Chapter 25
Walker
“Sadie,” I tell the clerk when I step up to the counter. “Did you have a nice weekend?”
“I did,” she says with a huge smile as I slide the bank deposit bag across to her.
The First State Bank of Lindell is the only bank in town, and the declaration of “Convenient Banking” on the sign on the wall couldn’t be further from the truth. A drive-thru would be convenient. An after-hours drop box would be convenient. There isn’t a single thing convenient about having to come inside every time I have to make a deposit.
I shuffle through the bowl of suckers on the counter while she unzips the bag and pulls the cash and deposit slip out. After selecting one of the mystery flavors and hoping for pina colada, I can’t help but frown when I pop the thing in my mouth. I can’t tell exactly what flavor it’s supposed to be but it sure as hell isn’t my favorite.
“Mr. Pritchard came in earlier,” she says conversationally. “He said that he noticed Claire Kennedy’s car left outside the Graves Estate Saturday night.”
I blink at her when she lifts her head as if trying to figure out why I’m not going to stand here and gossip with her.
“I sure hope she made it home safely,” she continues when I stay silent.
“Thank you,” I tell her when she hands me my deposit receipt. “Have a great day.”
I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know that the woman is scowling at me the entire way out of the bank. I have no doubt that Sadie knows exactly how safe Claire was Saturday night. If it wasn’t her neighbor gossiping about her on Sunday about what they heard through the very thin walls, then it was Corbin’s grandmother who waved at me while I sat in the truck waiting for Claire to realize she didn’t have her car there.
“Fuck,” I grumble when I realize I’m only holding the damn receipt.
Now I have to walk back to the damn counter and probably endure more attempts at gossip.
I muster up my best smile I can manage before turning back to Sadie.
“I left my change.”
She smiles right back at me. “I added that to your deposit.”
“Doesn’t do me much good in the bank. I need quarters.”
“We won’t have quarters until the armored truck gets here on Wednesday.”
“I was told the same thing last week.”
“Mr. Hinkle came in less than an hour after the truck left and got all the quarters.”
“Again?” I ask, trying my best not to sound like a petulant child. “What are business owners supposed to do?”
“You can ask Mr. Hinkle if he’s had time to sort through the quarters,” she suggests.
“I’m not… listen, can you just hold some back for me?”
She shakes her head and the glint in her eyes tells me she’s not doing me any favors because I refused to gossip about someone else in town.
“It’s first come first served here at First State Bank of Lindell.”
I grind my teeth in annoyance as I glare at her, the fake smile I managed moments ago nowhere in sight.
“We don’t have favorites, Mr. Conroy. I can get you more dimes and nickels.”
“I have plenty of dimes and nickels.”
“Maybe change the prices of your drinks so quarters aren’t needed?” she suggests.
I swear the woman is purposely trying to goad me into being mean.
“Thank you,” I say rather than the other options my head conjured up.
I refuse to let my irritation settle inside of me. I won’t let it control the other things I have planned for this morning, but as I climb into my truck and drive across town, I know I’m only going to grow more annoyed with where I’m headed next.
I smile at Mrs. Hyde when I open the door to the office and see her sitting at her little desk.
A mid-morning game show blares from the television, and she doesn’t even bother to turn the sound down, opting to just speak louder over the noise instead.
“Good morning, Walker. Did you have an appointment today?”
I look down at the book she uses to schedule Barrett’s appointments and see that the entire week is blank. Maybe his drinking this weekend has more to do with a failing business than anything else, but how the man handles his work life is none of my concern. How he treated Claire Saturday evening is, whether she asked me to help or not.
“He told me to stop by this morning when we chatted at the wedding,” I lie, because I don’t want her to feel like she missed something. “In fact, he told me to just come on back when I got here.”
She smiles and waves her hand in the direction of Barrett’s office, but I’m already heading in that direction.
Maybe before his behavior at the wedding, I might’ve been surprised to find the man sitting at his desk, leaned back in his office chair, with his head tipped back, asleep.
