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luzulaFinally, the Midsummer exchange reveal! Yay, I did it! I've only written two short WW snippets before, so I did feel that it was a challenge to write something this long for it. I don't think I could've done it without andeincascade and exeterlinden--they were both such a help with brainstorming, beta-reading and general support. The fic is posted at the AO3; I'm re-posting here for archiving redundancy.
And now off to read my gift story, which is for Getting Married In Buffalo Jump, yay!
Title: One Defends and the Other Conquers
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Characters: Mostly Buddy gen, but also Buddy/Carol, and Duck is in there, too.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 6,400 words
Summary: The sight of Stan uncovering those ridiculous needles all in a row, so obviously planted, made it all come together in Buddy's mind.
Notes: Written forsage in the 2012 Midsummer exchange.
The sight of Stan uncovering those ridiculous needles all in a row, so obviously planted, made it all come together in Buddy's mind. He was no Sherlock Holmes and never had been, but he'd had a bad feeling about the Watch scandal and not just for the obvious reason that it would be an unnecessary tragedy for the men who were exposed. The whole thing was fishy. But he hadn't really had anything to hang that feeling on, no reason for it all. Who would profit? Except for the bigots, of course--he could just see Irene, avidly latching onto the gossip.
But now it was all beginning to make sense. He didn't know it all yet, but damn it, he would soon. First of all: Stan Lastman was Mayor Fisher's wife's brother. Buddy always knew he was squarely in Brent Fisher's pocket, and Buddy had no doubt that was one of the reasons why Stan had been promoted a few years ago despite not being the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Second: someone (and the someone was obviously Brent Fisher) wanted the Watch discredited. Why? Brent Fisher did not particularly care about cracking down on vice. Not that he approved of gay people, far from it, but he acted in his own interest. Which meant power, or money. He was already Mayor. How would you make money from this?
Buddy looked around at the Watch. He'd grown up playing in these woods, climbing trees, skinning his knees on the rocks, making bows and arrows out of saplings and trying to hunt rabbits with them. It was the last undeveloped piece of coast on the island. And he would sure as hell rather share it with some gay people looking for company than with whatever Brent Fisher had got planned for it.
***
Growing up, Buddy French had a pretty good life. The Frenches had been islanders as long as there had been islanders; had, in fact, been the first islanders. Adam French, Buddy's father, had been the mayor of Wilby for ten years.
Back in school, Buddy had been popular in a sort of default way. He was a French, and he was good-looking, and he was good at sports. But Buddy didn't bask in the attention. Not out of modesty--he just had no inclination to climb the social ladder. He got along well with most people, but was often inclined to avoid the more raucous teenage parties.
He remembered one such party down on the beach, in summer when the days were long and the nights slow to come, with the sun setting in over the mainland and casting long red slanting rays over the sea and the sand.
Ted Hansen had dragged him along, said he had to be there. Someone had lit a driftwood fire, and people were sitting in groups near it, passing around a few bottles that Ted had probably mooched from his older brother, who got it on his trips to the mainland. Buddy took a burning mouthful when a bottle was passed to him, but just the one. Instead, he lit a cigarette from the fire and sat there staring into the flames. Fragments of conversations went on around him, sometimes directed at him.
"Hey, did you see Lastman's face when I--"
"Oh my God, you and Evan? Really?"
"Well, I don't give a shit about algebra. Like I care about--"
Buddy nodded, smiled when the conversation demanded it, but his heart wasn't really in it. He was thinking about what he'd seen today, a different conversation he'd overheard, one that was eating away at him.
After a while, Buddy got up, walked along the beach away from the fire. The voices faded behind him. Instead, there was the cry of a gull settling down on a rock. He idly kicked at a pile of seaweed on the beach, and the pungent salty smell of it rose, along with a cloud of those little seaweed flies. The sun had just set, and the sky over the mainland was still rosy red.
Buddy stood there, staring out over the water. He lit another cigarette, puffing at it thoughtfully. His mom didn't like him to smoke, but Buddy liked the way it settled his mind.
There was another boy sitting on a rock a little further along the beach. Buddy gave a little start when he saw him--it was like the subject of his own sore conscience had materialized.
He walked a little closer. It was Duck MacDonald, a short skinny blond kid a year under Buddy. Duck got up as if to leave.
"No, wait," Buddy said.
Duck hesitated.
"Want a smoke?" Buddy asked.
"Yeah, okay." He took a cigarette from Buddy's outstretched pack and lit it, his hand sheltering the flame from the wind.
Duck still looked like he was on the verge of leaving, so Buddy blurted out, "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"Yesterday. I saw those guys--" those guys who were now at the beach party "--with you. In the bathroom."
"Yeah, so? You didn't do anything."
"Well, that's the point. I didn't do anything. I just let them do it." Buddy thought he could see faint bruises on Duck's arm, although maybe he was just imagining it.
Duck shrugged. Buddy saw the tip of his cigarette glow as he drew in smoke, but his face was shadowed. Dusk was falling, and the stars were coming out.
"Next time I'm going to do something," Buddy muttered.
Duck didn't say anything.
In the dim light, Buddy had the courage to ask, "So is it true?"
"What?"
"What they said about you. That you're--"
Duck shrugged again, as if to say that it didn't much matter. Which it might not, when it came to being ducked in toilets by the bullies of grade eleven.
"Want another?" Buddy said, holding out the cigarettes again.
Duck shook his head. "I better leave."
"All right."
Duck made as if to walk away, but then he turned. His chin rose, and he met Buddy's eyes squarely for the first time in their conversation. "Yeah. It's true."
Proving, as if Buddy needed another proof, that the short skinny Duck MacDonald was braver than Buddy had ever been.
Duck left, and Buddy sat there in the dark, staring out over the water at the lights on the mainland. He could hear, very faintly, the sounds of the party on the beach that he had left.
***
Buddy did do something, the next time. In hindsight, he wasn't sure it actually helped Duck that much, but it was something, at least.
"Hey. What are you doing?" he asked Hal, who was looming over Duck along with one of his hangers-on, having backed him into a corner among the lockers.
Hal turned a disbelieving look on Buddy. "What's it to you?"
"I don't like bullies."
Duck took the opportunity to slip under Hal's arm and disappear.
Hal sneered. "Yeah? You think that fag is worth fighting for?"
"Yeah." Buddy squared his shoulders, readying himself for a fight. But Hal just spat at Buddy's feet and left, leaving Buddy with adrenaline and euphoria running through his veins. He took a deep breath, shaking out the jittery feeling.
It felt good. Which wasn't why he'd done it--he just wanted to help Duck. Or to salve his own guilty conscience?
He hoped Duck wouldn't just get beat up worse for it.
***
A year later, Duck had left Wilby without even finishing high school, and nobody knew where he'd gone, not even his drunkard of a father. Buddy himself graduated with fair, but not exceptional, grades, and not long after that, his father took down his bottle of expensive whiskey for one of those father-to-son talks that he favored.
"You're not old enough to drink yet, but we'll make an exception today, eh?" Adam French said, in his jovial way. "Drink up, now!"
Buddy did, the sharp and smoky taste making him choke a little.
"So, now that you've finished school. I suppose you'll be wanting to join the family business?"
Buddy took another sip to delay his answer. His father didn't mean politics, although he was the mayor of Wilby. Rather, he meant the Wilby Hotel, which he owned together with his brother.
Buddy took a deep breath. He wasn't the rebellious type, but now that the time had come, he had to say it. "Actually, no, Dad."
"Oh?" His father frowned.
Buddy thought about Duck leaving Wilby, and why he had left, and how Buddy hadn't been able to do anything, not really. "I want to be a cop."
