Southern Fried (23 page)

The sound Sadie made wasn’t quite rude enough to be a snort. She rocked a few creaks before she said, “Or a daddy with money and a momma with a sharp tongue.”

I nodded a silent acknowledgment. The Garnet name would have been formidable protection. Now, launching a statewide campaign, Harry Garnet wouldn’t want to be harvesting any long-planted wild oats.

We rocked with our own thoughts. That quiet lake—never more sound than the occasional lapping of tiny waves on mud banks—that lake must know so much, I mused. Surely the sheriff would’ve listened to Sadie Waynes, the quiet lady who knew so much.

Who had Sadie Waynes been fifteen years ago? Maybe lines on her face and gray in her hair lent her more authority now than she’d had then. Maybe the cops had seen someone far different than I saw now; the strong, watchful woman from over the ridge.

Even she admitted that she hadn’t actually seen Harry Garnet that day. Only the car he usually drove. But surely Sheriff Jacobs had followed up on that.

Maybe what Sadie knew of the story had become shaded by time—or by the distance she felt from town people. Not even Harrison Garnet’s position could have protected Harry if there’d been any serious suspicion that he’d been involved in Lea Bertram’s disappearance.

But that was the key, wasn’t it? Lea Bertram had simply disappeared. Run off with another man, so the story went. Would the sheriff have had a different take on Sadie Waynes’s story if he’d known that Lea had run no farther than the bottom of Luna Lake?

I shivered slightly. “Miss Sadie, can I get you something to drink?”

Her rocking chair gave a mighty creak as she rocked forward, both hands planted firmly on the chair arms. “No. Thank ye. I gotta be going.”

“Well… um.” What was the protocol with a would-be rescuer? “Could I—give you a lift home?”

“Nope. You know how the roads run here. Take you longer to drive than it’d take me to walk. ’Predate it, though. That’s your granddaddy’s car,” she observed as we walked together around the side of the cabin.

“Yes’m. My dad fixed it up for me to use.” I didn’t try to explain more than that.

“Yep. I remember when he got that. Like a tomcat with a brand-new tail. He thought for a while folks’d think him an old fool. Not that what folks thought sat long with your granddaddy.” She gave what sounded almost like a chuckle.

“Are you sure I can’t give you a ride home?”

She waved my words away. “Moon’s almost full light.”

“Miss Sadie, thanks again. For checking on me.”

She turned to face me, staring until her gaze became almost uncomfortable. “Something’ about you reminds me of your granddaddy. He ’uz one fine man. ’Bout the best I’ve ever known.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say. She turned and walked into the woods, waving once when I called a last thank-you before I lost sight of her in the darkness.

She’d never asked what the motorcyclists wanted.

Not until I’d brushed my teeth, getting ready for bed, did it dawn on me that I hadn’t heard what happened to Donlee Griggs at the waterfall.

For half a second, I toyed with the idea of driving back to the pay phone to call the sheriff’s office. But the idiot answering the phone likely didn’t know—or wouldn’t remember, if he did know. Besides, the sheriff’s department should be out hunting down Noodle, desperado arsonist.

I’d wait until morning to learn the fate of Donlee. If he hadn’t actually succeeded in killing himself—or at least doing himself some grievous bodily harm—maybe I’d volunteer to do it for him out of sheer exasperation.

I wandered into the office the next morning a little after nine. When I’d practiced in Columbia, I’d usually been one of the first ones into the office and one
of the last ones to leave. That way, I’d found nobody much questioned where I spent the rest of the day.

Now, nobody questioned anything I did. Except Lou Wray, who seemed to question my very presence in her universe. We exchanged a smile for a cold shoulder, and I ambled back to my office. I’d brought the Atlanta and Greenville papers, a weekold
Newsweek
, and a thermal mug of iced coffee. I didn’t want to presume upon her kindness by partaking from Lou’s coffeepot.

I figured I’d read the papers, drink my coffee, maybe call to find out about Donlee. Then rearrange the pencils in my desk drawer.

Before I finished the comics, the phone startled me by ringing—twice before I fumbled around and picked it up.

“Avery Andrews’s office.” I tried to mimic the purr the Calhoun Firm’s senior secretaries always used.

