Liquor & Love: McDonough Boys #1 Page 2

  "Hey," she called.

  "Hey yourself, lady." The kid's eyes did not leave the rim, which he was rolling along with practiced ease. "What d'you want? Can't you see that I'm busy?"

  "Pardon me for disturbing your work, kind sir," she said. "I'm low on gasoline. Would you be able to point me in the direction of the nearest filling station?"

  "Ain't but two in town." He pointed down the road. "Both of them's on Main Street. Go half a mile straight ahead. Can't miss it."

  "How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

  "I do."

  "You do what?"

  "Mind you asking. Like I said, I've got work to do."

  He steered the rim into the grass, picked it up, and threw it over his shoulder as he started whistling.

  "Thanks for your help!" Peggy said and sped up. "Such as it was."

  Once again, it wasn't what she was expecting from Southern hospitality. She was beginning to wonder if everything people told her about Dawson was a lie.

  She followed the boy's directions and was about to make the turn onto Main Street. The town was like most towns in the south. It was built around a courthouse town square, the businesses built in growing orbits from the center of the town. Main Street was lined with the same kind of shops as she had grown up with in Dearborn. There was a feed and grain, a drugstore where the men were lounging outside to smoke, a couple of sleepy-looking law offices, an appliance store, and a volunteer fire department. The other side of the street was almost a mirror image, except there was no Ford with a plume of steam rising from the hood.

  "No!" Peggy yelled. "Don't you overheat on me!"

  She checked the temperature gauge and saw that it had shot into the red. The filling stations were still three hundred yards ahead, and she wasn't sure her car was going to make it. She spotted a parking place among the farmers' trucks along the main drag and pulled in.

  Before she could turn off the engine, the Ford coughed and wheezed and gave up the ghost. The engine knocked terribly, and she had to put it in neutral before it would quit, which was followed by the horrible hiss of steam from under the hood.

  "Perfect timing," she said. "As perfect as it's going to get."

  Peggy leaned over the seat and threw the latches on her steamer trunk. Inside were all the clothes she owned, plus a few other odds and ends, including a pair of combat boots that she had brought back from the war. She folded the map and locked up the trunk again. She hiked up the hem of her skirt and slid her stockinged feet inside the boots. She had only a half dozen pairs of nylons on her, and she hoped that hadn't caused a run. During the war, all silk and nylons had been rationed, so getting any kind of stockings, even a couple months after VJ day, was nothing short of a miracle.

  By the time she got out to check the radiator in a blouse, skirt, and combat boots, her hair looked like a windblown bird's nest, and a bouquet of white steam was broiling from underneath the hood.

  "If this is a lemon," she said, "I know a dealer in Atlanta who's going to have hell to pay."

  Peggy had bought the Ford from a man named Tucker French on the north side of Atlanta. He had refused to dicker at first, telling her that the price is the price. When she refused, insisting on paying him half of the price written on the windshield with shoe polish, he had demanded to see her husband. She held up her hand to show that she had no wedding ring.

  "Mr. French," she'd said. "I’ve just yesterday arrived in Atlanta on a train from the port of Charleston, South Carolina. I left Charleston after being released from the United States Army, which I’ve served for the last four years. While I may look too young and too feminine, I’ve survived the battlefields of Africa, France, and Germany. I’ve seen boys blown to bits on the battlefield, and I’ve held the hand of many a man while he passed on to the great beyond. Once, I had to take arms against a man who thought he could take advantage of me and sent him to the great beyond, as well. Trust me when I say that I have no husband, nor do I need one just to buy a used car."

  "That's quite a speech," French had said. "You sound like FDR doing one of his fireside chats on the radio."

  "I've got a better speaking voice."

  "That you do." French had wiped his sweaty brow and fanned himself with his fedora. "All right, then, young lady. You're one of those Rosie the Riveters come home from war. My son served with General MacArthur in the Seventh Fleet, and he's still in the service. There's one thing I've learned, is that a soldier gets straight to the point."

  "Very true," Peggy said. "Now straight to the point."

