Chapter 4 #2
“On that, we agree,” Hadley muttered in disgust. “That still doesn’t—”
“Every reporter from Little Rock to Tulsa was in Cane County. They were looking for one thing and one thing only, which was a fresh Threshing Man angle. The last thing this town needed was a criminal report against a stranger who had been trespassing in a cornfield in the dark, showing up on the police blotter. We had enough issues back then to add another act to that circus, don’t you agree? ”
“So, you made a political call.”
“I made a political call.”
He had no regrets about how everything went down last year.
A mayor who could not make a political call when his town was about to be overrun by reporters was a mayor who deserved to be voted out.
Hadley would come to view it his way once she stopped fixating on Langley’s murder.
Warren wanted the man’s death solved, too, but not at the expense of this town’s reputation.
He couldn’t always read her expressions, which was one of the things he had quietly admired about her since hiring her. It was also one of the things that got under his skin. He decided to save both of them the trouble of dragging this conversation out.
“Hadley,” Warren said gently as he reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Roland Mercer had nothing to do with Reed’s death. His being in town back then was nothing but a coincidence.”
“Why would Mercer be out in those cornfields, Warren? Explain it to me.”
“Roland?” Warren shook his head in dismissal.
He dropped his hand as he filled in the blanks that she so obviously needed to be complete.
“He’s a folklore professor at the community college in Emberwood.
He grew up in Holloway, though. He’s one of us.
The Mercer family has been in Holloway for three generations.
He taught at a university down in Mississippi a long time ago, but he lost the position three or four years back when the dean caught him passing off another scholar’s work as his own.
He was trying to get tenured or something like that.
Anyway, he came home, took up adjunct work at the community college, and continued doing his research on the Threshing Man. ”
Hadley’s mouth tightened at the corner. Warren understood her reaction, but he quickly set out to reassure her that she had nothing to be concerned about.
“Roland’s harmless. He’s been writing about the Threshing Man for years.
Possibly for decades. The man is fifty-some years old, he is unmarried, and his only intellectual occupation is the local boogeyman.
” Warren shrugged one shoulder with indifference.
“Roland Mercer has always had a fixation on the Threshing Man, Hadley. He grew up with it the way you and I did, except where you and I had the good sense to leave the stories to our grandmothers, Roland decided to make a career of them.”
“And you knew this when you told Reed to drop the citation.”
“I did.”
“Reed didn’t agree with you.”
The certainty in her voice gave him pause. He shifted with unease, slipping his hands into his pockets while observing her body language.
How had she known about Mercer’s trespassing incident in the first place?
He should have posed the question to her earlier.
“Reed agreed with me at the time,” Warren said cautiously, sensing that she was setting a trap for him. “I don’t know what to tell you, Hadley. The conversation went the way I just told you it did. If Langley had reservations after the fact, he never raised them with me.”
The possibility that Langley thought there was more to Mercer’s stroll through Vinton’s cornfields was interesting, but Warren put it aside to consider later. Either way, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Mercer killed Langley in such a brutal fashion.
A voice carried across the gravel from the front lot.
“Warren!”
He recognized Patty Beale’s nasally tone. She ran the church’s hospitality committee, and she undoubtedly had questions about the coffee station that would raise money for the church. Money that he would ensure didn’t land in Pastor Beeler’s hands.
“One minute, Patty!” Warren returned his attention to Hadley, confident that there was a way to end this discussion. “Speaking of last year. How is your brother?”
“Mason is fine,” Hadley replied briskly without making eye contact. “How well do you know—”
“No one has seen Mason in town in some weeks, I hear,” Warren said, pushing a little harder. He had nothing more to say on the Mercer subject. “Mason hasn’t even stopped in at the Watering Hole.”
“He’s been busy fixing up the house. It sat empty for so long that many things needed updating,” Hadley replied, even though Warren needed no explanation. He understood the situation quite well. “Getting back to—”
“I hear he’s been making some furniture. Beautiful pieces, from what I’m told.”
“Yes.” Hadley rubbed her sternum before dropping her hand to her side. “He’s been selling them at the farmers’ market over in Bram County on Saturdays.”
“Well, that might be for the best, mightn’t it?
” Warren waited a heartbeat for his words to register.
After he’d spotted the shift in her stance, he smoothed over his so-called gaffe.
He’d known exactly how his question would be taken.
“What I mean is, building furniture is a good occupation. So is doing upkeep around the house. Besides, your old childhood home needed the work. Those floorboards at the bottom of the staircase have always squeaked. Anyway, physical labor keeps one’s mind and hands busy.
And once the settlement money from the state comes in, Mason won’t need to sell his stuff at a farmers’ market. ”
Warren hadn’t meant to include the bit about the floorboards, which was rare for him to slip like that.
He glanced at his watch, and he chalked up his mistake to running late for his meeting with the Harvest Festival Planning Committee.
He couldn’t abide by tardiness, and this entire conversation about Roland Mercer hadn’t been part of his day’s plans.
“Warren!” Patty called again, this time with more emphasis. “I really need to speak with you before you leave.”
“I am coming, Patty!”
Warren was grateful for the interruption.
He didn’t want to give Hadley time to mull over how he knew about the floorboards in her childhood home.
He had a perfectly adequate answer if she questioned him, though.
He would simply respond that he had visited Greta a number of times over the years when she was alive, in his capacity as a concerned mayor whose constituent was struggling with a difficult situation.
Hadley didn’t need to know the truth.
“Well, dear,” Warren said after flashing Hadley a smile. “I hope I have answered all your questions. Roland Mercer is harmless, so you can cross his name off your list. If there is anything else, my door is, of course, always open.”
He stepped past her, walking toward Patty to answer whatever ridiculous question she could have regarding the beverage table. Something was niggling at his thoughts about his conversation with Hadley, and it had nothing to do with Roland Mercer.
He’d never really given Mason’s settlement money any thought, but that man was about to receive somewhere between three and five million dollars from the state of Arkansas for twenty years of wrongful incarceration.
A man like Mason would not know what to do with that kind of money.
There were, in short, many opportunities available to him.
Perhaps Warren had been a bit hasty in his initial thinking about Mason.
A man who had spent twenty years inside would no doubt have a deep need to feel useful again.
The town would benefit. Mason would benefit.
Hadley would, in some indirect way, also benefit, because a brother who had given generously to his hometown was a brother whose return to that hometown would feel less like an imposition.
Warren continued across the gravel to where Patty was waiting for him, smiling for reasons that had nothing to do with her foolish inquiries about coffee, creamers, and sweeteners.