Free Chat by Archer Mayor Page B

sheriff’s department is going to see if they can find it tomorrow, using metal detectors.”
    She kept working, whipping the eggs in the bowl, her eyes down and her voice neutral. “That seems like a lot of work.”
    He shrugged. “I’ve teamed up with one of their deputies, Rob Barrows. He says they have an Explorers troop that are all eager beavers. Won’t cost them a cent.”
    Again she nodded. “Laura Barrows’s boy. He was in the MPs in the Army. Got out three years ago. A nice man.”
    “Yeah. Seems so.” Joe was watching her carefully, knowing something was brewing.
    After a small pause, she added, “If you know the accident was caused by something falling off, why do you need to find it?”
    Ouch, he thought. Too smart by half. “Just to make things neat and tidy.”
    She stopped whipping and fixed him with a baleful look. This one he did know to take seriously. “Joseph.”
    He pushed his lips out in defeat. “You’re good, Mom. If I knew how to scramble eggs, I’d trade jobs with you.”
    “I wouldn’t wish that on the rest of humanity,” she told him. “What’s going on?”
    He studied the tabletop for a couple of seconds, pondering his response. “Truth? Maybe nothing, and I’m not pulling your leg. It’s just that the piece I mentioned shouldn’t have fallen off a car as new as the Subaru.”
    “What else?” she asked.
    “That’s it. I told you it was probably nothing.”
    She frowned at him. “You were the same way as a child. You could never just spit it out. Parts fall off of new cars, too, Joe. All the time. What are you not telling me?”
    Joe repositioned his chair, crossed his legs and arms, and reconsidered his strategy.
    “Cops are professional paranoids, Mom. You know that, right? It keeps us focused and it keeps us safe. It also makes us look under the bed, even when we know there’s nothing there.”
    She kept studying him, the eggs temporarily forgotten.
    “So,” he resumed, “two members of a cop’s family get injured because a relatively new car falls apart, you gotta wonder why, especially when that car is serviced by a business belonging to E. T. Griffis.”
    She nodded, satisfied at last, though not happily so. “Ah.”
    “You knew about Andy?” he asked.
    “Yes. Poor boy.”
    “Well, I didn’t. Barrows just told me. When did it happen?”
    “Late this summer. He hanged himself.”
    “I heard E. T. and Dan took it hard.”
    She seemed to notice the bowl before her for the first time, gave it a couple of last swirls with the whisk, and set to work on dicing up a piece of ham. She spoke as she worked.
    “Dan confronted me in the grocery store afterward.”
    “What?” Joe leaned forward in his chair.
    She put her knife down briefly for emphasis. “I’m only telling you this because I assume you’ll hear it from someone else, and I don’t want to explain why I kept silent. It’s the worst part of living in a small community.”
    “What happened?” Joe demanded.
    “Essentially nothing. He just came up to me in the grocery store when I was there buying a few things—Leo had gone across the street—and he let me know he was unhappy with the way things had turned out.”
    Joe let out an angry laugh. “Oh, right. I bet that’s the way he phrased it. Come on, Mom. What did he say?”
    She was back to cutting up the ham. “It was unpleasant and said in the heat of the moment.”
    Now he was the one merely staring in silence.
    She let it drag on for almost a minute before finally conceding, “He said we’d be sorry. That we’d pay for it.”
    Joe rubbed his forehead. “Great. Did you know E. T. handed Steve’s Garage over to Dan?”
    That stopped her in mid-motion. “No,” she allowed.
    Joe sat back and thought for a few seconds. “What was the reason given for Andy doing himself in?” he then asked in a calmer voice.
    “The most I ever heard was that he was having problems, whatever that means.” She looked up from her task and then