  Then he'd proceeded to make a ridiculous offer, and she had to remind him again he wasn't dealing with a fool. After another quarter hour, they met in the middle and shook hands on the deal.

  "You drive a hard bargain, Miss Fitzgerald." He had handed her the pink slip so that she could drive off the lot. "Your husband's going to have his hands full, whenever you have a mind to get married."

  "Whoever said anything about me getting hitched?" she said. "I've been married to Uncle Sam. Don't you think it's time I had a little fun?"

  She had waved, gotten into the Ford, and slammed the door hard. She cranked the ignition, sending blue fumes flying from the tailpipe. The engine was going to need a ring job, and the brakes probably needed work, too. From the squeak that it made when she leaned on it, the shocks and struts were on their way out, too. But for her, she had been raised in Detroit where her father was a mechanic and had taught her all the tricks of the trade. Check that—the man she thought was her father had passed on the mechanical trade, but Robert "Bucky" Fitzgerald, the man who had married her mother, wasn't her father.

  Peggy wasn't a small woman. She was as tall as most men, and taller than a good number of them. She was a healthy weight, with a traditional woman's figure that she was still growing into. Even without padding, her shoulders were broad and her breasts were more than adequate. She had long legs and curves in just the right places, and her chestnut brown hair was long enough to reach the space between her shoulder blades. She'd had plenty of hairdos in the last six months, including a pompadour and a bob, but her favorite way to wear it was to pull it in a ponytail away from her heart-shaped face and brown eyes. Everyone said that doing so accentuated her high cheekbones.

  She checked the ground under her engine. A pool of water was forming and spreading like a small lake.

  "Just my luck." She dusted the dirt from her hands. "I would pick one with a bad water pump."

  "Might not be a water pump," said one of the two older gentlemen sitting on a bench in front of the drugstore.

  "Well, hello," she said. "I didn't see you sitting there."

  "We sort of blend in to the shadows. I'm Cag. This is Earl."

  The two men looked like something from a Norman Rockwell cover of the Saturday Evening Post. The one on the left was thin with a long neck like a crane. He wore overalls and heavy work boots and a gingham shirt under the overalls. He sported a railroad engineer hat and had a plug of tobacco in his cheek.

  His buddy was as round as a ripe tomato, and the color of his face was just as red. He was bareheaded, with a tick of gray hair and a long nose that almost touched his chin, because except for an incisor on either jaw, he was toothless. He wore a pair of dark brown work pants, polished shoes, and a white dress shirt that he had rolled up to the elbows. Like his friend, he had a wad of chewing tobacco stuck in his jaw, and he leaned over to spit into a spittoon they shared.

  "Maybe a leaky radiator hose?" Earl said. "That's a '36 Ford. Thirty-six models have a bad habit of blowing their hoses out. Especially if they been running hot."

  "Ever run your car hot, miss?" Cag said. "Thermostat is the gauge on the left side of your dashboard, in case you were wondering."

  "Thank you, gentlemen," she said, "but I'm well aware of the location of my thermostat. If the car had been overheating, I would've pulled over and added water, which is why this is undoubtedly a water pump. As both of you know, a water pump will hang on to its
fluid until it stops, and then it just floods the ground. A busted radiator hose wouldn't do that."

  Cag whistled and elbowed his partner. "That's a mighty fine thesis statement, young lady. I can tell by your accent, you ain't from around here."

  "Sounds like the Midwest to me," Earl said. "During the Great War, I knew an old boy from Grand Rapids who sounded just like you. Talked through his nose and everything."

  "Good to know," Peggy said, although she was sure that she never talked through her nose. "Peggy Fitzgerald from Dearborn, Michigan by way of the Women's Army Corps. Pleased to meet you two gentlemen. Is there a garage or auto parts place that could help me out?"

  "Grady Jarrett has a place two blocks down yonder," Cag said. "He can fix that water pump up in a jiffy. Even has his own tow truck."

  "Thanks," she said, "but I was planning to do the work myself. I was more interested in someone who could sell me the part and perhaps let me make use of their tools."

  Cag and Earl looked at each other and shook their heads.

  "You want to do the work yourself?" Earl said. "Pardon me for asking, but what would a pretty little thing such as yourself want to go mess around with grease and tools for?"

