Chapter 8
Tank
“Well, that’s certainly one way to respond to a mayoral campaign,” I say, surveying the damage.
“A bold choice. I always prefer when adults use their words instead of arson,” Chevy says. “But that’s just me.”
Our back and forth may be light, but there’s nothing funny about what’s left of Wolf Waters’s yard signs.
They are now blackened, shriveled lumps on top of charred metal posts.
If anything is left at all. A whole row of them, burned right in front of people’s homes.
These are the signs he must have been putting up on Friday, when he followed me out to my farmhouse.
Down the street, one of the signs has a circle of blackened grass around it. While we watch, a woman in a pink house dress and a bouffant of white hair emerges from her home and begins to hose it down.
Chevy and I start toward her. “Hey, there, Lynn Louise,” he calls. “Thanks for calling about this.”
Upon closer inspection, I recognize Lynn Louise, though I’m not sure we’ve really conversed.
She’s the librarian and part of the small cohort of older Sheet Cake women who really run this town behind the scenes: Judge Judie, Lynn Louise, and Eula Martin.
They spearhead the Ladies Literary and Libation Society, a very secretive female-led town hall masquerading as a book club.
I’ve heard bits and pieces about it from Lindy and Winnie, but no real details.
Harper has always wanted an invite, but I think because she’s not a resident, she hasn’t received one. Yet.
What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall for a meeting.
Lynn Louise frowns as she hoses down the blackened grass. The fire must have been some time ago because it’s not smoking. “This wasn’t some kid’s prank, deputy.” She dives right in, forgoing the pleasantries. “Isn’t election tampering a felony?”
Chevy scratches the dark stubble on his jaw, his eyes roaming down the street. A whole block of signs have been incinerated. I’m not sure of the official, legal designation for election tampering, but this certainly is serious.
“Well—” Chevy starts.
Lynn Louise jumps back in, cutting him off. “The way I see it, this is arson. Vandalism. Criminal mischief. Election tampering. I looked it up.”
“Mm-hm. Burning election signs does violate a number of penal codes,” Chevy agrees. “Arson charges would only apply if there is property damage.”
“I’d say the new blackened circle on my lawn counts as property damage,” Lynn Louise grumbles.
Then she reaches up and pulls what looks to be a tissue from her hair and mops at her forehead.
I look away to avoid gawking. A few other residents have emerged out on their lawns and driveways, surveying the damage and watching this exchange.
“Unfortunately, due to the pecuniary value of the signs, this is likely a Class C misdemeanor,” says Chevy. “Not a felony.”
“Not if you’re counting the combined cost of all the burned signs,” Lynn Louise says.
Glancing down the street, Chevy says, “Looks like about a dozen houses here. I don’t know sign costs, but I’d guess well under fifty dollars per sign, which means—”
“It’s not just this street,” Lynn Louise says. “It’s every single Wolf Waters sign in town.”
That silences us both.
I’m not sure how Lynn Louise knows this, but the steel in her tone tells me that however she knows, she knows. I wonder if Wolf has heard yet.
A righteous anger, the kind I’ve only felt a few times in my life and always when someone has wronged a person I care about, starts to simmer beneath my skin. Wolf, a man I saw as more of a caricature when I first met him, has become someone I like. A man I respect.
He deserves better.
And though sign-burning isn’t the kind of dirty work Billy would stoop to doing himself, it’s an act I could see him approving of, if not downright encouraging with a wink, a nod, and a well-phrased sentence that would keep him legally innocent.
Chevy toes the edge of the scorched grass. “Did you call the sheriff?”
Lynn Louise scoffs. “You know as well as I do Scotty’s probably on the golf course.”
“Sheet Cake doesn’t have a golf course,” I say.
Chevy gives me a look that’s half amusement and half annoyance. “It does actually. Private. In Billy Waters’s neighborhood. And Scotty does, in fact, golf there frequently.”
That one sentence tells me a lot. Like where the elected sheriff’s loyalties lie—not with Wolf and his vandalized signs but with his brother.
I’ve only laid eyes on Scotty a handful of times.
He did not make the greatest of impressions any of those times.
I tend to forget he exists. So far as I’ve seen, Chevy does the actual police work around town, assisted by a handful of other deputies who are probably his equal, but who treat him with the kind of respect usually reserved for a boss.
