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Dead Duck
Chapter One Devanau County Judge Gives Convicted Wife Murderer 6 Months By Hollis Ball BETHEL— Onlookers gasped and a relative of the victim screamed when a Devanau County Circuit Court judge sentenced convicted wife-murderer Harmon F. Sneed to six months in jail. “I understand how things can get out of hand,” Findlay S. Fish said from the bench as he pronounced sentence, “So I’m going to go light on you. Your wife provoked you with those divorce papers and you just lost it. It’s just one of those mistakes a guy can make. I’m sorry that I have to give you any jail time at all,” Fish added. The judge then ordered Sneed to serve six months in the Devanau County Detention Center under a work release program. Under work release, the convicted killer could continue to work at his job at the Chinaberry Poultry Plant. As the judge pronounced sentence, an audible gasp could be heard in the courtroom. Mrs. Sneed’s mother, Wanda Repton Wells, began to scream and Assistant State’s Attorney Melissa Hovarth, who had prosecuted the case, rose to her feet. Devanau County Victim Witness Program coordinator Patricia Rodrick and Barbara Hooper of A Safe Place Women’s Shelter both exclaimed out loud, as did several others present. Even Devanau County Public Defender Wallston Pitt expressed astonishment at the light sentence. The convicted murderer was seen to smile at the victim’s mother as he heard his sentence pronounced. Sneed, 32, was convicted last April of the murder of his wife Lucinda Wells Sneed, 28. The couple had been separated for over a year, according to trial testimony, when Sneed, who has admitted to drug and alcohol problems, broke into the house she shared with her mother and shot Mrs. Sneed in the back three times as she tried to run from him. Sneed then fled the scene in Mrs. Sneed’s truck, taking with him a Bethel area female juvenile, then 16. State police later identified the murder weapon as a .44 magnum belonging to the girl’s father. The couple was apprehended in an Ocean City motel two days later, and the girl was returned to her parents. Because of her age, her name is being withheld. It was not Sneed’s first brush with the law. Records show that Bethel police had answered seventeen domestic incident calls at the Sneed residence in Patamoke over the past six years. According to trial testimony, Mrs. Sneed sought help from the women’s shelter after Sneed had broken her arm, her nose and ruptured a kidney. On the day before Sneed shot her, Mrs. Sneed had initiated divorce proceedings and asked for a restraining order against Sneed … .
—Watertown Gazette, July 9th, 1994: Demonstrators Protest Judge’s “Slap On The Wrist” Sentence For Wife Murderer Sneed By Hollis Ball
BETHEL_ Attention was centered outside Devanau County Courthouse yesterday, as anti-domestic violence groups protested, television cameras panned, police sought to maintain order and reporters clamored for a statement, Devanau County Circuit Court Judge Findlay S. Fish refused to defend his six month sentence for convicted wife murderer Harman Sneed. “I don’t owe anyone any explanations,” Fish called over the jeers of demonstrators, before being hustled away in a yellow Mercedes Benz …
—Watertown Gazette, July 25, 1994 In Maryland, Men Can Get Away With Murder,
Eastern Shore Judge’s Sentence Raises Same Questions Mencken Pondered
Shore Judges Hold Kangaroo Court? By Hollis Ball
WATERTOWN—One by one, they emerged from the private dining room at the Chesapeake Bay Country Club. It was enough to make one knowledgeable bystander wisecrack, “Hey Judges! Who’s minding the store?” Acting on a tip from a highly placed source, a Gazette reporter watched as Circuit Court judges from all nine Eastern Shore counties emerged from a closed meeting room. Among those spotted was controversial Judge Findlay S. Fish, whose recent 6 month sentencing of convicted wife murderer Harman Sneed has drawn nationwide criticism, including calls for his resignation and a judicial review of his record while on the bench. Although none of the judges looked happy, Fish’s expression was particularly grim… “No comment” were the word of the day as the judges fled the reporter, speeding toward their cars, but a source has told the Gazette that the Shore judges had convened a secret ad hoc meeting in order to pressure Fish into stepping down from the bench…
—Watertown Gazette, August 14, 1994 State Judicial Disabilities Commission Refuses To Censure Fish: Three Women, Two Minority Judges Openly Voice Dissent
“The Good Old Boy Network is Alive “and Well,” says Judge Mary Bruce Hopkins—headline, Watertown Gazette, November 3, 1995
Beaten To Death: Convicted Wife Killer Harmon Sneed Charged In Murder of Girlfriend Tiffany Crystal Tutweiler,18
JUDGE’S DECOY COLLECTION ONE OF FINEST IN US, SAYS DECOY JAMBOREE COMMITTEE PRESIDENT MAYOR MYRTLE P. GOODYEAR
By Hon. Myrtle P. Goodyear
