Chapter Twenty-Seven
No one was at the host’s station, but we spotted the man we sought at a high table in the bar area to our right.
He faced us, his back to the far corner, which gave him a full view of the bar, a cross-section of the hallway where customers arrived and departed, slices of the front dining area, and a second one behind it.
Richard Haines Chafford was a descendant of the Haines who built the tavern and subsequent generations who preserved it long enough to earn its historic designation, as supported by plaques on the exterior and interior walls.
More important to our purposes, Rich knew his clientele well and appreciated the results of an earlier investigation by Clara and me.
“Hey, Clara, Sheila. Thought I saw you two leave. You know we’re closed . . .”
“As if we could eat another bite after brunch,” Clara said. He smiled. It faded as she added, “We’re hoping to talk to you a little.”
Still, he opened a hand in invitation to pull up stools to his tall table.
I was happy to let Clara carry the verbal load, with her strong hometown ties, while I’m a raw newcomer.
“Rich, I don’t suppose you’d be surprised to hear we’re following up on the death of Damon Swindell. Don’t know if you’re aware we have a connection through our dogs?”
That rather inflated the situation, but if it helped . . .
“Heard from Leo you’re taking the same class with Damon and his wife, along with Bryon and Zoley Georger.”
His words deflated our connection to its proper proportions, but he didn’t appear to hold it against us, based on what he said next.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
He snort-laughed at Clara’s answer.
“They come in here regularly?” she followed up.
“Not a regular schedule, but frequently.”
“What’re they like when they come in?”
“Not the favorite customers we’ve got. When they come in with the Georgers, they always want a particular table, expect it. We’ve told them over and over we don’t reserve specific tables. Makes no difference. Heck, they expect it when they haven’t bothered with a reservation.”
“Which table?” I asked.
“Back left corner of the back parlor.”
It was a table for four, somewhat smaller than others because the corner space was limited by a built-in cabinet — historic, of course. The table sat at an angle to accommodate the cabinet. That provided a modicum of additional privacy.
Clara nodded, as if she’d followed the same train of thought and drew a conclusion she now spoke. “Less likely to be overheard.”
He snorted. “Table most likely to be spotted when anyone walks in the door of the front parlor. Straight shot visually. Hard to miss. As for being overheard, most of the time they talk loud enough that others can’t help but hear them. We’ve had a few comments.”
“Guests or staff?” I asked.
“Both.”
“What do they talk about?” Clara asked.
“Our staff doesn’t eavesdrop—”
“Of course not, but as you say, they can’t help but hear.”
“Only pieces. Our people are in and out, not like customers at nearby tables.”
“Pieces could help us.” Clara’s humbleness combined with a limpid gaze.
He breathed in through his nose, held it a moment, then released it. “Mostly bragging.”
“All of them?”
“Damon. Not saying the others wouldn’t, but they don’t — didn’t — have much opportunity with him holding forth. He’s the best golfer, the best businessman, the best at besting everybody else’s best.”
In addition to not respecting the bragging, Rich clearly didn’t believe Damon Swindell had a right to those claims.
“Were there any changes in his topics lately?”
An excellent question from Clara.
Unfortunately, after considering it, Rich said, “Nothing I heard about. They were in Thursday, early dinner, and it was pretty much his standard fare.”
“What about the others?”
“Like I said, they never had a chance to say much.”
I thought about the tension at Thursday night’s training.
“Including Bryon Georger?” I asked.
“You mean did he speak up? Nope. The times I saw the group together, he seemed mostly zoned out. Not like he was on something and he never drank much. But like he’d mentally transported himself elsewhere, like one of those Buddhist monks.”
Interesting.
Though, Bryon had not given a Zen vibe at dog training.
“Did you hear if they’d had any discussion about adopting dogs?” I asked. “Each couple adopted a puppy, in the past month or so.”
He frowned. “One of the staff said something a while ago about how he wouldn’t let Damon Swindell adopt a rabid porcupine, much less a dog.
And the guy bussing their table said Damon was bragging about the dog’s breeding lines.
” He rubbed the back of his neck. “One of the wives brought up going to training together and it fast became a grudge match.”
“Grudge match?” I suspected Clara knew the phrase from sports coverage by way of her husband, but asked to draw details.
“My dog can beat your dog,” he said.
“The wives, too, or . . .” She let it trail off.
“Damon and Bryon. Not the wives. Except . . . They were the ones who said the purpose was to get the dogs trained.”
He’d emphasized said slightly.
“You didn’t think so?” I asked.
“Nothing I could know for sure. It was the way they talked about the dogs. They asked the server if he had a recommendation for training classes and he recommended Leo at Zepke’s. But when he asked to see pictures of the puppies, they didn’t have any.”
He sounded disapproving enough to make it clear he was a dog lover.
Nobody would catch me without photos of Gracie on my phone. The same held true for Clara, Ned, and Teague with their dogs. In fact, we had pictures of each other’s dogs on our phones.
I couldn’t imagine any of the other humans in the training class not having photos of their dogs.
“Did you see Damon here with other people? Not that group of four?”
His tongue pushed out one side of his bottom lip. “Sometimes.”
“Anything specific that stands out to you?” Clara had recognized his uneasiness.
“There was a kind of incident not long ago with Damon in the bar area. Regulars were in to watch a game. And Damon came in with a guy—”
“Bryon?”
“No. Somebody from out of town. Damon had done that before, bringing in strangers he was doing business with.”
“Customer? What’s Damon’s business?”
And why had we not wondered about that before? What do you do? Asked at social occasions all the time.