“Avery, honey, is that you? You probably don’t remember me, but I know your mama. And, of course, her aunts. And—well, your whole family. I saw you at the Frank Dobbins circle meeting last week and, well, I decided you were just the one to help. You bein’ a lawyer. And you bein’ at that meeting to hear the outrage for yourself. I’ve stewed about this for the better part of a week. Then I decided, who better to handle this than a lawyer? And who better than Emma Andrews’s little girl? That man must be stopped. The outrage of it all!”

Her voice built to a crescendo, then silence. She must have stopped for a breath.

Uh-oh. I should have paid better attention to the
lecture at the circle meeting. I’d obviously missed the good parts.

“Avery, you still there?”

“Um, yes’m. I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Geneva Gadsden, honey.” She repeated it slowly, as if to a half-witted child who had trouble taking a message for her mother. “
Ge-ne-va Gads-den
.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I knew the name, but couldn’t put a face or a body with it. “Miz Gadsden, if you have something you think I could help you with, perhaps we could set up an appointment. You could come in and we could talk about it.”

“What’s there to talk about? All you need to do is think of some way to stop that man. He’s an outrage. He must be silenced. By any means necessary.”

Maybe she mistakenly thought she’d reached the
Soldier of Fortune
hit man hotline. “Miz Gadsden, I seem to have missed something. Perhaps if you could start at the beginning. So the notes I’m taking will be more complete.”

An exasperated sigh rushed through the phone line as I pulled a legal pad and pencil from the desk drawer. They weren’t hard to locate, since the drawer held nothing else.

“You were there, Avery. You heard him with your own two ears. Surely even God would find him a blasphemer and an abomination. Weren’t you listenin’? How could he say such things about Katie Hope? Surely, if nothing else, that’s defamation of character. So sue him or something.”

Katie Hope? The Civil War Confederate spy that
fellow had talked about at the circle meeting? What had he said about her? How could I tell Geneva that no, I hadn’t heard what he’d said? Geneva Gadsden sounded wrought up enough, she might throw a blood clot.

“Miz Gadsden, it wouldn’t be possible to sue because somebody defamed a dead person. You see, the law requires—”

“I don’t give a gnat’s kneecap what the law requires. That-man-must-be-stopped.” She punched each word. “The things he said. He called her a traitor. Claimed that she was a Yankee sympathizer. That she—that she had
relations
with both Yankee soldiers and Southern boys and passed on information. I never!”

The Three Stooges’ salacious “we-ell, I can see why” popped unbidden to mind.

“Miz Gadsden, perhaps if you’d come into the office, you could outline for me your exact complaints. If, in his book, he’s made any misstatements of fact, then perhaps—”

“Misstatements of fact, my grandmother’s knickers. Avery, if you’re worried that I won’t pay you—of course, my husband is close with the family budget. But he knows what a passion I have for preserving our local history. I can assure you, you’ll be paid. As long as you aren’t trying to take advantage.”

“Miz Gadsden, I’ll be happy to have an initial consultation free of charge. If there’s any reasonable avenue we can pursue, we can talk about fees at that time. But—”

“Free, you say? What time would be good for you?”

So as not to appear too desperate, which I certainly wasn’t, particularly since she likely would never pay a cent, I said, “How about tomorrow morning? Around ten? I have an office in Carlton—”

“I know. Your aunt Letha told me. Ten o’clock, then. Good-bye.”

I’d better check on this Katie Hope scandal, find out from somebody what that fellow had said at the meeting or in his book. Maybe I needed a couple of burly guys with a straitjacket and a syringe to greet Geneva Gadsden tomorrow morning.

When the intercom on my phone buzzed, it took a second to register. Then I couldn’t figure out how to respond. My initial instinct was to stick my head out the door and yell down the hall. But, on a hunch that it might work like the system at the Calhoun Firm, I picked up the phone receiver and said, “Hello?”

Nothing. Even with some button-pushing, still nothing happened.

I trundled down the dingy hall to the receptionist’s office. Lou Wray turned slowly when I asked, “Excuse me, did you buzz my office?”

She didn’t have a phone receiver in her hand. Maybe she’d given up while I fruitlessly punched buttons. She gave me the fish eye, then said with deliberation, “You have a visitor.”

She didn’t offer to introduce me to my visitor, as I’d seen her do with Carlton Earner’s clients. And
that failure proved awkward when I stepped across the hall to the waiting room. I had no idea whom I should ask for.

