Stipulations and Complications

by Becki Willis

  “I cannot believe you did that!” Madison hissed.

  “Did what?” her grandmother asked with feigned innocence. “I had a little tickle in my throat.”

  “What was all that nonsense about Africa?”

  Granny Bert lifted a shoulder in lame defense. “Your father travels so much I lose track of what country he’s in.”

  “You know good and well he’s not sick and you did not visit him! You deliberately let people think you had Ebola!”

  From across the table, Blake watched the interaction between the two women with a huge grin and a sparkle of mirth in his eyes. Having his own flair for dramatics, he fully appreciated his great-grandmother’s finesse.

  Turning toward him now, Granny Bert wore a look of complete innocence upon her wrinkled face. “Did I once use that term? I can’t help it if people jumped to conclusions. And you know I’m old and getting forgetful. Sometimes my dreams are so vivid…” She blinked as if to clear the confusion from her mind, giving Madison a look of lost helplessness. “Are you saying it was only a dream? I didn’t really travel so far? Then why am I so weak and tired…”

  “Because you are a con artist!” Madison hissed, leaning forward to scold the other woman. “It must take a tremendous amount of energy, thinking up these schemes to trick people with!”

  This time, Blake hooted aloud with laughter. Bethani remained buried in her cell phone.

  “Don’t encourage her, Blake,” Madison snapped. “She is simply incorrigible. And don’t get any bright ideas about copying her. I expect we might be thrown out of here at any moment.”

  The waitress stepped up to the table just in time to hear her last remarks. With a confused look upon her face, she darted a nervous glance between the foursome.

  Granny Bert was quick to cover the awkward silence that followed. “She thinks we’re under-dressed,” she explained in a loud conspiratorial whisper. “I told her she looks fine, even though her outfit is a bit dated. Houndstooth went out of style a while back, but you won’t kick us out, will you, dear?”

  Melting into an indulgent smile, the server was quick to put her customers at ease. She even touched Madison’s shoulder. “Oh, no ma’am, you look just fine. My grandma had a blouse just like that when I was little. Don’t you worry about that for one minute.”

  Her face flooding with embarrassment, Madison made a mental note to accept Derron’s offer of taking her shopping. Maybe it really was time to re-think her wardrobe.

  After they placed their orders and were munching on warm breadsticks, Granny Bert wormed her way back into Madison’s good graces. “So tell us why we’re celebrating this evening. You have some good news, obviously.”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Bethani, please put away your phone.” With a shy smile of pride, Madison made her announcement. “I signed a pretty big client this afternoon. A private investigator out of Houston by the name of Murry Archer who wants to put In a Pinch on retainer.”

  Bethani looked dubious. She had put her cell away for this? “What does that even mean?”

  “It means he is willing to pay me a salary, even when I’m not doing a job for him.”

  “That doesn’t sound very smart on his part. Why would he do that?”

  “To make certain I will be available when he does need me. I did some work for him once before, and he was so pleased with how it turned out, he wants me to do more. And when I am working a case for him, he will pay me twice my normal rates, plus expenses!” Her children might not understand the importance of those particular details, but her checkbook certainly did. She swore she felt it doing cartwheels of joy during their meeting. At least it can do something other than bounce, she thought ruefully.

  “What will you be doing? I mean, you’re way up here, he’s way down there. Will you have to travel back and forth?” Blake wanted to know. “Who will cook dinner every night?”

  “Get that panicked look out of your eyes, sweetheart. I will be home to cook your dinner. If I do any traveling, it will mostly be in the general area, much of it here in Bryan and College Station. Mr. Archer says he often gets calls about jobs in the Brazos Valley, but he has to turn them away because he doesn’t have the resources to accommodate them.”

  “I’m guessing you are the new resources,” Granny Bert speculated.

  “That is correct,” Madison confirmed with a proud smile. “I already have my first assignment.”

  Granny squinted her eyes to inquire, “Can you legally spy on people without an investigator’s license?”

