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“Hey there, Fenton,” Grant said, ambling toward the scene of the ruckus. “Looks like you’ve made a mess.”
Fenton ran his shirt sleeve under his nose. “Casper here won’t tell me where Gloria is. Keepin’ her from me.”
“Naw, Casper’s not like that,” Grant reasoned. “Besides, Gloria hasn’t worked at the Grind since she was in high school.”
“Prettiest girl at Wayward High,” Fenton said as if daring anyone to disagree.
“That she was.” Grant nodded, despite having been barely out of elementary school when the couple were high school sweethearts back in the day. “Fenton, maybe we should call Chuckie and see if he knows where she’s at.”
“He’s no help,” Fenton said, avoiding eye contact and swaying a bit. “Goes by Charles now. A big-time lawyer in Atlanta who ain’t got no time for his pa.”
“Now, I don’t believe that. Do you, Casper?”
Casper shook his head, typically more worried about Fenton hurting himself than causing any real damage. “No, sir. You raised a good son there, Fenton. You were a good daddy to that boy and it shows.”
Grant put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You look a bit tired.” Which was the truth. He was a broken man, and it was difficult to watch him waste away from heartache and alcohol. “How ’bout I take you somewhere to get some sleep? You’ll be a new man before you know it.”
“Will you help me find Gloria?”
“Sure will.” He knew where she was, but he wasn’t about to tell Fenton. If he was going to hunt down anybody, it was Chuckie. Again. Wouldn’t be the first time and didn’t appear to be the last.
Chuckie was older than Grant, but he remembered slipping into one or two of his infamous parties and living to regret it the next day.
Now that Grant was an adult and had the luxury of hindsight, it was clear Chuckie was pretty much on his own during his formative high school years. While the Festers were traveling looking for adventures of a less legal variety, Chuckie was an only child, home alone, and looking for connection. Ways to pass the time and loneliness until his parents returned.
Chuckie turned out to be quite the big-time corporate attorney. Despite his lofty career, he married another small-town girl from Tennessee. A sweet woman he met his freshman year at Auburn, who enjoyed nights at home and the occasional festival or farmers’ market.
And they were madly in love, committed, and drug-free.
Grant had met with the couple a few times over the years when trying to help a listless and depressed Fenton. Chuckie was beside himself as to what to do with his father. They were never close, and he felt like that was by his parents’ design. And the last thing he wanted to do was allow his pa to move with them in their bucolic Buckhead home. But the man’s options were dwindling.
Fenton was on a downward spiral.
Grant led Fenton out of the coffeehouse and to the station. There, he placed him in his favorite cell and made sure he had a couple blankets and a pillow before calling Chuckie and giving him the cost of the damage his pa was responsible for this go around.
“Thanks for looking after him, Grant. I know he can be a handful.”
“No problem. By the time I got there, he had already calmed down. Casper only called the station because he refused to leave, and he was afraid he was going to hurt himself. No one likes to see your pa so danged sad.”
“He’s a lost soul,” Chuckie sighed. “I’ll call Pete and see if he can get him back home.”
He and Pete had been in the same graduating class as Lucas. While Chuckie had become an up-and-coming attorney, Pete had started his own heating and air conditioning company. Did pretty well for himself, and helped Chuckie out when Fenton got over his skis with his drinking.
Pete responded to Grant’s call, knowing what it was for based on Fenton’s history. Grant suggested he wait until the morning to pick him up so he’d get a good night’s sleep. Where he could be monitored and kept out of harm’s way, that being the bottle and himself.
Pete agreed as he was in the middle of repairing a broken-down HVAC for an elderly couple. Since it was the middle of summer and well into the nineties, he wanted to make sure they, too, got a good night’s sleep.
After calling Tati and responding to her voicemails, some more threatening than others, Grant explained he was delayed due to unanticipated police business and arrived at the Wayward Inn well after seven o’clock. Consequences for letting his department know he was back in town and on his way in. He was the Fenton Fester whisperer, and they wouldn’t pass up the chance to let the police chief handle him.
Bad call for all the right reasons.
As he walked in the stately inn, he was surprised to see Erma’s daughter, Mary-Lou, manning the front desk.
She looked up from her iPad. “Oh, hey, Grant. Everything okay?”
The typical first reaction when the chief of police showed up unexpected. “Just wanted to ask Erma a few questions. More personal than professional. Someone left something here, and I promised to fetch it.”
“She’ll be sorry she missed you. She and her crew of misfits left last night.”
