Southern Fried (6 page)

A flicker across his face was hard to read. Surprised at Garnet’s openness? Or did he not know where he wanted to start?

I took advantage of the lull. “Mr. Smith, may I first ask the purpose of your visit?”

He cut his eyes from Harrison Garnet, seated behind his desk, to me.

“To inspect the premises for compliance with the environmental protection regulations of the federal government and the state of South Carolina.”

An answer that wasn’t an answer. “Certainly. A
part of your regular inspection process? Or,” I paused, “in response to a complaint?”

The tip of his tongue wet his lips. “We’ve had a complaint.”

I nodded, as if I’d suspected as much. In fact, I thought,
Oh, shit
. A routine inspection might be one thing. But a red flag sent up by a complaint—even a complaint by the proverbial disgruntled former employee—meant a different scope of investigation, a different road map for Jason Smith to follow.

“And what was the nature of the complaint?”

“A-ver-ee.” He drawled my name with condescension. “You must know that environmental complaints may be kept strictly confidential.”

I smiled my tiny smile again. “Complainants, Jason, not complaints,” I drawled back. “I didn’t ask who made the complaint. I asked the nature of the complaint.”

He hesitated. We both had sense enough to know that revealing too much about the complaint might reveal too much about who made the complaint.

“Surely, Jason, you must realize that our only desire is to help provide answers to your questions and to get to the bottom of this. Garnet Mills certainly doesn’t intend to violate—knowingly or otherwise—the environmental protection laws. But, without some idea of what you’re looking for, our ability to assist you will be limited.” My voice positively purred.

Jason Smith revealed his discomfiture only by a slight shifting of his spraddle-legged stance. But he
replied without hesitation, “Perhaps we could start with a brief visual inspection of the plant site. Then we could discuss further the information that I’ll need.”

Before I could reply, Garnet, who’d watched our exchange as if it were a tennis match, pushed his wheelchair back from his desk. The movement drew Jason’s attention. He stared at Garnet’s wheelchair. Probably much as I had. Had Garnet become blind to those unthinking stares, the impolite shock? Or did he just politely ignore the reactions he got?

“Suppose we take you around the plant, answer your questions. I’m sure we can get this cleared up quickly.” Garnet used the edge of the desk to pull himself upright, then fitted his crutches around his forearms.

“Avery, would you get the door?”

His tone of voice said he wasn’t asking my opinion, so I didn’t give it. I didn’t want to indicate to Jason any disagreement between client and counsel, so we proceeded along the same path my tour the day before had taken.

I trailed behind Garnet and Jason, watching the two men, paying particular attention to what drew Jason’s attention. He bounced through most of the plant tour, playing social, get-to-know-you games with Harrison Garnet and politely attending to the tour monologue.

Garnet’s tour didn’t take us from the beginning of the operation to the end. The direction seemed governed by the shortest distance between points rather than production flow, so we saw the areas
closest to his office first, then moved to the more remote parts of the plant.

Jason didn’t make any notes or linger over anything or ask any questions whose answers interested him—not until we arrived in the part of the building where a handful of workers fitted and glued wooden furniture frames together.

Jason Smith started paying attention when we got there.

“What sort of glues do you use, Mr. Garnet?”

Harrison Garnet paused in his recitation. “Whatever we can get at a decent price. Everything’s gotten so expensive lately.”

I wanted to kick him—or one of his crutches—and tell him to answer the question. Nothing more. Don’t volunteer. Don’t embellish. Don’t give economic or political commentary. But he still wasn’t asking for my advice.

Jason Smith nodded appreciatively. “I’d like to have a look around outside now.” He glanced at Garnet’s crutches, probably without realizing that he’d done it.

As if he had something to prove, Garnet heaved himself around. “Right this way.” With his shoulders churning, he plowed toward an exit and the rear loading dock.

Jason, for all his fresh-faced shallowness, knew what he was looking for. And Harrison Garnet hobbled right along without even asking what it was. Or how much trouble he would be in if Jason found it.

Was Garnet really that naive? Conceivable. As a lawyer, even I knew precious little about the
environmental field. Except I did know that guys who wear suits could end up doing jail time alongside bruisers named Bubba. Either Garnet didn’t have anything to hide or he didn’t know it needed to be hidden.

