Page 119 of Whiskey Chase
All it took for word to spread like spilled gin was Rocky Tobias to drive past Daddy’s house when the state police were roping off the driveway.
Approximately ten minutes later, everyone in Bootleg was informed that somethin’ was goin’ down at the Bodine homestead. Less than an hour later, the sheriff’s office was so inundated with calls and drop-ins that they issued a vague statement.
Bootleg Springs Police Department Memo
Evidence relating to a crime was recently discovered by anonymous witnesses at a home outside of town. There is no reason to believe there is any threat to the community at this time. Please go about your business.
By lunchtime, the rumor mill had more grist than it knew what to do with. I didn’t know who was the first to whisper Callie’s name, but it ignited like gasoline fumes. And when Sheriff Tucker’s cruiser was spotted in Judge Kendall’s driveway, everyone’s suspicions were confirmed.
Bootleg Springs Police Department Memo
In response to the flood of calls and questions, the Bootleg Springs Police Department would like to remind our citizens that there is no call for concern. There is no threat to our community. We are simply investigating a police matter relating to an old crime.
Bootleg Springs Police Department Memo
Y’all really need to stop gossiping. That’s an official order from your sheriff. Also, please stop standing outside Judge Kendall’s house. And we’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that harassing private citizens—which includes inundating someone with phone calls demanding answers even if it is just for a betting pool—is still against the law in Bootleg Springs.
Lines were drawn. And my hometown chose sides faster than the Yankees and Confederates.
48
Scarlett
Ihad the flu. Or the plague. Or a case of food poisoning that had lasted six straight days. My body hurt like I’d decided to swim the length of the lake and then gotten run over by Jimmy Bob Prosser’s monster pick-up truck.
I heard my back door open and pulled the quilt over my head. The male Bodines had decided that we needed to host a bonfire and pretend that everything was peachy keen. I didn’t know if they were doing it to pull me out of my funk or test the waters to see who in Bootleg we could still call friends.
Whatever their motivation, I wasn’t moving from my bed cave. If the pile of maintenance calls coming in didn’t rouse me from my deathbed, then some dumb party wouldn’t either. I didn’t have the energy to fix a damn thing let alone make small talk and swill beer.
I wanted to lay here and think about Devlin. Wonder what he was doing. Was he missing me? Had he stepped right back into his old life? Why hadn’t he texted or called? Had he heard the news that Jonah Bodine Sr. was a person of interest in Callie Kendall’s disappearance?
I’d started to text him a thousand times and deleted every single one of them without hitting Send. Only once had I seen the dots in our last text conversation that meant he was typing. I’d clutched my phone so tight my fingers hurt. But the dots disappeared without a text.
“Scarlett Rose Bodine.” Cassidy’s voice snuck through the cotton of the quilt.
“Go away. I’m contagious.”
She unceremoniously ripped the quilt off of me. “Get your ass out of bed!”
“She looks terrible,” June announced from the doorway, pulling her tank top over her nose as if to ward off germs. “Maybe she is ill.”
“Oh, she’s ill all right,” Cassidy confirmed. “Ill in the head.”
“Just go away and leave me to die,” I moaned dramatically. “I think it’s the flu.” I coughed as if to prove my point.
“You don’t have the flu any more than I have a dick,” Cassidy announced.
“Oh, so you’re a doctor now?”
“Do you have fever, chills, and body aches?” June asked.
“Yes!” Well probably not the fever or the chills part. And the body aches were really more of a lethargy that hooked its talons into me… but it was clearly the flu.
“No, she doesn’t,” Cassidy said without pity. “She’s got a broken heart, and she did it to her own damn self.”
I sat straight up in bed indignantly. “What in the hell are you talking about, Cassidy Tucker?”
“You pushed Devlin away because you loved him, and we all know it was a huge mistake.”
