by Danni Roan
Susan had never been one to bring a young man to church before, but by the way her grandmother was beaming, you would have thought she had won a great prize.
As they finished the third song from the old hymnals, a tiny shiver raced down Susan’s spine, and she turned trying to figure out who was watching her. The notion flickered through her mind and she pushed it away. Everyone she knew was looking at her, and she was torn between enjoying the admiration having a handsome man next to her brought, and a feeling of dread at not only the assumptions other parishioners might have, but the potential of an assailant lurking somewhere in their midst.
“Are you alright?” David asked leaning down at Susan’s worried look.
“It’s nothing,” she said forcing a smile as her mind turned over a new thought. If Old Mr. Watkins had been murdered all those years ago, could the killer still be alive? If so had they been living right here in this little town in the northern hills of Georgia all this time?
Susan looked between her grandmother and the young man at her side suddenly understanding how dangerous her simple decision to find out where two stray horses had come from really was. It was even possible that the person responsible for the mysterious disappearance of an old fashioned moonshiner was singing hymns in this hallowed space.
“We’ll talk after the service,” Susan finally hissed. Nodding and smiling at the curious faces around her.
“You have been very quiet,” David said as they trudged up the rugged trail toward a favorite hangout of generations of students at the school. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m just thinking.” Susan paused, turning to look back down the trail. It wasn’t a difficult trail, but it wasn’t kept up and there were muddy spots where water seeped from the earth.
David stepped up next to Susan turning and looking back down the trail. “You’re worried.”
“A little, it kind of sank in during church that whatever happened to your grandfather might still have an impact on someone who lives right here in our home town. I just can’t seem to make the connection.”
David sighed, feeling the warmth of the sun dappling through the thick canopy of leaves. “If I had my journal maybe we would see something I’ve been missing all this time. Surely there must be something in all those clippings, reports, and interviews that would point us in the right direction.”
Susan shook her head. David was an intelligent and able investigator. If he hadn’t put the pieces together from everything in the book she didn’t see how she would. “Come on,” she smiled. “I want to stick my feet in the water and forget about all of this for a little while. Today we are just two friends out for a walk.”
David grinned, turning to fall into step with Susan once more. “Do you come up here often?”
“Not as much as I would like. This past year was grueling with dual enrollment in two different colleges and two different majors.” She laughed lightly, “Maybe I chose the wrong courses and I should have studied investigation.”
David’s bright laugh was like a cool breeze, and Susan’s spirits lifted as she forced thoughts of a missing moonshiner and two wild horses from her mind. A few minutes later, the soft roar of water over rocks hastened their steps, and soon, they were both ankle deep in the cool water of the mountain stream.
“That feels wonderful,” Susan said, bracing her hands on the rock where she sat, her face turned to the sun.
David splashed his toes, splattering her ankles with icy droplets.
“Hey,” Susan griped, kicking her feet. “You’ll get me all wet.” A hard kick splashed water over both of them and she squealed when David crashed his foot into the shimmering depths.
Water glinted in the bright sun as they both began to kick and splash, twisting and scattering water everywhere. Susan turned dipping her hands into the racing stream and lifting a huge scoop of water at her companion, only to slip forward with a scream.
David lunged trying to grab Susan before she fell, face forward into the babbling brook, his hand finding purchase on her wrist, but the woman’s forward momentum was too much for even his strength to offset, and they tumbled into the shallow water with a geyser’s splash.
Pushing upright into the water, David flicked his hair from his eyes turning to see a spluttering Susan struggle to push her lush locks from her face.
A laugh trickled from his lips, and David reached out pushing a strand of dripping hair from Susan’s eyes as they both burst into peals of mirth. They were soaking wet, spluttering and tangled in a heap of bare feet and legs.
Susan’s eyes sparkled brighter than sunlight on the water, and David found himself falling once more. His smile slipped as he dipped his head toward hers, brushing sweet lips with a simple kiss.
Susan sank into the kiss, feeling warmth fill her even as the cold water gurgled around her. David’s lips were soft and inviting as she closed her eyes drinking in the taste of him.
The sound of noisy teenagers ascending the path made David jump back plopping into the pool as he forced his eyes away from Susan. He hadn’t meant to kiss her, but one thing had led to another.
“We’d better get back,” Susan pushed herself to her feet, slogging out of the shallow pool without a backward glance. “Gram will wonder what happened to us.”
