Blind Tiger, page 35
Bill took that in, then gave him a wry smile. “Don’t talk yourself out of that badge, Thatcher. You were born for this.” He continued on his way down the stairs. Thatcher followed.
As they exited the building Bill cursed under his breath. Bernie Croft was between them and the sheriff’s car, waiting for his dog to finish peeing against a utility pole.
Forty-Seven
Hello, Bill. Hutton.”
“Bernie,” Bill said.
Thatcher didn’t believe that the mayor’s being here at this precise time was coincidental with his dog’s bladder. He was right. When the dog lowered his leg and wandered off to sniff at a patch of weeds growing against the side of the building, Croft strolled along the boardwalk to join them.
He looked Thatcher over. “I heard you actively participated in the raid on Lefty’s.”
“Who’d you hear that from?”
“A mutual acquaintance of ours.” Thatcher figured he referred to Chester Landry but didn’t remark on it.
Croft turned to Bill. “This young man is practically your shadow these days.”
“Thatcher is no one’s shadow, Bernie. But if I can twist his arm, I’m going to sign him on as a deputy.”
“That will raise eyebrows.”
“It’s certainly raised yours. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”
“I saw the arrival of an ambulance from my office window.”
He looked across the street toward the second-story windows on the facade of city hall. Bill had told Thatcher that those office windows overlooking Main were to Bernie what the pope’s balcony was to His Eminence.
He was saying, “If I read the insignia correctly, the ambulance came from Dallas. Who was it for?”
“Doctor-patient privilege, Bernie,” Bill said. “You know I can’t divulge the—”
“Was it someone I know? Why was he shuttled off in secrecy behind the building? Was it the Johnson boy? What was his name again?”
“Elray,” Thatcher said.
Croft turned to him. “Elray, yes. I heard you tried to chase down his assassin. In fact, you seem to be Johnny-on-the-spot since you came to Foley. One can find you anywhere there’s disorder.”
Thatcher said, “That seems to make you nervous. I wonder how come.”
Croft puffed up like an adder, but he faced Bill again. “You had just as well tell me who was in that ambulance. I’ll wring it out of Dr. Perkins anyway. Save me the climb upstairs.”
Bill relented. “A local woman was assaulted.” Without going into detail, he told Croft what had happened.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Who was she?”
“I’m keeping it quiet, Bernie, out of respect for the lady and her family’s privacy.”
“Very sensitive of you, Bill. But other ladies should be made aware that there’s a rapist in our midst, don’t you think?” He gave Thatcher a significant look.
Thatcher adjusted his stance to a more confrontational one. “Why don’t you just come out and say it, Croft?”
“Say what?”
“Accuse me of preying on women.”
“I already did.”
“And it didn’t stick.”
“Gentlemen,” Bill said quietly. “Let’s not draw an audience, please.”
The only audience they’d drawn that Thatcher could see was Hennessy, Croft’s so-called chauffeur. Cap pulled low, he was leaning against the side of the mayor’s car parked across the street, his posture a little too indolent to be genuine, his entire aspect one of menace.
Thatcher hadn’t made out like he’d noticed him lurking there, but he was well aware.
Croft was adding to his list of complaints against the sheriff. “I just don’t understand you. It’s obvious to everyone except you, even to men in your department, that your judgment has become clouded of late. Mine hasn’t. I’m responsible for the welfare of this town’s citizenry, particularly those who can’t defend themselves, our children, our female population.”
“Oh, for godsake, Bernie,” Bill snapped, “save the speech. The victim’s name was Norma Blanchard.”
The mayor reacted with a start.
“Obviously you knew her,” Bill said.
“Not personally, but I knew of her. The pretty sister, correct?”
“She was pretty before today.”
“Where was she attacked?”
“In her home.”
Again he gave Thatcher a pointed glance. “Someone looking for a room to let?”
Thatcher moved in closer, wanting badly to knock this pompous hypocrite on his ass.
But Bill motioned for him to stay as he was, and for the sheriff’s sake, Thatcher let the insult pass.
Bill said, “A vagrant is a possibility, of course. But initial indications are that she knew her assailant and let him inside the house. Her infant was asleep in the front room, so it was someone she trusted.”
The mayor drew a frown and absently toyed with his watch chain.
“What is it, Bernie?”
He stopped fiddling with the chain, but his frown remained. “Something I wish I didn’t know.”
“About Miss Blanchard?”
“Yes, but I was told in the strictest confidence.”
“If it’s pertinent to the crime, then—”
“I’m not saying that,” Croft said in a rush. “Not at all. It probably has no relevance whatsoever.”
“Tell me and let me decide.”
He sighed with seeming reluctance. “On the day following Mila Driscoll’s disappearance, I spoke to Gabe by telephone. Mrs. Driscoll’s relatives hadn’t arrived yet, so while your deputy was using the bathroom, Gabe called me on the sly and confessed that he’d had a liaison with that Blanchard girl.”
“Why would he have confessed that to you?”
“Because I had been his staunch proponent there in your office. I had promised to continue standing by him until his wife was found or her fate determined. Therefore, he felt I deserved to know that he harbored what he called ‘a shameful secret.’