Chevy sighs. “Lynn Louise, I promise that I will personally delve into this and consider what charges might apply—though the final determination will be made by the DA. I’ll call him up this afternoon.
You can trust me that I’ll push for the fullest extent of the law with this. Someone could have gotten hurt.”
Lynn Louise scoffs. “Well, get out those calculators and have fun.”
“Can I inquire as to how you heard about it being all the signs across town?” Chevy asks, but I think we both already know the answer.
“Neighborly, of course.”
The Neighborly app, which my brilliant daughter-in-law, Winnie, developed, is a localized online forum.
Essentially, it’s Sheet Cake’s very own Reddit.
Recently, she sold the app to be used nationally for quite a hefty amount—with the caveat that she could continue to maintain the Sheet Cake Neighborly app as a separate entity.
Hence preserving the ability of the small town to foster its penchant for gossip.
I don’t log in much, but my kids usually keep me up to date on the goings-on.
I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this from one of them.
Then again, everyone has been too tied up with babies and businesses to be following town gossip to the minute.
Chevy assures Lynn Louise that he’ll be doing everything he can, takes photos to document the scene, then asks her to send any doorbell camera footage to his work email.
Once she’s back in the house, Chevy sighs and turns to me. “Never a quiet morning in Sheet Cake, but I didn’t expect this on a Sunday. I need to call Grant for backup. Winnie let me know just before Lynn Louise called after she saw the Neighborly post. I had hoped it was an exaggeration.”
I’m not too surprised that out of my whole family, I can count on Winnie to know what’s going on. I’m a little surprised she didn’t tell me or tell James to tell me, but then, they might not have thought about it. I’m not officially Wolf’s campaign manager or anything.
“What did Wolf say about it?”
“I couldn’t get a hold of him. He tends to be a late riser, what with Backwoods Bar being open so late.”
I’m not sure why I’m surprised that Wolf is still running Backwoods Bar amidst a mayoral campaign.
From what I know, that’s his main—or only?
—source of income. He’ll certainly have to shift his hours if he gets elected.
It’s ten thirty in the morning. Though maybe it’s a good thing he’s not here to see this.
I can’t imagine how disheartening this would be.
“I’ll try him again later,” Chevy says. “But I figured we could deal with this now.”
“We?”
“I thought you might want to lend a hand.”
I place a hand over my heart. “Are you offering to deputize me, Sheriff?”
Chevy laughs. “No, though that’s a sight I’d love to see—Tank Graham in a sheriff’s uniform.” He winks. “Bet a certain baker would buy a calendar of that.”
I am suddenly hot under the collar. Literally and figuratively. Is everyone in this dang town aware of the possible feelings I just myself became aware of? Though I do like that Chevy seems to think Rose might have feelings of her own.
“When’s the sheriff up for reelection?” I ask, and Chevy laughs, then claps a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t even think about it. And no, I’m not going to deputize you. Thought I could borrow you, your truck, and some manpower to get these signs picked up before we go talk to Wolf. Together.”
Me, my truck, and some manpower turns out to be me, Pat, James, and our trucks picking up over a hundred charred remnants of political signs until nearly sunset.
Collin would have joined us, but he had a civil engineer out at his commercial property today to discuss the plans now that the survey and the drainage study are complete.
Meanwhile, all I’ve been thinking about is getting back to town. To the hummingbird cake waiting for me … and to Rose.
“I wonder what we could build with these,” Pat says, tossing another handful of blackened metal stakes into the back of his truck. Leaning over the tailgate, he shakes them with a gloved hand, creating a creepy Halloween-type rattle. “Maybe some kind of yard sculpture?”
“You thinking about becoming an artist, Patty?” James asks, looking amused.
Pat narrows his eyes. “Maybe.”
And now, knowing my sons, Patrick will be bound and determined to do just that only because of his older brother’s goading. Before the end of the month, he will have created some kind of artistic “expression” in his yard using these very things.
I’m sure Lindy will just love that.
“No making art with evidence, I’m afraid,” Chevy says, joining us at the back of the truck. “At least, not yet. Maybe later.”
The processing of so much evidence is a little more complicated than I would have imagined.
Chevy did have to call Scott, the elected sheriff, who was, in fact, golfing.
I didn’t hear the other side of the phone call, but Chevy did a fair amount of eye rolling, which gave me a good indication how that conversation went.