Watertown—As excitement over the annual Decoy Jamboree Weekend continues to mount, a prominent Eastern Shore judge, decoy Collector and Socialite prepares to judge an entirely different event that annually creates lots of excitement among downtown merchants and waterfowl decoy lovers everywhere who come to Watertown just for this annual excitement. The Decoy Jamboree Weekend Special Supplement caught up with Judge Findley F. Fish at his palatial and tasteful waterfront gracious home in order to interview him about his part in Decoy Jamboree Weekend this coming month in Watertown. Even though the Honorable Fish lives near Bethel in Devanau County and not Watertown in Santimoke County, he has graciously agreed to serve once again on the Jamboree Committee which has many prominent Socialite Eastern Shore decoy collectors on it including him. He has the most prominent collection of all the collectors and is looked up to as a collector’s collector of decoy waterfowl birds. His Honor Judge Fish says he has more than 1000 prominent decoys carved by famous decoy carvers in his house and he has a whole room full of carved waterfowl birds around his swimming pool numbering more than five thousand more which is closed in all year around with glass shelves full of birds on the walls and is very unusual He very graciously hosted a tour of the house which is palatially decorated in the Martha Stewart style and his collection is in the pool room except for the ones in the study and the living room. Judge says that he has many famous carvers like the Ward Brothers who were in the Smithsonian Museum where their decoys cost six figures he says. Other decoys include Ira Hudson, Currier and Ives, Shang Wheeler, Umbrella Watson, Cigar Daisy and many other Chesapeake famous old makers. His Honor Judge says it is the great ambition of his collection to own a Scratch Wallace as Scratch Wallace decoys are very, very rare and almost no one has them. The decoys are also prized as antiques and Folk Art which is why many people collect them, but old time hunters like he is really like to collect them because they used to hunt over the decoys when he was a boy. Mr. Fish thinks the carved and painted ducks and geese are very beautiful and says a true collector will do almost anything to own one of the really rare ones like a Scratch Wallace which is very old and rare … —Special Decoy Jamboree Supplement to the Watertown Gazette, November 14, 1996 Decoy: a) 1. A living or artificial bird or other animal used to entice game into a trap or within shooting range. b) An enclosed place, such as a pond, into which wildfowl are lured for capture. 2. A means used to mislead or lead into danger… To lure or entrap by or as if by a decoy… —American Heritage Dictionary, 1997
CHAPTER TWO ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY I’d be willing to bet the farm that Brenda Starr doesn’t know how to play tonk. On the two-dimensional, four panel planet Brenda inhabits, the Girl Reporter never has to sit around an overheated, deserted courtroom til midnight waiting for the jury to come back on a two bit felony. Tonk’s a jailhouse card game, in case you’re wondering, and frankly, I’m not that good a player. You have to keep too many numbers straight in your head. But tonk’s just one of the many skills a crime reporter learns in the course of her job for the Watertown Gazette (Motto: Thou Shalt Not Offend the Advertisers). My name is Hollis Ball; this is my life, as in I need one. While playing tonk with Oder Bowley during a jailhouse interview, I got the whole story on how his criminal clan were running a tractor chop shop. Oder was stealing John Deere harvesters and Allis Chalmers hay balers, farm equipment roughly the size of your average McDonald’s, then breaking it down into parts for resale to unsuspecting farmers over to West Virginia. In my line of work, the ability to play tonk is a social asset. As the current defendant, Smollet Bowley, brother of Oder, slapped his winning hand down on the table, his shackles jingled cheerfully. Smollett, the scrawniest of the scrawny Bowley clan, was not a prepossessing sight. Greasy blonde hair hung in clotted tendrils to his shoulders, and a stubble of sparse down dotted his upper lip and chin. Tattoos featuring skulls, naked women and his undying devotion to heavy metal bands adorned his toothpick sized arms. A golden earring, its verdigris matching that of his teeth, hung from his left lobe. If you pressed me, I’d have to say he was somewhere between 30 and death, but I wouldn’t be willing to go much further. And speaking of going much further, did I mention his habit of picking his teeth with long, black- rimmed fingernails? “Will you quit doin’ that, Smollet?” Barry Maxwell, the Santimoke County Public Defender, asked irritably. “It makes me lose my concentration.” Barry had lost more than his concentration. Sourly, he pushed a couple of quarters across the table at Smollet. “The jury will disregard the shackles on the defendant,” I intoned, in my best imitation of Judge Findlay S. Fish. Did I mention Judge Wrist Slap was presiding over Smollet’s trial? “Why don’t you leave that man alone?” Barry asked