Chapter 9 #2
“Gunner just sent me a couple of mug shots he wants you to look at. If they look familiar, or if you know who they are, we need to let him know. They’re just going through a process of elimination, I think. Are you up for it?”
“Of course. Show me,” Jacob said.
Dylan pulled up the first mug shot and watched his dad’s face.
“Show me the other one,” Jacob asked.
Dylan swiped the phone for the next photo to appear and showed it to Jacob. “Do you know them?” he asked.
“Those are the two men who tried to buy the bar. Joe and Darren Wilson were the names they gave me. Who are they?”
“Pete Brandt’s sons. Everett and Freddie.”
Jacob paled. “Son of a bitch. Then it does have something to do with that damned robbery. But what’s the motive? What do they have to gain by killing me?”
“Could you recognize them as the men who shot you?” Dylan asked.
“I never saw their faces. The only thing that could link them was one of them telling me I should have sold the bar. But that’s just my word against theirs, isn’t it?”
Dylan nodded. “For now, yes, but this will be a huge help to Ash and Gunner. They’ll know what to do next. Give me a sec. I need to call them and let them know.”
The revelation was enough to silence Jacob, and the pain meds were kicking in. When Dylan saw his dad drifting, he walked into the bathroom and shut the door to call them.
Gunner answered on the first ring and put his phone on Speaker so Asher could hear. “What did Dad say?”
“They were definitely the two men who came in asking about buying the bar, who called themselves Joe and Darren Wilson. But he could not identify them as the men who shot him. He asked who they were, and I told him. He’s pretty rattled about the why.
As he said, why would they have a grudge against him?
He had nothing to do with anything. What would be their motive? ”
“We’ll figure that out,” Gunner said. “It’s just good to know our instincts were on the right track. It all has to do with something about the robbery. Give Dad our love. Tell him not to worry. We’ll figure it out.”
“Looks like it could snow,” Dylan said. “Stay warm.”
The call ended.
“Okay…so now we have suspects. However, we don’t know where they are.
They no longer reside at their last known addresses.
Freddie Brandt owns a truck that is being held at a garage for collateral because he couldn’t pay for the repairs, and there is no car registered to Everett.
Texas is huge, and they could be anywhere, hiding out thinking the driver of that black truck made them,” Ash said.
“Well, we do know that they are aware that the man they tried to kill is still alive,” Gunner said.
“I’ll let Dylan know about the call, and we need to decide now, what we do with what we know.”
“You make the calls. I’m going to run a background check on Brenda,” Gunner muttered. “There may be a buttload of stuff that we know nothing about. Stuff that Dad might not have even known. This is good. We’re farther ahead now than we were when we woke up.”
“I’m not going to call Reddick. I’m going to type up a report and send it to him. He can put it in his file as part of the investigation.”
* * *
Nora spent the rest of the day online, and when possible, opted for some face time rather than texts and emails, to ease having to use her bandaged hand.
Her boss was sympathetic, while praising her for keeping up with the job in the middle of all her personal turmoil.
She had a Zoom meeting scheduled with a branch of the company in Japan, and had double-checked time zones to make sure she would still catch them at the office, and had everything she needed to refer to printed off for easy access.
Now all she had to do was dress the part.
She changed her sweatshirt for a more professional top, then brushed her hair, added a slash of lipstick, and returned to the little office space she’d set up in her kitchen and waited for the others to log on.
Within minutes, all five of the officers were online, with her leading the discussion, explaining what she’d found, the new firewalls she’d installed, and advised they limit access to certain areas of the factory, and limit the number of people they let in.
She was back in her element, doing what she did best.
* * *
It was a quarter after four when Ash glanced up and saw the time.
He and Gunner had been sitting and working almost the entire day, and were getting nowhere on locating the Brandt brothers, but after that phone call to the hospital asking about their dad’s progress, they began worrying about Jacob’s welfare when Dylan went to his hotel room for the night.
After a brief discussion between them, they opted to hire security for their dad, leaving Dylan free to go back to his hotel room to get some rest, then they called Dylan to tell them what they’d done.
They sent him photos of the two security officers they’d hired, verifying that it was not two pictures of the same man, but identical twins.
