Southern Fried (27 page)

Nothing in Do-Rag’s tone or manner radiated any particular warmth. He just stood there, his beefy arms slack at his sides, his head slightly cocked to see me under the car’s convertible top. No “Hi, how are you? Care to come in?” Just the stare.

“Wondered if Max was around.” I tried to keep my tone casual, as if this sort of house call was not at all out of the ordinary for Avery Andrews, attorney-at-law.

He shifted his weight slightly from one foot to the other, but didn’t respond.

“I spoke with Sheriff Peters. About Max’s request. I need to follow up with Max about something.”

That might not create an exactly accurate picture of the reason for my call. But L.J. had spurred their visit to my cabin. And this time, the mention of her name got Do-Rag to bend over and pull the latch on the car door.

Of course, the door didn’t open. I always lock it. So we entertained ourselves for a few seconds with a silly routine of fumbled locks and latches before he swung the long door open and I crawled out. No graceful way to extricate one’s self from a low-slung Mustang. Good thing I’d worn slacks with my navy blazer.

Do-Rag, without uttering a word, walked around the front of the car, clomped up the steps, and opened the front door. It hadn’t been locked. Guess there was no need for that out here in the country. I pushed the car door shut and followed Do-Rag into
the house. In the front hallway, he said over his shoulder, “Wait there.” Then he disappeared down a dim hallway beside a narrow set of steps that led to the second story.

The floor, made of heart-of-pine boards that are impossible to find now, lay scuffed and gouged. No antique oak hall tree or credenza overflowing with flowers graced the dingy foyer. Autumn sunlight streaked through windows that might not have been washed since the Battle of the Cane Break. A card table and a scattering of cardboard boxes, topped with everything from a motorcycle headlamp to the week’s mail, completed the foyer’s decor.

Eyeing the mail, I tried to picture one of the outlaw bikers perched at the kitchen table with checkbook and calculator, paying the light bill and the department store charge cards. I bit the inside of my lip to keep from grinning. If I allowed myself even a chuckle, I’d collapse in a giggle fit. This felt too much like being in church—quiet, serious, and alien to other experience.

The creaking floorboards and scuffing boot treads warned me of Do-Rag’s return. He brought Max with him.

Max thudded to a stop, his fingers hooked loosely through his jeans pockets, with Do-Rag a step behind him. Max wore a faded flannel shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal part of the words printed on his T-shirt. On his thin chest, the only word fully visible was
bullshit
.

His bucked front teeth remained hidden inside his bushy beard, but he gave me a half nod. When I
didn’t speak right away, he did the polite thing by asking, “Yeah?”

“I appreciate your agreeing to see me on the spur of the moment.” Maybe an extremely formal tone would provide some balance to his insolent stare. “I hoped you could answer a couple of questions for me.”

He didn’t invite me into the parlor for tea and scones, but he also didn’t spin on his boot heel and leave me alone, so I continued.

“I delivered your message to the sheriff. She says she’s following up on it.”

He nodded. His expression said he’d already known that. He still hadn’t blinked.

“When we talked at my house, you indicated that Noodle had gone out on his own. Can you tell me if Noodle—if he had anything to do with Garnet Mills, other than burning it down?”

Max gave a small blink of surprise. But he quickly returned to his accustomed unblinking stare.

I rushed on with my explanation. “I realize your group has certain—rules of conduct. But there’s more at stake here than an arson. Did Noodle ever do any work for Harrison Garnet?”

Max just stared. Do-Rag shifted from one foot to the other. I’d struck some kind of chord. I just didn’t know what tune.

“It’s important. I know you’re concerned—sensitive to—” I took a deep breath. “I’m not handling this very well. What I really want to know is, do
you have any idea why Noodle set the fire? Did he do it on his own? Or did Harrison Garnet hire him to do it?”

Max stared that bald-eyed stare of his. Finally, the set of his mouth said he’d made up his mind about something.

“I don’t know how Noodle came to get mixed up in it. Like I said, he went off on his own.” He propped himself against the stairs that led to the second floor, looking thoughtful. I hadn’t noticed that the banister was completely missing, the railings broken off in splintered nubs.

“Clyde.” He turned to Do-Rag. “When was it Noodle did that hauling?”

