Chapter 5: Nine Men and a Cake

At eight on Monday morning we were the first couple in line at the register of deeds.

The clerk looked at the paper, looked at me, and said, "Aren't you the girl from the news?"

"No, ma'am," Sawyer said. "She's the girl from the Ropewalk."

The minister met us in the parking lot and signed it on the hood of Sawyer's truck.

It was a quarter after eight. I was legally Mrs. Pickard, and I'd been late for work for fifteen minutes.

By noon I'd called every number in Daddy's old Rolodex.

Most of them were dead. Two were dead men.

The yard hands had cleaned the base boats out of our slips and stood around the shed with nothing to do.

I'd locked Jesse's phone in Daddy's gun safe with his toothbrush and his hat.

I hadn't told anybody but Sawyer about the tape.

At twelve-thirty Sawyer texted me one line.

"Lunch. Upstairs. Don't argue."

I argued with him the whole drive over.

His crew had pushed four of the folding tables together in the middle of the Ropewalk floor.

The yellow ribbons were still up on the columns. Somebody had eaten the rest of the cake.

There was a cooler of sweet tea and a stack of pizza boxes from the place on Market Street.

Nine grown men stood up when I walked in.

"Mrs. Pickard," said the foreman, a big gray-bearded man who'd built half the porches in the historic district.

"Rosie," I said.

"Mrs. Pickard," all nine of them said back.

Sawyer covered his face with his hand.

They sat me at the head of the table.

The youngest one, nineteen with a peach-fuzz mustache, slid a slice of pepperoni onto my plate with great care.

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