irritably. “Because,” I replied, discarding, “He is a scum sucking pig and a disgrace to the bench and the law.” “Boy, you don’t hate him or nothin’, do you?” Smollet grinned. “Don’t get her started,” Barry warned him. “You want a feminist tirade?” “A what?” Smollet asked blankly. Current events were not his thing. He called, spreading his cards on the table. “Barry, we agreed, no religion or politics,” I said, throwing down my losing hand and giving up my few remaining coins. I was down five bucks and feeling rather dyspeptic myself. Five hours of the hateful Fish, an agonizingly dull trial and an eternity waiting for the jury to come in will do that to me. “You know they never do disregard, no matter what the judge tells ëem. They see me come in, wearin’ these shackles, they know I ëm guilty of some damn thing. I says to Bailiff Bob, I says, ëI got me a urge to surge, so’s you’d better get out the chains’, and he did,” Smollet remarked cheerfully. He shuffled the deck, grinning as he used his little fingernail to pick the remains of poulet frites en besoin de l’huile ‡ la Santimoke County Detention Center out of his greening teeth. The remains of the meal, which had been sent over courtesy of the Santimoke County taxpayers, lay strewn on the other end of the defense table. A late autumn fly poked hopefully among the chicken bones and limp fries. “You may not be going to the Detention Center, Smollet,” Bailiff Bob Winters remarked, glancing at his watch. Bailiff Bob is a retired cop and my father’s Uncle Dab’s step-nephew, making him one of the cast of thousands around here that I’m related to. “That jury’s been in there for over five an’ a half hours now.” Smollet looked genuinely distressed. “They cain’t do that to me! I wanna be nice and safe in jail before that goddamn duck carnival starts up!” “If only it were that easy,” I grumbled. “Three hots and a cot, cable TV and all the books I could read while everyone else on the Gazette staff has to go and chase down yet more glowing, tourist- friendly puff pieces about socially prominent duck collectors for the Decoy Jamboree. Who do I have to kill to go to jail for the weekend, Barry?” “Damn that jury, if they don’t come back soon,” he sighed, looking out the window at the wintry night. “I’ll tell you why they’re taking so long. They’re all waiting for the salt trucks to come through so they don’t have to drive home on the ice.” There was truth in what he said; an early winter storm had laid a thin, slick coat of snow and freezing rain across the Shore. “What if they decide not to convict?” Smollet asked, fear suddenly clouding his dappled complexion. He glanced anxiously at the closed door of the jury room. “Smollet, you were the one who went for a jury trial,” Bob pointed out. “If they acquit, it’s your own damn fault.” “Man, I don’ wan’ be home all winter. My wife’s mother’s comin’ to stay with us.” He looked genuinely distressed. “For those of you who came in late, Barry, Smollet’s mamma-in-law is Miz Bertha Denton,” I pointed out, picking up my hand and squinting at my lousy cards. “Whoa!” Barry said, his Young Republican disdain forgotten. He peered at Smollet with a new respect. “Really?” Smollet nodded disconsolately. Mrs. Denton, having had enough, after twenty-six years, of the violent and alcoholic Leathel Denton’s abuse, had waited until he was sleeping it off, then doused him with lighter fluid and tossed a lit match. As he ran, literally a flaming asshole, from the house, Leathal was struck down dead, not by a Just and Vengeful Deity, but a passing Glack’s Good Gas and Propane truck. But Bertha still got fifteen years at the Women’s Correctional Institute from the Hon. Fin Fish, of which she served eleven before making parole. It was an interesting contrast to Fish’s six month work release sentence on Harmon Sneed, I thought sourly. Since Smollet’s own domestic problems revolved around being henpecked rather than abused, I could see why he feared the return of Mrs. Denton from her stay at the Women’s Correctional Institute in Jessup. It is said that some women achieve personal fulfillment in widowhood. Miss Bertha certainly did; she emerged with a hairdresser’s license and a very interesting outlook on life. Anyway, armed with this information, the rest of us could see why Smollet preferred six to eight months’ penance for stealing seventeen bushels of oysters from Busbee Clinton’s Seafood truck to going home to face his mama-in-law. “You know, the Detention Center used to be a pretty nice place, for a jail, until you all started boarding them Federal prisoners over there.” Smollet remarked, discarding cards. “Used to be a man’d go to jail and he’d see people he knew. Now it’s all foreigners.” “You mean the Colombian cocaine smugglers?” Bob asked. “They’re all waiting for Federal trials and the county just boards ëem— “ “Yeah,” Smollet sighed. “You’re getting a bad class ëa’ defendants over there and now they’re not even just from away, they’re from damn all South America, foreigner foreigners. — “ “What is going on here?” The