Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death

by Jeffrey Allen

  “Which was when?”

  She wiped at her eyes. “It would’ve been the one last night.”

  28

  Matilda made me wait until the coast was clear before I could leave.

  The early afternoon sun was in full effect, baking the entire fair and its inhabitants with more unseasonably warm weather. I shaded my eyes against the sun as it burned into my skull, which was trying to digest everything I’d just learned. Not an easy meal in any way.

  My dad waved at me from a bench in the shade near the entertainment stage and I sat down next to him.

  “I snuck away from your mother,” he said. “And, you look confused.”

  “I think I am.”

  “Not the first time. Probably why I recognized it so fast.”

  “Ha.”

  “You should probably go home and check on your wife,” he said. “She might be having a baby.”

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket. No missed phone calls or texts. I’d been smart enough to turn the volume all the way up just in case.

  I put it back in my pocket. “She would have called. She’s fine.”

  “So what are you confused about now?”

  “The fracking thing,” I said. “At your house. Tell me about that again.”

  He looked at me, puzzled, then shrugged his shoulders. “They called me first. I told them to buzz off. Then a guy showed up at the door. Young guy, nice looking, all friendly and salesy. He knocked on the door and I was ready to push him off the porch. Until he told me the kind of money he was offering.” His mouth twisted in thought. “I looked at the paperwork and it looked pretty legitimate. A whole load of cash to do a little digging on the north side of our property. We talked for a few minutes. Told me to call him when I’d finished thinking it over. I haven’t done that yet.”

  People were walking by, water bottles in hand, waving at the air with fairground maps and programs, trying to cool themselves off.

  “Remember the guy’s name?” I asked.

  He shifted on the bench and pulled out his wallet, thumbing through it. “He gave me his card. Told me he was the rep for all of Rose Petal. Made some crack about how he was going to be the fracking king of Rose Petal.” He pulled out a card. “Here it is. Corey Stewart.”

  He handed me the card. It was a simple rectangle made of white cardstock. His name was on there, along with a simple logo for Taitano Resources, a phone number, and an e-mail.

  “Mind if I keep this for a while?” I asked.

  “Why? You gonna see if he’ll check out your backyard?” my dad asked.

  I smiled at him. “Yeah. Think I will.”

  29

  Victor pointed the neck of his beer bottle at me. “You are actually becoming an investigator.”

  We were on my back deck, under the trellis, the grill warming, drinking beer. I’d called him when I left the fair after talking with my dad, told him what I’d learned, what I wanted to do and, surprisingly, he’d agreed to come over, as long as I provided some dinner and beer.

  “I think that was a compliment,” I said.

  “I think it was, too.” He glanced at the bottle. “I better not have any more or we’ll be kissing.”

  “Kissing my knee, maybe.”

  He ignored my insult. “When’s this guy supposed to get here?”

  I glanced at my watch and sipped from the beer. “Any minute.”

  On cue, the doorbell chimed inside the house.

  “Punctual,” Victor said with a smirk. “Friggin’ sales guys.”

  “Feel free to jump in if you think it’s necessary,” I said.

  “Gee, thanks for your permission, Dick Tracy. You ain’t that good yet. Don’t let your empty head swell.”

  The glass slider slid open and a guy in his late twenties with slicked-back hair wearing a bright green polo shirt and khaki pants and an obnoxious smile stepped out in front of Julianne, who was munching on a giant pickle wrapped in aluminum foil.

  “I’ll scream for you if the kid falls out,” she said in between bites, patting her belly.

  “Perfect,” I said, smiling at her.

  She closed the slider and the guy’s smile brightened even more. “What a great lady. You are very lucky.”

  I stood. “Yes, she is and yes, I am. I’m Deuce. And this is my friend, Victor.”

  “Corey Stewart,” he said, shaking my hand enthusiastically. If he was taken aback by Victor’s midgetness, he didn’t show it, smiling just as broadly at him and extending his hand. “Corey Stewart.”

  Victor slid out of the chair and shook his hand. “Yeah. Hey.”

  Corey surveyed the backyard. “Man, this is a great layout. Love the deck and the trees are terrific. Bet your kid loves playing out here.”

  Victor rolled his eyes and slid back into his chair.

  “Oh, thanks,” I said, then gestured at the empty chair next to Victor. “Yeah, she does. Have a seat. Get you a beer?”

  “Ah, can’t, on the job, but thanks.” He set down his leather shoulder bag and eased into the chair. “When’s your wife due? Julianne, was it?”

  “Yeah. About a week ago.”

  He chuckled. “Whoa. She wasn’t kidding, then, about screaming, was she?”

  “She rarely kids about anything.”

  “Well, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, then,” Corey said, setting his hands on his thighs. He smiled at Victor, who returned a fake smile. Corey looked back at me. “You said on the phone you were interested in a lease estimate and analysis.”

  “Right,” I said. I wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know that quite yet.

  He opened his bag, pulled out an iPad and started tapping away at it. “Mind if I walk the yard for a minute?”

  “Have at it.”

  He hopped down the stairs and walked slowly along the fence line.