  "My father always told me that if you wanted something done right, do it yourself." She leaned her hip against the fender of the Ford, crossed her arms, and smiled. "That philosophy has served me very well so far in life, so I see no reason to abandon it now."

  "In that case," Cag said. "You'll be wanting to talk to the McDonough boys. They got a place about a mile outside of town. That's where most of the menfolk who work on their own machines head out to do business. If you know what I mean."

  Cag winked, and Peggy nodded, although she had no earthly idea what he meant. It was a man's world. She was used to dealing with pompous males who found that she was too frail and too pretty to take care of herself, but she had never dealt with Southerners before. The girls in her unit had warned her that going to meet her real father would be more than just walking up to the door, knocking on the screen, and introducing herself.

  The South didn't work that way. There were rules to follow, and there were penalties for breaking them. Peggy had grown up following the rules, but if there was one thing being in the Army had taught her, it was the rules were made to be broken.

  Peggy was ready to break a few.

  "Would either of you gentlemen be willing to give me directions to this place owned by the McDonough boys?"

  "I'll do you one better." Earl pulled himself up to his full height, using the arm of the bench to lever himself to his feet. His bones cracked as he straightened, both hands holding on to his back. "My truck's parked just yonder, and I'll be glad to give you a ride. Cag, hold down the fort."

  "That's very kind of you to escort," she said. "Since I'm just a stranger in town."

  "My mama always taught me to be nice to strangers." He walked toward a beaten up pickup truck. "Besides, I can't wait to see Bo McDonough's face when you come waltzing into his barn. Right this way, madam. Your chariot awaits."

  "Just a moment," Peggy said. "My bags are in the back, so I need to lock my car before we go."

  Earl flinched as if he had been slapped. "What for?"

  "So no one will steal my things."

  From his spot on the bench, Cag spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the dirt road. "Little miss, you're too used to the foreign countries of Europe and Michigan. Ain't nobody going to bother your stuff here."

  Peggy paused. "Are you sure? It doesn't seem prudent not to secure my belongings. Everything I own is in the trunk of that Ford."

  "Believe me," Earl said. "There couldn't be no place safer than this street for your things. Besides, Cag ain't going nowhere. He'll keep an eye on your machine, won't you, bud?"

  Cag lifted a six-ounce, half empty bottle of Coca-Cola. "Yes sir, Earl, I ain't moved from this bench since breakfast, and I don't reckon to till dinnertime. Y'all head on out to the McDonough place and remember to come tell me how everything goes."

  Peggy followed Earl to his truck. She climbed into the passenger seat while he cranked the engine. The starter turned twice, but the motor refused to turn over.

  "Gall dang it!" Earl said. "She'd choose right now to get persnickety!"

  "Who would?" Peggy asked.

  "My truck. Temperamental old thing that she is." He threw open his door and hit the ground. "Sorry for the bad news, but we'll need to take your car instead."

  She thought about giving up the whole idea and just letting the mechanic take care of the repair, but she had become far too curious about the McDonough's infamous barn.

  "Works for me," she said. "Let's fill up my radiator and hit the road."

  Three

  "While I’ve got you here," Peggy said to Earl as she drove through town, "I wonder if I might ask you about somebody?"

  "Anybody in particular you got in mind?"

  "Maybe," she said. "Would you happen to know of a man named Francis Jackson Hogan?"

  "Frank Hogan?" Earl coughed and snorted. "Now why in the world would a girl from Michigan be looking for that old scoundrel? Does he owe you money or something?"

  A lot more than anyone could calculate, she thought. "No, of course not, nothing of the sort. I had just wondered if you knew him."

  "Dawson is a small town. Everybody knows everybody, but like most small towns, nobody really knows anybody, if you know what I mean."

  Peggy wrinkled her brow. She didn't know what he meant at all. "I don't understand," she started to say when she heard a siren behind them.

  "Hellfire and damnation," Earl looked in the side mirror. "Looks like the county sheriff wants to meet you. Best pull over. Sheriff Walker isn't one to be trifled with."

