One Foot in the Grave: Carly Moore #3

by Denise Grover Swank

  I didn’t want to go to that dark place again, not when we still had so much to accomplish. “I think we should talk to Bingham after we see Hank. I want to ask him about Heather’s car.” I frowned. “Do we know what make and model car she drove?”

  “I’m pretty sure that Wyatt was driving her car when he was arrested. I have a copy of the police report at home, but I think it was a late model Chevy Cavalier.”

  “Do we need to go by and get the report?” I asked.

  “You could always ask Wyatt.”

  “I don’t know where he’s holed up. Only Lula does, although if he’s hidin’ on Bingham’s land, we could look for him there.”

  “It’s up to you,” he said. “We can go see Hank, then drop by my house for the report. But I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to visit Bingham unannounced. He tolerated an appointment. He might not be so keen on a drop-by visit.” Before I could respond, he added, “I’m not sure how much mileage you’ll have with the Lula card, so don’t be countin’ on that.”

  I had been.

  “Let’s just see what Hank says before we decide what to do next,” I said. He agreed, and we spent the rest of the ride rehashing everything Mitzi and May had told me, not coming up with any new leads. For the first time since I’d started poking into this mess, I didn’t have any new threads to pull. I wasn’t sure what to do next other than talk to Hank and possibly Bingham and try to find out the identity of the banker. It felt like a dead end, although I refused to think of it that way. Whatever his flaws, Wyatt didn’t deserve to suffer for a crime someone else had committed.

  Hank was sitting in front of his TV, watching one of the afternoon talk shows he seemed to love so much. He glanced up at me in surprise. “What are you doin’ home? I thought you were workin’ all day.” He braced his hands on the arms of his recliner and sat up straighter when he saw Marco was with me. “Max didn’t fire you again, did he?”

  “No,” I said, walking around the sofa and sitting on the end next to him. “Nothing like that. I took the afternoon off to look into Heather’s murder.”

  He glanced up at Marco, who still stood by the door. “You here as a deputy sheriff or Carly’s friend?”

  “Carly’s friend, sir,” he said respectfully.

  Hank motioned him over. “Then come sit down. No need for you to guard the door.”

  Marco cracked a grin as he moved around the sofa to sit next to me.

  “I take it you have questions,” Hank said, clicking off the TV.

  “Yeah.”

  He held his hands wide. “Ask away. I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “When you were running your drug kingdom,” I said, “you said you limited it to pot and pills. I remember you saying you didn’t have the stomach to cook meth and that oxy was too hard to get. But surely people wanted those things.”

  He made a face. “True, but they had to leave the area to get it. I didn’t tolerate anyone sellin’ that nonsense while I was in charge.”

  “What about roofies?” Marco asked. “Or ecstasy?”

  Hank’s eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t give a shit about what you did in the past, Hank,” Marco said. “There’s plenty of bad shit floatin’ around now to keep us busy.”

  Hank didn’t look entirely convinced.

  “Did the people buying drugs ever come straight to you?” I asked.

  “No. Wouldn’t bring the business into my home, and they had no reason to come to my place of business. There were too many other men around for anyone to get through.”

  Did Hank used to have bodyguards? Or maybe they were just his workers who acted tough. Either way, I had to wonder where they were now. Working for Bingham?

  “So if someone was lookin’ for something specific, would they go to their dealer and ask?” I said.

  “This might go a little faster if you just spit out what you’re tryin’ to ask,” Hank said gruffly.

  The man I knew was all bark and no bite when it came to me, although I’d seen him shoot a man dead while protecting me, so I knew he was capable of violence.

  “The Drummonds paid Heather five thousand dollars to leave, but she was cooking up a plan to stay. A witness claims to have overheard her talking on the phone, telling the other person she needed drugs to put someone in a compromising position without them waking up.”

  “And you think she called me?” he asked, his brow raised.

  “Maybe. Or made the request of someone who could ask you. Do you remember anyone making any unusual requests around the time Heather left?”

  “That question presumes I knew Heather, let alone gave a shit about her leavin’ town. So the short answer is I have no idea what kind of requests were made back then. I didn’t usually handle the little things. I was the big picture guy.”

  “Did you sell roofies, Hank?” I asked quietly.

  He turned to me, his expression blank. “I sold a wide variety of pills, but I never sold anything that could be used to take someone’s control from them.”

  I nodded in relief.

  “If someone wanted something like that around here back then,” I said, “where would they go?”

  “I’m fairly certain Bingham was sellin’ the things I wouldn’t. I know he sells them now.”

  Further proof that Bingham was slime, but it also confirmed that I did need to talk to him again.

  “Who was she hopin’ to incapacitate?” he asked.

  “We’re not sure,” I said. “Maybe Bart.”

  He released a short laugh. “If she’d come to me with that purpose in mind, I would have tracked the drugs down myself. Bingham had a horse in the race if she asked him. He very much wanted to eliminate Drummond. Still does.”

  Crap. That put Bingham back on the suspect list, but if he wasn’t responsible, we still needed to figure out where Heather’s car had gone.

