“Drop that and get your purse. We’re going now,” he growled.
She glanced up at Cal as he passed. “Hey bud, cover for me while I grab a bite. If I don’t come back in forty-five, send out a search party.”
Cal frowned. “I can go with you if you need me to.”
“No,” Nick said, his voice low and menacing. “I won’t touch her, but I expect information.”
Cal grinned. “Oh, she always has that.”
Nick grabbed her hand. “Come on.”
She stood and felt him jerk her across the floor. “I’m coming already.”
Minutes later they sat in a booth at the pharmacy. “Well,” Emily said, “At least you didn’t drive me to some dark path in the forest where you could dump my body.”
Nick cleared his throat, sounding much like the growl of a hungry bobcat. “I’m not planning on physically touching you in any way.”
“Well, now, that’s a shame,” Aunt Millie said, as she stood over them with an order pad. “I had three dollars riding on the matrix you’d kiss her two days from now.”
“Aunt Millie,” Emily said, laughing in a nervous twitter. “You know full well you’re just joshing him.” She threw a warning glare at her aunt, knowing, undoubtedly, there was a lottery floating around somewhere.
Aunt Millie sighed. “Whatever you say, honey bunch. So, Nick, what’s eating on your lunch?”
He stared at her like she was from Mars. “Nothing. I haven’t ordered.”
She cackled. “Oh, sugar pie. You’re just too cute for words. It’s one of our sayings, Nick. Now, tell Aunt Millie what’s bothering you, sweetie.”
Nick nodded at Emily. “Her. I just came from Chatham, and some guy named Yancey Caldwell told me you and your niece are the culprits who told everybody Dazzle was building here. Thereby getting this hornet’s nest buzzing.”
“Shit!” Aunt Millie said. “Kin never rats out kin. We wouldn’t say anything about family except to their face.”
Emily nodded. “I can’t believe you’d even consider we’d do such a thing. Besides, Taylor even warned me on top of that not to open my mouth. And I didn’t, except to Carolina who will probably go to her grave with everybody’s secrets. She doesn’t tell anybody anything.”
“And consider the source,” Aunt Millie told him. “Yancey Caldwell has a mountain of reasons to want to pin Taylor to a board like a butterfly.”
Nick rubbed his face. “I may need a translation dictionary before I leave here. I assume that means he and Taylor have a longtime feud about something?”
Emily nodded. “A woman, what else? When he was in high school, Yancey was bound and determined he was going to get in Connie Miller’s pants.”
Aunt Millie slapped her arm. “Girl, use your manners. You shouldn’t use a phrase like that.”
Emily shook her head. “Get out of here. You’re worse than I am any day of the week, and it’s not like Nick hasn’t heard it before.” She saw him smile.
“Hey, Millie, how about bringing me my sandwich!” A guy yelled from the end of the bar.
She turned. “Keep your shorts on, Fred. I have to straighten out this newcomer. You can eat on that napkin for five.”
Emily chuckled. “Anyway, Taylor blew in like a breath of fresh air and swept Miss Connie right out from under Yancey’s nose. He’s never forgotten it and claims he’s the real reason Connie broke off her engagement to Taylor and left town.”
“And it wasn’t?” he asked.
“Of course not,” Emily told him. “We don’t know why Connie left, but she was never interested in Yancey. Still, to this day, he’s wanted to pay Taylor back.”
“Do you think he’d leak information to get Taylor in trouble?” Nick asked.
Emily nodded. “In a heartbeat. Look, you’re getting in the middle of Climax politics and you need a mastermind to get you through the maze.”
“Who do you suggest?” Nick asked.
Aunt Millie grinned. “Only one guy who can do the trick. Blue Moon.”
CHAPTER SIX
“So Millie thinks I’m a mastermind, does she?” Blue chuckled. “She hadn’t thought that for long, believe me. Guess the run-in with Clarence Palmer last year has given her a new admiration for my country smarts.”
Nick sat down in a chair across from Blue in his living room. “She and Emily both said you’re the only guy they know who can successfully make it through the maze of Climax politics.”
