it’s something else.
“She ever think about going back to work?”
“While Jay’s still nursing?” He sounded shocked at
the idea.
“I was just thinking that if she wants a bigger place
or—?”
“Not if it means leaving our son.”
Mayleen glanced over at him. “Well, then?”
“I could maybe get on with the Wake County sheriff ’s
department, but it wouldn’t pay that much more.”
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“Plus you’d lose any seniority,” she said. “Anyhow,
you’re happy here, aren’t you? Money’s not every-
thing.”
“Right,” he said with more sarcasm than she had ever
heard from him. “It’s just new houses, new cars, and
fancy swimming pools.” He sighed. “Police work’s all
I ever wanted to do. But if it won’t pay enough here,
then maybe I should—”
He broke off as they saw Denning flip on his turn
signal upon approaching two dignified stone columns
that marked a long driveway up to a much-remodeled
farmhouse.
The housekeeper was expecting them and opened
the door before they rang. Short and sturdy with dark
brown skin, wiry salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in
a bun, and intelligent brown eyes, Jincy Samuelson
wore a spotless white bib apron over a long-sleeved
blue denim dress. She brushed aside the search war-
rant they tried to give her and led them immediately to
her employer’s home office. Paneled in dark wood, the
room looked more like a decorator’s idea of a gentle-
man farmer’s office than a place where real work was
done by a roughneck, up-from-the-soil, self-made mil-
lionaire. The only authentic signs that he actually used
the room were a rump-sprung leather executive chair
behind the polished walnut desk, a couple of mounted
deer heads, a desktop littered with papers, and a framed
snapshot of a child who sat on a man’s lap as he drove
a huge tractor.
“That him?” Richards asked.
The housekeeper nodded. “And his daughter when
she was a little girl.”
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MARGARET MARON
It was their first look at the victim’s face and the two
deputies stared long and hard at it. He was dressed in
sweaty work clothes, and only one hand was on the
steering wheel. The other arm was curved protectively
around the child who smiled up at him.
“He doesn’t want anybody to do anything in here
except run a dust cloth over the surfaces, vacuum the
rug, and wash the windows twice a year,” said Mrs.
Samuelson. “Once in a while his secretary from over in
New Bern might come by, but for the most part, he’s
the only one who uses this room. If you want to be sure
it’s just his fingerprints . . .”
“Not his bedroom or his bathroom?” Mayleen won-
dered aloud.
“Those rooms the maid or I clean regularly. Besides,”
she added with a small tight frown, “he occasionally
takes— took—company up there.”
Percy Denning had brought a small field kit and was
soon lifting prints from the desk items.
Dwight Bryant arrived while they were questioning
Mrs. Samuelson about Buck Harris’s usual routine. He
found them in the kitchen, a kitchen so immaculate that
it might never have cooked a meal or had grease pop
from a pan even though he could smell vanilla and the
rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Heavy-duty stain-
less steel appliances and cherry cabinets lined the walls
and the floor was paved with terra cotta tiles. Only the
long walnut table that sat in the middle of the room
looked old, so old that its edges had been rounded
smooth over the years and there were deep scratches in
the polished top. He would later learn that it was, as he
suspected, the same kitchen table that had belonged to
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Buck Harris’s great-grandparents and that it had stood
in this same spot for over a hundred years.
While Denning labored in Harris’s office, Richards
and Jamison were enjoying coffee and homemade cin-
namon rolls at that table.
Dwight joined them in time to hear Mrs. Samuelson
tell how Mrs. Harris had originally hired her some six
or eight years earlier to live in an apartment over the ga-
rage out back and act as both housekeeper and general
caretaker.
“Sid Lomax manages this farm and the migrant camp.
Whenever I need someone to do the grounds or help
with the heavy work here in the house, he’ll lend me a
couple of Mexicans.”
She told them that the Harrises lived together in New
Bern before the separation and divorce. “But this house
is the one he loves best—it was his grandfather’s—and
he wanted it kept so that he could walk right in out of
the fields if he felt like staying over. She always called
if they were both coming, but a lot of times he’d just
show up by himself and expect fresh sheets on the bed,
the rooms aired, and for me to have a meal ready to
eat pretty quick, just like his grandmother did for him.
I always keep something in the freezer that I can stick
in the microwave. I don’t look anything like his old
granny, but he loved my stuffed peppers and they freeze
up good. Meatloaf, too.”
“So he was a demanding employer?” Mayleen asked.