  “According to him, in many ways an average citizen has more freedom and leniency to ‘observe’ than a licensed PI does.” Madison used air quotes. “He has over a dozen non-licensed contacts working for him, most in the Houston area. I’ll be his only contact here in the Brazos Valley. And get this. He suggested I change the name from In a Pinch Temporary Services to In a Pinch Professional Services. He said it sounds more… well, professional. Not to mention more versatile. Apparently, after working for a year under a PI, I can take the test to become a licensed investigator myself. He said he would be happy to mentor me.”

  “You’re going to become a private eye?” Blake asked. Excitement warred with worry in his blue eyes.

  “No, probably not. But it might be something to think about, later on down the road. It seems that half of my current customers already want services that fall in that general direction.”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” her grandmother said, eyes twinkling with excitement. “Together, we’d make quite a team.”

  Madison blinked in surprise. “To-Together? Team?”

  “Sure. Can you think of a single reason I wouldn’t make an excellent sidekick for your PI services?” her grandmother challenged.

  This time, it was Madison who panicked. Teaming up with her unpredictable grandmother for undercover work? The thought was terrifying.

  “Uhm, excuse me for a minute. I need to visit the ladies’ room.”

  She stalled for a suitable amount of time, hoping her grandmother would have forgotten her question by the time she returned. As Madison washed her hands and took extra time drying them, a woman approached her with a shy smile. “You’re her, aren’t you? You’re that television star with the huge old house.”

  “I-I’m hardly a star.”

  “Of course you are! I recognize you from the show. I just love to watch it. Can I have your autograph?”

  Madison shook her head modestly. “Oh, I don’t think…”

  “Please? We watch your show every week!” The woman thrust a slip of paper toward her. She even had a pen handy.

  “Well, okay.” Feeling a bit self-conscious, Madison wrote a brief note of thanks and signed her name. She laughed when the woman squealed happily and left with the autograph snagged in a tight fist.

  She returned to the table just as their meal arrived. As they were eating, a familiar couple stopped by their table to say hello.

  “Bertha, I thought that was you and your family.”

  Granny Bert greeted her friends with a big smile. “Hank Adams, you old coot! What are you doing over here in the big city? Finally giving your fine wife a night off from cooking?”

  “Had to come over and do a bit of shopping at Wal-Mart,” wife Virgie acknowledged.

  They chatted for a few moments before Granny Bert voiced the question paramount on Madison’s mind. Her grandmother was many things, but shy was not one of them.

  “So, Hank, what’s all this nonsense I’m hearing about you and Allen Wynn? Are you giving that poor boy troubles?”

  “Not me,” the old man denied. “I don’t know what bee got under his belt, but the boy has gone plumb crazy on me. Never knew him to be so greedy, but he’s demanding I turn fifty acres over to him. Even pressed charges against me. Gone crazy, I say, just like his old grandma on his mama’s side. You remember Miss Gladys, don’t you? Loony as a bat. They say she drank too much of her daddy’s moonshine as a child.” Hank shook his hea
d in an odd mix of sympathy and disgust.

  “Old man Rupert sure made some mighty fine ‘shine, though,” Granny Bert beamed.

  Madison edged into the conversation. “Fifty acres?” she questioned.

  Virgie Adams bobbed her gray head. “It’s had us so upset, we just can’t deal with it,” she admitted. “We turned it all over to our son and grandson. When they saw how upset all this was making us, they advised us to not even speak to Allen. Gerald’s boy has been away to college, you know. Smart as a whip, with a half dozen awards and degrees to prove it. They said they would take care of everything for us. Said if Allen wants to sue us and take our land, they’ll deal with him.” Virgie patted her husband’s arm in a gesture of comfort.

  Madison frowned. The Adams family told a completely different story than Allen Wynn. Allen claimed the dispute involved less than ten acres. He also told her it was Hank who pressed the charges. One of them was apparently mistaken or flat-out lying, but which one?