On the dock, Jason assumed his cocky stance, surveying the back parking lot as if he owned it.

“How long has this plant been here, Mr. Garnet?”

“This original building’s been here since the forties. Initially it housed a garment manufacturing plant. We took it over in the midfifties. Expanded quite a bit in the early years.”

Again, Jason murmured politely, studying the parking lot. “I’m trying to picture your layout here. I believe a creek runs along that back part of your property?”

“If you can call it a creek. Barely enough water in there to wet the rocks. We use city water and sewer here.”

Jason nodded, staring past the sunlight glinting off the parked cars toward the tree line half a football field away. Then he turned back toward the door we’d exited from, not bothering to finish his tour of the loading area. “I’d like to take a look at some of your paperwork now, if you don’t mind.”

Garnet registered only a tinge of surprise—or maybe disappointment—then turned toward the door. “Sure—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Smith.” I’d played the strong, silent type long enough. “Before you go on a fishing expedition through the company records, I’m going to have to ask you again the purpose of your search.
I’m sure you understand.” The syrupy drip of my voice did little to soften my insistence.

Harrison Garnet looked over his shoulder at me but didn’t struggle to turn around.

Jason Smith, sensing a break in the ranks, waited. When Garnet didn’t speak, Jason focused on me. “As I’ve indicated,
I’m not required to reveal my source—”

“And as I’ve indicated, I believe you are required to state the subject of the complaint.” I had no idea if that was true. But if he weren’t required to tell, he should be.

I half expected him to put his hands on his hips and taunt me:
Well, I’m not telling. Nyeh, nyeh, make me
.

How many guys like Jason had I known? Overconfident, ego-inflated white boys heading into a world where they couldn’t get by on a paucity of brains and plenty of family connections the way their frat brothers had in the past. Headed into a world where women and guys who weren’t white or well connected would flail the tar out of the likes of them. And they’d conveniently be able to blame affirmative action, reverse discrimination—anything but their own cockiness and lack of experience. And lack of humility.

“Your attitude certainly isn’t in the spirit of cooperation as, together, we try to resolve this matter,” he said.

Bullshit
. “Maybe we could be more help in resolving this matter if we knew what this matter is.”

We’d squared off, with Harrison Garnet closed
out of our little tête-à-tête. Garnet maneuvered awkwardly around so he could watch us. Jason Smith appealed to him. “Mr. Garnet, if I could simply see your records for—”

“Mr. Smith, I don’t know how to make this any clearer. Without more information about what you need to see, I can’t let you pillage about in my client’s files. Those files contain confidential customer information, trade secret process information—any number of things that are proprietary and valuable.”

I had no idea if any of that was true, either. But I was on a roll. And I resented his continuing end-runs around me to Garnet.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to supply a search warrant before you go any further.”

Muscles on either side of Jason’s jaw shot out in tight knots. “If you want to play hardball, Miz Andrews—”

“Now, wait a minute.” Harrison Garnet wobbled a bit, trying to enter the fray.

“You can simply tell the judge what you’re looking for and he’ll spell it out in the warrant. Then there won’t be any misunderstandings.”

“Mr. Garnet has already given consent to an inspection. It’s too late—”

“No, it’s not.”
Nice try, Junior
. “He consented to show you the plant. On advice of counsel, he’ll need to see an administrative search warrant before you can see the company’s records.”

Jason’s jaw muscles worked overtime. “Very
well, Miz Andrews. But plan on seeing me—and my supervisor—here first thing tomorrow morning. Accompanied by a search warrant allowing us access to the records. If you want to do this the hard way, I assure you that can be arranged.”

Harrison Garnet’s gaze trailed from Jason Smith’s reddened face and locked on me. Without a word, he told me I’d better know what I was getting him into.

H
olding off Jason Smith, Boy Regulator, lacked the finality of a victory, but at least I’d won the skirmish—and gained a twinge of that
ha, beat you
that I hadn’t felt in a while. Where that set the battle lines, I wasn’t sure.

