The Island Affair: An Excerpt Featuring Judge "Baby" Godbold

          The judge has agreed to spend a few weeks at the vacation home of her older brother "Son," a retired general, and his wife, whose island retreat is beginning to bore the perennially active judge,  herself now retired from Chancery Court in Nashville.  The excerpt below chronicles the three as they attend a party and on their way home make a gruesome discovery.

            “Here we are,” Son said, directing the women up a stone walk to a low-slung, rather small  house.  It sat modestly farther back than its neighbors.  A glass lanai faced the sea with tropical plants and trees sheltering the patio.  As the trio approached the terrace, they saw a couple emerge from a black Jaguar that had pulled into the turnaround.

            “The Kings,” Mary Rose hissed.  “He’s a retired big gun at an investment company in Mobile.  They have an enormous house at the tip of the island.”

            Baby watched the couple as sleek as their automobile step along the paving stones toward the house.  He was a tall man with black hair in his mid to late fifties, wearing immaculate white.  His wife was carefully and conservatively dressed in beige gabardine slacks and a coral colored linen shirt.  Baby hadn’t seen many of Son and Mary Rose’s neighbors, but from the start she’d expected to be overshadowed by these women in matters of dress, but this woman looked fairly ordinary, or at least unassuming. 

            Not that she herself was careless.  Not at all.  Her bulk and height made it imperative that she spend a small fortune on flattering styles in rich fabrics and colors.  Soft fabrics.  She knew all too well that anything stiff or heavy would look as if she’d purchased her clothes at Nashville Tent and Awning.  She preferred plain to prints but always adorned herself with interesting, she thought, and some would say ostentatious jewelry--either old family pieces or items purchased on her many travels.  Tonight, she was wearing a cream-colored voile patio dress with a large coral and silver necklace and matching earrings.  She knew the silver jewelry went well with her dark and silver-streaked hair, worn short as always.

            The small group entered the outdoor room through a glassy expanse, opening easily to their touch.  The party had not yet gotten into full swing.  Looking around the lanai, Baby saw one other couple talking to the Kings.  They were enthusiastically greeting them as if they’d not seen each other for some time.  In all probability, they’d spent an evening together within the last week.  The Kings departed into the house, leaving the other two looking inquiringly at Baby.

            “Come meet Richard and Bobbi Lou Denton,” Mary Rose said, leading Baby toward the couple.  After nodding at the wife, a tall blonde with a svelte figure and an unfortunately large

nose, Baby shook hands in an excruciating grip with her husband.  But she only had time to find

out that the Dentons were from Houston when she was assaulted by a little woman with a sparrow-like face, who was presented to her as their hostess, Mavis Penworthy.  She spoke in a cultured British accent and looked very un-British in a flashy harem outfit.  Maybe more parakeet than sparrow, Baby amended.  The woman’s hair was molded like a dessert into a much teased french twist, obviously the pride and joy of the local beautician.

            A man, introduced to her as their host, Professor Penworthy, put a blue-colored drink with a little straw hat on a toothpick into her hand.  As Son and Mary Rose conversed with their hosts, Baby wandered over to the buffet and helped herself to a plate of boiled shrimp and crudites.

            Other guests began to file in and be introduced to her; names and faces blurred after an hour, so at an opportune moment Baby slipped away to seek refuge in a corner of the room behind a large oriental screen.  She faced one of the windows that looked toward the Gulf.  The sun was setting now, and the sky looked like a flawless coral gem.  She suspected this was one of the reasons why people became enamored of these subtropical climes.  An unreal quality permeated these moments; it was like being on the inside of a Fabergé egg.  But could one really live and function at all productively or even intelligently in such an environment?  She realized she seemed inordinately dissatisfied with what seemed to be nothing but frivolous activities, but that was her personality, she knew.  Always she seemed to hunger for challenges, but was that any way to regard retirement?  Maybe she just needed to relax.

            “But I am not going to take up golf!”  A high, musical female voice rose above the conversational babble in the room.  “I’d rather take up mining.”

            “Mining?” A male voice asked incredulously.

            “Absolutely,” the female said.  “For gold or diamonds . . .”  And after exclamation of

disbelief from her audience, she added, “. . . that I can wear!”

            “Now, now, Lily,” a man’s voice said jokingly, “you know what women are called who devote their energies to that pursuit.” 