Dylan sent a thumbs-up emoji, and an LOL.
At that point, they shut down for the night.
“I’m in no mood for cooking. I’m going to the Rose to get supper. Do you have a request, or do you want a surprise?” Ash asked.
Gunner frowned. “I’m too pissed and worn out to make another decision today. I’ll take the surprise. Say hello to Nora for me.”
Asher ignored the dig. “I said I was going to the Rose.”
“Via the Borden detour. Take your time. I’m going to run a tub of hot water, and take a beer with me to the bath, and I’m not getting out until the water gets cold.”
Ash saw the shadows in his brother’s eyes.
It was that background search he was running on Brenda.
“Just because Mom screwed herself up, doesn’t mean we have to own that, too.
Don’t hate. She didn’t do that shit because she hated us.
She hated herself. We were the collateral damage, and we survived it, and we have succeeded in spite of it. Okay?”
Gunner sighed. For a moment, he was the little boy again, absorbing his big brother’s wisdom.
“Message received,” he said. “Don’t forget to bring me some pie.” He walked out of the kitchen.
Asher frowned as he put on his coat, pocketed his phone, and picked up the tuck keys on his way out the back door, taking care to lock it behind him.
A tiny flake of snow landed on the windshield as he was driving away. As soon as he got to the parking lot at the Rose, he parked, then called Nora.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hey, you,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Good enough, darlin’. I’m parked at the Rose, about to go in and order food for me and Gunner. Nobody wants to cook tonight. Can I bring something by for you, too?”
“That would be wonderful. I’ve been all over the world via Zoom meetings today and I’m exhausted.”
“What sounds good to you?” he asked.
“Anything I don’t have to eat with two hands, and I love you for thinking of me.”
“Always. See you soon. Love you,” he said.
“Love you biggest,” she said, and hung up.
He was still grinning when he got out of the truck and went inside.
The place was busy with diners coming and going. As he approached the register, he heard a loud bang that sounded like a dozen skillets had just fallen off a rack, and then an “Oh, for pity’s sake!” shout from Pearl.
Moments later, Pearl stepped into the dining room. “Sorry for the racket. That was just the diamond falling out of my ring,” she said, and bustled back into the kitchen, leaving the diners laughing.
Ash grinned. Somebody was going to catch hell after she closed up shop. Pearl was little, but she was mighty, and nobody wanted to be on her bad side.
He read the menu, and saw the special written on the chalkboard, and when Darla showed up to take his order, he was ready.
“Evening, Darla. I need two orders of beef stew and cornbread, with peach cobbler, then another order of beef stew and cornbread with apple pie in a separate order. I’m dropping one off at Nora’s house and taking the others home with me.”
“Got it,” Darla said, and hurried back to the kitchen to deliver the order.
Ash sat down on a little bench to wait, and began reading faces, something he’d developed on the job. Two of the three men at one table were angry, but he couldn’t tell if they were angry with each other, or a situation. The other man was ignoring both of them and eating his food.
A mother was feeding a toddler from her plate and trying to have a conversation with her husband at the same time. She looked weary, but she was smiling, obviously happy with her lot in life, and while she was feeding the baby, her husband was feeding her bites from his own plate.
Their obvious devotion to each other was noted.
He tried to remember if Brenda had been like that.
He remembered she always had good food cooked, and helped them with their homework, and made sure they had clean clothes, and went to all of their school events, and tucked them in at night.
But he didn’t remember her playing with them.
Maybe because there were three of them, she expected them to play with each other.
He shrugged off the thought and looked away. He hadn’t thought of her like this in years, until the shooting. Now every memory he’d had of her was creeping back into his consciousness, and he didn’t like it.
A short while later, Darla came back with his orders. He noticed as he was driving away that the predicted storm front was approaching. The sky was already dark, and the wind was rising. He drove straight to Nora’s house and got out on the run. Before he could knock, she opened the door.
“Come into this house,” she said, then closed the door behind him.
“Storm’s approaching,” he said. “Is everything tied down that you don’t want to blow away?”
She laughed. “I’m good, unless the house gives up the ghost, too.”