And that's how it was, because Buddy unearthed a previously unsuspected (by his parents, at least) stubborn streak, and neither his mother's pleading, nor his father's remonstrances that the Frenches had always been businessmen, could move him.
***
Buddy went to the police academy at Holland College on Prince Edward Island. He'd thought about going a bit farther afield, to see more of the country than the Maritime Provinces, but it was supposed to be a good school, so why not?
When he stood on the ferry with the sea wind in his hair, watching the choppy water of the sea widen between himself and Wilby Island, he almost turned back. He'd spent all his life on Wilby. He felt like he knew every rock and tree on that island, and all the people, too. And all right, they weren't all angels--far from it--but he knew them. And they knew him.
He didn't know what it would be like to live without that.
As it turned out, he did all right at the college. The surroundings weren't that different from Wilby, and Buddy had no problem making friends among his classmates. What's more, he was handsome and attracted a fair amount of women, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy that. He didn't form any more permanent attachments, though.
As for the police academy, Buddy found to his relief that it felt right, and that he hadn't defied his parents for nothing. It was hands-on work they were training for, trying to help people, and although the more theoretical courses were a bit of a drag--memorizing paragraphs of the Criminal Code wasn't his idea of a good time--that kind of thing was important, too, and part of the job.
When he was finished, he served for two years in Halifax, before a vacancy opened in Wilby's small police department, and he applied for and got the position. He had a creeping suspicion (more than a suspicion, if he was honest) that he'd been favored over other, more qualified applicants because he was an islander, and more, because he was a French. But he couldn't bring himself to question it for long--he was too happy to be back in Wilby.
His mother wanted him to move back into their house, and it was certainly big enough, but Buddy didn't want to. He wasn't a kid anymore. So he rented the second floor of old Mrs. Sally Kirkpatrick's house just off Shore Street. Her husband Mike had died while Buddy was off on the mainland, and as she said, she was glad to have a man in the house again. She always beamed at Buddy in his uniform every morning as he left for work, as if he was her grandson, and left him plates of ginger snaps on the stairs up to his apartment.
Buddy's parents welcomed him back into the fold, having grudgingly accepted his choice of career. His father had been defeated in the last election by Brent Fisher, whom Adam French regularly heaped abuse on during the Sunday family dinners. His mother caught him up on the latest gossip, and hinted not-so-delicately that he should settle down and give her some grandchildren soon. Marie Hansen, for instance, was still single and was from a solid islander family.
Buddy just nodded at this. It was easier than telling her that he didn't have the slightest intention of dating Marie Hansen, let alone marrying her. She was nice, he supposed, but he wasn't in love with her.
The work was different from what it'd been in Halifax, where he'd just been one constable among many. During the summer, Buddy spent a lot of time just being visible near the drinking establishments, to calm down the more rowdy of the summer tourists. A lot of things at the station weren't done the way he'd been taught at the Academy. The records were rather sloppy, for example. But when he asked about that, old Hines, who'd been chief of police in Wilby for as long as Buddy could remember, said that this was how things were done here and no upstart fresh from the Academy was going to teach him his job. So Buddy shut his mouth. Nobody loved paperwork, anyway, and maybe there wasn't much harm in it.
Buddy settled into a comfortable routine, getting a couple of drinks at the Loyalist on Fridays with friends he knew from high school. He made a point of avoiding Hal, which wasn't difficult, because Hal seemed to be avoiding him, too.
He also spent a lot of time fishing up by the Watch, pulling up mackerel and the occasional cod that he cooked for dinner, giving the ones he couldn't eat to Mrs Kirkpatrick. But it wasn't the fishing itself that was the point, or not wholly. It was the way the sea and the sky settled his mind, the smell of the salt and the seaweed, the sound of the wind and the seagulls crying. A couple of times when he was there late, he noticed a couple of men lounging around in the dusk, smoking cigarettes and glancing at each other.
Buddy was approached once, and with a bit of surprise he realized that he was being propositioned. He'd seen this sort of thing among the college students, and was a bit surprised at seeing it in Wilby. But he just shook his head and smiled. "Sorry."
To his mother's intense satisfaction (and Buddy's slight chagrin), he ended up dating Marie Hansen for a while. She was interested and showed it, and he was single, and had been for some time, and it was easy to say yes. They dated for half a year or so, until it petered out--she was obviously on the lookout for someone to start a family with. Which Buddy wasn't averse to, with the right person, but he just couldn't see it with Marie. There was just no...spark. It was boring. Not that Buddy himself was the kind to strike sparks, ordinarily--he usually had a fairly even keel--but maybe that's why he wanted it. Or maybe, as his mother said, he didn't know his own mind and couldn't recognize a perfectly good woman when he saw one.
***
Six years after Buddy came back to Wilby, Duck came back, too.
Buddy heard about it first from Mrs Kirkpatrick, who was quite the gossip.
"So, have you heard that the MacDonald boy is back?" she said, fussing with the rose bushes around her front door.
"Who, Duck?" Buddy said, surprised.
"I don't know about that. I meant Walter--Thomas MacDonald's boy?"
"Yeah. We used to call him Duck in school."
Duck, when Buddy saw him, looked in some ways much like he had as a boy. Same blond unruly hair, same lanky body. But he was changed in other ways. He was taller, didn't hunch over when he walked the way he had as a kid, looked more solid and steady. It made Buddy feel that he himself hadn't changed at all despite his time at the police academy and in Halifax.
"Hi, Duck," Buddy called out.
"Hi," Duck replied.
"Uh, sorry. Want me to call you Walter now?"
"No, Duck is fine," he said.
"Want to go to the Loyalist some day, have a beer together?" Buddy said.
"Sure."
And they did, although Duck didn't have a beer. He had a soda.
"So--" Buddy paused. He'd been about to ask what Duck had been doing all that time off-island, but figured he'd let Duck volunteer that if he wanted. Instead, he asked, "--it's good to be back in Wilby, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess it's home after all." Duck paused, took a drink from his soda. It was like he guessed Buddy was wondering, because he said, "Spent some time on a fishing boat when I first left. That was all right. But I guess there's not much left of that now."
"No. Lots of people lost their jobs over that in Wilby, too." The collapse of the cod fishery had been pretty much the only thing people ever talked about for a while.
"So what have you been doing?"
"Well, I went to college. The police academy," Buddy said. "And then I came back." Buddy took a drink, the condensation beading on the glass in the early summer heat.
"Yeah, I figured," Duck said.
It was a slightly awkward conversation--they weren't really friends, and they didn't actually have much in common except that Buddy had ineffectually tried to help Duck against his bullies back in high school. That wasn't exactly a viable topic of conversation now. And he could feel the other people in the Loyalist, people they'd both gone to school with, or people who knew their parents, looking at them, probably listening to what they were saying, noting down the fact that Duck wasn't drinking beer. Well, let them look--Duck was an islander, too, and he belonged here as much as they did.
As they parted, he said, "Welcome back to Wilby," and Duck nodded. It was something, at least.
***
A couple of weeks later, he went on one of his usual walks down to the Watch to get some time to himself. Somewhat to his annoyance, there was someone already there at his ordinary spot on the rocky beach. He squinted against the sun, trying to make out what they were doing. When he got closer, he saw that it was a woman with dark hair, at an artist's easel.
"Oh," she said, jumping a little when a rock turned under his foot. "You nearly scared the life out of me."
"I'm sorry," Buddy said. "Didn't mean to."
