Moonshine and Manslaughter

by Ellie Moses

That was good to know because the magick we were up against would take all of us working together to break its hold.

  8

  Monday morning, I awoke to find my alarm had been ringing for half an hour. I turned the darned thing off and stumbled from my bed. I’d spent the rest of the weekend studying the ley lines of Hell County, where Devil’s Elbow was situated.

  I knew them well enough, but the dark magick hanging over my beloved mountains had deeply affected the way they worked with my bright magick. There was a disturbance and it all seemed connected to me.

  As I gathered my towel and fuzzy slippers, the thought hit me that maybe the killer or killers weren’t after Billy Jack after all, but me. Whoever was using their hoodoo in my neck of the woods would know if they messed with him, they messed with me.

  But all I did was place the wards, it wasn’t like I was running shine. That would be apparent to anyone with half a brain.

  Ray came in the shower with me and I told him my suspicion. “Does it make any sense at all that someone would be after me? What do I have that they would want?”

  He moved his ghostly hands over the bubbles covering my entire body and I felt his presence to the core of my being. It was a warmth that flooded me and made me feel complete.

  It was a bitter pill that half of me died the day Ray went off that hairpin turn and head on into an old oak tree. I sighed as he made me feel things I hadn’t in a long time.

  His voice filled my head. “Maybe they didn’t mean for Billy Jack to come wandering up on them at still #4. Maybe they only wanted to draw you out and use you for some purpose they couldn’t accomplish without you or your powers.”

  I turned to face the warm spray of water, my back to Ray. “If that’s true, they could find me right here. I’m not hiding from anyone.”

  “But you’re protected here by your own magic, Granny’s magic, Delilah’s powers, and my presence. This building is practically the safest place in all the county. No, if they were after you, they’d have wanted you to come to the still #4 where their magick still lingers.”

  An icy finger crawled up my spine in spite of the fact that I had turned again so the warm water from the shower-head could wash away the soap on my back.

  I drew in a breath at the idea of someone coming for me. I was just a mountain witch in the hills of Kentucky.

  Ray left me in the shower with parting words. “You ain’t just any mountain witch, Jolene. You are as powerful as Granny Mack. Your bright magick is stronger than their dark magick, but they’ve found a way to tap the old ley lines and turn them to their wicked ways.”

  I pulled my long hair to one side and squeezed out the water as I fussed at Ray. “Just because my mind is an open book don’t mean you have to read it Ray Dang Davis!”

  His ghostly chuckle only added salt to the wound. “Then close the book, Jolene. Close the book.”

  A half hour later, I was dressed, caffeinated, and chanting under my breath the words to help close my mind to outsiders. I was grateful for the old book of magick Granny had given me some years back that had the intonation listed in a chapter under Basic Witchcraft.

  I went downstairs to find Genie behind my store counter. The man from Texas, and the woman who’d bought up my favorite vintage dresses, stood right there in the flesh talking with her. I skittered to the right to hide behind a display of floppy summer hats I’d spruced up with hat bands I’d made from some vintage fabric.

  Recalling the arrowheads I found the day before, and Mr. Mason’s strange advice outside Bodean’s Beer, Bait & Tackle, I stayed put and listened closely while they talked.

  “Well sir I think the owner, my friend Jolene Baker, might have some more soon but she doesn’t just go out lookin’ for them. They sort of come to her. So it’s not like she could promise you when there’d be more.” Genie smiled to soften the blow. But the man and his companion weren’t having it.

  “My wife and I,” he said and turned to look at the lady beside him, “are heading back down to Texas in a few days. Could you take down my number so your friend might call in case more arrowheads find her?”

  Genie picked up a pen and found a slip of paper. She pushed it towards the man and smiled at the woman. “There you are, write down your name and number, and even a message for Jolene if you’d like. She’s real good at getting back to her customers.”

  I nearly snorted and blew my cover, but reminded myself to give Genie a little something extra in her summer paycheck for covering for me.

  The man wrote down his information and raised his head to look around the room. I shrunk even smaller behind my display and prayed they would leave soon.

