Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 07 - Mad as the Dickens

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “Richard wants everybody who can to come in first thing in the morning.”

  “Do you suppose anybody will mind if we’re not here?”

  “Probably not. I’ll just tell folks I’ve got morning sickness. Nobody will question that.”

  “I thought you weren’t having morning sickness anymore.”

  “You know that and I know that, but not everybody else needs to know.”

  Junior and I decided to meet at the recreation center after she’d dropped off her nieces and nephews, and she recruited Mrs. Gamp to watch the kids while we were gone. By the time that was settled, Vasti was impatiently waiting to lock up, and we all headed home.

  I’d hoped to be able to talk things over with Richard on the way back to Aunt Maggie’s and then in bed, but though he tried his best to pay attention, clearly his mind was still on stage. Finally I took pity on him, kissed him good night, and let him go to sleep.

  I tried to wrestle the facts into a pattern myself, but I just couldn’t come up with anything without my usual sounding board. Like Junior, I was used to doing things a certain way. I eventually gave up and went to sleep myself.

  Junior was waiting for me when we got to the recreation center the next morning, and after a quick good-bye kiss for Richard before he started rehearsal, I climbed into her Jeep and we headed out.

  Despite what I’d told Junior the night before, I did know a little about moonshine. I don’t suppose there are many Southerners who don’t. Most good-sized gatherings I’d attended in Byerly, whether wedding or funeral or family reunion, included a questionable bottle of corn whiskey being passed about. I’d even tasted the contents of one of those bottles. I could still remember how it burned its way through my body, and the way my cousin Linwood had laughed when tears ran down my face. After that, I’d been happy to stick to beer and mixed drinks, so I’d never bothered to learn exactly how people went about obtaining the stuff.

  Still, there was something vaguely romantic about bootleggers, as if they were the Southern versions of Robin Hood or Zorro. I’d listened to the tales of their pulling the wool over the eyes of government agents—invariably Yankees who were rude to Southern women—and then dashing through back routes and dirt roads to get their product into the willing hands of other independent men. The sport of stock-car racing had evolved from those midnight chases; Junior Johnson, one of the all-time greats, had spent time in jail for making moonshine runs.

  With all that cultural history, I was looking forward to seeing just what kind of man Junior was taking me to see. Admittedly, Seth Murdstone hadn’t fit my notions of what a moonshiner should be, but I felt sure that Junior’s connection would be the rogue of my imagination.

  I was glad Junior was driving, because even with her directing, I don’t know that I would ever have found the place. She took us down roads I’d never been on before, and had to turn around twice before getting us on the right one.

  “Are we still in Byerly?” I asked her once she seemed satisfied that we were on the right path.

  “This patch isn’t part of any town,” she said. “That’s the way the Todger family likes it: nobody local has any interest in shutting them down, and nobody federal can find them.”

  “Is that why you haven’t shut them down yourself? Because they’re not in Byerly?”

  “Nope. It’s because they’re retired. They used to go through an awful lot of corn, but these days all they make is wine: elderberry wine, blackberry wine, and so on.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “It would be, with the proper paperwork, which they don’t have. But the wine isn’t for sale anyway. It’s all given away to family and friends. Of course, family and friends like to return the favor with a load of groceries or a tank of heating oil or whatever they happen to have on hand.”

  “Making it technically legal.”

  “Just barely.”

  Junior stopped the car, but all I could see was a wide spot in the road. “Are we there? I don’t see anything.”

  “It’s not polite to show up without announcing ourselves.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed a number. “This is Junior Norton. I was wondering if I could come pay my respects… . No, I’m not alone. A friend of mine is with me. Laurie Anne Fleming. Her mama was Alice McCrary, one of the Burnette girls… . That’s right, she’s expecting.”

  “Can they see us?” I said, looking around nervously.

  Junior pointed up above the car. Darned if there wasn’t a security camera aimed in our direction. She waved at it and nudged me until I did the same.

  “Yes, I’m sure she’d like some molasses cookies. Is it all right if we come up to the house? … No, we don’t mind if you finish up what you’re doing first. Just give me a call when you’re free. You’ve got my cell phone number, don’t you? … Then we’ll wait to hear from you.” She broke the connection.

  “Do they want us to come back another time?”

  “No, they just want us to sit here until whoever is in there leaves. Which means that we’ve got to close our eyes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “They’re watching us through that camera, and if we don’t cover up our eyes until a car goes by, not only will we not get inside their place today, but I’ll never get in there again.”

  “Junior, you’re scaring me.”

  “Don’t worry. They’re just private, and a bit ornery. They know I don’t have any jurisdiction here, so they don’t have to let me on their land if they don’t want to. That means that I play by their rules if I want to talk to them.”

  It wasn’t the strangest situation I’d ever been in, but it was darned close. Still, if Junior trusted them, I would too. “What do I do?”

  “Close your eyes and then put your hands up over them.” She demonstrated.

  I obeyed but had to say, “What’s to keep me from peeking?”

  “Two things: One, they’ve got a zoom lens on that camera, and chances are that you’d get caught. And two, I gave my word years ago that I’d never peek and that nobody I ever brought with me would peek.”

