of my business, just don’t expect me to be like them and do…things.” She raised her chin toward the bedroom door. “Please be enough of a gentleman to leave now.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, to say more, but he exhaled heavily and turned away from the bed. He picked up his hat and put it on, then pulled on his jacket. He went to the door but didn’t open it. Looking back at her, he said, “I didn’t finish my story.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, you need to.”
“It doesn’t concern me.”
“I hope to God not. I really hope to God not, Laurel.” He paused. “See, when we got back to the jail, the sheriff left straight for home. I volunteered to escort Elray inside and lock him up. Deputies were piling out of the other car. Some lit up smokes and jawed about the expedition, others went inside. I hung back with Elray and seized the opportunity to ask him in private what he’d been lying about.”
“He’d told you the truth.”
“But not all of it. I knew he was holding something back about Wally’s murder, something that had recently come to light. He hem-hawed around but finally told me that a tip had come from none other than Gert. According to her, a competing moonshiner had done Wally in.”
“That’s not at all surprising.”
“I didn’t think so, either. But I sensed that Elray was still withholding something. I kept pressing him about the identity of this bloodthirsty competitor, and he finally gave up what he knew.”
“Which was?”
“It’s a woman.”
Laurel’s breathing was suspended for a full fifteen seconds before Thatcher continued.
“I doubted him. I told him that either Gert was lying or she’d been misunderstood. Elray swore he was there when Gert named the culprit to his great-uncle Hiram. Naturally, I encouraged him to give me her name. And I believe he eventually would have. Except that somebody shot him through the head from the roof of the bank building.”
Laurel exhaled in a burst. “Oh, my God, Thatcher.”
He stared at her for several beats. “He was standing no more than a foot away from me. I saw his eyes go dead before he dropped.”
She covered her mouth with a shaking hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I. He wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me.”
He put his hand on the doorknob and addressed it rather than her. “Sheriff Amos predicted that there was going to be a bloody moonshine war. He said he could use an extra deputy and offered me the job. I turned him down, told him it didn’t have anything to do with me, that it wasn’t my fight, and I wouldn’t be taking sides. That’s the thing that changed tonight.”
He reached into his pocket, took out the now familiar badge, and, looking back at her, pinned it to his lapel.
* * *
Irv was standing in the kitchen, holding the shotgun aimed at the door through which Thatcher had to pass on his way out. When he saw Irv, he stopped. The two squared off, and when Irv spotted the badge, his scowl deepened.
He said, “Badge or not, I could shoot you for trespassing.”
“You could. But just so you know, I’m unarmed. To a jury that might look like murder.”
“I could murder you for messing with my daughter-in-law.”
“I’d be dead. Laurel would be left to suffer a scandal.”
“It’s Laurel now, is it?”
“Yes.” Thatcher walked forward until the barrel of the shotgun was inches from his belly. “It’s Laurel. And hear me, Plummer. If you and your moonshining get her killed, I’m going to kill you.”
He allowed time for the words to sink in, then he stepped around the old man and left through the back door.
Forty-Four
Norma was seated on a stool at her vanity table plucking her eyebrows when Patsy sauntered into the bedroom. “You’re not even dressed yet?”
Norma yanked out the last wayward hair, dropped the tweezers onto the vanity, and swiveled around. “What’s your rush?”
“I’m not in a rush. The man at the bank is, and he keeps bankers’ hours.”
“What is the problem?”
“Something to do with a signatory card. He was expecting us at one o’clock. It’s thirty minutes after.”
“Can’t you handle it alone? I don’t want to get Arthur up just to traipse in and out of the bank.”
Five minutes later, Patsy left the house more noisily than necessary, probably in a spiteful attempt to wake Arthur from his nap. But he slept peacefully in his bassinet. Earlier Norma had placed it