Southern Fried

by Cathy Pickens

  The three of us stood in the dark, shadowy entry hall, Lindley throwing off the balance of our circle by edging a step closer to Sylvie. I glimpsed the parlor’s patterned roll-armed sofas and wool rugs through the open French doors, but no one offered me a seat.

  “Avery, I’m singularly disappointed,” Sylvie said. “You must know.”

  I patiently waited for her to finish a reprise of her phone diatribe.

  “I ask Harrison to throw a little work your way, help you get started. As a kindness to your family and all. And what do you do but betray us at every turn?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but she didn’t stop for a breath. “You anger that inspector to the point he’s called in reinforcements. They’re threatening now to shut down the plant while they dig up the entire parking lot. And force us to pay for it!

  Sylvie smacked her purse against the palm of her hand. “Avery, I surely don’t have to tell you how that behavior’s going to look to the people of this town. If you plan to do business here, you’ve got to keep in mind that you’ll have both a personal and a professional reputation to maintain.

  “Not that your family has ever paid much attention to what others think. Your parents certainly play by their own rules, your mother with her little projects.” Her sneer really raised my hackles.

  “And I suppose you heard, Mother Sylvie, that some absurd person tried to commit suicide to get her attention.”

  Sylvie nodded, her lips pursed in disapproval. “Avery, I don’t have to tell you what that sort of publicity means if you want to attract the right kind of clients. You know, the kind who can pay. Of course, why any of this would surprise anyone in this town—anyone who knew your grandfather knew he was no better than he ought to be.”

  I couldn’t believe I could just stand and listen while two cats batted me around like a catnip ball. Those childhood warnings about respecting elders short-circuited my responses. This must be how the snake charmer’s victim feels: irritated at the noise but strangely unable to strike back.

  “Of course, your grandfather didn’t always exhibit much restraint in his love life, either.” Sylvie’s voice took on a goading edge. “After Emmalyn died, he really showed himself to be a lusty old goat. Jumping everything in sight, from Olivia Sterling right on. He even tried to keep time with me—and me thirty-five years his junior, if you can imagine such a thing!” She directed that last comment to Lindley, then preened and feigned a shudder almost at the same time.

  I struggled not to slap her. I bit my tongue, not trusting myself to say anything. What could I say to a lunatic?

  “Does incompetence run in the family, Avery? Or did you deliberately set out to harm Harrison and his business? Jealousy? Incompetence? What? I should have known, after those stories about you being asked to leave your law firm. Did you start screaming sexual harassment after the affair went bad?”

  “Or after they found out you’d been evaluated on your bedroom skills rather than your courtroom skills?” Lindley added her own cheap shot in her honeyed low-country drawl.

  I ignored Lindley. “Miz Garnet, I know you must be upset, so I’m not going to grace any of that with a reply.” I struggled to keep a businesslike condescension in my voice. “Actually, I came by to tell you that Nebo Barling’s sister is concerned about the mysterious circumstances of the fire that killed her brother.”

  Even to my ears, I sounded surprisingly calm. Judging from her rapid eye blinks, I’d landed a surprise punch. “She needs help with the burial expenses, which might be a cheap way to avoid answering difficult questions in a wrongful-death lawsuit. Maybe you could mention it to Mr. Garnet.”

  Nila Earling hadn’t actually mentioned a lawsuit, but zinging that one at Sylvie felt good.

  Sylvie’s lips tightened, creasing the thick pancake of powder around her mouth. “I really can’t see that we owe her anything. That derelict brother of hers mooched off Harrison for years. For all we know, he started the fire. For all we know, you suggested it, to divert attention from your incompetence in dealing with that environmental inspector.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Garnet’s got his hands full right now, dealing with that illegal waste dump.”

  That one hit home, too. “We have to go now, Av-ery. I have an appointment with Sheriff Peters. Was that your idea, too? That the sheriff question Harry again, dredging up all that nonsense from all those years ago? Is that another sick attack you’ve launched on this family? I don’t know what we could’ve done to merit this. All I can assume is that the damage you’ve done has been the result of incompetence rather than malice. But, then, I prefer to think the best of people.”

