended we hadn't been staring. The woman returned to her reading completely unruffled. After an eternity, the usual flow of conversation ebbed back into the room with the tinkle of ice in tall gla.s.ses and the clink of utensils against china.

"She sold Zeke Myers the Lucky Linville?" Barbara Jean asked Chet just as I asked, "What was all that about?"

Chet shrugged, but suddenly I was remembering last night's phone call. "Is that Linville Pope by any chance?"

"You know her?"

"Not really. She invited me for c.o.c.ktails tomorrow night. Said she was a friend of Judge Mercer's."

"I do hope you thought to pack a bulletproof vest," Barbara Jean said sweetly.

4.

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,

When the clouds unfold their wings of strife?

When the strong tides lift and the cables strain,

Will your anchor drift, or firm remain?

-Priscilla J. Owens With daylight saving now in effect, the sun was still high as I left the courthouse that afternoon and drove toward Harkers Island through a countryside less green than in other years. Only last month, a late-winter storm had left whole stretches of coastal pines, yaupon, azaleas, and live oaks so coated with salt spray that their needles and leaves had turned brown on the seaward side. Branches had shattered off and in more than one yard women were piling brush and men were still busy with chainsaws on trees uprooted by the storm.

Occasionally as I drove eastward, I spotted boarded-up windows, trailers that had shifted on their footings, and sheets of plastic tacked over gaping holes in the side of a house or roof.

For the first time, it belatedly registered just how much damage the coast had sustained. I remembered hearing radio bulletins that the "storm of the century" was headed our way, but then it had skipped over Dobbs and Raleigh so gently that I'd almost immediately quit paying attention.

True, Dwight Bryant, Colleton County's deputy sheriff, had done a lot of mouthing about the snows up in western Virginia (his ex-wife and young son lived in Shaysville and had been snowed in for several days), but late snows aren't uncommon in the Blue Ridge. If Channel 11's "Eyewitness" weatherman ever called it a hurricane-hurricanes in March?-I'm sure I'd have noticed; yet listening to Chet and Barbara Jean Winberry describe how the bottom seemed to have dropped out of their barometer, the ninety-miles-per-hour winds, gusting to over a hundred, what else could it have been?

At the courthouse, during our afternoon break, I heard of a nine-year-old killed when high winds snapped a pine over in Newport and sent it crashing into his family's mobile home. Roofs were ripped from houses, siding peeled from stores, sheets of tin had kited down the center of Morehead City.

"Lord, yes!" said one of the lawyers standing around the coffee urn. "Boats tore loose from moorings, the docks all along Taylors Creek were awash, and power lines?" He snapped his fingers. "Like two-pound test hit by marlins."

Much of the area was without electricity for more than a week, they told me, while power crews brought in from all over worked around the clock with local linesmen.

Somehow, it embarra.s.sed me that I hadn't been aware of their ordeal, just as it bothered me that I hadn't known doodly about the issues that now inflamed Barbara Jean and others who earned their living from the ocean sounds and estuaries.

"You label the women of Harkers Island standoffish and aloof," lectured my internal preacher, "yet when have you made more than self-serving perfunctory overtures?"

Shamed, I thought about how I must look from their viewpoint. First as a child, then as a teenager, I'd come down with my cousins, played in the water, then gone juking and cruising around the Circle at Atlantic Beach. I treated their living s.p.a.ce like a playground created for my personal pleasure. As an adult, I swam, water-skied, loafed, helped Carl and my younger cousin Scotty set gill nets out in front of the house so I could take home a couple of coolers of fresh seafood for my brothers and their families, then headed back inland to my comfortable life with less consideration than if those women were costumed characters in a theme park.

"Oh, give it a rest," fumed the cynical pragmatist, who usually starts jeering whenever I get any n.o.ble thoughts. "You think anybody down here really feels deprived because one more upstater didn't try to be their best friend?"

Okay, okay. Even so, just past Otway, I pulled in at a florist that was still open. The young woman behind the counter said she'd heard that Andy Bynum's body had been released to a funeral home on the island and that the funeral was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. I ordered a basket of silk flowers to be sent: Dutch irises, b.u.t.tercups, red poppies and lilies of the valley.

"Credit card friendship, the easiest kind," whispered a voice inside my head.

Preacher or pragmatist?

a a a When I got back to the cottage, the Bynum house already had a closed-up look to it. His sons live further down the island, near the 'fish house, and I guessed the wake was probably being held at the funeral home.

I'd barely stepped through the door when the phone began ringing. Yeah, it could've been a dozen different people-I would even have welcomed somebody selling aluminum siding-but I had a feeling I wasn't going to be that lucky.

Actually, it could have been one of the mouthier ones. Could have been Andrew or Herman or Will or Jack. Instead, it was only Seth, five brothers up from me, and the brother who always cut me the most slack.

"Hey, Seth," I chirped. "You want me to bring you and Minnie some clams Friday?"

He didn't even bother to answer that. "What'd you go and get mixed up in now, Deb'rah?" he asked sternly.

At one time or another, most of my brothers had used this cottage or gone fishing with Carl, so Seth had met Andy and he listened without fussing as I explained the situation and how I was only tangentially involved. "How'd you hear so quick, anyhow?"

"Some SBI agent down there recognized your name and told Terry and Terry told Dwight and Dwight called me.