by Alan Lee
Boyd showed me the milking barn and briefly expounded on the machinery and threw around some cattle numbers. I studiously wrote everything down. Master of disguise.
“What do you think of his plan to purchase another farm?” I asked.
Another pause. “Got no idea.”
“Is it profitable for him, as an investor?”
He rubbed at his weathered forehead with the back of his wrist. “Don’t know for sure, but I’d guess…barely. After personnel expenses are paid and after interest and mortgages and insurance, my guess is barely. Farming isn’t a lucrative career, much less investing in one. As the owner and operator I did fine, but as a remote investment? Ain’t so sure.”
“He never comes around?”
“Not for months.”
“Do your farmhands even know his name?”
“Oh sure.” He sniffed and waved his hand toward the long gravel driveway. “They call him Lexus. When he shows, it’s in that silver car. ‘Here comes Lexus,’ they call.”
“Who handles the money?”
“Not me. My wife don’t trust me much with numbers. Why we’ve got a good marriage. She works with his finance guy up Roanoke. Revenue comes in from dairy distributors and she does monthly expenses and I see none of it. Not till it shows in my personal bank account.”
We stopped at one of the wide gates. I rested my arms on top and hooked my boot onto the lowest rung. I hoped he noticed how much like John Wayne I looked. “What changes has Mr. Summers made?”
“I don’t follow.”
“New owners usually tweak their projects. Reduce expenses, that kind of thing.”
“Not a one. He asks no questions, makes no demands. Like I said, a godsend.”
“Your farmhands feel the same way?” I asked.
“Not initially. They preferred it stay in the family, so to speak.”
“Anybody quit?”
“Two boys quit. Been with me fifteen years and they hoped maybe I’d give it to them one day. But a farm is too big a thing to gift away.”
I liked Boyd. He didn’t have a cell phone that I could see. Easy way of speaking, dirt under his nails, made solid eye contact.
“Mind if I look at your books sometime?” I asked. “I’d like to get a better handle on the numbers before reporting back.”
“Have to speak to Mrs. Hunt or his guy up the city. But my wife’s visiting grandkids in Raleigh. Back later this week.”
We talked a little more and I left. Professional instincts told me that Boyd wouldn’t steal to save his life, or rat on his employer to save his wife. But his pauses made me wonder more about the hidden facility I’d seen on Google Earth.
I got back in the Accord and slowly made my way around the entire lot, which was over five hundred acres. Soon the house and sheds were out of sight, lost beyond the hills. An unmarked gravel road separated the Hunt farm from the neighboring lot to the north and I took that road, keeping a close eye on my satellite map.
A quarter mile out, I parked and walked. The air had warmed just enough to encourage the first bees and grasshoppers and I swished against tall grass to keep out of the mud.
It wasn’t a facility I’d seen, after all. Or at least it wasn’t a network of small buildings. It was a still, built around and amongst the trees. Almost certainly producing moonshine, and lots of it. Enormous steal mash pots, copper distilling heads, multiple hundred-gallon boilers. Only one man was here working but it looked like a big operation. I watched through the cover of trees as he stirred barrels of…probably fruit? I was somewhat less than an expert.
This distillery was illegal. Had to be. Otherwise why hide it? Could Summers have purchased this farm simply to camouflage a moonshine operation? Struck me as a lot of work. But it also seemed like it would produce oceans of shine, a drink in high demand round these parts.
What to do.
What to do.
There was only one guy. He probably couldn’t beat me up too bad.
I pushed through the pine and poplar, intentionally causing a ruckus. Stepping on branches. Scuffing the gravel. As I neared, more of the distillery revealed itself. Big damn operation.
The lone worker turned and regarded me, long metal paddle held like a javelin on his shoulder. Tall guy, heavy with muscle. His mouth hung open. He had a thick goatee. Boston Red Sox cap. Beefy forearms.
I took note of his large Chevy truck.
“Could it be,” I said, “the notorious Wayne?”
“Who’re you,” he barked. Had he been a dog, his hackles would be raised.
“Summers didn’t tell me you worked at the distillery. Man of many talents.”
“You’re that fucker’s been snooping around.”
“Name’s Mackenzie. Professional fucker and snooper, hired by Summers to help expand his empire.”
“No you ain’t.”
“I ain’t?”
“You’re looking for the snitch,” Wayne said, throwing his paddle back into the barrel. His boots looked so caked with mud they could hide triceratops fossils. “The hell kinda name is Mackenzie?”
“The elite kind.”
“Summers thinks I’m the snitch? Well I ain’t.”
“I’ll tell him so. Surely someone with tires of such impressive height can be trusted.”
“You’re a got’damn piece of shit, you know that. I ain’t ratted out nobody. Neither has my crew.”
I briefly debated the merits of explaining double negatives, but Wayne looked bigger and stronger than me (hard to do) and thus I assumed he would not absorb such niceties.
“I’m looking into Summers’s affairs, Wayne. Right now I’m learning about the distillery.”
“How about you and I cut the shit, Mack. He hired you to find the snitch and waste the bastard. I know better’n most what Summers is into. I know what he’s got to hide and I don’t cross him.”