icy tones of Ms. Athena Hardcastle froze us in our seats. “Card playing in a court of law?” Our new State’s Attorney for Santimoke County had been on the job for a week before we courthouse barnacles all started calling her Hardass Hardcastle. After six months of Ms. Hardass, my mild annoyance with her drill sergeant, by-the- book attitude had turned into an intense dislike. And the feeling was mutual. A woman who is perfect size 10, all legs and expensive, well suited elegance, skin the color of polished pine, all accessorized with a law degree from Princeton shouldn’t feel threatened. It seemed to me that a tired, underpaid and sometimes bedraggled white reporter with a degree from the local college wasn’t much of a threat. The ëwe’re both women in a world of men’ approach didn’t work, either. She was impervious to my overtures of friendship, holding me at arm’s length. At first I’d put it down to reverse discrimination. I’ve had some experience with that myself. ëOh, well, Hollis Ball is out of that Ball clan from Beddoe’s Island, White Trash Capital of Devanau County, where the gene pool meets the ce-ment pond, so she must spend her off hours in a sheet burning crosses ‘. Which is not true. Given time and exposure to my lovely self, Athena would soon discover that I am an no bigot and despise everyone equally regardless of race, sex , creed, national origin or lifestyle. Or for that matter, deathstyle, if you count Sam, my ghostly ex-husband, whose hobby, since his unfortunate demise, is haunting me. But that’s another story. Now I know what you’re thinking about ghosts and all that. I didn’t think much about them either, not until Sam’s shade turned up on my front porch demanding that I track down a murderer— his. Not that playing detective was all that bad; I’d enjoyed it, once I’d survived getting to the truth. Anyway, Sam aside, This stereotyping crap could have given us something in common, tools to build a professional understanding. But noooo. I was detecting some other folks’ tension about Athena Hardass, Santimoke County’s Top Cop. My African American friends in law enforcement were especially pissed off at her, although I didn’t know exactly what their beef was. Worst thing? She didn’t laugh at my jokes. Ultimately, I had just given up. My attitude toward her these days was a cool politeness that said watch me, I’m carrying a concealed weapon. Anyway, her secretary was a much better source of inside skinny, in return for which I filled Kenisha in on gossip from other areas of my beat. Little known facts about well- known people are always welcome to those of us who are underpaid and overworked and definitely unappreciated. “Mr. Winters, why isn’t the defendant in the holding cell?” Madam Hardass demanded, looking for all the world like an outraged high school principal who had just caught us smoking in the boy’s bathroom. “Because we thought the jury would be back by now,” Barry replied for him. Give it to our noble P.D.; after defending some of the scummier bottom feeders of the Eastern Shore, no one intimidated him, not even Madam Hardass. “Yew wann’ be cut into the game?” Smollet asked, giving her his best green grin. He rattled his shackles and shuffled the deck. Hardass gave him the same glare she might use for something on the sole of her shoe. “Ms. Ball, Judge Fish would like to see you in chambers,” she said to me in saccharine tones. “What about?” Hardass walked to the prosecution table and picked up some papers. “I don’t know,” she said, not bothering to look at me. “But he means now, not five minutes ago.” “Uh-oh,” Barry snickered in a better- you- than- me tone of voice. I threw my cards down on the table. It had been a bad hand anyway. “Hail, Caesar, those of us who are about to die salute you,” I sighed. “Off with my head!” I tossed back over my shoulder as I trudged away. Walking down the long, dark corridor that separates the judge’s chambers from the courtroom, I mentally reviewed the way I’d covered the Harman Sneed fracas, literally jamming the whole ugly thing up on the wire services for all the world to pick up on. It was largely due to a remark I’d made over a couple of beers that people had started calling him Wrist Slap Fish, at least behind his back. That alone should have aroused the wrath of a proud and arrogant man, but I had to admit the rest of what I’d written hadn’t been too complimentary either. Sure, it had been over a year since the Sneed flap, but I hadn’t forgotten, and I was willing to bet a macho idiot like Fish hadn’t either. Since he sat in Devanau County, our friendly neighbor across the river, where I rarely cover the show, Fish hadn’t had an opportunity to get at me until now. It was his bad luck to preside over Smollet’s latest trial only because Judge Franklin Carroll, who usually does the show in Santimoke County, was hearing some long, dull civil trial on the Western Shore, and Fish’s docket happened to be free this week, allowing him to visit us. Oh joy, oh rapture, and just my luck. Brave little soldier that I was, I tapped