  She purposefully swung the front door wide, indicating that my audience was ended. “I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out, but your services will no longer be required at Garnet Mills. Harrison feels quite strongly about that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go have a word with the sheriff—”

  In the doorway, I turned. “I take it that I should tell Miz Earling that you have no intention of offering a settle-”

  I skipped a half step to keep from being hit by the door as it thudded shut.

  Perhaps to avoid focusing too much on the personal gut punches she’d thrown, I found myself gloating over the L.J. aspect. So they’d invited little Harry Garnet in for questioning, had they? And his mother, the Lady Sylvie. And the sharp-faced Lind-ley Garnet, first lady in training—was L.J. questioning her, too?

  Sylvie hadn’t mentioned that my check was in the mail. I’d get my bill to Rita Wilkes first thing tomorrow, including the trip to Columbia and the time in the library and both—no, all three trips to the mill.

  Where did Sylvie Garnet get off firing me from a job her husband had hired me to do? As I strolled back toward Carlton Earner’s office, I took a one-block side trip to the graveyard. Sunlight glinted off the polished marble and the occasional Mylar balloon. But no cars or people were about. I sat on Aunt Letha’s bench.

  I stared across the sun-bleached stones, bright flowers, and brown grass for some time before I realized that this bench overlooked the Howe plots. Somehow, the other day, I hadn’t noticed. My grandfather’s stone, with the names Avery Hampton Howe and Emmalyn Guest Howe and their dates, was the newest one in the family plot. Plenty of other Howes and relations rested there, most names I really didn’t know.

  I dissected the encounter with Sylvie and Lindley, trying to decide what about the conversation knotted my stomach, what left me with this sense of sick unease. Was it the calculated maliciousness of the outburst? Was it that Sylvie had claimed to remember my grandfather in ways I’d never heard anybody talk about him? Maybe he had tomcatted around. Certainly nobody would’ve discussed that with me. What really left the bad taste in my mouth was the way she’d said it, dripping with nasty innuendo.

  I couldn’t possibly have known my grandfather the way others had. What had he been like when he was younger? Had he consoled Olivia Sterling when Sylvie stole her beau? In ways other than as the solicitous big brother of Olivia’s friends Hattie and Vinnia? Had it taken time for him to grow into somebody I adored?

  I’d been around some masterful manipulators, but Sylvie Garnet took the prize for punching hot buttons. I wanted to physically shake myself to shed the nasty feeling that clung to me like stable muck.

  My mama had taught me not to sass my elders; she hadn’t said anything about letting lunatics rant unchecked. Sylvie’s diatribe had been too venomous. She’d protested too much, and I wanted to know why. Was Lindley along for more than a ride? True, she and Harry met while finishing their MBAs, long after Lea Bertram had sunk from sight. But she had her eye set on the governor’s mansion, and she wouldn’t let even Harry get in the way of that.

  Sylvie hadn’t hired me, so she couldn’t fire me. And I could think of nothing that prohibited me from following up on a few things.

  I left the graveyard and headed toward Carlton Earner’s office and my car. Even if Sylvie saw to it that I got fired, I might a
s well enjoy myself.

  Fourteen

  I’d been so busy talking to unpleasant people and I weirdos that I’d let most of the day get by and hadn’t eaten a bite. I stopped by the newspaper office first, for both food and information.

  With an RC in a glass bottle and a pack of Nabs from the print room cracker machine, I climbed the creaky stairs to Dad’s new office.

  New is not a good word, though. From the threadbare carpet faded into a dusty brown to the dented file cabinets and the cantilevered worktable, everything wheezed with age and hard use—a place where people had long been too busy with the more important affairs of the world to worry about interior design.

  My dad, a burly man, filled the space as if he’d been born to it. The top of his heavy thatch of reddish-brown hair faced me over the desk as I walked in and sprawled in the wooden armchair opposite him.

  “So, Dad, who’s getting married and who got arrested?”

  He started a bit. He’d been concentrating on some sort of drawings spread out on his desk. “Um… yes,” he said, then tapped the drawings. “Think I’ve come up with a way to solve a product flow problem on those little advertising weeklies we print for that fella.”

