Chapter Nine

After I fixed Kiki a steaming cup of tea, we spent several minutes on the computer comparing the relative costs and features of various security camera systems. We eventually decided on a two-camera system with wide-angle lenses, heat-sensing motion detection, and internal built-in memory cards that could store footage for up to a week. The system would send alerts to my cell phone and allow me to access real-time footage remotely. The devices also sported a microphone so I could communicate with intruders. Halt! Who goes there? We’d have one of the cameras installed over the front entrance where it could oversee the shop. The other would go over the back door and keep a digital eye on my stockroom. We bought a separate wireless door chime system that would alert us to anyone entering the store. The device came with a panic button to activate an audible alarm. Fortunately, the door chime was a plug-in model that didn’t have to be hard-wired, requiring only an electrical outlet and backup batteries. I’d be able to install it myself and wouldn’t have to further impose on Kiki’s buddy from the theater. Even more fortunately, the company offered two-day delivery at no extra charge. The devices would be dropped at my shop by ten o’clock Monday morning.

We were about to sign off the computer when an idea popped into my head. “The police will run a background check on the people who bought my cherry moonshine. Why don’t we see what we can find, too?” If I could help Ace track down Cormac’s killer, I’d be exonerated and wouldn’t have to worry she’d return to arrest me. I also wouldn’t have to worry that the killer would think I might have seen something and return to my shop to do away with me. I printed out another copy of the list of people who’d used a debit or credit card to buy cherry moonshine and handed it to Kiki. “Call out the names for me.”

As she read off the first name, I typed it into the Internet browser along with the word arrest. I hit enter, and the two of us leaned in to peruse the resulting links. While there were links to the woman’s social media accounts, as well as a listing and photo on her employer’s website, none of the entries indicated she’d ever been arrested, let alone for a violent crime. The same went for the next fourteen customers. By all accounts, they were upstanding citizens.

Our next target was not so upstanding. “Bingo!” I cried. “This customer was arrested in an undercover sting for solicitation of prostitution.” Fitting, given that the man’s name was John.

On seeing the guy’s photo in the online article, Kiki cringed. “Ew. He looks like he hasn’t washed his hair in weeks. He’s got a mustard stain on his shirt, too.”

“This guy doesn’t look familiar to me. Maybe he just has the same name as the customer.”

“Could be,” Kiki agreed. “But just in case, I’m going to grab the disinfectant and sanitize the store.”

She proceeded to do just that as I ran through the remaining names with no luck. As far as I could tell, the list was a dead end. But not all violent crimes made the news. Ace would have access to more complete records. Maybe she’d find something I didn’t.

---

*   *   *

Business was brisk that afternoon, people coming out to enjoy the beautiful weather and riverfront. Kiki and I scurried about, pouring samples, helping customers select their favorite flavors, and ringing up jugs and jars. The pace was a nice distraction from thoughts of Cormac’s murder and my status as a suspect.

My cell phone erupted into song in the pocket of my overalls, blaring my ringtone, a version of “Good Old Mountain Dew” recorded in 1964 by an all-female band called The Womenfolk. I pulled it from my pocket to see that it was Kate calling. Is the baby on its way? After I accepted the call and greeted her, I put the call on speaker so Kiki could join in. “Are you in labor?” I asked.

“No!” she cried. “Haven’t you heard? The owner of Limericks was found dead! I just saw a blurb about it on TV.”

Kiki and I exchanged a glance. “We’ve heard,” I said. “A detective came by my shop earlier to see if we knew anything.”

Naturally, Kate assumed we were completely in the dark, and it seemed best not to disabuse her of that notion with her baby’s arrival so close at hand. “I hope they figure out who did it,” she said. “It worries me that something so awful happened so close to your store.”

Closer than you know. I changed the subject, partly because I couldn’t say much more without violating Ace’s order to remain mum and partly because I wanted to focus on more positive things. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a soccer ball,” she said. “The baby seems to be trying to kick its way out.”

“That’s a good sign,” I said. “It means the baby is healthy.”

“Look on the bright side,” Kiki added. “At least it’s not wearing cleats.”

After a few minutes of chitchat, a customer came in and we ended the call.

Around four thirty, my stomach began to rumble. My first thought was to call in an order for barbecue, but then I realized maybe I could do a side order of sleuthing if I went for slaw in person.

“Can you hold down the fort for a few minutes on your own?” I asked Kiki.

“I can handle the customers.” She reached under the counter and held up the can of her toxic adhesive spray. “If the killer comes back, I can handle them, too.”