"I thought I'd be all alone out here, you know? Not that I mind, go right ahead with your fishing," she said, waving her arm at his fishing rod. She looked like she had Korean ancestry, or Japanese, maybe. Her long black hair was fastened in a bun at the back of her head, with a paintbrush stuck through it, as if she'd started with it loose and then put it up to get it out of her way. The slight annoyance he'd felt at first, at not having the place to himself, had entirely gone.
He looked at her painting. "That's lovely," he said, feeling a bit inadequate--he wasn't exactly an art critic.
But she brightened. "Really? Thanks. I'm not--I mean, it's just a hobby."
"I like the sunlight on the sea." It sparkled, looked alive.
"I worked forever on that," she said, glancing down at a couple of other paintings spread out on the ground.
"You're not from around here, are you?" Buddy said, feeling stupid once he'd said it. Of course she wasn't from Wilby--he felt sure he would've noticed her before if she was.
"No, I'm from Toronto. I'm here on vacation. I was so stressed out over work--I really needed to wind down a bit." She smiled at him, and he couldn't help but smile back.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a realtor. There's so much competition in Toronto, you know? It's a challenge, and I do love a challenge, but it takes it out of you."
"I can imagine." Not that he could, really, but he wanted to understand her.
"Anyway, this is such a beautiful island." She looked out over the sea, towards the mainland.
"Yeah. Wilby's a great place," Buddy said, and meant it. He wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
"And the sea--it's such a great subject to paint. The light, it changes all the time. I bet I could paint it a hundred times and not get tired of it."
Buddy was smitten. He never did get any fishing done that evening, and she didn't get any more painting done, either--they kept talking, and didn't notice the time slip by.
When dusk began to fall, she shivered a little. "Oh, it's late. I should get going." She began to take her easel down.
"I forgot--what's your name?" Buddy asked, suddenly afraid that she'd just vanish and he'd never see her again.
"Carol." Her hair had started to work its way out of the bun, and Buddy found her slightly disheveled appearance very charming.
"I'm Buddy." He gathered his courage. "So, I was wondering--would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? Or maybe go out for a few drinks?"
She turned a brilliant smile on him. "I'd love to."
***
Carol was only there for two weeks, but that was enough. Buddy had never been swept away like that before, never fallen head-over-heels in love. The spark that was never there with Marie Hansen was there in spades with Carol. Her vivacity and quick conversation, her smile, her beautiful slender hands and long sleek hair--Buddy couldn't get enough of her.
They had dinner at the Loyalist, but only once, because Buddy felt everyone's eyes on them and couldn't quite relax. It wasn't really the place for a first date. After dinner, Buddy walked her to the Wilby Hotel, where she was staying, and they kissed goodnight under the streetlight by the front entrance, where the moths circled around and around, drawn to the light.
The night after that, they cooked together at Buddy's place, fresh-caught fish that he'd pulled up that day, and there was a slow sweet tumble into bed, the kind where they both knew it would happen all evening long, and each casual touch felt like a spark of desire.
They were lying in bed together, on the last night before she was leaving. Buddy tucked his nose into her neck, trying to memorize her smell. Carol sighed and shifted closer. He knew he wanted to ask, but it was hard--she was just here on a two-week vacation. Maybe it was just a summer fling to her, some fun before she went back to her big-city life.
"Carol," he said against her neck. "I...I don't want this to end here. Will you--come back?" He couldn't really ask her to stay--she had a career and a life of her own in Toronto--but the words slipped out anyway.
She rolled towards him, pressed her lips to his. "Oh, Buddy. Of course I'll come back. I want to."
And she did come back. She came back, and she stayed, and they got married the next year in May, when the lilacs were just coming into bloom.
***
Buddy's mother was less than enthusiastic about the bride he'd found for himself--not only was she a mainlander, but she was a "foreigner", as well. It didn't help that Buddy told her that Carol had been born and lived her whole life in Canada. But, she told him, at least he'd settled down and had a wife now, and hopefully she would have grandchildren sometime soon.
Carol handled Buddy's mother with a sort of smooth social charm that gave Buddy an inkling of what she must be like with customers. He could tell that they still didn't actually like each other, but at least they were civil. She got along better with Buddy's father--he liked that he could talk with her about the hotel.
Buddy worried about how Carol would settle down in Wilby after being used to Toronto. She said she liked the peace and quiet, but he wondered if she was the sort of person who would be content with peace and quiet in the long run. Well, there were plenty of things to do in Wilby, too.
Carol sold her Toronto apartment, and soon after she joined Buddy in Wilby, they bought a house and moved out of the second story of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's place. Carol handled all the practical details, and got the furniture and curtains and all the other things a house needed. Buddy was carried along with her in the whirlwind bustle. Living alone, he'd never felt he needed more in the kitchen than a couple of pots and pans, some unmatched plates and cutlery and glasses. But Carol got them matching sets of tableware, and all sort of things he'd never even thought about, and even completely remodeled the kitchen and living room. Buddy's mother sniffed about newfangled tastes when she saw it.
On Sundays, they usually went out to the Watch. Carol would paint, and Buddy would fish for their dinner.
"I'm thinking of starting up a real estate business," Carol said one night over Sunday dinner. "Wilby doesn't really have one, and I think there's a market for it. What do you think?"
"I don't know anything about real estate," Buddy said. "But I think you should go ahead, if you think it's a good idea. I mean, I don't want you to be just my housewife or anything. You know that. I want you to be happy."
Carol smiled at him, quick and bright. "Oh, Buddy. I am happy."
***
Carol started up her real estate business. In the beginning, it was hard work--and in fact, she never really did stop working hard. Privately, Buddy thought she was overdoing it. He cared about his job and wanted to do it well, but he put in his hours and then he went home. Carol, on the other hand, seemed to work from morning to night building up her business. Maybe that was how they did it in Toronto.
She came home late one Friday evening in February, the raw cold wind chasing her in the door until she shut it behind her. Buddy was waiting at the kitchen table. He'd made dinner, but it was cold now.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, shaking the slushy snow off her coat. She sat down on a chair with a sigh. "Long day."
"Do you really need to work that hard?" Buddy said.
She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"You come home late so often."
Carol sat down on a chair, rubbed at her temple. "Not now, all right? I had a hard day."
"Sorry. Just--maybe if you took it easy sometimes you wouldn't have those kinds of days."
"What do you know about it? You're from Wilby. I'm a mainlander, remember? I have to work just to get people to give me the time of day." Her voice rose while she said the last part.
"Hey, Carol, calm down. Is it really that bad?"
She glared at him, and too late he realized he shouldn't have told her to calm down. Buddy hated quarreling, and he wasn't any good at it. He raised his arms in surrender, and turned to the stove to heat up the lasagna again. Dinner was quiet.
But in bed that night, she turned to him with a sigh. "It's not your fault I had a bad day. Sorry I took it out on you."
"It's fine," Buddy said, and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sorry work is hard for you. I didn't realize."
"I just--I want us to be something, you know? To make a place for ourselves here."
Don't we already have a place? Buddy wondered. But he didn't say anything.
***
Meanwhile, Buddy was having some problems of his own at work. Jack Burnett, for example. One of Buddy's old high school teachers had come to him with concerns about Jack, and besides, he was related to the Frenches by marriage (Buddy's uncle's wife was his aunt). So Buddy had already heard about Jack running wild from his mother, who thought Buddy should do something to fix it. Jack's parents were divorced--he was living with his mother, and he suspected his father hadn't exactly been a good role model.
Yes, well, easier said than done. As far as Buddy could see, Jack hadn't actually done much against the law (that could be proven, anyway). So Buddy tried to have a serious talk with the boy, tell him that if he stayed out of trouble, stuck it out in school, it would be worth it in the end. But Jack wasn't in a mood to listen.
