Chapter 10 #2
Sue folded her hands around her cup. "The bourbon operation — what Jed and Brett are running through those tunnels — it's not just a family theft problem.
The buyers they're moving product to aren't people you want to owe an irregular delivery schedule to.
" She said it plainly, without drama, the way people state facts they've had time to sit with.
"These are bar owners with specific connections and low tolerance for supply chain issues.
If Jed and Brett get sloppy, or greedy, or if the product stops flowing, those people don't send a strongly worded letter.
They come to the source." A pause. "Which means Nancy and Lou — none of whom appear to know what's happening under their own property — are sitting on a problem that could land on them without warning. "
Gary thought about Nancy on the campus path, water bottle in hand, entirely unaware.
"Sarah fits into this too," Sue continued.
"She brought Bill in to watch Jed and Brett, which means she has information that makes her a liability to them if they figure out she knows.
And being associated with her right now—" She looked at him steadily.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm saying know what you're walking next to. "
"And Belle?"
Sue's expression softened slightly — not to pity, more to the particular compassion of a woman who had been watching a situation for longer than Gary had.
"Belle grew up without her mother on a property with more history than most families can carry, married the first person who made her feel like she'd made a choice, and has been living inside that choice ever since.
She's not naive — she knows something is wrong with the money and she's not asking the questions she should be asking, which means some part of her has decided that not knowing is safer than knowing.
" She paused. "She needs out. She just hasn't found the door yet. "
Gary sat with that.
"What's the good news?" he said.
Sue looked at him across the table. "I'm a delight?"
Gary laughed harder than the line warranted.
Something about it — the timing, the delivery, the specific absurdity of it in the context of everything that had just been said — hit exactly right.
It reminded him, with a pang that surprised him, of Moe behind the bar in Rosetown, arms spread wide: I'm delightful and this town is grand.
"That's not the good news," he said.
"No." Sue set her cup down. "The good news is that this isn't the first time the Steele property has been used for something it shouldn't have been." She held his gaze. "My husband is the district attorney."
Gary went still.
"The Steele family has had more than one chapter that got complicated," Sue said.
"Back in the eighties, after Nancy's husband died of cancer, she was trying to hold the property together alone.
She brought in outside help — some of it was fine, some of it turned out to be people with connections she didn't fully understand.
Those tunnels got used for things that had nothing to do with bourbon.
Drug running, mostly — the Mexican cartel had a distribution route through that part of the county for almost two years before anyone mapped it back to the property.
" She paused. "Nancy didn't know. Or didn't know enough.
The distinction mattered legally. The estate survived — partly because of luck, partly because when the tunnel system collapsed in the section where Harold Steele died back in the twenties, it brought enough of the evidence down with it that the case got complicated.
And partly because there were people who believed Nancy was a good woman in a bad situation and acted accordingly.
" Another pause. "My husband's predecessor.
And my husband since. They've had quiet oversight of the property for thirty years.
Nothing formal. Just — eyes on it. Making sure it doesn't go somewhere it can't come back from. "
Gary looked at her. "So your husband knows about Jed and Brett."
"He knows someone is watching the situation," Sue said carefully. "He doesn't have enough yet to act. What he has is someone he trusts keeping him informed." She looked at Gary steadily. "And now I have someone on the inside who can help fill in what I can't see from the outside."
The café moved around them — Bryan behind the counter, a couple of students at a table near the window, the ordinary Thursday morning of a place that had no idea what was being discussed in the corner.
Gary exhaled slowly. "In less than a week I've wandered into a hundred-year-old bootlegging conspiracy, a current bourbon theft operation, a retired detective watching half the county, and a district attorney who's been keeping quiet oversight on a family I had Sunday dinner with.
" He looked at her. "All because my dog found you at a divorce party. "
"To be fair," Sue said, "Marv has excellent taste."
"Should I cancel my afternoon? Lou's expecting me to help with the barrels."
Sue considered this for less time than Gary expected.
"No. Keep it. Move the product, stay helpful, pay attention to anything that feels off.
Don't ask questions you shouldn't have answers to yet.
" She met his eyes. "I trust you. And right now you're the only person in that distillery who knows what they're actually looking at. "
Gary nodded slowly.
"Alright," he said. "I'll go."
Sue stood, gathered her jacket, and gave him the look she'd used on him three times now — the one that suggested she found the whole situation genuinely funny in a way she was choosing not to fully express.
"See you next week," Gary said.
"You'll see me Saturday," she said. "Eight-thirty line dancing. Don't be late — Ethel's already asked about you twice."
She walked out.
Gary sat with his coffee for another minute, looking at the corner table of Café Texas on a Thursday morning in Renton, Texas, into what was supposed to be a quiet chapter of his life.
He thought about Rosetown. About standing on that dock at five-thirty in the morning while Passer delivered his ultimatum, the river dark and cold behind him.
He thought about the nightmare. You fucked my wife.
Different wife, he thought. Different town. Same Gary.
He finished his coffee, picked up the bag of biscuits for Marv, and went to keep his office hours.
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