Yet it wasn’t a question any of us asked each other at training. It was all about the dogs.
Which might explain why we didn’t talk much with the Swindells and Georgers — as Rich indicated, they weren’t truly in it for the dogs.
“You name it, seems like he’s done it. I remember when Swindell was selling band instruments to kids through schools,” he said.
Clara said, “I had no idea he did that. Like Harold Hill, the traveling salesman in The Music Man. The musical. Seventy-Six Trombones.”
I didn’t think Rich got the reference.
“Damon traveled some, but not all the time. Would have been better if he had,” he added darkly.
“Oh? Why?” I asked.
“One of his early efforts, he set up as a competitor for a well-established family business in the county.” He looked at Clara. “The Gilbrands.”
“The Gilbrands? They’re involved with the schools, programs at the library, free concerts for holidays. But I never thought about them having a business.”
“That’s because they give so much to the folks around here without making a big deal of it. They were never going to get rich on the business, but they nearly went broke when Damon Swindell came around.
“I wasn’t in the thick of it, but what I picked up was he claimed he was operating as a non-profit, trying to undercut the Gilbrands. Knocked them to potential customers, saying they were out for money, while he wanted to give kids the gift of music.”
Clara frowned. “The Gilbrands . . .
“Are still in business. Folks gathered ’round.
Went to school board meetings, wrote letters.
Somebody got proof Swindell wasn’t a non-profit.
Swindell claimed it was all a misunderstanding.
Walked away, saying it was too much trouble when he’d been trying to help people.
Afterward, heard his company got a couple contracts in Northern Ohio, puffed it up like the next great thing, then sold the business to someone who didn’t look close under the hood. And now—”
He looked down at the screen in front of him.
Did he truly think that would stop us?
“And now what?” I asked.
“I don’t have details. Heard a few things around, then for myself one night.
Swindell was in here with a guy I took for a potential customer.
Like I said, not the first time he’d brought people in from out of town he was trying to wheel and deal with.
Not the first time it didn’t go well, either.
Had a guy in here shouting at Swindell about fraud and foreign accounts before he stormed out.
Swindell tried to laugh it off. Said the man was a weakling who couldn’t handle business. ”
“What did you hear for yourself that one night you mentioned?” Clara asked.
“We had a group of regulars at a table.” He tipped his head toward another table. “Watching the game — college basketball. Damon and the other guy sat at the bar. A few comments were made. General stuff about the play, until Damon started poking and didn’t stop.
“I don’t know anything for sure. Like I said, bits and pieces. No saying I put them together right.”
“But?”
“Swindell was trying to sell this out-of-towner that he — Swindell — was the great dealmaker who could clear the way to bring in a chain car wash near the Roger.” The Roger was a chain grocery store south of town. “The regulars were most of the Dailey cousins.”
Clara’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
They understood something, while I fell into a vat of newcomer ignorance. “Oh, what?”
“The Dailey family owns car washes around the county,” Clara said. “They’re like the Gilbrands, giving back. Kids sports, first responders, parks, you name it, they’ve pitched in.”
“Stupid of Swindell making cracks to the Daileys,” Rich said. “The potential customer left. Swindell scrambled after.”
“So, there wasn’t a fight?” Clara asked with faint disappointment.
“Nothing like that. And no way— I mean, those guys might not mourn him, but no way would they have anything to do with . . . you know.”
We nodded, seeming to accept his certainty, while reserving our doubts.
My thoughts snagged on something else.
His extra punch on they vouched for these Dailey cousins not having anything to do with Damon’s death, but not for someone else.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” I asked.
“All right, all right,” he said as if I already knew what he was about to say. “He can’t have expected to keep it secret coming here, where he was known, and now that he’s dead . . .”
Clara jumped in. “Damon was fooling around with somebody. Somebody who was married.” She clarified Damon’s status by adding, “Also married.”
I didn’t begrudge her the satisfaction that leaked out around her restraint.
It wasn’t one-hundred percent that the suspected fooling-around-with-Damon woman Rich knew about and the one Clara had seen, then pointed out to me were one and the same. But it sure was a theory worth exploring.
Along with the corollary that the lurking man was her husband.
I suddenly remembered Willow Yost’s different rosy color when Clara asked who else the Swindells hung out with and she said I don’t know anything about that.
That being a certain relationship Damon had with someone?
“Yeah.” Rich confirmed Clara’s statements, without knowing he’d also answered my internal question. “Blanche Alsup — married to William Alsup. You know his mom’s a Dailey and he’s one of the cousins running the car washes.”
Ding, ding. Double motives for William Alsup — Damon presumably cheating with his wife and threatening his family business.
“I don’t know him,” Clara said. “What does he look like?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Kind of a big guy.”
Clara shot me a look, reminding me of the bulky shadow we’d seen, along with Willow’s description of the guy who tackled Damon in his garage.
As if he knew the import of that look, Rich said, “But William was here Thursday night. As a matter of fact, he was here with his wife. Him and Blanche being here together is rare enough that it was commented on. They were the last table, making it hard for the staff to wrap up. Not that they seemed to be particularly enjoying each other’s company. ”
“Like they were trying to create an alibi?” I asked. “Wait, wait, wait. That didn’t work as an alibi. It left most of the night unaccounted for before Damon’s vehicle was spotted around dawn.”
Rich shrugged unhelpfully. He capped that unhelpfulness by adding, “Need to get this work finished . . .”
Clara produce d a sunny smile and said with absolute conviction, “Sure. We know you’ll be happy to talk to us again when we come back with more questions.”