Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash were leaving as I brought the puppy downstairs for its breakfast next morning.

"Herman's awake and talking a little," Aunt Zell reported, "but he's still awfully weak and they still don't know why."

"Tell Nadine I'll come this evening," I said, "but call me if there's any change. I'll cancel court if I need to. And don't worry about your hound. I'll come home and feed him at lunchtime."

"And don't forget to wash his little bottom."

Uncle Ash laughed and left to back the car out of the garage.

"I'm dithering, aren't I?" Aunt Zell asked ruefully. "Here I was planning to get my hair done and then run into Raleigh for a new nightgown to take to Paris, and now-but listen, honey. Sallie said you could bring him down to her if you think you're going to be tied up."

"We'll be just fine. Hug Herman for me, okay?" I gave her a hug, too, and pushed her out the door.

Almost three weeks old now, the puppy was as cute and appealing as any baby animal, a fat brown and white beagle with a white tail no bigger than my little finger that stood straight up when it tried to walk on its Jell-O legs; but tending to its needs at both ends of its alimentary ca.n.a.l left me with no appet.i.te for the fruit and cereal Aunt Zell had set out on the counter. I decided to take Miss Sallie up on her offer to babysit in case I did get busy later in the day.

When I stopped off on my way downtown, she was out in her soggy front yard directing the rejuvenation of her ingrown bed of irises after all the rain. She employed the same lawn service as Aunt Zell, and Mr. Ou smiled and ducked his head at my greeting and continued to separate the tubers while Miss Sallie popped the puppy into the carton with its sibling, the only pup she had left after farming out the others with dog-loving friends.

"It does fret me not to know what happened to poor old Queenie," she said as she walked me out to my car. The sun was already converting rain puddles to steam. Beneath the broad straw brim of her gardening hat, her beautiful wrinkled face was pink and troubled. "Alice Castleberry's bull terrier's been missing two weeks now. Some man was coming up from Wilmington to mate his b.i.t.c.h with him and now he's got to find another registered champion. You don't reckon that sorry dogman's back sneaking around town?"

At one time, "dogmen" ("catmen," too, for that matter) use to roam the countryside picking up any stray they could find to sell to various laboratories as test animals. Public outcry eventually put a stop to their activities, and testing regulations have changed so drastically since then that few labs are willing to chance the penalties that illegally obtained animals can bring.

"Surely not," I said.

"I hope you're right," said Miss Sallie. "It'd purely break my heart to find out Queenie's hooked up to some horrible old machine just to see if mascara or nose drops hurt her eyes."

It was still early when I got to the courthouse, so I circled around and pulled into the parking lot next to the Coffee Pot. I only meant to have a cup of coffee, but the smells of fried sausage and hot bread suddenly made me ravenous.

Herman's Reese was seated at the counter, and as I slid into the empty stool beside him, I told Tink Dupree, "I'll have the regular if I can get it in five minutes."

"Only take three" he a.s.sured me and hollered through the kitchen pa.s.s-through, "Retha! One fast reg'lar for the judge!"

"Coming up!" she sang back.

Ava came around the corner of the counter and smiled shyly before disappearing behind the part.i.tion with a trayload of dirty dishes from the four booths along the back wall.

"You feel as rough as you look?" I asked Reese.

He stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray shaped like a blue tin coffee pot, pushed his cap to the back of his head, and gave a sheepish grin. "Yep. Makes me glad I'm only going to be crawling around a hundred-degree attic rewiring an old house today, 'stead of out in a field priming sand lugs like A.K."

Tink set a mug of coffee in front of me. It was just the way I liked it: hot as h.e.l.l and black as sin. I sipped cautiously as Reese mashed another pat of b.u.t.ter into his grits.

"Talked to your mother today?"

"That's why I'm here and not over at the hospital. Annie Sue and me, we've got to keep the business going. Mama says Dad's some better, but they've got to finish up some more tests. She says we can do more good here than there."

He swallowed some sausage and glanced at me sideways. "You don't look bad for somebody that found a dead man last night."

As Tink brought me my breakfast plate, he caught the end of Reese's remarks. "Y'all talking about Carver Bannerman? He eats lunch here three or four times a week. Was you really the one found him, Miss Deb'rah?"