It was silly, but when he'd first gone off to the Academy, Buddy had had the idea that he'd be able to fix things as a cop. But of course it was nothing like that. It was all shades of gray, and even when you meant well, there was so often nothing you could do.
Well, at least he could write parking tickets and handle drunken tourists.
***
Buddy's father died of a heart attack when Buddy was thirty-three. Adam French was only sixty-eight, but his steadily-increasing girth had had Buddy's mother sighing and shaking her head for some time.
Buddy attended the funeral in his dress uniform with Carol at his side, watching his mother cry and listening to speech after speech about what a pillar of the community his father had been. He didn't quite know how to handle it, and although he didn't cry, he felt a bit empty. He hadn't been close to his father, but at least he'd always been there, jovial and loud-voiced and larger-than-life.
Buddy couldn't quite handle the crowd of people wanting to offer him condolences, so he fled around the corner of the house, in among the rhododendrons he'd used to crawl under as a kid. He was standing there, feeling confined by the collar of his dress uniform, when he heard it.
"...all these people, acting like he was some kind of saint." A man's voice. Buddy couldn't quite place it. Someone at the town office, maybe? There were so many people here.
"I know." A woman, sounding like she was rolling her eyes.
"I happen to know that he dipped into the town coffers when the hotel was going broke."
"I'm not surprised."
Buddy just stood there, listening helplessly, with the ineffectual barrier of the rhododendrons between him and them, whoever they were. He had a childish urge to put his hands over his ears. Too late for that. He wished to God it wasn't true, but with the idea once in his mind, he couldn't dismiss it. He had to find out, even though the thought made him feel sick to his stomach.
He asked his mother, late that afternoon when all the guests had left. Carol had left, too. She'd disagreed with his mom over--Buddy wasn't really sure what they'd disagreed over, actually. He'd left the room when they'd started raising their voices.
"Mom. I heard--is it true that Dad..." He didn't know how to say it. "...took money from the town, for the hotel?"
She looked tired, and he almost regretted asking. It wasn't really the time. Her face went guarded, and she sat down on a chair. "You know I didn't have much to do with the hotel. It was always your father and your uncle's business."
"But you must know something," Buddy pressed, unable to let it go. "Did he ever say anything to you about it?"
"He's dead, Buddy! Can't you let him lie in peace?" she flashed out. She stood up again, going over to the sink to begin scrubbing the pots. "Do I have to do everything myself?"
Which Buddy could decode well enough: it was unspoken criticism of Carol. Buddy sighed, and meekly went to fetch in the dishes from the garden. No use pressing his mother more.
***
But he couldn't let it go. Could he ask his uncle? No. He'd never get a straight answer.
In his frustration, he went fishing for information from Hines, the old chief of police. He'd been around forever and knew a lot of the workings of the town council, and if he could phrase things vaguely enough...
"I heard some rumors about...irregularities in the town finances, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago or so. Do you know anything about that?" Buddy asked carefully.
Hines beckoned him into his office and closed the door. He put a hand on Buddy's shoulder. "Look, son, you don't need to worry about that. Your father's passed away now, and even before...there's nothing left to prove anything."
With a queasy feeling in his stomach, Buddy realized that Hines thought he had known all about it and that he was worried that there might be evidence left. And Hines had known about it all along? What kind of incentive had he had to keep quiet? Had his father bribed him? The sloppy record-keeping in the station suddenly took on a whole new aspect.
Buddy swallowed. "Right, thanks," he said, and extricated himself from the situation as quickly as he could.
He wished he'd never overheard that conversation. And now he'd probably given Hines the impression that Buddy was a party to this. Damn it! Buddy clenched his fists in frustration.
He confided in Carol that evening when they'd gone to bed. He hadn't, before, because she'd been a bit distant--busy with work, as she always was--and he didn't know if he should just let her alone or not.
"Carol," he said into the darkness.
She stirred beside him. "Yes?"
"I heard something. At the funeral. And I can't stop thinking about it."
"What?"
"That my dad had...that he'd embezzled money from the town. For the hotel." It was somehow easier to say in the dark, although the shame still made his stomach clench.
"Is there proof of this? Or is it just hearsay?" Her voice was sharper now, more awake.
"No proof, exactly. But--I asked Hines, in a sort of roundabout way, and he said there was nothing to prove it. But he wouldn't have needed to say that if it wasn't true, would he? He--oh, God, I think he thought I already knew about it and wanted reassurance that there wasn't any evidence left."
"How long ago was it? If it happened, I mean."
"I don't know. Probably when my dad was mayor."
"That's years and years ago. What good would it do to go digging in it now?"
"It's not right," Buddy said stubbornly. "I can't believe my own father would--"
"You don't actually know that. There's no proof, right?" Carol said, sounding her most reasonable. "Just let it go."
Buddy lay silent. He played the scenario out in his mind: him digging into old town records, trying to find out more. Stating the suspicion openly. The gossip that would spread. His mother's humiliation. The likelihood that there wouldn't be any proof anyway. Brent Fisher's satisfaction. That last made him dig his fingernails into his palms. He was sure, with that gut feeling he sometimes got about cases, that Brent Fisher wasn't exactly squeaky-clean, either. And to let him watch Buddy's father's reputation dragged in the dirt, while Brent walked free...Buddy supposed he had some family feeling, after all.
He wasn't going do anything, he realized. It felt like defeat.
"All right," he said.
"Good," Carol mumbled, turning over into her accustomed sleeping position. "Just forget about it, okay? No use dwelling on it now."
But Buddy lay awake half the night, watching the blinking red digits of the bedside clock change from one a. m., to two, to three.
***
Jack Burnett's brother Sean came back from college, and Jack went back to school and seemed to get himself straightened out. From what Buddy heard, Sean was a good influence, and Jack looked up to him.
Some things got better, at least, even if he couldn't do anything about them.
As for the knowledge of his father's wrongdoing, it continued to eat away at him. It didn't help that Carol seemed determined to insinuate herself among just the sort of people he himself didn't like. Brent Fisher, certain people on the town council.
"Why?" he asked once, when she'd asked him to come along on a business lunch with Brent and his wife. "I don't like him."
"Oh, Buddy. Why not?" Carol sighed, sounding disappointed in him. It put Buddy's back up. He had a right to an opinion, didn't he?
"He's..." Buddy couldn't quite bring himself to say that he thought Brent might be dirty. If so, Carol would just bring up Adam French and say that Buddy shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. And then there was Brent's condescending manner, but that was too hard to put his finger on. "I just don't like him, all right?"
"Fine!" Carol threw her hands up. "I'll just do it myself, then. But I wish you'd think of our interests some time. It's not like it's just a social occasion. Don't you get that?"
What interests? Buddy liked living a quiet life. He liked going out for a beer with friends, or spending a lazy day out by the Watch. Come to think of it, Carol and he always used to spend Sunday afternoon out there together. He couldn't think of the last time they'd done that.
***
By the time the Watch scandal came along, Buddy had almost given up on their marriage. That Carol he'd first met, the one who'd smiled at him so brilliantly, with her hair pinned up with a paintbrush, didn't seem like the same woman he was married to now. He didn't think he'd changed. Or had he?
But seeing Stan's planted needles at the Watch, it was like Buddy woke up, and later that day, sitting beside Mackenzie Fisher and smoking on the back porch, he got the last pieces of the puzzle.
Here was something he could do, finally. Maybe he couldn't fix his marriage. Maybe he couldn't convict his father. But Buddy was going to save the Watch and quiet down that scandal. And he was going to get Brent Fisher.
andeincascade and exeterlinden--they were both such a help with brainstorming, beta-reading and general support. The fic is posted at the AO3; I'm re-posting here for archiving redundancy. And now off to read my gift story, which is for Getting Married In Buffalo Jump, yay!
