Southern Fried

by Cathy Pickens

  I smiled sweetly. “Oh, I wasn’t really thinking of Harry’s candidacy. I was thinking of Lea’s relationship with Garnet Mills. After all, she had”—I paused—“an employment relationship with the Garnets.”

  Lindley’s hand on his back and her puppet-master posture couldn’t control the flush that crept up past Harry’s unbuttoned shirt collar and across his tanned, fleshy cheeks.

  Lindley kept speaking for him. “Harrison isn’t Garnet Mills or its representative,” she said smoothly. “Joining a display like that funeral would serve no good purpose.”

  The flush on Harry’s face began to recede. Harry, bless his heart, had found himself quite a handler.

  “Well,” I said, “I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. I know you all have plenty to keep you busy.” But Lindley seemed up to the task.

  Harry resumed his role of the jovial host and escorted me to the door. Lindley turned into the office where Lori had taken refuge.

  What were the words to that old song? Something about marrying a girl just like the girl who’d married dear old dad? Poor Harry.

  I drove directly to the cabin, relishing the occasional squeak of a rear tire when I pushed it too hard in a curve. I also relished the silence of the cabin, which seemed an odd reaction, following a funeral. But, after the polite small talk and strained emotion, the unbroken silence comfortably held me.

  I changed into jeans and took the Sunday paper I’d filched from my aunts out to the back porch. The sun warmed the porch this time of day, and the rickety wooden rocker facing the water would allow me to soak up the silence.

  Unexpectedly, the deafening roar of what sounded like an angry invading army of giant hornets shattered the quiet.

  Eleven

  The sound of the motorcycle engines grew from the first faint buzz in the distance. By the time they’d reached the end of my rutted driveway and what passed for the cabin’s backyard, even the shelter of the cabin couldn’t protect me from the din.

  The thundering reverberations—so at odds with the Sunday quiet—chilled the skin on my arms. I have to admit I wanted to crawl under the porch and hide. But it offered precious little cover.

  I slipped inside the screen door, retrieved my .38 pistol from its hiding place in a canvas bag, and slipped it into the back waistband of my jeans.

  In books, the hero or heroine always makes that sound like a simple maneuver. But my jeans were too tight from too many home-cooked meals. And no one ever mentions how cold gun barrels are. Or how heavy guns are. On second thought, good thing my jeans were tight or they might have slid around my knees under die weight of my arsenal.

  The cold metal felt reassuring—until I slipped around the side of the house to spy who had come calling.

  When I saw what sat in my yard, the gunmetal felt suddenly hot against my skin. I stood in the shadow of the cabin, trying to figure out my options. I had nowhere to run or hide, I had no idea how to get to Sadie Waynes’s house. If I crossed either of the side yards toward the woods, I’d be on open ground. The still expanse of lake lay at my back. The cabin had no closets and I couldn’t fit under the bed.

  With no flight possibilities, I opted for a casually amused lean against the side of the cabin, watching two of them clump up the steps to my back door.

  The one with a bandanna do-rag wrapped over his blond hair almost forgot to duck under the porch roof. He recovered and hiked his pants up from his beefy hips while his companion pounded on my door with a fist that threatened to splinter the weathered boards.

  Then Do-Rag spotted me. I nodded curtly. Not the sort of greeting I’d give if the Frank Dobbins circle came calling. But a proper greeting. And wary.

  Do-Rag thumped his companion on the arm and motioned to where I stood looking up at them. They were both big suckers.

  The meat-fisted one sported a wiry mud-brown beard that filled his shirt front. His beard might once have reached to his waist, but his waist had grown off and left his beard high and dry. Both men carried a lot of extra weight—linebackers gone to seed. But I would put money on either one of them in an armwrestling match.

  I touched my shirttail to make sure it covered the gun grip, then asked, “May I help you?”

  “You A’vry Andrews?” Do-Rag asked.

  “Mind if I ask why you’re looking for her?”

  “That’s her,” Ham Fist said. “Jodo said she ’uz a skinny, mouthy thing with reddish hair.”

