Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

Corrine gave Irv a malevolent squint. “Well, apparently you ain’t listening, old man. Miss Laurel said if she didn’t come tomorrow, which was yesterday, she’d come the next day, which is today.”

“Day ain’t over, is it?”

Ernie looked up at the sun. “Noon or better. But she has a point, Irv.”

“Aw, you’re just horny. You’d agree with anything she said,” Irv grumbled, shooting a glower toward Corrine.

“You said yourself you was scared Miss Laurel would come to grief,” she said. “Didn’t he say that, Ernie?”

Ernie tugged on his long earlobe. “Seems I do recollect—”

“I remember sayin’ it,” Irv snapped. “And I still hold to it. But you,” he said to Corrine, “agreed that we should lay low till we got the all clear. Laurel wouldn’t want us to show ourselves till it was safe. We’ve got no idea what all went on last night. I doubt much did on account of that storm. But still…”

Corrine stood and dusted off her seat. “Well, you can sit here till you become a fossil like in them rocks over yonder. I’m going.” She marched off toward Irv’s truck, which they’d camouflaged with cedar boughs.

“How are you going to get there?” he called after her. “You can’t drive.”

She started pulling the cedar branches off the truck and slinging them aside. “I can drive good enough. Ernie’s been teaching me.”

Irv turned an accusatory look on his friend. Ernie guiltily raised his bony shoulders. “In my spare time.”

“Hell’s bells.” Irv started after Corrine. “I’ll drive us.” Over his shoulder, he said to Ernie, “You stay and guard the place. Don’t do no cooking till we get back and keep those firearms within your reach.”

“Y’all be careful.”

* * *



Bill instructed Scotty to return Driscoll to the jail, leave a man there to guard him, then to bring a carload of deputies to Lefty’s.

He also ordered Scotty not to leave town without obtaining an arrest warrant for Mayor Bernard Croft. Looking dubious, Scotty asked how the sheriff planned on arranging that. “I’m calling the judge now.”

Scotty left with Driscoll, who had regained consciousness. His shouted protests over being treated inhumanely were ignored.

Bill placed a call. Thatcher overheard him threatening a judge to expose both his bribe-taking and the mistress he kept in Stephenville if he didn’t have the warrant ready by the time Scotty got to the courthouse to pick it up.

After completing the call, Bill went upstairs to check on Mrs. Amos. He didn’t stay long. “She’s better. Sleeping,” he told Thatcher as they left the house.

Less than five minutes after Scotty’s announcement that Bernie Croft had been seen heading for Lefty’s, the sheriff and Thatcher were speeding toward it, having no idea if their quarry was still there.

Croft’s notable town car, with Hennessy behind the wheel, had been spotted taking the turnoff to Lefty’s by a deputy who’d come off guard duty at the Johnsons’ property and was on his way back into town.

Bill took the turnoff now but didn’t go far off the highway before stopping. As he checked his pistol to make sure it was loaded, he said, “I’m waiting for that warrant.”

“I’ll reconnoiter.” Having checked his own Colt, Thatcher clicked the cylinder back into place and opened the passenger door. “Just in case I don’t come back, that poisoned bottle of bourbon is in your kitchen cabinet behind a box of oatmeal.”

“Only you would think of that right now.”

“Could make the difference in a verdict.” He hooked Barker’s rifle onto his shoulder by the strap.

“Take these, too.” Bill passed Thatcher a pair of binoculars. Thatcher recognized them as army issue and looked at Bill, who said, “They were among Tim’s effects.”

Thatcher left the car door ajar and jogged over to the trees that bordered the road. They were sparse, providing only marginal cover as he moved among them. The sun was high and hot. Last night’s rain steamed up from the spongy ground. Thatcher was breathing heavily by the time the roof of the roadhouse came into view.

He proceeded in a crouch. Still about a hundred yards away from the building, he spotted Croft’s auto parked in front. A boulder provided him an advantageous spot from which to take a closer look. Situating himself behind the outcropping, he propped his elbows on it and looked through the binoculars.

He wasn’t surprised to see Hennessy leaning against the front fender of Croft’s car, smoking a cigarette. He whisked a fly off his face. He took a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped the back of his neck with it. He turned once and looked behind him down the road. Seeing nothing, he faced the building again.

Thatcher focused the binoculars on the screened entrance, and then on each of the front windows, but could see nothing through any of them. He watched for a couple more minutes. Nothing happened. He was about to turn away and return to report to Bill, when the screened door was pushed open and Gert appeared.

She called out something to Hennessy. Thatcher didn’t catch her words, but the former IRA fighter responded immediately by tossing away his cigarette and climbing the steps to go inside.