Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery (17 page)

“She might seem friendly to you now, but make no mistake about it, Daisy ain’t your friend.”

The smile grew. “Does she blame you?”

“What in God’s name would she blame me for?” Rick retorted.

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s your property. Her father and father-in-law died here. It sounds to me like you’d be the perfect person to blame.”

“That just shows how little you understand. It wasn’t my property then. It belonged to Daisy’s family.”

“If that’s true,” Ethan said, frowning, “why did they decide to sell it? Too many bad memories?”

“Sell it?” Rick laughed. His tone was harsh and cynical. “To get away from bad memories? That’s a good joke.”

Ethan’s face hardened. “Do I really have to remind you about the gallons of unlawful liquor you’re producing on this land?”

The laughter promptly died.

“Because the potential consequences—”

“You don’t need to threaten me.” Rick cut him off sullenly. “I know all about your consequences. Everyone around here does. We understand what happens when you boys at the ATF get mad or feel like teaching somebody a lesson. We’ve seen it before. Daisy and her momma have felt your wrath.”

There was a slight pause, then Ethan replied with frosty composure. “I’m not threatening you, and I don’t teach people lessons. I meant what I said earlier. If you make it easier for me, I’ll make it easier for you.”

“And how exactly do I make it easier for you?”

“You can start by explaining to me what happened the last time someone was here from my office.”

“Okay. But don’t blame me afterward.
You’ll
have to deal with these consequences, not me.” Rick gestured toward the burnt patch in front of them. “The last time someone was here from your office, they had been sent to investigate that.”

“The fire?” Ethan showed mild astonishment. “The fire that killed Daisy’s father and father-in-law?”

“Yes,” Daisy said. “The fire that killed my daddy and Matt’s daddy.”

As she spoke, both men turned to her. Her eyes met Rick’s first. If he expected tears, there were none.

“Daisy…” he began.

She shook her head at him, and her gaze moved to Ethan. Her face bore no anger or grief. Her expression was entirely void of feeling.

“It was an accident,” she told him. “A terrible accident with a large propane tank. But for some inexplicable reason—known only to the ATF and the Almighty above—you decided differently. You called it a felony. A whole long list of felonies actually. Everything you could possibly imagine involving the manufacture, use, and storage of explosives. All illegal, of course. And as a penalty for that supposed illegal manufacture, use, and storage of explosives, you chose forfeiture. The house. The land. The crops. You took them. You took everything. It was all forfeit. The bank holding the mortgages eventually worked out some sort of a deal with you. Old man Dickerson in turn leased it from them. And then earlier this year, Rick bought the property free and clear. So that’s what happened the last time someone was here from your office. My momma and I buried my daddy—who you branded as a criminal—and we lost Fox Hollow.”

Ethan gurgled. He was clearly too staggered for any other response. Daisy found herself almost smiling because of it. He had probably seen a lot during his time with the bureau. Ethan probably already knew from past experience that still waters could sometimes run remarkably deep. But he obviously hadn’t imagined anything like this. That sleepy, bucolic Fox Hollow was quietly a nest of arsenic, moonshine, explosives, and deadly fires.

To her own surprise, Daisy felt a very welcome sense of relief. Now that she had told him, she could stop dreading having to tell him. She turned to Rick.

“Could we go back to you explaining the pink canning jar lid in Fred’s coveralls?”

He blinked at her for a long moment. Then he drawled, “I think we can do that, darlin’.”

“Good. And please tell me that wherever you’re taking us, it’s in the shade. Because it’s positively roasting out here today. With this humidity I would swear a storm must be coming, except there’s not a cloud in the sky. It’s as blue as blue gets.”

“Do you remember what we used to do on days like this?”

“We used to go swimming in the creek.”

“Skinny-dipping in the creek,” Rick corrected her.

“That happened once.” Daisy rolled her eyes at him. “When I was seven and you dared me to do it. I’ve been telling you ever since not to expect a repeat performance.”

“I can keep hoping.”

“And I can hope for an army of penguins to waddle up from Patagonia with buckets of ice in their wee flippers. But hoping ain’t gonna make it happen.”

Rick chuckled and once again started walking toward the farmhouse. Daisy accompanied him. Ethan followed a short distance behind. He was silent and appeared to be in deep contemplation.

