Chapter Thirty
Bryan
Truittism No. 15: A cat out of the bag is worth one sitting duck in the bush.
Barack is cuddled up under my desk with what appears to be a new friend—a giant, orange striped cat that must weigh close to thirty pounds.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, bending down to pet the newest staff member of the Mayhem Gazette. “What’s your name?”
“That’s Donald,” King says from my doorway.
“Oh no. Tell me you didn’t,” I say, shaking my head and grinning. “He’s not…”
“Yes, sir. Donald Trump. He’s a rescue from St. Paul, our capitol. How could I not name him Donald? I’ve already got an order in to the Knitty Kitty for a sweater that has a little tie attached to it,” he tells me proudly.
I throw back my head and laugh. “Well, I’m happy to see he and Barack are hanging together in the name of bipartisan leadership.”
“Nah. They’re just hiding from Michelle. She can be a real ballbuster, that one,” he informs me before walking back out into the main office, where the front door jingles with the entrance of a visitor.
I pull my cell phone out and start a text to Hennessy. I’ve spent every night this week with her. No reason to think tonight will be any different. I hope. But before I can tap an outgoing message, an incoming one flashes on the screen. It’s from Helen.
Services on Saturday morning at Mt. Mourne Baptist Church with interment to follow at Shady Hollow Cemetery. She’s held off on the services in hopes that you’d come. She asked me to tell you she can’t wait any longer. This is your last chance.
I don’t have time to even process this before King sticks his head through my doorway again.
“You don’t pay me enough to be your secretary, you know,” he says in his best curmudgeonly tone.
“No, I don’t,” I agree. “But, then again, I don’t recall asking you to be. Why?”
“Cause there’s some weasely looking little man out here wanting to see you,” he grumbles.
“Who?”
“You deaf? I told you I’m not your secretary. Come out and ask him yourself.”
I get up and follow King out. Sure enough, there is a weasely-looking guy there. Jonathan Pettit, the trustee. I motion for him to come back and close the door behind him when he enters my office.
“Mr. Pettit,” I say cautiously. “What brings you back up here to Mayhem?”
“I’m just going to cut to the chase here,” he says without an ounce of friendliness. “My job, as the trustee, is to hold the mortgage loan as a neutral third party. But, in the end, I have a fiduciary responsibility to the bank and—I like to think, anyway—a moral duty to the property owners.”
“Okay…”
I have no idea what this guy’s getting at.
“I told you when we met a couple of weeks back that you looked familiar to me.”
“Yeah…”
Oh crap. Maybe I do have an idea.
“I don’t forget faces easily, you see. And I’m a voracious consumer of the financial news…”
Crap.
Crap, crap, crap, crap.
“It took me a bit,” he continues, “but then I realized. I realized who you are and what it is that you’re doing here. In Mayhem. With Hennessy O’Halloran.”
“Mr. Pettit, I don’t know what you think you’ve stumbled on—”
“Oh, but I think you do know. Don’t you, Mr. Broadmore?”
I knew there’d come a time.
Somewhere, someday, at some point, someone was going to put two and two together, and that bit of math was going to add up to a very ugly scene in at least one of my business dealings. But not this one. For God’s sake…not this one. Please.
“I can explain…”
They’re the three most pathetic words you can string together in the English language, and they’re tantamount to “I’m guilty.” I know it. Jonathan Pettit knows it. And he’s sneering at me across my desk.
“No explanation needed, Mr. Broadmore,” he says, putting extra emphasis on my name. My real name. It makes me wince to have someone call me that again.
“What is it that you want?”
He snorts.
“What do I want? You mean, like a bribe? Oh please, Mr. Broadmore. Don’t insult me. I’m not like you. Or your father. You people make me sick. And now you’re here, carrying on the family legacy, I assume. What is it this time? Looking for new investors in your latest ‘can’t lose’ proposition before you skip town with a cool mil or two in your pocket?”
“Stop it,” I say quietly, but he doesn’t listen.
“Did you think the good people of this town would make good patsies for you? Did you research them and jump on the O’Halloran property when it came up? Is that it, Mr. Broadmore?”
“Stop it!”
I didn’t mean to yell, but I did. And I slammed my fist down on the desk. Now this small, small man is looking at me with something like triumph gleaming in his beady little eyes. A great big “I told you so.”
“If that’s true,” I begin, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage, “if you really followed the story, then you know how it ended.”
“I do know how it ended. But that doesn’t mean you’re innocent. All it means is you found a way to save your worthless hide from spending the rest of your life in prison. You’ll never have the property,” he informs me icily. “I’ll see to that.”
I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a few seconds, and force myself back into professional, cool, calm, detached Bryan Truitt mode.
“I really don’t think that’s in your control, Mr. Pettit. Miss O’Halloran and I have an arrangement, and either way it turns out, the deal will be done before it ever reaches your control.”
I’m expecting to see bewilderment or frustration on his face. But what I get is smug. Smug is not good. It means he’s got something. And he does.
“I’ve already been to see Miss O’Halloran. I brought several copies of newspaper clippings, and even a few exposés that aired on television.”
I’m staring at him, jaw hanging open. He didn’t.
His smile broadens, and it’s as if he can hear my thoughts.
“That’s right, Mr. Broadmore. I’m sorry to say it was quite upsetting for the young lady, especially considering the…nature…of your relationship, but it had to be done. She had to know whom she was dealing with. I had to make her see that your only intention was to get close to her, use her, and bilk her and her neighbors out of their life’s savings. Just like last time. Right, Bryan?”
I’m on my feet and headed for the door in an instant.
“You have no idea,” I hiss at him over my shoulder. “You have no goddamn idea, you stupid, stupid little man.”
“Bryan?” King calls after me as I fly through the office and out into the freezing night.