The large oak door to Connors, Matheson, and Gooding Law Firm opened to the scent of wood polish and leather. The smells, along with original paintings and sculptures, conspired to make me feel out of place, and I hated feeling out of place. An attractive receptionist sat behind a curved hardwood desk. Sun-bleached hair framed a pretty face and tan skin. Early twenties, I guessed, although the business suit and blouse were a little misleading. Her eyes started at my Italian shoes and stopped at my hair. She smiled big, apparently not concerned with my bruised mouth. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Chauncey Connors,” I said. “I have a four o’clock appointment.”
She typed something into the computer and said, “He’ll be with you shortly, Mr. Pelton. Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”
“No thanks.”
“I’ll let him know you’re here. Have a seat.” She motioned to the waiting area, giving me the big smile again.
I needed something to brighten my mood and her pretty grin did the trick. The leather couch in the waiting area engulfed me. Magazines lined a coffee table and I snatched an Architectural Digest and flipped through it.
The man who’d introduced himself as my uncle’s lawyer appeared from a door behind the receptionist and spoke with the parlance of an old southern plantation owner. “Mr. Pelton. Good to see you.”
Only someone named Chauncey could pull off wearing a bow tie. His blue one complimented a light-gray wool two-button suit and white oxford shirt. As I rose from the cocooning leather and shook hands with the lawyer, I wondered how much this meeting would set me back. The attorney’s wardrobe suggested more than several hundred bucks an hour. Maybe a thousand.
Chauncey led me up creaking wooden stairs to the second floor of the turn-of-the-preceding-century building. The windows of his walnut and book-lined corner office overlooked palmetto trees flanking King Street and were too free of distortions to be originals. I took a seat in a leather chair.
Chauncey sat facing me behind the large mahogany desk. “Mr. Pelton,” he said, “this isn’t easy for me. I’ve known your uncle for a long time. Since Vietnam.”
“Uncle Reggie never talked about the war much,” I said. “I knew it was where he lost his eye.”
He nodded, saying nothing.
“I found discharge papers in with his stuff. Was he really in Air America?”
Chauncey laced his fingers on top of his desk. “He was. One of the best pilots we had. What we called an ace.”
“You were in with him?”
“I was his copilot. Still fly when I get the time.”
“My uncle said Ray shot him,” I said. “You know any Rays who might have had something against him?”
“I can’t think of anyone who would do such a thing. Of course, I’ve never represented anyone brought up on murder charges.”
“Were you there when he lost his eye?”
“I was. We were in the air carrying a load of medicine when the North Vietnamese opened up on us. Tore the plane all to hell. I got hit in the chest, arm, and leg and could not move.” He sighed. “Your uncle took two bullets. A piece of metal from the plane got his eye. But he kept flying and landed us safely. He should have gotten a medal. He saved my life by getting me back to the base, and many other lives with the medicine in the shipment. When the barometer drops, my leg reminds me how much I owe him.”
“He never even told me he could fly,” I said.
“He quit. The government cut him a check for losing his eye and he used the money to buy the bar. As far as I know, he hasn’t flown since.”
It was my turn to nod.
He said, “So, are you ready for me to read your uncle’s will?”
I felt my chest tighten. “Yes.”
Chauncey picked up papers in front of him and read. “Upon my death, I, Reginald Austin Sails, hereby leave my estate in its entirety to my nephew, Brack Edward Pelton.”
The words hit me like a freight train. I sat in the leather chair in Chauncey’s office, put my head in my hands, and closed my eyes.
Chauncey said, “Do you need a minute?”
I didn’t move. “Keep going if there’s anything else.”
“Your uncle had a formidable estate.”
I looked up. “What? He owned a rundown bar and a Cadillac held together by Bondo.”
Chauncey sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“After Hurricane Hugo, your uncle purchased a hundred acres of undeveloped prime riverfront property from a speculator selling out. He called it Sumter Point. His intention had always been to preserve it. The recent oil rig disaster in the Gulf Coast made him all the more protective.”
Chauncey’s words bounced off the walls of his office and peeled open my mind like a grappling hook.
He continued, “He has been offered exorbitant amounts of money by developers for the land and turned them all down.” The lawyer set the papers on his desk, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “Unfortunately, the ownership has not been without problems. Current laws require land to be taxed at fair market value. So, while Mr. Sails was able to buy the land at a much reduced price in the aftermath of Hugo, the value has gone up considerably.”
I said, “Okay, so the obvious question is how much does he owe the county?”
Chauncey read the sheet from the file. “A hundred and forty thousand, to be settled with proceeds from the sale of items and/or property of Mr. Sails’s estate. Of course, as the executor and sole beneficiary, and, assuming you proceed with liquidating the estate, you would be entitled to a large sum of money even after Dorchester County got its share.”
An hour later I stood outside the building on the uneven brick sidewalk lining King Street. With power-of-attorney papers in my pocket, I rested my hand on a palmetto tree as if it could provide moral support. Sweat dripped down my back. I looked at the sun and took a deep breath before making my way to the parking garage.
When I stepped from the stairwell and into the parking area I saw two men standing next to my car. One of them leaned against the right fender, leaving fingerprints on the polished black paint. Each wore khaki pants and a polo shirt. The one touching my Mustang had huge biceps and a chiseled frame. His youthful face was outlined by bleached hair blow-dried in place. He pushed away from the car, revealing his height, or lack of it. His beady eyes would have been menacing on someone taller. The other man was closer to my six-foot height, his goatee starting to gray. In the dimly lit garage, their bright orange polo shirts, the words “Palmetto Properties” embroidered over their hearts, glowed like neon.