  I prefer to think of my hair as burnished blonde, but since I had no idea who Jodo was, I likely wouldn’t get the chance to explain.

  “Max’d like a word with you.” Do-Rag swung off the steps toward me.

  “Max,” I said.

  Do-Rag cocked his head toward the assembled motorcycles. The gleam from the chrome bikes enlarged the perception of how many big men on big motorcycles sat in my yard.

  “Well, tell Max to come on over and state his business.”

  I still stood at the comer of the cabin, with the yard and the lake at my back. How far could I swim in November water before hypothermia sapped me and sent me to the bottom? To the place Lea Bertram had recently vacated.

  “Max’d like to talk to you there.” Do-Rag jerked his head. He reached, as if to take my arm, but I made a little step back, then around him.

  “Well, by all means. I didn’t know he couldn’t get off his bike.”

  Do-Rag spun and sandwiched me between him and Ham Fist, and we approached the circle of motorcycles like supplicants to a throne.

  At the center of a loose circle of a dozen or so bikes sat a thin-chested man with a heavy handlebar mustache and wild, dark hair. And even wilder eyes. He sat astraddle a Harley chopper, his arms crossed on his reedy chest.

  “Hear you’re friends with Sheriff Peters.”

  Odd introduction. “I’ve been accused of worse. But not lately.”

  Wry humor was wasted on this crowd.

  “And you’re old man Garnet’s lawyer.” He stated fact, no questions.

  I kept my gaze level and struggled to keep a small smirk at the comer of my mouth. But I acknowledged nothing. What the hell was he after?

  We stared at each other a moment more. “Need to get a message to the sheriff,” he said. “Since it interests Garnet, thought you could pass it on.”

  “Why don’t you just call L.J. yourself?”

  That, they considered humorous. Smirks and snorts rippled mildly through the audience.

  “L.J.,” he said mincingly, “and I aren’t on a firstname basis. And this information is best passed through somebody else. Somebody more—impartial.”

  He sat studying me, his arms still crossed. “We voted,” he announced finally, emphasizing each word. “Unanimously.” As if I understood—or cared.

  A sense of unease seemed to move through the bikers. Which certainly didn’t comfort me any.

  “How do we get—what d’ya call it? Attorney-client protection.”

  “Privilege. Attorney-client privilege,” I said, then winced inwardly at my schoolmarmish tone.

  “Attorney-client privilege.”

  “By hiring an attorney. One who doesn’t have a conflict of interest from representing another party involved in the matter. Which means you can’t hire me if it has something to do with Harrison Garnet or Garnet Mills.”

  He pursed his lips. I don’t think he’d blinked once the whole time we’d talked. “Okay. You can do this for free, then, since you don’t represent us.”

  Ouch, hit a starving lawyer where it hurts.

  He smiled. Or gave what I supposed passed for a smile—two buck teeth appeared beneath his handlebar mustache.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to—”

  “Does Harrison Gamet want the cops to find the guy who torched his factory?”

  That got my attention. “I’m sure he would.” Assuming he hadn’t done it himself.

  “Well, tell L.J that Noodle Waitley is in a house trailer up Crossover Road. Been holed up there since Thur
sday night. Sheriff’s been looking for him, but don’t know where he’s at.”

  “Will the sheriff know which trailer?” Trailers have a way of reproducing quickly and easily if left in close proximity to one another and unsupervised for long enough.

  “Only one after the fork in the road past the old Mitkin dairy.”

  “And what makes you so sure L J. wants to visit with this Noodle?”

  Something I said angered him. His careless slump straightened. “Because that bitch sheriff’s been nosing around us ever since it happened. Can’t get anything done without her or some pencilwhipped idiot sniffin’ our butts like lovesick dogs.”

  “So you decided to do your civic duty.”

  His jaw muscles worked so hard his mustache twitched. His voice grew quiet, but I had no trouble hearing him. “Don’t misunderstand me. Members don’t rat each other out. What I’m doing here would ordinarily mean a death sentence for me. That’s why the whole club came. Noodle’s offense endangered the entire club. And for his own gain. He really left us no choice. We’re just taking care of business.”