  “If someone was wanting to dump a car,” I said, “what would be the best place to do it?”

  “You can’t be serious,” he scoffed.

  “Other than Bingham’s chop shop.”

  He slowly shook his head. “Not many places. You’d want a deep lake or mine shaft, but you’re not going to find either of those around here. You’d have to head up into Kentucky.”

  I cast a glance over my shoulder to Marco.

  “You’re gonna go talk to Bingham, ain’t ya?” Hank asked. When I didn’t respond, he said, “He ain’t gonna like you askin’ questions that insinuate he’s a murderer.”

  Didn’t I know it. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Hank asked.

  I reached over and placed my hand over his. “No, Hank. That’s not necessary.”

  He shot Marco a glare. “Are you gonna go with her?”

  Marco hesitated, and I said, “No. He can’t. Bingham will never talk if he’s with me.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you talkin’ to him alone.”

  “I think she should wait to talk to him,” Marco agreed. “Maybe you should actually go to work tonight. We can get Bingham to come to the tavern. Where I can keep an eye on him.”

  Hank nodded. “And remind him that I’ve claimed her as kin.”

  They were starting to irritate me. “I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions.”

  “We’re only tryin’ to protect you,” Hank said.

  Giving him a soft smile, I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I love you too, Hank.” Then I stood. “What did you eat for lunch?”

  Ginger had worked at the tavern today, which meant he’d probably been alone since yesterday afternoon.

  “Some of that leftover casserole.”

  Guilt washed through me. If left to his own devices for too long, he was bound to eat something unhealthy.

  “I’m going to make you dinner before I go.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” he said, sounding irritated. “I’ll just have some of that leftover chicken in the fridge.”

  “Okay.
” I hated the thought of him being alone for so long, and then I remembered the kittens. “Hank, what do you think about cats?”

  He made a face. “I don’t have many thoughts one way or the other.”

  “Do you like them?”

  He frowned. “I don’t dislike them.”

  “What would you say if I asked if we could adopt a kitten?”

  He studied me for a moment. “I’d tell you to go ahead and get it, so long as it’s an outside cat.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the thought of that, but he hadn’t said no.

  His face softened. “You want a cat, girl? Get yourself a cat. I’ll learn to live with it.”

  It didn’t seem like the right time to mention I’d committed to two. I’d hoped he would be more excited about the idea, but I reminded myself that I couldn’t expect Hank to get all giddy over a kitten. With any luck at all, the kittens would grow on him.

  “Thanks, Hank.”

  “Are you comin’ home tonight?” he asked.

  “No,” Marco said. “She’s stayin’ with me again.”

  I started to protest that I could make my own decisions, but I suspected he was worried after Paul Conrad’s threat. And rightly so. While I knew Hank could protect me, it would be better if Marco defended me instead of an ex-drug lord. I could only imagine what kind of trouble Hank would be in if he shot a deputy sheriff.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I’m stayin’ with Marco.”

  Hank gave me a long look, then nodded. “Just keep me posted so I know you’re okay.”

  I headed into my room and packed a bag with a couple of days’ worth of clothes, then added some toiletries from the bathroom.

  “You headed to see Bingham after you leave?” Hank asked as I walked out of the bathroom.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Call and leave me updates,” he said. “Even if it’s late. I’ll just let the machine get it.”

  “Hank,” I protested, “there’s no sense in—”

  “I’ll call you, sir,” Marco said. “I’ll make sure that you know she’s okay.”

  Hank nodded to him as I headed out the door to my car, leaving Marco to follow me.

  “Are you really not goin’ to see Bingham?” Marco asked as he got into the passenger side while I got in on the driver’s side.

  “Not yet,” I said as I adjusted the seat.

  Relief swept over Marco’s face.

  “Hank’s right. He won’t appreciate it if it sounds like I’m accusing him of anything,” I said, “so I need to think this through.” But time was not on our side, and the decision made me anxious.

  Marco was quiet for a moment, then said, “We can try to find out who worked at the Mountain View Lodge. Maybe one of them remembers seeing Heather and whoever she was meeting.” He shrugged. “It’s also a long shot, and it’ll be harder since it won’t be an official sheriff’s department inquiry.”

  “Have we hit a dead end?” I asked, my stomach sinking. What would happen to Wyatt if we failed to clear his name?

  “No. We still have Heather’s salon boyfriend. We still have Bingham. We just need to figure out the safest way for you to talk to him.” He shot me a grin. “Bingham, not the salon guy.” He turned his attention back to the road. “Before we do anything else, I need to swing by my house so I can get Wyatt’s police report and pick up my police cruiser and a uniform. I’m covering a shift for a friend tonight, so I can go straight from the tavern to work. Since my Explorer’s still in the tavern parking lot, maybe you can help me get it home later.”

  “Marco,” I said, worry filling my head. “Of course I’ll help you, but you should have taken a nap instead of running around the county with me.”