“I was thinking in terms of unsettled gambling debts, or blackmail, or fleecing hypochondriacs. Something like that. I never would have dreamed that Gabe Driscoll’s dirty secret was a sexual fling. He’s such a cold fish. I can’t imagine him humping anybody, can you?”
Thatcher could tell that Bill was offended by Croft’s terminology, but he pounced on the primary matter. “After that rousing sermon you just delivered about your civic responsibility, you tell me this? Why didn’t you come to me with it before now? You didn’t think an affair with another woman was pertinent to the sudden disappearance of the man’s wife?”
“Calm down. It wasn’t an affair. It was one afternoon of sexual congress that occurred the day after he and the Blanchard woman met.”
“Only that one time?”
“That’s what he told me. Tearfully. With contrition. Soon after this breach of his marriage vows, Mrs. Driscoll conceived. Gabe regarded her pregnancy as a sign of forgiveness from on high.
“Even though Mrs. Driscoll was blissfully unaware of his transgression, he atoned by lavishing attention on her. Pampered her with foot rubs. Picnics in her favorite spot near Pointer’s Gap. Flowers and other romantic folderol. He never strayed again. I made him swear it on the Bible.”
Mrs. Kemp had told Thatcher and Bill a completely different story, but it wasn’t his place to cite that.
Bill said, “Although it’s late in coming, thank you for this information, Bernie.”
“I doubt it’s relevant to what happened to the girl. If the rumor mill is credible, encounters such as the one she had with Gabe were not a rarity, but commonplace.”
“Nevertheless, she suffered a brutal attack. I ask again for your discretion.”
“Of course, Bill, of course. Good night.” Croft tapped his thigh. The dog trotted up and rejoined his master, tongue lolling, tail wagging, ready to be off. As Croft came even with Thatcher, he said, “Deputy Hutton, don’t think for a moment that badge on your chest makes me in any way nervous.”
“I don’t. But I don’t wear it all the time. That’s when you should be nervous.”
* * *
Thatcher watched Hennessy hold open the backseat door of the town car for Croft and the bird dog. “Your mayor is the one who’s got a shadow.”
Bill looked over at the town car, then motioned Thatcher toward his own vehicle.
“I don’t mind walking.”
“I’ve got to go to the office anyway and finish the paperwork I started with Doc Perkins. But do you mind if I make a quick stop at home so I can give Daisy the stomach medication?”
“Not at all.”
Once they were on their way, Bill said, “As bodyguards go, Bernie couldn’t have hired a better one. Jimmy Hennessy—I doubt that’s his real name—was in the IRA. Fought in the uprising in ’17. Got a price put on his head for killing two British army officers. Outran his pursuers and made it to New York.
“Due to the large Irish population there, word got around, traitors talked, the city got too hot for him, he fled to Chicago. Same story there. Eventually he wound up here. All this is hearsay, you understand, probably embellished, but I believe the basics.”
Bill made a corner, then said, “Only one afternoon of illicit romance? Do you believe that version?”
“No. Why would Mrs. Kemp exaggerate her sister’s promiscuity in the wrong direction?”
“Exactly.”
“And why did Driscoll do the opposite and swear on the Bible that he was with Norma Blanchard only once?”
“We’ll ask him that tomorrow.”
“Why not now?”
“I want to see what evidence the Kemp house yields. When we confront Gabe with this, I want to be as well-armed as possible.”
When they arrived at the Amoses’ house, Thatcher said he would wait in the car. “Take your time. I’ve got a lot to mull over.”
Such as Laurel being a moonshiner, out of her league with big-time players like Landry and Croft, the Johnsons, and the unscrupulous couple at Lefty’s.
Jesus.
* * *
Bill found Daisy in bed, listless and complaining of stomach cramps. He asked if she’d eaten anything, but she hadn’t because she couldn’t keep anything down. “Have you been drinking?”
“No, Bill.” She reached for his hand and held it against her cheek. She was lying. He could smell whiskey on her breath, but he didn’t want to start a row. She wasn’t drunk, but she was obviously unwell.
He gave her half a dropper of the medicine. “Maybe it’ll ease the cramping so you can sleep. I won’t be long.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He kissed her forehead. Her eyes drifted closed. It scared him how fragile she looked. Almost lifeless.
Shaking off that thought, he left the bedroom and had almost reached the front door when the telephone rang. He went back to answer it and could tell by the background noise coming through the earpiece that his long and strenuous day wasn’t over yet.
Sixty seconds later, he strode to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Thatcher, do you have a gun belt?”
“At the boardinghouse.”
“Then we’ll stop there first.”
“What’s happened?”
“That moonshine war I knew was coming? Well, it’s here.”
Forty-Eight
Thatcher was putting the frisky mare through her paces in the corral when he saw Laurel come around the corner of the stable. She stopped there.
The sight of her made his heart jump and everything below his waist go tight, which didn’t improve his dark mood this morning. He wanted to strangle her for being the damnedest woman he’d ever met. He wanted to make love to her for the same reason.