His question was polite formality. The Coffee Pot opens at six A.M. and I was sure he'd had the details a dozen times by seven. Hearing it all over again from one of the horses' mouths would make fresh gossip for the lunch trade; but I wasn't sure if Annie Sue's involvement was generally known, and I certainly didn't want to broadcast it.

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d got what he deserved," Reese growled and Tink nodded in such sympathetic agreement that I realized Reese'd already mouthed off.

"Was he really buck naked when you found him?" asked Ava. Trade was slack at the moment, since most of their customers begin work at eight, and she had wiped up spills and straightened all the sugar bowls and creamers along the long counter till she'd worked her way down to us.

Although Ava Dupree is only in her early twenties, her long thin face has little of youth's glowing elasticity. Plastic surgery smoothed away most of the burn damage there, but the skin on her neck is mottled pink and red where it disappears beneath her high, long-sleeved smock, and shiny scar tissue on her hands has pulled and tightened until they look like the hands of someone old and crippled with arthritis. Was that why Ba.s.s Langley ran out on her? Not wanting to make love to that body? Not wanting those hands to touch him anymore?

Normally, I don't look twice at her scars. Except for wearing long sleeves year-round, Ava never seems self-conscious about her looks. But this was the first time I'd been in the Coffee Pot since last Thursday when Herman reminded me about the fire, and I busied myself with egg, sausages, and grits till I could get over my own self-consciousness.

"I heard he didn't have a st.i.tch on," Ava nudged.

She took back the grape jelly Tink'd given me and rummaged in the jam basket till she found my favorite orange marmalade.

I always appreciate people remembering things like that and suddenly she was just Ava again, another human being trying to get along in the world, a good-hearted waitress who enjoys good gossip.

"No, he had on all his clothes," I said, "but he was flopped over a sawbench like a bag of fertilizer."

Between bites of biscuit and egg, I told her so many gory details about Bannerman's body and the b.l.o.o.d.y hammer and how my skirt was ruined that I finished eating and had paid my bill and Reese's too and we were both out the door without Annie Sue's name even being mentioned.

"Court's due to start in fifteen minutes," I told Reese as he unlocked the shop next door, "so tell me quick: you and A.K. get yourselves in any trouble last night?"

He swore they hadn't.

"We went over and parked in front of Bannerman's trailer till his wife came home. And then we'd hardly started asking where he was till her girlfriend came running up saying he was killed."

"She wasn't home when you arrived?"

Reese shook his head.

"And you didn't threaten her? Or him?"

"We don't beat up on women," he said indignantly. "And Bannerman was already dead, wasn't he?"

He and A.K. had tailed the women over to Redbud Lane, gotten the main facts from Deputy Jamison (who hadn't thought to mention to Dwight that he'd seen the boys), and had then driven on over to Chapel Hill. "But Mama made us come on home 'cause she wanted me to open the office this morning. Besides, A.K. called from the hospital and Uncle Andrew told him he was going to be in big trouble if he didn't get home before midnight."

I glanced at my watch and knew I was going to be in big trouble if I wasn't sitting on the bench in eight minutes.

Around the courthouse, the connection between Bannerman's death and my brother, his daughter, and me was such a muddle that conversations broke off whenever I appeared and no one found the nerve to broach the subject directly. "Sorry to hear about your brother," was the closest anyone came; and I pushed it all out of my mind till court adjourned for the day.

I had been a district judge for a full week now and it seemed to become more interesting every day, although cases involving drugs were more depressing than I'd expected. I can't get seriously upset about marijuana anymore. Not when there's so much hard stuff floating around the country. Heroin, crack, angel dust, China white-it's everywhere, in every stratum of Colleton County society from migrant camps to million-dollar houses, and I've pretty well reversed the never-in-a-million years position I had when I first pa.s.sed the bar exam.

"Every day, legalization starts to make more and more sense," I tell Dwight. "You and Bo may think everybody in your department's straight, but there's so d.a.m.n much money in trafficking and your salaries are so d.a.m.n low-"

"Who you think's not straight?" growls Dwight.

"That's not what I said. I'm saying if drugs were legal, you could cut your operating costs in half."

