That was the whole of it. " Bo Hargrove resigned from the county council on the first Monday of December, citing health reasons. No one in Greystone Falls was surprised. No one who mattered was satisfied by the language of it. The federal inquiry was ongoing. Its findings were not public yet.
These things took time, but Warren Lyall, who had lost a county commissioner race 25 years ago and moved to Chattanooga and built a business and mostly stopped thinking about Greystone Falls. Warren Lyle received a call in early this September from a federal attorney. He answered it. He talked for 3 hours and Earl Fletcher, who had lost a contracting business in 2018 and moved to Chattanooga because it seemed like people who told the truth in Greystone Falls ended up in Chattanooga eventually. Earl Fletcher got the same call.
He answered it, too. Ray heard about the Harrove Resnition from at 6:30 on a Monday morning. She told him while pouring his coffee. He nodded. She set the pot down.
Gerald would have wanted to see it. She said, matter of fact, not grief in it. Just truth. Yeah. Ry said he would have ordered a piece of pie and sat there quietly pleased with himself.
She said he was like that. The quiet pleased kind. Sounds like a good man. Ry said he was. Dot said.
So are you. In your particular way. She went back to the counter, refilled the regulars, came back the summer, she said. Are you going to be here in the summer? Ry looked up at her.
She was looking at him steadily. Behind the glasses, behind the 31 years of breakfasts, something in the question that was about more than summer. Yeah, he said. We'll be here in the summer, she nodded. That was all.
She went back to work. Ray drank his coffee. Outside on Main Street, Greystone Falls was waking up. The hardware store opening. A delivery truck at the pharmacy.
Two people walking a dog on the sidewalk. The dog investigating the same patch of ground it investigated every morning because some things were worth investigating every day. The flags between the street lamps moved in the cold air. The water tower looked down on all of it with its painted hawk. Ray finished his coffee.
Left a fair tip, which was what he always left. Not more, not less, just fair, which was the thing he tried to be about most things now.
He walked the two blocks to Birch Street. He opened the garage, turned on the radio, cash was on. I walked the line. He thought, "Yes, that's the idea. " He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a wrench, got to