Southern Fried (13 page)

I was gnawing on the chicken leg and reading the cartoon page when Mom swung in the back door.

“You’re here! Is that all you’re having? There’s some leftover lima beans and mashed potatoes. You could just heat those up.”

“This is fine.” I draw the line at eating cold limas or mashed potatoes. And I was too lazy to put a plate in the microwave.

Mom set the armload of files and papers she carried on the countertop. “Lucky you’re here. Something came up this morning. You might be able to help.”

“Sure.”

“How do you do a criminal background check?”

My mother’s blunt but dramatic questions ceased surprising me years ago. “What do you need to check for, exactly?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just stuff in general.” She sighed and pushed a strand of faded red-gold hair off her forehead.

I just looked at her, waiting. She knew she’d have to do better than that.

“Okay.” She shuffled through the load of papers she’d shed, organizing them into stacks as she spoke. “You know the new Economic Development and Planning Board for Dacus? Your father serves on the board now.”

That was news.

“And they’ve hired a new director. Sy Bonifay. He came from downstate somewhere, I think. Maybe New Orleans or Tennessee before that. Anyway.…” She paused in her paper shuffling, as if searching for the next sentence. “Well, this sounds stupid. But his eyes just don’t look right. They remind me of somebody. And—well, they just need to check him out.”

“Surely they did that before they hired him.” I sipped my ice tea.

Mom gave me one of her “oh, Avery” looks. “Sure, they read his résumé or whatever. And they interviewed him. And they probably even took time to call whatever references he provided. But that’s the key, isn’t it? He provided them.”

“Well, what doesn’t look right? About his eyes,” I asked.

Her blue eyes focused on me over the gold-framed half-glasses perched on her nose. “They just look too big for his face.”

“So what’s got you worried?”

She flapped a file folder on the countertop. She didn’t direct her exasperation at me, but at her
inability to articulate what felt wrong. Considering some of the projects she takes on, her instincts come in handy. But sometimes it takes a while for her to know exactly why somebody strikes her the wrong way. She says the good Lord protects her. I say anybody else would’ve been found dead in a ditch a long time ago.

“Avery—I don’t know. Just—how do you do a criminal check?”

I shrugged. “L.J. ought to be able to run one for you, if it’s important.”

“So the sheriff can just plug in his name and find out—what?”

“She’ll need his social security number. And maybe his birth date. But the national system should turn up any felony convictions.”

She frowned. “Only convictions? Not arrests?”

I shook my head. “And no misdemeanors.”

“Such as?”

“Most of those, you likely wouldn’t care about. You know, jaywalking, traffic fines, that sort of thing. Trouble is, sometimes more serious things get pled down to misdemeanors.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes a case that a prosecutor can’t quite prove for some reason will get bumped down to a lesser charge, in exchange for a plea agreement. The guy pleads guilty to something, and the county avoids the expense of a trial it might not win.”

“What kind of cases?”

“Depends. Maybe something like arson, which is
often hard to prove. Or drunk driving. Or child abuse or sexual assault.”

Her frown deepened, and I hastened to explain. “That’s usually cases where the victim is too scared to testify or wouldn’t make a good witness for some reason.”

The valley stayed between her eyebrows. “So how can you find out about misdemeanors if they aren’t on this national system?”

“You could ask L.J. to make sure. I think you still have to do a county-by-county search of the records. And then sometimes neighboring counties. Sounds like this Sy Bonifay has lived a lot of places, though. That’d take a lot of time and money to do a thorough search.”

Mom nodded, thoughtful. “It’s probably nothing. I’m just curious, is all. He—maybe I just need to get to know him better.”

I didn’t press her any further. She’d tell me when she got ready. Or she’d keep her mouth shut. Not much I could do to push her one way or the other

I
loaded Dad’s circular saw in the Mustang’s trunk and stopped by the builder’s supply for a few boards and nails just to get started on the porch.

As I turned toward the mountains, the cloud cover that had opened the day began to lift. On cool days, the mountains that shelter the north of town turn a striking cobalt blue as the clouds lift. The scene always takes my breath, a deep, looming blue, with its overshadowing gray-bottomed clouds.

