I was supposed to defend a couple of indigent Haitians who’d been netted in the raid of a crack house in a trailer park off I-95. They spoke almost no English; my college French wasn’t idiomatic enough to get through to them, so we’d had to wait for an interpreter to come out from Raleigh before I could get the whole story.

According to them, they’d been hitchhiking back from New York and had heard that they could find a friendly place to flop at that particular trailer. They claimed to have been sleeping the sleep of innocence when DEA agents knocked on the door with a search warrant. Their “host” seemed to have temporarily vanished; and when the trailer was searched, a half-kilo of cocaine and three grams of crack were found in a bedroom at the opposite end from the room they’d been given. Since they were the only ones there, they took the fall. And they’d been lodged in the county jail for two weeks, refusing to give their names or plead until the interpreter could get there.

Even though Harrison Hobart was hearing the case, I didn’t bother asking for a jury trial. All I had to do was put everyone on the witness stand and let them tell their stories. DEA admitted he had nothing to link the drugs to these two other than their being in the trailer that night.

The two youths were quite personable once the linguist translated everything for them. Charming even. Of course it was quite clear to everyone in the courtroom that they were a couple of mules plying the north-south trade route that links Miami to New York. Tons of hard drugs pass up and down I-95, thankfully only a small percentage falls off the trucks here, though of course we’re no more immune than any other area. But as I pointed out to the court, there wasn’t a smidgen of evidence upon which to hold these particular two.

To his regret, Hobart had to agree.

The charming young men shook hands all around and promised to send money from Haiti to repay the interpreter and me for our trouble.

The interpreter and I agreed we wouldn’t hold our breath.

Between getting the facts translated and then fitting the actual hearing in around other cases, it was after four before I was free to leave the courthouse. As I came down the steps, I was overtaken by a tight-lipped Luther Parker.

“I thought this was to be a civilized campaign, Miss Knott,” he said coldly.

“Come again?”

He handed me a sheet of paper. “I suppose you’ve never seen this.”

It looked like my personal letterhead and was headed “An Open Letter to Concerned Voters of Judicial District 11-C.” It wasn’t quite as blatant as He’s a nigger, I’m white, vote for me, but it was the next thing to it, and it carried my signature at the bottom.

For a moment I thought I was going to throw up.

“You can’t believe for a minute that I’d-”

“It’s your stationery, Miss Knott, and your signature, isn’t it?” he asked, his thin black face looming over me in outraged suspicion.

“Would you please cut out that ‘Miss Knott? Okay, yes, this looks like my letterhead, but anybody with a copier could…” I examined the sheet more closely. “Look here, Luther. This is a flat-out cut-and-paste job, a real sloppy one at that. They used the campaign letter I sent out in March and put their own mess over mine. See the cut lines here and here?”

“But then it would look like that, wouldn’t it?” he asked.

I could see his point. If this were the sort of campaigning I’d stoop to, I’d naturally want to be able to deny it. Therefore I’d do it so crudely that it would look as if someone had doctored my original letter without my knowledge. That way, I wouldn’t be blamed for sleazy politics, yet I’d have gotten the message out.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

“They were stacked on top of every News and Observer box in Makely this morning,” he answered grimly.

“Oh, Lord,” I groaned. “Let’s see. When does the Makely Weekly go to press?”

“Noon on Thursdays.” He glanced at his watch. “Four and a half hours ago.”

“Luther, I swear to God I know nothing about this. My sister-in-law’s helping with my campaign. Let me talk to her and then, if that’s what you want, I’ll meet you at the Ledger first thing tomorrow and we’ll get Linsey Thomas to run a disclaimer, okay?”

Neither of us was very happy with this solution, but we couldn’t think of anything else to do.

At least Luther was back to calling me Deborah before we parted.

When I returned to the office, Sherry had put the dustcover over her computer and was ready to leave.

“Minnie’s been trying-to get you for the last hour,” she said, handing me a sheaf of message slips.

“I’ll bet.”

“Mr. John Claude and Reid-”

“Ah, Deborah,” said John Claude from the doorway of his office. “May Reid and I see you for a few minutes?”

Sherry discreetly left and I crossed the hall to John Claude’s office. He and Reid both had angry expressions on their faces and copies of the same trash Luther had shown me in their hands.

“This is quite unconscionable,” said John Claude.

“Really stinks,” Reid agreed.

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “You don’t think I knew anything about this, do you?”

“Of course not!” John Claude snapped.

Reid handed me a gin and tonic, the gin poured with a stingy hand, the way I take it these days when I drink at all.

“John Claude thinks it’s Hector Woodlief’s people.”

Hector Woodlief had run unopposed on the Republican ticket in Tuesday’s primary, even though the only way he could realistically expect to win in November was if the Democratic candidate was dead or under indictment for something major.

“I take it Hector Woodlief doesn’t get your vote?” I asked Reid.

“Seems more likely this came from some of Luther Parker’s people.”

“What?”

“Foolishness,” muttered John Claude.

“No, it’s not! Reid argued. ”Think about it, Deborah. This kind of crap hurts you a lot more than it hurts him. Gets the race thing right out in the open with you as the bigoted villain.”

I thought about it and then shook my head. “No. It just doesn’t compute. If Parker’s that Machiavellian, wouldn’t he do it closer to the election for maximum impact?”

“I didn’t say Parker himself; I said his people.”

“No,” I said again. “I just spoke to Luther on the courthouse steps not ten minutes ago and he accused me of writing this. He’s a good attorney, but I’ve never seen him try out for any of the Possum Creek Player’s productions. He really and truly thought I-or somebody belonging to me anyhow-did this.”

John Claude was distressed. “Oh, surely not.”

“I think I convinced him.” I took a deep swallow of my drink and sat down on the blue leather couch to leaf through my messages. Most were from Minnie. “I’ll talk to Minnie tonight and I told Luther I’d meet him in Linsey Thomas’s office tomorrow morning so we can issue a joint statement.”

John Claude shook his head pessimistically. “Reid’s right, I’m afraid. This does have the potential to harm you more than it harms Parker.”

Supper with Minnie and Seth brought us to pretty much the same conclusion.

I’d driven over to the modern farmhouse they’d built on the northwest side of the Grimes place-still called that even though Daddy’d bought it at auction back in the early sixties when North Carolina’s short-staple cotton took a double blow from polyesters and boll weevils. Farm acreage was going dirt cheap then, but even if it’d been high, Daddy still would have bid it in since it bounded his own land. He’d deeded it to Seth for a wedding present and Seth seemed to be doing pretty good with tobacco, sweet potatoes, and soy beans.

Minnie’s in her midforties, old enough to be accepting of people and their shortcomings, yet wise to how they enjoy scandalous gossip. She was seriously disturbed over the potential damage the scurrilous flyer could do and had sent the kids off for pizza over in Cotton Grove so we could talk without the distraction of TV or stereos.