AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Mr. Shankle raises his eyebrows. “Only two detectives in the county?”
“It’s a rural county, Shankle.” Chance rubs his forehead. “How could you be our father’s attorney all these years and not know that?”
He purses his lips as if the lemonade is way too tart. “I’ve told you before. I was his personal attorney. I handled ranch business. I never interacted with law enforcement.”
“Maybe you should have.” Austin frowns. “Seems he was into some shady shit.”
“None of which came to light until his death,” Mr. Shankle replies.
“And you had no idea?” This from Austin again.
“I wasn’t paid to have ideas,” the attorney says. “I did my job.”
I clear my throat. I actually have something to add. “We’ve never needed more than two detectives before. We’ve got a sheriff, we’ve got several deputies, and we've got Peterson and myself. It’s not like Bayfield is crime central.”
Miles turns to me. “Maybe Shankle’s right, baby. Maybe you should step back. You’re too close to this.”
He’s right, of course, but for some reason I’m feeling argumentative. “Do you want Peterson—and only Peterson?—taking care of this?”
“Fuck no. Well, she’s got me there, Shankle,” Miles says. “Mark Peterson may be a good detective. I don’t know, because I haven’t lived here that long and all I’ve seen of him is when he’s being an ass. But he clearly hates us. He had beef with our father. Hell, who hasn’t?”
“Your father did have his faults.” Mr. Shankle clears his throat, this time sounding a lot like Rainey did this morning. The man’s clearly a chain smoker.
“You think?” Austin shakes his head.
“I was his attorney for twenty years,” Shankle replies. “The man had a good side too.”
This time Chance scoffs, raking his fingers through his auburn hair. “I lived with him my entire life. If he had a good side, I’d love to know about it.”
“He gave a lot to charity.”
“Right.” Austin lets out a sarcastic huff. “It took a lot out of him to write all those fat checks. Maybe he should have floated a little cash to my mother over the years. To Miles’s mom, too.”
“I don’t have any information on his relationships with any of your mothers,” Shankle says. “But he didn’thaveto support charities the way he did. He gave millions of dollars to childrens’ hospitals.”
“You think he did it because he was altruistic?” Chance holds up his empty glass and stares at the ice in the bottom. “He did it for tax deductions. Or for virtue signaling. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t for charity.”
Silence reigns, and I guess it’s up to me to break it.
“So there’s no way to know, until tomorrow, whether Joey was working with EPA?” I ask.
“Nope. I can either be on the horn trying to find out that information, or I can be with you all in Peterson’s office.”
“Get one of your associates to look into Gene Chubb and the EPA,” Austin says. “You do have associates, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. But your father didn’t like for me to use them. I’m the only one he trusted.”
I stop myself from raising an eyebrow. Jonathan Bridger trusted this guy and no one else? Big red flag. One I’ll make sure Miles doesn’t overlook.
“We are not our father,” Chance says. “We are your clients now. I want this looked into first thing in the morning.”
“You got it.” Mr. Shyster—er…Shankle—makes a note in his phone.
I take another sip of the sweet lemonade. It soothes my throat, which still aches from the sobs I gulped down.
Louisa enters from the kitchen. “Lunch is ready. I set a place for Mr. Shankle and Ms. Hopkins.”
The lawyer stands. “Thank you, Louisa, but I can’t stay. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, nine a.m. in town at the station.”
