“In fact, the workshop was built for that purpose,” Harry said.“So, even though Prohibition is long gone, since that business up there was not exactly clandestine, your place has always been known as The Cooper’s Retreat.”
“Okay.”
“And for at least as long as I’ve been aware, it’s been owned and rented out by Mrs.Matthews and her boys.”
I nodded.
“Did you deal with her?Or her son or one of her grandsons?”
“Her son was in the truck, but when I was shown the place, Mrs.Matthews did it.”
Incidentally, she’d been a hoot.
Diminutive (though not as short as Aunt Bea), with a helmet of steel-gray, set curls, she was matter of fact, no nonsense, and blunt to the point of rude.
And her son looked less like he was assisting his elderly mother in her rural mountain real estate empire, and more like a goon who would enforce the will of a vicious mob boss.
I liked her upon meeting, obviously.
“Did they disclose anything about your neighbors?”Harry asked.
Here we go.
I shook my head.
Harry shot an irritated look to Rus.
I didn’t turn my eyes from Harry.“What?”
He sat back in his chair and started carefully, “Now, I’m not saying that was them.”He dipped his head to the note on his desk.“But regardless, you should know, to the south of your property, there’s a…”
He trailed off, clearly at a loss for words.
“Community,” Rus supplied.
“Right,” Harry muttered.“Community.A community called The Lion and The Lamb.”
Dang it!
Really?
Really?!?!
“What you’re saying is, I’ve got some Christian extremist cult living next to me.”
Harry held my gaze unwavering.“I did not describe them as that.”
That meant I had some Christian extremist cult living next to me.
Just my luck.
Preciselymy damned luck!
“Fantastic,” I spat.
Rus took up the story.“They’ve been there some time.They don’t cause any problems.There’ve been no complaints.In fact, we’re surprised, if it was them, that they even entered your property, much less left that note.”
Harry added, “We don’t know much about them, and they take pains to keep it that way, except it seems they’re based quite a bit on self-sufficiency.They have electricity, they own trucks, but for the most part, they farm their land, they have livestock, chickens.They come into town for necessities or things that fill in the gaps of what they can’t grow and raise on their own.They have a booth at the Farmer’s Market and sell eggs, jam, bread and pies there.As far as we know, that’s their only income.”
