Dead Silence by Brenda Novak Page B

we’ll get busy.”
    Teddy hesitated for only a second. He wouldn’t be inside long, so it wasn’t as if he was really disobeying his father. Besides, his dad would expect him to help. Helping was always the right thing to do. Even Grandma said that.
    â€œOkay.” He followed her inside and, a moment later, the familiarity of the house seemed to enfold him in a warm embrace.
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    Kennedy stood in his office at the bank and studied the large painting of Raymond Milton that hung on his wall. As a child, Kennedy’s father, Otis Archer,had lived in the neighboring town of Iuka in a home with a dirt floor. He’d had a widowed mother and ten siblings. He hadn’t graduated from high school because he’d had to run the cotton farm on which his family lived—and he’d had to work at the gas station in town when he wasn’t on the farm. With no money for college, the prospects for improving his situation were few. Yet he’d managed to convince Raymond Milton, who’d made a fortune in trucking when Iuka was the most important shipping point on the Mobile and Ohio Railroads, that he had the capacity to make it big. Milton lent him a little seed money and, when he was only twenty-five, Otis had started Stillwater Trust Bank and Loan.
    By thirty, Otis had made his first million and won the heart of Milton’s youngest daughter, Camille, who’d married him shortly after. At forty, Kennedy’s father had become mayor of Stillwater and, when Grandpa Milton died the year Kennedy was born, Otis inherited another million.
    Otis Archer had gone from being a poor, uneducated boy to the most important man in Stillwater. He’d built quite a legacy.
    His secretary buzzed, but Kennedy didn’t respond. After the call he’d just had from the police chief, he knew it would be Joe. Besides the fact that he didn’t want to talk to his friend, he had an off-site meeting and needed to leave so he wouldn’t be late. But something about his grandfather’s portrait held him fast. Although the town wasn’t as sophisticated as a lot of other places, Kennedy loved Stillwater. He thought he’d make a good mayor. He’d certainly been groomed for the job, was comfortable with the path that lay ahead. But he wasn’t ready to see his father’s memorial picture hanging next to his grandfather’s. It was too soon after Raelynn’s death to say goodbye to another member of his family.
    â€œI told her your car was still in the lot.”
    Kennedy turned as Joe Vincelli barged into his office. “What a surprise to see you.”
    Joe didn’t pick up on the sarcasm in his voice. “Why didn’t you answer when Lilly buzzed?”
    â€œI was preoccupied.”
    Joe’s eyebrows shot up; apparently he considered that a pretty lame excuse. But then, no one else knew about the cancer slowly destroying Otis’s body. Neither Kennedy nor his parents wanted word to get out. The bank’s stock would plummet once investors realized that the chairman of the board probably wouldn’t live through Christmas. And Kennedy wasn’t sure he could take the pity he’d receive.
    He wasn’t sure how they’d keep his father’s condition a secret, when Otis started chemotherapy next month. But for the good of the bank and its employees—and for the sake of preserving the privacy he and his mother both prized—he knew they’d try.
    â€œWhat’s up?” he asked as though he hadn’t already heard.
    â€œI want McCormick to reopen my uncle’s case.”
    Kennedy looked at his friend, wondering why, after so many years of letting the case grow cold, Joe was so keen on another investigation. Sure, Barker was a member of his family. But Joe had been thirteen when the reverend went missing. And he’d never pressed particularly hard for a resolution before. “Chief McCormick called me a few minutes ago to