Did Hank know that?
“Where exactly did Big Joe and Bruce fit into the hierarchy of Hank’s organization?”
“Bruce was a grunt worker. He aspired to more, but Hank held him back. Bruce thought it was because Hank was threatened by him.”
That didn’t seem likely, but I thought it best not to say so.
“And Big Joe?” I asked.
“His right-hand man.”
Shit. If Big Joe had been Hank’s right-hand man, why was he talking to the widow of the guy who’d potentially stolen his money? Then again, Hank had called a meeting with his old associates under the guise of a poker game. Maybe Big Joe was playing Michelle, making her think he wants the money for himself, to see what he could find for Hank.
“So do you know where the money is buried?” I asked.
She made a face. “Not exactly . . .” Then she finished off her bottle. “I’m gonna need another one of these.”
I stared at her for a long moment, then grabbed her empty bottle, got up from the table and headed to the bar.
“She needs another beer,” I said, thunking the empty bottle on the countertop.
“What’s she up to?” Max asked under her breath.
“Reminiscing about her husband.”
“And who’s that?”
“You don’t know who she is?” I asked as Max grabbed a new bottle out of an under-the-counter fridge.
“Nope,” he said, popping the top. “Should I?”
“No. I suppose she was before your time.”
“So who is she?”
For some reason I didn’t want to tell him her name outright. “Her husband got into a fight here at the tavern with Bingham, but it was before you took over the bar. You were still at college.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “So?”
“So her husband hanged himself a few days later in the county jail.”
He grimaced and set the beer bottle on the counter. “No shit.”
“Yeah.” I reached for the bottle, but Max didn’t release it.
His gaze held mine. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
But maybe it was too late to be careful. He knew my secrets, and so did Tiffany. The walls were caving in.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I took the bottle back to the table and sat down, feeling more unsettled than ever.
What the hell was going on in this town?
I gave Michelle a forced smile as I slid the bottle over to her. “You were saying that you know that Hank’s money was buried. You have some idea where it is, or you wouldn’t expect a finder’s fee. But you also can’t get it back without help. Otherwise you would have dug it up yourself.”
She placed her finger and thumb on the neck of the bottle and twisted, keeping her gaze on the spinning bottle. “I heard you were smart.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “Who told you that?”
She shook her head. “Don’t matter. It’s the money you need to be concernin’ yourself with.”
“Okay, what can you tell me?”
She looked around again, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “It was a three-man job. Louise, Bruce, and someone else I don’t know about.”
I couldn’t believe she was telling me this. “Someone who worked for Hank?”
“Someone who was close to him.” She gave me a knowing look.
I sucked in a breath. “Are you suggesting that Barb might have had something to do with it?”
She lifted her shoulders into an exaggerated shrug. “Dunno. But it was someone who had access to Hank’s comin’s and goin’s.”
“So it could have been Big Joe.”
“Maybe.” But I could tell she liked the idea of the third person being Barb.
“Did Bruce and Barb date?” Then I added, “I heard Hank didn’t want them to date, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t seeing each other.”
She looked ready to spit nails. “I wouldn’t say date. More like screwin’.” She gave me a sly grin. “She really liked screwin’.”
Gross. “You look pretty happy to be discussing a woman who potentially slept with your husband.”
“Nothing potential about it. They did.”
“So he was sleeping with Louise and Barb at the same time?” I sputtered.
A grimace spread across her face. “Well . . . Bruce and Barb might not have been involved at the end.”
Suddenly, her story was starting to seem less plausible. Why would two women sleeping with the same man choose to work together? “So . . . you say it was a three-person job, Bruce, Louise, and a third person close to Hank—possibly Big Joe, possibly Barb. Or maybe someone else altogether.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“So what happened to the money? Why’s it still buried?”
“Because one person was conveniently locked away for years, another was murdered, and the third didn’t know what had happened to it.”
I took a second to think about what she’d said. It was obvious Louise didn’t know where the money was, and Michelle had flat out told me the third person didn’t know. Which left one person. “Bruce buried it.”
“Yep. He told me he wrote down the location, but then she was arrested, and he was killed.”
“Did he happen to hide the information in a black toolbox?”
She looked leery, like maybe I held more cards than she’d realized. “He told me it was in a toolbox, and I searched our garage and all over our property and never found it.”
“And you think the location of the money is inside?”
She nodded, then took a drink.
I narrowed my eyes. “When did he tell you that he’d buried it?”
There had been a very short window between Walter’s murder and Bruce’s arrest, not to mention it sounded like Michelle and Bruce hadn’t been close near the end.
“When I visited him in jail and told him I couldn’t make bail. He said the whole thing wasn’t sittin’ right. He thought he was being purposely kept in jail until they found out where he’d put it.”
“Who was keeping him there?”
“He wouldn’t say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Bart Drummond. He had that kind of power.”
So I’d heard.
“I never got the chance to ask him again, because the next time I saw him he was dead.”
“Have you told anyone about any of this?”
“No. You’re the first person I’ve mentioned it to. I don’t trust nobody, but when I was askin’ around about you, I heard how you helped those Crimshaw boys, not to mention Hank’s grandson. Plus, I know you’re living with Hank.” She hesitated. “I figured maybe you could approach him for me.”
“But if you don’t know where the toolbox is, how can he find the money?”
Frowning, she tapped the side of her bottle. “I might know where the toolbox is.”
“I thought you already looked.”
Her gaze lifted to mine. “On my property. Not Louise Baker’s land.”
Should I tell her that Louise knew about the box and was looking too? No. I was keeping my cards as close to the vest as possible. “I’ll see what I can do.”