Clyde?

Do-Rag screwed up his mouth. “Don’t recall. Back before he did that stint on that distribution charge.”

“That’d be what? Twenty-five years ago? Thirty?” He stared at the floor near Do-Rag’s—Clyde’s—scuffed boots. Then he stared at me.

“Noodle used to do some contract hauling. Had his own rig, till he lost it. Hard to make payments from inside CCI.”

His inside joke stopped me a minute until I realized that the Central Correctional Institute—the crumbling nineteenth-century prison on the riverfront in Columbia—would’ve still been operating when Noodle got sent “up the river.”

“Yep,” Clyde said. “Hauling watermelons to New York. Thought he’d pack some of ’em with snow.”
He almost smiled at the thought, then frowned. “Musta made somebody mad. Cops pulled him before he made it to the state line.”

“Made somebody mad?”

They both shook their heads solemnly, knowingly.

“Cops don’t just happen to have a drug dog along when they pull a watermelon truck heading outta Hampton.”

I nodded. So Noodle had gotten himself ratted out before. Interesting fellow, with some nice friends.

To get back to the subject, I asked, “So he did some hauling for Harrison Garnet, before he got arrested?”

Max nodded, staring now out the front door behind me. “Yeah. That was about his only local customer.”

“What got him into the trucking business?”

Max shrugged. “His brother or brother-in-law. I dunno. Somebody had a rig. Noodle’s always thinking of an angle. Angled himself right into fifteen years.”

“What’d he haul for Garnet? Any idea?”

Another shrug. “Garnet’s in the furniture business. I remember a load of school desks going somewhere in the Midwest. Big trip for Noodle. One of his first long-distance jobs.”

“He always carry—um, contraband on his trips?”

Max shook his head. “Naw. Not at first. But Noodle’s greedy. Always looking for an angle.”

“That all he did for Garnet?”

“Did some short-haul stuff—equipment, supplies, something. Once he worked several days, helping move stuff outta the plant. Remember ’cause he needed some guys to help. These guys here told him to stick it. But he hired a coupla derelicts to help him.”

“Help him?”

“Load and unload. Noodle’s not one to do too much actual work if it can be avoided. Delivering to a business, he could usually contract so he didn’t do the grunt work. But not on this project. Ol’ man Garnet wanted the barrels moved out, loaded, and unloaded.”

At the mention of barrels, my shin twinged from its remembered meeting with the rusted barrel ring in the woods behind Garnet Mills. Now the warning bells clanged in my head. I’d been looking for a connection. This proved to be more than my half-hatched plan had expected.

“Do you remember when he hauled those barrels? About what year?”

Max blinked, finally. My eyes burned just from watching him stare. “Sure do. That was his last big job before he left to work out his Hampton watermelon scheme. Again, that’d’ve been twenty-five years ago, at the least.”

Do-Rag nodded.

“Come to think of it, about that time he got that contract to back-haul some stuff down here. From some place in upstate New York. Figured he had himself quite a business—snow-filled melons up
and storage drums back. Then he got himself ratted out and busted.”

“Storage drums? What’d he do with those?”

Max shrugged, looking bored. “Dumped ’em somewhere. I don’t know. Wouldn’t have amounted to much. Noodle only made two, maybe three trips.”

Sunlight streamed through the windows around the front door, warming the broad, dusty hallway. But I felt an excited chill. Not only had Noodle worked for Harrison Garnet, he’d helped fill the field of drums that now had Garnet over a barrel with the environmental boys. Dawson Smith’s soil bores might yield him more than he imagined—two, maybe three extra tractor-trailer rigs more, brought from somewhere else to add to Garnet’s barrels.

Noodle had known Harrison Garnet for years. He’d been his partner hi crime before. Why not again? When Harrison had needed his pesky records destroyed, who better to call than his old pal Noodle? After all, Noodle had his own reasons for a coverup. In addition to destroying records, had they arranged the fire to get rid of one of the other witnesses to the barrel burial? That thought chilled me.

I’d had trouble picturing Harrison Garnet torching his own place. And I’d wondered where he’d find someone to do it for him. In truth, he hadn’t had to look very far. Noodle had been right there, fiddling with his bike in the back parking lot at Garnet Mills, waiting for the shift change. How convenient.

