Chapter 7 #2
Leaving my father sitting at the head of the table in the dining room, I followed my mother back to the kitchen and started dishing out pot roast, my favorite, while she arranged her flowers in a vase.
“West, I can do that,” she chided, glancing at the door to the dining room. “You should go visit with your father.”
“I’ve got it,” I said, ignoring the suggestion to spend more time with my father. The familial harmony my mother wanted was never going to happen. We both knew it, but she’d never stop trying. I grabbed my plate and the basket of freshly baked rolls and followed her to the table.
As soon as we were seated, I asked, “How’s the garden club coming along with decorating the town for Halloween?”
With that one prompt, my mother would dominate the conversation for a solid twenty minutes.
It was a bonus that I was actually interested.
My father straightened in his seat, scowling down into his bourbon.
He wasn’t happy that I’d derailed his agenda for dinner, but for all his other faults, he loved his wife, so he didn’t interrupt as she told me all about the papier-maché skeletons they’d made in the grade school to decorate windows around town and the deal they’d gotten on pumpkins for the carving party they’d sponsored to raise money for the food pantry.
She was the perfect mayor’s wife. She liked her position, both the power and the wealth it afforded her, but no one could deny that she spent a lot of time and effort making Sawyers Bend a better place to live for everyone, not just for herself.
By the time she was done filling me in, I’d finished most of my dinner, and my father looked ready to explode.
“And how about you, dear?” she asked. “Anything interesting going on in town?” She waggled her eyebrows at me with a smile, already knowing I wouldn’t tell her anything. And we both knew, with her resources, she got the best gossip, usually before a whisper reached my ears.
“I heard,” she said, leaning in with a smug smile on her face, her voice dropping as if there were anyone to overhear, “that Avery fired her brewmaster.”
“I think that’s common knowledge by now,” I said.
“Well, the firing is, but did you know he may already have a new position?” She mentioned a brewery that was, sadly, fairly local. I didn’t know Matt that well, but my gut said the farther he was from Avery and Sawyers Bend Brewing, the better.
“And,” she went on, “The brewmaster has been sharing some stories about his time at Sawyers Bend Brewing.” My mother shook her head, her expression genuinely troubled.
“It sounds like Avery’s in over her head.
I always wondered what Prentice was thinking, letting a young lady like her run a brewery. It’s not proper.”
“Mom, you sound like a dinosaur,” I said, wishing I were surprised by her line of thought. I loved my mom, but she was perpetually stuck in the fifties. “Avery brews an excellent beer, and she knows how to run a business.”
“Then she should have turned her recipes over to the brewmaster and let him run the place,” my father grumbled. “Your mother’s right. It’s not appropriate. She’s a Sawyer. It never sat right with Prentice. He only let her have the place to keep Ford happy.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with anything,” I said stiffly, annoyed on Avery’s behalf.
As much as I wasn’t Ford’s biggest fan, I knew without him in her corner, Sawyers Bend Brewing wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
“I don’t know what stories Matthew is spreading,” I said.
“But I’m not sure you should take the word of a guy who just got fired. ”
“She did have a break-in, though, didn’t she?” my mother asked, gently probing for more details. My eyes went to my father.
“Why is everyone so interested in the break-in at Sawyers Bend Brewing?” I asked, uneasy. “Dad asked about that, too. Where did you hear about it?”
My mother remained silent. After a long silence, my father said, “Harvey mentioned something.”
“Harvey,” I repeated. That was plausible.
My parents were good friends with him, as were most of Prentice’s generation.
And a crime against a Sawyer business was unusual enough to make it a hot topic for gossip.
I still didn’t like it. Considering he’d kept his mouth shut about his own break-in, why was he talking about Avery’s?
She’d hate being the subject of town gossip.
Harvey should know better than to talk about her personal business.
“So, how’s the mayor business, Dad?” I asked, changing the subject away from Avery. There was no way I was getting out of here without hearing whatever it was my father wanted to say. We might as well get it over with.