  I nodded. I’d have to read the paper to catch up on the news.

  “Dad, what do you know about Nebo Earling?” I popped a cheese cracker in my mouth and waited.

  He pushed back from his desk and studied the floor underneath for a minute. “Crippled when he was born. Worked for old man Garnet. Lived with his sister—when he wasn’t holed up in somebody’s hunting shack drinking himself stuporous. Same as his momma, sometimes.”

  “What did he do for Harrison Garnet?”

  “Odd jobs. Mowed the lawn at his house. Gofer work around the plant.”

  “You remember anything about him operating some kind of heavy equipment for Garnet? Around the mill?”

  “Now you mention it, yeah, he did. I remember thinking what a damned fool thing, letting Nebo operate a backhoe when he couldn’t walk a straight line most days and didn’t have the sense God gave a turnip.”

  He absentmindedly rolled up one of the sheets on his desk. “’Course, they were working around in that back parking lot then, clearing off. Reckon there wasn’t much there he could hurt.”

  “But he hurt himself somehow? Collected worker’s comp?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know anything about that. Might have.” His gaze wandered back to his drawings—some sort of flowchart.

  I took a long last swig on my RC, then let out a quiet little burp. “You know Geneva Gadsden?”

  His brow furrowed and he nodded. “Yeah. I know her husband better, though. Why you ask?”

  “I can’t place her. She called about something. We’re to meet tomorrow.”

  “Ought to warn you, she’s a bit of a kook.”

  I tried not to smile. “I gathered that in our phone conversation.”

  “Your mother knows her better.” He stood when I did and walked with me across the musty carpet to the door. “She ought to be home later.”

  I nodded and gave him a quick hug. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  He looked at me—actually locked gazes—and said, “We’re glad you’re home, Avery. Hope you’ll be staying.”

  I gave him a crooked smile and creaked down the protesting stairs. I didn’t say good-bye. That way, he wouldn’t hear a catch in my voice. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that dealing with the likes of Sylvie and Lindley made leaving look sweet indeed.

  My next stop was Nila Earling’s house. Since I had no address for her, I detoured into the paste-up room to call Nila’s neighbor.

  After four rings, I heard the receiver on the other end lift. I waited for someone to say hello. Instead, a slurry voice speaking a bit too loudly said, “Sheeut,” adding more vowels than any word needs.

  I paused, then offered a cautious, “Hello?”

  “What?” Then more forcefully, “Shit.”

  “Is this a bad time?” I couldn’t decide if the voice sounded old or drunk or weak from exertion.

  “Spilled gahdam Cheerios and Hawaiian Punch all inside the sofa. Shit.” Heavy mouth-breathing followed.

  “I’m trying to reach Nila Earling. Or at least find out where she lives.” I talked fast.

  “Can’t get her now. Takes too long for her to waddle her fat self over here. She’s at Palmetto Trailer Park. Number ’leven. Shit.” The receiver slammed down.

  Perhaps I’d just wander over to Miz Earling’s house without further attempt to forewarn her.

  I checked the phone book, then asked the three folks working around the downstairs offices if they knew where I could find the Palmetto Trailer Park. I got three different answers, all prefaced with “hmm” or “let me see.” The name Palmetto didn’t help any, since the state tree only grows on the coast, not anywhere near the foothills. But I knew where three, maybe four trailer parks were. I’d try them all. It’s not like driving around Dacus takes all that long.

  The first one, near the city basketball and tennis courts, didn’t have a name, just a string of mailboxes clinging desperately to a swaybacked board nailed to two posts.

  The second one was the Heaven’s View Motor Court. Why hadn’t I noticed that glaring misnomer before? The red dirt from the rutted drive that wound through the house trailers had blown and spattered the trailers, the cars, the bushes, the discarded tricycles, and the red-stained children playing in their grassless yards.

  Finally, on the opposite side of town—all of about six blocks from Garnet Mills—I found Palmetto Trailer Park. No palmettos, but there was a tidy stand of spindly pine trees and almost as much red dust as Heaven’s View.