I hurried down the block to the Smoky Mountains Smokehouse. The smells of onions, baked beans, and spices met me at the door. Luckily, I’d beat the dinner rush. Even more luckily, Mack Clayton was working the register. I stepped up to the counter. “You’re just the man I wanted to see. How’s the shine sauce workin’ out for ya?”

“The customers love it! I’ve nearly emptied the jug of Ole-Timey Corn Liquor you gave me.”

“You’ll need more, then. How many jugs should I put you down for? Five? Fifty? An even hundred?”

He chuckled. “Let’s start with one.”

“Make it two and I’ll give you one of them at half price.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Our sales transaction concluded, we spent a few minutes chatting and working out an arrangement to give each other’s customers a mutual five percent discount if they showed a receipt dated the same day from the other establishment.

“My friend Kiki can work up a flyer to that effect,” I said. “We can post it by our registers to let our customers know of the arrangement.”

“You sure do have a mind for business, Hattie.”

“I was born with it,” I said, beaming. “I ran the most successful lemonade stand on my block as a kid.” Granddaddy had helped me out then, too, and was likely the secret to my success. He’d sold my customers jugs of his homemade shine along with the lemonade. Though I’d been too young and naïve to know it at the time, it had been an entirely illegal operation. By this point, though, the statute of limitations had probably run on my grandfather’s offenses. At least his moonshine sales were legit now, thanks to yours truly.

I recited my dinner order, and while Mack rang me up, I fished for information. I was curious whether the detective had been by to see him yet. It would’ve made sense that she’d stop by his restaurant after leaving my shop. His business was in the area, and he was more likely to be in his barbecue joint on a Saturday afternoon than Heath Delaney was to be in his law office. I was also curious whether he suspected I might have been the one to give his name to the police. I’d been told to remain mum about the specific circumstances of Cormac’s murder, but I hadn’t been told I couldn’t raise the matter of his murder at all. By now, those in the area were likely aware of it. Bad news travels fast, after all. “Did you hear about Cormac O’Keefe?”

“I did,” he said flatly. “Looks like what goes around finally came around.”

“Speaking of coming around, a detective came by my shop earlier.”

“Ace Pearce?”

“That’s the one. She’d heard that my grandfather and Cormac had it out in front of my shop last night.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mack said. “What was their argument about?”

I told him that Cormac had placed an order, then refused to accept it. “A sales rep from Backwoods Bootleggers crashed my grand opening party, then went right over to Limericks and convinced Cormac to go exclusive with the brand.”

“That so?” Mack said. “There must’ve been something in it for Cormac, then.”

“A nice discount, I suppose.” I told Mack about Cormac calling the police on my granddad, that the detective had come by to ask about the incident.

Mack scoffed. “No offense to your grandfather, but he looks about as dangerous as a butterfly.”

“That’s what I told Ace. I’ll be curious to see if she bothers going by his retirement home to interview him.”

“She might,” Mack said on a sigh. “She sure put me through the wringer.”

“She did? About what?”

“About a demand letter I’d sent to Cormac. She must’ve found it at Limericks. I’d threatened to sue the guy if he didn’t pony up what he owed me.” Mack’s face clouded, as if the matter had frustrated him all over again. “I catered a buffet dinner at Limericks for St. Patrick’s Day. Cormac paid only half of what he owed me. The shyster claimed I’d shorted him on the food. I’d done no such thing. Couldn’t prove it, though. By the time I realized he planned to pull a fast one, I’d already sent my staff back here with the empty food containers.”

I handed Mack my credit card. “You’d mentioned at my grand opening that if I sold any shine to Cormac O’Keefe, I should get the payment up front. You said you were speaking from experience. Is the catering gig what you were referring to?”

“It was. O’Keefe said he’d pay me on delivery. Then when I delivered the food, he said he was too busy to round up the cash right then and would settle with me at the end of the night.” A vein in his temple pulsed as he flexed his jaw. “I never should’ve taken that man at his word.” He ran my credit card through the machine as if slashing the device in two. Clearly, I’d struck a nerve. He handed me the card and a receipt and rounded up my order from the service window behind him.

Does Mack Clayton have a vengeful side? Does the fact that Detective Pearce had put Mack “through the wringer” mean she considers him to be a viable suspect, too? I carried these questions along with two bags of barbecue sides back to my shop. After seeing Cormac slaughtered on my shop’s porch last night, I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle anything other than vegetables. Fortunately, the baked beans would provide plenty of protein. Kiki took one bite and rubbed her belly in bliss.

As soon as I’d finished eating, I prepared an invoice for Mack Clayton and carried two jugs of my grandfather’s shine down to the barbecue joint to fulfill the order. He issued me a check on the spot.