"If we had stiffer laws-"

"You can't enforce the laws we have."

Dwight doesn't like to hear me talk that way. "You see that doc.u.mentary they did on the needle parks in-where was it? Holland? Denmark? Kids overdosing. Hypodermics all over the sidewalks. I'm telling you: drugs are flat-out bad."

"Hey, I never said they weren't. A fried brain is disgusting. Wave your magic wand, make the stuff disappear, and you'll get no argument from me. But till you do, the only real difference between those needle parks and what's happening in the side streets and back alleys of Durham, Fayetteville, or parts of Dobbs right now is that at least those European addicts didn't mug helpless old people or break into houses to get money to buy the stuff."

"Yeah," says Bob McAdams, who heads up a local independent insurance company. "You guys don't put a cap on drug crimes pretty soon, everybody's premiums are going to be right through the roof. The industry's hemorrhaging money from drug-related thefts and bodily injuries."

"Legalization's not the only answer," Dwight argues. "What about education and rehabilitation? They'd work if the legislature would fund them right."

"Big if," says Lu Bingham, who daily tries to wheedle more money from government agencies. "Instead of spending millions on something that works, Congress would rather waste billions on trying to keep drugs illegal."

"For the last three years, at least once a week I'd have a client that'd beg the judge to get her in a treatment program," I say. "You want to guess how long some of the waiting lists are?"

I spouted off like this in frustration to one of our state's older elected representatives at a fund-raiser last month. He'd nodded sagely. Oh, yes, indeed. He remembered Prohibition, when the U.S. government told its citizens they couldn't drink booze and then couldn't or wouldn't enforce it.

"From the White House to the courthouse, everybody kept a bottle in the desk drawer. Whole police forces were bribed, judges subverted. Gangs distributed the stuff. There were turf battles, innocent bystanders got mowed down in drive-by shootings. Sound familiar, young lady?"

"So how come you don't introduce a bill to decriminalize drugs?" I goaded.

"Too late," he said, patting my shoulder. "Too much vested interest in keeping it illegal on both sides of the law. Take away the crime and you take away the cash, cash that needs to get laundered through otherwise legitimate banks and businesses. Good ol' supply and demand."

He was just tipsy enough to keep patting my shoulder and nodding agreement. "But n.o.body's gonna give up that Niagara of cash without a b.l.o.o.d.y fight. I'm not saying both sides'll use Uzis or busted kneecaps, but you watch what happens to the first round of politicos who advocate legalization, little lady. Pay attention to who contributes to whose campaign. h.e.l.l, maybe I'll even introduce a bill like that myself when I'm ready to retire. Just to see what crawls out of the woodwork. Long as I want to keep this seat, though"-he tucked his tongue firmly in his cheek-"I'm going to vote for tougher laws and bigger prisons every time. Yes, ma'am!"

Disheartening.

Yet, even though I was beginning to feel we'd never get a handle on drugs, I did as much as I was allowed to, and the view from the bench continued to fascinate.

Wednesday was no different.

A reformed alcoholic appeared before me to throw himself on the mercy of the court in regard to a fugitive warrant for arrest that had been outstanding since it was issued four years ago. He wanted to clear his record and he brought along an affidavit from the complainant that he'd made good all damages.

"So where've you been hiding these last four years?" I asked.

"In Florida, Your Honor. That's where I found a kinder, gentler way of life." He handed me a letter from the minister of a church down there attesting to his sterling character. "But Jesus told me to come back to Dobbs and get straight with Caesar."

"Caesar?" Puzzled, I looked over at Phyllis Raynor, who was clerking for me. "I thought the complainant's name was Jasper Something."

"No, no," said the defendant. "Caesar. Like in 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' Worldly stuff. The laws of man. That's what Jesus wants straight."

Laughter rippled along the attorneys' bench.

"Any other worldly charges against you scattered around the country?"

"No, ma'am, Your Honor. I had a policeman friend run me through his computers."

"Very well," I said. "Since Jesus has done a better job with you than jail ever did, I'll vacate this warrant. Go and sin no more."

