I did fine in this one, she said. What did he say? Ry considered what to tell her. He'd learned over 37 years of navigating situations where information was currency. That you told people what they needed to know in the order they needed to know it.
Not everything at once. Not out of dishonesty, out of care. Too much at once overwhelmed, too little insulted. He's coming, Ray said. End of the week.
Dot nodded. Set down the coffee pot. Leaned slightly on the counter. "There's something I didn't tell you last week," she said. "Figured," she looked at him.
"Gerald, my husband. " "The year before he died, he was working on something. He was a careful man. Patient, he kept records the way some men keep tools organized, labeled in the right place. " She paused. After he died, found a box in the back of the garage. Files, notes, names.
Hargrove. Ray said, "Hargrove. " She confirmed Gerald had been documenting financial connections, land transactions, pattern of city council votes. That's always seemed to benefit the same three property development companies. She straightened up, looked out the window at Main Street. The box is still in my garage, Ray said.
Why haven't you done anything with it? She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice was steady. The steadiness of something that had been hard and had made peace with. Because 2 weeks after Gerald died, she said, "Hardrove came in here for breakfast.
Sat right where you're sitting. " ate his eggs. And when he was leaving, very quietly, very calmly, he said to me that he was sorry for my loss and that he hoped I was taking care of myself. She picked up the coffee pot again. He didn't threaten me, she said. He didn't say anything specific.
He just let me understand that he knew what Gerald had been doing and that he was aware I was now alone. Rey looked at her. Dot looked back. I have a diner, she said. I have 11 employees.
I have a lease that comes up for renewal every 3 years. I am one woman in a town where he's been the most powerful person for 12 years," she paused. "So I waited. " "For what? " Ry asked. She looked at him steadily. "For someone who didn't have anything in this town to lose," she said.
"And who had the particular kind of experience that makes a person very hard to frighten? " Rey was quiet for a long moment. He thought about what it meant. That this woman had been waiting and keeping her dead husband's box of evidence in her garage, serving coffee every morning to a town that didn't know what she knew for 9 years. That was not a small thing. That was an enormous thing worn quietly.
The box, he said, "Does it have anything from 1999? " Dot frowned slightly. I don't know. I haven't gone through all of it. Gerald started before 1999. Why?