“What makes you think you know better than most?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” he asked. “Making the shine? He trusts me. And fuck you, that’s what.”
“Wow. An original and withering invective, Wayne.”
“What?”
“Making moonshine isn’t impressive, is it? Even Scott at Happy Hills knows about the moonshine.”
Wayne scoffed. “Scott don’t know shit. We give those dusty corpses the leftovers. They don’t get top shelf. Nothing from this place. This here’s primo. And I’ll tell you one thing. You’re lucky I ain’t the snitch. ‘Cause I had something to hide? And we out here alone? I’d kill you right now.”
“Yikes. How on earth would you do such a thing?”
He hit me.
I didn’t recognize we’d gotten close enough. I saw the roll of his shoulder at the last instant and pivoted with the punch, but still he rocked me backwards. The lights dimmed and the world had to steady itself.
“How ‘bout I just beat you to death, that’s how.”
“Wayne!” I shouted. “Ouch! This will not look good on my report.”
“You can take a punch, I’ll give you that. For a narc.”
A hot ball of anger was building in my chest. I wanted to knock his teeth out, here and now. Be kinda fun, slugging it out with this heavyweight. I’d pay a thousand dollars for one clean uppercut. But I hadn’t been hired to start fights.
Mastering my pride and fury was taking all of me.
I walked a few steps away and ground my teeth.
I hopped a little.
I hadn’t been hired to get into fights, I told myself again.
“Jesus,” he said. He was staring at the pistol clipped to my belt, small of my back. “You thinking about acing me?”
“Not seriously.”
“That a 1911?”
“Yes. Kimber .45.”
“Kimber? Never heard of it.”
“Used by Los Angeles SWAT,” I said.
“Huh.”
Wayne had enough intelligence (but only just) to put the pieces together. Realize he hadn’t hit a rando
m schmuck. That maybe he’d tried to bully the wrong man, a man who could bully back.
Deep breath.
And another one.
“All right, Mack. Now we understand each other.”
“I got a feeling, Wayne, you understand very little. But I’m not so sure my employer would appreciate me pulling your throat out through your nose and driving your truck around town with you strapped to the hood.”
“That’s how it’s gonna be?”
“That’s how it’s gonna be.”
“Summers wasn’t messing around, he hired you, boy, but I ain’t the snitch. You wanna settle this now?”
“I’m leaving,” I said, already on my way out. “I’m trying to turn the other cheek, so to speak, but thinking about shooting you is getting too tempting.”
* * *
I stared at the dark television until midnight. An empty beer bottle in my left hand, and an ice pack long since melted in my right. My face throbbed around my left cheekbone and my jaw cracked when I opened it.
Five years ago, I would have killed him.
But I was a new man now.
A man who got decked and did nothing.
That didn’t sit well with me. I thought I’d done the right thing; I hadn’t retaliated out of emotion or pride. Hadn’t killed or maimed him. Hadn’t gotten myself hurt further. And yet…
And yet.
I hadn’t resolved what to do once I laid bare Calvin’s mole. I’d taken the job on impulse, to be near Ronnie, to protect her, to hurt Calvin’s criminal enterprise. Because I didn’t like him. But now I liked Wayne less.
My phone buzzed. Another text from Kristin Payne. I should probably reply.
But.
The house’s rear staircase creaked. Soft footfalls on the polished hardwood. Someone got a glass of ice water and quietly came into the room with me.
“Hey kiddo,” Sheriff Stackhouse said and she ruffled my hair. Like she would do to a six-year-old. Based on periphery clues, I deduced she was wearing her blue nightshirt which hadn’t been tailored for modesty. She was as good as fifty got, an inspiring recipe of good breeding and plastic surgery. I kept my eyes straight ahead. Honor thy father and thy father’s girlfriend. “How’s the face?”
“Chiseled. Handsome. And sore.”
“And you didn’t hit the guy back,” she said.
“I’ve spent most of the evening wishing I had.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Trying to grow up, I suppose. Pretend like I’m more than a Neanderthal,” I said. “Take the road less traveled.”
“Your father says you’re a christian.”
“Yeah, some of that too.”
“I respect a man who follows through on his convictions. Very strong. Very sexy.”
“That’s why I let him hit me,” I said. “The sex appeal.”
She laughed, a husky, throaty sound I worried would wake Kix. “Want me to bring him in for assault?”
I didn’t respond.
“Never mind. That was offensive. You can handle yourself, I know.”
“Correct,” I said.
“What are you going to do about him?”
“I got a feeling he and I will bump heads again. At which point I might take the Neanderthal approach.”
“Ooo, may I watch?”
“No. Go back to bed with my father.”
“Respect your elders, young man.” She gave a clump of my hair a sharp tug and turned to leave. “What do you think? Does your old man have another round in him tonight?”
“Then again, I might let Wayne put me out of my misery.”
Chapter Nine
Tom Bradshaw’s office was in the Wells Fargo tower downtown. Fourteenth floor with an expansive view of Mill Mountain. His desk was polished and glass trophies proclaiming economic superlatives decorated his shelves. A small television set on a filing cabinet was turned to the golf channel, announcers barely audible.
