He glared at Professor Johnson, daring him to wage a war of words over Pappy’s self-appointed office. None came. Pappy resumed his speech.
“I am calling a town meeting in a half hour.”
This is it, thought Erinn.
This is it, thought Maggie.
They each had their suspicions, but none of them knew for certain what Pappy was going to say. If Erinn was right, she’d make a name for herself in the respected world of documentarians. If Maggie was right, she’d blow the town apart.
“Why not just have the meeting right now?” Powderkeg asked. “We’re all pretty beat.”
“This is official business—sorta,” Pappy said. “Plus, I want to talk privately to Bertha. She deserves to hear this first. So I’ll see you all in City Hall in one half hour. Do. Not. Be. Late.” Pappy turned and escorted Old Bertha out the door to the boardwalk.
Erinn stood in the back of City Hall, camera perched on the tripod, ready to record and make history. Wesley stood beside her.
“I guess there is no sense in trying to get you to hear him out before you shoot this,” he said.
“I don’t think I need to answer that, do I?”
“No,” he said. “I just thought I’d give it a shot.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“Spare me,” Wesley said. “Nobody has hidden behind that line more than I.”
Pappy and Old Bertha walked in, hand and hand. Bertha’s eyes were swollen. She looked grim but resigned. The din of conversation came to a halt as they made their way to the front of the room. Old Bertha sat in the front row, next to Polly, Cleo, and Powderkeg.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Pappy said.
Erinn quickly pushed “play.” She looked in the viewfinder. It was a little dark, but she irised down and got a little more light on Pappy. She put in her earbuds. If she was right, the audio was going to be even more important than the video. She waited, along with the rest of the room, for Pappy to speak.
“I know y’all are used to me taking off now and then,” Pappy said. “It’s not easy being mayor and sometimes I just get sick of you guys and need a break.”
“This isn’t news, Pappy,” Powderkeg said and yawned.
“Keep your pants on,” Pappy snarled. “This time was a little different. Not the part about needing a break. I was pretty fed up with all the fighting about the road and the grapes. I see the young lady in the back is taping this, so for the record, I’m on Professor Johnson’s side about the road and Fernando’s side about the grapes, should that be of any interest.”
“It isn’t,” Powderkeg said. “Could you get to the point?”
“May we have a private conversation before you proceed?” Wesley blurted out.
“Request denied, Counsel,” Pappy said.
Everyone in the room stiffened. What was happening?
“I’ll start with what you know. Going way back, Clarence ‘Cutthroat’ Johnson learned how to make money. He earned his nickname. He never broke the law, but he’d mow an opponent down as easy as look at him. He was a powerful man, more powerful than any of you could imagine. Except maybe Mr. Tensaw over there. He could probably imagine.”
Everyone turned to stare at Wesley, who sat stone-faced.
“Anyway, as he got more and more powerful, he couldn’t manage his empire by himself. He would have if he could, but just keeping the jackals at bay takes backup. So he hired Sebastian Pennyfeather. Sebastian Pennyfeather was equally ruthless. Maybe more so, because he didn’t have Cutthroat’s instincts. So he had to be twice as cold-blooded. The media never knew this, but once Cutthroat Clarence had kids, and then a grandkid, for cryin’ out loud, he’d every once in a while exhibit a few moments of compassion. But Sebastian Pennyfeather would get him right back on track. Until the Sweet Darling tragedy.”
Pappy stopped and wiped his glasses. He looked frightened, something the people of Fat Chance had never seen before. He put his glasses back on. He avoided looking at Titan as he continued.
“When Sweet ran into that car, everything changed. For months, the press hounded Cutthroat, and Pennyfeather was so busy with damage control that he didn’t realize . . . he didn’t want to realize . . . that maybe there was more to life than making money. He was so busy arguing with Cutthroat, insisting that he couldn’t take any responsibility for Sweet’s death or help her little boy, that he forgot his . . . his humanity.”