Title: One Defends and the Other Conquers
Fandom: Wilby Wonderful
Characters: Mostly Buddy gen, but also Buddy/Carol, and Duck is in there, too.
Rating: PG-13
Length: 6,400 words
Summary: The sight of Stan uncovering those ridiculous needles all in a row, so obviously planted, made it all come together in Buddy's mind.
Notes: Written for
sage in the 2012 Midsummer exchange. The sight of Stan uncovering those ridiculous needles all in a row, so obviously planted, made it all come together in Buddy's mind. He was no Sherlock Holmes and never had been, but he'd had a bad feeling about the Watch scandal and not just for the obvious reason that it would be an unnecessary tragedy for the men who were exposed. The whole thing was fishy. But he hadn't really had anything to hang that feeling on, no reason for it all. Who would profit? Except for the bigots, of course--he could just see Irene, avidly latching onto the gossip.
But now it was all beginning to make sense. He didn't know it all yet, but damn it, he would soon. First of all: Stan Lastman was Mayor Fisher's wife's brother. Buddy always knew he was squarely in Brent Fisher's pocket, and Buddy had no doubt that was one of the reasons why Stan had been promoted a few years ago despite not being the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Second: someone (and the someone was obviously Brent Fisher) wanted the Watch discredited. Why? Brent Fisher did not particularly care about cracking down on vice. Not that he approved of gay people, far from it, but he acted in his own interest. Which meant power, or money. He was already Mayor. How would you make money from this?
Buddy looked around at the Watch. He'd grown up playing in these woods, climbing trees, skinning his knees on the rocks, making bows and arrows out of saplings and trying to hunt rabbits with them. It was the last undeveloped piece of coast on the island. And he would sure as hell rather share it with some gay people looking for company than with whatever Brent Fisher had got planned for it.
***
Growing up, Buddy French had a pretty good life. The Frenches had been islanders as long as there had been islanders; had, in fact, been the first islanders. Adam French, Buddy's father, had been the mayor of Wilby for ten years.
Back in school, Buddy had been popular in a sort of default way. He was a French, and he was good-looking, and he was good at sports. But Buddy didn't bask in the attention. Not out of modesty--he just had no inclination to climb the social ladder. He got along well with most people, but was often inclined to avoid the more raucous teenage parties.
He remembered one such party down on the beach, in summer when the days were long and the nights slow to come, with the sun setting in over the mainland and casting long red slanting rays over the sea and the sand.
Ted Hansen had dragged him along, said he had to be there. Someone had lit a driftwood fire, and people were sitting in groups near it, passing around a few bottles that Ted had probably mooched from his older brother, who got it on his trips to the mainland. Buddy took a burning mouthful when a bottle was passed to him, but just the one. Instead, he lit a cigarette from the fire and sat there staring into the flames. Fragments of conversations went on around him, sometimes directed at him.
"Hey, did you see Lastman's face when I--"
"Oh my God, you and Evan? Really?"
"Well, I don't give a shit about algebra. Like I care about--"
Buddy nodded, smiled when the conversation demanded it, but his heart wasn't really in it. He was thinking about what he'd seen today, a different conversation he'd overheard, one that was eating away at him.
After a while, Buddy got up, walked along the beach away from the fire. The voices faded behind him. Instead, there was the cry of a gull settling down on a rock. He idly kicked at a pile of seaweed on the beach, and the pungent salty smell of it rose, along with a cloud of those little seaweed flies. The sun had just set, and the sky over the mainland was still rosy red.
Buddy stood there, staring out over the water. He lit another cigarette, puffing at it thoughtfully. His mom didn't like him to smoke, but Buddy liked the way it settled his mind.
There was another boy sitting on a rock a little further along the beach. Buddy gave a little start when he saw him--it was like the subject of his own sore conscience had materialized.
He walked a little closer. It was Duck MacDonald, a short skinny blond kid a year under Buddy. Duck got up as if to leave.
"No, wait," Buddy said.
Duck hesitated.
"Want a smoke?" Buddy asked.
"Yeah, okay." He took a cigarette from Buddy's outstretched pack and lit it, his hand sheltering the flame from the wind.
Duck still looked like he was on the verge of leaving, so Buddy blurted out, "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"Yesterday. I saw those guys--" those guys who were now at the beach party "--with you. In the bathroom."
"Yeah, so? You didn't do anything."
"Well, that's the point. I didn't do anything. I just let them do it." Buddy thought he could see faint bruises on Duck's arm, although maybe he was just imagining it.
Duck shrugged. Buddy saw the tip of his cigarette glow as he drew in smoke, but his face was shadowed. Dusk was falling, and the stars were coming out.
"Next time I'm going to do something," Buddy muttered.
Duck didn't say anything.
In the dim light, Buddy had the courage to ask, "So is it true?"
"What?"
"What they said about you. That you're--"
Duck shrugged again, as if to say that it didn't much matter. Which it might not, when it came to being ducked in toilets by the bullies of grade eleven.
"Want another?" Buddy said, holding out the cigarettes again.
Duck shook his head. "I better leave."
"All right."
Duck made as if to walk away, but then he turned. His chin rose, and he met Buddy's eyes squarely for the first time in their conversation. "Yeah. It's true."
Proving, as if Buddy needed another proof, that the short skinny Duck MacDonald was braver than Buddy had ever been.
Duck left, and Buddy sat there in the dark, staring out over the water at the lights on the mainland. He could hear, very faintly, the sounds of the party on the beach that he had left.
***
Buddy did do something, the next time. In hindsight, he wasn't sure it actually helped Duck that much, but it was something, at least.
"Hey. What are you doing?" he asked Hal, who was looming over Duck along with one of his hangers-on, having backed him into a corner among the lockers.
Hal turned a disbelieving look on Buddy. "What's it to you?"
"I don't like bullies."
Duck took the opportunity to slip under Hal's arm and disappear.
Hal sneered. "Yeah? You think that fag is worth fighting for?"
"Yeah." Buddy squared his shoulders, readying himself for a fight. But Hal just spat at Buddy's feet and left, leaving Buddy with adrenaline and euphoria running through his veins. He took a deep breath, shaking out the jittery feeling.
It felt good. Which wasn't why he'd done it--he just wanted to help Duck. Or to salve his own guilty conscience?
He hoped Duck wouldn't just get beat up worse for it.
***
A year later, Duck had left Wilby without even finishing high school, and nobody knew where he'd gone, not even his drunkard of a father. Buddy himself graduated with fair, but not exceptional, grades, and not long after that, his father took down his bottle of expensive whiskey for one of those father-to-son talks that he favored.
"You're not old enough to drink yet, but we'll make an exception today, eh?" Adam French said, in his jovial way. "Drink up, now!"
Buddy did, the sharp and smoky taste making him choke a little.
"So, now that you've finished school. I suppose you'll be wanting to join the family business?"
Buddy took another sip to delay his answer. His father didn't mean politics, although he was the mayor of Wilby. Rather, he meant the Wilby Hotel, which he owned together with his brother.
Buddy took a deep breath. He wasn't the rebellious type, but now that the time had come, he had to say it. "Actually, no, Dad."
"Oh?" His father frowned.
Buddy thought about Duck leaving Wilby, and why he had left, and how Buddy hadn't been able to do anything, not really. "I want to be a cop."
And that's how it was, because Buddy unearthed a previously unsuspected (by his parents, at least) stubborn streak, and neither his mother's pleading, nor his father's remonstrances that the Frenches had always been businessmen, could move him.