  Obviously, she needed to do a little more digging.

  “Mother, we’d best be going,” Hank told his wife. “You don’t like driving after dark.”

  Virgie sighed. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be. And poor Hank can hardly see at all anymore, no matter how strong they make his glasses. We just can’t get around like we used to.”

  Someone can certainly get around well enough to set traps and spy cams, Madison thought grudgingly, unconsciously rubbing her ankle with her other foot as the elderly couple shuffled away.

  Blake turned to his great-grandmother with a speculative grin. “Moonshine? We’re studying prohibition at school and the effects it had on the nation. Some people say there was a big moonshine industry here in The Sisters. Is that true?”

  Granny Bert slapped her leg with delight, her eyes twinkling. “Hoo boy, was there ever! It may have cranked up during prohibition, but believe me, it lasted for quite a few years after that.”

  “Who was the person you mentioned to Hank?” Madison asked.

  “Rupert Madden. He was one of the better-known ‘shiners. He made some mighty fine corn liquor. I can attest to that from personal experience.” She winked a wizened old eye, earning a giggle from the teenagers.

  “And who did you say he was?”

  “Allen Wynn’s great-grand pappy on his mother’s side. Gladys Madden married Claude Wynn when she wasn’t no more than thirteen or fourteen. She was a sweet little gal, but a bit simple-minded. Didn’t matter to her that she married a man twice her age and half her size. She was happy as a lark, raising a whole passel of young’ns there on the farm.”

  His curiosity piqued, Blake wanted to know more. “Who were some of the other moonshiners?”

  “Well, the best known ones were Rupert Madden and Judd Havlicek. Oh, and the Bishops. Their whole family ran a still for years.”

  “As in Merle Bishop who owns the tractor dealership? And his son Arles?” Maddy asked.

  “Same clan. Back then, everybody had big families. His grand pappy, old man Howdy Bishop, must have had at least nine or ten kids. I suppose selling corn liquor was the only way he could keep ‘em all fed and clothed. They had stills hidden in every nook and cranny round these parts, trying to outsmart revenuers.”

  “I read in one of the journals that a Bishop worked for the town as a gardener, but Miss Juliet had to let him go.”

  “It was over the moonshine,” Granny Bert confirmed. “She said it wasn’t proper, having a city employee bootlegging on the side. When he refused to give up the still, she fired him.”

  “That must have caused hard feelings.”

  Granny shrugged. “I’m sure he made more money off the liquor than he did the roses.”

  “We go to school with a few Havliceks,” Bethani said, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “They’re always getting into trouble. It doesn’t surprise me someone in their family was a moonshiner.”

  “It was more like the whole clan. Every one of them lazier than the next. Why, the whole lot of them avoids an honest day’s work the way a chicken avoids the stew pot.”

  “So where were these stills located, Granny Bert?”

  She gave Blake a knowing look. “Thinking of trying to find them, hoping they’re still in business?”

  His shrug was innocent enough. “Just curious.”

  “The more successful ones kept on the move, one step ahead of the law. But rumor had it that many a still was set up in the caves around the area. Then they smuggled their moonshine out through the tunnels.”

  “Caves?” Blake’s eyes lit with excitement.

  “Tunnels?” Madison echoed.

  “There are tunnels and caves all through these parts.” She cocked her head to one side and mused, “I haven’t thought about those tunnels in years, ‘cept the ones where the sewer lines run. As mayor, I had to think about those a few times too many. Still have to hear about them some, every time Sybille’s little white poodle gets free of the yard and goes a-wandering.”

  “I could use some extra credit in my history class,” Blake said, acknowledging his fledging grades. “You think I could interview you? You could tell me what you know about the legends and the rumors.”

  “I can do better than that,” Granny Bert said, her eyes twinkling. “I can give you first-hand knowledge of what it was like to run it.”

  Madison’s gasp was audible. “Granny! You were a bootlegger?” she cried in dismay.

  “Times were hard, Madison. We made a living any way we could.”

