“Jug.”

“He buys by the jug?”

“He does, and I’m leaving well enough alone, missy. We’ll make enough profit without taking a baseball bat to a hornets’ nest.” He ended on that note, pushing back his chair and announcing that he was beat. “Thanks for the pie. I don’t think I’ve ever had better.”

She wished him a good night. He retreated to his bedroom and shut the door, but Laurel was too keyed up to go to bed. Over the course of their lengthy conversation, several things had become crystal clear to her.

One. The new still would double their production, but it was unlikely that Irv’s regulars would correspondingly double their consumption—especially under the watchful eyes of their wives. In order for the new still to pay for itself, they must increase their customer base.

Two. Ernie’s talent was distillation and controlling the quality of their product. Thus far Irv had proved to be a crafty and capable distributor of it. However, neither thought like an entrepreneur. Growing the business would be her contribution, and she was eager to start.

It galled her to think that the Johnsons had a foothold in the boom towns. But any attempt to compete with cutthroat big-timers like them would be foolish and potentially hazardous.

And, realistically, neither Irv, nor Ernie, nor she could make the long and dangerous trips up and back to the oil patch towns, hauling hooch. In newspapers, they were portrayed as fertile fields for every form of wickedness. One was either a purveyor of it, or a victim, but no one was immune to peril.

If the immoral climate and fearsome competition weren’t enough cause for trepidation, there were the heavily armed lawmen who couldn’t be outrun.

Surely there was a safer, saner way to conduct business. But how, when the manufacturing and selling of their product were illegal? These inherent dangers wouldn’t abound if they were making and selling hat pins, or sachets, or…

She drew focus on the coconut meringue confection in the center of the table.

Eight hours later, she was still seated at the table, but the pie had been replaced with the scattered contents of the recipe box her mother had given her when she married. She’d filled sheets of paper with scribbled notes, jotting down ideas as they occurred to her. Various lists had grown longer as the night had stretched into morning.

“What the hell’s all this?”

Not having even noticed that Irv had emerged from his bedroom, dressed and expecting breakfast, Laurel looked at him and declared, “I’m going to need more than twenty or thirty pounds of sugar. A lot more.”

Twenty-Four

For days after his discussion with Bill Amos at the creek, Thatcher couldn’t shake everything they’d talked about. He accepted that suspicion would shadow him until it was confirmed that someone else had abducted Mrs. Driscoll. His bet was on the doctor. Sheriff Amos was leaning that way, too.

But Thatcher was no crime-solver, and he rejected having to pin on a badge in order to convince skeptics of his innocence.

Nevertheless, the specter of suspicion continued to weigh on him.

At least on this night, he had something to take his mind off of it for a while. He was going out to dinner. It would be a distraction, but not one he particularly looked forward to.

After work, he washed up and changed into a fresh white shirt, dark tie, and his black suit. He’d had it dry-cleaned, the tears in his pants and shoulder seam sewn up, and his shoes shined. He put on his fedora.

The cracked mirror above the dresser in his room reflected a man who looked like he had a lot on his mind, but one presentable enough to go to supper with Mr. Chester Landry.

The shoe salesman’s invitation had taken Thatcher off guard. Except for renting rooms in the same boardinghouse, he and the city slicker from Dallas had nothing in common that Thatcher could see.

But when Landry had approached him the night before and invited him to join him for a dinner out, he’d felt obliged to accept.

Landry was waiting for him out on the porch. He too was wearing a dark suit, but his bow tie was the color of bile and his satiny vest was striped. Thatcher caught a glimpse of a gold jaw tooth when the salesman smiled in greeting and informed Thatcher that he would drive them to the café.

As they motored through the streets of Foley, Landry kept the conversation flowing, commenting on aspects of the town and how it compared to others on his sales route.

Thatcher wasn’t the least bit interested in either women’s footwear or the salesman’s travels, but he listened attentively and made polite inquiries that encouraged Landry to keep the chitchat on himself and off Thatcher, which was precisely Thatcher’s intention.

Most of the locals stuck to the more agrarian schedule with which they’d been reared and tended to eat their larger meal at noon. Consequently, Martin’s Café wasn’t all that crowded at the dinner hour.

But parked in front of it was a long, black Ford, the most expensive of this year’s models. As Landry pulled in beside it, he said, “I see the mayor is dining here tonight.”

“That’s his car?”

“It is.”

“You know him?”

“We’ve met. Chamber of Commerce meeting, I believe it was. I attended as a guest of Mr. Hancock.”

Seated in the driver’s seat of the town car was a man with the bill of a newsboy cap pulled low over his eyes. Thatcher asked, “Who’s that?”

“Mayor Croft’s chauffeur,” Landry said, adding tongue-in-cheek, “and if you believe that, I’ll sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.”

They alighted from Landry’s car. As they walked toward the entrance of the café, Thatcher got a closer look at Croft’s chauffeur. He had bulky shoulders and the face of a boxer who’d gone a thousand rounds.

As Thatcher and Landry reached the door of the café, Bernie Croft emerged from it. Upon seeing them, he pulled up short. His eyes sawed between them, lighting on Landry. “Mr. Landry, isn’t it?” He stuck out his hand and Landry shook.

“Thank you for remembering, Mayor Croft. Allow me to introduce—”

“I know who he is.” Croft settled a brittle gaze on Thatcher. “Mr. Hutton.”

Thatcher tipped his head.

Croft hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his vest. “Your companion is well known for his derring-do, Mr. Landry. And his amazing skill with a six-shooter.” Then to Thatcher, “I heard you saved a deputy’s life.”