I bit into the luscious morsel of creamy crabmeat and delicate crust.

"One thing my brother didn't mention," said Telford as he downed his crab puff in one mouthful, "is if the man's a flat-out cheat and his scales are off. In his favor, of course. Because half the time you don't know what you've made till he pulls up on Sat.u.r.day morning with your money. He tells you what your catch weighed out to. What you get depends on the price the wholesaler pays him and some weeks there's such a glut of fish you don't even make your gas money back if you're working for the man."

"Was Andy Bynum dishonest?"

Willis looked uncertain, but Telford shook his head. "Never did wrong by me that I know of, but I didn't have to sell my fish to him, see? A lot of people did." He paused and added cryptically, "And a lot of people always think it's the man's fault when things don't shake out the way they think it ought to."

"You must be a member of the Alliance."

"Yes, ma'am. I don't know how much seiners have in common with tongers, but all watermen are under pressure, no matter what Willis says. That's where we're going to really miss Andy. He could near 'bout talk a hermit crab right out of its conch sh.e.l.l."

Micah Smith returned with a large goblet of water and Telford pa.s.sed it over to me with a troubled look in his clear blue eyes. "You asked me if Andy was dishonest. Not with money, maybe, and not by cheating with his scales, but I have to say that if he knew he might help the Alliance by twisting something around, I believe he'd do it, don't you, Will?"

Willis Telford's answer was lost beneath the sudden blast of a shotgun. I jumped up, heard a woman cry, "Pull!" then another crack of the gun and a clay pigeon exploded in midair over the water.

Unnoticed by the three of us, most of the party had drifted out to the landing.

"Trapshooting?" I've hunted quail and rabbits with my brothers, but I'd never done any fancy shooting.

"Part of the entertainment," said Telford Hudpeth. "She's got a bunch of guns and most people like to shoot, but this is usually where we cut out. Besides, we wait any longer, I'm going to miss the tide." He held out his hand. "Been a pleasure, ma'am. You're staying down the island in that little yellow house next to Mahlon Davis, right?"

I nodded, unsurprised that he should know. Fishermen and farmers have a lot in common.

"Maybe I'll drop you off some fresh shrimp," he said.

I walked with them as far as the landing so that I could watch the trapshooters who stood on the dock and shot out over the marshes beyond.

There were a couple of men and two women, each with shotguns that our hostess seemed to have provided. One of the women was Barbara Jean and she called, "Come on, Deborah, let's see how good your eye is."

I made weak protests. Truth is, it looked like fun and she only had to urge me twice to take her place.

Even a twenty-gauge can give a nice little kick, but I was used to a sixteen so it didn't bother me. This was a simple contest. Several yards downsh.o.r.e and out of the line of fire, one of the men operated a small mechanical trap thrower, and the four of us fired in rotation till we missed.

I know it's not politically correct to enjoy shooting, and given the option I'd certainly vote for much stricter gun control; but we all know it's not a const.i.tutional issue no matter what the NRA says. Why else would so many men use gun images to describe s.e.x?

"Hotter'n a two-dollar pistol."

"Shot my wad."

"Firing blanks."

All that power, all that force and all you have to do is pull a trigger.

To my delight, I hit my first ceramic disk square in the middle. And my second. In fact, I didn't get put out till the fourth round. It helped my ego that two of the other three missed their fourth rounds, too.

As I surrendered my gun and was heading for the house for another gla.s.s of water, I heard Lev's taunting voice behind me. "Shotguns? You went totally native, didn't you, Red?"

"Absolutely." I turned and let my eyes rake the length of his body, from his expensively barbered head to his Italian shoes. "Haven't you?"

His smile faded. "Touche."

"I didn't even recognize you in court today," I said accusingly. "And it wasn't just the beard either."

"I recognized you."

Despite the blasting guns, an uneasy silence stretched between us as we each examined the other for changes. There were flecks of gray in his dark hair, more gray in a beard that was new to me, lines around those intense deep-set eyes that hadn't been there when we lived together, an unfamiliar attention to clothes.

And what was he seeing?

My hair-light brown or dark blonde depending on the season-was shorter these days, I was probably five pounds heavier, and my face showed similar signs of the pa.s.sing years, though I now disguised the lines with makeup I once scorned as completely as he'd scorned name-brand labels.

Then he gave me that funny little scrunch of a shrug and all at once, he was just Lev again.

"Truce?" he said.

"Truce." Almost against my will, I felt my lips curve in a smile of pure pleasure. "How are you, Lev? And what are you doing in Beaufort with that weird Montgomery gal?"

"Pleasure, mostly. Some business. And Claire's not really weird."

"Somebody who can only talk through a hand puppet?" A thought crossed my mind. "You're not married to her, are you?"

He laughed. "G.o.d, no! No, she's my partner's sister. They were in court today, too."

"I saw them," I reminded him dryly. "I also saw that disgustingly vulgar boat. Rainmaker? Yours or Llewellyn's?"

He looked embarra.s.sed. "Ours. It was in lieu of some fees actually."

I remembered now that he hadn't answered my earlier question. I rephrased it. "What sort of practice are you in that you get boats like that for fees?"

A burst of laughter from the crowd drowned out his answer.

"What?"

"We handle divorces."

"You're kidding. That's your whole practice?"

Okay, we've all gotten older, more cynical, more interested in security maybe, less interested in ethics, but to sell out so completely? "Somehow I never pictured you as part of the Me-Me-Me decade."

Again that quirky shrug. "I thought we had a truce."

"Sorry."

"The paper said you found a body Sunday night?"

"Yes." I didn't want to discuss it; didn't want Andy Bynum's death and the way I'd found him to be part of idle c.o.c.ktail chatter.