  “No,” he said with a finality that told me it wasn’t up for debate. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep knowin’ you were lookin’ into this alone.” He cracked a grin. “Besides, you know how much I love investigatin’. But I really do think you should go to work tonight. Max and Tiny will keep you safe when I leave for my shift, and I’ll hang out in Max’s office and make some calls to further our own investigation while I wait for my shift to start. We can have Max call Lula and ask her to send Bingham to talk to you.”

  Bingham would likely be furious at that, but maybe Lula could convince him that it was to save her brother. “Okay. But I want to keep my car too. You can follow me into town. I feel anxious not having it.”

  We had a plan for the next few hours, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the last few grains of sand were drifting down in the hourglass.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  We didn’t take long at his house, and Marco followed me into town. We walked in through the back door of the tavern at around four thirty. Marco headed to Max’s office to get started on his research, and I made my way into the dining room.

  Max’s eyes widened when he saw me sliding behind the bar in my work shirt.

  “I thought you were investigatin’,” he said in a lowered voice.

  “We decided to take a moment to figure out our next move,” I said. “Plus, I need to talk to Bingham, and I was hoping you could call Lula and ask her to send him in.”

  His eyes darkened. “Are you sure you really want to do that?”

  “I need to talk to him, and this seems like the safest way.”

  He scowled but didn’t respond.

  “Have you heard from Wyatt?”

  A worried look filled his eyes. “No.”

  “Lula knows where he is—I’m certain of it. You can always ask her.” I took a beat, considering his call with Lula. “In fact, when you talk to her, can you tell her to have him call me again? I have more questions that might help move things along.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” His brow furrowed. “My mother called and left you a message.”

  “Really? What did she say?”

  “She said to tell you the check was cashed two weeks later in Tulsa.” His eyes narrowed. “Is she talkin’ about the check they gave to Heather?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s very helpful.”

  “When did you talk to my mother?” he asked. He looked a little put out, but I saw some fear behind it. What was he afraid of?

  I was about to answer him, but a customer was flagging him, and he reluctantly moved down to the other end of the bar to get the man a refill.

  Ruth hadn’t shown up yet, but Ginger had left for the day. Molly was working the dining room. She didn’t seem as angry as earlier, but she ignored me as I scanned the dining room to gauge how busy we were.

  Ruth came in a little before five, and I filled her in on how well Ginger had done, leaving out the part about Molly’s sass. A rush of construction workers came in soon afterward, and the three of us were busy for the next two hours. Marco even came out and helped Max behind the bar, giving me a small shake of his head as if to say he didn’t have anything yet. The men seemed to be in good moods and ordered plenty of beers to go with their dinners, then stayed after they finished to watch a Braves game on TV.

  Business slowed down a bit, most of the families heading home, and Max sent Molly home at around seven thirty. Not long afterward, I noticed Marco talking on the phone behind the bar. A few minutes later, he headed me off as I was walking to the bar to get refills.

  “I think I have a lead on someone who worked at the lodge,” he said. “David Binion. I’m going to head over and talk to him.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to go alone?” I asked with a frown.

  He smiled. “I’ll be fine. I’ll need to start my shift when I get done, so I’ll be in my sheriff’s uniform. It’s just a janitor for the lodge. Nothin’ to worry about.”

  I nodded, still nervous. Marco had already been shot for me—I didn’t want him endangering himself. “Okay. Just be careful, okay?”

  His mouth lifted into a small smile. “I will. Do you feel okay with me leavin’? Bingham hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “I’m fine. Max and Tiny are bot
h here. If he drops by, they’ll keep him in line. Don’t worry about me.”

  I took the drinks back to the table, keeping an eye on Marco as he said something to Max and then left. I was going to be a nervous wreck until he came back.

  About twenty minutes later, Bingham walked through the door with three of his friends. He searched me out, our gazes locking, and I knew he’d gotten the message.

  His friends sat at a table, but he slid into an empty booth, still intent on me.

  My stomach churned as I walked over to him with my chin lifted, then slid into the seat opposite him.

  “So now you’re usin’ go-betweens to get me to do your biddin’ instead of comin’ to me outright.” He cocked his head and gave me a pensive look. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I didn’t think it would be wise to show up at your front door again. My questions are a lot blunter than usual.”

  A mock smile cracked his lips, and he held out his hand. “Try me.”

  I glanced around to see who might be close enough to overhear. His friends sat at the table next to us, and the booth behind me was empty. “Were you selling roofies nine years ago?”

  His brow shot up. Then he looked amused. “You lookin’ to buy some?”

  “I said nine years ago.”

  “Maybe.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Let’s say nine years ago I was lookin’ for some—would I go directly to you to ask for it?”

  He was silent for a moment. “If someone thought I could procure something, they would come to me.”

  “Shortly before Heather left town, did someone ask for some?”

  Surprise filled his eyes. “You think someone roofied her?”

  “No,” I said, “I think she was trying to get some to use on someone else.”

  He leaned his forearm on the table, clearly intrigued. “Who do you think she was wantin’ to drug?”

  “First, you can tell me if someone came to you askin’ for it.”

  He grinned. “No one came askin’ for anything like that.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Because it’s never happened. Period.”