“If you need protection,” he answered smoothly, “it’s not from me.”
“If anybody needs protection around here,” Hank snapped, “it’s you.”
Ethan looked at him. “I hope that’s not a threat.”
“Call it what you want, but I’m just stating facts. Daisy’s got plenty of friends in this place. You don’t.”
“You sure know how to make a guy feel welcome.”
“That’s because you’re not welcome,” Hank retorted sharply. “You can get the hell out anytime. H & P’s doesn’t need your business, and we don’t want your business.”
Although Ethan had been in the process of packing up his map, he stopped abruptly. “What did you just say?”
“You can get the hell out anytime,” Hank repeated with irritation.
“No.” He shook his head. “After that. The name. Did you say H & P’s?”
Hank scowled. “What if I did?”
Ethan turned to Daisy. “Is this H & P’s Diner?”
“It is,” she responded, a bit hesitantly. It was the truth. That was the official name of the restaurant, so there was no point in concealing it. But there was something about the way Ethan had reacted to it that put Daisy on guard.
He gazed at her thoughtfully for a moment, then his eyes traveled slowly around the diner. She shifted in her seat, growing increasingly uneasy. First Chalk Level. Now an unexplained interest in H & P’s. That couldn’t be good.
“You got a problem with the name?” Hank demanded.
“I—”
“Because I’m Hank.” He gestured toward Daisy. “And her pop’s Paul. So if you’ve got a problem with the name, then you’ve got a problem with us.”
“I don’t have a problem with the name.” Ethan shrugged and continued studying the interior of the diner. “But I am surprised. I didn’t see a sign when I pulled into the parking lot.”
“There isn’t one,” Daisy explained. “Only the address above the door. We used to have a big sign out along the road, but it was torn up by a storm earlier this year. And nobody quite got around to—”
“Sign or no sign,” Hank broke in, “you heard what I told Carlton. We’re closed. That means you need to go.”
Ethan didn’t pay any attention. He looked at each of them in turn. “So if you’re Daisy, and you’re Hank, then you must be Brenda?”
Brenda merely grunted in reply.
“You ask a lot of questions for a man who ain’t from these parts,” Hank snarled.
“And you seem to know an awful lot already too,” Daisy added quickly, taking advantage of the opening before Hank went on and slammed it shut again. “So I’m sure you wouldn’t mind telling us what brings you to our little neighborhood.”
“If you wouldn’t mind telling me where Chalk Level is,” Ethan returned with equal slickness.
She didn’t need to deliberate. It was a deal that Daisy could easily make. There was more than one way to explain Chalk Level, and she would be as helpful to him as he ended up being to her.
“All right,” she agreed. “Fair enough.”
“Daisy—” Hank warned her gruffly.
She shook her head at him, hoping that he would understand and keep quiet. But he didn’t take the hint.
“He’s got no right. It ain’t none of his concern. You don’t have any idea—”
“Hank!” Brenda interrupted him shrilly.
Startled, he turned toward her. Brenda flared her nostrils at him.
“I don’t know about that one,” she motioned in the direction of Ethan, “and I don’t much care. But Ducky’s got every right. And there’s no doubt about it being her concern. So for once in your life, shut your big fat maw and let her talk.”
Hank started to open his mouth in protest but closed it again a second later. With a sullen sniff, he dropped down on the stool behind him. Daisy swallowed a grin. Although it didn’t happen very often, it was always entertaining when Brenda got the last word and put Hank in his place. It was like a skunk that got tired of a pushy raccoon constantly shoving his nose where it didn’t belong and finally remedying the problem with a pungent spritz.
“Thank you,” Brenda said to him. “Now go ahead, Ducky.”
Daisy nodded at her in appreciation, then she looked across the booth at Ethan. He raised an anticipatory eyebrow.
“I think we may have gotten off to a bad start,” she drawled.
“No,” Ethan countered with a smile, “I think we can both agree we got off to a pretty good start.”
“That’s true.” Daisy returned the smile with an extra sweet one of her own. “But along the way we somehow got our signals crossed.”
“I wouldn’t argue with you there.”
“So let’s try again.” She blinked at him with long lashes. “Let’s uncross those signals and see where they take us.”
He leaned toward her. “I’m game.”
“Why don’t we begin,” Daisy purred, “with you telling me all about Ethan Kinney. Where does he come from? Why is he here? What does he—”
Ethan tossed his head back and laughed. “Damn, you’re good! I’ve got to give you that. You must have that husband of yours twisted around those clever little fingers like a dutiful worm.”
Her smile vanished. It wasn’t his smug laugh. It wasn’t even that he saw straight through her syrupy act and called her on it. It was the way he talked about Matt, and his assumption that he knew all about their marriage. He knew nothing.
“Fine.” Daisy’s eyes clouded. “I thought we could handle this in a polite, civilized Southern fashion, but now I see we can’t.”
For the first time since his arrival at the diner, Ethan seemed slightly shaken, as though he hadn’t expected her to react quite so strongly or shift her attitude toward him quite so quickly.
“If you don’t like my way,” she continued crisply, “then we’ll do it yours.”
