“I heard it. I just wasn’t payin’ no heed to it,” he grumbles, leaning back into his chair, looking properly chastised.
“My homemade marmalade is there, too. I’ve made a chicken casserole for lunch and it’s coolin’ from the oven. I just need to scoot up the road for some milk, because we’re fresh out and the grandbabies won’t drink water. I know, they’re spoiled. I’ll be ten minutes at most. George, would you be a doll and keep your eyes on them? If they come lookin’ for food, send the little vultures into the kitchen. There’s a plate waiting for them on the counter. Make sure they wash their hands first!”
“Yes, ma’am. Would you mind droppin’ the books on my desk at the library? They’re due back tomorrow. Lord knows I can’t be turnin’ them in late.”
“Certainly, dear.” She chuckles, patting his shoulder. “Two years ago, Miss Olivia Cane working behind the desk gave this man a good talkin’-down for returning a book late and he’s been afraid to miss a due date ever since!”
“I deserved it, too.” He watches his wife until she disappears into the house with nothing but adoration in his eyes.
“Does Miss Olivia Cane know who you are?” I ask, half in jest.
“Oh heck, she knows. I reckon that old woman’s been workin’ at the library for as long as I’ve been alive. She remembers me when I was as little as them out there on that swing set. Badge or no badge, she don’t care. What’s right is right in her book.” He chuckles. “I respect that. I live by it, the best I can. Goodness, we need some butter for those biscuits. I’ll be right back.” He heaves himself out of his chair and heads for the door, slowing long enough to add, “Mind them, will ya? Make sure they don’t kill each other.” He doesn’t wait for our answer before stepping inside, the screen door slapping against the frame.
Gracie’s brow furrows.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, handing her a glass.
“He isn’t at all what I expected.”
“What’d you expect?”
“Someone who seems like he might have set up my dad,” she whispers, as if unhappy with the alternative. She may have stepped onto this property with a backbone full of suspicion, but whatever country charm Dolores and George Canning are dishing out, she can’t seem to help but lap up. “I don’t see it. I think you’re right about Kristian being suspicious of everyone.”
“Police chiefs are always under fire for what goes on in their department,” I say, echoing Silas’s words from last week as I place a biscuit on her plate. “I’ll bet you’ve never had a home-baked biscuit before.” I help myself to two, heaping on the marmalade by the spoonful.
Gracie shakes her head at me. “How do you eat so much and stay so . . .” Her gaze rolls over my chest as her words trail off.
“Handsome? Muscular? Fit?” I grin as I suck a glob of the sticky orange jam from my thumb.
“I was going to say ‘scrawny.’?” She grins, her eyes flashing to the giggling kids.
“Here we go! Give this a quick minute to soften up.” George reappears with a small plate, a thick slab of butter sitting in the middle of it. “And if Dolores asks y’all, I didn’t have so much as a sliver.” The wicker chair crackles under his weight. “So? How’s your uncle doin’, Noah? I had him runnin’ ragged last night. But he’s always doin’ fine, even when he’s not. The man thrives on chaos.”
“He seemed in good spirits this morning.”
“Silas and I have been friends for going on forty years.” George slices off a sizeable chunk of butter for his biscuit. “I was a patrolman and he was a public defender, and we were at odds from the start. He was tryin’ to get a reduced sentence for this young punk I busted for drunk and disorderly. Somehow, we ended up figurin’ out that we’d rather be on the same side of things. Sometimes it feels like we’ve gone to war together, for all the battles over the years.” Canning drops a dollop of marmalade on his butter-laden biscuit. “So, that was quite the doozy I dropped on the city last night, wasn’t it?”
“It was definitely unexpected,” I say slowly, stealing a glance Gracie’s way.
“But in the best way.” She adds, “I never thought I’d hear those words.”
“It’s the least I can do. When Silas filled me in . . .” His brow furrows deeply. “Sometimes the devil gets ahold of good people and they lose their way. I thought that’s what happened to your daddy. Everything pointed to that. But turns out I had the wool pulled over my eyes, just like everyone else. And I’ll be damned if I allow whoever’s responsible to get away with this.”
He takes a long sip of his sweet tea before setting his glass down with a loud thunk. “I didn’t know Abraham well. Not like I knew Jackie. But it only took five minutes of reviewing his employee file to be utterly flabbergasted. The man was a saint on paper. I’ve had to rid myself of a few officers who didn’t fit the mold over my years, but I’d like to think I have a keen eye for certain . . . personalities. The corruptible kind. There were no hints with Abraham. Nothing to make me say that I could have seen that comin’.”
“All the more reason to have believed he didn’t do it,” Gracie says carefully.
“You are right, there, Miss Wilkes. Sorry—Richards.” He sighs. “I put my best, most trustworthy cops on it. Never in a million years did I think . . .” His voice drifts off. “I don’t know what that says about me, how easily I was had. I’m sure my critics will have a field day with it.” He waves it away. “None of that matters, though. What matters is gettin’ to the bottom of this. And making sure you and your mother get some sort of compensation for it.”
Gracie frowns, confused. “Compensation?”
“You’d best believe it. If I have my way, you and your mother won’t have to be worryin’ about money for a long time. Why, look at you, sweet thing.” He chuckles, taking in Gracie’s surprised face. “Most folk these days are just itchin’ to lawyer up and ring every last penny out that they can. But you haven’t even thought of suin’. I have to say, I like that.”
Neither did I, I’ll admit. But he’s right. Gracie and Dina may have one hell of a winnable lawsuit against the APD. Not that it’ll bring Abe back, but at least it will help them finally move forward.
First, though, we need to find out—and prove—what really happened. “So you believe that Mantis and Stapley set Abe up?” I ask.
“The theory is definitely a concerning one, I’ll agree. But after all this, I’m afraid to believe anything unless I have ‘see it with my own eyes’ irrefutable proof.”
“You mean the video.”
“Well, that would certainly lend credibility to this theory about Mantis’s motive. Lord knows where that thing is, though. Your uncle swears up and down that he had asked the tech guys to search Abraham’s computer for it and there was nothin’ there. Unless the tech guys were in on this, too.” He snorts, but there’s no amusement on his face.
“They didn’t find it. Not if Mantis was still looking for it, the night he broke into our house and threatened my mom,” Grace says.
“Right.” Canning frowns. “That’s what the feds are thinking? It was Mantis?”
I throw Gracie the fastest warning glance I can manage, not wanting Canning to see it.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” she says smoothly.
“And what makes you say that?”
“Just my gut, for whatever that’s worth.” She takes a large bite of the biscuit and chews slowly, her face giving nothing away. She can play ambivalent much better than I gave her credit for.