No Easy Solution (Crowley County Series Book 1)

by T. E. Killian

  She could tell from the smirk on his face that Earl thought he had her now.

  “I have a source for house whiskey that’s half as much as what you’re paying now. How about that? Would you be interested?”

  Jo wasn’t sure how to proceed from there. Floyd hadn’t told her how to respond to that particular angle.

  She tried to put on a puzzled face. “I guess I’d be interested.” She slapped her hand on the desk. “Hey wait a minute, Earl. You wouldn’t be talking about moonshine would you?”

  When he kept smiling without talking, she knew she had to get him to admit it somehow.

  She leaned halfway across her desk and said, “Is it moonshine Earl? I know I’ve heard rumors about someone around here maybe having a still.”

  Earl was grinning now. “Let’s just say that my source is totally within Crowley county and leave it at that.”

  She knew that meant moonshine but wasn’t sure that would be good enough for Floyd to get his search warrant.

  “That’s not good enough for me Earl. If I decide to buy this stuff, which I haven’t yet, I need to know if I’m buying moonshine or not.”

  His face turned mean for a split second before he put his grin back in place, though it wasn’t as convincing as before. “Okay, Jo, if you insist, but I can’t tell you who’s making the shine okay?”

  She shouted for joy in her mind. “Okay, Earl. I’ll have to get back to you next week though. Right now I’ve got too much house in stock to buy any more before then.”

  After that, Earl left with a satisfied smirk on his face. As soon as he was gone, Grady popped his head in the doorway.

  “You okay Boss?”

  She smiled up at him and said, “Thanks Grady. I’m more than okay. I think I just caught myself a skunk.”

  Grady left with a puzzled expression on his face. As soon as he was gone, Jo picked up the phone and called Floyd with her good news.

  When he answered, she said, “You forgot to tell me how to turn this stupid thing off.”

  He shouted joyfully and said. “If it’s still close to you, you just did. The word is ‘off.’”

  She laughed and said, “You might want to come get it real quick. I’ve got Earl on there trying to sell me moonshine.”

  He shouted again. “I’ll be right there. And Little Bit?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks. You’re the best cousin a guy could ever have.”

  When Floyd had the recorder in hand and was heading out the door, Jo asked, “Floyd, do you think either of those morons is the one with the still?”

  Floyd laughed at her description of Earl and Clyde then shook his head. “No, Little Bit, I don’t really think so. I agree with your description of them, though. And that’s why I don’t think either one of them has the place to hide a still or the brains it would take to set up a successful still operation.”

  She frowned. “But who do you think it could be?”

  Floyd turned his hat over and over in his hands. “I’ve narrowed it down to four places that could hide a still and the owner might be inclined to do so.” He shook his head. “But I don’t have enough on any of them to even suspect them much less get a search warrant.”

  After Floyd left, Jo’s mind was in such a whirl that she didn’t want to think about anything. It was past eight so all she did was sit in front of the TV for the next hour and then go to bed.

  She was so tired that she fell asleep immediately. The next thing she knew, she was awakened by what sounded like someone pounding on the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gil had gone to bed at ten o’clock Wednesday night but he received a phone call at eleven. One of his elderly members had had a heart attack and he’d gone to the hospital to be with the family. It was one o’clock in the morning before the man had been stabilized and Gil left the hospital.

  All he could think about as he was driving home was how much he was looking forward to crawling into his nice soft bed and getting some sleep. When he passed The Early Bird, he looked up at the apartment over it, as he usually did when he passed by. Of course, all the lights were off up there. His eyes drifted down to the bar below. Someone must have left an extra light on down there. It seemed that there was more light than usual in the bar area.

  He was turning his head back to watch his driving when the lights in the bar seemed to flicker. He stopped his car at the curb and looked closer. It no longer looked as if the lights were flickering. It looked like flames flickering. He backed up and drove into the parking lot to make sure.

  He could see immediately that the building was on fire. He jumped out of his car and grabbed his cell phone as he did. There were definitely flames in the bar and lots of them. He punched in 911 as he ran for the stairs at the rear of the building. As soon as the operator came on he yelled, “Fire in The Early Bird bar. I’m going upstairs to wake up the owner.”

  He didn’t take time to answer any of the questions the operator threw at him as he raced up the stairs. He just shouted, “Hurry!”

  At the top of the stairway, Gil began pounding on the door. It was a long minute before the light over his head came on and Jo’s face appeared in the window.

  She opened the door a crack and said, “What on earth . . . Gil?”

  He started shouting, “The bar is on fire, get your sister, and let’s get out of here.”

  It was a moment before what he had said registered but then she turned and ran for the back yelling for her sister.

  As he waited for Jo and Carla, he began to hear sirens, which seemed to be coming from both directions down the highway.

  Jo and Carla were taking too long to come out so Gil went inside the apartment. He found Jo’s bedroom right away. She had a large suitcase open on the bed and was furiously stuffing it with various things.

  “Jo, you don’t have time for that. Come on before the floor collapses under us.” When she didn’t even look at him but continued stuffing the suitcase, he said, “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She finally looked up at him as she closed the suitcase and said, “Here, you grab this one and I’ll take the other one.”