***
Buddy went to the police academy at Holland College on Prince Edward Island. He'd thought about going a bit farther afield, to see more of the country than the Maritime Provinces, but it was supposed to be a good school, so why not?
When he stood on the ferry with the sea wind in his hair, watching the choppy water of the sea widen between himself and Wilby Island, he almost turned back. He'd spent all his life on Wilby. He felt like he knew every rock and tree on that island, and all the people, too. And all right, they weren't all angels--far from it--but he knew them. And they knew him.
He didn't know what it would be like to live without that.
As it turned out, he did all right at the college. The surroundings weren't that different from Wilby, and Buddy had no problem making friends among his classmates. What's more, he was handsome and attracted a fair amount of women, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy that. He didn't form any more permanent attachments, though.
As for the police academy, Buddy found to his relief that it felt right, and that he hadn't defied his parents for nothing. It was hands-on work they were training for, trying to help people, and although the more theoretical courses were a bit of a drag--memorizing paragraphs of the Criminal Code wasn't his idea of a good time--that kind of thing was important, too, and part of the job.
When he was finished, he served for two years in Halifax, before a vacancy opened in Wilby's small police department, and he applied for and got the position. He had a creeping suspicion (more than a suspicion, if he was honest) that he'd been favored over other, more qualified applicants because he was an islander, and more, because he was a French. But he couldn't bring himself to question it for long--he was too happy to be back in Wilby.
His mother wanted him to move back into their house, and it was certainly big enough, but Buddy didn't want to. He wasn't a kid anymore. So he rented the second floor of old Mrs. Sally Kirkpatrick's house just off Shore Street. Her husband Mike had died while Buddy was off on the mainland, and as she said, she was glad to have a man in the house again. She always beamed at Buddy in his uniform every morning as he left for work, as if he was her grandson, and left him plates of ginger snaps on the stairs up to his apartment.
Buddy's parents welcomed him back into the fold, having grudgingly accepted his choice of career. His father had been defeated in the last election by Brent Fisher, whom Adam French regularly heaped abuse on during the Sunday family dinners. His mother caught him up on the latest gossip, and hinted not-so-delicately that he should settle down and give her some grandchildren soon. Marie Hansen, for instance, was still single and was from a solid islander family.
Buddy just nodded at this. It was easier than telling her that he didn't have the slightest intention of dating Marie Hansen, let alone marrying her. She was nice, he supposed, but he wasn't in love with her.
The work was different from what it'd been in Halifax, where he'd just been one constable among many. During the summer, Buddy spent a lot of time just being visible near the drinking establishments, to calm down the more rowdy of the summer tourists. A lot of things at the station weren't done the way he'd been taught at the Academy. The records were rather sloppy, for example. But when he asked about that, old Hines, who'd been chief of police in Wilby for as long as Buddy could remember, said that this was how things were done here and no upstart fresh from the Academy was going to teach him his job. So Buddy shut his mouth. Nobody loved paperwork, anyway, and maybe there wasn't much harm in it.
Buddy settled into a comfortable routine, getting a couple of drinks at the Loyalist on Fridays with friends he knew from high school. He made a point of avoiding Hal, which wasn't difficult, because Hal seemed to be avoiding him, too.
He also spent a lot of time fishing up by the Watch, pulling up mackerel and the occasional cod that he cooked for dinner, giving the ones he couldn't eat to Mrs Kirkpatrick. But it wasn't the fishing itself that was the point, or not wholly. It was the way the sea and the sky settled his mind, the smell of the salt and the seaweed, the sound of the wind and the seagulls crying. A couple of times when he was there late, he noticed a couple of men lounging around in the dusk, smoking cigarettes and glancing at each other.
Buddy was approached once, and with a bit of surprise he realized that he was being propositioned. He'd seen this sort of thing among the college students, and was a bit surprised at seeing it in Wilby. But he just shook his head and smiled. "Sorry."
To his mother's intense satisfaction (and Buddy's slight chagrin), he ended up dating Marie Hansen for a while. She was interested and showed it, and he was single, and had been for some time, and it was easy to say yes. They dated for half a year or so, until it petered out--she was obviously on the lookout for someone to start a family with. Which Buddy wasn't averse to, with the right person, but he just couldn't see it with Marie. There was just no...spark. It was boring. Not that Buddy himself was the kind to strike sparks, ordinarily--he usually had a fairly even keel--but maybe that's why he wanted it. Or maybe, as his mother said, he didn't know his own mind and couldn't recognize a perfectly good woman when he saw one.
***
Six years after Buddy came back to Wilby, Duck came back, too.
Buddy heard about it first from Mrs Kirkpatrick, who was quite the gossip.
"So, have you heard that the MacDonald boy is back?" she said, fussing with the rose bushes around her front door.
"Who, Duck?" Buddy said, surprised.
"I don't know about that. I meant Walter--Thomas MacDonald's boy?"
"Yeah. We used to call him Duck in school."
Duck, when Buddy saw him, looked in some ways much like he had as a boy. Same blond unruly hair, same lanky body. But he was changed in other ways. He was taller, didn't hunch over when he walked the way he had as a kid, looked more solid and steady. It made Buddy feel that he himself hadn't changed at all despite his time at the police academy and in Halifax.
"Hi, Duck," Buddy called out.
"Hi," Duck replied.
"Uh, sorry. Want me to call you Walter now?"
"No, Duck is fine," he said.
"Want to go to the Loyalist some day, have a beer together?" Buddy said.
"Sure."
And they did, although Duck didn't have a beer. He had a soda.
"So--" Buddy paused. He'd been about to ask what Duck had been doing all that time off-island, but figured he'd let Duck volunteer that if he wanted. Instead, he asked, "--it's good to be back in Wilby, huh?"
"Yeah, I guess it's home after all." Duck paused, took a drink from his soda. It was like he guessed Buddy was wondering, because he said, "Spent some time on a fishing boat when I first left. That was all right. But I guess there's not much left of that now."
"No. Lots of people lost their jobs over that in Wilby, too." The collapse of the cod fishery had been pretty much the only thing people ever talked about for a while.
"So what have you been doing?"
"Well, I went to college. The police academy," Buddy said. "And then I came back." Buddy took a drink, the condensation beading on the glass in the early summer heat.
"Yeah, I figured," Duck said.
It was a slightly awkward conversation--they weren't really friends, and they didn't actually have much in common except that Buddy had ineffectually tried to help Duck against his bullies back in high school. That wasn't exactly a viable topic of conversation now. And he could feel the other people in the Loyalist, people they'd both gone to school with, or people who knew their parents, looking at them, probably listening to what they were saying, noting down the fact that Duck wasn't drinking beer. Well, let them look--Duck was an islander, too, and he belonged here as much as they did.
As they parted, he said, "Welcome back to Wilby," and Duck nodded. It was something, at least.
***
A couple of weeks later, he went on one of his usual walks down to the Watch to get some time to himself. Somewhat to his annoyance, there was someone already there at his ordinary spot on the rocky beach. He squinted against the sun, trying to make out what they were doing. When he got closer, he saw that it was a woman with dark hair, at an artist's easel.
"Oh," she said, jumping a little when a rock turned under his foot. "You nearly scared the life out of me."
"I'm sorry," Buddy said. "Didn't mean to."
"I thought I'd be all alone out here, you know? Not that I mind, go right ahead with your fishing," she said, waving her arm at his fishing rod. She looked like she had Korean ancestry, or Japanese, maybe. Her long black hair was fastened in a bun at the back of her head, with a paintbrush stuck through it, as if she'd started with it loose and then put it up to get it out of her way. The slight annoyance he'd felt at first, at not having the place to himself, had entirely gone.