“It’s about time,” said the younger man, his chest stretching his shirt. “We been waiting long enough.”
Twenty feet away, I said, “Get away from my car.”
The kid looked at his buddy. “You believe this guy?”
“I’m talking to you, Shorty,” I said.
His eyes sighted on me. “Who you calling Shorty?”
More than a little jumpy, I reached into my pocket for Mutt’s gun and remembered it was in the car.
The man with the goatee held up his hands. “Whoa, there. Easy now.”
I kept my hand in my pocket and hoped he’d continue to think I was armed.
“Never mess with a man’s ride,” I said. “Get out of here before someone gets hurt.”
A Cadillac Escalade stopped a couple yards away from me and idled. The dark-tinted rear-seat window slid down, and a bald, shiny head the size of a large melon wearing wraparound sunglasses jutted from the opening. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Pelton. I wonder if I might borrow a moment of your time.”
I looked at the man inside the Escalade and then at the guys in the bright shirts. “You have got to be kidding.”
The rear door of the SUV opened and the man shambled out. His body shape could best be described as a pear in summer wear and his white shirt bore the same logo as the two idiots in front of me.
“I don’t kid, Mr. Pelton,” the fat man said, holding the SUV’s rear door open for me. “Just a few minutes . . . an hour at most. I promise we aren’t here to harm you. In fact, you could say it might be worth your while.”
I eased my hand out of my pocket and held it up to show I wasn’t holding anything. “I’ve read a lot about you and your business ventures in the paper, Mr. Galston.”
A large grin stretched across the bald man’s face. “I’d like to take you on a little tour of the town.”
“I’ve already seen it,” I said. “I live here.”
“I know, Mr. Pelton. I want to show you the future of our way of life. And by the way, I am so sorry to hear about your uncle.”
I looked at Shorty. “We’re going to finish this later.”
Shorty patted the fender of my car where his hand had been. “Looking forward to it.”
My curiosity was too high to let a little thing like personal safety get in the way. I climbed into the backseat of the SUV and slid to the other side so Galston’s rotund body could fit. The two goons in the neon shirts walked to a black Chrysler 300 and got in.
“Sorry about my security,” Galston said. “They’re just overprotective of me. Sometimes they get a little too carried away.”
“They were certainly about to be,” I said.
The driver of the Escalade was a Latino with a thick head of hair. He glanced at me in the rearview mirror through dark sunglasses as he maneuvered us down the levels of the garage. At the exit, he waited for a break in traffic big enough to squeeze through and gunned it.
Galston smiled, as if what he was ready to say was rehearsed. “People come to Charleston from all over. Women come for the shopping, carriage rides, and the beaches. Men come for golf and deep-sea fishing.”
We merged onto I-26 and headed out of the downtown area.
“Tourists,” he said. “They’re the lifeblood of our city.”
“They’re something, all right,” I said.
“Exactly. Your uncle’s bar benefits from them like the rest of us do. But preservation is what it’s all about, these days. What I’m trying to do is protect our city. Make sure if it’s going to be developed, it’s done the right way.”
“That’s great, but why does any of this concern me?” I already knew why it concerned me because Chauncey had told me. To let the fat man finish his pitch was more fun.
“Mr. Pelton, for the past twenty years, your uncle has been trying to do what I’m doing, which is to defend Charleston from outsiders coming in and turning it into an amusement park.”
“I’m glad he wasn’t working alone,” I said.
At an exit five miles down the road, the driver exited the interstate toward the Ashley River. Through the window as we got closer to the water I saw housing developments and strip malls fade away. The road ended and the driver pulled to a stop. A makeshift sign read:
Sumter Point
Keep Out
I’d never been here before, but I wouldn’t let this guy know. “What are we doing at my uncle’s property?”
Galston said, “Mr. Pelton, I’ll be frank with you. I want it.”
“No kidding,” I said.
“As I said, I never kid. And I promise to safeguard it so that others will get to enjoy it.”
I looked away from what I knew were a hundred acres covered in trees. “How would you do that?”
Galston held out his hands, palms up, and opened them in a gesture reminiscent of pictures of Jesus I’d seen. “Create a preservation neighborhood,” he said. “I’m not talking about bulldozing it flat and putting up houses six inches apart along the water, either. I’m talking real codes, stiff ones that make the owners sign over a kidney before they plant a flower. Elevated houses barely touching the ground. Minimum one-acre lots to keep the number of houses down. The whole thing wrapped up tight with wetland offset credits. It’ll be like we’re getting two-for-one on the preservation side of things.”
I nodded as if in agreement.
“For the privilege,” he said, “I’m willing to offer two million dollars. Payable today.”
He grinned big, showing me a mouthful of white-capped teeth.
Galston certainly wasn’t any protector of Charleston. And he wasn’t the only one doing damage, just the biggest one at the moment.
I let out a long sigh. “A lot to think about.”
The fat man bobbed his head up and down like a used car salesman about to offload a lemon. “Sure, sure. I understand. Take some time, but not too much. I’ve got to get this deal roll-ing. You know how it is.”
On the ride back to my car, I thought about Uncle Reggie. I’d learned more about him in the two days following his death than my lifetime of knowing him alive. An expression Galston used played in my mind: “You know how it is.”
I surely did.