            Baby stepped to the edge of the screen and peeped out.  She detected the owner of the musical voice at once, a beautiful woman surrounded by several of the male guests.  She had long dark hair worn in deeply waved wings over her temples.  Her eyes were a melting brown, her skin lustrous and delicately tinted as if only brushed by the sun’s gentle touch.  Baby judged her age to be mid-thirties.  She wore a long black silk halter dress that revealed the shape of her breasts and accented her smashing figure.  She wore no jewelry except large diamond earrings.

            Baby moved closer to the little group. 

            She remembered Mary Rose describing her as the wild divorceé.  But before she could give her own name, the host of the evening, Frank Penworthy, stepped into the breach and not only introduced Baby to the group and they to her, but also gave a little history of the judge’s distinguished career, saying, “This lady may look peaceable, but according to her brother, she has actually solves crimes for authorities in her spare time.” 

            To exclamations of surprise and queries for more information, Baby waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and said, “I’m on vacation, folks, and I doubt that any tales from the dark side would be welcome either.”

             Lily Lawrence looked properly impressed.  

            “How wonderful to have such a useful life.”  She sighed and looked up at Peter Royal, the club manager, and said, “My problem has always been that I like too many things, and I never want to limit myself to a narrow existence.”

            That seemed like a hole in one to Baby.  The woman was remarkably good at the game of one-upmanship.  She’d obviously had years of practice in its subtleties.  Judge Godbold sagged a bit, feeling much older and heavier than she had while behind the screen immersed in the sunset.  This woman’s beauty ran not to her soul, it was obvious, but was merely skin deep. 

            Baby smiled politely and turned away from the group.  She found herself accompanied, however, by Frank Penworthy.  He took her arm and steered her to the drinks table.  “How about one more before the buffet is served?”

             "No, thanks.  I've had my limit."

            “And so you’re a crime aficionado, I hope that doesn’t mean you’re studying us for criminal tendencies,” he commented jovially.

            Baby laughed.  “Hardly!  I just like to observe in general.  For instance, that gentleman over there” She went on in an undertone.  “I believe his name is King, which seems appropriate. He gives the impression he’s doing everybody a favor being here.  Wouldn’t you say?”  King was as tall as he was powerfully built with horn rimmed glasses who stood slightly outside a small group but whose conversational interjections were pronounced loudly and with great authority. He carried his stomach before him proudly as if it alone proclaimed his prosperity.

            “Oh, absolutely, Judge.”  He, too, lowered his voice.  “Grant King, big-time Mobile businessman.”  He gave Baby a mischievous wink.  “He’s a something of a windbag.”

            They were moving slowly around the crowded room when a woman turned suddenly and nearly bumped into Baby.  They both apologized, the woman effusively.

            “This is Florence King, Judge,” Penworthy said.

            Baby frowned in concentration.  “Florence King,” she repeated.  “I know that name.”

            The woman gave a full throated laugh.  “If you’re a American history buff, you might.  That was the maiden name of Mrs. Warren G. Harding.  Someone told me that after I married Grant, and I looked her up.  I don’t admire her much.  Seems she sacrificed a promising career to live with that philanderer.  And besides, she was a Republican.  I’m a dyed in the wool Democrat, myself.  Oh, dear,” she caught herself.  “I do believe it’s very poor manners to bring up politics at  dinner with friends.”  She pronounced the word “duhnnah.”

            “You’re from Mobile?” Baby asked.  The woman had that distinctive, cultured deep South accent that betrayed a family history of close contact with black slaves and servants, followed by exclusive girls schools run by Miss Sarah or Miss Nannie.  She looked older than her husband.

            “Atlanta, originally, but--” Her words were drowned out by the hostess shrieking in her upper register that the buffet had been laid on, a quaintly British way of saying dinner was served.

            The rest of the evening was as Baby had anticipated.   Along about 11:00, she caught Son’s eye across the room, and she nodded eagerly at his thumbed gesture for leaving.  Baby didn’t know if they were the first to depart, but many still remained.

            A breeze had come up that freshened the air delightfully.  Baby gave an appreciative sniff as they walked toward the beach.  “I do like the ocean, you know.  I wouldn’t mind living on an island myself–maybe a little bigger than this one.  I was thinking more the size of England.”

            Her brother and his wife chuckled.  Mary Rose asked Baby about her impressions of the people she’d met.

            “I can’t say yet.  Light party chatter doesn’t make for interesting observations, let alone character analysis.  Maybe in some smaller groups I can get better acquainted.”  But she held out little hope she’d find anyone of genuine interest, with the possible exception of the professor, that she’d like to get to know better.  But that was unfair since social occasions like the one tonight were not designed for intellectual discussions; also, she hadn’t met everyone on the island, so she mustn’t get the wrong idea from the few obvious types that had crossed her path.