timidly on the open chamber door. Judge Fish, pushing at a window sash, beckoned me in. The courthouse is kept stiflingly hot in winter. The ancient cast iron radiators were hissing and steaming, keeping the room at a toasty eighty- five. I noticed he had removed his robes and his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He was dressed in baked potato tones; tan slacks and a white dress shirt with a canvasback duck embroidered on the pocket. A line of needlepoint geese flew around his belt and a flock of mallards were taking flight on his tie. He was somewhere between sixty-five and seventy five, I guessed, but his hair was suspiciously dark and his eyebrows were suspiciously white. A pompous old white guy with that attitude of entitlement one sees in old Republican white guys. Up close, I could see the gin blossoms, the little broken capillaries in his cheeks that betrayed the hard drinker. A broad white band of untanned skin on the fourth finger, left hand, told me he was newly single. What had happened to Mrs. Fish, God help her? Imagine, I thought, being married to a man who can justify murdering his wife because she had the nerve to file for divorce after he beat the crap out of her once too often. Well, I thought, he can kill me, but he can’t beat me. “Ah, Ms. Ball,” he was saying briskly, “Thanks for stepping back. By the way, how close do you think the jury is?” He grunted as the window finally gave way and opened a few inches. I made some non- committal remark. Since we were forbidden by law to discuss the case while the jury was still out, I wasn’t falling in that trap. A pile of case folders were spread across the desk. He beckoned me toward the sitting area, where a couch and a couple of chairs fronted a low coffee table featuring a dusty arrangement of dried flowers and some prehistoric magazines. “I wish Judge Carroll wouldn’t put his bird station right up next to the window,” Fish grumbled, jerking open another sash. “There’s some damn blackbird that’s been rapping on the glass all night.” We both looked at the large crow perched on the edge of the feeder, who stared balefully back at us through the open window. “That’s Edgar Allan Crow. Frank— Judge Carroll— feeds him the french fries from his jailhouse dinners,” I explained. “He lives in the big ivy trellis outside the window. Edgar, I mean, not Frank.” Fish snorted. “Typical. Frank always was a bleeding heart liberal.” There were the remains of a sandwich on his desk. Fish picked it up and leaned out the window, dropping it on the feeder tray. “Eat that, Edgar!” he commanded. “Nev!” Edgar croaked as he settled down to his ration of bread and tuna fish. He eyed us nastily as he shook the snowflakes from his back, swallowing a bread crust. “Maw!” The old steam radiators hissed, belching out yet more heat. Judge Fish glared out the window at the snow and the dimly lit windows of the Horny Mallard, the watering hole across the street where faint music could be heard whenever the doors were opened and closed by happy Decoy Jamboree revelers gearing up for the big weekend. I supposed Fish was comparing a Bass Ale, a thick steak and cottage fries to the greasy fried chicken provided by the county. Edgar pecked at a half- eaten slice of pickle disdainfully. He shot the visiting judge a dirty look as he kicked it away from the feeder. Pickles ! his beady glare proclaimed. We don’t need no stinkin’ pickles! Fish turned. When he looked directly at me, I realized with a start that he had colorless eyes. There was no depth to them at all, only an opaque gray that was almost white. His gaze was unsettling, to say the least. The least romantic of reporters, I felt as if by looking into those depthless ash colored eyes, I was looking into something evil. I unconsciously took a step back. Fish blinked. Then he got right got to the point. “Look, Miss Ball, I know we’ve had our differences— “ Differences? I’d done everything I could get past my cowardly editor, short of outright libel, to expose his sexist attitudes to the world. “But,” he continued, oblivious, “your father is Perk Ball, and I wondered if you have any influence with him.” This was about the last thing I was expecting. “My father?” I repeated stupidly. “I’ve been trying for years to get him to sell me that pair of Eddie Dean old-squaws, but he’s always saying he’s not interested. And of course, Eddie doesn’t carve that much. Do you think you could ask him —“ I found myself speechless. I was expecting the full blast of wrath I usually get from important people who don’t appreciate my coverage of their foolishness, and here the man was asking me to intercede with my father over a pair of decoys! He-lo? I was looking for a tactful way to tell Fish I’d beg Dad to eat them with ketchup before I’d advise him to sell his prized Eddie Deans to a Neanderthal swine who was a public disgrace to justice. Fortunately for me, the door opened. “Judge Fish?” Athena suddenly appeared. “I found this lady downstairs. The courthouse doors are all locked after five, you know, so she couldn’t