Author's Note: This chapter was a difficult one, and I include again that the person who shot Phillip in this story is not who I believe shot him on the show. I've decided to wrap up the Phillip storyline as quickly as possible, soI don't drag it out to the point where it becomes dull like on the show.

Augusta

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that can be traced to any world besides my own.

Chapter Eighteen: Meetings at Company

No one could have been more surprised than James when Alan Spaulding walked into Company the next morning. There was a murmur of surprise through the regulars at the sight of the Spaulding patriarch on Cooper territory, and Dinah's jaw dropped and she stopped dead to stare at him when she started through the door. In an even more shocking move, he called Buzz over to him and the two began to talk in whispers that were virtually impossible to discreetly eavesdrop on. A few minutes later, Billy and Josh Lewis came in and sidled over to them very casually, as if the heads of the Spaulding family, the Cooper family, and the Lewis family regularly got together for coffee and small talk. " Is the world ending?" Dinah asked, staring at the gaggle of men at the bar. " Add Daddy, Danny, Ed Bauer, and Edmund and you've got the top dog of every family worth mentioning in Springfield."

Anne frowned slightly. " The heads of all the families here don't meet to confer?"

" None of them get along too well, and Buzz and Alan's families have a so-called war going on," James explained. " I don't seem to recall ever seeing any of them together."

" Me either, and I've been here longer than you," Dinah said. " Do you think this has anything to do with Phillip?"

" Could be," James said. " It'd be just like Alan to accuse Buzz or something of the like, though I can't see what Billy and Josh have to do with it."

" Coming up with conspiracy theories again?" Anne asked with mock-weariness. " You've always been able to find a conspiracy in much anything, James."

" And how often have I been wrong?"

" Twice," Anne admitted. " Though I do doubt that every patriarch in this city conspired to try to send someone to the devil. This Phillip's the one in the suit's son, right? Alan?"

" That'd be him."

" If you want my opinion, I think Alan did it," Anne said, sounding bored. " The son was fancying himself the leader of the family and his pa wanted him out of the way."

" Too many chiefs and not enough Indians?" Dinah asked and was met by Anne's blank look. "Never mind."

" I won't," Anne promised. James couldn't repress a brief, ironic smile-they were three of a kind, and Anne had decided against forgetting Elizabeth-she would replace her instead. It seemed that Dinah had passed his sister's rather harsh exam and had been deemed worthy of filling Little Lizzy's shoes. Only one other person not of their own blood had ever earned Anne's stamp of approval, and that had been Morgan.

Maybe it was because he had buried himself in the company and amateur detective work and decidedly out-of-date dating skills, but it was no longer as painful to think about Morgan as it had been. He no longer wished he was dead when he remembered her, no longer fought a psychological battle with God and man over losing her. He would love her till he died, but she would not have in death the total dominance over his non-filial and fraternal affections that she had possessed in life.

Introspection doesn't suit you, Anne remarked at almost the same time she said something to Dinah about the American girl with the green and purple hair who had just walked across the street. Introspection can drive you to madness, and both of us are quite mad enough as it is. I've been in prison, and let me tell you that it's not a pleasant place. You've been in the nut house, and I'm guessing it wasn't a pleasant place either because they work the same. Someone else has the key to the room you're locked in and has totalitarian rule over you. I'm quite sure you don't want to go back to Switzerland.

Well, at least Resa would be happy.

No, she's quite convinced that you're dead, Anne reassured him. If she knew you were in the nut house for real, though, I'm sure she'd be tickled pink at the prospect of you rotting in a closed ward.

What a wonderful, loving family we come from.

Blessed, aren't we? The world might change, but Anne never did.

" Oh, look," Dinah said. " They're splitting up."

The four men at the bar all shook hands and began to go their separate ways. James noticed a calculating look on Dinah's face. " What is it?" he asked her.

" They're up to something," she said, half to herself. " The only question is what?"

" And why? " Anne added grimly. So much like old times.


Anne stayed in Springfield for nearly a week, though she did Apparate home on a daily basis so Remus wouldn't think she'd run off into the wild blue yonder and dumped another kid on him in his state which, according to Anne, had not improved, as he was still wandering around at odd hours of the morning. Based on his memories of his old friend, James could quite believe it. Remus had really gotten in way over his head when he married the younger Potter girl, and Elizabeth's best efforts to shield him from the worst of it probably hadn't been enough to keep him from realizing the level of scheming, manipulation, and sheer madness that reigned in the Potter bloodline, an inheritance that, in all probability, awaited his three children because their mother had the wrong maiden name. Remus had been genuinely attatched to Elizabeth, and James suspected that he wouldn't have the ability to forget her or replace her so easily as her siblings. Still, as James was 'dead', the handling of Remus's midlife crisis fell to Anne, the most unlikely psychologist in the world. Anne knew little about how anyone's mind besides theirs worked and less interest in the subject.

" I'll keep in touch," she told him, managing to keep her face straight for Dinah's benefit. " Been nice meeting you, Dinah."

" And you," Dinah replied.