            Their steps pounded on the boardwalk like muffled drumbeats as they marched along in unison, their progress measured by pools of light from the regularly placed lamp posts..

            “The tide’s going out,” Son observed.  The beach lay extended like spilled batter being sopped up by the receding waves.

            Baby saw what seemed to be a dark, irregular shape of maybe driftwood, now covered by waves, now left bare.  She hadn’t remembered seeing such a large piece of it on their walk over.  She guessed the lowering waters had finally revealed it.

            “Look at that,” Son pointed out as they drew closer.  “It looks almost like a body.” He stepped off the boardwalk and moved farther onto the beach area toward the object.  Baby followed him, curious herself.

            Now Baby saw a head--and hair streaming out like a fan.  Her scalp prickled, her steps quickened.  “My word,” she exclaimed, “it is a body!”
            She reached the recumbent figure before her brother and bent over beside it.  It was a moonless night, and the lamp near the boardwalk couldn’t illuminate much so near the water, but Baby felt certain she knew who was lying in the wash.  She recognized the halter dress and saw a faintly twinkling diamond in the one ear that was exposed to view. 

Communion: A Story

            Mrs. Swan walked swiftly through the living room of her tiny apartment on her way to the bedroom.  She had never been a spritely walker, but today her step had a lift, her body an animation that was unusual.  She stopped opposite the bathroom and then turned back.  There was something not quite right about the living room.  She had taken in more with her pale blue eyes than would have been apparent in the swift glance she gave the room as she passed through.

            By and large, she was pleased with the way the apartment had turned out.  Jason’s Furniture had delivered the sofa, chairs, table, a lamp, and small glass-front chest for bibelots yesterday and she had gotten the delivery men to arrange the pieces to suit her before they left.  Ruth had gone with her to pick out the new furniture, and Mrs. Swan was grateful for her friend’s help, but now she was afraid the room didn’t look as much like Ruth’s apartment as she might have wished, even though she had taken extra pains.  She had hung her three pictures last night, all prints in store-bought frames, using special tape so as not to mar the newly painted walls.

            Despite her anxieties, she stood in the middle of the room and contemplated it with almost embarrassed pleasure.  The new sofa was mainly burnt orange and gold flowers which matched the sculptured tweed carpet.  She had kept her late husband’s desk and chair from the old house and placed them in a corner of the room.  She intended to pay her bills from that desk now that she was alone.  There seemed to be enough money to be comfortable.  Goodness!  Checks came in regularly—pension, social security, dividends from her husband’s investments.

            The walnut-stained drum table with the lamp on it drew her attention.  Two modified barrel-back chairs in a slippery green fabric hunched around the table.  Mrs. Swan thought the chairs were a little short in the seat, but Ruth said they looked right for the small room and perfectly matched the green of the leaves in the sofa.  It seemed to Mrs. Swan that Ruth had something besides a lamp on the drum table in her own apartment, but she couldn’t think what.

            She cast her eyes around the room for an idea, and they lighted on a wooden stamp box sitting on the desk, a souvenir from Gary, Indiana, purchased twenty years ago on a trip to visit a cousin.  Maybe it would do better on the drum table.  She now remembered that Ruth had a nice double frame that housed pictures of her grandchildren on her little table.  Mrs. Swan thought of  a double porcelain picture frame, still in the box it had arrived in.  Her daughter-in-law had sent it for her birthday last year with pictures of the two boys, but she’d put it away until the impending move.  She couldn’t think where it was, but she didn’t have time to fool with it now, so the wooden box would have to do.  Ruth would be here for lunch within an hour, and Mrs. Swan still had her bath to take.  A buttery sensation of anticipation filled her heart region as she hurried off.

            She stepped into the tub gingerly, guarding her now rather heavy but still strong body.  Her failing flesh had a loose firmness like water in a bag.  She thought about the lunch she had planned as a special treat and hoped it wouldn’t be too light a meal.  She’d wanted something festive enough for the occasion.  Ruth was leaving today to go live with her son and his wife in Fort Myers, Florida.  Generally, when they lunched together they ate out, either in the hotel dining room on the square, or sometimes Ruth drove them to the new motel restaurant on the highway.  Both places served real dinners with vegetables and meat.  Ruth said those salad bars were a way restaurants made money; they filled you up for thirty minutes and then you were hungry again.