  Madison stared at her grandmother in amazement. “I can’t believe I’m just now hearing about this phase of your life. You have been an elected official, several times over. Now I’m finding out you were a criminal first!”

  Unconcerned, her grandmother offered a low harrumph. “Like the two don’t go hand-in-hand most of the time,” she grumbled. “Don’t act so high and mighty, Madison Cessna Reynolds. You don’t know what it was like back in the Great Depression and the days after it. Folks did what they had to do to survive. It took a few decades for the economy to pick up around these parts. Selling corn liquor kept many a family fed and sheltered, including my own.”

  “Why did they call it bootlegging?” Bethani asked.

  “A bottle would slip down inside your bootleg smooth as silk. Or glass, as the case might be.” Her wrinkled face dissolved into a huge grin as she made a motion toward her leg. “That was my job. I was a runner.”

  “Did you ever see the caves or use the tunnels?” Blake wanted to know.

  “The only cave I ever saw in action was the one out on the Montgomery place.”

  “The Montgomerys were moonshiners, too?” Madison was crestfallen. She thought so highly of Cutter.

  “At the time, the place belonged to the Maddens. There was a handy little tunnel that ran from the cave down to the river bottom. A long stretch, and mighty dark without a lantern, but it was plenty big. You could even get a wheelbarrow in there to make a nice haul.”

  Blake grinned from ear to ear, delighted to hear of his great-grandmother’s nefarious past. “Did you ever get caught by the law?”

  Seeing the fascination that gleamed in her son’s eye, Madison broke in. “I think this is enough talk about moonshining. I’m just glad there are no cameras around to record all this! I could never show my face around town again.”

  Her grandmother gave her a hard look. “There you go again, worrying about what other people think, just like Miss Juliet always did. Besides, don’t you imagine most folks already know?”

  Madison’s only answer was a deep scowl.

  The server returned, wanting to know if they had saved room for dessert.

  “There’s always room for dessert,” Blake answered for the group.

  “Dessert? How can you possibly have room for dessert after all you just ate?” Madison asked. She turned to the waitress with a firm, “No thanks, we’re ready for the bill.”

  “But I wanted ice cream,” her son sulked as the waitress disappear
ed.

  “I tell you what. If you’re still wanting ice cream when we go past the Dairy Queen, we’ll stop and get dessert.” Celebration or not, even a trademark Blizzard would be cheaper than one of the restaurant’s pricey offerings.

  The waitress returned with the bill and a take-out box for Bethani. Madison glanced at the total and immediately blanched. “Uhm, excuse me, but I think there’s some mistake. Our bill couldn’t possibly be this much.”

  “Oh, that included the other table,” the server explained.

  “What other table?”

  The girl presented her with a broad smile. “That was so sweet of you to buy their meal like that. I thought I recognized you when you came in, but the clothes distracted me. I guess you have to dress down to avoid calling attention to yourself, huh? Anyway, some celebrities aren’t as nice as you. We get a lot of musicians who play here in town, and you wouldn’t believe how stingy some of them can be.” The girl rambled on, but the buzzing in Madison’s head overrode the chatter. She swallowed hard, mentally counting the meager cash she had in her wallet. She hadn’t had time to cash Murray Archer’s check yet.

  “Did Hank and Virgie pull a fast one on us?” Granny Bert fumed. “That sounds about like the cheap old buzzard.”

  Madison always kept a fifty-dollar bill tucked away for emergencies. She pulled it out now, hoping to avoid further embarrassment. Only then did she see the second receipt.

  “It wasn’t Hank,” she said weakly. “It was the so-called ‘fan’ in the restroom.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Before starting on the new assignment for Murray Archer, Madison was eager to tie up some of her own work. She confirmed dates for a fill-in position at a business in Naomi and lined up two jobs best suited for Derron. She spent the rest of the morning making and returning phone calls, and putting together files for her two current clients. She would return to the disputed property one last time before giving Allen her final report.