Southern Fried (17 page)

“Yessir.”

“What kind? Or kinds? Do you know?”

“Nope. Sure don’t. Glue’s glue, when they tell you to stick two pieces’a wood together.”

Dawson offered a fraction of a smile. “I reckon so. Do you mind if we come have a look at your creek bank? Maybe take some samples? A few pictures? That’ll help us get a better idea of the extent and nature of the problem.”

“Sure. Any time. That’s what I called you fellas for. Never did think you ’uz comin’.”

“We have to take things in order,” Dawson said. “But now you have our attention and we’re anxious to get to work.”

Born Wooten nodded and jammed his hands deeper into the cavernous pockets of his overalls.

“The sooner, the better.” Born glanced at his pocket watch. “Gotta go.”

With that, he crossed the creek, again looking for all the world as though he walked effortkessly on water. He climbed the bank toward his wood frame
house without breaking stride, his hounds trailing and scouting to either side.

“Jason, make sure to note on the grid you’ve done the site of each photograph or soil sample. We’ll almost certainly find phthalates. And likely other contaminants as well—”

“What?” I interrupted. That sounded like something an environmental offender’s lawyer ought to know about. Just in case she remained the lawyer for said offender.

“Phthalate,” he repeated. He spelled it; I mentally marked that it began with
ph
and hoped I’d be able to find it in a reference book of some sort.

“And that is?”

“An EPA priority pollutant and a suspected carcinogen. Fortunately for your fella over there”—he nodded toward the plant—not an acute one. But certainly of concern for its long-term damage potential in groundwater. Jason, we’ll likely need to have some test wells dropped. That’s something Mr.—” he consulted his clipboard—“Garnet may have to pay for. Once we get those soil samples analyzed, we’ll follow up with him.” He made that last remark for my benefit.

I nodded. “Please let us know,” I said politely, handing him back his standard, noncommittal administrative search warrant. Might as well keep everything businesslike. Thanks to Born Wooten, Dawson Smith wouldn’t have any trouble holding Gamet over one of his own barrels.

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be in touch.” If he’d been
wearing a hat, he’d likely have tipped the brim at me, to complement his John Wayne drawl.

Agent Burke had wandered away from our merry gathering to study the ground along the creek’s edge. Jason, juggling clipboard, camera, markers, sample bottles, and other paraphernalia, was too busy for social proprieties. So I merely nodded to Dawson Smith and turned back toward the plant.

As I headed toward my car, I didn’t see Harrison Garnet anywhere. I didn’t know what kind of car he drove, so I couldn’t tell if he’d left. Come to think of it, I didn’t know if he was able to drive. I guessed he could. He got around okay with crutches.

After watching Dawson Smith and his faithful flunky Jason and the brooding cop, I better understood Sylvie Garnet’s ire. Those bulldogs would keep coming until they found what—and whorn—they were looking for. I had an icy suspicion that Harrison Gamet had no idea his glue-rag barrels constituted an environmental hazard; as Born Wooten said, glue’s glue. When those inspectors finished with Gamet, losing a chunk of his business to fire and finding a body inside would be the least of his worries.

While I was tempted to go set Sylvie Gamet straight about her husband’s business practices, she really wasn’t interested in reality. She had decided to blame his troubles on me. True, the inspectors had returned with a vengeance, but even Jason would’ve stumbled over those barrel hoops eventually. The fire had just brought Dawson Smith sooner. And the dead body and sabotaged records would
keep him longer. I still didn’t know if Harrison Garnet was a good actor, a good liar, or sadly naive.

So much for breaking into the low-risk world of in-house corporate counsel. Maybe Jake Baker was right. Joe Six-Pack wouldn’t be quite so judgmental when it came to my past.

As I unlocked my car door, I chided myself for being petty.
Some poor fellow died in a fire and you’re feeling sorry for yourself, Avery Andrews. Very mature. And compassionate. Now why don’t you drive by the nursing horne so you can tell them what poor health you’re in
.

I did a double-take at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Black soot streaked my cheek. I looked like a harlequin—or an urchin. And Dawson Smith had made businesslike conversation with that face and hadn’t mentioned it.

Back at my parents’ house, I had the place to myself. I found a dry pair of shoes, washed my face, then checked the answering machine, thinking Mom or Dad might have left a message.