“I think you’re being very unfair to Uncle Sebastian,” Cleo said. “He was a good man.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Pappy said. “No. He wasn’t.”
“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion,” Cleo said frostily. “I guess you can say anything you want, since he’s not here.”
“He is here,” Pappy said. “I’m Sebastian Pennyfeather.”
Silence enveloped the room. Nobody moved. Suddenly, Titan sprang up with such force that his chair tipped over. Every muscle in his immense body was tensed. Pappy didn’t say a word, but he didn’t shrink back.
“You . . .” Titan said, pointing at Pappy.
Titan ran from the room. Jeffries leapt up to chase after him, but Professor Johnson stopped him.
“Titan wants to be alone,” Professor Johnson said.
“It’s pitch-black,” Jeffries argued.
“Titan knows this country like the back of his hand. If anything happens to you, this situation will only get worse.”
“I can’t just sit here,” Jeffries said, pushing past the professor and running outside.
Chapter 36
Tremors of disbelief filled the hall.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” the man they once knew as Pappy said. “We can take this up in the morning. I got to go after that damn fool.”
“I don’t think Titan wants to talk to you right now,” Fernando said, not unkindly.
“I know that,” Pappy snapped. “I’m talking about Jeffries. He’ll get himself killed out there.”
With that, Pappy was gone. The rest of the group filed out slowly, too stunned to speak.
Erinn shut off her camera. She could feel Wesley’s accusing stare boring into her back. She straightened her spine and met his glare.
“Did you get everything you wanted to ruin a man’s life?” Wesley said.
“I’d say Papp . . . Pennyfeather did a fine job of that, himself,” Erinn said. “I don’t understand why I’m the bad guy here.”
“Because Mr. Pennyfeather must have suspected you were getting close,” Wesley said. “That’s why he ran in the first place.”
“I don’t think so,” Erinn said. “He was gone long before I started to get the pieces to fit. I think he ran because he recognized you.”
“That’s . . . that’s possible.”
“In which case,” Erinn said, snapping her camera off the tripod, “you’re to blame for ruining his life. You knew all along?”
“I suspected all along. As you said, it didn’t make sense that this Pappy character just showed up out of nowhere. Plus, when he ‘died,’ Pennyfeather had no insurance policies, no next-of-kin, no will leaving his money to charity. If my assumptions were correct, Pennyfeather hadn’t broken any laws. For years, I was too busy trying to stay afloat as the new head of a very important law firm to give it much thought. After this ‘Pappy’ surfaced, it all started to make sense.”
“Why didn’t you do anything about it?”
“On the one hand, the man hadn’t broken any laws, so what did it matter to me?”
“And on the other hand?”
“He left me a law firm. With one faked accident, he’d made my career. Why would I ever want to find him?”
“What changed?”
“I didn’t want you to find him.”
“So you’ve basically just been trying to thwart me?” Erinn asked.
“Pretty much,” Wesley said. “It’s nothing personal. I’m just a huge fan of letting sleeping dogs lie.”
“This sleeping dog couldn’t tell
more lies if you paid him.”
She started to pack up her camera, then she stopped abruptly. “I just realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“I have no place to sleep tonight. I was up at the farm.”
“You can stay with me.”
* * *
Professor Johnson and Dymphna retreated to the little living space Professor Johnson had created in the back of the Boozehound before he abandoned it to live up at the farm. Professor Johnson stoked the fire while Dymphna looked for blankets. The two of them made the bed without speaking. When the room was warm enough, they crawled into bed. Dymphna could feel Professor Johnson shaking. She snuggled against him.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m just overwhelmed by Pappy’s confession. I mean, I knew Sebastian Pennyfeather. How could I not have known in these last few years?”