The hike back to the base of the trail was filled with an awkward silence as both parties dripped their way back to the Jeep.
“What else do you have at your place related to the case?” Susan asked as she turned the key and pulled away from the pretty campus and the brick buildings scattered among the gentle hills.
“What?” David pulled his mind away from the kiss, relieved that Susan had decided to concentrate on the work instead of what had happened in the pool above the hills. “Nothing really,” he gazed out at the passing landscape full of trees and flood plain. “I kept everything in the journal.”
“What about that box you brought with you from you apartment, what’s in that?”
“Mostly old photos. I didn’t like the idea of leaving them behind in case someone came back.”
“Can I see them?” Susan glanced toward David whose face was in profile.
“Sure,” he replied keeping his eyes on the road. He didn’t want to meet her blue gaze again for fear of losing himself in their warm depths.
In a matter of minutes Susan was pulling into her space at the back of the large elegant house. “Something smells good,” she grinned traipsing onto the back porch and pushing through the screen door. “Gram, we’re back!”
“Supper won’t be ready for another hour,” Gram said, walking out of the kitchen. “My goodness, what happened to you?”
Susan’s bright titter of laughter made David grin, but he shook his head racing for the stairs and dry clothes. He would leave Susan to deal with her grandmother.
“We fell in,” Susan’s voice echoed along the hall as David took the stairs two at a time, wondering if she would tell her grandmother everything. “We’re going to look at old photos in the office as soon as I get changed.”
David grinned catching the last words before turning down the hall toward his room.
“Who’s this?” Susan asked pointing at another black and white photo of a couple dressed in forty’s garb.
“That’s Grandma and Grandpa Watkins,” David replied. Susan was hovering at his shoulder and her steady presence seemed to fill the room.
“You look like him,” Susan straightened lifting the picture and looking back and forth between David and the snapshot. “He certainly doesn’t look like an old reprobate here.”
“Thanks,” David snatched the photo from her fingers studying his grandparents. He had loved his grandmother and no matter how often family or friends would criticize her mate, she had always defended Harcourt. “You never would have believed from this photo that one day he would just be gone.”
“I’m sorry you never knew him,” Susan said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
“If I could just
find out what really happened.”David ran his hands through his hair as his mind spun.
“Here’s another shot of your grandfather, who is the man with him?” Susan lifted another photo of two men standing shoulder to shoulder in an open field.
“I have no idea,” David said taking the small photo and turning it in his hands. “It looks like there was something written here but now I can’t tell.”
Susan opened a drawer on the desk pulling out a tiny ink roller used for making hand printed greeting cards. “Let me see, maybe we can pick it out with this.”
Turning the photo over, the young woman ran the ink roller over the faded words watching as they darkened, coming into stark contrast against the yellowed paper.
“Sheriff, Drew Frazer,” David read turning to look at Susan. “Why would my grandfather be with the sheriff if he was running moonshine, like all the reports said?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Susan scowled. “They look like they might even be friends.”
“I think a trip to the records office is in order tomorrow,” David mused. “Maybe we can find out about this Frazer fellow and learn why he would be in a photo with my grandfather.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Susan agreed, nibbling a pretty nail. “Did your grandmother ever say anything about the sheriff?”
“No. Never.” David turned back to the photo studying the two men. His grandfather was slightly built while the sheriff was tall, broad and serious. “See if you can find any more photos of them together.”
For the next half hour the two of them scanned every photo in the box but never found another picture of the two men together. By the time Gram called them to dinner they were both plotting their day in the town archives. They needed to find out everything they possibly could about Sheriff Frazer and his relationship with Harcourt Watkins.
Where had the two men been when the photo was taken? How did they know each other? What was their relationship? There were more questions spinning between them now than there had been at the beginning of the day, but something told Susan she was on the right track.
Chapter 8
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Colossians 3:12-14
“There are loads of articles here on Frazer,” Susan hurried through the basement of the old courthouse carrying a case full of newspapers. “He seems to have decided he would clean up some of the problems with the old moonshiners in the hills back then.”
“He certainly campaigned on that platform,” David agreed. “Look at all of these old stickers and signs.” He scrolled through the microfiche highlighting old slogans. “If Grandpa Watkins was a moonshiner, why would he have befriended a man set on pulling down the whole industry in these hills?”
“Do you think there was really any money to be made in selling corn whisky?” Susan couldn’t place what was troubling her, but there was something wrong about the picture.
