Return to the Scene of the Crime, Part II: Sand Sharks

This posting is a day late for a couple of reason.  As I write it, I’m in a hotel in Wrightsville Beach right next door to Wilmington where much of the action of Sand Sharks take place, but my internet connection is too iffy to connect properly and I forgot to pack the little gizmo that sends pictures from my camera to my laptop.

After lunch at “Jonah’s” yesterday, we walked along the River Walk and took pictures of the exact spot where a judge’s body was found.  

The log that you see here below is the twin of one Deborah thought she was seeing when she originally spotted him.

In the spring of 2008 when I was first began the book, Megan Verlee, a young reporter from the local NPR station and one of my courtesy nieces, offered to drive me around Wilmington and show me aspects I might have missed on earlier visits.  We were down on the River Walk when I came across this site.  “It’s perfect, “ I said, snapping away with my camera.  Megan pointed out the craggy branches that might catch and hold the dog leash with which the judge was strangled. 

We were so absorbed that we didn’t notice that someone had paused to watch until we heard a cultured South Carolina accent from behind us.  “Excuse me?”

We turned and saw an elegant older woman in pearls and a designer suit.  “May I ask what y’all are looking at?”

Megan’s eyes danced with mischief.   “We’re just looking for a good place to dump a body.”

Without blinking or missing a beat, the woman said, “Oh my.  Now isn't that interesting?” and drifted on down the River Walk.

By the time you read this, I will have met with my judge friends here and heard their critique of the legal aspects of Christmas Mourning, which is tentatively scheduled for November 2010.

(Postscript:  Happily, they say I didn’t let Deborah make any reversible errors in her courtroom rulings!)

SAND SHARKS EXCERPT

Sand Sharks is my 15^th Deborah Knott title and it arrived in stores on the 13^th of August.  Attorneys are sometimes disparagingly called “land sharks,” but this book takes place at a summer conference of the North Carolina Association of District Court Judges on Wrightsville Beach—thus the title.  In this scene, Deborah and her friends have driven over to Wilmington for a shore dinner at an outdoor restaurant on the Cape Fear River.  Readers often ask me if Deborah and I have anything in common.  I usually say not much, but honesty compels me to say we both feel the same way about soft-shelled crabs.

            We weren’t the only ones who had arrived in town early and who had decided to gather at Jonah’s for dinner.  As often happens at conventions and conferences, tables meant for four soon accommodated six, and other tables were pushed together until we had taken over the whole left front corner of the open porch.  Several judges were there with spouses to make it a family vacation.  After table-hopping to speak to colleagues I hadn’t seen since the last conference, I came back to my original table and took the last empty chair beside white-haired Fitz  Fitzhume and Martha, his tall, angular, and opinionated wife. . . just as the deep-fried, soft-shelled crabs we’d both ordered arrived, crisp and succulent on beds of baby greens.

            As far as I’m concerned, blue claws are the tastiest crustacean in the Atlantic.  You can have my lobsters if you’ll give me all your blue crabs, especially when they’ve just molted, before their shells start to harden.

             Fitz gave a sigh of pure pleasure as his own plate was set before him, and was moved to tell his favorite crab joke. 

            “This was back when the world was young and urgent messages went by Western Union rather than cell phones or emails,” he said, squeezing lemon juice over a plate of buttery linguini heaped high with lumps of back-fin meat.  “A man sent his mother-in-law on a vacation at the coast to get her out of his hair.  Two days later, he got a telegram from the hotel manager. ‘Regret to inform you your mother-in-law washed ashore this evening covered in crabs.  What shall I do?’”

            Everyone within earshot of his voice sang out, “Ship the crabs and set ’er again!” 

            “Oh,” he said.  “Y’all’ve heard it before?”

            Martha patted his hand.  “Every time you order crabs, sweetheart.”

 

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