Southern Fried (5 page)

Which also wouldn’t help much. Digging through statutes and case law on something like this would be time-consuming and almost useless, even assuming I had a starting point for a case law search, which I didn’t. I had no computer research hookup—the legal services are expensive, even if I had the hardware-and I didn’t know anybody in Dacus who’d bothered to subscribe.

What I needed was a quick how-to on environmental inspections and audits, something that would tell me what to expect, what they could get away with, and what I could help Garnet manage. Plenty
of lawyers must have found themselves in my shoes, so somebody would have written some kind of short cut. I’d just drive to Columbia to the law library.

The digital dash clock blinked 2:25. A three-hour drive. Well, actually, a little less than that. I’d burned up that road enough weekends trying to escape the sandy pine barrens around Columbia in search of red clay and roads that didn’t go in straight lines. So I knew exactly how long it took.

“Of course you can use one of the cars,” my mom said. “Better yet, get your father to ride with you. He just pulled up outside.”

I had changed into jeans and a Clemson sweatshirt and we hit the road, with my dad driving, by three-thirty. Though I hated to drag him along on my harebrained mission, I had to admit I appreciated the company. And it gave us the first real chance we’d had to talk since I’d come back home.

By the time we got to Greenville, we’d chatted about the newspaper—mostly about the working order of the equipment, including the delivery truck. Then, once on 1-385 South, we settled into a discussion of how to drain the cabin’s water heater to check the heating coil and how best to insulate the water pipes.

“Nobody’s ever really used that place during the winter. Your grandfather would go up every now and then. But nobody’s used it hardly at all since he died. And that’s been, what? Seven or eight years?”

I nodded. After my first year in law school. Avery Hampton Howe, himself a lawyer, had been unabashedly pleased with my decision to go to law
school, even though some in the family considered my choice more than a little disreputable—common and off-color, even.

I’d been named for my grandfather. And I’d adored him. He’d died unexpectedly the week after my first-year finals, if death at the age of ninety can truly be unexpected. I missed him sorely—his counsel and his wisdom. But I’d often had the uncanny sense that he sometimes stood nearby, nodding silently, rooting me on. If only he could whisper in my ear how to handle an environmental audit.

“Your granddad would’ve been pleased that you’ve come home,” my dad said, as if reading my thoughts. “Of course, we all are.”

I snuck a quick glance at him out of the corner of my eye. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. I could have hugged him. Something in his tone, and in those few words, resounded as a vote of confidence. Confidence I sorely needed. Somehow, in those two short sentences, he’d managed to tell me I was okay. That coming home hadn’t been a failure, but an inevitability.

My father is an eloquent man with few words.

Rather than spoil the moment by reminding him I wouldn’t be staying in Dacus, I filled the silence by asking, “Tell me about Melvin Bertram.” That name had danced around the edges of my brain all day.

“Whatever made you think of him?”

“I ran into Mr. Earnest this morning. He commented how interesting that we’d come home at the same time, me and Melvin Bertram.”

“He’s back?”

My dad’s not as plugged into the town gossip as my mother. Which might not bode well for his newspaper venture.

“That’s what Mr. Earnest said.”

“If anybody’d know, it’d be him, I reckon. ’Course, Bertram’s got family in town—a brother. Might be visiting for Thanksgiving.”

“Why do I know that name?”

“Don’t you remember? Several years ago? His wife disappeared. Everybody figured he’d killed her.”

K
illed his wife?”

“That was the rumor,” Dad said. “One day, she upped and disappeared. Likely just ran off. But you know how stories pick up wind.”

“Mr. Earnest said it was a while ago. Ten or fifteen years?”

Dad pulled around a loaded semi on a hill. “Fifteen, I think. Don’t you remember Melvin? His dad and Harrison Garnet were partners for a time in a couple of businesses.”

“No. But I do remember somebody a few years older than me who went missing. She’d been a cheerleader when she was in high school.” Funny, the things you remember.

Dad signaled, pulled back into the cruising lane, then said, “Melvin—he was the youngest of two or three kids—he’d come back from college and hung out his CPA shingle. Then he married Lea Hopkins, a secretary at Garnet Mills. A bit younger than him. Her folks were from up on the mountain, so I didn’t know them. I remember the mill offered a reward
when she went missing. Folks posted her picture around after she disappeared.”