Mrs. Samuelson smoothed the bib of her crisp white
apron. “That’s what he was paying me for. I’ve worked
for worse.”
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MARGARET MARON
“And you went on working for him after he and Mrs.
Harris separated?”
“She asked me to come with her to New Bern, but
we both knew that was because she wanted to mess it
up here for him.” A bit of gold gleamed in her smile.
“Both my sons are just down the road and so are my
grandbabies. Nothing in New Bern worth moving there
for. Besides, when I told him she wanted me to go, he
raised me a hundred a month if I’d stay.”
Dwight’s phone buzzed and as soon as he’d checked
the small screen, he excused himself to take Deborah’s
call. “I checked the records, Dwight. The Harris divorce
became final on the twentieth of February.”
Twentieth of February. The day after Flame Smith
said she last spoke to him.
He turned back to Mrs. Samuelson and said, “When
did you see him last?”
“Saturday morning, three weeks ago,” she answered
promptly as she set a mug of coffee in front of him. It
was so robust that he had to reach for the milk pitcher.
“Saturday the eighteenth. Reason I remember is that’s
my sister’s birthday. On weekends, I only work a half
day on Saturday. I gave him his breakfast as usual and I
left vegetable soup and a turkey sandwich for his lunch.
When I came in on Mo
nday morning, I saw by the mess
he’d left in the kitchen that he’d fixed himself breakfast
on Sunday morning, but that was the last meal he ate
here.”
“Did he sleep here Sunday night?”
She thought a moment, then frowned. “I don’t know.
I made the bed while he was eating breakfast and it had
been slept in when I got here that Monday morning,
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but whether he slept here one night or two, I just can’t
say.”
“But you’re positive you didn’t see him again after
you left at noon on Saturday?”
“No sir, I didn’t.”
“What about children? The Harrises have any?”
“Just one girl. Susan. She was grown and gone before
I started working here, but she’s been here with them for
Christmas a time or two. You could tell that she was his
eyeballs, he was that foolish about her, but she was break-
ing his heart. Her husband was killed in Nine-Eleven and
it changed her. Mrs. Harris says she used to love pretty
dresses and parties and flying off to Europe. First time
I saw her, though, she was skinny as a broomstick and
she was wearing stuff that looked like it came from the
Goodwill. Turned her away from God. She sat right here
at this table and told them both that if God made the
world, he wasn’t taking very good care of it and it was up
to people like them—people who had money—to do the
work God should’ve been doing. I believe she still lives in
New York. No children though. I think he used to take
off and go see her two or three times a year.”
“And you didn’t see the need to notify her or Mrs.
Harris that he was missing?”
“I didn’t know that he was. He could have been at
his place in the mountains or he might’ve been working
over in the New Bern office. Like I say, he never lets me
know where he was going or when he was coming back.
He’d take a notion and he’d be gone and the only way
I’d know was if I happened to be out there in the hall
when he was leaving. ‘Back in a few days.’ That’s all he
ever told me. But you can ask Sid—Mr. Lomax.”
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MARGARET MARON
She passed the plate of cinnamon rolls down the
table and Jamison took another. Dwight and Richards
passed.
“Do you know Ms. Smith?” Dwight asked. “Flame
Smith?”
Mrs. Samuelson was too disciplined to sniff, but the
expression that crossed her face was one that reminded
him of Bessie Stewart, his mother’s housekeeper who
had helped raise him. He would not have been surprised
to hear a muttered, “Common as dirt.”
“I’ve met her,” she admitted.
“And?”
“And nothing. If she was here in the mornings, I
fixed her some breakfast, too. Wasn’t any of my busi-
ness what went on upstairs, although I have to say that
she was always polite to me. Not like some of them he
brought home.”
Dwight paused at that. “He had other women?”
“He used to. When he and Mrs. Harris were still liv-
ing together. This last year though, it’s only been her.
That Smith woman.”
“Do you know their names?”
Mrs. Samuelson cupped her mug in her workworn
hands as if to hold in the warmth and her brown eyes
met Dwight’s in a steady look. “If you don’t mind, sir,
I’d just as soon not say.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but if Mr. Harris has been mur-
dered, we need to know who might have hated him
enough to do it.”
The housekeeper nodded to the two detectives. “They
say those hands and legs y’all’ve been finding might be
him?”
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“I’m afraid so.”
She shook her graying head. “I don’t see how any
woman could do that. That takes a hateful and hating
man.”
“Like a husband who finds out his wife’s been cheat-
ing on him?”
