So, she was being nice. That didn’t mean she wanted to be a part of his life again. The divorce decree had felt pretty final when he’d signed it, releasing her from their marriage.
An older waitress with brassy orange hair and white roots stopped at their table with menus. “Hi, I’m Letha. I’ll be your server. What can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll have water with lemon,” Avery answered.
“Coffee. Black,” Grant said. “And we’re ready to order food.”
Letha raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to look at the menu first? The special for the day is meatloaf. It’s my favorite.”
Grant glanced at Avery.
She shook her head. “I have my taste buds set for a burger and fries.”
“I understand,” Letha said. “The tastebuds want what the tastebuds want.” She turned to Grant. “And you?”
“I’ll need an extra plate and a knife to cut that burger in half.”
“Got it,” she said without writing anything down. She disappeared and came back less than two minutes later with their drinks. “That burger will be ready soon. Let me know if you need anything else while you’re waiting.”
“As a matter of fact, there is something else you could help us with,” Grant said with the smile he reserved for buttering up female informants.
Letha smiled back. “Name it.”
“Information,” he said. “I understand you’ve lived your whole life in Shadow Valley. Is that right?”
Letha shrugged. “I wouldn’t say my whole life, but I guess the year I ran away to live in the Grand Canyon with my boyfriend doesn’t really count. I wised up and came back when he ditched me for a floozy out of Vegas. I came back with my tail between my legs and haven’t left since. It’s home. Been home to my family for the last hundred and fifty years. I don’t see any reason to leave. Why do you ask?”
“We were just curious,” Avery chimed in. “It being a small town fairly close to Waco and Dallas, would you know if any of the residents were ever active in the bootlegging industry during the prohibition?”
Letha’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “From all accounts, there weren’t many who weren’t involved. Even my grandfather had a still set up in the woods out behind the old homestead.” She chuckled. “I remember him taking me to see it. He no longer had the clients he had back in the twenties, but he still made hooch for himself and some of his cronies.”
“Did anyone involved in the business produce alcohol in their basement?” Grant asked.
Letha tilted her head. “I don’t recall. Gramps said he set his up far enough away from the house that if it exploded, it wouldn’t burn the house down with it. I don’t think there were many homes with basements. Back then, they had root cellars where they stored food from their gardens to keep it cool during the hot summers. But basements? Not many of those around here.” She shook her head. “There might be a few built into the sides of some of the hills.”
“No one had storm shelters?” Avery asked.
“I guess some did. Nowadays, they install those concrete boxes for people to hide in during tornadoes. I’d get a powerful case of claustrophobia in one of those. I’d rather tangle with a tornado than be trapped inside one of those concrete caskets.” Letha nodded toward their drinks. “Let me know if you need a refill. I’ll check on that burger.” The woman spun and headed for the kitchen, stopping to talk to a customer along the way.
Avery sighed. “I doubt there are copies of house plans stored in the county clerk’s office that date back as far as Prohibition.”
“I doubt people reported basements during that time,” Grant said. “They’d be the first people the revenuers would’ve targeted before searching the woods.”
Avery sighed. “I’d hoped Letha would know more, having lived here all her life.”
“Maybe Melissa will have more luck looking through old newspapers.”
“That sounds painfully tedious.”
Letha arrived with the single hamburger, divided into two portions on two separate plates. “Cook cut it for you. And each plate has the fixins on the side—just the way you asked.”
She laid the plates in front of Grant and Avery. “While I was in the kitchen, I asked Cook if he’d heard tales of family members who’d cooked hooch back in the prohibition. He said there were a few. He said Old Man Starner’s grandfather had a big business, selling beer and whiskey out of his shed back off Glendale Road, north of town. He used the money he made to build a big old house on his acres out there.”
Avery leaned closer. “Did that house have a basement?”
Letha tapped a finger to her chin. “I got to go inside one year as a kiddo. Starner’s wife was one of the hosts of a Christmas tour of homes in the county. Seems they had a door in the kitchen that led down some steps. It could’ve been a basement.”
“Do the Starners still own the home?” Grant asked.