  Delilah came over and started mewling at me and I quietly tried to shoo her away. “Go on, git girl,” I whispered so low only a cat could hear me.

  The lady with Mr. Texas cocked her head in my direction and I put up a glamor quick and sloppy as instant grits. Breathing a sigh of relief when the two turned to leave the shop, I dropped the glamor and picked up Delilah.

  “You are one naughty kitty,” I whispered in her ear as I stepped out from behind the hat display.

  Genie’s head whipped around and when she saw me, and she almost called out to the tourist couple. I placed Delilah on the counter and smiled at my summer help. “I know he’s the man who wants those arrowheads, but I didn’t want to speak with him just yet. Mr. Mason told me something about him and I need time to figure it out.”

  Genie looked confused but nodded and slid the paper with his name and number across to me. She took Delilah in back but called over her shoulder. “I have to be honest, I’m kinda glad you didn’t have anymore arrowheads for him. Something about him gives me the willies, or maybe it was because of that lady he called his wife.”

  I looked at his name and my blood ran cold. Harlan Covey. That wasn’t the name he’d given Genie before. Well, it couldn’t have been more plain that the Covey brothers were in on the fiasco at still #4. I felt cold air blasting the back of my neck before I knew Ray was standing behind me.

  “You bet your bottom dollar he’s related to them, Jolene.” His tone was one of increased agitation.

  “I’ve got to call him and see why he wants my arrowheads so bad. I think I’ll have Granny Mack here tonight after closing and ask him to come then.”

  Ray moved from behind me and came around the counter so I could see his face. “I normally wouldn’t ask you this, but maybe you need to have Deputy Carter here so he can listen in from your back room. It’s untelling what that pair might say to you if they think you’re here alone.”

  As always, Ray was right. There was no way I was meeting up with Harlan Covey and his wife without my own backup in place.

  I reached over to place my hand on Ray’s ignoring the fact that it was only a misty substitute for the warm flesh it had been before the accident on Thunder Road. I needed to comfort the both of us.

  Genie came back out with Delilah twining between her legs. “Are you okay, Jo? You look so sad all of a sudden.”

  I grabbed her in a fierce hug and sniffled. “I’m just so happy you’re here with me when I get lonesome, Genie.”

  She hugged me back and for some reason the citrusy scent of her shampoo made me think of the BBQ Granny was throwing this coming Saturday evening. “Hey, you busy Saturday?”

  I turned her loose so she could answer. “Not really. Me and Mama was going to take some flowers from her shop out to Ray’s grave site and then stop by the ice cream parlor for a bite.”

  I swallowed hard as Ray moved to stand behind his little sister. The look on his face broke my heart again, but I held onto what composure I had left. “Well, if you want, the two of you are welcome to stop by. Granny is doing it up in the backyard with her grill and the Bodean’s will be there with all their babies.”

  Genie smiled as Ray’s hands went right through her shoulders. She trembled a little like she was cold. “I’ll ask Mama and see what she thinks. I bet she’ll want to come and see Nadea
n’s littles and I wouldn’t mind catching fireflies with them.”

  I smiled and hugged her again, this time on Ray’s behalf and told her again how much she meant to me. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

  She blushed and pushed me away, swiping at a few tears that had fallen from her long lashes. “Go on before you have us both blubbering.”

  I hurried in back and grabbed another cup of coffee, since Genie had made a fresh pot, and reached into the small fridge on the counter beside it and pulled out a tray of ice. It would do in a pinch. I waved to her as I made my way to the front door of the Value Vintage. “Take a long lunch, sugar and be sure to shoo Delilah upstairs if she gets fussy. Sometimes too many folks in and out of the shop gets her back up.”

  Once outside, I hopped in my Jeep to go visit Granny Mack and ask her advice about Harlan Covey when Sheriff Quinn appeared at my driver’s side window.

  People had a way of startling me like that and I reminded myself to roll up the windows when I got out instead of getting waylaid by every Tom, Dick, and sheriff in town.