            She had no sooner got out of the tub and put on a summer cotton dress than she heard a brief knock at the door.  It was unlike Ruth to be thirty minutes early, and Mrs. Swan felt a flash

of irritation as she wondered who it might be.  She came into the living room to see her daughter Barbara who had walked on in.  She gave her mother a perfunctory “Hello” before going into the kitchenette and drawing tap water into a glass from the cupboard.

            “It’s hot today,” she said, gulping the water.  “My car air conditioner isn’t working.”

            “I didn’t know you were coming.”  Mrs. Swan had followed Barbara and now looked with dismay at the water splashes on the sink and counter top and the dripping glass on the drain board.  There!  Just when she had gone to the trouble to wipe the stainless steel with a towel, too.  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked plaintively.

            “I came on the spur of the moment.  One of the agency’s clients was supposed to go over some proposals with me today, but he canceled out.  I didn’t want to start something new on a Friday, so I’ve taken the afternoon off.  I thought I’d see Margie Taylor.  I meant to mail her a baby gift but didn’t get around to it, so I brought it with me.”

            “Are you going there for lunch?”

            “No, I called her before I left town and said I’d come over around 1:00.  I’ll have plenty of time to get a bite here.  Do you have anything for a sandwich?”  She looked around at the cupboards as if she expected a menu to be posted.

            Mrs. Swan was disconcerted by the request.  “I guess so.  I’ll get you something.”  She moved ahead of her daughter to the refrigerator.  “Go sit down.”  She didn’t like people messing about in her kitchen, whether it was her old former kitchen with the thirty-year-old appliances (still spotless she was proud to admit) or her new, miniaturized apartment kitchen, which she’d had to work on one whole day to get rid of others' filth.

            Barbara sat down at the small dining table with the faux-wood plastic top and set her handbag on it, something her mother considered unsanitary.  The older woman’s movements as she fixed the tuna fish sandwich were as slow and angular as a fork lift.  Mrs. Swan glanced again at Barbara’s handbag, having once expressed admiration for it.  Barbara had told her it was a fancy foreign brand that had cost several hundred dollars.  How shocking to think she had actually paid that much!

            “Do you want some instant coffee?” Mrs. Swan asked, cutting the sandwich in two.

            “Coffee!  You know I never drink coffee.  Could I have some iced tea, please?  I’ll make it with a tea bag if you don’t have any on hand.”

            “I guess it’s your brother who likes coffee.  No, I’ll make it.”  Mrs. Swan put on the kettle and looked nervously at the brass clock on the wall behind Barbara.  It was almost noon.

            “Have you seen Joe or Sally recently?” Barbara asked.

            “No, not for a while.  They never come unless it’s a special occasion.”  Her voice had taken on a familiar lugubrious tone.  “I guess Sally’d rather spend weekends with her folks.”  

            “That’s normal.  They live in the same town.  It’s nearly a hundred miles to come here.  I suppose the boys have activities too, and it’s hard for them to get away often.  You ought to take the bus over for a weekend sometime.”

            “I suppose so,” Mrs. Swan said with doubt in her voice.  They had asked her more than once to pay them a visit, but she didn’t know.  She couldn’t help but think it had been several months since Barbara had been here and she only lived thirty miles away in the big city.  Still, she wouldn’t have said anything about that to her daughter.  Mrs. Swan put ice cubes in the tall glass, added hot water and the tea bag.  “Can I get you anything else?  Chips?”

            Barbara shook her head.  Mrs. Swan thought her daughter was looking tired.  Since the divorce Barbara had worked like a slave, but that was her concern if she wanted to wear herself out and look old before her time and probably never get another man.  She’d fervently taken her daughter’s part during the marital crisis, called James a “bum” to everyone and hoped she’d never have to set eyes on him.  The shame of it all!  The first divorce in the family except for years ago when her great aunt divorced that drunken husband.  Joe had hinted that his sister may have caused some of the problems herself, and Mrs. Swan had been fit to be tied.  She hadn’t called to talk to Joe for several months.  What if he let something like that slip out to others?

            The knock on the door startled Mrs. Swan for a moment, and she felt a flutter of anxiety as she thought how badly this day was turning out.  When she admitted her friend, she said, “Barbara’s here,” indicating her daughter with a nod.

            The women exchanged greetings, and Barbara asked about her move.  Ruth patted her tightly crimped, iron-gray hair self-consciously.  Mrs. Swan’s hair looked much the same, but then they used the same hairdresser.