He was followed by an elderly man and the man's even more elderly neighbor, two old white men who'd been feuding for thirty-five years from the testimony I heard. The first accused the second of killing his dog. No, he hadn't seen the act; no, the dog's body hadn't been found; but the accused had threatened the dog's life and now the dog was gone. And yes, ma'am, he'd agree that dog might've barked a lot, "but King was a pure-out scairdy cat and he'd never leave the yard on his own, so what else could've happened to him?"

Even though he brought along a second neighbor to witness the accused's threats, the witness hadn't seen or heard anything except threats either.

I had a feeling that the only reason the DA had calendared the case was because the complainant was his wife's uncle and he was tired of trying to explain probable cause to the stubborn old coot. Let me do his dirty work.

"Sorry," I said, "but until you get more proof, I have to rule no grounds for complaint."

The waiting room at Chapel Hill's North Carolina Memorial Hospital looked and smelled like a family reunion without the laughter when I got there that evening.

Daddy wasn't there, but all my local brothers and their families were. Most of my sisters-in-law held public jobs these days, but the habit of comforting with food was so strong that they'd all brought along buckets of take-out chicken and bottles of soft drinks to supplement the waiting room's coffee urn.

Herman and Nadine's other two children, Edward and Denise, had come in early this morning.

"They let us see him twice," said Nadine. "But he's so groggy I don't know if he knew it was us." She looked haggard after a night on the hospital couch and Annie Sue was trying to persuade her to go lie down a few hours in one of the motel rooms various family members had rented.

"It's not going to do Dad a bit of good if you wind up in the hospital, too!" she declaimed. "I'll come get you the minute there's any change. And you don't have to worry about me. Paige says she'll stay over and keep me company. You've just got to lie down."

"We'll see," was all Nadine would say. "Settle down, child."

The bruises had come up good on Annie Sue's face and arms, but the sc.r.a.pe was healing properly. Except for worrying over Herman and Nadine, she seemed almost back to normal. Of course, dramatic worry was natural for Annie Sue, especially with someone as solicitous as Paige Byrd to hover and worry with her and hold her hand. I was surprised not to see the third member of their trio.

"Cindy's sister heard about what she was doing with Carver Bannerman," Annie Sue whispered, "and told Miss Gladys and Miss Gladys went nuclear! Thank the Lord for Paige! I couldn't stand it without her."

Paige turned bright red under her strawberry bangs, but I could see she was happy Annie Sue felt that way.

As the evening wore on, some of those who'd come directly from work were replaced by those who'd come from home. Seth and Minnie drove over with Andrew and April, but they'd worked in tobacco all day and were physically drained. Too, they needed to get home early to check on their bulk barns. One of Andrew's was nearing the point where he needed to run up the heat to set the leaf's golden color, so they left before eight, just as Dwight Bryant and Terry Wilson arrived.

Both lawmen had been in and out of our lives so long, they felt like family, too.

The seriousness of Herman's condition preyed on us, but human nature always bubbles up at even the most solemn wakes, and conversation went from dark to light in looping circles.

Aunt Zell asked me about the pup, which led her to tell the others about Miss Sallie's missing beagle, her strayed Goldie, and Alice Castleberry's registered bull terrier. I told her about the dog feud I'd had in court that morning, and we debated the possible reappearance in Dobbs of the dogman.

Reese's girlfriend ignored the fact that most of the family didn't approve of her and talked about the time her cat got inside a friend's van and went home with them. That put Terry in mind of his second wife's cat.

"Big old gray fuzzball," he told us. "Every time I'd leave the car window down, the dang cat would crawl inside to sleep. Cat hairs everywhere. And of course she said if I'd keep the windows closed, the cat wouldn't get in. She was just scared that someday I'd drive off with the thing and lock it inside and it'd suffocate to death. Reckon you could see how me and that cat ranked in her affections."

My brothers grinned and Will's Amy asked with great innocence, "Well, Terry sugar, which one of you was most faithful?"

He gave her a mock scowl and continued. "So this one day, I came out in a hurry, jumped in my car and ran down to the grocery store for a jug of milk. When I was coming back across the parking lot, I saw something under my car-that big old gray fuzzball. And yeah, I'd left my windows down again. First off, I thought I'd just drive away and leave it there and act dumb whenever she missed the stupid thing; but being an upright righteous husband-"