As if he could still read my mind, Lev changed the subject yet again. "Your friend also tells me you've been a judge almost a year?"

"Since last June, yes."

"You like the view better from that side of the bench?"

Another round of shooting began and Lev flinched with distaste. "I've heard that every d.a.m.n pickup in the south has a gun rack in the back, but I didn't know women got off on guns, too."

Anyone else I'd have accused of chauvinism. In Lev's case, I figured it must be the alien corn he was standing in.

We had a good view from where we stood and the shooters now were two Jaycee types, Barbara Jean and Linville Pope. After another four rounds, only the two women were still in. Chet said they'd had four guns stolen and now I realized at least one of them must have been Barbara Jean's. Linville barely came up to Barbara Jean's shoulder, but her barrel followed the arc of the clay pigeon just as smoothly as she shattered her fifth in a row.

It was so incongruous. Barbara Jean in pearls, heels and a slinky dress, the late afternoon sunlight turning her blonde curls strawberry as she killed her sixth "bird" in a row; Linville in a floral silk c.o.c.ktail suit, carefully tucking her hair behind her ears and out of her eyes before she loaded and fired a sixth time.

As the eighth round began, Barbara Jean missed.

"Pull," said Linville and, without glancing at the ceramic disc, shot her gun straight up into the air.

The crowd clapped her show of good sportmanship and Barbara Jean shook her head, but her smile was just a little too bright as she handed her gun over to Chet, who had stepped up for the next round of compet.i.tion.

With the shooting making coherent conversation almost impossible, we stepped back inside the house and made for the bar. Both barmen were down helping with the guns, so Lev poured himself a whiskey and soda and I refilled my gla.s.s of ice water, then we pa.s.sed through the opposite set of French doors onto a narrower terrace completely walled on all three sides with head-high azaleas that dazzled the eye with clear pinks and corals, vibrant reds and cool whites.

m.u.f.fled gunshots and ma.s.sed azaleas.

Lev shook his head and chanted, "And that's what I like about the South!"

As our eyes met, we heard the clink of gla.s.sware, then voices in the room behind us.

"I don't need any f.u.c.king concessions from you," a woman said angrily. I recognized Barbara Jean's voice.

"No? But you will take them from everyone else?" came Linville Pope's quiet silky tones.

A questioning sound.

"The way you play the beleaguered benefactor to twenty-three black families-that is how you put it every time anybody tries to regulate your trawlers? Twenty-three black families who could not buy even a gallon of milk if not for the paychecks you sign? So easy to play the race card when it suits you, but I have done a little research on Neville Fishery. What happened to all the black families that were cut loose when your father switched over to hydraulic winches to pull the nets and started using hoses to suction the fish out of those nets?"

"You leave my daddy out of this."

"Look, Barbara Jean-" Her voice was that of a patient adult reasoning with a fractious child. "The tide is running out. Fishing was a wonderful way of life. Last century. Menhaden generate what? Four million a year? Tourism brings in half a billion. Face it, honey, you are history. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but it is coming. That little factory of yours sits squat in the middle of-"

"I'd die before I'd sell it to you," Barbara Jean snarled.

"No one is asking you to," Linville soothed. "My princ.i.p.als are the ones who want it bad enough to offer you more than it is worth."

"My granddaddy built that factory and my grandsons-"

I missed the rest because Lev put his lips close to my ear and whispered, "There has to be a path somewhere through those flower bushes. Maybe there at that corner?"

I hesitated.

"Knowledge is power," the pragmatist reminded me, straining to hear what was being said just inside those open doors.

"And you were accusing HIM of lapsed standards?" the preacher lectured.

Reluctantly, I tiptoed after Lev, across the terrace and through the bushes.

Eventually we broke through that floral barrier to a green lawn of billiard table perfection.

"Have dinner with me?" asked Lev.

"You mean just leave quietly without telling anybody and go find a place where the only discussion of fish is whether to have it grilled or fried? You got it!"

We crossed the gra.s.s to the circular paved drive where eight or ten shiny cars were parked.

"Which one's yours?" he asked.

I might have known it wasn't going to be that simple.

Lev quirked his eyebrows at me as I stood laughing beneath a live oak tattered with Spanish moss. "What's so funny?"

"I came by boat. You, too?"

He nodded. "With Catherine, Jon and Claire."

"I came with Barbara Jean and Chet Winberry," I said. "Don't tell me. Barbara Jean's the one having that, um, discussion with our hostess?"

"'Fraid so."

"Hm-mm-m."

a a a It took us a few minutes to work our way through the front hall and out onto the seaward terrace without going near the sunroom wing. Somehow I doubted that Linville Pope would notice if I didn't go thank her for inviting me. I spotted Barbara Jean heading for the dock and hurried after her with only a "See you" flung over my shoulder for Lev.

Out on the driveway, we had decided that if we could prod our respective ferrymen into leaving early, we would each return the way we'd come, then meet at one of the restaurants off Front Street as soon as we could politely disentangle ourselves.

Judging by Barbara Jean's purposeful stride, I wasn't going to have to do much prodding. I saw her speak to Chet, who put his arm around her, then looked back toward the house for me. I waved that I was coming and soon joined them at their mooring.

Barbara Jean was so furious she was almost crying with barely controlled rage. "That b.i.t.c.h!" she kept saying. "That b.i.t.c.h. That absolute b.i.t.c.h!"

Chet made placating noises and threw me an apologetic glance as he cast off.

"Something wrong?" I leaned my forearms on the back of their seat and gazed from one profile to the other.

"That-that-"

"b.i.t.c.h?" I offered helpfully.

Chet laughed and even Barbara Jean gave a rueful smile.

"Yeah," she said.

She twisted around in her seat so that she faced both of us and said, "First she said my factory's history and now she's trying to blackmail me into selling it to her."