The Chardon Chronicles: Season One -- The Harvest Festival Read Online Free

practical in the winter! Here, a car’s basically a
necessity.”
     
    “Vroom.” she pretended to drive to a stool at
the kitchen counter. “That was Tracy Wells. She’s cool. Very adult. We also met a couple of her friends. The Northeast Ohio
version of brahs.”
     
    “Wells? I wonder if she’s related to Matt
Wells. I knew him back in the day… They had a farm over on Sherman
Road.”
     
    “Yeah, maybe. I didn’t pay any attention to
the roads. It was a big old white farmhouse, really nice inside,
fields, trees, and some cool rock formations in the woods. Her
parents are gone.”
     
    “Yep, that’s it. Matt and his wife--her
parents--disappeared. I wonder how she keeps the place going…
That’s a lot for one person to take care of.”
     
    “She mentioned an Uncle. I didn’t meet him
though. She seems very independent.”
     
    “Independence is a nice quality in a young
lady.”
     
    “How was your day?”
     
    “Well, I got a job, so that’s good. Local
lawyer--actually I knew him in high school--wants me to look into a
hit and run case. Other than that, I started looking up some old
friends. Not many people stayed in town.”
     
    “They all went off for adventures in the big
city, I suppose.”
     
    “I’m the only one who got shot. Seems to
gives me some gravitas.”

Chapter Ten
    Jerry’s black Mercedes SUV rumbled along a
rutted crushed limestone driveway. An old tow truck carcass with
grass growing out the wheel wells was rotting next to the drive.
“Pattie’s Tavern and Party Center” was painted on its door. A hand
written sign was staked into the ground “GOP FUNDRAISER”. The
gravel lot was full, so he had to park in the adjacent field.
     
    The restaurant was in a cedar sided building
with a shake roof. A crowd was standing around on a deck that was
attached to the second floor of the building and people were just
starting to assemble on the patio. A band was setting up and he
could just hear the tinny sound of an electric guitar being
tuned.
     
    He shut the engine off and checked his look
in the mirror. His black hair was slicked back, gray at the
temples. His face was still tight across his forehead and cheeks
but gravity was starting to work on his neck a little. He pulled
the knot of the tie a little tighter. He wondered if he should
start cultivating a “friend of the working man” facet of his
persona and go with rolled up shirtsleeves and open collar. He
watched a group of kids--probably college students--head into the
building. They were all wearing his “Here’s Jerry!” T-shirt. It was
a caricature of him chainsawing a door. The caricature was wearing
the same pinstripe suit and red tie, so he decided to keep it on
while he was working.
     
    Jerry worked for the Brotherhood for a couple
of years before he even knew it, and before that he’d been groomed
for the job during college. He was in a frat and taking business
classes when he wasn’t partying. In spite of a solid “C-” grade
average, he got a sales job right after school when a professor
hooked him up at an industrial supply company in the outskirts of
Columbus.
     
    He worked there for five years, traveling the
state, making contacts, and growing his network. The nature of the
work changed drastically when he got promoted to regional manager.
At first, he thought it was a step backward in his career. Instead
of managing the sales force or working clients, his boss asked him
to run little errands any day of the week and at any hour of the
day.
     
    Jerry assumed it was all corporate
business--deliveries that were too delicate to trust to the post
office or UPS. But, finally, one morning he drove a few hours to
deliver a package to a run-down farmhouse in a remote corner of
Ashtabula County. A guy wearing biker leathers and carrying a
shotgun answered the door and took the package. He got a big flat
box in return. He could tell it was filled with bundles of cash. He
returned to the office with the box