Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron

tractor into the yard and Cal was out the door before Robert could cut the motor, leaving behind a half-eaten bowl of cereal. Amused by his son’s enthusiasm, Dwight walked out to the garden behind them to move the sprinkler hoses out of the way while his white-haired brother-in-law showed Cal how to lift and lower the set of discs attached to the tow bar.
    Even though they went over the area designated for the winter garden twice, cutting the old vines and dead plants into the ground, the whole operation was completed in less than fifteen minutes, to Cal’s disappointment.
    “Tell you what, Dwight,” said Robert. “How ’bout I take him on back with me and we’ll do Seth’s garden and maybe Andrew’s and Daddy’s, too.”
    “Can I, Dad? Please?”
    Dwight glanced at his watch. “Sorry, buddy, but I need to drop you off at Aunt Kate’s and get on in to work.” He and Deborah split the cost of the live-in nanny that his sister-in-law had hired to care for her three while she created fabric designs in her studio, a remodeled packhouse at the far edge of the backyard.
    “I can take him over when we’re done,” Robert said. “Maybe they got something needs cutting in, too.”
    Now that his daughter Betsy and her husband had moved to Raleigh, Robert and Doris didn’t see as much of young Bert as when they lived in a trailer next door and it was Deborah’s impression that Cal helped fill part of that void for her brother.
    “Please, Dad?”
    “Okay, but you mind Uncle Robert and don’t go trying to do something he hasn’t checked you out on.”
    “I won’t,” Cal promised.
    As they trundled away, the tractor in its lowest gear, Dwight put the sprinklers back on the tomatoes, okra, and field peas, then called Kate to say that Cal probably wouldn’t be getting there much before lunchtime. “And if you and Rob have forty or fifty acres you want cut in…”
    Kate laughed. “No, but if he wants to give the kids a ride around the farm, I know mine would love it. Mary Pat’s so jealous that Cal gets to drive.”
    Next Dwight called the office and sent two detectives to Dexter Oil and Gas to see if Earp’s boss and co-workers could tell them anything useful.
    Lastly, he talked to Detective Mayleen Richards to say that he planned to question Mrs. Earp and her cousin again before heading for Dobbs, which was in the opposite direction from Cotton Grove.
    “They called,” Mayleen told him. “At least her cousin did. Marisa Young. She asked if it was all right for Mrs. Earp to go back to the house? I told her you’d let her know. Ray’s on his way over there right now. He thought maybe y’all might want to take another look at the house before you let her in?”
    “Thanks, Mayleen. Give me twenty minutes, then call her back and ask her to meet us there.”
    “Sheriff Poole wants to see you when you get in and so does Ashworth.”
    As expected. Bo Poole would naturally be wanting an update on this murder, and Melanie Ashworth, who handled the department’s public relations, probably needed a statement she could give to any media inquiries.
      
    Fifteen minutes later, he parked in front of a modest white frame house that sat on a half-acre lot at the edge of Cotton Grove. It had green shutters and a narrow porch that ran the full width, and it seemed well cared for. Thick rows of azaleas and rhododendron separated the houses along this street, dogwoods and willow oaks shaded the front yards, and pines rose up in back. No garage on the Earp house, but the empty carport had space for two vehicles and there was a metal storage shed in the backyard.
    Yesterday, he had given the place no more than a cursory look before learning that Mrs. Earp was at her cousin’s house on the east side of town. She had tearfully handed over her keys to Ray McLamb, his chief deputy, who then came back here to examine the house with the department’s crime scene techs. They had found no blood inside the house, just what was