Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

“Even though Mrs. Driscoll was blissfully unaware of his transgression, he atoned by lavishing attention on her. Pampered her with foot rubs. Picnics in her favorite spot near Pointer’s Gap. Flowers and other romantic folderol. He never strayed again. I made him swear it on the Bible.”

Mrs. Kemp had told Thatcher and Bill a completely different story, but it wasn’t his place to cite that.

Bill said, “Although it’s late in coming, thank you for this information, Bernie.”

“I doubt it’s relevant to what happened to the girl. If the rumor mill is credible, encounters such as the one she had with Gabe were not a rarity, but commonplace.”

“Nevertheless, she suffered a brutal attack. I ask again for your discretion.”

“Of course, Bill, of course. Good night.” Croft tapped his thigh. The dog trotted up and rejoined his master, tongue lolling, tail wagging, ready to be off. As Croft came even with Thatcher, he said, “Deputy Hutton, don’t think for a moment that badge on your chest makes me in any way nervous.”

“I don’t. But I don’t wear it all the time. That’s when you should be nervous.”

* * *



Thatcher watched Hennessy hold open the backseat door of the town car for Croft and the bird dog. “Your mayor is the one who’s got a shadow.”

Bill looked over at the town car, then motioned Thatcher toward his own vehicle.

“I don’t mind walking.”

“I’ve got to go to the office anyway and finish the paperwork I started with Doc Perkins. But do you mind if I make a quick stop at home so I can give Daisy the stomach medication?”

“Not at all.”

Once they were on their way, Bill said, “As bodyguards go, Bernie couldn’t have hired a better one. Jimmy Hennessy—I doubt that’s his real name—was in the IRA. Fought in the uprising in ’17. Got a price put on his head for killing two British army officers. Outran his pursuers and made it to New York.

“Due to the large Irish population there, word got around, traitors talked, the city got too hot for him, he fled to Chicago. Same story there. Eventually he wound up here. All this is hearsay, you understand, probably embellished, but I believe the basics.”

Bill made a corner, then said, “Only one afternoon of illicit romance? Do you believe that version?”

“No. Why would Mrs. Kemp exaggerate her sister’s promiscuity in the wrong direction?”

“Exactly.”

“And why did Driscoll do the opposite and swear on the Bible that he was with Norma Blanchard only once?”

“We’ll ask him that tomorrow.”

“Why not now?”

“I want to see what evidence the Kemp house yields. When we confront Gabe with this, I want to be as well-armed as possible.”

When they arrived at the Amoses’ house, Thatcher said he would wait in the car. “Take your time. I’ve got a lot to mull over.”

Such as Laurel being a moonshiner, out of her league with big-time players like Landry and Croft, the Johnsons, and the unscrupulous couple at Lefty’s.

Jesus.

* * *



Bill found Daisy in bed, listless and complaining of stomach cramps. He asked if she’d eaten anything, but she hadn’t because she couldn’t keep anything down. “Have you been drinking?”

“No, Bill.” She reached for his hand and held it against her cheek. She was lying. He could smell whiskey on her breath, but he didn’t want to start a row. She wasn’t drunk, but she was obviously unwell.

He gave her half a dropper of the medicine. “Maybe it’ll ease the cramping so you can sleep. I won’t be long.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He kissed her forehead. Her eyes drifted closed. It scared him how fragile she looked. Almost lifeless.

Shaking off that thought, he left the bedroom and had almost reached the front door when the telephone rang. He went back to answer it and could tell by the background noise coming through the earpiece that his long and strenuous day wasn’t over yet.

Sixty seconds later, he strode to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Thatcher, do you have a gun belt?”

“At the boardinghouse.”

“Then we’ll stop there first.”

“What’s happened?”

“That moonshine war I knew was coming? Well, it’s here.”





Forty-Eight



Thatcher was putting the frisky mare through her paces in the corral when he saw Laurel come around the corner of the stable. She stopped there.

The sight of her made his heart jump and everything below his waist go tight, which didn’t improve his dark mood this morning. He wanted to strangle her for being the damnedest woman he’d ever met. He wanted to make love to her for the same reason.

The mare was being her uncooperative self, but he stuck with the training for five more minutes, then, with a subtle motion of his right knee, directed her to the paddock gate where he dismounted. He led her out and over to the water trough near the stable.

He said to Laurel, “You’re out early.”

“I need to talk to you and figured I would find you here.”

Her hair was hanging down her back in a long braid beneath the straw hat he recognized, the one with the wide brim that cast a crisscrossing pattern of shadows over her cheeks, her pert nose, her plump lower lip.