  As with the other parks, the trailers here had been parked in their spaces too long. Spots of rust, stains from the overhanging pines, faded paint, lopsided add-on porches, and tired houseplants hanging limply in plastic pots all spoke of folks hunkered in.

  Number eleven had once been a pale blue rectangular box. Now it sat, paler still, with one end crumpled in like a half-squashed beer can. No one had bothered to add a porch or anything more than the narrow metal steps that had come with the thing, back when it was much newer and much less faded.

  I cautiously tested the bottom step and reached up to rap on the metal door. After three consecutively more insistent knocks, the door opened and Nila Earling filled the doorway. She hadn’t first called out “Who’s there?”

  “Miz Ear—”

  “Why, Miz Andrews.” She blinked slightly in the afternoon sun like a mole peeking out its hole. “Come on in here.”

  She stepped back and made a little space for me to enter. The television blared the boxed intensity of a talk show.

  The room’s darkness wasn’t all a trick of light. Weak sunlight filtered into the narrow room through the flowered, scantily ruffled curtains. But the dirt-brown carpet, lumpy flowered sofa, and dark chipboard furniture gobbled all the light. While my eyes strained to see, my nose begged me not to breathe. The dusty air swam with stale cooking odors and stale body odors and ripe cat-box stink.

  “Have a seat.” She pushed a stack of newspapers off the sofa. A fruitcake-colored cat fell out of the papers and lay in the heap on the floor. I stepped over the jumble, eyeing the cat, hoping it wasn’t dead. I hated the thought of that stench being added to the rest of the potpourri.

  “How nice to see you, Miz Andrews. Can I get you something to drink? Some ice tea?” She stood over me, smiling down and ignoring the cat.

  “No, no, thank you. And I apologize for stopping in without calling first, but—”

  “Better you stop by than you make me walk next door so you can tell me you’re comin’.” She slapped her thigh. “Sure I can’t get you somethin’ to drink?” She spoke loudly over the television’s noise.

  I shook my head and she sank into the butt-sprung recliner that faced the TV. The chair sighed. From the folding TV tray next to her chair, she grabbed a sweaty glass of tea and gulped.<
br />
  “Miz Earling—”

  “Call me Nila, please. You come to my house, you call me Nila.”

  “Nila. Thank you.”

  Nila Earling did seem the queen of her castle, not the beseeching person who’d been in my office. A woman at home—with herself and her trailer.

  “Nila, I have some bad news and I wanted to deliver it in person. I spoke with Mrs. Garnet about Nebo’s funeral—”

  “And she said they wouldn’t pay.” Nila Earling took another gulp, wiped the corners of her mouth with two pinched fingers, and nodded. “Figgered as much. You gonna talk to Mr. Garnet?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt seriously that’ll do any good. The Garnets—”

  “Thought as much. So we gonna sue ’em?”

  That one took me by surprise. “Um.” I rested my elbows on my knees, trying not to settle too far back into the sofa. For some reason, I kept thinking of Nila Earling’s neighbor and the Cheerios and Hawaiian Punch in her sofa.

  “I really don’t think that’s an option, Miz, um, Nila. And, in any case, I would have a conflict of interest, carrying this any further. Perhaps I could recommend a lawyer you could talk to about your options.”

  “Figgered as much. It just don’t seem right.”

  Fortunately she didn’t seem inclined to beg me to reconsider. But I moved to change the subject.

  “M—Nila, I was curious. You mentioned that your brother, that Nebo, had operated heavy equipment for Mr. Garnet.”

  “Sure did.”

  She didn’t look surprised at my question. I felt a twinge of guilt. She probably thought my exploration would lead to finding her some cash.

  “Tell me some more about that. When was it?”

  She settled her head against the back of her chair and studied the leak-stained ceiling. “Lemme see. Probably some time about 1970, I reckon. It ’uz about a year after Mama died. He ’uz button-popping proud of that job. ’Course, Nebo never did ’mount to much. Pains me to say that.” She lay her puffy hand across her bosom. “But one’s got to speak truth, even of the dead.”