Now that Smith had reached his early thirties, the difference in their ages had become less important than it had seemed seven or eight years ago when he’d escorted her to her senior prom. That one evening had caused him nothing but grief. If he hadn’t been deployed overseas shortly thereafter, there would have been no painless way to avoid Julie Ann. The dozens of mushy letters she’d written to him had been bad enough. Nothing had discouraged her. Not even his attempts to let her down easy.
But things were very different now, weren’t they? His current dilemma was deciding whether or not to deepen the casual friendship they had finally developed and see if they might actually be right for each other.
The last thing Smith wanted to do was explain to her brother, Ben, why she had developed another ridiculous crush on him. The first time had been bad enough. And since he’d promised he’d look after her while Ben and his unit remained abroad, Smith had no intention of going back on his word, even if that meant he had to protect her from himself.
“See you tomorrow morning then,” she said, backing away. “Gotta run.”
Pensive, Smith watched her safely cross the street and enter her shop before he turned to scan the rest of the square. The recently reelected sheriff, Harlan Allgood, was helping a handcuffed, shackled man clad in a bright orange jumpsuit out of a patrol car. Harlan was a good man, if a bit naive. Chances were, the skinny kid he had arrested was not nearly as nefarious as those cuffs and leg irons made him appear.
Dismissing the sight, Smith thought about Julie Ann again and smiled. He’d get his hair cut first thing tomorrow morning, mostly as an excuse to see her.
His smile grew into a lopsided grin. Everything would be fine as long as she didn’t notice that he really wasn’t in need of a trim.
“They’ve arrested Lester’s stupid nephew and they’re lookin’ for Lester,” Denny dutifully reported, climbing into the familiar limo for the third Thursday night in a row.
“I know.”
“Got ’em for making moonshine, just like we planned.”
“I know that, too.”
“Word is, the Feds want Lester real bad and as soon as they catch him, he’s gonna be sent off to Little Rock for trial.”
“I think not,” his well-dressed companion said. “I’m arranging to have him tried right here, first, for something else. The federal government can have whatever’s left of him when we’re done.”
“No matter. It shouldn’t take long. I mean, what else can he be guilty of that matters around here?”
“A crime that will definitely take precedence over running an illegal still.”
“Like what?”
“Like murder,” Evans said quietly, menacingly.
“Lester? He’s quiet as a mouse. He’d never kill nobody.”
“I didn’t say he did it, you fool. I said he was going to be tried for it.”
“But who’s dead?”
The smooth-talking businessman merely smiled. “That’s none of your concern, Denny. You’ve done your job and it’s over.” He reached a gloved hand into his suit coat’s inside pocket and withdrew a bulging envelope. “Here’s your fee. Now get out and get lost.”
“Yes, sir.” The younger man did as he was instructed, slammed the car door, then leaned down to cup his hands around his mouth and shout through the closed window. “You never did tell me. Who’s Lester gonna be blamed for killin’?”
On a simple hand signal from his boss, the limo driver dropped the car into gear and drove away from the scene.
Evans was laughing to himself as he settled against the plush leather of the car’s rear seat and murmured softly, “You.”
TWO
By the time Smith arrived at her shop the next morning, Julie Ann was already upset by the rumors she’d heard. Forcing a smile, she shook out a plastic cape as she said, “Good morning.”
“Morning.” He plopped into her chair and sighed while she wrapped the cape around his neck and prepared him for his haircut. His gaze was somber when it met hers in the mirror. “I take it you’ve heard.”
“About Denny Hanford? Yes. It’s all over town. It’s hard to believe he was actually murdered.”
Smith was nodding. “I didn’t believe it either, at first. They found him last night, by the storage yard out on Highway 9.”
“Poor Denny. Who would do such a thing?”
“Lester Taney was seen in the area. Denny apparently tipped the law to the location of Lester’s bootlegging operation and Lester shot him for it.”
“That’s unbelievable.” Her lips pressed into a thin line as she recalled her high school years. “Denny never was the sharpest pencil in the box but he always seemed to have a pretty good heart.”
“Not according to some of the good old boys around here. You should hear all the talk over at the café.”
“It still doesn’t make sense to me. Bootlegging went out of style with the end of Prohibition.”
“Apparently not. We live in a dry county, and with taxes on liquor so high, I guess it’s still profitable.”
Julie Ann picked up her scissors and began combing and snipping Smith’s thick, dark hair. “You don’t think we’ll be called for that jury, do you?”
“I doubt it. With the way everybody in town knows everybody else, I can’t see how they’d expect to find an impartial jury around here.”
Her eyebrows arched as her gaze again met his in the mirror. “That’s true.”
Eventually laying aside her comb and scissors, she reached for the clippers. This part could be a bit tricky but she was so used to doing it, it was practically automatic.
Consequently, when Smith cleared his throat and asked, “Didn’t you and Denny date years ago?” her clippers jerked and strayed into the back of his hair above the area she’d intended to trim.
Julie Ann’s heartfelt “Ack!” made Smith jump and sent her errant cut even higher.
She stepped back, appalled. “I’m so sorry!”
“How bad is it?”
“Not that bad. I can even it up.”
“Before you take my ear off, maybe you should answer my question. Did you date Denny Hanford?”
“No. Yes. Sort of. We had mutual friends and we all used to run around together.” Although her first instinct had been to deny any connection, she certainly wasn’t going to lie. After all, there was no real tie between her and the poor, dead young man.
She met Smith’s steady gaze in the mirror again. “He’d failed a couple of grades and wound up in my graduating class. There weren’t very many of us so we all knew each other, okay?”
As she bent lower to reshape the thick hair on the back of Smith’s head, she had to force herself to concentrate on what she was doing. Were others going to ask her about her relationship with Denny? Did it really matter? She supposed not. He had been a much closer friend to her older brother, Ben, and when Ben, like Smith, had joined the Marines, she’d been glad to see him far removed from Denny’s questionable influence.
Would that be enough to disqualify her from serving on the murder trial’s jury? Perhaps. And perhaps not. Either way, it wasn’t up to her. If the Good Lord wanted her to serve, she’d have to. That was all there was to