Page 88 of Brother In Arms

A sheriff’s cruiser was coming along the driveway, the last piece we needed to finish this sorry song and dance. It appeared it was the man himself by all the bars and trappings on his uniform and it’d be very telling who he went to first. I watched him get out of his car and walk up to Bailey’s mother and shake her hand exchanging some words. He got to me last but we didn’t even bother shaking hands, just exchanging a nod instead.

“My god,” he said, turning and letting his gaze roam the burned out husk that’d been Bailey’s home. “Fire Marshall’s preliminary report says its arson. Which is consistent with your accounts of what happened. Tell me more about this mess with the Giangiulio Development Group.”

“I will let my son tell you,” Trudy said and her eyes sparked fire. We all stood around while Philip spun some sort of fuckin’ fairy tale about how he had no idea what Giangiulio was planning and how he was totally innocent or some shit. One of the lawyers that Trudy brought with her opened up an expensive looking folio and walked forward, wordlessly handing the sheriff a single sheet of paper.

“The findings by our private investigator disagrees with Mr. Berling’s account of the events leading up to this tragic loss of Ms. Berling’s home,” he said and the sheriff looked up from the paper and raised an eyebrow at the lawyer.

“You can save that kind of talk for the courtroom, mister. This is enough for me and enough to make an arrest. Mr. Berling, turn around.”

The insurance adjuster was furiously scratching notes on his clipboard and almost none of us had even noticed when he’d drifted up.

“Mother, are you seriously going to let him arrest me!?” Philip cried, incredulously.

“It is a lesson you should have learned when you were sixteen,” she said coldly. “Your father isn’t here to protect you from the consequences of your actions anymore, Philip. I, for one, am not willing to sacrifice one of my children over the other. You nearly got your own sister killed and for what? A piece of property that wasn’t even yours to begin with…”

“I own one-third of this place!” he screamed, lunging at his mother and that’s when Bailey snapped. She rounded, and kicked up, hoofing her brother right between the legs. Poor fucker was already handcuffed so he couldn’t even defend himself. He dropped like a fuckin’ stone and the sheriff had the good sense to let him drop.

Bailey looked the law man right in the eye and said, “Arrest me if you have to.” Meanwhile Philip’s civil attorney was screaming about suing her, I stood up off the bike and turned in the suit’s direction and he shut his mouth.

The sheriff nodded and looked back at the house and I could see what he was thinkin’. He shook his head and said, “I think you earned that one free and clear, miss.”

Jaws dropped and Bailey nodded, the sheriff looked at me and said, “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about what happened one county over yesterday, would you?”

“Wouldn’t know, sir. I left here and went straight back to my club with my girl. We were both mighty shook up. What happened?” I feigned innocence and Bailey came over and wrapped her arms around one of mine, hugging it.

“Seems some biker types went and roughed up the very same Giangiulio wrapped up in this. Hurt him pretty bad, and put him in the hospital with some broken ribs.”

“That’s a shame,” Bailey said without much feeling. “But it’s like he says, he was with me in his room at the club yesterday. We stayed in all day. He was trying to help me cope with…” she turned her attention back to her house and the sheriff gave a nod.

“Any rate, it’s out of my jurisdiction, I figure that the Sheriff’s department or the big city cops will come a knockin’ at some point.”

Well I’ll be a son of a bitch, I do believe we were just warned that the boys in blue most definitely would be coming by.I gave a nod and said, “They’ve gotta do their jobs and we ain’t got nothin’ to hide. We’re a law abiding club after all.”

“Uh-huh, firmly in the 99 then I take it?”

I grinned, “You can count on it.”

“Come on, boy. Let’s go.” The sheriff hauled Philip to his feet and walked him to his cruiser. Philip didn’t have much to say, which was probably a good thing. Bailey shot me a worried look, but this wasn’t over yet. Still, it was up to the lawyers and insurance company for the remainder of the visit. We just had to stand around and listen while they fought it out.

By the end we were mind weary and, of course, nothing was really resolved. The insurance adjuster left, Trudy had some choice words for Caleb and then he and his attorneys left, and Philip’s attorney took one look at the whole goddamned mess and shook his head.

“I will advise my client to retain other council, you can expect to hear from them,” he said then he left until it was just me, Bailey, and her mom.

“Well, that was thrilling,” Bailey said and rubbed her forehead.

Trudy sighed and took her daughter’s hands and it looked like she was about to tell Bailey someone had died. Aw, fuck… I took a deep breath and held it and waited her mother out.

It was pretty much as bad as I thought it was going to be. Bailey had enough money in her accounts to be set for finding a modest place to buy or rent, but the shit with the insurance company could drag out for a couple of years and what Bailey and her mom didn’t have was enough to rebuild this place in the meantime.

The farm might survive, all of its actual facilities intact, however, while the garbage went on with Caleb all of the farm’s assets were in trust and pretty much frozen there. So there was money to rebuild but none that could be touched while the investigation happened into whether or not Caleb was fit to remain trustee.

Bailey looked crushed as she looked back over her farm and realized the writing was on the wall. She hadn’t lost, and Giangiulio hadn’t won, but what was clear was neither fuckin’ one of them was going to get out on top. She’d pretty much lost this place. It could continue to run with a government trustee but no one was going to want to board their animals here with what had just went down. Not with any kind of threat coming anywhere near their precious investments.

Bailey’s shoulders dropped and she hung her head. She shook it finally and looked up with tears streaming down her face.

“I think I’d like to go for a ride,” she said.

“I think I can help you with that. Come on.” We left, and took a long ride. I took her back to the meadow by the river where we could just be for a minute and talk. Maybe come up with some new dreams or find a will to fight.

God, I hoped it was the latter, and Giangiulio? If Bailey wasn’t coming out of this with her dream intact, neither was he. I had plans for that guy.

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