“Please tell Avery that Melvin Bertram called,” the voice on the machine said. “I’d like to see her this afternoon. Or evening. If she has a chance. Thank you. She has my number in town.”

W
hen I called, Melvin’s brother suggested I could find Melvin at Runion’s, a barbecue joint outside town. Melvin already had a half-empty beer bottle in front of him when I got there. From his slurpy hello, I judged that wasn’t the first he’d drained.

“A’vry, glad you got the message. Glad my brother told you where I’d be. Glad I knew where I’d be. What’d you like to drink?”

“Some ice tea would be great. Thanks.”

He leaned over the table and pushed the ladder-back chair across to me.

This Melvin, I hadn’t seen before. I studied him as he flagged down the waitress. What seemed so different about him? A sprig of sandy hair stuck out over his ear, as if he’d slept crooked. He slumped, both elbows propped on the table, studying the salt shaker he held in both hands. Red barbecue sauce streaked the white plastic shaker.

“We’d better get something to eat,” he said. “’Least, I’ d better. Haven’t eaten much today.”

When the waitress returned, we ordered barbecue plates with slaw and onion rings. Melvin asked for a glass of water and another beer.

“Thanks again, Avery.”

“For what?”

He shrugged. “For coming. I don’t have any claim on your time. But heck, I’d be glad to pay you.”

“For having dinner with you? Naw, that might put me into a whole’ nother profession. I’ll stick with the one I’ve got now.”

He ignored my attempt at humor.

“Will you be able to come to the memorial service tomorrow? Body or no, I decided to get it over with.”

“Sunday? Sure.”

“At Baldwin and Bates’s new emporium. Have you seen that thing? The pseudo-Georgian brick monstrosity with acres of free parking and those outsize lights perched along the sidewalk? You can’t miss it. Must be a lot of money in buryin’ dead people.”

“I hear there is. What time?”

“One o’clock. Gives folks time to get out of church. Probably didn’t leave enough time for’em to make it to the cafeteria, but…” He shrugged.

“I’m awfully sorry, Melvin. I know this can’t be easy.”

I never know what to say in the face of grief. If that was, in fact, what sat across from me.

He blinked rapidly several times, but when he spoke, his voice had the same wry bite to it. “You’re
certainly not the one with anything to be sorry about.” He rolled the stained salt shaker between his palms. “Did you know her?”

I shook my head. “Only by name.”

“She’d have been a bit older than you. Of course, she was always a good bit older than she should have been. I’ve never stayed this long on a visit” he went on. “It’s always been hard, coming back. Reckon now it’ll be easier?” He paused. “I doubt it.”

He gazed toward the restaurant’s entrance, but he wasn’t looking at the age-stained light fixtures and the old advertising slogans plastered on the walls. “I used to look for her, seemed like all the time. Not just here. Wherever I was. A street comer in Atlanta, the T in Boston. I’d find myself looking at faces, thinking I’d run into her. Sometimes I’d have that knot in my stomach. You ever get that when you’re waitin’ on somebody, scannin’ a crowd, waiting for them to appear?”

I nodded. I’d had that sensation, that expectancy. But never, of course, for someone who’d been missing for years. He didn’t expect a reply.

“I once ran a block and a half after a woman in New York City. Dodging through the crowd because she had Lea’s hair. I grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. But it wasn’t Lea’s face. What a shock.” He allowed himself a small chuckle. “Lucky I didn’t get maced. That was one P.O.’ ed Yankee lady.”

“I bet so.”

“Another time, I saw a woman in a restaurant. Something about her smile and the way she held her
head brought Lea to mind so vividly. But, you know, you forget what people look like. You don’t think you will. You think you’ll always know them. But no matter how often I stared at her pictures, I could feel her slipping from my memory. I couldn’t hold her memory anymore. I kept staring at that woman, wondering, is that her?”

He paused. “It’s a wonder that woman’s boyfriend didn’t stomp the mud outta me. He considered it. He hesitated only because he thought I was crazy. Which I was, I guess.” His sigh seemed to rise from deep inside him. “Do you suppose I’ll stop looking for her now?”

The painful melancholy of that statement hit me hard. “That’s what memorial services are for,” I said. “So you’ll realize a person’s gone.”