As the afternoon turned into evening, we saw several people walk up to the doors of Limericks only to turn their heads toward each other in surprise and walk away. Some of them came into my shop and inquired about the police tape and the posted note on the door.

I didn’t want to scare them out of the area, but I didn’t want to lie to them, either. “The owner of the bar was found dead last night.” I neglected to say by whom. “After closing time.”

Learning that the victim wasn’t a customer like them and that he was killed very late at night seemed to bring them some relief, though enough worry remained that many decided they needed a jar or jug of moonshine to calm their nerves. I’d feared the murder would be bad for business, but so far it had only increased traffic into my shop. Guilt made my guts squirm. Profiting off Cormac’s murder felt wrong.

At a quarter before the nine o’clock closing time, Marlon pulled to the curb out front in his police department SUV. After taking a look around in the twilight outside, he strode into the store.

“Hey, cowboy copper,” Kiki called. “Where’s your trusty steed?”

“It’s Saturday night,” Marlon said. “Pretty thing like Charlotte’s out to pasture with a handsome palomino.”

“Uh-oh. Are there ponies in her future?”

“Baby horses aren’t ponies,” Marlon said. “They’re foals. But, that said, no. I would never let a stallion defile my sweet Charlotte. Only geldings are allowed near her.”

I’d been sweeping when he arrived, and I carried the broom to the front of the shop. “Working another swing shift tonight?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not on duty.”

Kiki ran her gaze up and down him. “Then what’s with the uniform? That very nice-fitting uniform that hugs your muscles in all the right places.”

Marlon raised a brow while I apologized for my brash friend. “You’ll have to forgive Kiki, she—”

“Tells it like it is,” Kiki said, completing my sentence for me.

“Yep.” I shrugged. “That.”

Marlon looked her way, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. “I’m more than my muscles, you know. I have feelings and hopes and dreams.”

“Tell me all about them.” Kiki put her elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. “Flex your triceps while you’re doing it.”

Despite just insisting he was more than beefcake, Marlon raised his arms, hands fisted, and flexed.

Kiki fanned herself with a hand. “Mercy me.” She grabbed her charcoal pencil and sketch pad. “Hold that pose, copper.”

Marlon continued to stand, arms flexed and brazenly objectified, while he told me the reason for his off-duty visit. “I was worried about you locking up alone. I came to make sure you were safe.”

A full-body blush warmed me from the tips of my toes to the tips of my ears. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Marlon.” The thought that Marlon didn’t have a date tonight warmed me, too. “Have there been any developments since Ace was here earlier?” Maybe Marlon would be more forthcoming than Ace. I figured it couldn’t hurt to hazard a guess, either. If Cormac had been dating two of his own staff, he likely had other women on the string. “Maybe another woman who might have had reason to want Cormac dead?”

“He had dozens of women’s names in his phone, and he’d exchanged texts with a bunch of them recently. Pics, too, but I won’t disgust you with the details. None of the messages indicated he was at odds with any of them, though.”

“Did Ace have any luck with the printout I gave her? The one listing the sales of cherry moonshine?”

“Nothing panned out.”

Darn. Was it too much to hope that Damien Sirakov had confessed and this ugly, scary matter could be put behind us? I realized that was not likely the case, or Marlon wouldn’t have bothered to come to my shop now. Still, it couldn’t hurt to ask. “What about Sirakov?”

“He’s maintaining his innocence,” Marlon said. “Under Tennessee law, he can be kept in custody seventy-two hours before he has to be arraigned. There’s enough evidence to charge him with credit card fraud, but not enough to pin a murder rap on him. Unless we come up with some real evidence that he killed O’Keefe, he’ll likely be released on bail once the holding period expires.”

“Which means he could kill again.”

Would Sirakov piece together that I’d been the one to finger him for the murder? When he’d followed me into Limericks earlier in the week, I’d told him I owned the Moonshine Shack. He knew I’d witnessed his confrontation with Cormac. Cormac’s killer might not have spotted Smoky in the window of my shop, but once I’d turned on the lights inside and outside the store, the killer would have seen me, or at least have been clued in to my presence. My body began to shake of its own accord. Now I know how my jars of moonshine feel shimmying out of the bottling machine.

Seeming to forget his role as Kiki’s model, Marlon lowered his arms and took my chin in his warm hand. But rather than chuck my chin this time, he cupped it, gently forcing me to look up at him. “I’ve talked to the officers scheduled to work the holding cell the next couple of days. They’ll notify me the second Damien is released, and I’ll call you right away.”