Gesturing toward him, Rick said quietly to Daisy, “So how cozy have you gotten with our federal friend?”

“Not as cozy as you’ve gotten with that charming woman Sue I saw at your trailer last week.”

He grinned. “She is charming. Only not as charming as you.”

“I bet,” Daisy remarked dryly.

“But seriously”—Rick lowered his voice even further—“is he our friend? I have to know.”

“If you’re worried about how much trouble that pot still and those brimming barrels in the barn are going to cause you, you probably don’t need to be too concerned. I think if Ethan was really interested in you and what you were doing in there, he would have locked you up by now. Or shot you.”

“You could have warned me,” Rick replied gruffly.

“That we were coming out to Fox Hollow? How was I supposed to know you’d started cooking up ’shine here? And Sue told you the sheriff might drop by. He’s the law too, even if he’s not federal. You can’t count on him turning his head all the time just because it’s less work and he wants to keep the peace.”

Rick grunted.

“Daisy—” Ethan said suddenly.

She glanced at him.

“Did you fight it?” he asked her. “I mean, did you fight us?”

“That bastard has got some nerve,” Rick growled.

Daisy sighed. “I did.”

“And?” Ethan prodded.

Rick’s fingers curled into fists. She put her hand on his arm to calm him.

“And have you ever tried to fight you?” She didn’t wait for his response. “Now imagine doing it when you’re twenty-two—without any money or political connections—while you’re struggling to put yourself through college, take care of your momma in the hospital, and find a decent place to sleep at night after your husband decides to go gallivanting off.”

“Oh,” Ethan mumbled.

Removing her hand from his arm, Daisy raised a weary eyebrow at Rick. “I could really use a jelly jar of yours right now.”

“Tonight,” he promised. “You and me, two jelly jars and our feet in Frying Pan Creek. Just like the old days.”

She sighed again. They had reached the house, and Rick motioned toward the blissfully shady side porch. Trudging up the steps, she collapsed into one of the primeval wrought-iron chairs.

“Mind your elbow,” Rick cautioned her.

Daisy looked at the matching wrought-iron table next to her seat, and to her surprise, she found a pair of canning jars standing on it. The first jar was completely full and shut tight. The other was about a quarter empty and missing its lid. Unlike the canning jars inside the barn, the liquid in the jars on the table wasn’t amber. It was colorless and as perfectly clear as the sky.

With a little jerk, she shrunk away from the table and the jars. “Are those … Is that Fred’s…”

Rick nodded. “I wouldn’t recommend sampling it.”

“And the pink thing?” Ethan came up for a closer inspection. “The reason you knew there was a problem with it?”

“Watch and you’ll see,” Rick said.

He picked up the open jar, moved it carefully away from them, and poured a small stream of liquid onto the table. Both Daisy and Ethan leaned forward, waiting for something to happen. But it didn’t. The liquid trickled across the black iron just like normal water. There was no discernible difference.

“I don’t…” Ethan began.

“Watch and you’ll see,” Rick repeated tersely.

The liquid dribbled over the edge of the table onto the porch floor. The boards had been painted white, and the first few drops that hit them looked the same as spring rain. Then suddenly Daisy saw the change. It wasn’t a bright burst of color, but the formerly hueless liquid had an unmistakable tinge of pink.

She raised her furrowed brow to Rick. “I’ve never seen pink whiskey. It is corn whiskey, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he confirmed.

Rick reached over and unscrewed the lid of the full canning jar. He held it up for them to see. Instead of creamy white or ivory as the inside of the lid should have been, it had a distinct pink tint.

“And the pink means there’s arsenic in there?” Ethan’s brow was even more furrowed than Daisy’s.

“Not necessarily arsenic,” Rick replied. “But it means there’s something wrong with it. Something’s
really
wrong with it. Any man who knows his wet goods and sees it change color like that when it hits wood or rubber, knows not to touch a sip of the stuff.”

“So you noticed the lid in Fred’s coveralls after he collapsed at the diner,” Daisy said, “and because it was pink you realized he had drunk some bad ’shine?”

“At the time I didn’t know it was arsenic that had got him.” Rick sealed up the full jar again. “But I figured whatever it was, it had to be awful bad, considering how sick the old man got and he died from it.”

“Poor Fred,” Daisy muttered.