I drove, leaning with a practiced memory into the curves, the car’s tires burping only slightly as I pushed the accelerator in the depth of each curve. A melancholy enveloped me. Before I’d left my parents’ house, I’d called Melvin to pass along a message from Rudy Mellin. Lea’s body wouldn’t be released immediately, since the investigation was ongoing.

Ordinarily I hate talking by telephone, mostly because I can’t read the person on the other end. But even without visual clues, the despair in Melvin’s voice sounded palpable, an emotion too strong to
bear in person. I felt an odd gratitude for the separation that technology provided, the simultaneous insulation and intimacy of wires and distance.

How had Melvin dealt with the disappearance of his wife? Had he loved her? Something about his reactions now, the quiet, sad calm, spoke of a depth of feeling that had a calm surface but had not grown shallow over the last fifteen years. What would it be like if someone you loved just disappeared? To not know how. Or why. Or where. To know the whole town whispered. And to have the police looking nowhere but at you.

What must the last fifteen years have done to him? After fifteen years, he could finally grieve, formally and openly—but still under suspicion. And still with no body to bury.

The cool air off the lake gave me energy I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The work on the porch progressed surprisingly well. I didn’t slice off any personal appendages, drop any glass panes, or hack off any key support timbers on the porch. A couple more windows were winter tight, and I’d repaired enough of the porch to walk to the front door without falling through to the clammy dirt underneath. Before I bought more supplies, I’d have to sit down with my checkbook and take a serious look at my financial reality. And I still needed to decide what I’d do about that reality.

I hadn’t thought much past coming to Dacus. A couple of weeks ago, I’d simply run away from Columbia. I still had no idea what, if anything, I should
run toward. I’d never imagined coming back to Dacus to stay. Yet somehow, with everyone else assuming I’d come here to stay, I found myself mentally trying it on for size.

Even given the charity of my family, it cost a lot to merely exist. But I currently spent a whole heck of a lot less to maintain my lifestyle now than a month ago. Amazing what you could do without, once it has been ripped from your grasp.

The sun began sketching deep shadows from the house to the water’s edge. That prickle of someone staring, a sense that someone stood nearby, tickled the back of my neck. I’d been so engrossed in prying off, measuring, measuring again, sawing, and nailing down, I don’t know how long she’d stood there, watching me.

“No doubt about who your granddaddy was,” she said.

She wore a blue down vest with a plaid shirt and jeans. A thick braided pigtail reached halfway to her waist, with a soft halo of gray curls fuzzing around her face. Standing near the porch, she gave the impression she stood eye level with me, a large woman who seemed to fill up more space than she actually required.

“You knew my grandfather?”

“Sure did.”

Something about me, the cabin, or life in general amused her.

“Sure did,” she repeated. “Your granddaddy and I went back a ways. He knew my daddy. Used to play
on that porch where you’re standing when I was a little girl. While they talked men talk.” The crinkles near her eyes deepened.

“I’m Avery Andrews.”

I stood on my newly repaired step to offer her a handshake, which she cupped in both her strong, rough hands. Like her hands, her face was large but not fleshy.

“I’m Sadie Waynes. You must know you look like him.”

I smiled. I didn’t want to say no, I had no such idea. My grandfather had been a tall, gaunt man, old when my mother was born. I, on the other hand, at five foot two, was anything but tall and gaunt.

She must have read in my face what I didn’t speak. “A’ course, when I say folks look like somebody, not too many would agree. Depends on what you choose to see, I always say.” She didn’t elaborate. “You’re named for your granddaddy.”

I nodded.

“You’re the one who went to law school. He was rare proud of you. You back to stay?”

I was disconcerted by how much this big-boned woman who came out of the woods knew about me. Rather than answer, I asked, “Do you live around here?”

She gestured past my cabin, over the hill away from the lake. “My family’s place is up Back Creek Cove.”

I’d never been struck before by how odd it sounded to call a landlocked draw a cove. Odd, now that I could see my growing-up place through dis
tant eyes. Sadie Waynes studied me as she might someone who’d come from a distance. I found myself studying her in much the same way. Even in a place as small as Dacus, we didn’t know each other, but some of the mountain people maintain an isolation from Dacus proper.