I glanced at Max. He stared back.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thatr-may help.” I fumbled around for a gracious way of saying
Thanks for helping me put a noose around somebody’s neck. Your friend Noodle won’t dangle alone
. “Thanks. I appreciate your time.” I turned to go, then stopped.

“One other thing. I’m just curious. How’d Noodle get that name? I mean, it’s—kind of unusual.”

Some of my earlier questions had made Do-Rag—I couldn’t call him Clyde—shift uncomfortably. This one made him scuff, almost dance on the dusty floor. Max stared. That fanatic-looking quirk of his made my eyes burn in sympathy.

“Noodle earned that name when he first joined a club.” Something that might have been a little smile spasmed at the corner of his mouth. “He’d ridden as a Maniac for awhile. That club was a tough one to pledge in those days. Noodle locked his place the day he took another pledge and his woman out on a wildlife excursion in one of those Florida swamps.”

The more his mouth shadowed closer to a smile, his prominent front teeth peeking through his beard, the more my stomach clenched.

“A group of ’em stayed out there several hours one night with the pledge who’d crossed the line on a deal. Unfortunately, the pledge didn’t come back with the rest of ’em. He couldn’t manage to get his intestines gathered up and stuffed back inside and get himself to a hospital before he died. The club pledged Noodle soon after that. His nickname stuck, just to remind anybody who might cross him how he
left the guy in the swamp. Effective don’t you think?”

I hoped my face wouldn’t betray the knot of disgust in my stomach. It must have, though, because his thin-lipped mouth almost blossomed into a smile.

“Don’t worry, though. The rat’s girlfriend came back okay. After they pulled the nails out of her hands. Noodle had pinned her to a tree, so she could watch the guys conduct their business. She must have learned a lot that day. She rode with Noodle until he came up here. Made a lot of money for him, I’d guess. Once the infection in her hands healed up and she could get back to work.”

Max’s face settled back into its bland stare, the hint at animation around his mouth disappearing as he finished his horror story.

Do-Rag had the decency to look a bit sick to his stomach. Had he been there, that night in the swamp? Or was he remembering his own initiation, somewhere else?

Looking at these two guys, I knew no easy door opened to then group. They were frighteningly serious.

“Sorry I asked,” I said, surprised at my own candor. Might as well be candid. He’d wanted to see if he could shock me. And he could.

No one escorted me to my car, though I’m sure someone watched to make sure I left. I might have been crazy enough to come calling, but I wasn’t dumb enough to wear out my welcome. Chills shiv
ered the back of my neck as I drove the Mustang a tad too fast down the washboard drive. I tried to slow myself down, so as not to appear frightened. But it didn’t work.

When the back tires burped onto the rough asphalt of the county road, I turned toward town. Despite the prickling from too much adrenaline, I was glad I’d come. Max had told me more than I’d bargained for.

Not only had Noodle—I shivered at the name—worked for Harrison Garnet, but he’d worked on the back lot, with the barrels that now interested the environmental guys. By indicating what had been purchased for use at the plant and what had been properly disposed, the records Noodle had amateurishly tried to burn would probably give the inspectors a road map to the contents of most of those barrels.

But, of course, Noodle wasn’t a professional arsonist. He’d branched out to handle this little matter. And the answer to why he’d handled it for Harrison Garnet now seemed clear—he had his own additions to Garnet’s dump to hide. I mused over the news that Noodle had done other short hauls for Garnet—school desks? Or visits to other illegal dump sites? That would’ve raised the stakes for both him and Garnet.

The other question—the one that didn’t yet have an answer—was how did Lea Bertram fit into all of this? Too much had happened, all of it circling around Garnet Mills. I just couldn’t quite buy the
coincidences. How badly had Harrison Garnet wanted a son in politics? How much could his money buy?

The only person who could jiggle all the pieces until they fit neatly together was Harrison Garnet, though I doubted he’d want to sit around with me this evening putting together jigsaw puzzles.

I headed toward Mom’s house, the sun a blinding ball on the crisp blue November horizon.

The surface calm at my parents’ rambling house belied strong undercurrents. Mom, the phone caught between her shoulder and her ear, paced the kitchen to the length of the phone’s cord and then back in the other direction.