And then he left.
"That little investigation had nothing to do with Rudy and Bogdan comparing notes," Nellie said.
“I’m sure it didn’t.”
“And I’m pretty sure I know what it is about,” she said. “A raid.”
"A raid? Rudy is a legal distiller."
"Bogdan’s clan isn’t. If that Fimbus clown has been getting his flock to flood the state offices with complaints about illegal moonshine they might choose to act.”
"They know Woodley is conducting a murder investigation," I said, continuing her thought. "They’d let him know that one of his chief suspects might be taken down in a raid."
Nellie nodded. "Exactly. And he couldn’t tell us that."
"Is Rudy really going out to look at a car?"
"Yes. That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the area and caught up in a sweep though. If he gets arrested at an illegal still he could lose his license."
"What do we do?"
Just then Pete came out of the back room. "I heard all that," he said.
"I thought you’d gone out."
"Just to talk to Mrs. Paramabet. She’s coming in later to have her hair colored. I took some colors over to show her, since things were slow. She wants a reddish tint, so when I got back I went in back to see what I could mix up for her."
"And you heard everything."
He grinned. "Lucky me, right?"
"And you have an idea? I see you smiling."
"I do. I just happened to think of a very satisfactory way to alter the course of events." He came over and put his head between ours. “See, it occurred to me that the raid might be a good thing."
"Good?" Nellie asked.
"If it’s happening because Dr. Fimbus has insisted, made a lot of noise about what the authorities should be doing and if they are doing this to appease him, imagine what would happen if there was a raid and they found nothing. He’d lose credibility. Even better, they couldn’t yank Rudy’s license even if he was there."
"I like that," Nellie said. "Fimbus winding up with egg on his face."
"Tipping off moonshiners about a raid being made by Federal agents would be breaking the law. And we could get Woodley in trouble."
"We don’t know who is making the raid," Nellie said. "In fact, we are just assuming that’s what Woodley was concerned about. So we are passing along our mind reading. That can’t possibly be illegal.”
Pete grinned. “Even if that was a problem, neither of you is going to repeat what he said anyway. I wasn’t even here when he was talking to you and if I happened to get the phone number from Nellie, say because I wanted to try and get Mrs. Ratkovich to consider having her hair done, make a telemarketing call… if I happened to mention, just in passing that I’d heard a rumor about a raid later today, just a rumor mind you… Gossiping isn’t illegal, and if it was tracked back to me I can honestly say I never heard any mention from anyone who would know for certain that there would be a raid. In fact, I’d be happy to tell them that I wondered if there could be one because Dolores Pettigrew told me that Dr. Fimbus was asking everyone to make calls and demand one."
"She told you that?"
He nodded. "She can’t resist ‘sharing information’ as she calls it, even with sinners."
"Pete, please don’t hold her stupid comment against her. You know she didn’t really mean that. She gets caught up in all that hate talk unfortunately."
He let out a breath. "I do know that, actually. I still am angry with her for saying what she did though. I’m sure I’ll get over it." He frowned. "Just as I have to hope Leander will get over what I said."
"Still sulking?"
"He is."
Nellie handed him a cell phone. I laughed. "You have one of those too? Traitor."
"Hey, you know how trendy we Phlints are. Besides, Rudy got us all phones on a family plan. It comes in handy."
Pete flipped through the phone.
"Ratty?" he said.
"Right."
"What’s he talking about?" I asked.
"The name I put in the contact list," she said. "Who wants to type out Barbara Ratkovich all the time?"
"Got it," Pete said. He wrote the number on an old receipt from Paramabet’s. "I’m going to run over to BaconUp and use the pay phone there. If it’s traced back to me, I was doing my marketing during my lunch break. And we don’t want the call made from your phone."
"Good thinking," she said.
"You know that if we do this we are conspiring to pervert justice, don’t you?" I asked them.
They both looked at me. Nellie crossed her arms. "You already pointed that out quite clearly. What do you expect us to do?"
Pete clutched the paper he’d written the number on. "Well, I figure that everyone needs a little conspiracy in their lives now and then. Besides, I need to show Leander that I meant what I said about not really thinking moonshiners were all scum. Because of shooting off my mouth without thinking, at this moment I’m occupying the same status rung in his mind as Dolores is in mine—on probation as a decent human being." He shrugged. "Given that it’s worth the risk."
"Ah what we all risk for love," Nellie said as he dashed out to make his call.
She was right. Woodley, knowing how I would feel if he allowed Rudy to get caught up in some broad sweep that sent him to jail, had risked a lot to give us a warning hint; now Pete was risking jail to show Leander he wasn’t a bigot. The line that separated the good guys and bad ones, especially given Dr. Fimbus’s antics, was a broad and very gray one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Saturday morning James called. “Can you meet me for breakfast?”
“Come on over and I can make omelets.”
“Better if we meet at BaconUp.”
There was something in his voice that told me he didn’t want to come to the house. Sarah had already had her breakfast and she and Finn were curled up in front of the television watching a movie.