“Frustrating,” he said, letting out a gusty sigh.
“Frustrating how?” I prompted.
He set his empty bourbon glass on the table with a thump and drew in a breath. I braced for the bullshit to come. I was not disappointed.
“Things have been done a certain way here for a very long time,” my father said, his deep voice reverberating as if he were giving a sermon. “The fabric of our town is woven with the threads of history. Without respect for the past, we have nothing.”
He paused, as if waiting for a response from me. Since he hadn’t said anything worth responding to, I stayed silent, waiting for him to get to the point. He forged ahead.
“Change is rarely good, and too much change can be disastrous. We need to hold tight to our ways. That’s where we find security and positive growth.”
Another expectant pause. And still, he hadn’t actually said anything. He’d thrown out some vague concepts dressed up in pretty words, but he hadn’t said anything concrete at all. I knew this game just as I knew what he was getting at.
I wasn’t in the business of vague promises.
The law doesn’t work on vague. If he wanted my help, he was going to have to articulate exactly what he needed, which I knew was the last thing he wanted to do.
But I had a life to live and a cold IPA in my future.
I’d had enough of my father’s machinations.
“I don’t see the problem,” I said. “Change is a constant. Adapt or die.” I could throw out cliches, too.
Another gusty sigh, accompanied by a heavy shake of my father’s head. “The problem is that your friend Griffen doesn’t want to play ball.”
“Are you surprised?” I asked, trying not to laugh in my father’s face, if only for my mother’s sake.
“I’d hoped the boy would have matured in his time away, at least enough to see sense.
But he’s as hard-headed as you are. Everything has to be above board.
No backroom deals. No gentlemen’s agreements.
” He changed his tone, losing his trace of a Southern accent, and said, “ ‘Just because it’s the way it’s always been done doesn’t mean it’s the way we’re going to do things from now on. ’”
It was a poor imitation of Griffen, but I got the point. I wondered how many times Griffen had repeated those words since he took the reins of Sawyer Enterprises.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do about it, Dad. I’m the police chief,” I reminded him. “I’m the last person to convince anyone to bend the rules.”
“I’m not talking about anything illegal,” my father said. “I know better than that. It’s about doing things the way they’ve always been done. He doesn’t respect history, or precedents, or contracts that his father negotiated. Or the way we do things.”
“You mean he doesn’t want you and the rest of your buddies making backroom decisions that affect the entire region, but only benefit you?” I tried to keep the acid out of my voice, but caught my mother’s wince and knew I hadn’t been successful.
“It’s more than that.” My father waved his hand in a circle in the air. “It’s everything. The businesses he’s trying to attract, the salaries he’s paying. He’s making everything more complicated.”
“And you want me to do what about this?” I asked, trying to imagine a world in which I’d ever ask Griffen to stop bringing better jobs to our town. Just as hard to imagine was a world in which Griffen would listen.
“You two have been friends since you were children,” my father said in a coaxing tone. “I want you to talk to him. I want you to explain to him how important history is.”
“Sure, I’ll talk to him,” I said easily. I’d tell Griffen every detail of this conversation, not that it would help my father.
My father’s eyes narrowed. “Both of you were always ungrateful little shits.”
“Howard,” my mother cut in. “That’s uncalled for. West is his own man, and so is Griffen.” She shook her head at me and reached out a hand to cover mine, squeezing. “Your father always did hate change. He could use your understanding.”
I nodded, and she turned back to my father, who glared at her. “Bets, you just don’t understand how serious this is. You’ve never had a head for business and?—”
“I don’t need a head for business to know that you’re a smart man, Howard,” she said, her voice sharp but her eyes warm as they met his.
“You’ll figure out a way to work with Griffen because you have to.
And it won’t be by trying to strong-arm the boy into seeing things your way.