  “Hey Jolene, you hear about the deputy from Louisville coming to get Billy Jack this mornin’? Won’t be long till he’s sittin’ on death row, missy.”

  I threw my keys on the passenger seat and leaned out my window a little. Sheriff Quinn hopped back like a horned toad on a hot rock. “You heard what it’s gonna be like when the whole state finds out you railroaded my cousin without doing a full investigation, sheriff? Half the town’s been talking about it. How you’ve targeted Billy Jack for years on this, that, and t’other charge but never did get even one to stick. Seems like you’d be more worried than me.”

  He scowled and messed with his hat. “You just watch yourself before you end up hauled in on charges of obstructing justice.”

  I threw my head back and cackled. A real good, honest to badness witch cackle and then pinned him with my evilest eye. “You try your best to haul me in for anything, Sheriff Quinn, and I’ll see to it every last hair on your head falls clean out and never comes back.”

  He looked at me as if he believed I’d do such a thing and I smiled sweetly. I never would, and Granny Mack would whoop me if I ever tried, but he didn’t know that.

  I put my sunglasses on as he stalked away from my car and grabbed my keys, shoving them into the ignition with a little more force than usual. I put my Jeep in reverse. When I stopped at the first red light on Main Street, I pulled my visor down when I saw Harlan Covey and his wife crossing the street.

  Being unrecognizable to them at such a moment served me well. I’d be giving the man a call shortly after finding out what Granny Mack thought of Ray’s plan.

  Granny was out in the garden when I pulled up. I stopped and picked up her old watering can and scooped some rainwater from one of the two barrels she kept on either end of her front porch.

  The water was cool and clear and I took the time to water each plant on her front porch. The sun was blazing overhead, but her porch was cool. Still, those flowers deserved a little thirst-quenching drink. They shivered their little leaves at me in thanks as I plunked down the watering can and went to see Granny in the garden.

  Her vegetables were the biggest in the county and everyone said it was because she had a really green thumb. I knew it was because Granny and Mother Earth were the closest of friends. Mountain witches were Mother Nature in the flesh.

  I picked up a hoe and joined her in the row of corn that was just a little more than knee high. It was easy hoeing the corn now, but in a few months it’d be higher than my head and the bugs would dang near chew my ears off when I helped Granny hoe it then.

  “Hey baby girl!” Granny greeted me and came to kiss my cheek. Her kisses were like pecks from a bird’s lips and I adored each of them. They’d seen me through plenty of rough patches growing up as a young witch in these magickal hills.

  “What’s that you’re stewing over, Jo?”

  The sweetness of the moment before evaporated like morning dew with her usual ability to tell when I was worrying something like Old Blue, her hound that followed her everywhere. Any other hound would have been up on the porch instead of out here in the sun, but Blue never was accused of having much sense.

  “You mean you can’t read my mind this morning, Granny?”

  She threw me a look and I straightened up real quick. “Just cause I can read your mind don’t mean I feel like sorting through it every time we meet, sugar.”

  I looked at her cross-eyed and she swatted me on my behind with the fly swatter she always carried around in the garden. She hated flies and always said they was as bothersome as the devil.

  “Granny, that man from Texas I told you about, he was in the store this morning with his wife. Turns out his last name is really Covey. They were looking for me. Ray thinks I ought to ask them over when the store closes tonight and have Deputy Carter in the back listening in just to see what they have up their sleeves, so to speak. What do you think?”

  Granny stopped hoeing and wiped the sweat from her brow. “I say Ray is right as rain. Billy Jack ain’t getting no younger sitting up in Sheriff Quinn’s jail cell. We figured this was a set up by the Coveys. Seems we were right all along. You do what you gotta do, Jolene. And you do it quick. Here comes your Aunt Dixie and something tells me she is fit to be tied.”

  I whirled around and saw my aunt trotting across Granny Mack’s yard with curlers in her hair and the bright pink smock from PJ’s salon still hanging around her neck.

  Old Blue set to howling and running circles around Granny making her drop her hoe and bend down to catch him before he tore up all her knee-high corn.