He raised his hands in an apologetic manner. “I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding—”
“There’s no misunderstanding at all,” Daisy cut him off. “You’re looking for Chalk Level, and I want to know why. So you can either tell me why, or you can get the hell out of here right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ethan lashed back at her. “And I’ll be the one asking the questions, while you’ll be the one giving the answers.”
He pulled a thin black leather wallet out of his shirt pocket and flipped it open. Daisy squinted at the badge inside.
“I should have guessed.” She snorted with disgust.
“What is he?” Hank said. “One of those idiots from Danville? He sure looks fool enough.”
“No.” Daisy stood up and backed away from the booth with revulsion, like she had just discovered a very hairy and ugly tarantula perched on the seat across from her. “He’s not from Danville. He’s not good enough for Danville.”
Hank’s eyes clouded over just as hers had a moment earlier. “You don’t mean … he’s not…”
“Oh yes.” She snorted a second time. “He’s exactly that.”
There was such undisguised hostility in her voice that Ethan’s face paled with astonishment.
Daisy snickered. “What? You thought you’d flash your sparkly badge and we’d all bow down to you in deference? Well, not here. And certainly not with us. We’ve met your kind before. It’s almost five years ago now, but I’ll never forget. So you can ask every question you want. You’ll never get a single answer from me.”
As Ethan met Daisy’s and Hank’s bitter stares, Brenda reached timidly for the phone next to the cash register.
“Should I call Sheriff Lowell?” she asked.
“Don’t bother,” Hank replied.
“But he maybe can—”
“He can’t. George can’t do a damn thing. He’s only local. This joker’s federal.”
“Lord have mercy.” Brenda gasped, finally understanding.
Daisy nodded. “A demon in the flesh. He’s ATF.”
/>
CHAPTER
10
“I’m going home.”
Daisy had about as much interest in spending one extra unnecessary second in the same room with Ethan Kinney as she did in licking a lollipop coated with a virulent strain of the plague. He was an agent for the devil. A special agent according to his badge. Her previous experience with another such agent had been closely akin to what she imagined it must be like to suffer in the fiery lake of hell. Years later she was still smarting from the burns, and she had no intention of ever getting close enough to those flames to be scalded again. Once was more than enough. This time the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would have to find a different victim.
Brenda wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but on this occasion she managed to comprehend Daisy perfectly.
“That sounds like a mighty fine idea, Ducky. It’s been a long enough day, hasn’t it? If you wait just half a minute while I go in the back to check on the freezer and grab my handbag, I’ll head out with you.”
“Okey-dokey.” Daisy walked over to the mustard bottles that she had been refilling earlier and screwed on their tops. “I’ll finish these in the morning.”
“Will you do the ketchup too?” Brenda pushed open the door to the kitchen. “I think some of them might be getting low. Hank, are you planning on shuttin’ down the grill tonight? Or do you want me to do it?”
There was a slight pause before he answered, as though he couldn’t quite decide whether to play along with Daisy and Brenda or take the exact opposite tack and play rough with Ethan Kinney.
“I’ll take care of the grill,” he grumbled, his cooler head prevailing for the moment. “I’ve got to clean out the grease tray anyway.”
“I’m looking at the vegetables on the shelf in here,” Brenda shouted from the back room. “We better order some more lima beans.”
Hank rose from his stool. “Put it on the list.”
“Creamed corn too.”
“Put it on the list.”
Daisy scooped up Hank’s apron from next to the mustard bottles and tossed it to him as he headed toward the kitchen. He shook it out with a sharp crack, then wrapped it around his waist.
“And now that I’m really checking,” Brenda added, “we’re running short on black-eyed peas.”
“For God’s sake, woman! Put it on the list!”
As Hank disappeared through the open doorway, Daisy glanced at Ethan from out of the corner of her eye. He was looking at her intently, but she didn’t look back. Instead she suppressed a grin. It was the perfect method for dealing with a demon. Pretend that he wasn’t there. He didn’t even exist. That way she didn’t have to answer any questions or give any explanations. The longer she ignored him, the better the chance that he would eventually slink back into the filthy hole he had crawled out of.
Ethan cleared his throat. Daisy responded by locking the cash register drawer. He clattered his empty plates and mug together. She clicked off the lights above the counter. He dropped a spoon on the tile with a crash, and she straightened the stack of menus next to the phone. Finally he used a more direct approach.
“Daisy—”
Daisy turned her back on him.
“Seriously?” There was a hint of laughter in Ethan’s voice. “Aren’t you a little old to be covering your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears as though I’m not sitting in the booth right behind you?”
She bit down hard on the inside of her cheeks so that she couldn’t answer him.
“I thought we had a deal, Daisy.”
Trying not to hurl a coffeepot at his head, she took a long, slow breath.
“I thought we had a deal,” he said again. “You agreed. And I’d be sorry to see you break your word.”
No longer able to stop herself, Daisy whirled around to face him. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare talk to me about breaking deals.”
Ethan’s jaw twitched.