The mare was being her uncooperative self, but he stuck with the training for five more minutes, then, with a subtle motion of his right knee, directed her to the paddock gate where he dismounted. He led her out and over to the water trough near the stable.
He said to Laurel, “You’re out early.”
“I need to talk to you and figured I would find you here.”
Her hair was hanging down her back in a long braid beneath the straw hat he recognized, the one with the wide brim that cast a crisscrossing pattern of shadows over her cheeks, her pert nose, her plump lower lip.
To distract himself from thoughts of biting that lip, he ran his hand along the horse’s neck as she drank from the trough.
Laurel said, “What’s her name?”
“Serena.”
“Pretty.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t fit her personality. She’s high-stepping and willful, doesn’t pay attention to anybody.”
He could tell by Laurel’s peeved expression that she knew he wasn’t referring strictly to the mare. In a crisp voice, she said, “I wouldn’t have bothered you, except that I need to tell you something the sheriff ought to know.”
“Then why don’t you go see him?”
“Are you going to be civil and talk to me or not?”
“I’ll be civil and talk to you, but I can tell you right now that you won’t want to hear what I have to say.”
“And what is that?”
“Stay and find out.”
He made a nicking sound with his mouth and gave the reins a gentle tug. The mare fell into step behind him as he led her into the stable. Laurel trailed behind.
The shade was welcome, but the air inside the building was stuffy and hot and added to his overall grouchiness. Only after the mare was unsaddled, unbridled, and munching oats in her stall did he turn his attention to Laurel, who’d been standing in the center aisle, tapping her hat against her leg with annoyance for having been kept waiting.
“You don’t like horses?” he asked.
“I don’t mind them.”
“Do you ride?”
“Not with any skill. On the family farm, we had plow horses and one mule. I could sit astride and hold on. What is it you wanted to say that I don’t want to hear?”
“Have a seat.” He motioned to a bale of hay. She backed up to it and sat down. He took off his hat and hung it on a nail as he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “I’ve got a bucket of well water. Are you thirsty?”
“No thanks.”
He went over to the bucket, ladled himself a tin cup full, and drank it down. She set her hat on her lap. When he came back to her, he propped himself against a post between stalls. “Ladies first.”
“There’s something worth Sheriff Amos’s knowing, especially after what happened to Elray Johnson.”
“Why don’t you tell him directly?”
“Because you’re privy to certain things that he isn’t.”
“Like what?”
“My visit to Lefty’s. Have you mentioned that to him?”
“No.”
“Or that I’ve taken Corrine under my wing?”
“No.”
She wet her lips, pulled that enticing lower one through her teeth, making it difficult for him to concentrate on what she was saying.
“…so last night, I tested my memory of what Corrine had told me before. She described again how furious Gert was with Wally over the beating. Not because she had any sympathy or concern for Corrine, but because she was going to lose money while Corrine was out of commission.” She paused to take a breath. “It occurred to me that Gert might have killed Wally over it.”
“Huh.”
“You sound skeptical. Don’t you think she’s capable of murder?”
He thought back on his single experience with the woman and the fury she’d unleashed during the raid. “I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“But what?”
“A lot of people are capable of murder. Gert has her own suspect in mind. She thinks Wally was killed by the woman who has put a cog in the local moonshining machine. Remember that’s what Elray told me seconds before he got shot.”
“Of course I remember. But does this mystery woman even exist? Gert probably made that up to deflect—”
“Laurel, stop. Just stop.” He walked over, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to her feet, sending her hat into the dirt and shocking her into silence. “Do you think I’m just a cowboy too dumb to know what you’re into?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fucking hell,” he ground out, not caring if she was scandalized by his language. “Finding that hair clip where the still had been clinched it, but I already knew that you and Irv weren’t living off pies and his handyman business. I know the O’Connor twins wouldn’t be delivering baked goods—baked goods, for crissake—to the oil fields if there wasn’t more at stake.”
“They—”
“Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear anymore. I can’t hear anymore. I’m official now.”
“Just because you made that grand gesture of pinning on the badge?”
“Because Sheriff Amos swore me in as a reserve deputy last night.”
“Oh. I see.”
She pulled her hand free of his grip, but he wrapped his hands around her upper arms and held her in place. “Know why he needed another deputy? To try to keep moonshiners from killing each other.”
“Killing each other?”
“The war Bill Amos saw coming was declared.”
“What happened?”
“Three stills belonging to members of the Johnson family were destroyed by rivals.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know yet. But the outbreak of violence went on for most of the night. Stills were busted up. The hills ran with rivers of whiskey that had been poured out, sometimes by the sheriff’s men, sometimes by competing sides, and it was hard to tell who was who. There were several shootouts, them against each other, them against us.”
“You were in on these shootouts?”
“Because men were shooting at me. At Bill. At all of us. One of the other reserve deputies got winged. Best I know, nobody died, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Sheriff’s department arrested over twenty men. Bill had them scattered to different jails, in this county and neighboring ones. He did that for their own safety. Those who name names don’t live long. If Elray was here, he’d vouch for that.”