  Aunt Dixie stopped when she got to me, breathing like she’d run all the way out to Granny Mack’s from Main Street. She bent over and braced her hands on her knees. “Jolene, git this danged thing from around my neck!”

  I dropped my hoe and hopped over the corn right quick to help my poor aunt. The eye-stinging odor from the perm in her head hit me like a brick between the eyes as I ripped the velcro closure that held the smock tight. Bless her heart, the perm in her hair was going to be a mess if she didn’t get back to PJ’s.

  “What’s happened Aunt Dixie?” I hollered over Old Blue’s howling. Granny had his collar but he kept up the ruckus all the way to the porch.

  “Sheriff Quinn done turned Billy Jack over to the sheriff up from Louisville, Jolene. He’s gone and there’s nothing I can do, not even bail him out. They won’t set no bail.”

  9

  I rolled down all the windows in my Jeep and helped Aunt Dixie into the passenger seat. My eyes still burned from the chemicals in her hair, but she was in no kind of shape to drive back to PJ’s on her own.

  Granny came to stand beside my driver’s side door as I came around the back of the Jeep. “Now listen, Jolene, do as Ray says and get that couple into your shop after closing time. I’ll be there right before and I’ll drag Deputy Carter over too. He owes me a few favors.”

  I kissed Granny’s cheek and slid into the driver’s seat. “Yes ma’am,” I said and closed the door. Turning the key, I looked over at Aunt Dixie. Her poor face was as pale as a new moon and I floored it once we were out of Granny Mack’s sight.

  “Aunt Dixie,” I said, keeping my voice light, “we’re going to get Billy Jack outta this mess. There’s no way three mountain witches can fail, right?”

  I could feel her gaze burning through me when she turned to give me what for. “You can’t even keep folks from reading your mind, Jolene. And my powers aren’t nearly strong enough for this. Granny is the only one who can help my poor boy now.”

  She set off crying again like the world was ending. “But Aunt Dixie, I’m working on that, I swear. Plus, I have some suspects in mind and Deputy Carter can help. He doesn’t want to see your only son locked up in the pen for life.” I didn’t dare talk about death row.

  Honking her nose into a tissue she’d found in my glove box, Aunt Dixie shook her head. “I talked to him this mornin
g! He said his hands were tied where Billy Jack was concerned. Said if he’s innocent, the judge will see it in the evidence and let him go.”

  I mumbled a few choice words under my breath, but Aunt Dixie heard them crystal clear. “Granny Mack would wash your mouth out with lye soap for cussing, Jolene. Now, you and I both know we can’t count on Sheriff Quinn to help Billy Jack. What do you know that you ain’t telling me?”

  I didn’t really know anything for sure, but I did share the information Floyd and Zeke told me right before Billy Jack first got locked up. “Knowing those two, it could be true but when I went to see Luke, he stonewalled me. My money is on that couple up from Texas for the festival. I’m talking to them tonight.”

  “I’ll be there with bells on, you can count on that!” Aunt Dixie had that look in her eyes, the crazy one that came out when her son was on the wrong side of the law. Which was often, but this was worse than that. Way worse. And I couldn’t have her meddling tonight. There were already too many bodies vying for a spot in the tiny back room of my shop.

  “You’re gonna have to get the details from Granny tomorrow. No way are you listening in tonight. If they have something we can go on to help Billy Jack, you’d come unglued and blow our cover.”

  My aunt crossed her arms and fumed. I hated when she got like this, but it was her son facing death by electrocution for up to a dozen felonies besides capital murder.

  My voice grew softer as I tried to diffuse her anger. I was happy Ray was back at the shop rather than here in the Jeep with what I was fixin’ to say. “You know I love Billy Jack like a brother and barring all else, I’ll spring him from that jail in Louisville and see that he gets over to Uncle Joe’s place. From there, he can disappear.”

  “But I don’t want to lose him, Jolene, not to the Pen and certainly not as a fugitive on the run. I want him home where he belongs.”

  Her tears began again and I concentrated on the road ahead of us. I had to prove Billy Jack had nothing to do with the killing at still #4.