False Oath by Michael Stagg

Author:Michael Stagg [Stagg, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

41

That Friday night, the Panthers’ boosters club held its annual scholarship fundraiser at the Carrefour VFW hall. Fifty dollars a person or one hundred dollars a couple bought you a buffet-style chicken dinner, pitchers of beer and soft drinks, and the knowledge that most of your money was going toward the scholarship fund. The old hall was set up with long rows of tables that held twenty or so to a side with the table at the front of the hall reserved for silent auction items. Cade Brickson had won a scholarship back in the day and so had my brother Mark so they always supported it. Cade had convinced me to join them with promise of buying some drinks after, and it was always good to see Mark and Izzy, so I’d agreed.

I checked in, was issued my green dinner ticket, my two orange drink tickets, and my five blue door prize raffle tickets, and made my way through the crowded hall. I spotted Mark and Izzy at a table in the back. As I joined them, Izzy patted the table across from her and said, “Plant those sweet buns right here, Nate.”

“Can’t you control your woman?” I said to Mark as I sat.

“Nope,” said Mark and sipped his beer.

Izzy batted her eyes at him. “Why darling, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Mark winked and took another sip.

Cade Brickson came in a moment later. Cade was dressed in his usual black t-shirt, jeans, and boots with his only concession to night being that his sunglasses were pushed up into his short dark hair. As he grabbed a chair, Izzy shook her head and said, “Good Lord, Cade, look at you. You’re making me reconsider my life choices.”

Cade smiled and nodded in a gesture that acknowledged that he could see how she felt that way.

Izzy leaned in. “Cade, don’t you know any women taking your sister’s classes that would be interested in a semi-surly, moderately attractive lawyer with a wonderful family?”

Cade looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure I’d want to do that to them, Iz. Most of them are friends.”

“Well, I wish you’d try because he keeps ducking me.”

“Seems rude.”

“I know, right? Like tomorrow, a group of us are going to—”

“I’m working tomorrow,” I said. “Big trial coming up.”

“Liar,” said Izzy.

“Convenient,” said Cade.

“A little help?” I said to Mark.

Mark shook his head. “The more you struggle, the faster you sink.”

“State champs, sons of bitches!” came a woman’s yell from the door.

Cheers erupted from the other side of the room as Rhonda Mazur and Rob Preston walked through the door and joined a group of parents who lined a table on the other side of the hall.

“She seems to have a head start,” said Izzy.

“That’s the Daniels’ mom,” said Mark.

“Oh.” Izzy looked at me. “Then I suppose she should let off some steam.”

I was spared the trouble of deflecting questions about Colt’s case when two women who looked to be in their mid-thirties walked up, one holding a roll of tickets (these were red) and a plastic bucket, and the other a wad of bills.

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