            “Well, yes, I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.  My son and daughter-in-law have been after me ever since they moved to Fort Myers to come live with them.”   She bustled over to a chair at the table and eased herself carefully into it.  Her arthritis had made her a martyr to getting up and down as she frequently claimed with a little deprecating laugh.

            “You sure are lucky,” said Mrs. Swan with a little quaver to her voice.

            Her friend turned to Barbara and with enthusiasm asked about the younger woman’s two teenagers, her job, her activities, making interested comments about each.  Mrs. Swan listened to the almost drugging quality of her friend’s animated speech.  Ruth always knew the right things to say, it seemed like.

            “Do you want a doughnut?” she broke in to ask her daughter, removing her plate and glass and carrying them to the sink.

            Barbara refused, excusing herself to go to the bathroom.

            Mrs. Swan hurried to the refrigerator to get out her and Ruth’s lunch. She didn’t like to wait too long to eat since she had a nervous stomach which demanded regular meals and punished her terribly is she didn’t keep on top of mealtimes.  She set the two plates covered in Saran wrap on basket-weave place mats.

            “Oh, the ham-wrapped asparagus!” Ruth exclaimed.  They had both commented on this dish when they had been served it at Dorothy Gregory’s last week.  Dorothy had entertained a group of Methodist church ladies in Ruth’s honor and included Mrs. Swan though she didn’t attend that church.

            “I melted Velveeta for the topping,” said Mrs. Swan, hurrying to get a small pan off the stove, pouring the cheese into a tiny pitcher.  Then she took out plates of sliced tomatoes on lettuce with French dressing and a basket of Pepperidge Farm rolls covered with a paper napkin.  She poured from a large pitcher the fruit tea she had made ahead of time into her best glasses.

            “Well, Jane, isn’t this nice,” her friend said with a smile and waited until Mrs. Swan sat down.  They had just begun to eat when Barbara came back and saw them at the table.

            “Oh, I assumed you were going out to eat.”  Her eyes scanned the plates, the pitcher, the basket.  “I guess I’ll be going.  I’m a little early, but Marge won’t mind.”

            Hurriedly swallowing a mouthful of ham and asparagus, Mrs. Swan called out as her daughter exited the room, “Well, come back . . . when you can.”

            “You’re lucky to live in the same state as your children,” Ruth said, buttering the roll daintily.  “Here I am setting off on a new adventure at my age, just because my kids don’t want me here by myself.”

            “I don’t know how you’re doing it, Ruth.  I’d never be able to manage such a change, I declare.  The move to this apartment has liked to kill me.”

            Ruth laughed, showing large teeth.  “I just can’t let myself think about what’s behind.  Always look forward, Jane.  That’s the secret.”

            “You’re strong.  You’ve had good nerves.”  Mrs. Swan had had periodic bouts with nerves all her adult life.  

            “Yes, I suppose I’ve been fortunate in that way.”

            Mrs. Swan took their empty plates and retrieved from the refrigerator the fixings for strawberry shortcake.  Arranging them on two plates, she spooned added a dollop of Cool Whip on each and set them on the table.  “I hope you get along all right with your daughter-in-law,” she said gloomily.

            “I should, I think.  Of course, they’ve fixed me up a regular apartment with my own entrance and everything.”   The two ate their desserts quietly for a few minutes; then Ruth glanced at her wrist watch and stirred in her chair.  “I must go.  My bus leaves at 3:10 and I’ll need to pack my personal things.”  She thanked Mrs. Swan profusely for the lunch and gave her a peck on the cheek.  

            As she closed the door behind her friend, Mrs. Swan was overcome suddenly by a fierce anger.  She turned to face her apartment, so newly decorated, yet so, so—heartless.  She took a pillow from the sofa and threw it into a corner of the room.  A lamp against the wall would have been better, but lamps cost money.  Tears sprang to her eyes and a harsh, dry sob caught in her throat as she sank into the chair beside the desk, fearful and alone.  With an effort she pulled herself together and lifted the telephone receiver.  But how dumb of her; she didn’t know Margie Taylor’s number.  She pored over the list of Taylors in the directory.  What was her husband’s name?  George, wasn’t it?  She dialed the number with a shaky hand.

            “This is Mrs. Swan, Margie.  Is—is Barbara still there?  I mean, no, I don’t need to talk to her.  I just wondered—how’s that new baby?”