  “Watch out,” Victor whispered. “You’re not careful, you’ll end up buying a used Buick from him or something.”

  “He’s pretty good,” I whispered back.

  “Salespeople always give me the creeps,” he said, frowning. “All that fake happiness and crap isn’t good for anyone.”

  “He’s just doing his job.”

  “Well, his job is lame.”

  Corey hopped back up on the deck and sat down again. He nodded at the yard and then smiled at me. “You live in a good spot.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, most of the Rose Petal area is built over shale rock, which is a tremendous source for natural gas,” he explained, looking from me to Victor and then back to me. “Taitano Resources has made a commitment to help reduce energy costs by extracting as much natural gas as possible from the shale in order to help preserve other resources.” He smiled at me. “And when you own land where shale is present beneath the surface, we feel obligated to compensate you more than fairly to use your land.”

  I doubted Corey or his company felt any obligation other than to make as much money as they possibly could, but I didn’t say anything.

  He tapped away at the iPad again. “Your entire property appears to rest on shale, so we’d be interested in exploring the entire subterranean area of your property.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  He grinned. “You a baseball fan?”

  “Sure.”

  “Favorite team?”

  “San Diego,” I said. “Makes no sense, but we went on vacation there as a kid and my dad took me to a game there. Padres have been my team since then. Probably to spite my dad, who’s a big Rangers fan.”

  Corey chuckled. “We might not be able to do business then. I’m a Dodgers fan.”

  “Ugh. Now I really don’t trust you.”

  He laughed harder than was necessary. “Now, now. We can do this peacefully. But, in baseball parlance, your home is like a grand slam.”

  “How’s that?”

  He smiled again at me. “Well, it’s a bit complicated. But the simplest way to explain it is that we do som
e digging, squirt a little water down there, and see what comes up. My guess is that a lot is going to come up. A grand slam.” He tapped at the iPad, then spun it around and showed it to me. “And this is what we’d pay you to explore your land.”

  I started to say something, but then did a double take at the number on the screen. It was at least three times what I was expecting to see. I looked at Corey. He was smiling, having noticed the double take.

  “Taitano Resources wants you to know that they appreciate your permission to use your property,” he said, grinning. “Like I said, we know it’s an inconvenience to temporarily turn your property over to us. We believe in repaying your generosity with fair financial payment.”

  No wonder my father was having trouble saying no. If my little suburban house and lot was worth the number Corey Stewart was showing me, I couldn’t imagine the figure they’d given Dad.

  “So, do you pay per acre?” Victor asked, glancing at me, annoyed that I’d gotten sort of lost in the dollar signs. “The bigger the plot, the bigger the dollar amount?”

  “I guess that’s one way to look at it,” Corey said, nodding thoughtfully. “A larger parcel of land means more shale for Taitano Resources to explore, which means the owner of the land should be more compensated, as well. It all depends on what’s below the ground, but in a shale-rich area like this? Absolutely, the bigger the plot, the bigger the dollar amount.”

  “So a huge hunk of land might bring in a pretty good haul?” Victor asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Corey upped the wattage in his smile. “For sure. Are you the owner of a huge hunk of land, Victor? Because I’d love to come take a look at it, if you’re interested in working with us.”

  Victor yawned and waved a hand at me. “Can we get on with this, please?”

  Confusion settled on Corey’s face, but he didn’t lose the smile.

  I handed Corey back his iPad. “I think the huge hunk of land Victor is talking about is the Carriveau County fairgrounds.”

  The brilliant smile flickered. “I’m sorry?”

  “I think we may have forgotten to mention this when you sat down,” I said. “But Victor and I are business partners.”

  “In real estate?”

  “No, in an investigations service. And we’re looking into George Spellman’s death.”

  The smile was now dimming by the second as he overplayed the confused expression. “Who is George Spellman?”

  “The guy you knocked out at the fairgrounds a few weeks ago,” I said.

  And just like that, Corey Stewart’s smile was gone.

  30

  “First,” Corey Stewart said, pointing at me, “I don’t appreciate being brought here under false pretenses.”

  Neither Victor nor I said anything.

  “Two, that guy grabbed me and when he wouldn’t let go, I pushed him and he smacked his own head on a rock on the way down,” he said, looking back and forth between us. “He grabbed me first and wouldn’t let go. I was defending myself more than anything.”

  I looked at Victor, but he was staring at Corey.

  “And, three, I had no idea the guy was dead and if you’re insinuating that I had something to do with his death,” he said, his hand shaking a bit, “well, screw you.”

  “Nobody was insinuating anything,” Victor said, frowning. “Just keep your pants on.”

  “I was told you punched George,” I said.

  “Well, that’s crap,” he said, his face pinching together. “I’ve never punched anybody in my life. He grabbed my arm, and he wouldn’t let go. I told him like three times to let go and he wouldn’t. I tried to shake free, but I couldn’t. So I pushed him away. He tripped and fell backward and banged his head.” He frowned. “Yeah, I left him there. But he was breathing, he was sort of mumbling, and he wasn’t bleeding. He was fine. I didn’t do anything to him.”

