Sometimes it does, but because it costs something. It always costs something and eventually you run up a tab you can't pay. Ray had run that tab once. He wasn't running it again. What he had now was something Brandon Keller's MBA never gave him.
That Steven Aldrich's briefcase didn't contain. That Darren Walsh had traded away for $47,000. He had 37 years of knowing exactly what he'd built, why he'd built it, and who he'd built it for. And in the morning, he was going to start taking it back. The right way.
The only way that lasts. There's a moment most men have had it where you realize the problem is bigger than you thought. Not panic, not dread, just a recalibration. Like when you're under a car and you pull one thing loose and three other things come with it. And you look at what's in your hand and what's on the floor and you think, "All right."
So, it's like that. Ry had that moment the morning after he talked to Peggy. He was sitting at the kitchen table at 5:45. Coffee, the notebook opened in front of him. Karen still asleep.
He had written three names in a column on a fresh page. Brandon Keller, Horizon Food Distributors, Premier Capital Group, that last name. He'd found it himself the night before. 40 minutes of searching on Karen's laptop. He wasn't fast with computers.
He found what he needed. Premier Capital Group, headquartered in Overland Park. Website clean and minimal. The way financial companies websites always are. Language about portfolio development and strategic acquisition.
And maximizing value that said everything and nothing at the same time. 3 years of public filings. Pattern of buying small restaurant chains across Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. Not famous chains, not franchises. Independent places.
Places with names like the owner's names, places someone built. He looked at those three names on the page. Then he drew a line connecting them top to bottom. Then he added a fourth name below, Darren Walsh, and below that a question mark with a box around it because there was still something he didn't know. The man Ruth Callaway had described.
The Wednesday morning visitor. Scar on the jaw and the expensive car and the calm departure. Rey had a strong feeling about who that was. He needed it confirmed. He picked up the flip phone.
Called Duke. Duke McGra's garage opened at 7. By 7:15, Ry was sitting on an overturned milk crate in the corner of the shop, drinking coffee from a paper cup. While Duke leaned against a 1967 Chevel, he was restoring for a customer who had more money than patience. Duke was 68 years old and looked like what happened when you put a Viking through a Kansas weather cycle for six decades.
White hair, long white beard, longer hands the size of catcher's mitts. He'd been sober since 2003, and it showed not in any soft way, but in the particular clarity of a man who had stopped blurring things. He was the most trustworthy person Ry knew outside of Karen and Peggy, which was saying something given their shared history. Premier Capital Group, Duke said after Ry had laid it out. You know them?
I know of them. Duke took a long drink of his own coffee. There's a man runs their acquisition side. Goes by Steven Aldrich. CFO technically, but he's the one who identifies targets, does the groundwork, sets things up before the offer comes in.
Ry was quiet. Describe him," he said. Duke did. It matched Ruth Callaway's description almost exactly. Down to the gray car, down to the scar on the jaw.
How do you know him? Ry asked. He tried to buy this garage 4 years ago, Duke said. Sent a man in first, young guy, MBA type, to do some bookkeeping consulting for 3 months. By the time I figured out what was happening, they had a file on my business 2 in thick.
What'd you do? Duke smiled, not warmly. I told him the same thing your daddy told him, he said. Ry looked at him. Get off my porch, Duke said.
Ry was very still. You knew, Ry said. I suspected, Duke said. I didn't want to say it until I was sure. Aldrich has a pattern.
He went after your father's property in ' 82. Didn't get it. Went after my garage in 2020. Didn't get it. Some men can't let a thing go, Ry.
Especially a thing they didn't get when they thought they should have. He's been waiting, Ray said. Or watching. Same thing, different speed. Ry set down his coffee cup on the concrete floor.
He looked at his hands for a moment. I need documentation, he said. The connection between Aldrich and Horizon, between Aldrich and Brandon Keller. Something that holds up. I've got a man, Duke said.
Retired FBI forensic accounting. He does private work now. Strictly legal. All above board. He helped me with the garage situation.
How fast? Give him 48 hours. He's thorough. Tell him I'll pay his full rate. Whatever it is, he won't overcharge you.