I fight the urge to dip my hand into the jellybeans on his desk and see how many I can throw into his mouth before he wakes up.
I take a seat in the chair across from his desk and kick the front of it.
He isn’t fast to jolt awake like most people would when caught sleeping at a time they should be awake.
Slowly, he angles his head in my direction. Bloodshot eyes stare at me as he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Missed a little right there,” I say, wiping at the left side of my mouth.
Like most people do, he reaches his hand up and swipes at the right since it’s the mirrored side I’m motioning to.
“Your other side,” I mutter, waiting for him to swipe it clean.
I swear the man has really let himself go these last couple of years.
“We don’t have an appointment,” he says, sounding annoyed.
“From looking at that calendar up front, you don’t have any appointments all week.”
“Can I help you?” he snaps.
“I fucking doubt it,” I mutter. “But I am going to give you a chance to correct your awful behavior from this weekend.”
“I already apologized to Hayes for puking in his truck.”
“I’m not here about Hayes. I’m here for how you treated Claire Kennedy.”
“Is this because you’re sleeping with her?”
“She’s under a mountain of credit card debt,” I say, rather than breathing life into gossip that doesn’t concern him. “I need to know what can be done about it.”
“She can pay her bills.” His answer is simple, but it reeks of his dislike for women. “There’s no recourse for the SGLI. It was his last wish, although there are much more deserving animals than fucking wombats.”
I scrub my face with my hands.
“Besides, what does it say about Claire if the man gave his money to rodents rather than leaving it to his wife?”
“Firstly, wombats aren’t rodents. They’re marsupials,” I say, holding up my hand with one finger pointed to the ceiling. “Secondly, say one more negative thing about any woman in this town and I’ll punch you in the throat.”
Barrett snaps his head back like I’ve already hit him. “You are sleeping with her. Damn, man. Don’t let some—”
“Barrett,” I warn. “I won’t tell you again.”
Silence spreads between the two of us, but when he opens his mouth again, he shifts gears.
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Can you set up some sort of payout?”
“No,” he says instantly. “There’s no money. I never took you for slow, Walker, but really.”
“I’ll give you money.”
“Give her the money. If you filter it through my office, then I’m going to attach fees to it.”
“She’d never take money from me.”
He sits back further in his chair. “Impossible. All women—”
He snaps his mouth shut when I lean forward.
“I need you to make it look like some sort of trust you discovered.”
“Walker,” he grumbles.
“Her credit card debt isn’t even hers,” I snap. “That son of a bitch added her to his accounts and then fucking died.”
“What?” he asks, looking confused.
“You heard me right. He put her on his fucking charged-up account and then got his ass killed. She’s been working two jobs to pay off his debt and she’s fucking drowning, man. Can you set up the trust?”
I watch as he chews the inside of his cheek for a long moment before speaking.
“She tell you this?”
I nod.
“You think she’s telling you the truth? And before you jump in my shit again and threaten physical violence, I’m playing devil’s advocate here.”
“She doesn’t live a flashy life. Her car is a piece of shit. Her wardrobe consists of the jeans and t-shirts she wears to work at the bar and the damn scrubs she wears for the vet’s office.”
I didn’t go into the woman’s kitchen but I bet she doesn’t have a matching set of dishes to her name.
“And this is covered under attorney-client privilege, asshole. If I find out you’ve been gossiping—”
“Stop,” he says, holding up his hands. “There are ways to find out if she’s telling the truth.”
“I just need the trust set up,” I tell him as I reach for the pen and notepad on his desk.
I write out my banking information.
“Let me know when it’s done.”
I walk out of his office feeling just as shitty as I knew I would, and I hate that Claire doesn’t have a shift at the bar until Wednesday.
“Walker?” Mrs. Hyde says as I go to walk past her desk. “Would you like to pay your balance today?”
I pull my wallet from my back pocket and pay the woman. I know it’s from Barrett looking into Hux’s SGLI, but I also feel like I should get a damn discount for how he relayed that news. Maybe having a heart and a little compassion is extra.
I shove down the idea of going to the vet clinic to adopt a dog just to see her.