get in.” She stepped back to allow a blonde woman, a Grace Kelly clone, to enter the room in a cloud of ozone and L.L. Bean. I wanted to think bimbo, but there was a sharp intelligence in those blue eyes that wouldn’t let me pigeonhole her that easily. “Did you get lost, Lenore ?” the judge asked a tad waspishly. “I’ve come a long way,” the woman replied as she stepped into the room. Snowflakes clung to her scraped- back blonde hair and the shoulders of her expensive down parka. Her feet were encased in sturdy rubber moccasins. “The roads are murder out there.” Without ceremony, she sat down on the couch and produced a heavily taped and bubble-wrapped package, which she placed in the center of the table. That must have been Edgar’s cue. With a loud caw, he flapped through the open window and circled around Athena’s head. The State’s Attorney shrieked, throwing her arms up to defend herself. “Get that thing away from me!” she screamed. “Birds indoors are death omens!” Deeply offended, Edgar dropped what my mother calls an birdie calling card on the floor and hopped up on a bookcase, his tail feathers twitching indignantly. “He doesn’t mean any harm,” I said, while Athena frantically brushed imaginary Edgar cooties from her hair. “He just misses Frank, that’s all. Frank lets him in and feeds him—“ “I hate those blackbirds! They’re like bats!” Athena cried, shaking. “I have a horror of them! Get him away from me!” I watched, fascinated, as the ice queen lost her permafrost composure. “Get him out of here! They’re bad luck!” Edgar dropped another calling card on a leather-bound volume of Maryland Tort Law Vol. 10 Addendum 1941-42 and turned his head around to look at Athena quizzically. “Naw! Maw!” he said. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lenore murmured softly. Slowly, she rose from the couch and crossed the room until she was standing right below Edgar’s bookcase. Making a little clucking noise in the back of her throat, she gradually raised her gloved hand until it was parallel with his crooked claws. “C’m’on, Edgar,” she crooned. As we all watched, the devil bird hopped from the bookcase to her fist, where he perched as if he’d been doing this shtick all his life. “Good boy, Edgar,” Lenore hummed, stroking his silky feathers with her other hand as she walked him slowly across the room toward the window. Edgar preened, delighted with this stupid human trick. Athena Hardcastle cringed, the color draining from her face. “Out you go.” Lenore lowered her arm and eased Edgar outside. He rose up on his bandy legs, glared at us with his nasty little eyes and flew away into the night. Athena gave a long sigh and slid into the couch. She looked as if she were about to faint. “Quoth the raven, nevermore,” Judge Fish pronounced solemnly. Lenore shot him a look as she moved toward Athena. “Are you all right?” she asked, peering at the ashen- faced State’s Attorney with concern. In response, Athena bent, placed her head between her knees and started taking deep breaths. “Fin, can you get this lady a glass of water?” Lenore asked briskly. “I think she’s going to faint.” “No, I’ll be all right. I just have a horror of birds in the house,” Athena muttered weakly. She continued breathing deeply. “It’s all right,” Lenore soothed her, rubbing her back with the palm of her hand. “Mmm, love your Donna Karan suit. I just adore her clothes, don’t you?” “Mmmm,” Athena muttered. She allowed Lenore to help her to lean back against the couch again, where she collapsed into the cushions with her eyes closed, still concentrating on her breathing. Judge Fish looked utterly helpless which was only to be expected. I procured a paper cup full of tap water from the judicial john. When I came out, Athena was still deep breathing, her eyes still closed. I noticed with satisfaction that a hair was finally out of place. Hardass Hardcastle didn’t look so tough then. I handed her the cup of water and she opened up for a reality check, swallowing a little of it before she sat up straight, pulling on her skirt, all Hardass again. “I’ll be fine in a minute,” she informed Lenore and I through clenched teeth. “It’s just one of those things.” “I know how you feel,” I said. “I can’t stand to be in a closed space. It makes me panicky.” Athena Hardcastle nodded glumly. “Just give me a minute and I’ll be fine,” she said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. “Lenore, open it up. I’ve got to see it!” Judge Fish exclaimed impatiently, pointing at the package. He was excited, bouncing up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning, watching sharply as Lenore began to undo the tape. Beneath her fingers, yards of bubble plastic were unwound from a long, ovoid shape. “You didn’t have any problem? “ he was asking. “They’ve always been very good about financial arrangements.” “No, no problem at all. I didn’t expect any. The Japanese are always so polite— Ahhhhh!” As she carefully unwound a sheet of padded cotton flannel, both of them sort of gasped in reverence at the object that was revealed. It was