“This county was still dry back then,” David spoke. “It’s only been the past twenty years or so that restaurants have been allowed to serve alcohol, so I guess there was probably a pretty good demand.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.” Susan rifled through the papers searching for any more clues. “Maybe your grandfather was trying to convince Frazer to let well enough alone, and they became friends.”
“Maybe,” David shook his head, “but Grandma Watkins always insisted that Pap-pap would never make or sell illicit hooch. Besides, if it was such a good business , didn’t they every have money?”
Susan paced the small room in the dark recesses of the courthouse. Nothing made sense. It was possible that David and his grandmother before him were just unwilling to accept the truth that old man Watkins really had been a moonshiner.
“Do you think anyone would have killed someone over whisky rights? I mean, there was plenty of room up there in the woods and fresh water was never an issue. Moonshiners could surely have come to some agreement, perhaps each choosing a different area in the county to sell their wares.”
“Your own grandmother said she had seen moonshine makers traipsing through campus when she was a student. Back then you weren’t allowed in the hills for fear of being shot. They didn’t carry those shotguns for nothing.”
Susan looked up, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “But to kill someone over a few bottles of rotgut, doesn’t make sense. It wouldn’t be worth the risk to kill your competition when you could simply pack up and move somewhere else.”
“You’re right, there has to be something more.”
David watched as Susan pinched her bottom lip between her teeth, trying not to remember the warm silky feel of it pressed against his own.
“What would be worth that risk then?” His eyes never left her mouth.
“Something more important than a still and corn liquor. Something more important than the few dollars a man would make from selling a half a dozen gallons of moonshine.”
“What if Harcourt stumbled across something else? What if someone was doing more than just selling moonshine?”
Susan looked up meeting David’s eyes. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” David pushed himself from his chair taking the two steps between them in a single stride. “We don’t have much to go on, but look at what we know.”
Susan looked up expectantly, not sure if she was waiting for him to continue or wishing for him to lean down and kiss her again.
“We know that Pap-pap was in those hills.” The young man ticked his first point off of a finger. “We know that he met with Sheriff Frazer at least on one occasion.” He held up another finger. “We know that my grandmother never believed the rumors that he was making and selling moonshine.” A third finger came in to play. “What does it all mean?”
Susan’s eyes grew wide as she puzzled out the questions. “David,” her voice was breathy and she rested her hand on his arm. “If your grandfather was working for Sheriff Frazer to identify the moonshiners, maybe one of them did shoot him.”
David shook his head. “I still think they would have just left. They could just as easily move to another location and snuck the hooch back into this county from anywhere.”
Susan nodded. “It had to be bigger stakes than just selling whisky then.” Her hand still rested on his forearm and she could feel the ripple of muscles under her palm. “Oh my goodness!” she gasped. “David, we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Your grandfather wasn’t making moonshine, he was trying to find out how it was still getting sold when the sheriff of the county had all but declared war on those who manufactured it.”
“How many arrests were made of people transporting the stuff?” David asked, his voice going hoarse. “How many actual arrests were made? This is a small county, there can’t have been that many men assigned to the case. If grandpa had discovered that one of them was working with the moonshiners…”
“That would be a reason to kill.” Susan’s blue eyes were huge as she met David’s gaze. “It wasn’t about the moonshine, it was about finding out who was letting the moonshiners function right beneath the sheriff’s nose.”
A cold shiver raced down David’s back as the pieces clicked into place.
“Did you ever take those shards of glass to my friend at the local garage?”
“Yes, but I haven’t followed up yet.”
“I think he might have the final piece of the puzzle.”
“Come on,” Susan said grabbing her purse and heading for the stairs. “If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, this isn’t over yet. A man’s legacy, reputation, and community standing might be in play here.”
David slipped his hand into Susan’s as they raced up the stairs and out of the buildin
g dashing for the Jeep and hopefully the last answers they needed. If his friend could identify the car that those broken shards had come from, they may have the last shred of evidence to prove their theory. Now if they could only identify who might have gone so far as to murder a man who was tasked with ferreting out who was behind keeping an age old activity alive.
“Kick back!” David practically shouted as the wind roared past his ears. “Someone was getting a cut of the profit.”
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Susan asked, peering out of the Jeep as she dropped David off at his apartment the next day.
“I’ll be fine. My head is good. I’ll see my doctor tomorrow, and I have to get back to work.”