Page 9 of Building What's Meant to Be

My chuckle dies when I think about Harold Jerrold Pumanowksi. Earlier at the house in Malibu, my focus was on criminal activity and an inept fame and fortune seeker. With a shake of my head, I answer Harrison’s question about having seen Tinsley Humber. “I saw sequins. That’s all.”

“Yeah, I bet. She had on some kind of nightclub outfit that would make my granny scold her six ways from Sunday. Apparently, Rickson and the guys woke her up from a dead sleep. My money is on her being innocent, but I understand why you might want to pursue your investigation.” He clears his throat suggestively.

I have a strict rule of never, under any circumstances, getting involved with a suspect, asset, or anyone remotely involved in an investigation. Officially, she’s cleared, but I want to hear her story myself. I’m closest to this case since it connects back to Gatlin Stoll and Georgia, so I want to make sure we’re not missing anything.

I absent-mindedly leaf through a few files, going over the conversation to cement it in my memory. Bubbly voice. Awake during the fourth watch unless she’s on the east coast. Could be. Even there, it’s early for a girl who frequents nightclubs. Then again, perhaps she never went to sleep and is at an afterparty. But I didn’t hear any noise in the background.

“Since that call wasn’t successful, what next?” Harrison asks.

“Depends on how you define success.”

“Getting the answers you were looking for,” he says.

“Sometimes what the person doesn’t say gives you more insight than what they do say. And it’s always a matter of asking the right questions.”

“That’s wise. You surprise me, Fuller. You have a reputation for being a maverick, a ladies’ man. James Bond with southern swagger.” He laughs.

I would chuckle too if it weren’t true.

At work, I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a renegade. I’ve been told that I have a pigheaded thirst for justice even when it means taking risks that others aren’t willing or dumb enough to take. I call it courage. I’m not quite a loose cannon but on my way there. The fuse is lit, it’s just a matter of whether I’ll stay with theagency long enough for it to reach the gunpowder in the ignition chamber—my grandfather was big into Civil War reenactments, so I know all about cannons.

Truth is, I don’t like bad guys. While most people would agree, I do something about it.

But my family doesn’t know that. Around them, I’m the big cat, the fat cat, jetting around the world thanks to what my sister Mae calls my “fancy” job in finance. I have a hunch Bess thinks I’m a felon. My crime? Leaving broken hearts in my wake.

The finance part is not entirely a lie as I deal in money, most of it illegally obtained and transferred. Not to my account, but among and between the criminals I intend to bring to justice. As for being a felon, Bess isn’t entirely wrong.

I’ve never told a woman I loved them because that would’ve been a lie. I’m never in one place long enough for a relationship to develop beyondlike. Can’t stick around that long. Too risky on multiple levels.

But who is the real me? I’ve been playing multiple roles for so long that sometimes I’ve lost track, but nothing grounds me back to reality like being in my hometown. For better or worse, my current case happens to be in Butterbury, Georgia and I cannot wait to get back.

“You asked where to,” I say, once again picking up on the question Harrison asked. The thing about me is I never lose a thread, even if it takes me a moment to tug on it and see where it leads.

In this case, home. The more I think about it, the more I hope this is my last case. In any event, I’ll soon have a house waiting for me in Butterbury. The builders promised to have the bathrooms done by the end of the week—the last update I got, the contractor was waiting on the tiles and tubs.

Like a brick sliding into place, I realize something. The thread I most recently needed to pull looks more like a whisker. Not that I’d ever pull a cat’s whisker.

I’ll admit that my relationship with Butterbury’s mayor got a little twisted. I set myself up as his enemy before realizing that I’d catch more flies with honey, so I made up a story about how I’m jealous of his success and really greased his ego. Wanted to see how the big dogs did things.

The guy lapped it up, so here I am, now my target’s right-hand man. Or left, since I’m left-hand dominant. I let out a long breath as I think about something important that I overlooked. Something furry.

“We’ve got Gatlin Stoll and his associates at Hydro-pro—a scammy for-profit outfit, under the guise of an environmental and community-first company which was initially why I was brought in to investigate. Despite the hydro name, they bleed counties dry,” I say, starting to think out loud.

“Yeah, the guys got a laugh when they heard you were being sent to some Podunk Georgia town.”

“Podunk, Georgia happens to be my hometown. Or my adopted one. My grandparents had a farmstead in Butterbury. Spent the best years of my childhood and young adulthood there. My sisters and I inherited it. Mae, my youngest sister, is on that show Designed to Last—”

“Oh, my wife loves those ladybosses. I do not—no offense to your sister. Every weekend, Michelle wants to go to the home improvement store and work on one project or another. Can’t a man watch a ballgame anymore? No, she’s got me looking at grout. Do you have any idea how many shades there are for grout? And how after a while they all look the same?”

That reminds me, I have to finalize the grout colors too. “If it’s your own home, I say that’s a worthy cause. Anyway, I have a history in Butterbury.” A future too, I hope.

“Careful. Don’t get too close. Don’t take it too personally.” Harrison pours us each a cup of coffee in a paper cup. He spins some cream into his while I drink mine black.

Thanking him with a nod, I take a sip, not caring if it burns my tongue. Anything to stay awake. “It’s always personal.”

Harrison chuckles. “You terrify me sometimes, Fuller. Anyway, from what I’ve gathered, you have enough dirt on Stoll to put him away for the rest of his life.”

“Stacks of crimes. Heaps.” I tell him about the alliance with Hydro-pro which is a shell corporation. There were also the fabricated taxes levied against his constituents, falsification of clerical documents, and the list goes on, which I give in great detail as the sky begins to lighten ever so slightly from the east. “Not to mention he has a tab at the local diner a mile long.”

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