a snow goose decoy. The body was hewn out of a block of wood. The long neck, turned gracefully back over the body, as if the bird were asleep. It was made from a root that had been turned, by dexterous hand carving, into the goose’s neck and head, and that made all the difference. Even I could see that it had goose personality, that the carver had captured the spirit, the primitive essence of a snow goose. Paint had been dabbed on it at some point in its career, but the color had long ago weathered to a memory. It looked very old decoy. There was a moment’s reverent silence. Even Athena Hardcastle opened an eye in order to study it. Old decoys, you must understand, are sacred objects on Chesapeake Bay, once one of the greatest waterfowl gunning areas in the country. Gunning is still an important part of the economy on the Shore, although nowhere what it used to be a hundred years ago. Or even last year; ducks were scarce, and goose season was almost closed down this year, due to lack of migratory birds. Hunters used to carve, paint and put a string of fake wooden birds, called decoys, out to attract the real thing within gunning range. As the waterfowl populations have diminished, old time decoys have become recognized as genuine folk art, much sought after and passionately collected. The works of really good carvers like Lem and Steve Ward, Ira Hudson and Scratch Wallace have been elevated to the status of museum treasures, with prices to match. This information will be on the final exam, so remember it. I know a tiny little about decoys because my father collects them, although apparently not on the same level of intensity or finance as Findlay Fish. “A Scratch Wallace sleeping goose,” Fish breathed reverently. “Genius!” With trembling hands, he reached out and took up the decoy by the body, turning it this way and that, as if he had found the Holy Grail. “It looks a little beat up,” I said dubiously, “but it’s kinda cute.” Fish and Lenore looked at me pityingly. “And your father is Perk Ball,” Judge Fish said reprovingly. “You tell Perk you saw a Scratch Wallace, and he’ll tell you what a great carver Scratch was— Look!” He turned the bird over so that I could examine the flat, lead- weighted underside. “S.W. ë69,” the judge read, in case I was suddenly struck by illiteracy. “That’s eighteen sixty- nine.” “Eighteen sixty- nine?” I asked incredulously. “Nobody has decoys that go back that far. They’re all long gone.” “He was one of the earliest documented carvers,” Lenore explained to me. “Some of his account books turned up recently, along with a dozen birds. They were found under the floor of an old shed over in Oysterback when the owner was tearing it down. I was asked to broker the sale. A Japanese decoy collector bought seven of them for — for a great deal of money. Two were knocked down at Sotheby’s and went to a private collector in New York. Two went to the Smithsonian. I was fortunate enough to be able to negotiate this one from the owner’s estate when Mr. Hiromata was disgraced in that big Japanese banking scandal. Sekkepu is so messy,” she sighed, than immediately brightened again. “This goose will go on display at the Decoy Jamboree this weekend. Judge Fish just bought it from the estate.” She smiled at me, holding out her hand. “I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners! I’m Lenore Currier.” Enlightenment, always slow to awaken in my overworked brain, finally dawned. Lenore Currier! I should have recognized the name at once, I thought. In the land of the certifiable duck nut, Lenore Currier was a goddess. A few years back, her graduate thesis in folk art had enabled her to research and uncover evidence that collecting decoys was a direct mandate from God or something. Whatever it was, it had caused some enormous stir in the collecting world, and she had stepped instantly into the role of bird expert and duck dealer to the stars. The fact that she was a young, attractive woman in a field inhabited mostly by old, boring geezers made it all media-worthy. She was very photogenic, I had thought cynically, since I didn’t know enough about decoys to pass on her expertise. But ducks are always big news around here. So this was the famous Lenore Currier, huh? Interesting. I told her my name was Hollis Ball, and she nodded. “You’re Perk Ball’s daughter? I know your father! I met him at the Slattery estate auction, now there was a decoy collection! He’s a good collector, Perk. Anytime he wants to sell those Eddie Dean old-squaws, I’d be thrilled to broker the deal — several collectors are always interested— now, I know he doesn’t want to sell that Lem Ward canvasback, but even with the wear and tear, it’s still worth a lot more than he paid for it — “ “As you can see, the lines are quite primitive and the finish is an old oil based paint. Notice the hatchet marks where Scratch hacked the body out of an old mast… “ the judge was happily informing Athena, who looked as if she appreciated decoys even less than I did. “Scratch Wallace is listed on the Devanau County census