  “So this is sort of like the black spot, huh?”

  Maybe he hadn’t read Treasure Island in his misspent youth. Or he’d forgotten it in his misspent adulthood. He must have thought I’d made fun of him, because that jaw muscle started working again.

  “Just pass it on to the sheriff.”

  “You still haven’t told me anything that would help the sheriff. Why’s she targeted you all, anyway? And how do I know you’re not setting up me or my client—or even this Noodle fellow—for something?”

  He leaned forward slightly onto the handlebars of his bike. “The sheriff’s targeted us, as you say, because Noodle was dumbshit enough to be seen at the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d taken to hanging around Garnet Mills drawing a lot of unnecessary attention. We can’t seem to reason with the sheriff.”

  I nodded sympathetically at that. I’d known L J. since the third grade. Nobody could reason with her unless he got her attention first—maybe with a croquet mallet. “Hanging around doing what?”

  “Collecting on debts from some of the workers. Don’t make sense we’d bum that plant down to get to one deadbeat.” He shook his head sadly.

  “That’s what L.J. thinks? That you killed a—client—and burned the plant?” Why was I cataloging the scenario for a possible hit? Especially since Max didn’t look pleased.

  “Lot of our steady customers work at that plant. Customers can’t spend their paychecks doing business with us if they ain’t got paychecks. We’re not stupid. We’re businessmen.”

  He didn’t even try to choke out the word legitimate. Businessmen who ride Harleys, wear do-rags, chains, and full beards, and who likely sell drugs, women, and whatever else isn’t nailed down. I didn’t ask him for a sales brochure.

  “Just so you can check what I’m telling you, tell the sheriff he used a garden sprayer. It’s one of his trademarks. Dumbshit probably has the thing with him up at the trailer.”

  I hoped my face didn’t give away too much at his mention of the garden sprayer.

  “So you’ve all agreed to turn him in,” I said. “To take the heat off the—club.”

  “And because he did it. Man went out on his own, doing his own shit. Now he’s like a bad stink comin’ back on us. Can’t have that.”

  He crossed his arms to punctuate the finality of that statement.

  “I’ll call Sheriff Peters.”

  “Done.” He nodded and stood to kick-start his bike, then paused. “Just a word of advice, lady. You always this much of a bitch to get along with, you gonna have one hell of a time making it in the lawyering business around here.”

  The roar of a dozen engines drowned out any reply I might have made. I gave a salutary wave as they spun their bikes in a complicated ballet around my yard. Too bad. Those were probably the only members of the criminal element in Camden County who could afford to pay for legal counsel. And I’d alienated them.

  I went into the cabin through the front door to pull the .38 pistol out of my waistband. The trigger guard had cut a biscuit out of my rump.

  With my knees shaking just a bit, I grabbed my car keys and drove to the country store.

  I had to admit, painfully, that the biker’s parting words stung a bit. How long would the bitter taste of being fired from the Calhoun Firm last? Was I hard to get along with? Was that my fatal flaw—or at least a symptom of it? True, I’d lost my patience with an important trial witness—a witness who’d turned out to be not only a renowned physician, but a liar and a perjurer.

  I’d certainly tested the patience of my supervising partner, who’d been a crude and abusive womanizer. In introspective moments, I considered filing a formal sexual harassment charge. The statutory 180-day filing period hadn’t yet expired. Witnesses to his abuse were plentiful, and many were victims themselves. Making him and the Calhoun Firm squirm would be a delight. But filing a complaint would seal my fate; never a hope of another big-firm partnership.

  And it was still too close in time and pain. I knew what a lawsuit entailed, the psychic energy it sapped. I could only imagine what my clients had endured, having their lives examined under a microscope in front of a roomful of people they didn’t know—strangers, news reporters—or worse, people they cared about. I certainly didn’t want any of that for myself. Better to focus on the future.

  At the store, I called L J. Even sheriffs and their deputies have to take time off, I know. But I wish they wouldn’t leave idiots to take messages when they go. It doesn’t leave me feeling particularly safe.