“I can understand,” Ethan said, “how you saw the lid in his pocket. I can also understand how because the lid was pink you knew there was a problem with his product. What I can’t understand is how you connected that pink lid to this canning jar.” He gestured toward the partially empty open jar.

Rick’s lips curled into a smile. “I wouldn’t say I recognized the lid. A lot of folks use the same jars, after all. But since I’m the one who made the ’shine—and I gave it to Fred by personally putting it on this table—I was pretty sure the lid in his coveralls matched my jars.”

CHAPTER

16

Ethan took a step backward and firmed his grip on the gun that he continued to hold at his side. “You do realize you just admitted to poisoning a man, don’t you?”

“I told you before,” Rick drawled indignantly. “I didn’t poison old man Dickerson.”

“You can say it a dozen more times. I don’t care if you hum it, whistle it, or sing it at night like a lullaby. It doesn’t change the facts. You distilled the whiskey. You delivered the whiskey. And the whiskey killed him. That’s poisoning a man by any definition.”

“So that’s why he recognized you,” Daisy interjected.

Rick turned to her.

“I knew Fred recognized you,” she said. “When he first stumbled into the diner, before he had the seizure and fell. Fred looked at you and seemed to want to say something to you, except he couldn’t because he was already so sick. I wondered about it, but I couldn’t figure out why he’d recognize you. Now it’s obvious. You gave him the ’shine, and he was trying to tell you it was bad.”

“I do think he was trying to warn me,” Rick agreed.

“Or accuse you,” Ethan countered.

Daisy disregarded the latter remark. “You gave Fred lots of ’shine, didn’t you?”

Rick answered with a grin.

“Why did you lie about it?”

“What do you mean?” he asked her, feigning innocence.

“If you gave Fred lots of ’shine, then I can’t believe you didn’t see him, at least once in a while. You had to come here pretty often to cook up all that likker you’ve got sitting in the barn. So even if you didn’t ring the bell and swap stories with him every time, you still must have caught a glimpse of Fred on occasion. And you told Sheriff Lowell you hadn’t seen him in ten years. I thought you were lying when you said that.”

His grin grew. “How did you know?”

Settling back into her chair, Daisy folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve known you long enough, Richard Balsam. I can always tell when you’re lying.”

“As I recall,” he said, cocking his head at her, “there was a time when we knew each other quite well.”

She laughed because by cocking his head, Rick had proven her point. “You also told Sheriff Lowell you hadn’t talked to Fred in a decade. Did you lie about that too?”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Then why,” Daisy said, returning to her original question, “did you lie about seeing him?”

“Aw hell, I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell the whole truth.” Rick leaned against the porch railing. “I honestly didn’t talk to Fred. But I did see him now and again. I’d wave. He’d wave. That was the end of it. I didn’t tell the sheriff because I didn’t think it mattered. And it wasn’t any of his goddam business either.”

“If you didn’t speak to Mr. Dickerson,” Ethan asked, “how did you know to leave the jars for him?”

He shrugged. “After I finished my first batch, I set a jar up on the porch as a courtesy of sorts. I had seen the old man drink out here before, so I thought he might like a taste of mine. When I returned a week later, the jar was empty. I took that as a sign he enjoyed it, and I left a couple of new jars for him whenever I came back.”

Ethan frowned. “But isn’t what you’ve got in the barn aged? With the barrels and the amber color?” He gestured toward the jars of hueless liquid on the wrought-iron table. “This isn’t aged.”

“I do usually age what I make for me and my”—Rick chortled—“fancier friends. But did you ever meet Fred Dickerson?” He didn’t wait for Ethan’s reply. “The old man lived life plain and simple. He didn’t want subtle hints of flavor or bouquet. He wanted the lick of fire. So I gave him the lick of fire.”

“All right.” Ethan’s frown continued. “You gave Mr. Dickerson some of your unaged whiskey. Later—from the events at the diner—you discovered the whiskey was tainted, deadly even. Why didn’t you throw it away? Why did you let it sit out here for everybody to drink? You knew how dangerous it was.”

Rick responded with another chortle. “Look around you. Do you see anyone? Who would possibly drink it? A horsefly might decide to buzz over and take a sip, but I’d be glad if it died. One less bloodsucker flying around the county. When I heard there was a chance the sheriff could drop by, I told Daisy straightaway to watch out for him and make sure he doesn’t pour himself a glass.”