Introducing Judge "Baby" Godbold: An excerpt from Eye of the Sun

The old Mercedes tooled along the nearly empty highway at a moderate speed, rounding curves solidly, slowing down occasionally as the driver glanced around here and there to examine the countryside.  She’d left the interstate thirty minutes ago, traveling on the two-lane highway that led her closer to the village of Barton.  It had been many years since Judge Penelope “Baby” Godbold had been in the remote foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains.  She and Dan had gone to a concert at the University of the South–how long ago had it been?  At least fifteen years.  And now she was making this trip, fulfilling some need that had been building since Dan’s death almost two years ago.  Funny how even her job had paled without him to discuss legal points and their respective cases.  With his practice in civil defense litigation and her work in Chancery, they ran into many of the same issues.  It was mainly because of the bleakness that now overhung her life, the emptiness that yawned before her, that she’d decided to retire much earlier than she’d planned.  Life must hold more for her, and she was determined to seek out new adventures.  Thus, this trip to the hinterlands of Tennessee.  And she couldn’t have picked a more beautiful time for a trip to Barton.

The early April weather was always changeable in this part of the country, as if teasing the locals into believing spring had arrived.  But even though the day had been mild when she left Nashville, and March had gone out like a lamb, spring was not necessarily around the corner, especially in the hill country.  Of course, many of the trees had begun to sprout leaves, showing off their delicious new green colors, and some of the flowering ones like the dogwood and redbud were starting to bud out, giving the roadside a more decorative look.  Backing the smaller trees were the conifers, huge and dense, and beyond them were what seemed to be virgin forest.  But that wasn’t possible.  Baby knew the land had been settled and, if not developed around tiny hamlets, was owned by timber companies with the trees routinely harvested and the strips, obviously, replanted.

The swelling hills she traveled over were like stepping stones across the deep gorges that cut into the land, a wild and wooly landscape to her eyes.  She was more accustomed to the gentler slopes of the Nashville basin where the land undulated with the geosynclines that swept across middle Tennessee.  These were formed during the subsidence of the inland sea from an earlier geologic era and had become rich farmland.  Still, Baby appreciated the ever-changing landscape of this very different, rougher country.  She suspected the people would be different, too, from what she was used to, as she believed the land played a role in developing the character of its inhabitants.  She was curious to know how Guy and Marnie were adjusting to living in Barton.  Dan would have been amused to think his citified nephew had actually taken up residence in a rather remote village, commuting to his law practice in Chattanooga.   Unquestionably, this was a very strange sort of place for the both of them!

After passing the mountaintop hamlet of Monteagle, the road straightened out and before her lay the ribbon of highway, rising and sinking here and there but not a curve in sight for miles.  She speeded up without thinking, even having to press rather hard on the stiff accelerator to jump the big motor into more revolutions.  It settled into a cruising speed that seemed as easy and comfortable as riding in the gondola of a Ferris wheel.  Then from behind a clump of trees in a lane, she glimpsed from the corner of her eye the distinctive outlines of a patrol car.  The term “crouching” came to mind, but she braked swiftly.  In the rear view mirror a light flashed and she heard the bleep of a siren.

She drove the car onto the narrow shoulder, came to a stop, and turned off the motor.  She began to rummage in her capacious purse for her billfold and then rolled down the window, smiling at the young highway patrolman who seemed to be looking sternly at her from behind his dark glasses.

“Hello, ma’am, did you know you were going eight miles over the speed limit?”

“No, officer, I didn’t.  The road was clear, the day is lovely, and I suppose I felt like flying.  I’m terribly sorry to have gotten carried away.”  She handed him her license.

“Well, even though there’s not much traffic–ah, are you by any chance Judge Godbold?”  He bent toward her and gave her a sharp look.  When she assented, he smiled at her.  “I guess you hadn’t checked your speedometer, and with these big cars and the straightaway, it’s easy to speed a little.”  He handed her back the license.  “Where are you bound for, Judge?”

She told him about going to visit relatives in Barton for the first time, and he nodded.  “You’re only about five miles from the turnoff.  Let me escort you so you won’t miss it.  Watch the speed limit in these parts, y’hear?  We don’t want anything to happen to the famous Judge Godbold.”  He saluted her briefly by touching his cap, turned and went back to his cruiser.  Baby sighed and watched in the rear view mirror until a couple of trucks passed by and then the officer’s car pulled around her.  She followed him as they proceeded down the highway at a stately pace, turning at a well-marked road toward the town of Barton.  The sign invited visitors to the “Historic Barton Restorations.  Houses and Lots For Sale.”  It might prove to be an interesting place to check out, she speculated, but she could only hope she’d not be subjected to yawning boredom.

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