Page 68 of Death on Gallows Path

“Bryon?”

“No. Somebody from out of town. Damon had done that before, bringing in strangers he was doing business with.”

“Customer? What’s Damon’s business?”

And why had we not wondered about that before? What do you do? Asked at social occasions all the time.

Yet it wasn’t a question any of us asked each other at training. It was all about the dogs.

Which might explain why we didn’t talk much with the Swindells and Georgers — as Rich indicated, they weren’t truly in it for the dogs.

“You name it, seems like he’s done it. I remember when Swindell was selling band instruments to kids through schools,” he said.

Clara said, “I had no idea he did that. Like Harold Hill, the traveling salesman in The Music Man. The musical. Seventy-Six Trombones.”

I didn’t think Rich got the reference.

“Damon traveled some, but not all the time. Would have been better if he had,” he added darkly.

“Oh? Why?” I asked.

“One of his early efforts, he set up as a competitor for a well-established family business in the county.” He looked at Clara. “The Gilbrands.”

“The Gilbrands? They’re involved with the schools, programs at the library, free concerts for holidays. But I never thought about them having a business.”

“That’s because they give so much to the folks around here without making a big deal of it. They were never going to get rich on the business, but they nearly went broke when Damon Swindell came around.

“I wasn’t in the thick of it, but what I picked up was he claimed he was operating as a non-profit, trying to undercut the Gilbrands. Knocked them to potential customers, saying they were out for money, while he wanted to give kids the gift of music.”

Clara frowned. “The Gilbrands . . .

“Are still in business. Folks gathered ’round. Went to school board meetings, wrote letters. Somebody got proof Swindell wasn’t a non-profit. Swindell claimed it was all a misunderstanding. Walked away, saying it was too much trouble when he’d been trying to help people. Afterward, heard his company got a couple contracts in Northern Ohio, puffed it up like the next great thing, then sold the business to someone who didn’t look close under the hood. And now—”

He looked down at the screen in front of him.

Did he truly think that would stop us?

“And now what?” I asked.

“I don’t have details. Heard a few things around, then for myself one night. Swindell was in here with a guy I took for a potential customer. Like I said, not the first time he’d brought people in from out of town he was trying to wheel and deal with. Not the first time it didn’t go well, either. Had a guy in here shouting at Swindell about fraud and foreign accounts before he stormed out. Swindell tried to laugh it off. Said the man was a weakling who couldn’t handle business.”

“What did you hear for yourself that one night you mentioned?” Clara asked.

“We had a group of regulars at a table.” He tipped his head toward another table. “Watching the game — college basketball. Damon and the other guy sat at the bar. A few comments were made. General stuff about the play, until Damon started poking and didn’t stop.

“I don’t know anything for sure. Like I said, bits and pieces. No saying I put them together right.”

“But?”

“Swindell was trying to sell this out-of-towner that he — Swindell — was the great dealmaker who could clear the way to bring in a chain car wash near the Roger.” The Roger was a chain grocery store south of town. “The regulars were most of the Dailey cousins.”

Clara’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

They understood something, while I fell into a vat of newcomer ignorance. “Oh, what?”

“The Dailey family owns car washes around the county,” Clara said. “They’re like the Gilbrands, giving back. Kids sports, first responders, parks, you name it, they’ve pitched in.”

“Stupid of Swindell making cracks to the Daileys,” Rich said. “The potential customer left. Swindell scrambled after.”