“It’s Old Yeller. It’s an old movie with a dog hero,” Sarah said. “Finn needs to see good examples of his species portrayed.”
“It has a sad ending,” I warned her.
“Realism is important too,” she said. “At any rate, Finn isn’t impressed with Lassie at all. She’s too subservient.”
“I could see that.”
And so I walked to the restaurant. Much to my amazement, Nellie was sitting there with Woodley. I slid into the booth beside him. “Oh oh. This looks official.”
“The Feds are rather unhappy this morning,”
“They found nothing?” Nellie asked.
“Nothing. The barn that Dr. Fimbus alleged to be the site of an illegal still was as clean as a hospital.”
“The barn?” Nellie asked. “They thought the still was in the barn?”
“That was the tip. Why?”
“They moved it further out into the swamp about six months ago. We had inspectors coming around to check the operation for Bayou Shine all the time, and old man Ratkovich worried they might wander over in his direction, so he moved it.”
“So you didn’t warn them about the raid?”
Nellie raised her hand. “Honest, Woodley. Never happened. I sure thought about it though. After what you said and what Pete heard from Dolores about Fimbus demanding one, it wasn’t hard to figure.”
“But you said nothing?”
“I can honestly say I did not say a word to anyone.”
He looked at me. “And you didn’t do it for her, play intermediary again?”
“James, the last conversation I had with any of that clan was the few words I said to Bogdan when we were with him at the police station. I talked to Danilo, his brother about my flat tire, but that was well before Joe died.”
He shook his head. “I had to ask.”
“And now you have.”
“I was relieved when they came up empty handed. Any arrests would’ve been messy and led to more investigations.” He gave Nellie a meaningful look. Then he let out a sigh. �
�Well, naturally I believe you two. I’m sure there is something you aren’t telling me, but we can leave that. Now I can tell the feds that no one I talked to relayed the information.”
“And with a straight face,” Nellie said.
“They're still around?”
“They want us to sit around later this morning and have a debriefing. Then they intend to visit Dr. Fimbus and let him know the penalties for false reports.”
“Lovely,” I said.
“Now order breakfast,” he said. “It’s on me.”
# # #
“What the heck?" Nellie stopped dead in the street, staring. We were walking back from breakfast, and had taken a detour to walk through the park by city hall. When we turned to head back to my house we ran into a crowd gathered in the street.
Well, it was a crowd by Knockemstiff standard. It was maybe fifteen people and they looked angry. "Isn’t that Ellen Hart’s house they are gathered in front of?"
"It sure is. I guess they don’t think the mayor is paying them enough attention.”
“Usually when you see this many people gathered around in Knockemstiff it means there's party.”
“This doesn’t look much like a party crowd.”
“At least not for a party I’d want to go to,” Nellie said.
As we watched this unusual event two men put a box in front of Ellen’s picket fence. Then Dr. Fimbus stepped up onto it, raised a bullhorn and addressed his audience. "Brothers and sisters, we have been given a sign from God yet the officials choose to ignore His will. The evil moonshiner Old Joe was punished for his sins. God made an example of him, causing his chair to break, hanging him by his own hand.”
“That’s an interesting spin on Sarah’s take on the facts,” I said. “He just stirred in the God part.”
Fimbus was just warming up. “Despite our warnings of evil in this community, the authorities choose to pretend there is nothing. But we send them this message—we will not tolerate sinning ways. We call upon the leaders of this community to close the door on wickedness. We demand they ban liquor from this community, whether it is the manufacture of it or the selling or the drinking."
"Isn’t moonshine sort of seriously illegal already?" I asked.
Nellie groaned. "He wants all alcohol banned, is the way I hear it.”
Fimbus still wasn’t done. “If the authorities will not act, then it is up to the God-fearing citizens to take action on their own to cleanse Knockemstiff of evil.”
Just then Ellen Hart came storming out of her house in a bathrobe. I’d never seen her when she wasn’t impeccably dressed, so this was sort of a treat. "Get away from my house!" she screamed. "This is an illegal gathering."
“This is a petition of honest and law-abiding citizens," Fimbus said. “Your constituents.”
“Of course it is. And the law allows you to submit a petition during working hours on a weekday—at the office. This is my home. It’s private property. You are not only trespassing but you are in violation of community noise regulations. And you are harassing me.”
"Do we actually have any of those?" Nellie asked.
"I’ve got no idea. First I’ve heard of them. But she’s the mayor.”
"As angry as Ellen is, if they don’t exist now I bet we have a comprehensive set by Monday afternoon once she convenes the town council."
"No bet. She is definitely pissed off and when she gets angry Ellen is a woman of action."
"That’s why we love her. What odds will you give that she doesn’t smack Fimbus one before she gets the crowd scattered?"
"Fifty-fifty is the best I can do on that one."
"Then my call is that she will slap him upside the head at least once."
“A bottle of wine?”
“Against a bottle of Bayou Shine?”
“You have a deal, girlfriend.”
Fimbus turned toward his flock and spoke into the bull horn, his voice squealing and crackling.”
“With all the technology available, why do all of those things have to sound like someone is shouting down a drain pipe?” Nellie asked.