He's an honest man. Duke paused. We used to call those rare. Still are, Ray said. He drove to the restaurant next.
Not to go in, to sit outside and watch. He parked on the opposite side of the street, half a block down, 8:10 in the morning. The restaurant opened at 7:00. Through the window, he could see the early tables, maybe five, six customers. Morning light falling across the counter the right way, at least.
That much hadn't changed. He saw Cassie moving between tables, saw Earl Briggs, the utility man, 66 years old, carrying a bus tray toward the back, moving with the particular efficiency of someone who had learned to do more with less, and had made a kind of peace with it. Ry had hired Earl in 1992. Earl had come in off the street with no restaurant experience. And a story, his garage had closed, his savings were gone, and he'd heard Garretts was a decent place to work.
Rey had interviewed him for 40 minutes and hired him the same day. Not because Earl had skills that matched the job description. Because Earl was the kind of man who looked you straight in the eye and said what he meant. 32 years. Earl Briggs had shown up to work at Garretts every single weekday for 32 years.
He'd missed 11 days total, four for a gallbladder surgery in 2008. Three for his wife's funeral in 2015, and four for his own reasons that Ry had never asked about because a man is entitled to 4 days. And now some 29-year-old with a clipboard was telling Earl he was too slow. Ry watched the window. Then he drove away.
He went to see Tom Briggs, not related to Earl. Different family, same county. Tom was 64, a corporate attorney who operated out of a brown brick building on Waterman Avenue that looked like it had been built in 1951 and hadn't needed to change its mind since. Tom wore the same style of suit he'd worn since 1987. Not because he was unfashionable, but because when something works, you stick with it.
He had a secretary named Gloria who had been with him for 28 years and answered the phone the same way every time. Briggs Law, what do you need? Not, "How can I help you? What do you need?" Ry liked that.
Tom already had a yellow pad out when Ry sat down. Tom was Peggy Harmon's closest professional contact. They'd worked together on Ray's contracts for almost two decades, and Peggy had called ahead. She briefed me this morning. Tom said, "I've been looking at the Horizon filing since 8 and Delaware LLC, which means limited transparency by design.
That's not unusual and it's not illegal, but the consulting fee structure." He turned the pad around. This is a problem for someone. A recurring fee that flows back to a connected party from a vendor contract in a situation where the person who negotiated that vendor contract personally benefits. That's textbook commercial bribery under Kansas statute.
Brandon Keller Ray said if we can prove he knew about the fee and accepted it. Yes. If he didn't know he's a different kind of problem. Exactly. Tom said a civil problem maybe not a criminal one.
What about Darren Walsh? Tom tapped his pen twice on the pad. Darren Walsh is a fiduciary. He had a legal obligation to act in your interests as the owner. Signing a contract with an outside consulting firm.
One that brought in a manager connected to a kickback scheme without your knowledge or approval. That's breach of fiduciary duty in Kansas, depending on how much we can show he personally received that crosses into criminal territory. 47,000 Ry said. Tom looked up. Peggy found a payment.
She found a gap that size in the accounts. We don't have the destination yet. Duke's man is working on it. Tom wrote the number down. If that traces back to Darren directly, we have criminal breach.
We have grounds for personal liability and we have enough to take to the AG's office. He paused. Ry, you understand that if this goes to the AG, it becomes public. I understand your restaurant's reputation. People can handle the truth, Ry said.
What they can't handle is finding out you hid it from them. I'll take the honesty. Tom studied him. All right. What about Premier Capital?
About Aldrich specifically. That's the question I'm working on. Rey said, "Duke's man may have something in 48 hours, but I want to understand the legal exposure before I go at him directly. If Aldrich coordinated the setup, if he directed to hire a compromised manager, if he had knowledge of the Horizon arrangement, then we're talking about torchious interference with a business relationship at minimum. Potentially conspiracy to commit commercial fraud.
Tom set his pen down. That's federal territory, Ray. If it crosses state lines and a Delaware LLC going into a Kansas operation almost certainly does, the FBI has jurisdiction. Duke's man used to be FBI. Tom almost smiled.