Blue laughed harder. “Climax politics. Now there’s a funny one. All that’s here is a bunch of weird history and a lot of turf feuds between individuals and small groups who have lived here for so long some of ’em don’t remember when the feuds started and over what. Nothing more. Only reason I know so much about it is I just lived here for a long time and observed.”
Nick leaned back in his chair. “Well, humor me and give me a crash course in Climax 101.”
Blue held up his index finger. “Wait a second here and let me get a legal sheet of paper and come over there so I can draw it. Wouldn’t be surprised if you could make a video game out of what we have here.” He stood and walked over to a desk back behind the door in a recessed area. Removing a legal pad from one of the drawers and grabbing a pen from the top, he strode back across the room and sat down next to Nick.
“Okay, there are six main families in Climax.” Blue drew little boxes on the sheet of the paper right in the center. “The Moons, formerly the Adkins.” He paused and looked at Nick. “Ask either Emily or my daughter how that happened.” He pointed back at the page. “Then there are the Franklins, the Burtons, the Millers, the Caldwells and the Binghams. There’s a small enclave of moonshiners, I put up in a little circle away from the boxes, but I don’t count them ’cause they live deep in the woods and don’t really have all that much to do with the folks in town. But just in case you run into them, they’re the Crabtrees, Harveys, Matthews and Nelsons. Anybody else round here isn’t much of a player.”
“I don’t see any Merrimans on here,” Nick said. “What about Cindy?”
Blue smiled. “You’re right. You’re doing real good with this. Some of the women in the main groups married men who weren’t, so you’ll just need to casually ask them what their family names were. For instance, Cindy Merriman was a Miller. Connie Miller’s her niece, ’cause she took Darla’s, her mama, maiden name when Darla divorced that rotten worthless scumbag Northerner who was run out of town on a rail. That’s a whole ’nuther story, but you get my drift.”
“Okay,” Nick stared at the piece of paper. “So I know who the players are, but who are the good ones and bad ones?”
Blue crossed his leg and let out a belly laugh. “Depends on which you play for, son.” He pointed at the desk. “Go get me that box of colored pencils over there.”
Nick got up, snatched the box and sat back down, handing them to Blue. “Color coding, eh?”
Blue nodded. “The ones in red are those who claim to abide by the word of the law like the sheriff and Yancey Caldwell’s folks.” He colored in the Binghams and the Caldwells. “Then there are the ones who have always run just outside the border of the law.” He colored the Moons and Millers in blue. “Finally, right here are the ones who sometimes run outside the law but pretend to always be in it. But seeing as they have the most money, they get by with it, like Emily’s and Justine’s families.” He colored in the Franklins and the Burtons with green. “Needless to say, all the moonshiners are blue like my family.” He drew a blue line around the circle.
Nick stared at Blue, squinting in confusion. “If the Caldwells are abiding by the law, how come Yancey Caldwell seems so, well, dishonest?”
Blue slapped his knee and laughter twinkled in his eyes. “You’re not paying full attention, son. I said they claim to abide by the word of the law. These red folks can bend it pretty much near over sometimes, like a brand new sapling with a heavy limb fallen on top of it. Yancey Caldwell is what I call a red coat. He spends all his time figuring how he c
an get what he wants by the rules as he makes them to be. Watch out for him.”
“I will.” Nick nodded solemnly. “Any other words of advice?”
Blue lips twitched. “Maybe. About Emily Franklin. I sense you don’t think she’s clingy like my daughter and son-in-law believe.”
Nick stared down at the floor. “No, sir, I don’t.”
Blue placed his hand on Nick’s sleeve. “Then listen to me carefully. Before you reach, make peace. It’s your mantra. You have to watch out for her daddy, Robert Franklin, and persuade him to stand in your corner.”
“Why?” Nick asked, his head jerking up in surprise.
“Emily was adopted,” Blue said. “The kid was the baby of a cocaine addict who ODed, and her aunt Millie knew a woman in Danville Social Services. Worked out the adoption. They were very protective of the baby, and then Robert lost his wife in a car accident when Em was not quite six. Taylor was left to run wild, but she was his protected child. Robert was always afraid she’d get hooked on booze or drugs. It’s part of the reason a guy Emily’s age never got close to her.”