“It’s you who lies,” she seethed. “It’s your office that makes promises one minute and smashes them to bits the next. So don’t ever, ever lecture me about bargains and agreements. Because I’ve always kept my word. You ATF bastards only know how to lie.”
Although his mouth opened, her eyes met his with such vitriol that she could tell it forced down the heated reply that bubbled on the tip of his tongue. They stared at each other hard for a minute, then with a slight sigh, Ethan stood up from his booth. Daisy immediately took a step backward.
“I’m going to guess,” he spoke slowly, choosing his sentences carefully, “that another agent from the bureau has been here. I’m also going to guess that it was some time ago and it wasn’t a very good visit. I don’t know what happened before. I don’t know who you met or talked to. But I come in peace. I’ve got no interest in making trouble, either for you or myself. I just want to find what I’ve got to find, see what I’ve got to see, and then I’ll go away again. Quietly. Without any commotion.”
Daisy pursed her lips. She doubted him. She doubted every syllable that slithered out of his deceitful special agent mouth.
“This is just another job for me,” Ethan went on. “That’s all. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”
Her icy expression didn’t soften, but she didn’t spit at him either. He seemed to take that as a positive sign.
“I’m not trying to cause problems,” he said. “My assignment is as simple and straightforward as they come.”
“What exactly is your assignment?” Daisy asked.
“Apparently you had a man die in here a couple of weeks ago?”
She gave a little grunt of acknowledgment.
“And you know there was some question about the cause of death?”
The grunt repeated itself.
“Well, your Virginia boys sent us a copy of the autopsy report, and I’m here to follow up on it.”
Every limb in Daisy’s body stiffened. So the investigation into Fred Dickerson’s death hadn’t actually turned still and silent. It had moved up the food chain instead. From state to federal. From the folks in Danville to the ATF.
“All I need to do is check out this place”—Ethan waved his hand once around—“talk to the people who were present when he died”—he nodded toward her—“and take a look at where he lived.”
Daisy heard his words, but her mind was focused elsewhere. ATF. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That’s what they handled. Not strokes. Not seizures. Not the ordinary collapse of an aged recluse in Pittsylvania County on the floor of the local diner. So if the bureau was interested in old man Dickerson’s death, they had to believe that it had some connection to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or explosives. Only one of those could reasonably apply to Fred. Alcohol. Or more accurately in his case—moonshine. Fred’s ’shine. The same ’shine that Rick Balsam had told her was potentially lethal.
“Which is why I was driving around in circles trying to find Chalk Level,” Ethan explained. “And it’s also why I needed to find H & P’s Diner.”
“You found it,” Daisy muttered absently.
“I was lucky to stumble in here. There’s no doubt about that. I checked one place off my list, and I got to meet you.”
She didn’t respond. She was too busy thinking about Rick. If only she knew everything that he apparently knew. Then she would have had a much better idea of how to handle Ethan Kinney and his assignment.
“I swear to you,” Ethan said. “That’s it. The diner, the diner’s employees, and the deceased’s home. My office has no other intention or goal. No hidden agenda. No secret mission.”
He sounded honest. He even looked honest. But Daisy wasn’t as gullible as she had been five years ago. She didn’t trust any agent from the ATF one lick. Except she was gradually beginning to realize that it wasn’t really a matter of trust. It was much more a matter of practicality.
“Now that I’ve answered your question,” he prodded her gently, “I hope you’ll answer mine?”
Daisy hesitated. Part of her still wanted to hurl a coffeepot at his head, but that was the opposite of practical. She would be acting on pure emotion, and this time she was determined to put emotion on the backseat. She wouldn’t let them bamboozle her. This wasn’t going to be another opportunity for them to prey on her while she was grieving and in shock. They wouldn’t take one more damn thing from her or her family. Bad luck and poor timing may have forced her to be a witness to old man Dickerson’s death, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have some control over the consequences.
“I can give you directions to Chalk Level.”
Although it took her some effort, Daisy spoke calmly, almost casually. Ethan cocked his head at her curiously.
“You can?”
She wasn’t sure whether he was surprised by her willingness to assist him or her ability to assist him. It didn’t matter to her either way. Ethan Kinney had come, and he obviously wasn’t leaving until he got what he needed. The faster she gave it to him, the sooner he would go away and hopefully never return.
“I can show you on your map if you’d like.”
“I know it’s on here.” Ethan sat back down at his booth and smoothed out the crumpled paper. “I saw it before.”
“It doesn’t appear very often. Not unless it’s a Virginia map that’s really detailed or really old.”
“I dug this one out of the archives at work.”
Daisy swallowed hard. She wondered if he’d looked at any of the files that presumably had been sitting right next to the map. He must not have—or at least not very closely—because otherwise he would have recognized her name when she first introduced herself.
“But the problem,” Ethan complained, “is that there’s no dot.”
“That’s always the problem,” Daisy told him, as she went over to his table. “They plop the names down in the correct general vicinity, but if there’s no dot at an actual intersection or some sort of locatable landmark, the general vicinity in this part of the state equals fifty square miles of winding, unmarked roads that keep crisscrossing without any apparent rhyme, reason, or a useful signpost.”
Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery Page 9