To James's surprise, the once-familiar feelings of desolation he had endured whenever he and Anne were separated as children were not present. He recalled her reactions to the most normal Springfield Muggle things and his own lack of reaction to her departure, and realized that he had changed more than he had thought. Anne was dearer to him than anyone in the world, but he had learned to live without her, just as he had learned to live without Morgan.

He had always been afast learner, and he had a feeling he believed to be connected to the Sight that had apparently abandoned him that all his old lessons were going to come back to haunt him, but that was there and then. James was quite sure he would be wiser to enjoy the here and now while he could than to worry about what the next issue was going to be.


The meeting of Buzz, Alan, Billy, and Josh turned out not to be a one-time thing. The four men gathered around the bar one morning a week and held a whispered conversation that usually ended quickly and left Alan looking unsettled, Buzz looking like he wished he had a loaded gun with him, Billy looking guilty, and Josh looking angry. By the fourth week, James and Dinah were convinced that it had something to do with the mess Phillip's shooting had made, but they didn't have proof or motive, only suspicions. Alex Spaulding took to hanging onto Buzz's arm every second he wasn't working like a plowhorse, dropping anything she picked up, and getting flustered if anyone spoke to her before she spoke to them.

" Is she trying to look like she's up to something?" Dinah asked rhetorically. " If she does, she could be a lot less silly about it. All you have to do is tell a Lewis and the whole town knows by sunset, believe me. If that wouldn't work for her, she can always hang a painted sign around her neck."

" Alex does seem to be digging herself in deeper with every day, doesn't she?"

But in spite of the mysterious councels and Alexandra's jumpiness, it was another two weeks before they had anything solid. Then one evening, Dinah called, sounding more exited than he had ever heard her sound.

" You are never going to believe this!" she said, sounding thunderstruck. " I was at Towers having a margarita with Daddy- Alan and Alex were talking- you are not going to believe this-I'll be there in fifteen minutes, this is something you'll have to hear to believe-"

" Calm down and tell me what the hell's up."

" I've just gotten rock-hard solid evidence that could be used in court to take down Alan and keep Liv out of the slammer," she said quickly. " I'll show you when I get there."

James made small talk with Marina, who had kept her job at Company for old times' sake, until Dinah came half-running in, hair flying. " Come here," she said, half-dragging him to a secluded corner of the restraunt. " I've got the proof we've been looking for. It all makes sense now!" She was glowing with triumph. " I told you I was at Towers and I heard Alan and Alex talking. What I didn't tell you was what I heard after Daddy left. Alan said that he tried to kill Phillip and he's blackmailing Alexandra so she'll cover for him and take the fall if the cops figure out that it was one of the family who did it."

" Dear God," James muttered, running his hand through his hair in a half-forgotten gesture from his school days. " Never underestimate Anne when she gets a hunch-but if you take that to the police Alan'll deny it. How're you going to prove it, Dinah? No offense, but even though Frank hates Alan, he's more likely to believe Alan than he is you."

Dinah smiled. " I know that," she said levelly. " I'm not an idiot-I'm willing to bet Alan would try to pin it on me if I took it to Frank without hard evidence, but I do have hard evidence. You know how I'm Jeffrey's P.R. girl?" James nodded and she went on. " Well, that makes me a kind of reporter, doesn't it? Just agree with me. In any case, I have a little tape recorder with me most of the time, and when I heard them whispering, I just couldn't help myself. Listen to this." She pulled a small silver-colored device from her purse and hit a button. Alan's voice came out of it very quietly.

" Remember, Alexandra," the Spaulding patriarch said threateningly. " If blame for Phillip's shooting shifts from the ex-wives to a Spaulding, you are going down."

Alexandra spoke, sounding flustered. " Why would the blame shift from Olivia and Harley to you or me, Alan darling?"

" If you and Buzz Cooper get too friendly some night, Alexandra, and you tell him that I was the one who pulled the trigger, then there is going to be absoulte hell to pay." Alan's voice was flat and hard in a way that James thought had nothing to do with the tape.

" I would never do that, Alan," Alex protested. " You're my brother, we're Spauldings-we're loyal to our own."

" Gus is a Spaulding and he is loyal to the Coopers. Why should you be any different?"

" Gus wasn't raised a Spaulding, he doesn't realize fully what it is to be a Spaulding," she said quickly. " You and I-we understand. Gus wouldn't keep it to himself that you shot Phillip, but I will."

" See to it that you do, or you will go down for attempted murder and the press will know everything I know about you."

" You don't need to blackmail me for me to keep my silence, Alan."

" Call it a precaution." Dinah hit the stop button and then the rewind button. For a long moment, she and James simply stared at each other.

" Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" James said at last.

A bit of a grin appeared on Dinah's face. " Aren't you having dinner with the Spauldings tomorrow evening?"

" I am. What do you say to using Alan's own words and tactics against him?"

" You're on," Dinah said, sounding twice as determined as usual. " He'll never see someone trying to blackmail him."

" 'Call it a precaution'", James mimicked, and Dinah laughed.