  The junior G-man read my message back to me in a whistley voice that didn’t sound as if he had reached puberty yet. He promised to call L.J at home. I trusted that he would call because he sounded excited—and more shrill—when he heard the name Noodle. I took that as a sign that the sheriff’s department had actually been looking for Noodle. Where does a biker tough pick up a nickname like that? I probably didn’t want to know.

  To reward myself for my civic good deed, I counted out the change in my jeans pocket, just enough for a banana Moon Pie. Even without an RC Cola, Moon Pies are one of nature’s most perfect foods.

  I gunned the Mustang down the winding few miles back to the cabin, enjoying the scenery flashing past and the stiff, almost unmanageable wheel in my hand. Surely no one who hadn’t grown up in Dacus could appreciate its prickly charm. Coming home to a place I’d been all too anxious to leave affected me in powerful but indecipherable ways. Most of my friends had left for college when I had and most had never come home. I certainly hadn’t planned on ever coming back. I couldn’t remember even an instant in my life when I’d mentally tried on the idea of living in Dacus, and certainly never a time when I thought the idea fit.

  The way the roads dipped and turned, disappearing and reappearing in the distance, the red clay soil, the rusted house trailers with yards full of red-stained kiddie cars and hound dogs, the way people studied whoever walked through the door of Maylene’s for lunch, the solemn stares of greeting—all assaulted me, both with present impression and past memory. Something resonated deep within my breastbone that sometimes made breathing an exercise I had to focus on, impressions that wouldn’t have registered had I not been away, then come home with things to compare them to.

  In such a short time, I now thought of “downstate” as a distant, alien country. And this odd place, nestled into the lush and brooding Blue Ridge, with its solemn, distant people, felt welcoming.

  By the time I’d pulled into the yard, the shadows had lengthened beyond dusk.

  Squatting, I flipped the boat onto its bottom and studied the inside for any crawling life-forms. A lone spider scuttled down the side.

  One foot inside, I struggled to balance and shove at the same time. I felt like a hog on ice. How silly to feel so awkward doing something I’d done dozens of times before, in this same boat off this same grassy bank.

  My muscles eventually reme
mbered what my mind had forgotten. When I let my instinct take over and quit trying to force the rhythm of the paddle in the water, things went more smoothly.

  Had I been more practiced, I would have checked the bottom of the boat for leaks. Several yards from shore, I remembered, then tentatively peered into the darkened bottom and slapped my sneaker around, listening for the telltale slosh. Nothing.

  The boat slid smoothly toward the center of the lake, never quite reaching the place where the moon’s reflection lay, but always gliding along the drawing light it cast. I laid the paddle beside me, the loud thud announcing my stealthy bobbing to anyone listening. Amazing, how water supports boats. I lay back across the seats, my rump suspended above the boat’s bottom. Not a comfortable position, but one that brought floods of memory.

  I listened to the water lapping the boat on either side of my head. The stars overhead were countless. Not a city sky, but a dark sky painted bright by pinpricks of light. I twisted slightly. I spotted the Big Dipper, and there, like a smudge of light, was the comet. And its tail. Was that an optical illusion? Did it really stretch back across the sky that far? It looked as though someone had taken a finger and smeared a long, faint streak across the sky.

  I lay suspended between sky and water, between the dark, painted bright sky showing off its smudgy visitor nine million miles away and the dark, lapping water. Water that showed off its secrets only occasionally—only when it wanted to or only after a fight, when they were wrestled loose by a storm. Or a wrecker winch.

  With the lapping sound came the image of water churning around the rusted sheet metal of the car. The car that had sat submerged in the very water where I floated, sealing its secret in murk and mud for fifteen years.

  Had I floated on this water, in this very boat, somewhere over that silent, horrible crypt? How many people had swum and fished and picnicked and made love floating on this still, dark water while she floated below, sealed in her rusting two-toned Thunderbird?

  Panic seized me. Spooked, I sat upright, wobbling the rickety boat dangerously. I fumbled with the paddle, my fist a white-knuckled ball around the handle for fear I’d drop it as I paddled toward shore.