Wildcat Wine Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked, but my own voice was drowned out by Farmer Dave.
    â€œWhere’s my wine?” he shouted at me, getting entirely too much in my face.
    â€œWaylon came and got it. He said you sent him for it.”
    â€œWaylon? Huh? Must be a change of plan. Hard work, transporting that wine. Must be, eh, a . . . change in the market.”
    Farmer Dave did not specialize in plans, honest or dishonest, and he certainly didn’t specialize in honest labor on the open market, and I’d had to ride roughshod over him as my caretaker not to do something illegal at my orchard and get my 180 acres stolen by the federal government under its generous confiscation statutes. But I decided to pass on quizzing him on any deep, hidden meaning because I was worried about Benny, who had disappeared into my bathroom.
    â€œI’ll just have to go after Waylon, see what I can see,” Dave said. “Hey, man, Ben, you wanna come? Drive me over to Waylon’s house in that fine Ford truck of yours?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think Benny should go with you.” Firm, I said it, firm.
    â€œOkay, Lilly Belle, then you’ll have to drive me over to Waylon’s. He took my truck, you know.”
    Oh. I didn’t want to get caught driving Dave around on a mission to find his wine. I wanted to continue to memorize legal nuances. And Benny was already out of the bathroom and nodding his head up and down like an eager bubblehead.
    Still, a tired caution light in my brain tried to flag me down. “Maybe you should stay with me,” I said to Benny. “Just let Dave borrow your truck.”
    Yeah, right. Like any fifteen-year-old boy would let his first truck out of his sight so he could hang inside waiting for his momma to come back from Mass if instead he could drive a long-haired felon on a quest to find the mysterious Waylon and the probably stolen wine.
    â€œNaw, he’s a good kid, let ’im drive me.” Dave smiled at Benny.
    â€œNo violence,” I said, reducing my concerns to the primary one.
    â€œHey, I’m a radical pacifist,” Dave said, and grinned at me. But then he frowned and asked, “Belle, where’s my backpack?”
    â€œGuest room.” I pointed down the hallway.
    When Dave came out, he had the backpack slung over his arm. Okay, I thought, that meant he was armed again with the sturdy little .38. But how much trouble could they get in over wine? I naively thought. Besides, I was enormously tired and still had to do, during the evening, all the work I hadn’t done during the day. I didn’t have the time to chauffeur Dave around, and if Benny loaned Dave his truck there was a fair chance he’d never get it back.
    So I gave in, but repeated Bonita’s instructions to Benny not to drink or smoke anything.
    They were out the door before I thought to add, don’t call the police from Waylon’s house, use a pay phone, and don’t give your name.

Chapter 4
    The criminal-justice system functions wholly outside my sphere of expertise and operates with its own mysteries and tricks and tactics, about which I know very little. Though I am a defense attorney, I am strictly a civil attorney.
    Like the federal income tax system, the criminal-justice system is not something I intended to mess with. You got a tax problem, I told my clients, get a tax attorney or a CPA. You get busted for DWI or bank robbery, get a criminal-defense attorney. You get sued for malpractice by a client, and you have money or good liability insurance, then you come to me.
    So it was later that night, when I learned Waylon and Dave were in jail and needed to get out, I knew I wasn’t the one to help. This news came to me with a bang and a thud at my door. While Bearess snuffled beside me, I peered out my peephole and saw what appeared to be the same woman in the red scarf who had driven off behind Waylon. Having made a career of reading