“How much did you pay him when you bought his business?” I asked.
He snorted. “That’s confidential information. If you want to know, go ask your kin,” he mocked.
“Give me a ballpark figure.”
“It wasn’t worth much at that point. He lost interest when Mary got sick.” He paused. “It was in the high five figures.”
Not much in the scheme of things.
“So let’s go with the assumption that she had something on Hank,” Bingham said. “Do you know what it might be?”
“How would I know?” I asked in disbelief.
“You’re the one close to him now. Surely he talks.”
“Not about his past. I can tell he has a lot of regrets.”
“Maybe it’s one of those regrets she’s in ownership of.”
I squinted at him. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“Blackmail.”
“Like if she had proof that he was sleepin’ with someone else?” Only why would he care now? Mary, Barb, and Seth were all gone. No one to hurt and embarrass now.
“Hank Chalmers had eyes for one woman. He would sooner shoot off his own dick than stick it in another woman.”
I cringed. “Thanks for the visual on that.”
“It was something to do with his business,” Bingham said, tapping on the table again with a distant look in his eye. “Something big. Maybe she had proof of him killing someone.”
Ice filled my veins. I knew Hank had killed people, but I couldn’t believe he was capable of cold-blooded murder. “If she did, maybe it was unintentional.”
He released a bitter laugh. “You just can’t stand the thought of your precious Hank bein’ a bad guy. Unintentional. Girl, Hank Chalmers never did an unintentional thing in his life. He was cold and calculatin’, and no one pulled the wool over his eyes, not even Louise Baker.”
“What if she claims she did?”
His eyes narrowed. “Then I’d say she’s lyin’. What claim did she make, exactly?”
I lifted my shoulder into a shrug, then lied. “She made a vague insinuation. I spent half the day talking to Mary and Barb’s old friends, trying to see if they might know anything.”
“Did they enlighten you?” he asked in mock amusement. He suspected I was lying.
“No. Not really.”
“What does not really mean?”
“It means I couldn’t flat out ask them if they thought Louise had pulled a fast one on Hank, so I had to tiptoe around it.”
He snorted. “You don’t come across as a tiptoer. You’re more like a bull in a china shop.”
“I have my moments.”
His eyes narrowed again. “I think you’re lyin’.”
“About which part?” I asked in frustration.
“All of it. Part of it. What the fuck does it matter? If you’re lyin’ about one part, you might as well be lyin’ about the rest.” He leaned forward, the veins in his neck bulging. “Are you lyin’ to me, Carly Moore?”
“What would I possibly gain by lyin’ to you?”
For some reason my answer only seemed to enrage him. “You’re no fool. You knew I’d want to know if she reached out to you. I gave you a day to contact me, and you didn’t. Now there’s a price to be paid.”
“Another bill?” I asked sarcastically. “And here we haven’t worked out the terms of the first one. But before you toss another invoice at me, perhaps you should take a few things into consideration. It was Lula I should have contacted, not you, and I did exactly that. And two, Louise’s request has nothing to do with you.”
His jaw clenched, and he looked like it was taking every ounce of strength to keep from lunging over the table at me.
I lowered my voice, my own anger surpassing my fear. I suspected that made me a fool, but the title seemed to fit me lately. “I am not under your employ, nor are we under any type of agreement. I thought we had an understanding of sorts, but you made it very clear when you blew me off that we didn’t. So other than asking a reasonable amount for your bumper repair, don’t you dare come in here and talk about what I owe you. I’m Hank Chalmers’s kin, and if you hurt a hair on my head, he will kill you, likely with his bare hands, then pump you full of lead from his shotgun for good measure.”
He started to jerk forward, but suddenly Max appeared at the side of our table, the knife he kept strapped to his leg now jammed into the table, mere inches from Bingham’s hands.
“Is there a problem I should know about, Carly?” Max asked in a dry tone.
I held Bingham’s hateful gaze. “No. I think Mr. Bingham was about to let me get back to work.”
“Is that so, Bingham?” Max asked, his tone still dry.
Bingham swept his hand toward the dining area. “By all means.”
Then his gaze shifted up to Max. “Don’t think the fact that you share some DNA with Lula will save you either.”
He got out of the seat, the edge of his body purposely hitting Max as he strode for the door.
His men watched him leave and grudgingly followed, a few quickly downing the remainder of their drinks before they left.
It was only after the door shut behind them that it occurred to me that I’d sat down across from Todd Bingham for a good fifteen minutes, and I hadn’t asked him a single thing about his fight with Bruce Abernathy.
Shit.
Max stood next to the table, watching them go. Once the last man was out the door, he took Bingham’s seat. “What the hell just happened?”
I could fudge the truth, but Max deserved at least part of the truth, especially since Louise had threatened him too. “You know that woman who dropped by yesterday?”
“Dirty pie lady?” he asked. “What about her?”
She hadn’t been dirty, necessarily, just not well dressed, but I wasn’t going to argue the point. “She approached me again. Max . . .” I leaned over the table. “That was Louise Baker.”
His eyes widened. “Lula’s mother?”
“Yeah. And Bingham was here because apparently he’s had someone following her, and he discovered that I met with her at the laundromat this morning.”
He flinched. “You did what now?”
“She was waiting for me in the parking lot last night. She told me to meet her this morning.”
“Why in the Sam Hill would you go?”
This was where I decided to fudge, because I gave him only part of the truth, not the full crap sundae. “Because she claims to have information about who ran Jerry off the road.”
His face paled.
“Marco says the deputies are hitting dead ends. If there’s any chance she’ll tell me something, I have to take it.”
Confusion filled his eyes. “But how would she know who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what does she want in exchange?”
“She wants me to find something for her.”
“What?”
I hesitated. “I can’t tell you.”
He recoiled slightly, his eyes etched with hurt. “After all this time, you still don’t trust me.”
“I want to, Max,” I pleaded, “but your dad . . .”