  I got the message; I wasn’t even tempted to peek after that. Well, I was tempted, but not enough to actually do it.

  We stayed like that for what seemed like an awful long time, though it was probably no more than five or ten minutes. “Is it all right to talk?” I asked Junior.

  “Sure, though I can’t guarantee that they don’t have a mike set up. What do you want to know?”

  “Do you come up here often?”

  “No, but every now and again I can get information from the Todgers that I can’t get anywhere else. That camera up in the trees isn’t the only one they’ve got, and they keep a close eye on this part of the woods.”

  “Are you sure they’re not a militia group? Or a cult?”

  She chuckled. “Just a mite more eccentric than most. Which I’ve got to admit is saying something around Byerly.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of these folks.”

  “You’re too young,” Junior said. “Years ago, Todgers’ liquor was all over these parts. When they got out of the business, they got more intent on privacy.”

  “You mean paranoid.”

  “Call it whatever you want.”

  Just then we heard a car approach ours, then pass on by.

  “Can we open our eyes now?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” Maybe a minute later, Junior’s phone bleeped, and she answered it with her eyes closed as far as I knew. “This is Junior… . Thank you kindly. We’ll be right there.” I guessed that she hung up, because she said, “All right, Laurie Anne, you can look now.”

  I did so, blinking a bit at the morning glare. “Junior, you do know the most interesting people.”

  “Somebody recently said that same thing to me. Only we were talking about you.”

  I tried to decide if I’d been insulted, complimented, or just accurately described, as we drove on through the woods, emerging in fro
nt of a fence that must have been ten feet tall. “How many bottles of wine did it take to pay for this?” I asked as the gate opened.

  Even after we’d driven through, I couldn’t see any buildings. The land inside the fence was as thickly wooded as the land outside. It wasn’t until we’d driven another full minute that the house came into sight. After all the build-up, I’d been expecting something along the lines of Robin Hood’s tree house, or even a castle. In fact, it was an ordinary split-level brick house with yellow shutters, and it would have fit in perfectly in any suburb in the country. There was a lawn surrounding it, with bushes and a collection of cheerful lawn gnomes. I could see a normal assortment of tools, hoses, and clutter inside the open garage door. Even the wreath on the door and the electric candles in the window screamed “normal.”

  I still didn’t give up on my dreams of a dashing bootlegger until the front door opened and a fiftyish woman in jeans, a burnt-orange-striped blouse, and Keds waved at us.

  “Don’t tell me that’s the moonshiner,” I said to Junior.

  “That’s Clara Todger,” Junior said. “What were you expecting?”

  I was so glad I hadn’t said anything about Zorro or Robin Hood. “From what you said, I thought she’d be older.”

  “She’s the granddaughter and daughter of the real moonshiners,” Junior said. “They made some good shine in their day and delivered it themselves a lot of the time. Daddy says the Todger women are the best drivers he’s ever seen.”

  As I climbed out of Junior’s car, I rubbed my tummy and silently promised the baby that I’d try to stop making assumptions about people I hadn’t met.

  Clara Todger met us at the door. “Hey there, Junior.”

  “Hey there. Clara, this is my friend Laura Fleming.”

  Clara’s response struck me as oddly formal. “Any friend of Junior’s is welcome here.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Junior and I followed her through the house to the kitchen. I only caught glimpses of the other rooms, but everything seemed ordinary to me, from the furniture to the messy stacks of Christmas cards. The kitchen wasn’t at all ordinary. It was huge, for one thing, and had the biggest stove I’d ever seen outside a restaurant. There were big copper pots and pans hung on one wall, and I could tell they were there for easy access, not decoration. The counters were covered with bowls of berries and various gadgets for removing seeds, stems, and such. Obviously this was where the Todgers made their wine.

  Clara waved us toward chairs around the solid oak table, where glasses and a plate full of cookies were already waiting.

  “It’s just grape juice,” Clara said when I hesitated. “I know you shouldn’t drink anything stronger in your condition, and Junior is driving.”

  I took a swallow. It was delicious, and I didn’t have any idea that it came from a grocery store.

  “When are you due?” Clara asked.

  “Around the middle of April,” I said.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “We haven’t found out.”

  She nodded in approval. I’d noticed that most people thought it was a good idea to wait, but most people found out early when it was their own baby. I had no idea why.

  We all took cookies, which were just as good as the grape juice, and talked babies for a little while. Clara said she had three daughters of her own, but I was happy to find out that she wasn’t one of those who thought it was necessary to share every detail of labor. I’d already heard enough gruesome tales to make me wonder why anybody ever had a second child.

  Eventually Clara said, “This is lovely, but I’m guessing y’all didn’t come all this way to eat cookies and discuss potty training.”

  “Not that these cookies wouldn’t be worth the trip,” Junior said politely, “but actually, we want to talk to you about the family business. The former family business, that is.”

  “Then either Laurie Anne here is thinking about getting into that business, which I doubt, or this is about Seth Murdstone.”