“First of all, you were gone for six months, so it’s really been only two-and-a-half years,” Dymphna said. “And you were just a little boy when Pennyfeather died. Didn’t die. When Pennyfeather left. I’m sure he wasn’t a gray-haired, gun-toting cowboy when he was running around Beverly Hills.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Professor Johnson said.
Dymphna could feel him relax into sleep. She realized how exhausted she was. She tried not to think about what they would all face in the morning. Everything she had was gone. It would only make sense to leave. She kissed Professor Johnson’s shoulder. She felt something cold and wet on her arm. More rain? She saw Thud’s large head propped up on the edge of the mattress. She looked at him. His tail started wagging furiously. She knew he was waiting on an invitation to join them in the small bed. Dymphna scooted over.
“You can come up,” she said. “But if you wake your dad, you’re in big trouble.”
* * *
Maggie moved back to the jail cell. She figured Pappy probably wasn’t coming back tonight, but she didn’t want to be anywhere near his place if he did. He was, after all, a lawyer. He might sue her or something.
Maggie put the pouch under the mattress. She lay on the cot in the cell, hands clasped over her head. She wondered if she had lost all her leverage with Dodge, now that Pappy had confessed. She sighed. Maybe she could fake Dodge out and get the pouch to him before Erinn broke her story. He didn’t actually need to have something to hold over Fat Chance; he only had to think he did until Maggie got her traveling money.
She’d contact Dodge tomorrow.
I’ll miss this place, she thought, then fell fast asleep.
* * *
“How could you not recognize him?” Cleo asked Powderkeg as she smoothed another quilt over them.
“He was your fake uncle,” Powderkeg said. “Not mine.”
“But you knew him, too,” Cleo insisted. “And you were in the military.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“Weren’t you trained to notice things like that?”
“I was in the army,” he said. “I wasn’t James Bond.”
“What happens now? Am I supposed to go back to calling him Uncle Sebastian?”
“I don’t think so. I think he became Pappy and now that’s who he is.”
“Until that horrible woman breaks the story,” Cleo said. “I never liked her.”
“Sweetheart,” Powderkeg said sleepily, “you never like anyone.”
* * *
Pappy found Jeffries some time later. He was scratched and bleeding, sitting on a log about a mile down the creek from Fat Chance. The sun was just coming up.
“Mind if I join you?” Pappy asked.
“If you can keep from saying ‘I told you so,’” Jeffries said.
“Deal.”
“Actually, I can’t stop you.” Jeffries winced. “I think I sprained my ankle.”
“In that case,” Pappy said, sitting heavily on the log, “I told you so.”
The two men sat silently, listening to the hills come to life.
“Can I ask you something?” Jeffries said.
“Go ahead,” Pappy said. “It’ll be good practice.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“What?” Pappy said. “Disappear thirty years ago or confess just now?”
“Take your pick.”
“I strong-armed Cutthroat into staying as far away from the Sweet Darling fiasco as he could. One chink in the armor and the press would have taken him down. It was my job to protect him. But I just couldn’t get Sweet out of my mind,” Pappy said. “I was kind of in love with her. We all were. She never knew it, of course, but I was really crazy about that girl. That’s what made it all so terrible. I loved her and I turned my back on her little boy.”
“Why couldn’t you just come clean and admit you pushed the girl into doing something she didn’t want to do?”
“It was my job to keep Cutthroat out of hot water. He was a friend as well as a client, you know. I tried everything I could to find a way to live with the pain and the guilt. Cutthroat and I traveled a lot. When we got to Fat Chance, I knew I wanted to disappear here. It was perfect. Nobody saw us. By the time we’d put the plan in place, Sebastian Pennyfeather was out on an extended fishing vacation on his yacht and I’d grown enough hair to play the hermit of Fat Chance.”
“You must have panicked when Cutthroat said he was sending people to Fat Chance after all those years.”
“I couldn’t believe it!” Pappy said, the surprise still in his voice. “I figured I could get away with it when it was a bunch of strangers, but then he started with the family members—Cleo, Elwood, and Marshall . . . I mean Cleo, Professor Johnson, and Powderkeg.”