He looked at her painting. "That's lovely," he said, feeling a bit inadequate--he wasn't exactly an art critic.
But she brightened. "Really? Thanks. I'm not--I mean, it's just a hobby."
"I like the sunlight on the sea." It sparkled, looked alive.
"I worked forever on that," she said, glancing down at a couple of other paintings spread out on the ground.
"You're not from around here, are you?" Buddy said, feeling stupid once he'd said it. Of course she wasn't from Wilby--he felt sure he would've noticed her before if she was.
"No, I'm from Toronto. I'm here on vacation. I was so stressed out over work--I really needed to wind down a bit." She smiled at him, and he couldn't help but smile back.
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a realtor. There's so much competition in Toronto, you know? It's a challenge, and I do love a challenge, but it takes it out of you."
"I can imagine." Not that he could, really, but he wanted to understand her.
"Anyway, this is such a beautiful island." She looked out over the sea, towards the mainland.
"Yeah. Wilby's a great place," Buddy said, and meant it. He wouldn't want to live anywhere else.
"And the sea--it's such a great subject to paint. The light, it changes all the time. I bet I could paint it a hundred times and not get tired of it."
Buddy was smitten. He never did get any fishing done that evening, and she didn't get any more painting done, either--they kept talking, and didn't notice the time slip by.
When dusk began to fall, she shivered a little. "Oh, it's late. I should get going." She began to take her easel down.
"I forgot--what's your name?" Buddy asked, suddenly afraid that she'd just vanish and he'd never see her again.
"Carol." Her hair had started to work its way out of the bun, and Buddy found her slightly disheveled appearance very charming.
"I'm Buddy." He gathered his courage. "So, I was wondering--would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? Or maybe go out for a few drinks?"
She turned a brilliant smile on him. "I'd love to."
***
Carol was only there for two weeks, but that was enough. Buddy had never been swept away like that before, never fallen head-over-heels in love. The spark that was never there with Marie Hansen was there in spades with Carol. Her vivacity and quick conversation, her smile, her beautiful slender hands and long sleek hair--Buddy couldn't get enough of her.
They had dinner at the Loyalist, but only once, because Buddy felt everyone's eyes on them and couldn't quite relax. It wasn't really the place for a first date. After dinner, Buddy walked her to the Wilby Hotel, where she was staying, and they kissed goodnight under the streetlight by the front entrance, where the moths circled around and around, drawn to the light.
The night after that, they cooked together at Buddy's place, fresh-caught fish that he'd pulled up that day, and there was a slow sweet tumble into bed, the kind where they both knew it would happen all evening long, and each casual touch felt like a spark of desire.
They were lying in bed together, on the last night before she was leaving. Buddy tucked his nose into her neck, trying to memorize her smell. Carol sighed and shifted closer. He knew he wanted to ask, but it was hard--she was just here on a two-week vacation. Maybe it was just a summer fling to her, some fun before she went back to her big-city life.
"Carol," he said against her neck. "I...I don't want this to end here. Will you--come back?" He couldn't really ask her to stay--she had a career and a life of her own in Toronto--but the words slipped out anyway.
She rolled towards him, pressed her lips to his. "Oh, Buddy. Of course I'll come back. I want to."
And she did come back. She came back, and she stayed, and they got married the next year in May, when the lilacs were just coming into bloom.
***
Buddy's mother was less than enthusiastic about the bride he'd found for himself--not only was she a mainlander, but she was a "foreigner", as well. It didn't help that Buddy told her that Carol had been born and lived her whole life in Canada. But, she told him, at least he'd settled down and had a wife now, and hopefully she would have grandchildren sometime soon.
Carol handled Buddy's mother with a sort of smooth social charm that gave Buddy an inkling of what she must be like with customers. He could tell that they still didn't actually like each other, but at least they were civil. She got along better with Buddy's father--he liked that he could talk with her about the hotel.
Buddy worried about how Carol would settle down in Wilby after being used to Toronto. She said she liked the peace and quiet, but he wondered if she was the sort of person who would be content with peace and quiet in the long run. Well, there were plenty of things to do in Wilby, too.
Carol sold her Toronto apartment, and soon after she joined Buddy in Wilby, they bought a house and moved out of the second story of Mrs. Kirkpatrick's place. Carol handled all the practical details, and got the furniture and curtains and all the other things a house needed. Buddy was carried along with her in the whirlwind bustle. Living alone, he'd never felt he needed more in the kitchen than a couple of pots and pans, some unmatched plates and cutlery and glasses. But Carol got them matching sets of tableware, and all sort of things he'd never even thought about, and even completely remodeled the kitchen and living room. Buddy's mother sniffed about newfangled tastes when she saw it.
On Sundays, they usually went out to the Watch. Carol would paint, and Buddy would fish for their dinner.
"I'm thinking of starting up a real estate business," Carol said one night over Sunday dinner. "Wilby doesn't really have one, and I think there's a market for it. What do you think?"
"I don't know anything about real estate," Buddy said. "But I think you should go ahead, if you think it's a good idea. I mean, I don't want you to be just my housewife or anything. You know that. I want you to be happy."
Carol smiled at him, quick and bright. "Oh, Buddy. I am happy."
***
Carol started up her real estate business. In the beginning, it was hard work--and in fact, she never really did stop working hard. Privately, Buddy thought she was overdoing it. He cared about his job and wanted to do it well, but he put in his hours and then he went home. Carol, on the other hand, seemed to work from morning to night building up her business. Maybe that was how they did it in Toronto.
She came home late one Friday evening in February, the raw cold wind chasing her in the door until she shut it behind her. Buddy was waiting at the kitchen table. He'd made dinner, but it was cold now.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, shaking the slushy snow off her coat. She sat down on a chair with a sigh. "Long day."
"Do you really need to work that hard?" Buddy said.
She frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
"You come home late so often."
Carol sat down on a chair, rubbed at her temple. "Not now, all right? I had a hard day."
"Sorry. Just--maybe if you took it easy sometimes you wouldn't have those kinds of days."
"What do you know about it? You're from Wilby. I'm a mainlander, remember? I have to work just to get people to give me the time of day." Her voice rose while she said the last part.
"Hey, Carol, calm down. Is it really that bad?"
She glared at him, and too late he realized he shouldn't have told her to calm down. Buddy hated quarreling, and he wasn't any good at it. He raised his arms in surrender, and turned to the stove to heat up the lasagna again. Dinner was quiet.
But in bed that night, she turned to him with a sigh. "It's not your fault I had a bad day. Sorry I took it out on you."
"It's fine," Buddy said, and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sorry work is hard for you. I didn't realize."
"I just--I want us to be something, you know? To make a place for ourselves here."
Don't we already have a place? Buddy wondered. But he didn't say anything.
***
Meanwhile, Buddy was having some problems of his own at work. Jack Burnett, for example. One of Buddy's old high school teachers had come to him with concerns about Jack, and besides, he was related to the Frenches by marriage (Buddy's uncle's wife was his aunt). So Buddy had already heard about Jack running wild from his mother, who thought Buddy should do something to fix it. Jack's parents were divorced--he was living with his mother, and he suspected his father hadn't exactly been a good role model.
Yes, well, easier said than done. As far as Buddy could see, Jack hadn't actually done much against the law (that could be proven, anyway). So Buddy tried to have a serious talk with the boy, tell him that if he stayed out of trouble, stuck it out in school, it would be worth it in the end. But Jack wasn't in a mood to listen.