  He had no choice but to do as she asked. He grabbed the case and followed her as she picked up another identical suitcase and headed out the bedroom door.

  “Carla, are you ready?”

  Just then, Carla came out of her room struggling with a suitcase in each hand. Gil grabbed one of them and followed the two out the door and onto the stairs. Flames were shooting out of the window at the bottom. They had to rush past it to keep from getting burned.

  As they turned the corner at the bottom, two police cars followed by two fire trucks pulled into the parking lot.

  Gil turned to Jo and said, “Here, bring your stuff over to my car and put them in there. I’ve got to move it anyway.”

  When Gil came back from moving his car, Jo and Carla were sitting on the tailgate of Floyd’s Tahoe and he was standing in front of them.

  As soon as he saw Gil coming, Floyd stepped in front of him. “We don’t need any bystanders getting in our way, Gil.”

  Jo spoke up quickly. “Let him stay, Floyd. If it hadn’t been for him, Carla and I might not have made it out of there in time.”

  Floyd turned back to look at Jo.

  She nodded and said, “He woke us up and helped us get out of there.”

  Floyd squared off in front of Gil again. “And just what were you doing out at one in the morning, Gil?”

  Gil realized then that Floyd still didn’t quite trust him completely. “I had been at the hospital with a family from my church.”

  That seemed to satisfy the big sheriff for now. He looked down at Jo and seemed about to say something when the fire chief called to him and he went over to where the man was.

  Gil looked over at Jo and Carla. They both looked frightened and confused.

  “Jo, is . . . “

  “Thank you Gil.”

  They both spoke at once but no one
laughed. He motioned for her to continue.

  “I just wanted to thank you Gil. You probably saved our lives.”

  He was uncomfortable with that statement, then the fire reflected off her face and he could see something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen there before. Could it be?

  As Gil started to say what he had meant to say before, Carla spoke up.

  “Jo, did you get all the things from Mom and Dad?”

  Jo shook her head slowly. “I’m not really sure, Carla. I just grabbed and threw whatever got in my way into those suitcases.”

  “Is there anything else I can do Jo?”

  She looked up and into his eyes for a moment and he thought she was going to say no, but then she scooted toward Carla on the tailgate making room for him.

  “Would you sit next to me for a little while . . . please?”

  As soon as Gil sat next to her, Jo leaned into his side and his arm automatically went around her shoulders. It felt fantastic to have her so close to him. He had a fleeting thought that she must be beginning to trust him and that gave him a warm feeling.

  She looked up at him and tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Everything we own is in there.”

  As she pointed at the building, which was now fully engulfed in flames, the second story fell into the first. They all knew then that they wouldn’t be able to salvage anything else from their home.

  * * *

  Jo continued to stare at the burning building, which had been her home, her life for the past two years. There wasn’t much left of it now. Everything was gone! And she wasn’t even sure what all she and Carla had been able to stuff into their suitcases. That was when she remembered their mini-van. She started to jump down to check on it but Gil’s grip tightened and she couldn’t.

  “Gil, I need to get our van so it doesn’t burn. It was right behind the building.”

  He simply shook his head and said, “There wasn’t time, Jo. I’m afraid it’s gone too. You just barely had time to save yourself and Carla. There was no way we had time to get the van too. In fact, the stairway collapsed onto your van not long after we came down it.”

  She had been leaning forward and when what he had just said seemed to sink in, she fell back against him again. This time, he wrapped both arms around her and held her tight as she began to sob softly.

  It took her several minutes to somewhat gain control again. When she did, she looked over at her little sister who looked so small and so frightened that Jo pulled out of Gil’s arms and grabbed Carla in a tight hug of her own.

  “We’ll make it through this, Sweetie . . . together. Just like we did when Mom and Dad died.”

  Carla, whose face had been dry, now broke out in sobs of her own while Jo held her. That was when she realized that Gil had jumped down off the tailgate and was wrapping his arms around both of them. She couldn’t say why, but that made her feel so much better all of a sudden. She knew now that she could face whatever came next.

  Carla swiped at her eyes and looked up at Jo. “Where will we go?”

  Jo knew that Carla’s question was about much more than just where they would stay. She needed assurance that everything was going to be okay, and Jo wasn’t sure she could give her that assurance . . . at least not until she had it herself.

  Before Jo could form any kind of answer for Carla, Floyd was standing in front of them again with a frown on his face. Jo knew immediately that Floyd was frowning at the fact that Gil had his arms around her and Carla.

  Jo didn’t say anything. She just glared at Floyd and shook her head. Apparently, he figured out what she meant since he didn’t say anything to Gil.

  Instead, he said, “Jo, do you think Earl knew you were recording him last night?”

  She tried to think back to her meeting with Earl the evening before. She shook her head. “No, I don’t think he did. When he left, he seemed to be very pleased with himself like he’d just won something.”

  She thought about where Floyd might be coming from with that question then it hit her. “You think someone started the fire on purpose?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, Walt just told me that it was started by a couple of bottles of gas or kerosene with fuses in them that were lit and thrown through two different windows.”

