Darcy and I took a booth in the diner where we were to meet Craig McAllister, Constance’s friend. It was Tuesday. The only windows in the small space faced the street by the entrance. Worn hardwood lined the floor. Vinyl and chrome covered the rest. The smell of fifty years of grease hung in the air as thick as the sulfur around a marsh. From the looks of the other patrons, I suspected I wasn’t the only one with a concealed weapon.
A waitress came to our table and laid two menus in front of us. “What can I get y’all?”
We ordered milkshakes and waited. When bells tied to the entrance door jingled, I watched our man come in. He slid his sunglasses from the ridge of his nose to the top of his head. His polo shirt had a monogram on it similar to the one Galston’s stooges wore and his work boots and khakis showed splattered mud. He was in good shape for what I guessed was sixty, with the deep tan of an offshore fisherman. His eyes scanned the place before they locked on mine. He came and slid into the booth facing us.
The waitress broke the silence. “What can I get you, hon?”
“Black coffee to go, please,” McAllister said. His accent sounded more like upstate South Carolina than Charleston low-country.
The waitress left and returned with his coffee. “You wanna see a menu?”
McAllister shook his head and she left.
“You called this meeting,” I said. “Want to tell us what this is about?”
“Constance Hagan called this meeting,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about your uncle. We were in Vietnam together a long time ago.”
I sat back. “No kidding.”
“Yeah. Lost touch over the years.”
Darcy asked, “You ever been to his bar?”
“Maybe once or twice. My work keeps me busy.”
I put enough money on the table to cover our tab. “You want to talk here or somewhere else?”
McAllister led us to a big Ford F450 Dually pickup truck with four doors. It was white and caked in mud like his boots and still had dealer plates. On the front door was stenciled McAllister and Associates. I let Darcy take the front seat. Despite the soiled exterior, the truck had that new-car smell.
McAllister fired up the diesel engine and drove slowly through the small town, easing across railroad tracks and potholes. “Galston uses his companies to buy Superfund sites, and then filters money through them with minimal cleanup.”
“How’d you find out about this?” Darcy asked.
“Because I’m one of the few people around here with the capability and experience to do environmental restoration. I know everyone in the business and no one is doing any real work for Galston.”
“What are you,” Darcy said, “the only ethical contractor in town?”
Watching the rearview mirror, I saw McAllister’s mouth form a crooked smile.
“Weirder things have happened.”
Darcy turned toward him. “Not that weird.”
McAllister veered onto a two-lane and gunned it. “This area is thick with wetlands, which is why it’s so dangerous that a Superfund site is here.”
Two miles out of town he flicked his left indicator and slowed. A pine forest surrounded us, taking the edge off the sun. He slowed more and steered onto a dirt road. The remains of a rotting sign jutted from the ground. I could barely make out the name.
CHROMICORP
We were in the middle of nowhere and I wondered for more than a few minutes how well Constance knew McAllister. Out the back window, I watched the trail of dust kicked up by the four rear tires and questioned where all the water was if this was wetland.
The road turned sharply around a fallen tree and into a mud hole. McAllister touched a button on the dashboard just before we hit the thick clay, engaging the driveshaft to the front wheels. The nose of the truck dropped a foot or so into the pit and bounced us around the cab.
Darcy grabbed the handle above her door. McAllister revved the diesel, spinning the wheels and powering us through the muck. The front wheels climbed out the other side of the hole, but the mud didn’t end there.
Silently I took back what I’d thought about dry soil. I said, “We just having fun mudding in your new truck here or is there a purpose to this?”
“Galston hasn’t touched this site since he bought it five years ago,” McAllister said. “He’s always a few steps ahead of the EPA. Even tried to put me on retainer to cover for him.”
A clearing in the middle of the trees opened up. He slowed the truck to a stop and killed the engine. Through the windshield, I saw a small, overgrown gravel parking lot and two buildings; the small one looking like it was used for an office at one time. The other was larger and must have been where the chemical processing took place. Two rats scurried out of a hole in one of the buildings and underneath the broken-down door of another.
“I call this place the rat farm.”
Darcy said, “Yuck.”
McAllister faced me. “I think your uncle was going to expose Galston.”
“Got any proof?” Darcy asked.
“That, little lady, is the tough part. Galston’s got more lawyers than sense. As long as he can show due diligence, he’s safe.”
“But why kill my uncle?” I said it more to myself than to anyone else.
McAllister said, “If he did it—or had it done—it must mean Reggie was close or had something very incriminating. I wish I knew what it was. So does Constance.”
“Won’t she suffer if her brother goes down?” I asked.
“She’s got her own money,” he said.
