Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(109)

He stared at me, his expression still bland. “How’s that tea coming along?”

My peer became a squint. That was him avoiding my question.

Luckily, Sienna chimed in, saving me from my rising hackles. “Like I told you, Cletus knows things.”

Hmm.

The teapot whistled at that moment and I walked to it, removing it from the heat. As I retrieved a mug from the cupboard along with the Earl Grey tea bag, I steeped in Cletus’s claims. It was terrible if true, but it certainly explained everything about Hank’s treatment by the locals. The Buckleys made their money on the fa?ade of ‘family values,’ no small task for a patriarch who’d been divorced more times than Henry the VIII.

“Does Hank know?” I asked, setting Cletus’s tea down in front of him. “Does he know he was targeted?”

Cletus turned the handle of the mug until it pointed to his left. “I’m not Hank’s confidant. That’d be Beau,” he said lightly, eyes on the steam rising from the cup.

Sienna’s gaze seemed to harden. “Cletus, did you ever tell Hank that the Buckleys targeted him?”

“No,” he answered flatly, picking up his mug.

She set her hands on her hips. “Why not? You should’ve told him. Then he could’ve fought back.”

Without taking a sip, the big man returned the mug to the counter and his gaze to his sister-in-law. “First of all, I am merely a repository of information. I’m not a gossip, nor am I everybody’s savior. Second, Hank Weller is a grown man and none of my business.”

“You know things about him that he might not know!” Sienna poked his bulky shoulder with her finger. “You did nothing to help him.”

He caught her hand before she could poke him again. “Dearest sister, am I expected to help everyone I know something about? Then when would I work on cars and make that sausage you love so much? Besides, I don’t like how he treats Jackson James.” Cletus released her finger and sniffed indignantly. “Perchance if Hank learned how to be nicer to Jackson, I’d be nicer to him.”

Hank isn’t nice to Jackson?

Hank’s story about running into Jackson at the hardware store yesterday resurfaced in my consciousness. Hank hadn’t been mean to Jackson, had he? They seemed to get along fine at the car wash all those weeks ago. How would Cletus know if Hank and Jackson got along or not? But it’s not like I’d seen them—

Wait.

Wait a darn minute.

A sudden suspicion had me asking, “What else do you know about Hank?”

“I know he’s coming over to the shop tomorrow morning to pick up a loaner car.” He shrugged, eyeing his tea. “Probably wants something folks don’t associate with him. Seems he has a desire to travel around town incognito.”

Hank will be at the Winston Brothers auto shop tomorrow? That was good to know. Without my phone, I had no way to reach him other than email.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. “That’s very helpful. So, what do you know about me, Cletus?”

Cletus’s eyes lifted to mine, held, but he said nothing, his expression vacant again. But this time, his passiveness looked like a mask.

“Let me rephrase that.” I leaned both hands on the countertop. “What do you know about me, and Kevin, and the Buckleys, and my divorce, that would help me push those people out of my life and my kids’ lives forever?”

He rubbed at his beard. “Can’t say that I have—”

“Cletus,” Sienna cut in, her tone edged with impatience. “If you give Charlotte all the information she needs, I would be very grateful.”

“Would you?” he asked, and the two stared at each other. The two stared at each other for a long, long, long time.

Finally, Sienna sighed, all good humor fleeing her features. “Fine. If you help Charlotte and give her everything she wants to know about the Buckleys, I’ll encourage Jethro to work on that project with you.” She opened her eyes wide, her look clearly meant to convey a world of meaning. “You know, the one he keeps putting off? I will do my best to convince him.”

Cletus blinked. The vacant expression fell away, and the side of his mouth twitched before slowly curving into a somewhat sinister-looking smile. “Was that so hard, Sienna? Aren’t things so much nicer when we help each other? I knew you’d eventually see things my way.”

She chuckled. “I love you, but you’re a jerk and a bully,” she said, her expression a mixture of rueful, reluctant amusement.

“I accept that.” Tone unconcerned, like she’d called him tall instead of a jerk and a bully, he pointed his startlingly and suddenly intelligent gaze at me. “Now, let’s see. The Buckleys.”

I swallowed convulsively, nervous for some reason. “That’s right.”

Cletus’s eyes narrowed, sharp as a blade. “Do you want to put them in jail? Or just, you know, frighten them a little?”





CHAPTER 29





HANK





“Anybody who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex (the ugly ones included).”

KARL MARX, KARL MARX–FRIEDRICH ENGELS: SELECTED LETTERS, THE PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE, 1844–1877