He nodded, the top of his head toward me as he studied the salt shaker’s holes. “Sometimes I have trouble going to funerals. I never know whether it’s better to go shock myself with the sight of that waxy, pretend person in the box, or just not go at all, so I can sometimes trick myself into thinking he’s still alive. Of course, there won’t be any waxy, pretend person to haunt me this time, will there?”

I swallowed. A vision of that waxy-faced skeleton lying in cream satin didn’t set well with the stale-beer and cigarette smells in Runion’s.

The waitress picked that moment to plunk two steaming platters in front of us, loaded with chopped pork and assorted deep-fried things. Since I rarely let queasiness get in the way of eating, I picked up my fork. Melvin abandoned the filthy salt
shaker to pick up a hush puppy, which he didn’t eat. He absentmindedly rolled it around on the edge of his plate until it landed in the strawberries and limp cantaloupe he’d ordered instead of barbecued beans.

“Lea couldn’t eat fruit.” He poked the cantaloupe with his fingernail. “She’d swell up like a poisoned pup. Allergies. Doctor said it could kill her, she wasn’t careful. Funny how something so healthy for most people can be so deadly for somebody else.”

Not that fruit had killed her. Maybe a change in topic would keep him from sinking further into his grim fugue.

“Melvin, I’m curious. What drew you away from Dacus?”

I hoped he’d start talking so I could just nod and eat. The barbecue smelled wonderful.

He pursed his lips and fished his hush puppy out of the fruit. “Nothing drew me away. After I left Garnet Mills—”

“Garnet Mills?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I started there before I even finished college. A sort of intern. Hired on as an accountant, then quickly became CFO—chief financial officer. Which isn’t as grand as it might sound. I was still just a glorified bookkeeper, but with a lot more responsibility if something went wrong.”

“I didn’t know you’d worked there full-time.”

“Sure did. My first introduction to the real world of business. Taught me that, in business, all’s not always what it seems. Some people succeed in spite of themselves. And others have an amazing capacity for self-delusion. All important life lessons.”

He toasted me with his fresh beer bottle and took a gulp. “Left there, headed to Atlanta and from there to California. Did some work for a couple of startup Silicon Valleys—one was a particularly good investment. Now,” he shrugged, “I have a little freedom to decide what I want to do. Toyed with the idea of heading back to Atlanta. I’m not rich, but I could afford to live out my life holed up in a shack somewhere back in the mountains.”

“Doesn’t sound bad, some days, does it?” I said.

He looked as if he’d forgotten he was talking to me. I didn’t try to explain that I would welcome not having to practice law. “So what are you going to do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Float around like a piece of lint for a while. You ever try things on? In your head, I mean. To see if they fit?”

Little did he know.

“That sound crazy? I keep tryin’ on all sorts of things. Like going to the Ringling Clown College. Or riding as a hobo. Or opening a bookstore. Or going to law school.”

I shook my head. “I’d advise against that last one.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “I know. Nothing quite seems to fit. I can’t seem to do anything but what I’ve been doing. Maybe I’m too old. Or not adventuresome enough.”

At least his options evidenced more adventurousness than “Welcome to Wal-Mart.” Or high-dollar ambulance chasing with Jake Baker. I changed the subject. “What exactly is it that you do?”

“I don’t even know. I mean, when you say you
practice law, people have some idea what that means. Granted, probably a wrong idea. But a better idea than when I tell people I do analyses for venture capitalists.”

I nodded. Politely, I hoped, since I had no idea what that meant.

“Do you think about how you don’t really produce anything in your job? I don’t mean you don’t work hard. I mean, I think about that. I don’t do anything. With my hands. I don’t have anything to show for my work like I would if I assembled steam irons or grew vegetables or welded metal. Something tangible.”

I’d thought about it. But I’d always thought it too weird to talk about out loud.

Melvin didn’t dwell on its weirdness. He flagged down the waitress with his half-empty beer bottle, signaling for a replacement. How many had he had?

“You know the one thing I think people want in their lives more than anything else? Something that lasts. Something they can hold on to, feel passion about. The truly deep heartbreaks are when you find out that thing you planned to cling to never really was yours to begin with. That it wasn’t at all what it seemed. That’s the saddest thing. To find out it was never truly yours. No matter what the pledge.”