  “Why was he grabbing your arm?” I asked.

  He shoved the iPad back in his bag. “He said I didn’t belong there.”

  “Did you?”

  He zipped up the bag with a flourish. “Look, man. I was just doing my job. I was surveying, mapping, and measuring. That was it. I had permission to be there, but that guy didn’t believe me.”

  His story was different from the one Matilda had told me, but not completely. He was speaking pretty clearly and forcefully, though. Didn’t seem like he was lying to me. I’d been fooled before, but he was coming off as pretty honest.

  “Someone hired you to analyze the fairgrounds?” Victor asked. “To see if you guys could do your fracking thing there?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Who hired you?” I asked.

  “I don’t have to tell you that. I’m not required to divulge who I work with, to anyone.”

  “And I don’t have to tell the local police I think you’re lying, but I might,” I said.

  Victor grinned, clearly pleased at my interrogation technique.

  Corey’s cheeks flushed pink. “I’m not lying.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” I said. “I said I might tell the police I think you are, so they can kinda mess up your life a little. And maybe embarrass your company a little bit. That probably doesn’t sound like fun, though, does it?”

  His hands balled into fists on his khaki-covered thighs. “Okay. I was hired by the owner of the fairgrounds to explore the possibility of drilling on-site there.”

  “The county hired you?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “The county doesn’t own the fairgrounds,” Corey replied.

  “Who does?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Victor reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. “You got another one of them business cards, Corey? I’d like to call your boss and let him know there might be an investigation that you’re gonna be involved in.”

  Corey’s cheeks flushed again and he ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. He was contemplating cracking, but wasn’t completely there yet.

  We waited him out and the crack took hold.

  “I’m not supposed to divulge this,” he said. “Our client asked for complete privacy and I said we would honor that.”

  Victor rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure, kid. Whatever. Who owns the fairgrounds? Or give me the card. Now.”

  Corey Stewart’s mouth set in a grim line for a moment and resignation settled into his features. “A woman named Marjorie Biggs.”

  Aka Mama Biggs.

  31

  “Mama Biggs owns the fairgrounds?” I asked, not believing it even as I said it.

  Corey Stewart stood, sensing that he’d delivered some very unexpected news. “I’m gonna go.”

  “Sit down, dude,” Victor said, waving the phone at him. “We’re not done yet.”

  Corey sighed and sat back down.

  “She actually owns the fairgrounds?” I asked again. “You verified that?”

  “Of course I verified it,” Corey said, annoyed. “No way I’d spend all that time surveying a piece of land that size without making sure I was dealing with the owner.”

  “How long has she owned it?” I asked.

  “No idea. I just needed to verify current ownership and she is the current, sole owner of all of that land that we are looking at.”

  “Did Spellman know that?” Victor asked. “Is that why you and he tangled?”

  Corey shrugged. “Not that I know of. He never said a word about it and I sure as heck didn’t say anything about it. He just wanted me to leave the grounds. But she’d given me permission to do the preliminary work. She just asked that I do it early in the morning before anyone got there.” He shrugged again. “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  That fell in line with what Matilda had told me. I wondered if she or George had just exaggerated what went down during George’s confrontation with Corey. Corey was definitely miffed about talking to us, but I still didn’t get the sense that he was lying to us about anything.

&n
bsp; “So she is exploring the possibility of having you drill on the fairground land?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “She’s not exploring. It’s a done deal.”

  “A done deal?”

  “We signed the paperwork last week,” Corey said, nodding, gaining some of his confidence back. “Biggest deal I’ve ever closed. Couple more like that and I’ll be able to buy the Dodgers.”

  “So then what happens?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you own the land? How does it work?”

  He shook his head. “No, we lease the land, just like we would here. We explore. We drill. We get into the shale to harness the gas.”

  “For how long?”

  “Every lease is different,” he said. “Size of that land, lease will run for about two years. It takes a lot of time. Now, your property? Be more like six months.”

  Two years. Meaning the fair wouldn’t be held there and she’d need another place to put it. Which explained her interest in the parcel of land my father told me about. It didn’t tell us a whole lot about George Spellman, but it did answer some of my questions about the fair.

  “So she hasn’t sold it,” I said, clarifying. “She’s just giving you the right to drill on it.”

  “Yep. That’s how it works.”

  “Does she get a share of the profits?”

  “Nope. When you lease, you lease up front and give up your rights to anything we find on the property,” Corey said. “That number that caught you off-guard? I wasn’t kidding. It really is more than fair. But whatever we are able to take from beneath your property is ours after you lease the rights to us.”

  “Is the land usable during the process?”

  “Depends,” he said. “Here? Sure, your backyard would be okay. We’d use a small crew and it would be pretty unobtrusive. There would be days when it wouldn’t be, but most of the time, it would be okay.”

  “Yeah, except for all the crap you’d drop into the water supply,” Victor said, raising an eyebrow.

  Corey rolled his eyes. “Our process is safe and environmentally sound.”

  “So was Chernobyl.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  Victor waved a small hand at him. “Whatever, Slick.”