Garnet Mills. I kept getting reminders of how small my world had become.

Dad continued. “She just disappeared one day. More comes back to me as I think on it. She’d packed up some paints and a canvas or some such one Saturday morning. Took her car, left the house, and never came home. Didn’t take anything else with her. No clothes, no money out of the checking account. Just never came home.”

“What did they think happened to her?”

He shrugged. “Some folks just figured she’d run off. Even folks who knew her, that didn’t seem to surprise them.”

“What about her husband?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know, really. Doesn’t take much to get folks talking. Gossip said she had a boyfriend, that she’d taken off with him. But it struck everyone as odd that she never came back and nobody ever heard from her.”

“Her husband—Melvin—left town?”

“Um-hmm. A year or so later. Upped and moved. To Atlanta? Somewhere. Guess having people look at you and wonder what you did to run your wife off finally got to him.”

“Worse yet, having people wonder if he’d helped her disappear. That’d be creepy.” If he’d killed her, it’d be bad enough. But if he hadn’t, imagine enduring the suspicious stares and whispers.

“Honey, you’ve been hanging around the court
house on criminal docket day way too much lately,” he said with a chuckle.

I snorted in reply and propped both my feet on the dashboard. “So nobody’s heard from her since.”

“Not’s far as I know. Not that anybody’d have any reason to tell me.”

“They might have a reason now. You own the newspaper, don’t you?”

Dad just shrugged, then he pulled into a fast food place off the interstate and we grabbed some burgers. I would’ve preferred a Confederate Fried Steak at Yesterday’s in Five Points. I’d only been gone from Columbia a couple of weeks, but I already knew how much I’d miss those batter-fried steaks.

The law library caters to students and not the average attorney, so I could get in four or five hours’ work before they closed—enough to turn my brain to mush, but also enough to help me earn my fee tomorrow.

While I worked, Dad visited a suburban handyman superstore, perused the local newsstand, and then came back and snoozed on a sofa tucked in a corner of the library. I finished my library research shortly before midnight and didn’t run into a soul I knew.

The trip to Columbia prompted a rare moment of silent confession. I had to admit to myself that I wrestled with the—what? humiliation? embarrassment?—of losing my job. Somewhere inside, I still wondered if it branded me a failure. Mostly, I felt angry, angry that refusing to cover up for some
body’s lies cost me so much. But shouldn’t I be feeling something else? Missing something? Aside from a few colleagues at work, I really had no friends in Columbia. I’d grown chummy with none of my clients—corporate medicine and insurance aren’t particularly warm and fuzzy, not the kind of clients Perry Mason kept in touch with after the credits rolled.

I’d been too busy to get to know anyone in my condo complex. My law school buddies had moved to other cities, so we kept in touch irregularly. And I’d sporadically attended a large church, specifically for the advantage of sitting in an anonymous pew, to be entertained by the music, moved by the message, and out the door in time for lunch.

After I finished work, we didn’t take time to cruise through my old neighborhood. I felt oddly relieved as Dad steered us toward 1-26 North. The ease with which I could flee this city surprised me; I had no reason—other than those chicken-fried steaks, the law library, and The Happy Bookseller—to even look back.

We got in so late that I stayed at my parents’ house, then I slept later than I’d intended. A mauve silk blouse in the closet went with my black suit, so I could dress for my afternoon meeting at Garnet Mills without having to drive back up the mountain.

Mom had left a note on the kitchen counter:

Working at First Fruits Food Bank this a.m.
Plenty for breakfast. Help yourself
.

Armed with a toasted blueberry bagel and some kind of fruity hot tea Mom had mixed in with the Earl Gray, I sprawled on the sofa with my photocopied law articles and a highlighter pen.

When the phone rang, I caught it on the third ring, thinking it might be Mom.

“Miz Andrews?”

“This is Avery.”

“The attorney?”

“Yes.” I tried to sound businesslike, instead of like a kid answering her parents’ phone. The voice—one I didn’t recognize—sounded deep and rich, with only a trace of an up-country drawl.

“Miz Andrews, we haven’t met. I apologize for calling you at home, but I wasn’t sure how else to get in touch with you. My name is Melvin Bertram.”