“Hush,” I said.
“Apparently the leadership of this town is choosing to be in league with the devil,” Fimbus said. “Lucifer has staked a claim here and we will have no truck with Satanists and their sympathizers. Let’s go the way of peace and return to the church, my friends where we can plan our next course of action."
"He gave up awfully easily," Nellie grumped. "That’s weird. He had to know that Ellen would storm out and threaten him, and when she did he just folds his tent and goes home?”
"That was just setting out the battle lines," I said. "I agree with you. He wanted a minor confrontation so that he could work his people up more."
"That’s just plain devious and not at all spiritual."
“Well the battle cry seems to suggest he’s declaring a legal and political war, not a spiritual one. I’d be willing to bet his group is thinking about standing candidates for the next elections.”
“So they can change the laws directly.”
“Right. He doesn’t care about converting people but bludgeoning them to make them behave the way he wants."
"I suppose."
"Besides, you’re just angry because him backing down the way he did didn’t give Ellen a pretext for smacking him."
"True. And because I lost the bet and it’s the fault of the temperance movement. They haven’t even gotten any traction yet, haven’t passed out the first handbill and already they are making my life miserable."
"You don’t think they’d seriously go after banning all booze in town? They can’t want to close the Knockemback Tavern."
"I’m sure that’s what Fimbus the clown wants."
I liked the name. It was sure to catch on. Especially with a little help. “If he gets his way that will be the end of this town—there won’t be much of anything here. It could become a ghost town overnight."
"It isn’t that dramatic," Nellie laughed. "Heck, it might take a week to fold up and blow away."
"Fimbus has to know that his demands would destroy the only real economy this little place has. He might be a pompous and self-righteous ass, but he strikes me as clever. If he understands where that will go, what’s his angle?"
"I have no idea at all," I told her. "Trying to understand the way a man like that might think makes my head hurt."
"Mine too," she said.
# # #
Not long after we opened, Woodley came into the salon. "Hey stranger, need a haircut? We’ve got an opening."
He glanced around. “Actually I’m looking for a woman named Trinity. I understand she’s a client. Have you seen her recently?" Woodley asked.
I thought about the last time I’d seen her, trying to remember. Then I pictured her sitting in Pete’s chair. “She was in here the other day but I’m not sure which day it was.”
"Pete!" He turned. "Woodley is looking for Trinity. I remember Donna washed her hair not long ago."
He thought for a moment. "Yeah. That’s right. You started Donna doing her hair, the wash and massage and then a blow out. I asked if she wanted a trim but she didn't.”
"Why not?" Woodley asked.
"She used to come in every six months or so. Lately she’d been coming in more often."
"Every other week," I said.
Pete nodded. "So it hadn’t had time to grow out. Is she involved in the case?"
Woodley stroked his chin. "That’s what I’d like to know. Nadine gave me a file about her father’s death and there are some uncanny similarities between it and Joe’s death. She was concerned that the news might her upset. I thought I might chat with her. I doubt there’s any connection, but we don’t have many leads.”
“She mentioned that she liked to walk in the swamp,” Pete said. “There was something calming about it, being out there alone.”
“Any idea where?”
Pete shook his head. “Honestly if she told me it wouldn’t have mea
nt anything. It isn’t like the bogs have addresses.”
“Isn’t she at home?”
“Apparently not since the day Joe was killed.”
"Lots of people weren’t at home that day,” Nellie said. "None of us were."
“It just bears checking out. Plus Nadine tells me she is on edge at the best of times."
“Her not being home isn’t a good sign. She so seldom gets out. That is suspicious."
Woodley smiled. "If you say so, detective. We regular cops don’t have the liberty to make assumptions like that. They lead to trouble."
"But suspicions are important."
"They can be."
"If you follow up on them, like hunches." I knew Woodley didn’t like to think that he acted on hunches. That was what amateurs did. He preferred to think that the ideas that bubbled up were the result of his subconscious processing the facts to a possible conclusion.
"Coffee’s ready," Pete told us. “Donna, can you run over to the store and get some donuts. We might have a crowd this morning."
“Sure.” The smiled she flashed at Pete before she dashed out made me wonder if young Donna might’ve taken this job under some misconceptions. It dawned on me that she might not know that Pete was not only spoken for, but gay. I hoped I was wrong because she seemed to do things with a refreshing enthusiasm, and that was good.
Woodley was doodling in his spiral notebook. "If you don’t know where Trinity is, can anyone at least tell me where she works? The girl has to have some kind of job but I haven’t found out what it is yet."
"She works at home," Pete said. "She does something with computers. Programming or something techie that I don’t understand."
"Who we talking about?" Sanders asked as he came in.
Woodley smiled at him. "We were chatting about Trinity, Sanders. Nice job with the gator, by the way."
He beamed. "Thanks."
“Trinity is missing and I’d like to chat with her. Do you know anything about where she is or about her work?"
False Nails and Tall Tales (The Teasen and Pleasen Hair Salon Cozy Mystery Series Book 5) Page 14