“So you knew my grandfather,” I repeated for lack of anything better to say.

She nodded, hooking her fingertips into her jeans pockets. “For as long as I can remember. A wonderful man. Suffered no fools gladly.” She kept eyeing me as if she planned on buying me.

“What brings you over to the lake?” I asked, trying to move the conversation—and her study—on to other things.

She indicated a croaker sack in a heap at her feet. “Diggin’ ’sang.”

Ginseng, the much-prized forked root used in herbal remedies and health potions, grew in the hollows. Digging it required patience and a constitution given to long walks, sharp looking, and patient stooping.

“Hadn’t been here in quite some time,” she continued. “Stopped comin’.” She half turned to look across the lake, her profile to me. “Law, been some time. A decade or more, now that I think on it. This lake carries a deep mist.”

The water lay clear and bright under the dimming sun. No mist that I could see.

She kept looking across the lake to the darkened trees on the opposite shore. “Hear they found her.”

I nodded, but she didn’t notice.

“Maybe that’s what had things here clouded. Had to come see. A sad place, for sure.” She sighed. “I wisht I’d known. Something went akilter here, but who could’ve known.”

What could I say to that?

She turned. “You were there when they found her.” She didn’t ask; she told.

I nodded. “By accident.”

“This lake’s hidden other things. Things aren’t always as they seem. You see some things one day all clear. But you can’t know what they were like somewhere else, earlier, before you knew them. Or what they are where you can’t see. Places are like people. But all keep marks, of who they are, what they’ve been. I had to come.”

I shivered. The air grew noticeably cooler as the sun peeked through on its way down behind the trees.

She inhaled deeply, as if waking from a sleep. “Good to meet you, Avery Andrews. If there’s anything you need, you let me know. I’ll be here.” Her sack held carefully at her side, she disappeared into the trees at the side of the cabin.

The next morning, shadowy memories of Dacus dreams clung like wisps to the edges of my brain. My dreams included Sadie Waynes. And my grandfather. And a guy I’d known in high school that I hadn’t thought about in years. Much to remember—and to learn—about this place I thought I knew, all swirling around in my head.

I popped the top on a can of Coke, munched a half-dry bagel, and perched on the porch railing, watching the lake. For some reason, when autumn bares the limbs, I can’t quite remember what the trees look like in summer. Then, in summer, I can’t quite imagine the bare limbs.

I didn’t hear the car pull up on the other side of the cabin. But Deputy Rudy Mellin let out a holler that carried well ahead of him.

“Around here,” I yelled back. He appeared, the weeds beside the cabin brushing against his dark uniform pants.

“A’vry. Why the hell you holed up up here? Hidin’ out from the law?” He har-harred and tugged his pants up around his doughnut-padded belly.

“Not very well, apparently. You found me.”

“Yep.” Rudy manages to hide his insecurities behind a blustery, macho self-confidence. Well, not hide, exactly. They stick out in myriad manifestations, including his leering drawl and a belt loaded with phallic-shaped cop stuff. But he’s a pretty good cop.

“So what brings you up here? Care for a Co’Cola or something?”

He wrinkled his bulbous nose at my choice of breakfast drinks, then settled one big boot on the porch step.

“Got some preliminary information on that fire.” He leaned back against the railing so he could study the lake.

“That’s good.” Though I couldn’t figure out why he’d tell me.

“Not for somebody, it wadn’t.”

I waited him out.

“Yep.” He hitched up his pants and fished a toothpick out of his shirt pocket. “Not good for somebody.”

I still didn’t respond, knowing he’d tell me more if I didn’t seem too anxious. He went on. “The state sent some fire investigators in from Columbia. The insurance company had a fella in, too. All the way from near Chicago.” He waggled his toothpick around. “They started sifting through things, soon as what was left cooled down enough.”

“Makes sense they’d have to wait,” I said non-committally.

“Yep. Found enough to convince ’em it’s arson.”

“Arson?” Not such a surprise after L.J’s not-so-subtle hints about the accounting records.