On the camel-back sofa sat a girl who looked too young to be the mother of the two children playing around her feet, though, judging from her laconic indifference, she probably was. She’d likely come to divorce their dad or to enforce a child support agreement.

A man in a blue work shirt, his greasy boots planted firmly on the fake Oriental rug, clutched
Field & Stream
with his grease-blackened fingers.

A plump woman in a print shirt and lime green polyester pants filled the armchair in the front window. Although
plump
wasn’t the right word.
Doughy
, maybe.

Before I could turn and saunter across the hall to ask Lou Wray to tell me who the hell had come to see me, the large woman in the window spoke up.

“Miz Andrews?”

I nodded and smiled.

She smiled back and struggled out of the armchair. “Miz Andrews, I’m Nila Earling. I’m sorry to trouble you on such short notice, but I ’uz in town takin’ care of some business and—well, I hoped you might have some time to see me.”

Against her stomach, she clutched an oversize handbag with a tarnished gold clasp. Cardboard stiffener showed through the cracks in the strap.

“Certainly. Won’t you step back to my office?”

I glared at Lou Wray as we passed her office—for
all the good it did, since she sat with her rigid back to us.

“Have a seat.” I motioned to the chair closest to the door while I took the other one in front of the desk. I thought sitting together might put her at ease enough that she’d relax. But she gripped her handbag in a two-fisted clutch against her midsection and smiled at me.

Her skin sagged, eggy sallow, and the pockmarks looked like half-formed bubbles on a partially cooked pancake. Her eyes looked like two pale blueberries that had been pressed into the batter.

She continued to smile, a bland, permanent smile that likely didn’t evidence pleasure as much as it did a tried-and-true method for coping with the world. She smiled. And clutched her purse in front of her.

“How may I help you?”

“Well.” She took a deep breath, preparing to launch into a tale. “I ’uz hopin’ you could help me get some money. For my brother. For his buryin’.”

“Yes, ma’am?” I nodded encouragement.

She smiled. “Well, he’s dead. Or so I’m told.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

She blinked. Her expression said she thought I should be catching on quicker.

“Well, it just don’t seem right. He’s dead. And they ought to pay. Don’t you think?”

“Perhaps you could fill me in on some of the details.” I reached for my notepad and pen.

My note-taking seemed to encourage her. She
heaved another deep breath. “Well, Nebo, he died? In that fire? Over to the mill?”

She read the surprise on my face and paused.

“I’m sorry, Miz Earling. Nebo was your brother?”

She nodded, smiling.

“I didn’t realize—I mean, that they’d identified him as the victim. I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry.”

She bobbed her head once, accepting the condolence, then she seemed ready to move on.

“Well, that’s my point. It ’uz hardly his fault he died in that fire. And they should pay. Don’t you think? Least for his buryin’. And perhaps,” her eyes cut to one side, then back to me, “a little somethin’ for his family’s grief and sufferin’. Don’t you think?”

I studied my legal pad a second, as if it held the answer. How to work past the fact that, last I knew, her brother had been wanted for questioning in the arson fire that had apparently killed him?

“Miz Earling, have the police been to see you about your brother’s death?”

She nodded, frowning slightly. “That big deputy came. Askin’ questions about Nebo and Mr. Garnet and what kinda work he did for the mill and such. And I tole him. Mr. Garnet ’uz good to Nebo. Why, gave him a job drivin’ that back loader. ’Course, that ’uz years ago and Nebo had to quit that soon after. Bad back, you know. Got the workman’s comp for that.

“But Mr. Garnet, he ’uz good to Nebo still. Let
him stay over at the mill sometimes. ’Specially if it ’uz cold. Times I wouldn’t let him stay, if he’d been drinkin’. Give him odd piece work to do. Him on the disability and all, findin’ piece work ’uz hard sometimes.”

I nodded. I made a note about the worker’s compensation claim.

“So what exactly do you need help with today?”

“Why, talkin’ to Mr. Garnet. Seein’ if he won’t he’p bury Nebo. That fella down to the funeral home, he’s talkin’ numbers so big they don’t make sense. I can’t see why it’d cost Nebo more to be dead than to live. But they want more for the box to plant him in than my house trailer cost. That don’t seem right. And it don’t seem right, Nebo dyin’ in that fire. Mr. Garnet ought to pay, don’t you think? It bein’ his building and all. And Nebo gone and my only kin.”