She thought about it, then nodded slowly. “Only one
of them was married, but yes, her husband might could
do it. A gal from El Salvador. Said her name was Strella.
I think her husband’s name is Ramon. Mr. Lomax can
tell you. They live in the migrant camp on the other side
of the field. She was here twice last summer. First time
was to help me turn all the mattresses and he came in
and saw her. Second time, I guess she was stretched out
on one of the mattresses.”
“Who else, Mrs. Samuelson?”
Reluctantly, she gave up two more names. “Both
of ’em white, but I haven’t seen either of them in this
house in over a year. Mrs. Smith pretty much had a lock
on him.”
They all looked up as Denning came to the kitchen
door. There was a smudge of fingerprint powder on his
chin, more on his fingers. He crossed to the sink to
wash his hands and Mrs. Samuelson immediately rose
and tore off some paper towels.
“Thanks,” he said, drying his hands.
“Any luck?” Dwight asked.
“It’s a match. No question about it. The state lab can
take a look if you want, Major, but it’s Harris.”
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MARGARET MARON
While Mrs. Samuelson showed Richards and Denning
over the house and the nearer outbuildings, Dwight
called Reid Stephenson as he had promised and asked
him to notify the Harris daughter before it hit the news
can pass the word on to Mrs. Harris.”
Then he and Jamison drove along a lane that was a
shortcut over to the farm manager’s home. Trim and
tidy, the white clapboard house appeared to date from
the late thirties and sat in a grove of pecan trees whose
buds were beginning to swell in the mild spring air.
No one appeared when Dwight tapped the horn, but
through the open window of the truck, they could hear
the sound of tractors in the distance and they followed
another lane past a line of scrubby trees and out into a
forty- or fifty-acre field. Two tractors were preparing
the ground for planting. A third tractor seemed to be
in trouble. It was surrounded by a mechanic’s truck,
two pickups with a Harris Farms logo on the doors, and
several Latino and Anglo men.
As the two deputies drew near, a tall Anglo detached
himself from the group.
“Mr. Lomax?” Dwight asked. “Sid Lomax?”
The man nodded in wary acknowledgment. He wore
a billed cap that did not hide the flecks of gray at his
temples and his face was weathered like the leather of a
baseball glove, but if the muscles of his body had begun
to soften, it was not evident in the way he moved with
such easy grace.
“Lomax,” Dwight said again. “Didn’t you use to play
shortstop for Fuquay High School?”
Lomax looked at Dwig
ht more carefully and a rueful
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HARD ROW
grin spread across his face. “I oughta bust you one in
the jaw, bo. You played third for West Colleton, didn’t
you? Can’t call your name right now, but damned if you
weren’t the one got an unassisted triple play off my line
drive in the semifinals with the bases loaded, right?”
“Dwight Bryant,” Dwight said, putting out his hand.
“Colleton County Sheriff ’s Department.”
“Yeah?” Lomax took his hand in a strong clasp.
“Reckon I’d better not punch you out then.”
“Might make it a little hard for my deputy here,”
Dwight agreed as Jamison smiled.
“Man, we were supposed to go all the way that year,”
he said, shaking his head. “Oh well. What can I do for
you?”
“You’ve heard about the body parts been scattered
along this road?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m afraid it’s your boss.”
“The hell you say!” His surprise seemed genuine.
“Buck Harris? You sure?”
“We’ve just compared the fingerprints with those in
Harris’s study here. They match.”
“Well, damn!”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
Lomax pulled out a Palm Pilot and consulted his cal-
endar. “Sunday the nineteenth at the Cracker Barrel out
on the Interstate. I was having dinner with my son and
his wife after church and he stopped by our table on
his way out. I walked out to the car with him because
he wanted to firm it up about moving most of the crew
on this place to one of our camps down east. We’ve
had tomatoes here the last two years, so this year we’re
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MARGARET MARON
planting these fields in soybeans. Beans don’t take a lot
of labor.”
“So did you move them yet?” Dwight asked.
“All but these guys you see here. Why?”
“Any women or children left in the camp?”
“A couple to cook for the men. Three or four kids
and they all go to school. We encourage that. We don’t
let ’em quit or work during the school year. Mrs. Harris
is pretty strict about that.”
“Not Mr. Harris?”
“Well, you know Buck.” He paused and looked at
them dubiously. “Or do you?”
“Never met him that I know of,” said Dwight.
“Me neither,” said Jamison.
“Buck didn’t mind cutting corners if it would save a
few dollars.”
“In what way?”
Lomax shrugged. “Hard to think of any one thing.