“Uh. Yes?” Surely he’d gotten used to awkward silences over the years. “Mr. Bertram.”

I hoped my voice didn’t hint that I’d spent part of last evening rehashing gossip about him.

“Miz Andrews, I wondered if we might meet. I’d only take a few minutes of your time. And of course I’d pay your regular rate. I have a couple of—questions.”

Oh, whoa. What in the heck?
“Certainly, Mr. Bertram. When would be convenient for you?”

“Whatever would suit you, Miz Andrews. I’m the one imposing on your time.”

And offering to pay for it. I liked this guy already. But why was he calling me? “Would you prefer this afternoon? Or sometime next week?”

“This afternoon would suit me nicely. Shall we
meet at—” He chuckled. “That’s a tough one, since neither of us has an office in town.”

“I’m sharing office space with Carlton Earner.” I glanced at my watch. “I have an early-afternoon appointment, Mr. Bertram. I should be finished by four.” I couldn’t judge how long I’d be at Garnet Mills, but that should leave me a safety margin.

“Near the courthouse?”

“Yessir. In the next block, toward town.” I’d have to get there well ahead of him, to keep Lou Wray, the receptionist, from sharpening her claws on him.

“Four o’clock, then. I look forward to it.”

His deep voice flowed smoothly over the phone line. What had I thought a man suspected of killing his wife would sound like? Somehow not that intriguing. Or that courtly.

The glance at my watch had startled me into action. I scurried around dressing for my return to Garnet Mills. I pictured an environmental inspector as punctilious, on time, in a rumpled but respectable suit, with graying hair and steely, suspicious eyes. So I dressed in a tailored suit and rushed to be on time.

Both the inspector and Harrison Garnet kept me cooling my heels in Garnet’s dingy plastic outer office for twenty minutes. Finally, a kid hi an olive double-breasted Italian suit and slick hair announced himself to Rita Wilkes, the keeper of Harrison Garnet’s gate.

“Jason Smith. I have an appointment with Mr.”—he peeked inside his uncreased, unstained leather folio—“Harrison Garnet.”

Rita stood on the other side of the waist-high
swinging gate that corralled me and Jason Smith outside the shabby domain over which she ruled. Her only reply came as an upraised eyebrow.

“Jason Smith.” He repeated it carefully, as if everyone must have heard of the young hotshot sporting a suit that would be out of style before his misplaced self-confidence could be shattered on the rocks of reality.

“From Environmental—”

“Ah, yes,” Rita Wilkes interrupted. She’d wanted him to dangle an appropriate amount of time. Or maybe Jason Smith wasn’t what she’d expected in a government functionary. The way he clipped his words reminded me of some of the Cal-houn Firm’s Ivy League hires—the ones who never lasted.

“Would you both step this way, please?” She held open the gate. Jason Smith went through first, and I followed. A glance over his shoulder indicated his slight surprise at my presence, but he didn’t say anything.

We moved in a line through the office, with Rita leading. He swaggered in front of me, the draped fabric of his jacket and pants adding to the sashaying motion of his walk. He smoothed a hand over his mafioso hairstyle as Rita held open the door to Harrison Garnet’s office.

Meeting with his lawyer for a few minutes before the government inspector showed up would’ve been wise, to my way of thinking. Showing us both into his office as he finished up a phone call left Jason Smith and me eyeing each other warily.

“I’ll see you this evening,” Harrison said, then carefully replaced the receiver and smiled benignly up at both of us.

“I’m Harrison Garnet” He offered his hand to Jason Smith. “Forgive me for not standing.”

“Jason Smith.” Jason held his notebook carefully to keep his jacket from sweeping the desktop and leaned across to grip Garnet’s hand enthusiastically.

“You’ve met Avery Andrews? Our counsel?”

Jason turned, his eyebrows raised. “Avery.” He squeezed my hand with too much force, really seeing me for the first time.

“Mr. Smith,” Garnet said, “we haven’t had an inspector from your agency visit us before. Your time is valuable and I don’t want to waste it, so you’ll have to let us know what you need.”

“I’m just here to look around. Perhaps to take a few samples, a few pictures.” He stood, feet apart, notebook held with both hands against his thighs.

“Fine. Where do you need to start?”