“I’m not interested in her romantically,” Nick told him, as his gut clinched.
Blue slapped him on the back. “When your heart convinces your brain you’re lying, come back and talk some more.”
****
“Okay,” Cindy said. “Will the first meeting of the Women Strike Back taskforce please come to order.” She stood in her parlor, staring out at Emily and Millie Franklin, Maggie Moon, Carolina Mann and Connie Miller. “I think all the main representatives of our town are present.”
Emily grinned at the women and nodded her approval. Thank God they were doing something.
“Hold on,” Maggie said. “Justine Burton isn’t here and neither are Carol Bingham and Sarah Caldwell. It would be nice if we could include all the women folk of the main residents. I remember how I felt in New York when I was made to feel like an outsider and should have been included”
Cindy shook her head. “Nice and normal are two different things. Honey doll, you just go on trying to be nicer than God intended. Only one we might have had a prayer of a chance, no pun intended, of gettin’ to this meeting was Justine Burton. Yancey Caldwell’s got his old lady so beat down she don’t know what end is up, and as for Carol, she thinks, since her hubby’s sheriff, her shit don’t stink.”
“Too bad she doesn’t know Harry Bingham’s humping Tilly Matthews,” Millie cackled. “And I guarantee it ain’t a pity call ’cause poor Aubrey got shot last year. More likely Tilly took pity on Harry.”
“Aunt Millie!” Emily smacked her arm. “Stop with your bawdy comments. He’s my boss, and I didn’t intend that to get out.”
Millie smiled. “Sugar, it isn’t a secret. These women already knew the rooster left the coop.”
Carolina giggled. “She’s right. Even the PTA women were discussing it.”
Emily sighed in exasperation. “I can’t scoop anybody anymore.”
Millie snorted. “Gotta be faster than that, for danged sure. You’ve just been moonin’ over Nick, that’s all.”
“I have not!” Emily’s face burned, and she squirmed in her seat. “I’m more irritated than anything else that he’d believe we were the ones who blew the horn about the distribution center being built. We’d never do that to family, and you know it.”
“He actually accused you of that?” Carolina asked. “Now, I’ll admit you can have loose lips, but you never divulged a secret I told you couldn’t be repeated.”
“I think that’s a compliment.” Emily frowned.
“Look here, ladies,” Cindy said, banging her coffee mug on the table. “It’s been three days since that preacher made Climax a laughing stock on national TV. We’re here to figure out who’s been spyin’ on whom and what’s with the dead body and drugs. And most of all to expose that danged fraud of a preacher.”
Maggie crossed her arms. “I think we need to start with the preacher and then move on from there. Whoever got to him….”
“Or brought him here to stir up trouble…” Millie said, pointing her finger. “He’s only been here a few months.”
Maggie nodded. “Exactly. And drugs are involved. So we need to be looking into other instances of drugs being found or accidents happening that are drug-related.”
“I think there’s something going on with the migrant workers,” Carolina said.
Emily shrugged. “Besides the dead guy being a migrant worker, why would you say that? They pretty much stay to themselves. Only place I see them is occasionally filling up a beaten up old car. And that’s not often, because a lot of them don’t have vehicles.”
“Rarely do they even come into the pharmacy,” Millie said. “Unless they’re getting something for their kids.”
“And it’s because of their kids I know,” Carolina said. “Andy’s made friends with a little boy whose parents work on the farms, and he’s always been neat as a pin, happy, and a good student. Here lately, the boy’s been coming to school dirty and in the same clothes days in a row, and is always ravenous at lunch.” She stopped and looked down. “I’ve been fixing another lunch for Andy to take to him under the guise he can’t finish all of his. The kid’s proud.” She sighed. “But, in the last couple of days, Andy’s gotten reports Carlos hasn’t handed in his homework and he’s flunking his tests.”
“Maybe his parents are strung out on drugs,” Emily said. “It happens.”
