Chapter 36

Dayton Daniels sipped his coffee and stared out the front window of the Chattering Squirrel as he waited for Jeff Howe. Moments after hanging up after talking to Clark Grayson, he picked up the receiver, dialed Jeff and ordered him to meet him. “Something’s happened, and we need to move fast. Meet me at the Squirrel in 10 minutes,” was all he said into the phone before hanging up.

That Jeff was 15 minutes away on a job outside of Webster was of no consequence to Dayton. He knew Howe would go 90 miles an hour to meet him in 10 minutes, as ordered. He knew Jeff was an obedient puppy that would do anything Dayton told him to do. He took another slurp and held the coffee cup under his nose as he closed his eyes and breathed in and then exhaled heavily. “Damn that idiot Lundeen…”

Dayton knew that at some time, Frank Talbot’s perversion would be exposed, but he never imagined it would be by that lame excuse for a newspaper, The Burnett County Sentinel, or their cub reporter, Martin Lundeen. He thought it would just be fodder for town gossip, stories that would finally be shared by young women who had kept their mouths shut for so long. The stories within the tribe would leak into the general population, and people would shake their heads and feign concern, but deep down, wouldn’t care any more about it than Dayton Daniels. He could almost hear the talk after services at St. Bart’s or at the Lady Be Lovely Beauty Salon. “It’s terrible, but thank God he didn’t touch any of the white girls in town.”

Dayton thought back to his last conversation with Jeff about Frank Talbot at Risky Dick’s a couple of weeks ago. An argument, really. While Jeff was pushing for them to finally expose Talbot before he retired and started drawing his pension, Dayton urged caution. “Jeff, think about it,” he said in his most earnest tone. “What would it say to the good people of Siren that for years, the School Board Chair allowed a pervert to continue in his job knowing he was sexually assaulting young female students?” He counted on Jeff’s basic lack of courage, his pride and his ego to swallow the argument without much push back. “You Chair this School Board, Jeff, and you forever will be seen as the bad guy in this scenario.”

But Dayton hadn’t counted on Jeff’s conscience being stronger than his pride and ego. “Dayton, I don’t care. This has gone on long enough, and I won’t have that jerk Talbot sucking at the tit of the school’s pension fund for the rest of his life!”

For years, they had known about Talbot's actions, but did nothing, even though Jeff believed they should. For all those years, Dayton said that they should just turn a blind eye “If it ever comes out, we can pretend we never knew,” he’d say quietly. “Obviously, he has a thing for Indian girls, so white girls aren’t in any real danger.” Comments like this would make Jeff wince, but Dayton knew he’d never protest. For years, Jeff had kept Karen's heritage a secret, either out of habit or deep-seeded bigotry of his own, even though "mixed marriages", as Dayton privately referred to them, were fairly common place in Burnett County. Just making Jeff Howe squirm gave Dayton a secret thrill every time he could get away with saying something that would knock the uppity and sanctimonious Karen Howe off her perch. And he knew Jeff would never say one thing about it.

In recent years, Dayton knew that Jeff felt more and more uncomfortable with their decision to do nothing. “It isn’t right,” he’d say, over and over again. Dayton started pulling every argument out of his back pocket that he thought would sway Jeff into continued silence. “Think about our town and its reputation. Think about the businesses that will go under if it gets out that perverts are teaching our children!” These arguments worked for a while. Dayton knew that when he talked about businesses going under, Jeff would immediately think about the threat to his own thriving business and what would happen if he couldn’t give the snooty Mrs. Howe everything she wanted. And what about Karen’s store? Something like this would be covered by the local and regional press, maybe even national coverage. What if there were no more vacationers coming in to Karen's shop due to the bad press?

Dayton was well aware that Karen had been one of Talbot’s victims, but he never let on to Jeff. He wasn’t even sure that Jeff knew. “Such a dimwit…” But a principled dimwit, as Dayton was coming to realize.

Dayton knew he had to tread carefully when Jeff arrived. He heard the slamming of a truck door outside of the Chattering Squirrel’s big window that faced Highway 35. He opened his eyes and saw Jeff Howe hurry around the front of the truck and toward the door of the small shopping center. He knew that Jeff would jog down the corridor toward the café and enter, breathless.

Dayton sucked in some air between his teeth and braced himself for his final argument with Jeff Howe about Frank Talbot.