  Peggy hit her brakes and signaled. She steered the Ford to the berm along the highway, her mind racing as she tried to figure out exactly what law she had broken.

  She was still at a loss when the sheriff arrived at her door, ticket book in hand. "Do you know why I pulled you over, little lady?"

  Sherriff Gerald H. Walker didn't look like the typical small town sheriff. In his early thirties, he stood at least six and a half feet tall, weighed around a hundred and forty pounds, and looked like someone had built a scarecrow in a corn field using the khaki and black uniform of a law man. To round out the look, he wore a straw cowboy hat and a six-shooter on his gun belt.

  Peggy might have thought that he was a comical figure, if not for the piercing, small eyes that seemed to dart everywhere at once. The way he leered at her made her feel uneasy, and all she wanted was to get away from him as soon as possible.

  "I haven't the faintest idea what I did," she said. "I’m sure that I didn't break a single law."

  "That's not your call, is it?" Walker leaned on the window. "Hey there, Earl, what are you doing riding in some stranger's car? Ain't you and Cag supposed to be holding court down at the drug store this time a day?"

  "Howdy, Sheriff Walker," Earl said. "How's the wife and the children?"

  "Fair to middling," he said. "Last week, the Missus and little Tommy had a bad case of the trots, but that's more owing to my mother-in-law's cooking than any bug they may have caught, I reckon."

  "Sorry to hear about that," Earl said.

  Not half as sorry as I am, Peggy thought. She really didn't need to be entertained with the details of the sheriff's family's bowels.

  "Sir," Peggy said, "can we go? My car is leaking water and—"

  Sheriff Walker opened Peggy's door. "I need y'all to get out of the vehicle."

  "Me, too?" Earl asked. "I got my lumbago, you know."

  "Out. Both of y'all."

  Peggy put the car in neutral, pulled the handbrake, and stepped outside. She felt ridiculous, like she was being called in for a line up. What was he going to do next, shine a bright light in her face? "Have I broken some law, Sheriff?"

  "Did I say that?" he said. "Not unless there's something you want to confess. I just saw a strange car in
town, and I thought I might ask you a few questions."

  "What kind of questions would that be?"

  "When you drove by me at the corner back yonder," the sheriff said, "did you come to complete stop at the stop sign?"

  "Didn't I?" Peggy craned her neck past him to look the sign at the corner. "I'm certain that I did."

  "You did stop, but then I saw your car didn't have a license plate, and I decided to investigate. Can you tell me why your car don't have a license plate?"

  "It will have one," she said. "I just bought the car from a dealer in Atlanta."

  "Do you have a bill of sale?" The sheriff rubbed his jaw. "Because usually when I spot a vehicle without a license plate in this county, it's one of them rum runners who think it's funny come barreling through town on their way out to deliver hooch."

  "Rum runner?" Peggy laughed. "Sheriff, cross my heart, I’m not a bootlegger. If you can hold on a second, I'll get you the bill of sale out of the glove compartment."

  Peggy practically vaulted into the passenger seat, combat boots and all. She opened the box and removed the pink slip. "Here you are. Everything is in order."

  "Let me be the judge of that." The sheriff ran his eyes over the bill of sale. "Bought this in Atlanta from Mr. French, huh? Says here that the car is to be registered in your name. Not your husband's?"

  Peggy held up her naked left hand. "There is no Mr. Fitzgerald. Just plain old me."

  "What brings you to Dawson?" He handed the pink slip back. "I don't believe you answered that question."

  "I don't believe that I have to, legally." Peggy folded her arms and leaned against the side of the car. "It's a free country. At least, that's what we were fighting for in the war. I hope that things didn't change when I was overseas."

  "You are a WAC?"

  "I was one of the first volunteers in '42 and stayed with it all the way to the very end. So pardon me for being fresh, but I feel like I've earned the right to come and go as I please without having to announce my intentions to the local law."

  "You're right," the sheriff said. "You are fresh. Listen, little lady, we don't take kindly to Yankees with fresh mouths in this town. Don't matter how pretty they are or where they served in the war. Keep that in mind if you decide to roll through a stop sign in my town."