Page 45 of Moonshine Kiss
I half-rose, half-scurried around Bowie into the aisle, not wanting to draw any more attention to myself. I for sure didn’t want my mom and June to see me. That was a conversation I wasn’t eager to have.
Gee, Mom, how long have you been running secret operations behind Dad’s back?
And June? How could my own sister keep this shit from me?
That headache was blooming like a damn fried onion at a steak place.
I ducked out the door and back into the crisp night, leaving the warmth of community at my back.
Looking around at the army of parked cars, I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat. I sighed long and hard, watching my breath cloud up the ink-black sky above me. Their methods might be insane. But one thing I was sure of, Bootleg Springs was the best place in the whole wide world to live.
“You’re not telling your daddy, are you?” Bowie’s voice was quiet behind me.
I kicked at the frosted grass under my feet. “No. I won’t tell him,” I said finally.
He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. When he turned me around to face him, I thought that it was finally happening. That Bowie Bodine was going to kiss the cold out of me under this sliver of moon.
And then he did.
His lips brushed my cheek. And then his thumb brushed the spot where his mouth had touched. “Thanks, Cass.”
I was still standing there when he went back inside.
* * *
Police overlook suspect in Bootleg Springs disappearance
Who is Bartholomew Jaques?
Local police a laughing stock when new suspect identified in Kendall disappearance
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Bowie
Bartholomew—after Mrs. McClintock’s no-good nephew—Jacques—for the Parisian hotel clerk that had been quite rude to Nash Larabee’s mama—was a suspected murderer.
Specifically of Callie Kendall. But Bootleg Springs was open to giving him credit for more.
Yep. Ol’ Bartholomew had drifted into town in a disreputable rusted out pickup truck and stirred up trouble for the six months he’d been in town. He bounced around from job to job, with his gold tooth—courtesy of Trent McCulty—and his scraggly hair, credit to Millie Waggle.
Rhett Ginsler suggested that Bartholomew walked with a limp from a bar fight he’d started in his younger days. Those reporters ate it up.
His alleged ties to the Indiana mafia—also a work of fiction—made him untouchable by local law enforcement. And that’s how the squirrely, slimy, no-good Bartholomew escaped prosecution.
I enjoyed the hell out of watching the manufactured drama play out. On Monday, Maribel reported seeing Mrs. Varney cozied up with a blogger fromWest Virginia Needs to Knowat the Pop In. This particular blogger had artlessly referred to us Bootleggers as “the grammatically incorrect, poor cousins of respectable hillbillies”.
On Tuesday, Mayor Hornsbladt invited the reporter fromThe Middlebury Courierinto his office for a one-on-one.
Wednesday, when the crowd of press at the foot of my driveway asked, I told them I had no comment on Bartholomew Jacques.
Everyone who spoke to the press did so on the condition of anonymity.
By Thursday, there were headlines all across the state from media outlets that were too busy to do any real fact-checking questioning why law enforcement was ignoring a suspect. It was a real treat to see the pictures of Wade Zirkel in a Halloween costume circulating as the mysterious and potentially dangerous Bartholomew. Sierra Hayes had hit the fake social media profiles out of the park.
State police ignore vital lead in Kendall disappearance
Small town too scared to pursue murder suspect