  At Gil’s perplexed look, Jo said, “Walt Farrell, the fire chief.”

  She looked back at Floyd. “You think Earl or Clyde did it?”

  He snorted and said, “Well, I’m sure of one thing. Clyde didn’t do it.” When she gave him a puzzled look, he said, “He’s in jail right now. One of my deputies finally caught up with him last night about eight.”

  When no one else said anything, Floyd said, “But yeah, I figure that Earl did this all right. But I still don’t think either one of those skunks is the leader of all this. It almost has to be whoever has that blasted still.”

  They all watched the firefighters finish up with the building, which was mostly a wet smoldering mess by then.

  Floyd turned back to Jo and said, “You two can stay with me for the rest of the night, but my little apartment will be too small for much longer than that. Come morning, we’ll see if any of the family can put you up for a while.”

  Gil no longer had his arms around Jo and she suddenly missed the comfort that he had given her. She knew that he’d pulled back under Floyd’s fierce glare before.

  Gil turned to her and said, “There’s plenty of room at my place. There are four bedrooms and my mother and aunt would tear into me if I didn’t bring you two home with me.”

  Jo tried to smile at his description of his mother and aunt. Then she looked up at Floyd who was avoiding looking at her. She knew that meant that he was leaving it up to her.

  Well, that certainly was a surprise. He’d gone from harassing Gil when he first came to town to this, trusting his cousins to Gil even if it was only temporary.

  She looked at Carla whose eyes had been going from one to the other of the adults during this conversation. She didn’t have to say anything. Jo knew by the way Carla had been looking at Gil, that she too had changed her opinion of him.

  Jo smiled at Gil and said, “Okay, but only for a little while and only if your mother and aunt are okay with it.”

  Gil shook his head. “I know them all too well. The only way they’ll be angry with me is if I don’t bring you two home with me.”

  They all three piled into Gil’s Focus. Carla had to share the back seat with one of the large suitcases that wouldn’t fit in the small trunk.

  Jo was concerned about imposing on Gil and especially his mother and aunt.

  All of her worries disappeared when both Florence and Eunice pulled her and Carla into hugs as soon as they all gathered in the living room. Then, before Jo could protest, she and Carla were together in Eunice’s bed and the two older women were in Florence’s bed, and everyone was trying to get a little sleep.

  * * *

  When the alarm clock awakened Gil at six o’clock later that morning, he was still sleepy and tired, but jumped out of bed and into the shower quickly. He planned to be downstairs before Jo and Carla woke up. He wanted to talk to his mother and Eunice before he talked to Jo again.

  As he entered the kitchen, his mother and aunt were leaving through the door into the garage. He rushed over to catch the door before Eunice could close it.

  He stepped out into the garage with them and said, “Where are you two off to so early this morning?”

  His mother stepped up to him and said, “We’re going to get some furniture for that fourth bedroom so Jo and Carla can be more comfortable tonight.”

  He shook his head. “But Mom, the furniture store won’t be open for more than two hours.”

  Both women laughed their special laugh that meant they knew something that he didn’t.

  His mother said, “We called Betty, who was kind enough to call the owner of the furniture store.”

  Eunice continued, “And when she told him that it was for Jo, he agreed to meet us down there
right away.”

  His mother finished, “Now, if you’ll just let us go, we want to be back here before they get up so we can have breakfast on the table for them when they do.”

  Gil couldn’t argue with their logic and he couldn’t help but grin as he shook his head at his zany but lovable mother and aunt.

  He went into his study to try to have his morning devotion but it was next to impossible for him to concentrate. Jo was upstairs in this house. The woman that he was becoming very fond of was actually in his home.

  Then it struck him like a two-by-four. The only thing that had been there between them that would keep them apart was no longer there. The bar! It was gone now! Jo was technically no longer a bar owner. From what she had told him, he knew that she wouldn’t go back into that business now that the building was gone.

  He suddenly felt fantastic. He just didn’t know what to do next. He’d never really been with girls or women his age. He’d grown up with his mother and Eunice. What did you do when you were attracted to a woman? How could he let Jo know that he was attracted to her? He had no idea. But who could he ask? Richard? Maybe. He’d have to think about that some more. But who else did he know who wouldn’t laugh at him?

  Just as Gil gave up on getting any studying done, he heard steps on the stairway across from his study. He stepped out into the hall in time to meet Jo and Carla at the bottom of the stairs. They both looked as if they hadn’t slept much either.

  After their greetings, Jo said, “I hate to be such a bother Gil, but Carla wants to go to school this morning even though she didn’t get much sleep. I could call Sue Ann or Floyd.”

  Gil smiled at them both, pulled his car keys out of his pocket, and handed them to Jo. “Here, why don’t you drive her in my car?”

  Jo started to protest. “I wouldn’t feel right doing that, Gil.”

  He laughed and said, “My car is so small that the old expression, ‘Two’s company, three’s a crowd’ certainly applies to it. Remember how crowded we were coming over here last night?