  “It’s about Seth,” Junior said. “I imagine you heard about him getting killed.”

  Clara nodded.

  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything else about that through the grapevine. I know you wouldn’t tell us anything if Seth were still operating, but since he’s gone …” She let her sentence trail off, giving Clara a chance to think about it.

  “There’s been some talk,” she said slowly. “You know that Seth was in the habit of sending the fruits of his labor up North?”

  “I could never prove it, but that’s what I figured.”

  “There are others in the state who do the same thing, and some of them have mentioned problems up there. Someone is trying to take over all the available venues, and they’re hoping to cut out everybody else.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ve heard that they were Italian, but somebody else said Puerto Rican,” Clara said. “Whoever they are, they’re a lot more organized than the run-of-the-mill smalltime operators.”

  “Like Seth?”

  “Exactly. Seth stayed as far down the food chain as he could and still make a decent living. So I don’t think he would have wanted to go head-to-head with the big boys. It would have been too much of a gamble for him.”

  “Did they threaten him?” I asked. “Physically, I mean.”

  “I don’t know about Seth specifically, but there have been threats made. Everything from destruction of property to breaking legs. Makes me glad to be out of the business.”

  Junior looked pointedly at the open pantry door, where we could see rows and rows of neatly labeled bottles, but she didn’t say anything about them. Instead she asked, “Have any of the organized types come down here?”

  “That I don’t know. People are spooked right now, so they’re seeing Al Capone with a tommy gun behind every tree. Every time there’s an accident at a still, somebody claims it’s mob sabotage, when probably it’s nothing more than sloppy maintenance.” To me she added, “Moonshiners in general aren’t known for their common sense.”

  Junior asked, “Do you know what Seth was planning to do? Was he going to retire?”

  “Rumor has it that he had been advised to switch to distributing locally, but that he hadn’t decided one way or the other.”

  “Wouldn’t that hurt business for the people already distributing around here?” I wanted to know. “Did any of them threaten Seth?”

  Clara said, “Not that I know of. Which isn’t to say that they might not have done something later, but right now they’re more concerned with the people from up North.”

  “Did any of them have any feuds with Seth?”

  “No. As I said, Seth stayed out of trouble. He had a handful of distribution deals and was happy with them. He stayed friends with everybody and made sure not to cut into anybody else’s business, so nobody had any quarrels with him that I knew about.”

  I shook my head ruefully. “Who would kill a man that everybody likes?”

  “I didn’t say I liked him,” Clara said.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was something that happened a long time ago. Lord, it must be twenty years now.” She stopped, but I waited her out. Eventually she went on. “It was one of those icy winter nights when sensible people stay home, and one of our men was out on a delivery. To keep from being seen, he was driving one of the back roads with no lights on. Unfortunately, Seth Murdstone was doing the same thing on the same road. He rear-ended our man’s car, and sent it into a tree. Our driver was killed.”

  “What about Seth?” I asked.

  “Only bruised, so he could have stayed to help.”

  “He didn’t stop?”

  “He didn’t even admit it until he had to. When my sisters and I went to check on the delivery, we found the car, but it wasn’t until we asked around that we found out that Seth had been out that same night. When we tracked him down, he said h
e’d stopped, but when he saw the driver was dead, he thought he better leave before the police came. He even said he thought he heard sirens. Which would have been reasonable—if he’d really heard sirens.”

  “You don’t think he did?”

  “I can’t say, but I do know the police didn’t find the wrecked car. Of course, it was certainly an accident, and it looked as if our man died instantly, so there was no real harm done. But I never quite trusted Seth after that.” She gave me a tight smile. “I didn’t decide to avenge our driver all these years later, if that’s what you’re thinking. If I’d wanted Seth Murdstone dead, he’d have been buried a long time ago.”

  Junior didn’t comment, and there was something about Clara’s tone that made me believe her. “What about the driver’s family?” I asked.

  “His wife never knew Seth had anything to do with it. There didn’t seem to be any reason to stir up trouble.”

  I nodded. As much effort as the Todgers went to in ensuring their privacy, I could see why they wouldn’t have done anything else.

  Junior finished up her grape juice. “One other thing, Clara. Do you know where Seth’s still is? I don’t want it laying around to be found.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

  I noticed that she hadn’t said that she didn’t know—only that she couldn’t tell—and I was surprised that Junior didn’t call her on it. Obviously the two of them had rules when dealing with each other.

  Clara looked at the two of us. “Can I get either of you anything else before you go?”

  It was a polite dismissal, made even more so when she offered us both bundles of molasses cookies to take with us. Junior refused just as politely, probably so it wouldn’t look as if she was taking a bribe. As for me, I took both bundles.

  The three of us chatted just a bit more about babies on the way out, and then I asked something I’d been wanting to know ever since Junior told me about the Todgers. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Seth, and I know it’s none of my business, but why did y’all quit bootlegging?”

  Clara got still, and for a moment I expected her to order us off her property, or at least take back her cookies. Instead she said, “I decided it wasn’t worth the risks. We didn’t have the problems with Northerners then, but there was always the ATF to worry about. And the police, of course.”