“I know who Elwood and Marshall are,” Jeffries said. “I work at the mansion, remember? Well, ‘worked,’ I suspect. Were you worried they’d recognize you?”
“Not really.” Pappy shrugged. “Cleo never really noticed anybody, Elwood was just a little kid, and Powderkeg wasn’t around much. They were already having problems. Besides, by that time, I barely recognized myself.
“And then he hit me with the hardest part of all. He said he was sending Titan. I blew a fuse. I told him I wouldn’t stand for it. I couldn’t bear to see that boy. I begged him to reconsider. But he said if he owed anybody, it was Titan. He knew I’d have no comeback to that.”
“You left when we came in that night in the limousine. Was it because of Erinn?”
“I didn’t know Erinn from a hole in the head,” Pappy said dismissively. “It was when I saw Wesley that I panicked. I had no idea why he’d come, but I figured he either knew the truth or would figure it out pretty quick. So I ran.”
“But you came back.”
“I couldn’t leave these lambs to the slaughter of a twister,” Pappy said. “I had to come back.”
“But why confess?”
“When Cutthroat finally reached me to tell me he was dying, he said, ‘You know, Penny, you can’t hide forever.’ I didn’t believe him, but he was right. I want to marry Old Bertha, but how do you ask someone to trust you with her life when your own life is a lie?”
“I hear you,” Jeffries said softly.
“Plus, when I left, I didn’t know this, but that Erinn is one sharp gal. I could tell by the way she looked at me that she had my number. Wesley too. I’d rather bust this story open than have it busted open for me.”
“One more question,” Jeffries said. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I’m going to go find Titan. And he might not listen to me. So I want you to know the facts. I hope you two have a long, happy life together and maybe one day he’ll want to hear this,” Pappy said, looking down at Jeffries’s ankle. “How bad is that ankle?”
“It hurts,” Jeffries said, rotating it gingerly. “But I can get myself back to town.”
“You sure?”
“Go find Titan.”
Without another word, Pappy stood up and walked down along the creek.
Chapter 37
Titan came across a tree that had fallen over the once-peaceful creek in the storm. He strode across a makeshift bridge over the swollen, raging water below. He’d walked all night and wasn’t sure exactly where he was. Exhausted, he stretched out on a large, flat rock that jutted over the fast-moving water and closed his eyes. The boulder was still cold, but the morning sun felt comforting on his face.
Like a mother’s touch.
He wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep, but he felt a shadow come between him and the sun. He opened his eyes.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here,” he said, sitting up and glaring at Pappy. “I’m not feeling very friendly right now.”
“I understand,” Pappy said. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you threw me off this rock and into the river. I’d rather you didn’t, but that’s up to you.”
Pappy sat down on the rock. He waited for Titan to speak.
“I’m really mad at you,” Titan said.
“I know.”
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
“I feel betrayed.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you have anything else to say?” Titan asked.
“I have a million things to say,” Pappy said. “But I really don’t want you to throw me in the river.”
“The worst part,” Titan said, “is that I felt like you were the father I never had, like the parent I never had. And now I find out that’s all a lie.”
“Hold on,” Pappy said, turning to face Titan squarely. “My whole life here had been a lie. Until you came. Because the feeling is mutual, Titan. You’re the son I never had. And if I had a son, I wish he could have been just like you.”
Titan started to tear up. “You’re just saying that so I don’t throw you in the river.”
“That’s my boy,” Pappy said as he put a meaty paw on Titan’s shoulder. “Why’d you pick this spot to stop?”
“I don’t know,” Titan said. “I just got tired. Why?”
“Because this is the exact spot I first saw Fancy years ago. I was fishing and saw this poor old bird hopping around the creek. I could tell her wing was broke.”
Livin' Large in Fat Chance, Texas Page 23