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The man had done it out of pure spite, and that still irritated me. I will never forget the innumerable nights Dad had stayed up in the office, shifting money around to make up for the sudden hike in costs, using Peter to pay Paul while barely hanging on.
John Sullivan was a bastard at his rotten, holier-than-thou core, and while I didn’t necessarily have an opinion on his heart attack or wish him more hardship…. I had no doubt karma was real.
“Bossman,” Benji came in, waving a sheet. “These are the estimates for the biological warfare you’re set on using against those bugs. The guys said as soon as the downpayment is made, they’ll get on it right away.”
“Thanks,” I took the paper and, with one look, sighed in relief; the cost was under budget, and I knew if I could handle half of this with my medium operation, the Sullivan Estate, with its massive one, could damn well do the same.
My Spidey-Sense kicked in, and I realized Benji was still lingering at the doorway. “Is something wrong?”
“Not…exactly,” Benji said cagily. “Rumor around town is that you had dinner with Mia Sullivan last night at Mix’D. Inquiring minds would like to know if it was a casual thing, a business thing, or a personal thing.”
Byrumor around town,he meant that the gossiping mill of bored old ladies had kicked into overdrive, and some people were already betting on one of two disturbing options. One was of us killing the other and burying the body in an unmarked grave, or the second, the most disturbing one, they were planning our marriage and betting on where our future grandchildren would go to college… over tea and slices of pecan pie.
God, I hated this part of the small town.
“If theseinquiring mindsmust know, she came to apologize for one of the many shitty things her father had done to my family years ago,” I said while picking up the phone to call Mia. “That’s all. You can probably alert your gran to stop circling the wishing well with a divining rod and horseshoe trinkets while chanting a spell three times for us to fall in love.”
Indie gasped in horror. “My gran doesn’t dothat!”
“She doesn’t?”
“No,” he said imperiously. “She chantsseventimes… get it right.”
With him cackling like mad and slipping out of my office, I chuckled and made the call.
“Mia Sullivan here,” she answered.
“It's me,” I said, “I’ve got the estimates for the pest control, and I can either share them with you or fax them over.”
“Fax,” she laughed, “God, do you not have email in your century?”
“No,” I drawled, “We have carrier pigeons, and we ride flying pterodactyls. If you need your trees trimmed, I know a very friendly Brachiosaurus I can call.”
“Christ,” she murmured-laughed, “Just take a pic with your cell and email it to me.”
She gave me her address, and after I did just that, she replied,“Which account shall I wire the money to?”
I gave her the details for the expense account Benji was currently in charge of and went on to do my work. By two pm—when I took my lunch—I had contacted a supplier in Hudson Valley about supplying pure lavender honey for our next flavor, dispatched another supply of mead to the local stores, started talks with a company in Japan who was interested in our drink and gotten a report from Benji that the pest guys had gotten their downpayment and were on the job.
Not a bad six hours at all.
When I had a moment to myself, my mind spun to Mia. I was impressed that she had taken it upon herself to apologize on her dad’s behalf.
“What did she mean about her dad being cagey…” I mused, twiddling a pen. “Was it something more to the story that we don’t know or…”
Unsure of what I was even saying, I decided to do myself a favor and go and check Dad’s logbooks. If there were any discrepancies, I would find them in there. Digging out the old ledgers and notes, I found the date from that day and paged through the previous ones, not willing to read over my dad’s grief.
NB—official correspondence: the Chilsom Coolers are experiencing some equipment failure; the coolers are down for maintenance. Reroute the current shipment using McCoy Brothers.
“Hmmm,” I turned to another page. “That’s strange. Dad hadn’t mentioned that.”
When I turned to another, I read:Administrative notice that the entire holding inside the Chisolm Storage has been thrown out, including seventy-five barrels of Sullivan wine, for finding Lactobacillus, Pediococcus bacteria inside. The loss is estimated at seventy-one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars.
Jesus Christ.
Twenty-odd years ago, that was a lot; it was worth one hundred and odd now. A chunk of cash that could seriously make or break a business.
Another note:Sullivan now thinks I had a hand in something to do with the loss. Perhaps I should have forwarded the notice three days ago, but how the Chilsoms think Sullivan and I are friends is beyond me. They should have told him directly.
