Small Town Spin by Lyndee Walker Page A

hasn’t ended well for me, historically. So I’ll be careful.”
    “Thanks. I’d tell you to drop it, but that doesn’t ever work. So, you know, call me if you need me. Try not to get shot.”
    “Thanks. I’ll do what I can. Call me if you find anything?”
    His voice dropped. “I’ll take any excuse.”
    My pulse fluttered as I hung up, pulling the car off the freeway at West Point. The drive seemed to go quicker every time.

    By the time I turned into the antique store parking lot, I had a pretty good mental list of questions—hopefully enough roundabout ones to avoid suspicion.
    I counted three other cars, but no news trucks. I stepped in the front door and smiled at the man with thick bifocals behind the ornate old cash register. It was the kind with big round buttons on individual levers and a pull handle that totaled sales and opened the drawer. And it worked—he rang up a glass perfume bottle as I walked into the shop.
    He turned to another customer, explaining the history of a gorgeous footstool (it once graced the foot of the bed in the biggest suite at the island’s only hotel, which had burned down years before) to a fifty-something woman in designer jeans and a Louis Vuitton belt that matched the dark honey color of her gold-tipped Chanel flats. She forked over cash and left with the stool, and he turned to me.
    “You don’t look two breaths from the grave anymore, Missy,” he said. “You found Zeke, I take it?”
    “I did. Thank you for your help.”
    “You didn’t tell me you were a reporter.” He pursed his lips. I smiled. News about strangers probably zipped through Mathews faster than Speedy Gonzalez on uppers. “Been reporters crawling all over since.”
    I twisted my mouth to one side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see where my job was pertinent to our conversation.”
    “Oh, don’t apologize to me.” He chuckled. “There’s lots of folks complaining about it, but me? I’ve done more business the last three days than I have all month. People go crazy over famous folks. Everyone in three states who ever watched a Skins game is looking for a genuine article from the town where Tony Okerson lives.”
    I smiled. “Well, I’m glad it was good for something.” I put out a hand. “I’m Nichelle.”
    He nodded. “Elmer. Elmer Daughtry. I don’t suppose you came looking for a chair or a chat about the weather.” He turned to the secretary behind the register, deep mahogany with detail work that looked like it might have been carved by Thomas Jefferson himself, and poured two glasses of iced tea. He handed me one as he settled on a tall chair, gesturing to a backless barstool between the door and my side of the counter. “What do you want to know today?”
    I perched on the stool and sipped my tea, sizing Elmer up. He was sweet, and he wasn’t mad about the press being in town, which was helpful. But he was shrewd, too. Maybe my roundabout questions weren’t the best approach.
    “Honestly? I’m looking for information on moonshine, Elmer. And I figure you probably know everything there is to know about the county. So I thought this might be a good place to start.” I pulled a pen and notebook out of my bag.
    “How do you know I’m not a moonshiner?” His face was so serious my stomach wrung.
    “You don’t seem like the type?” I said, my voice going up at the end and turning it into a question.
    He laughed. “You have a good gauge for that type, do you, city gal?”
    I sighed. “No.”
    “Well, you’re right that it’s not me. I drank my share of it when I was a younger man, but this is about as hard as my drinking gets these days.” He brandished the tea glass. “I might know where to get some, though.”
    “I’m not interested in buying any.” Or, I wasn’t until he said that. “I want to know who’s making it. I hear there are a few stills on the island.”
    “You hear right. There’s families around these parts been into moonshine since