Chapter 7 - The Country Club Dinner
By late afternoon, the panic had metastasized.
Vernon had not stayed at his house. Driven by an old man’s instinct that social status could ward off criminal reality, he had retreated to the Greenfield Country Club—the sanctuary where the county’s elite played eighteen holes and decided which local businesses lived or died over scotch.
Nicole and I sat in an unmarked van three hundred yards from the clubhouse gate, monitoring the audio feeds Cyrus’s technical team had patched through the building’s internal security network.
In the private dining room, Vernon was sitting with three men: the county commissioner, the president of the First Greenfield Bank, and a former state senator.
The clink of cut crystal and heavy silver came through the speaker with startling clarity.
*"—it's a jurisdictional skirmish, that's all it is!"* Vernon’s voice was loud, slurred from what sounded like his third double-bourbon. *"Some rogue assistant US attorney trying to make a name off my retirement. The Governor’s office will shut this down by morning. I just need you, Frank, to bridge a five-hundred-thousand-dollar line of credit from the bank to cover my retainer for Williams & Connolly."*
A heavy silence followed on the recording.
Then, the cautious, measured voice of the bank president, Frank Miller: *"Vernon... the feds served a freeze order on our compliance officer at noon. If I authorize a fifty-dollar overdraft for you right now, I'm facing federal aiding and abetting charges."*
*"We’ve been friends for thirty years, Frank!"* Vernon snarled. *"I covered for your son when he wrapped his Mercedes around an oak tree on Route 9! I made that BAC test disappear!"*
*"And that BAC test is currently in the hands of the State Highway Patrol Internal Affairs,"* Frank replied coldly. The sound of a chair scraping against carpet echoed through the line. *"I'm leaving, Vernon. Don't call my personal cell again."*
*"Frank! Sit down!"*
*"Good evening, Judge."*
Footsteps retreated. A door closed.
*"Coward,"* Vernon spat. *"Tom, you’re the commissioner. Tell the zoning board to issue a stop-work order on Sean Vance’s shop. I want his property condemned. I want bulldozers on his lot by tomorrow morning."*
The commissioner’s voice was weary, almost pitying. *"Vernon, shut up. Did you even read the news wire an hour ago? That carpenter you provoked... he isn't just a cabinet maker. He was a master sergeant with the Army’s Special Activities Division. The team that went into the Helmand River valley during the 2012 offensive."*
Vernon laughed—a sharp, hysterical bark. *"A soldier? Who cares? He’s a blue-collar nobody with a broken-armed kid!"*
*"The man who saved Cyrus Vance’s son during that offensive is that 'nobody,' Vernon,"* Tom whispered. *"Cyrus Vance doesn't lose. He doesn't compromise. You stepped on a landmine, old man. And right now, you're the only one who doesn't hear the clicking under your foot."*
A second chair scraped back.
Through the van’s front windshield, I watched the club’s tall mahogany doors swing open. The commissioner and the former senator walked out quickly, heads down, ignoring Vernon who stood in the illuminated foyer, shouting obscenities into the night air.
"He's completely isolated now," Nicole observed from the passenger seat. "Which means he’s about to make his final mistake."
"He already made it," I said, putting the van in gear. "He's calling Ray Briggs."
Nicole looked over at me, her brow furrowing slightly. "Who is Ray Briggs?"
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"The guy Vernon uses when the law isn't dirty enough," I said. "And he's heading for my shop."
***
