Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Slowly, she lowered herself into one next to Carter. “I was studying architecture at school when I got custody of Shanti. One of the houses I had to look at for a case study was an old mansion that’d been updated. They had the original plans for the house and ones from about ten years later, but during the prohibition period, they’d updated it again to hide stuff.”

“They sold moonshine?” Carter guessed, and she nodded back at him.

“And homemade whiskey. Because they were making both in the house, they built new walls in some of the rooms, making them narrower but giving them a space behind it to put the stuff in so they could make the hooch. With some clever decorating, no one was any the wiser.”

Raising his eyebrows, DB nodded slowly. “Makes sense, and the Kirkwood mansion has gone through a lot of work over the years. It started about the same size as Bexley’s house,”—he nodded at me, then turned back to the others—“and is about four times that now.”

“Plenty of space to hide stuff or make hooch,” Carter confirmed, smiling at Naomi and making her blush as she hung her head.

“Wouldn’t they just use the basement?” I asked, intrigued by the story but also confused. Most people hid shit in the basement, so why not use that?

Naomi’s head lifted so quickly it cracked. “Oh, well, the machinery used to make moonshine and whiskey created a smell as it worked from the alcohol and the machine itself. There was also some steam that would’ve ruined the barrels and booze. It was easier to explain away a smell and steam if there was, say, a bathroom in the room or it was next to the kitchen, so that’s where they’d put it. There were some false rooms and false flooring in the basement, but that was where they’d stored the alcohol. Something about it being the perfect temperature for it, so it never went bad.”

“How do you tell if a room’s been worked on? We’d have to go into the house and look around, and Kirkwood’s not going to allow that,” DB pointed out, looking frustrated.

I felt the same way. This could’ve been what we were looking for to find Lord and piece all of this shit together.

“Well, when I was thinking about it, I did a search for the house online. Dirk Kirkwood did an interview for a magazine that was doing a story on old houses that’d stayed in the family since they were built. It was a great piece, and some of the houses were just gor—” she stopped, looking embarrassed at how enthusiastically she’d been talking about it.

“Sorry, I just liked the history attached to some of them. Anyway, the magazine published the article every week for three months and dedicated each edition to the house for that week. Dirk Kirkwood got nine pages for his house, and in it, he provided plans for each floor, with the measurements of each room on them.”

“Holy shit,” DB breathed, sitting back in his chair with a thud.

Not realizing what she was handing us, Naomi continued, “They’re all very impressive, and he said he had a professional measure them for accuracy. So, if we were to compare the original plans with the ones from the magazine—”

“We might find a hiding spot,” Carter finished, standing up and holding out his hand to her. “Let’s go and get the original records.”

Standing up, I followed behind them to the door. “I’ll print out the article and blow up the floor plans so we can compare them.”

“See if there’s any paperwork filed on the house while you’re there,” DB ordered to them, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll speak to Ramsey about the possibility of a warrant.”

“Can we trust him?” Garrett asked, sounding dubious at the prospect. “We don’t know who’s involved in it.”

Looking back at him over his shoulder, DB said seriously, “Judge Ramsey hates the Kirkwoods and Ingleston as much as we do. There’s a lot of bad blood there, and the way that Ingleston’s managed to get certain cases and been lenient on them, as well as the fact he’s a corrupt bastard, Ramsey’ll sign that warrant faster than you can say bless you.”

I was just out of the door when he added, “And if you say bless you just for shits and giggles, I swear I’ll tip that coffee over your head.”

“How are you finding the job?” I asked Mark Montgomery as we printed out the floor plans from the magazine.

Leaning on one of the desks, he focused on the window that overlooked the main street through the town.

“It’s okay. Busy, but okay,” he mumbled, his focus entirely on what was happening outside. “Hey, do you ever feel like the town’s been run by the people and not the Mayor for years? I mean, if it weren’t for a lot of what the community has achieved and worked hard for, nothing would have been updated or done around the place.”

Tilting my head to the side, I studied the guy. He wasn’t much younger than I was, but he’d veered off his initial career path to join us, so he was still learning about shit that went on behind the scenes in Piersville. It was a bit like seeing an iceberg in the ocean, then diving under it and seeing the dark algae and different shapes of it. Basically, it was a stark contrast to what it appeared to be from head to toe. A bit like who Mark was now, in comparison to the kid who’d—rightfully—punched me.

“The mayor has been a corrupt stain on the town for years, as has Judge Ingleston, and I agree that the people have been the power behind the good changes to the town. Why?”

“Dad told me last night Lord Kirkwood approached him about designing the houses for the new developments. He wanted to undercut the competition and offered him money to do it, with the assurance that planning permission would be granted regardless so there wouldn’t be any losses. When the houses were finished, they’d split the profits to make up for the shortfall in the money he was paid for the designs plus a bonus for helping them out.”

“So, he was to come in cheap with the designs, they’d get passed, and once they were built and sold, they’d pay him the remainder of what the designs were worth and a bonus?”

Turning slowly, he nodded at me. “And he said there was a one hundred percent guarantee

that his designs would get approved.”

“That’s not illegal that I’m aware of,” I said slowly, “but there’s an alarm bell going off over what it means.”

“It means Lord already had the contract for the builds even before all of the bids were received and processed. Daddy’s been giving him them for years.”