Carolina shook her head. “I don’t think so. Juanita and Rico were always so nice and respectable in the way they dressed, and both of them wore crosses. I don’t buy they got hooked. To make matters worse, Andy drove over to their trailer after work, and there was an eviction sign on the door. Carlos was nowhere to be found.”
“So, if you don’t think they’re users,” Emily said, “Why do you think there’re drugs in the migrant community?”
Carolina bit her bottom lip. “Andy found a crack pipe in the grass next to the door to the trailer. I think someone dropped it. They must’ve been in a hurry.” She fisted her hands. “And I think something’s happened to Carlos’s parents.”
“If they’re missing, wouldn’t Carlos have said something?” Cindy crossed her arms.
“That’s what I said.” Maggie nodded. “But Carolina seems to believe the kid would be too afraid to say anything because he’d be hauled away to social services.”
“Can’t you look into it?” Carolina asked Emily. “If there have been any reports about drugs, the sheriff’s office would most likely know.”
“No one’s mentioned it,” Emily said, “beyond some people getting nabbed with little baggies of pot. But I’ll check on it. Cal can delve into it. All it’ll cost me is a pie or a casserole.”
Carolina shook her head holding her hand on top of her small baby bump. “You have a loo-loo of a bartering system.”
Emily shrugged. “If it works, it works.”
“Okay, then,” Cindy said. “It’s gonna go like this. Emily’ll check on the drugs and the migrant workers. We’ll all attend Heaven’s Gate Church this Sunday and check out who’s there and even see if we can spend a few minutes with that Luke Lincoln, who must’ve gotten his divinity degree in a Cracker Jack box.”
“Do we have to sit through his whole damned sermon?” Millie moaned.
Cindy nodded. “We’re there to observe.”
“The things we do for God and Climax,” she muttered, shaking her head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“See? I told you we’d find a good plot of land.” Grady smiled, his hands on his hips in front of parcel that had been cleared of trees. “Surveyors came out and did the measurements, and we sent everything to our engineering department for the drawings and the new proposal. We deliver it with a new permit app and the money and hang! We should be excavating by the end of next week.”
Nick surveyed the area. “Okay, it looks ideal. Have we perked it, too, to make sure plumbing can go in and we’re not going to have swam
p leakage?”
Grady nodded. “Come on. I’ve been doing this far too long. This spot’s way above any existing creeks. It reportedly has never flooded, even with some of the downpours this area gets. We’re in the money, boss!”
“Yeah.” Nick squinted against the sunlight. “I won’t breathe a sigh of relief ’til the building’s finished. I fully expect Caldwell to try and block our app going back in.”
“That’s what lawyers are for. Taylor said not to worry.”
Nick’s head throbbed. “Taylor’s not here. This is our headache, and I do mean,” he pointed at his head, “a real headache.” A movement made him jerk his head to the right. On the other side of the road was a little boy, golden skin and dark brown hair, walking along. “Jeez. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Wonder where that kid came from.”
“Don’t know,” Grady said. “But he ought to be in school.”
As the boy got closer, Nick realized it was the same boy he’d seen at Andy’s school. The one Andy shared sandwiches with. He waved. “Hey, Carlos.”
The little guy waved back and ran toward them. Nick noted he still wore the same outfit he’d seen him in a few days before. As the kid got close to them, and upwind, he sniffed the air and struggled to keep from making a face. “What’s up, buddy?”
“I overslept.” He rubbed his eyes. “My parents had already left for work.”
Nick looked at him, his eyes narrowing. “Your mom didn’t make sure you were up and out the door?”
He stared at the ground. “Uh, nope.” His toe kicked up some dirt. “Guess not.”
Nick shook his head. Something was wrong. Sounded a whole lot like he’d been when he used to try and play hooky. “Well, I don’t think your mom would like the fact you didn’t take a shower, so we’re gonna go get you some clothes and let you wash off. Then I’ll take you to school and explain to Principal Andy.”
The child’s eyes grew wide, and he trembled. “Oh no, señor! They will send me away to another place because they’ll be so mad.”
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 131