It was reassuring to know Marlon was looking out for me, doing what he could to keep me safe. But he had other duties. He couldn’t keep watch 24/7, even if he wanted to.

As he let go of my chin, Kiki pointed her charcoal pencil in my direction. “You and Smoky can come stay with me.”

“Don’t you and Max have plans?” Saturday was normally date night for the two of them.

“We did,” she said. “But I texted him earlier and canceled. In fact, you should live with me until the case is resolved. The killer will never know to look for you at my place.”

My voice quavered when I spoke. “But he’ll know to look for me here.”

“Don’t you worry,” Marlon said. “I’ll make sure a patrol comes by regularly while you’re at the shop, and I’ll be here every night at closing.”

“I can’t ask that of you, Marlon.”

“You didn’t ask,” Marlon said. “I offered. I’m not taking no for an answer, either, so you might as well not waste any time arguing with me.”

I looked up into his amber eyes. “How can I ever thank you?”

He shrugged. “I suppose you could cook me a nice dinner.”

Kiki snickered. “No, she can’t. Trust me on that.”

I grimaced. “It’s true. I’m a terrible cook.”

“The worst,” Kiki clarified. “Unless you’re a fan of charred oatmeal.”

“Yuck.” Marlon cocked his head. “You can take me out for a nice dinner, then.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He’d asked me on a date, hadn’t he? Or asked me to take him on one? “Dinner out it is.”

Kiki raised her pencil again. “Point of order. Will this dinner have to wait until the murder case is solved?”

I was glad she’d asked. I’d been wondering the same thing.

“It will,” Marlon said, much to my disappointment. “An officer spending personal time with a witness isn’t a good idea. A criminal defense attorney could make it an issue, claim some type of undue influence or bias, especially since I responded to O’Keefe’s complaint against Hattie’s grandpa.”

I admired Marlon’s dedication to his job. At the same time, though, I found myself with a new reason for wanting Cormac’s killer found quick. It had been a long time since I’d gone to dinner with a guy as attractive and engaging as Marlon. Heck, I’d never gone to dinner with a guy as attractive and engaging as Marlon. The thought set my toes wiggling inside my sneakers.

Marlon brought the cards and games inside for me and stood sentry at the front door as I set about my closing routine. Lock the front door. Turn off the outdoor lights. Turn the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED. Clear the cash from the register and lock it in the safe to be deposited later. Turn off the lights in the shop. Set the alarm.

Kiki, Marlon, and I slipped out the back door and I closed it behind us. The alarm armed with a reassuring beep-beep-beep. As Kiki climbed into her car, she raised a hand and called, “Bye, copper! See you at my place in a little bit, Hattie!”

“Thanks for helping out!” I called back.

Marlon circled around to the passenger side of my van and took hold of the handle. “How about you give me a ride around the building to my car?”

“Gladly.”

I pressed the button on the fob to unlock the doors and we climbed in. As I closed my door, I realized that this was the first time Marlon and I had been alone since the first time we’d met.

Marlon looked up and down the alley as I backed up, his expression pensive. “It wouldn’t be hard for a car to block each end of this alley and trap you back here. Or for someone to turn the garbage dumpsters crossways and create a roadblock.”

My nerves, which had just settled, began to prickle again. “Great. Now I’ve got to something else to worry about. What would you suggest I do, replace my van with a Sherman tank?”

“Shoot, yeah, if it were possible. Short of that, I’d suggest you move your car from the back alley to a spot out front before sundown. You’ll have to feed the meter, but I suspect that would be deductible as a business expense. Besides, a few dollars is a small price to pay for safety.”

True, but a few dollars a day could add up over time into big money. If this murder investigation dragged on, my piggy bank could soon be empty. Heck, I rarely even sprang for fancy coffee due to the price. I settled for preparing my own coffee at home in my granny’s ancient stainless-steel stovetop percolator circa 1948. The Moonshine Shack was doing okay for a brand-new business, but it wasn’t yet bringing in anything close to a livable income.

I turned the corner, circled the end of the business strip, and drove up to Marlon’s SUV, braking to a stop behind it. “Thanks again, Marlon. You’re a dedicated cop.”

“Maybe.” He cocked his head, a roguish gleam in his gaze. “Or maybe I’m just a hopeless flirt.”

My nose issued an amused yet involuntary snort. “If warning me that a killer might trap me in an alley is flirtation, then you’re a really bad flirt.”

“Point taken. Let’s stick with ‘dedicated cop’ then.” He sent me a soft, sideways smile and slid out of my van, leaving me feeling prickly once more, but this time in a good way.