I’m ashamed of you trying to rope West into your shenanigans. You should know better.”
I tried not to grin. My father dropped his head like a recalcitrant school boy, muttering, “You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough,” she said, standing. “Dessert? I made coconut cake.”
I wasn’t going to turn down my mother’s homemade coconut cake, even if it meant more time with my father.
“She’s right, you know,” I said. “Griffen isn’t unreasonable, just ethical.
If you put more energy into working with him instead of trying to change him, you’d get a lot further.
He’s not interested in joining your good ol’ boys’ gang.
Edgar already tried that when Griffen married Hope. ”
“Edgar still thinks the boy will come around,” my father said, lifting his chin. Edgar was Hope’s uncle and had been Prentice’s business partner. I didn’t trust him any more than I’d trusted Prentice.
I absorbed that, turning it over in my mind before shaking my head. “No, he doesn’t. He knows Hope is working side by side with Griffen, and she’s even more ethical than Griffen. Edgar knows they won’t blur any lines. If he’s telling you they will, he’s playing you.”
My father’s brows drew together in a scowl, but he didn’t argue my point. Instead, he admitted, “If I’d known Prentice was going to get himself shot, I would have done a few things differently.”
“You’re one of the few people truly mourning him,” I said.
“Prentice was a friend for most of my life,” my father admonished me, and I felt a twinge of real guilt. I had so many reasons to dislike Prentice Sawyer, sometimes I forgot there were a few people out there who’d liked him. My father’s next words wiped away my guilt.
“Prentice’s murder has cost me a lot of money,” my father said. “Being mayor doesn’t exactly pay the bills.” He raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping around their elegant dining room furnished with antiques.
I thought of the two luxury cars parked in the garage, the vacations he took my mother on, and the fur coat hanging in her closet.
Being mayor of a small town in North Carolina didn’t pay enough for all of that.
My father had always been good at turning connections and opportunities into cash in the bank. But with Griffen in the way…
My cop’s brain couldn’t help following that thought to its most obvious conclusion.
Someone had sent a killer after Griffen, not once, but multiple times.
It was nearly impossible to believe that my own father could be responsible.
On top of that, we’d assumed that the person after Griffen and the other Sawyers was the same as the person who’d killed Prentice. That made the most sense.
I was damn sure my father hadn’t killed Prentice Sawyer, if for no other reason than sheer greed.
Everything was better for my father with Prentice alive to lend him the power and the connections to make profitable investments.
And getting rid of Griffen didn’t necessarily solve his problem.
With Griffen gone, he’d still have to deal with Hope and Royal, neither of whom would be interested in bending their ethical standards.
As I worked my way through the logic of it, I felt a weight lift from my chest. Yes, Griffen was in my father’s way, but my father was still better off with him alive. The risk/reward matrix wasn’t enough for my father to consider murder a solution to his problems.
My mother returned with generous slices of cake and launched into a story about a woman at church who’d been badgering her for the recipe for her award-winning coconut cake.
My mother was an amazing cook, and she did not share her recipes.
Ever. Everyone knew that, but the woman at church had apparently decided she was special.
My father and I laughed at the right moments in the story, and as soon as she was done, I escaped with a hug, a kiss, and a full stomach.
My father’s pensive glare followed me out the door.
I rolled my shoulders as I walked, trying to leave behind the weight of his disapproval. I knew I was a disappointment. In my younger years, that had burned some, but most of the time, I thought I’d grown past needing anything from him. I loved my job. I loved this town.
I took a minute to notice the papier-maché skeletons decorating the window of the town drugstore. My father was wrong. The changes caused by Prentice’s death were good. He’d adjust. Eventually.
My feet took me past the police station, and I felt a vague wash of surprise that I hadn’t turned into the parking lot to get my vehicle. I didn’t want to go home. Not yet. I wanted to move, to walk.
And—I realized as my feet took me through town and out the other side—what I really wanted was a cold beer.