records in from 1845 to 1904, and we know he was a Civil War deserter, and one of the earliest documented Chesapeake Bay carvers… the only earlier known lures are some Indian feather decoys, like stuffers, they discovered in a cave in —“ “Native American,” Athena corrected weakly, but Fish was on a roll and didn’t even hear her. “Will be the crown of my collection… note the exquisite grace of the … “ If I had been her, I would have fainted again, but Hardass Hardcastle bravely and respectfully stuck it out as he pointed out the age of the wood, no doubt salvaged from some old mast washed ashore, and the unique shape of the neck, how an x -ray had shown the use of hand forged nails, the scrap lead weight that ballasted the bird in the water, the age of the paint and the barely discernible traces of comb-painted detailing… And it was his, all his. I saw the fire in his eyes, the animation in his face, and knew that obsessive- compulsive- acquisitive look. It was the glow of the collector in breeding plumage. A collector. Of course. I should have known. A breed apart, collectors. And I should know; my father is crazy on one subject: collecting old waterfowl decoys. They ought to have their own listing in DSM IV. It was a relief when Bob Winters thrust his head into the door. “Jury’s ready, Yer Honor, “ he said shortly, disappearing again. Judge Fish, Athena and I all rose and ran toward the courtroom like a trio of bats out of hell. “What’s happening?” Lenore asked, panting along the corridor behind me. “Jury’s come back with a verdict. The salt trucks must have come through.” I didn’t bother to try to explain that one to her. She followed me as I took up my seat in the gallery, and I gestured her to sit down. “This won’t take too long. Then we can all go home.” Except for Smollet, I thought. He grinned and rattled his shackles at me, waving a fistful of dollar bills, the result of his skill at tonk. Barry, on the other hand, looked like he’d been sat upon. Athena and Judge Fish took their places and the jury filed in. “Madam Foreperson, do you have a verdict?” Judge Fish asked, still hooking his robe. “We do, Your Honor. We find the defendant, Smollet Lomar Bowley, guilty of—“ and proceeded to roll off about five or six of his known transgressions. “Yes!” Smollet cried, standing up, his shackles jingling. It sounded like Santa’s sleigh had come to court. Being a jerk isn’t against the law —yet. “Sit down, Mr. Bowley!” Fish reproved him impatiently, “You’re scaring the jury! Don’t frighten the civilians! It’s hard enough to get jurors as it is!” I scribbled some notes in my trusty reporter notebook and rose, grabbing my coat. “That’s my cue to exit,” I told Lenore Currier. “Got to file my story.” “I don’t rightly know to thank you all,” Smollet was telling the jury as Bob Winters prepared to haul him back to the detention center pending sentencing. Smollet couldn’t have raised bond if his life depended on it. The Bowleys were criminals, yes, but no one ever said they were good at it. “Damn it, Mr. Bowley, will you calm down?” Fish roared, losing patience. He pounded his gavel sharply. At that moment, all the lights in the courtroom went off, plunging us into utter darkness. One of the jurors screamed, and I heard some scuffling around. Fish banged the gavel, demanding order, but I could have found my way out of there in my sleep. After twelve straight hours of Courtroom Capers, I was anxious to get moving. I had my story; State of Maryland v. S.L. Bowley was all over as far as I was concerned. Besides, I wanted to get as far away from Fish as possible. Under cover of darkness and confusion, I made my way through the heavy central door and out into the hallway. At this hour of the morning, the courthouse was still and almost eerily silent. I felt my way down the stairs in the darkness, holding on to the rail with one hand and my coat and notebook with the other. It was even darker in the hallway , and my eyes were slow in adjusting to it. I almost fell on the last step. The county offices had long since shut down, their closed and locked doors strung along the marble hallway on the first floor. In spite of the uproar from the courtroom, I could hear my footsteps echoing on the cold marble floor as I made my way to the door that led into the street, using my fingertips to feel my way along the walls toward freedom, nicotine, deadlines and sleep. I never heard the other person. Someone moved past me in the darkness, shouldering me out of the way with such force that I slammed into the wall. My pocketbook fell open, scattering lose coins, junk and pens everywhere. I heard them broadcast across the marble floor in the darkness. “Hey!” I called, thinking it was a juror even more anxious to escape than I was. The side door swung open, allowing some faint glow from the streetlights to fall across the shadow of a human being. Before I could register anything else, he, she or it was gone, the door banging loudly back into the frame on a gust of cold air.
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