If I took time to admit it, I also felt a twinge of
oh, shit
. Angering the little twit in the olive Italian suit likely hadn’t been the smartest thing I’d ever done. But every instinct I had said he knew exactly what he was looking for. And Garnet and I still wouldn’t know when or if he found it—until it was too late to explain or rectify.

I’d bought enough time to evaluate the records myself. I just hoped I would understand what I saw. The complaint apparently hadn’t alleged anything life-threatening, urgent, or irreversible, which meant Jason the wonder kid would have to wait until after Thanksgiving. No judge would give him an administrative warrant—valid for only twenty-four hours—for Thanksgiving Day.

Harrison Garnet hadn’t seemed too concerned.
At least not concerned enough to review the records with me after Jason left, despite my insistence. I tried to set a meeting for first thing Friday morning, though I doubted that would give us enough time to adequately prepare for the junior G-man’s return. But he said he’d call.

Did Harrison Garnet know what Jason wanted? Did that explain why he wasn’t worried? Or did he not have enough experience to worry? He was a difficult man to read.

I had an hour before my appointment with Melvin Bertram, so I drove to my great-aunts’ house on North Main and parked out front. I studied the house. This lengthy holiday visit to Dacus felt odd. Everything in Dacus, everything that had been normal and accustomed in my life before, now shone in stark relief. Against what? The backdrop of my life as a lawyer? As I studied my past, the light seemed to have shifted or to have grown brighter. Not the blinding light that floods in the side door of a movie theater at the end of a matinee. More like the stark quality of light on a fall afternoon, when the crisp air holds little humidity and the edges of everything seem sharper.

From behind the privet hedge that crowded the sidewalk, the rusty, spicy smell of boxwood enveloped me. The hoop-skirted branches of a magnolia tree, that staunch representative of the indestructible South, sheltered the entire right front yard.

Anyone who associates magnolias with their waxy, iridescent white flowers has missed the essen
tial nature of magnolias. Every time I see a magnolia, I remember my first visit to Charleston days after Hurricane Hugo hit. Stalwart oaks, downed or damaged, trashed the streets. Even the palmettos once used to build fortresses stood ragged. But the magnolias, despite wind and flood, hadn’t lost a single waxy leaf, as though their skirts had scarcely been ruffled. Daintiness is disconcertingly deceptive in magnolias.

The stiff, shoe-size dead leaves scratched harshly as I kicked them down the front walk. The white clapboard house, always in need of painting no matter how recently it had been done, had stood on this spot for a hundred years.

I twisted the turn bell in the center of the front door. The mechanical jangle carried easily to the back part of the house. Usually I went in and out the back door, but for some reason, today I felt like a more formal call.

“Avery.” Aunt Letha flung open the door without first parting the lace curtains. “You should have phoned first. You’re just in time.” The odor of moth-balls and Aunt Letha’s gardenia perfume wafted over me.

She backed me onto the porch and slammed the door, rattling the windowpanes. Aunt Letha’s rottweiler, a black mass of spoiled dog flesh named Bud, strutted at the end of his leash like one of Hannibal’s elephants. The family suspected he’d been named for an old boyfriend. Aunt Letha wouldn’t say.

“Where—”

“Come on.” She left me blowing in her wake like dried leaves in a wind. When she hit the sidewalk, I noticed her Rockports.

“Aunt Letha, I’ve got on pumps. I can’t walk in—”

“Sure you can. If you can’t keep up with an old lady like me, you’re in a sad state.”

Bud’s thick nails rasped along the magnolia-leaf carpet. I’ve never had sense enough to know when to back down from a challenge. I trotted down the sidewalk after them.

Aunt Letha towers over me. Despite her bulk and her age, an impression of energy and activity encircle her like an aura. She steamed down Main Street while I clopped down the root-broken sidewalk behind her. She cut right on the first side street, marched through the gates at Memorial Park, and plopped down on a bench near the praying hands statue. A block and a half. Bud looked around, sighed deeply, then stretched out on the grass, his legs out behind him like a frog awaiting dissection.

“You walk every day, Aunt Letha?”

“Every day.” She sat spraddled on the weak-legged bench, her turquoise pull-on slacks strained at the knees. “Almost.”