I already knew that, but I wanted to see if he did. Patricia had filled me in on Constance on the way back from Yemassee. The youngest of five siblings and the only daughter, Constance had been wild in her day, which from the looks of her was a good twenty years ago. Arrested at twenty-two for possession of stolen property and cocaine, she had been forced to marry a member of the Hagan family, another wealthy Charleston clan. She accepted her role to avoid jail. The new life didn’t kill her, but her husband died at forty-five of a heart attack in the arms of his mistress. Constance became the sole heir to a fortune valued in the mid-nine figures, more than enough to keep her fat in oatmeal raisin cookies and African American servants.
McAllister brought us back to the diner. Darcy went inside to use the restroom and I stood outside with him next to his truck.
He propped a foot on the running board. “If Galston did kill your uncle, I’m surprised he hasn’t come after you yet.”
I said, “My house was trashed and my car vandalized. I think it was the two dirtbags he’s got working for him. We’ve got a line on someone who can give us an I.D. Apparently the killer likes Asian prostitutes. Young ones.”
“Really?” McAllister put his hands in his pockets. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past Galston’s property managers as he calls them. They act respectable but they’re just hired muscle.” He paused as if to think. “If you want some revenge, I might be able to help. How can I get in touch with you?”
I gave him my cell number.
Darcy and I stopped by my rental and picked up Shelby. The three of us rode to Patricia’s house for a late lunch. When we walked in, Patricia asked me to get the grill ready and proceeded to occupy herself with my dog. The grill was a nice one, a Weber, and it lit easily. As I watched it heat up, Tom Petty sang from my pocket about living like a refugee. I pulled out my phone but didn’t recognize the number it displayed.
“Pelton,” I answered.
“Hey Brack, it’s Ken Graves, EPA. I found out a few things. Had to cut a lot of red tape to do it. Have a minute?”
“I thought you feds carried the red tape dispenser,” I said.
“We do, but the departments we report to have got ones of their own. We get a big dose of it ourselves.”
“Good to hear we mere civilians aren’t the only ones. Hold on a sec.” I slid the glass door open and asked Patricia for something to write with. She handed me a purple pad and matching pen. I took them to a garden table with a pedestal umbrella sticking out through a hole in the middle. “All set. Go ahead.”
“The owner of the Chemcon site went belly-up this year. Because that was after the EPA classified it a Superfund site, we acquired the property. Current public opinion aside, the federal government is not in the real estate business. We immediately put the property for sale. It wasn’t a private auction. We wanted anything we could get for it, so I’m sure it was advertised.”
I took notes. “So, who bid on it?”
“Hold on.” I heard the shuffle of papers. “Palmetto Properties.”
“What business are they in and do they own any other property in Charleston?”
“You’d have better luck than me. I only have access to information that interests the EPA. Palmetto Properties did not come up anywhere else in our database.”
As we ate grilled chicken, couscous, and some sort of vegetable medley, Darcy and I filled Patricia in on everything McAllister said. I added what Ken Graves found out. Patricia leaned forward. “We have a link.”
“More than that,” Darcy said, swiveling her chair from side to side like a schoolgirl, “we have allies.”
“I did a search on McAllister last night,” Patricia said. “He’s into restoration and conservation and he’s given big bucks to Constance’s foundation. I think they’re more than friends.”
“We should let her look at everything we’ve got,” Darcy suggested. “Maybe she can connect more of the dots.”
“First,” Patricia said, “we have to see how much she hates her brother.”
I fed Shelby my chicken scraps, sans bones. “You think she may be lying? She gave us McAllister.”
“It sounds far-fetched,” Patricia said, “but we need something Galston and all the lawyers he keeps on retainer can’t dispute.”
Darcy said, “How about murder?”
From the back deck of my beach rental, I watched the color of the water alternate between many shades of green. Vivid—that’s how Jo had described the ocean around Saint Lucia on our honeymoon. The crystal-blue water gave up its secrets when we donned snorkels. Vivid—the bright colors of the schools of fish changing direction at the first hint of our presence in their domain. Vivid—my memory of the first trip to the hospital when she started feeling weak. Vivid—Jo and I seated facing the doctor and hearing him explain the end of Jo’s life. Vivid—holding Jo’s hand when she took her last breath. Vivid—Uncle Reggie dying in my arms in the alley.
A dark cloud formed over me. One I couldn’t shake. I pulled out a cigar and sniffed the Cuban tobacco. It smelled earthy and acerbic. I clipped the end, stuck it in my mouth, and lit up. Shelby slept at my feet. My cell phone rang and I dug it out of my pocket and answered.
Fisher said, “Pelton, I’m in trouble.”