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And it begins. Gotta love small towns.
“I’m thirty-one, dumbass. How could I possibly owe twenty years of support? Or, for that matter, have a twenty-year-old kid?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger. Just repeating what I heard.”
Lucas filled another cup of coffee, pushing it Grant’s direction along with a small carton of cream. “So where did you hear this lame-ass gossip?”
Grant poured a liberal amount of cream into his coffee and took a drink. “Stopped at the diner for a pick-me-up before coming here. Thought I was going to have to get in the middle of a scuffle.”
“Yeah?” That was unexpected. People in Wayward didn’t get into physical altercations. They opted for a more passive-aggressive approach, where with each relay of gossip, the reality of what occurred became second priority to eliciting a shut-your-mouth response. Which in Wayward speak, translated as, honey-don’t-you-dare-stop-talking.
Grant continued, “A customer accused Sarah-Lynn of putting her cigarette out in her breakfast sandwich.”
“That doesn’t sound like something Sarah-Lynn would do.”
“She would if that customer were Birdie Wellborn.”
Lucas rubbed at both eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What happened?”
Grant took another sip before going over what went down. “I was sitting in the corner when Birdie walked in, sat at the counter, and ordered a breakfast sandwich. Sarah-Lynn was working the morning shift, and apparently, had never gotten over the fact Birdie had done the dirty with Fisk Rathbun in Chuckie Fester’s storage closet under the stairs during a rager, seventeen or eighteen years ago.”
Wayward sure knew how to hold a grudge.
Lucas remembered the incident well, including the Oscar-worthy dramatics afterward. Sarah-Lynn had milked being the scorned victim while Birdie was maligned by the entire school. She could barely make it down the hallway without getting thrown into the lockers by an errant shoulder or her books knocked to the floor.
Lucas placed a pan of bacon on the stove and cracked some eggs in a bowl.
“You know, Fisk recanted the story. Claimed it never happened,” Lucas clarified.
“Yeah?” Grant said with a shrug. “Birdie never denied it.”
“As if anybody would have believed her.” Lucas gave the hand gesture for Grant to continue as he poured some cream into the bowl with the eggs and whisked.
“So, Birdie lifts the biscuit off her sandwich and asks Sarah-Lynn if that was her cigarette. Sarah-Lynn got all offended, saying she didn’t smoke and was a God-fearing Christian and wouldn’t do such a heinous thing. And then, points behind her where her husband and chef, Frank Sanderson, is staring daggers at Birdie from the kitchen, while smoking a cigarette. Whereby Sarah-Lynn says to Birdie, ‘But I can’t speak for Frank. He’s agnostic.’”
“What did Birdie ever do to Frank Sanderson?”
“Rumor was that she went hell-raising and cow tipping one night and killed his prized steer the night before auction.”
“Cow tipping isn’t a real thing,” Lucas countered. He remembered the rumors flying around the next day. Birdie, once again, the villain in the story.
Grant rubbed his bottom lip. “I think it had more to do with the fact she had dumped Frank that night to go mudding with Eddie Ferring in the pickup truck he got from his daddy for his sixteenth birthday.”
“So then, how did the steer die?”
“The vet claimed it was a large patch of black cherry plants. Probably had been eating it for a week or so before the toxicity brought him down. Guess it was easier for Frank and his daddy to blame Birdie than themselves for not paying attention to what was growing in their own pasture.”
“Birdie always was the perfect scapegoat being an expert at pissing people off.” Lucas commented, folding the hand towel.
Grant pushed his cup toward Lucas, indicating it was time for a refill. “So, who’s upstairs?”
Lucas scratched his jaw, the words feeling strange as he said them. “My daughter, Mia.”
Grant leaned back in his chair. “Holy shit.”
Lucas nodded, wiping his hand on the towel. “You know, I find it hard to believe that my police chief of a brother never looked into Birdie over the years.”
“If memory serves, you were the one who was sketchy on the details when you were questioned by the police, refusing to press charges,” Grant responded. “Oh, and then there’s the fact this all went down when I was a still in high school.”