“Mr. August, come in. He told me you might come by. Please, have a seat. If you can fit, my goodness, that chair’s never looked so small,” he said, indicating the chair opposite his desk.
“Why are all you finance guys so fit and trim, Mr. Bradshaw?”
“Call me Tom. And weight and calories are numbers, something we monitor closely.” He’d gone mostly bald. His shrewd eyes were set narrowly around his nose and he had a way of speaking that hinted at nasal surgery in the past. Argyle sweater vest over a blue button-up.
“Ah,” I said.
“And we were too nerdy to make varsity anything, other than cross-country. Also, damn, what happened to your cheek?”
“Walrus.”
He laughed. Everyone loves a good walrus joke.
“Did Calvin Summers tell you why he hired me?”
He nodded. “He did. He did. Unfortunate business. How can I help?”
“I’m still getting started. Learning as much as I can. What is your best guess about the nature of the evidence the mysterious informant passed to the federal prosecutor?”
“Can you not ask him that?”
“I can but I’m working this from a different angle.”
“If you figure that out, it will narrow down your suspects, right?”
“Bingo.” I shot him with my finger.
“I would assume financial information, like receipts or bank statements or figures. Possibly intercepted communication.”
“Because Calvin was busted for unclaimed income it’s almost certainly something to do with numbers.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Seems to me, based on that assumption, you ought to be suspect number one.”
He smiled and his eye twitched. “I can understand that. But Mr. Summers trusts me. Else I’d no longer have him as a client. And the nature of the, ah, income in question falls outside of my scope of influence.”
“Do you know if Ronnie Summers saw the evidence presented against Mr. Summers?”
“I’m sure she did. It is my understanding that she didn’t have to see much to realize their best course of action was to accept a plea deal. Again, I assume they presented her with documents detailing illegal finances.”
“Finances outside your scope of influence.”
“Yes.”
“So you were never implicated?” I asked.
“Because I was never complicit.”
“But you’re the finance guy.”
“Not, apparently, for all his endeavors,” he said.
“What income had Calvin hidden from the government?”
“I am not privy to that. He’s never told me.”
“Does he employ a secondary finance guy?”
He shook his head and rearranged the silver pens on his desk. “Not to my knowledge.”
“So the hidden income wouldn’t be from a legal enterprise. At least not from one of the enterprises you oversee, because you would note the discrepancy.”
“Correct. I only deal in, ah, legal commerce.”
“So the illegal income in question didn’t originate from the rental houses or the trailer parks or the restaurant or the dairy farm?”
“Correct, nor from the convenience stores.”
“In other words,” I said, wisely, “he generated the money from criminal endeavors.”
“Not necessarily. It could be unclaimed legal income.” He emphasized it heavily because he assumed no one could be as handsome and as intelligent as I appeared.
I said, “Unclaimed legal income, from something like a banana stand?”
His eyes crinkled with subdued mirth. Very subdued. “Clever. You’re funny.”
“Correct.”
“Here’s what I think happened. Again, I wasn’t in the room.”
“Of course.”
He steepled his fingers and spoke over them. “I think the government presented him evidence of significant income which he wasn’t claiming, and for the moment let us not concern ourselves with the source. The money was simply there. And the government co
uld prove it. At which point he and his lawyer scrambled for any method to mitigate the legal fallout. They looked for a source which couldn’t be traced through paperwork. Often, in cases such as this, the best, ah, solution is to claim it was a gift or even better claim it came from gambling. Neither of which is legal but much better than, say, from human trafficking. Which clearly Mr. Summers does not participate in but I’m using it as an example.”
“So they lied about the source of the income.”
“Possibly. It happens.”
“And the IRS and the federal attorney bought it?” I asked.
“Almost certainly not. But how far down the rabbit hole does the IRS want to go? Or the local federal office? Mr. Summers paid a heavy fine, paid the back taxes, and spent six months in jail. A big win for them. It’s the same way the FBI got Al Capone, if I’m not mistaken. They knew he was deep into the underworld but they got him on tax evasion.”
“So what else is Mr. Summers into?”
He grinned. “I said we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the source of the income.”
“I’m super concerned with it.”
“I’m afraid I have no idea about the source. Knowing Mr. Summers as I do, I presume it originates from something harmless. Like a gift.”
“If I knew, I could catch his informant easier,” I said.
“I’m sure you could but you’re asking the wrong man.”
“Whom should I ask?”
“‘Whom’?” His fingers were still steepled.
“I read books sometimes,” I said. “And learn stuff. And say fancy things like whom.”
“I don’t know whom you should ask. Isn’t that what you’re being paid for?”
“Supposedly. How am I doing so far?”
“At the moment, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“So you don’t keep the books on his moonshine business?” I asked.
“Mr. Summers has no moonshine business that I’m aware of.” He said it quickly, no hesitation, no surprise.
“Is it lucrative? Selling moonshine?”
A small shrug. “No idea. I’ve never purchased, sold, or tried it, nor have I worked with anyone in the industry.”