It was silly, but when he'd first gone off to the Academy, Buddy had had the idea that he'd be able to fix things as a cop. But of course it was nothing like that. It was all shades of gray, and even when you meant well, there was so often nothing you could do.
Well, at least he could write parking tickets and handle drunken tourists.
***
Buddy's father died of a heart attack when Buddy was thirty-three. Adam French was only sixty-eight, but his steadily-increasing girth had had Buddy's mother sighing and shaking her head for some time.
Buddy attended the funeral in his dress uniform with Carol at his side, watching his mother cry and listening to speech after speech about what a pillar of the community his father had been. He didn't quite know how to handle it, and although he didn't cry, he felt a bit empty. He hadn't been close to his father, but at least he'd always been there, jovial and loud-voiced and larger-than-life.
Buddy couldn't quite handle the crowd of people wanting to offer him condolences, so he fled around the corner of the house, in among the rhododendrons he'd used to crawl under as a kid. He was standing there, feeling confined by the collar of his dress uniform, when he heard it.
"...all these people, acting like he was some kind of saint." A man's voice. Buddy couldn't quite place it. Someone at the town office, maybe? There were so many people here.
"I know." A woman, sounding like she was rolling her eyes.
"I happen to know that he dipped into the town coffers when the hotel was going broke."
"I'm not surprised."
Buddy just stood there, listening helplessly, with the ineffectual barrier of the rhododendrons between him and them, whoever they were. He had a childish urge to put his hands over his ears. Too late for that. He wished to God it wasn't true, but with the idea once in his mind, he couldn't dismiss it. He had to find out, even though the thought made him feel sick to his stomach.
He asked his mother, late that afternoon when all the guests had left. Carol had left, too. She'd disagreed with his mom over--Buddy wasn't really sure what they'd disagreed over, actually. He'd left the room when they'd started raising their voices.
"Mom. I heard--is it true that Dad..." He didn't know how to say it. "...took money from the town, for the hotel?"
She looked tired, and he almost regretted asking. It wasn't really the time. Her face went guarded, and she sat down on a chair. "You know I didn't have much to do with the hotel. It was always your father and your uncle's business."
"But you must know something," Buddy pressed, unable to let it go. "Did he ever say anything to you about it?"
"He's dead, Buddy! Can't you let him lie in peace?" she flashed out. She stood up again, going over to the sink to begin scrubbing the pots. "Do I have to do everything myself?"
Which Buddy could decode well enough: it was unspoken criticism of Carol. Buddy sighed, and meekly went to fetch in the dishes from the garden. No use pressing his mother more.
***
But he couldn't let it go. Could he ask his uncle? No. He'd never get a straight answer.
In his frustration, he went fishing for information from Hines, the old chief of police. He'd been around forever and knew a lot of the workings of the town council, and if he could phrase things vaguely enough...
"I heard some rumors about...irregularities in the town finances, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago or so. Do you know anything about that?" Buddy asked carefully.
Hines beckoned him into his office and closed the door. He put a hand on Buddy's shoulder. "Look, son, you don't need to worry about that. Your father's passed away now, and even before...there's nothing left to prove anything."
With a queasy feeling in his stomach, Buddy realized that Hines thought he had known all about it and that he was worried that there might be evidence left. And Hines had known about it all along? What kind of incentive had he had to keep quiet? Had his father bribed him? The sloppy record-keeping in the station suddenly took on a whole new aspect.
Buddy swallowed. "Right, thanks," he said, and extricated himself from the situation as quickly as he could.
He wished he'd never overheard that conversation. And now he'd probably given Hines the impression that Buddy was a party to this. Damn it! Buddy clenched his fists in frustration.
He confided in Carol that evening when they'd gone to bed. He hadn't, before, because she'd been a bit distant--busy with work, as she always was--and he didn't know if he should just let her alone or not.
"Carol," he said into the darkness.
She stirred beside him. "Yes?"
"I heard something. At the funeral. And I can't stop thinking about it."
"What?"
"That my dad had...that he'd embezzled money from the town. For the hotel." It was somehow easier to say in the dark, although the shame still made his stomach clench.
"Is there proof of this? Or is it just hearsay?" Her voice was sharper now, more awake.
"No proof, exactly. But--I asked Hines, in a sort of roundabout way, and he said there was nothing to prove it. But he wouldn't have needed to say that if it wasn't true, would he? He--oh, God, I think he thought I already knew about it and wanted reassurance that there wasn't any evidence left."
"How long ago was it? If it happened, I mean."
"I don't know. Probably when my dad was mayor."
"That's years and years ago. What good would it do to go digging in it now?"
"It's not right," Buddy said stubbornly. "I can't believe my own father would--"
"You don't actually know that. There's no proof, right?" Carol said, sounding her most reasonable. "Just let it go."
Buddy lay silent. He played the scenario out in his mind: him digging into old town records, trying to find out more. Stating the suspicion openly. The gossip that would spread. His mother's humiliation. The likelihood that there wouldn't be any proof anyway. Brent Fisher's satisfaction. That last made him dig his fingernails into his palms. He was sure, with that gut feeling he sometimes got about cases, that Brent Fisher wasn't exactly squeaky-clean, either. And to let him watch Buddy's father's reputation dragged in the dirt, while Brent walked free...Buddy supposed he had some family feeling, after all.
He wasn't going do anything, he realized. It felt like defeat.
"All right," he said.
"Good," Carol mumbled, turning over into her accustomed sleeping position. "Just forget about it, okay? No use dwelling on it now."
But Buddy lay awake half the night, watching the blinking red digits of the bedside clock change from one a. m., to two, to three.
***
Jack Burnett's brother Sean came back from college, and Jack went back to school and seemed to get himself straightened out. From what Buddy heard, Sean was a good influence, and Jack looked up to him.
Some things got better, at least, even if he couldn't do anything about them.
As for the knowledge of his father's wrongdoing, it continued to eat away at him. It didn't help that Carol seemed determined to insinuate herself among just the sort of people he himself didn't like. Brent Fisher, certain people on the town council.
"Why?" he asked once, when she'd asked him to come along on a business lunch with Brent and his wife. "I don't like him."
"Oh, Buddy. Why not?" Carol sighed, sounding disappointed in him. It put Buddy's back up. He had a right to an opinion, didn't he?
"He's..." Buddy couldn't quite bring himself to say that he thought Brent might be dirty. If so, Carol would just bring up Adam French and say that Buddy shouldn't throw stones in glass houses. And then there was Brent's condescending manner, but that was too hard to put his finger on. "I just don't like him, all right?"
"Fine!" Carol threw her hands up. "I'll just do it myself, then. But I wish you'd think of our interests some time. It's not like it's just a social occasion. Don't you get that?"
What interests? Buddy liked living a quiet life. He liked going out for a beer with friends, or spending a lazy day out by the Watch. Come to think of it, Carol and he always used to spend Sunday afternoon out there together. He couldn't think of the last time they'd done that.
***
By the time the Watch scandal came along, Buddy had almost given up on their marriage. That Carol he'd first met, the one who'd smiled at him so brilliantly, with her hair pinned up with a paintbrush, didn't seem like the same woman he was married to now. He didn't think he'd changed. Or had he?
But seeing Stan's planted needles at the Watch, it was like Buddy woke up, and later that day, sitting beside Mackenzie Fisher and smoking on the back porch, he got the last pieces of the puzzle.
Here was something he could do, finally. Maybe he couldn't fix his marriage. Maybe he couldn't convict his father. But Buddy was going to save the Watch and quiet down that scandal. And he was going to get Brent Fisher.
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Date: 2012-08-18 11:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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