She tilted her head back and looked at the sky. “It was so hot today, the sky was almost white, hardly any blue. When it’s this hot, people turn cranky, tempers get short. Things that’ve been simmering tend to boil over.
“If we don’t cook tonight, Laurel will be disappointed we didn’t make product. But if we got killed, she’d keel over herself. She’s had enough people die on her. I don’t want that lady to have more grief on account of me. That’s my say.”
“Irv?” Ernie said. “You get the last word.”
He pondered it, then said, “I ’spect you’re right, Corrine. After supper let’s move to where we hid out last night. We’ll be locked and loaded, prepared to defend ourselves, but let’s hope we won’t have to.” He gazed off into the distance in the direction of town. “But I’m scared that no matter what we do, Laurel is going to come to grief.”
* * *
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Mike O’Connor’s blasphemy echoed off the limestone wall of the cellar. “They came down here?”
“They invited themselves,” Laurel said. “There was no graceful way to refuse. If we hadn’t installed those false shelves, they would have caught me red-handed. All those evenings I spent stewing fruit and berries saved us.”
It also had helped to have a father-in-law to whom nailing scrap lumber together to form shelving had been the work of only a few hours. The exertion had pained his wounded arm for days after, but he would be glad to hear that his effort had prevented a catastrophe.
“The mayor likes to push his weight around,” Davy said. “He’s a blowhard.”
“Don’t underestimate how sinister he is under all that bluster,” Laurel said. “He frightened me, and so did Landry. At least with Croft you know where you stand. Landry lurked and listened, all the while smiling like a snake oil salesman.”
Mike said, “Yeah, he’s a sneaky one.”
“How do you know Chester Landry?”
“We don’t,” Mike said, “but we’ve seen him around, usually at Lefty’s. I know the smile you?
??re talking about. Like he knows you’re the one who farted.”
Laurel said, “Thatcher warned me of him.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, it’s Thatcher now?”
Davy spoke over his brother, but Laurel addressed Mike’s question. “That was Thatcher’s purpose for coming here the night you saw him in the yard. He cautioned me about Landry. I didn’t take him seriously. I should have. Croft made it clear that he and Landry are committed to squashing the Johnsons.”
“Do they realize how many Johnsons there are?” Davy asked. “They’re like cockroaches.”
Musing aloud, Laurel said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Croft’s and Landry’s operation isn’t just as large. They’re more discreet, but ambitious and every bit as ruthless as any Johnson. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they initiated all the trouble last night.”
“Exactly what did Mr. Croft propose?”
“The upshot was that he and Landry have a pool of moonshiners producing for them, and they want me to become one of them. An ‘or else’ was implied.”
“You’re not thinking of joining them?”
“Absolutely not. I haven’t worked this hard to pay middlemen ten percent. I suppose we should be flattered that they considered us enough of a threat to bother. Croft even admitted how good our liquor is and how well it sells.”
“What happened after your grandstanding?”
“They complimented me on the pie business’s expansion and left.”
Mike frowned. “I don’t like it. These men aren’t fools, Laurel. They were too dignified to go tearing down shelving looking for your stockpile of ’shine. They backed off, but they’re drawing up another plan of attack. Mark my words. Next time I doubt they’ll be so polite.”
“Then we’ve got to move our whiskey to another hiding place away from the house,” Davy said. “Safer for the whiskey, safer for Laurel.”
“That would require careful planning,” she said. “First, we have to find a place, and we can’t do that tonight. Not with the county already a powder keg. And forget delivering to Ranger tonight. It would be too risky.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Davy said. “We know to be on the lookout.”