If It Is April

by Edward A. Stabler

  Cole thought about it for a few seconds. Confronting his quarry along a quiet creek would be better than doing it here, where Emmert’s presence complicated the issue. And maybe there were others in the house – a wife or cousin or a grown child. He raised his eyes toward the trees behind Emmert as if he’d just remembered something.

  “Jake had a girl with him down at Edwards Ferry,” he said. “I think her name was April. Or maybe it was Katie. She come up here along with him?”

  “No,” Emmert said in a wistful paternal voice. “I was hoping to meet her myself. Jake said she went home to her family in Brunswick.”

  Cole nodded, thanked Emmert, and got back into his truck. Rolling in reverse, he watched the locktender retreat around the side of his house. He wasn’t sure he trusted him. As Cole had inferred while listening to Luther Mills, old M-Street was hard to read. The main reason to believe that Jake was out by the creek, Cole told himself, was that the mules weren’t here, even though two pairs of saddlebags were hanging on the fence.

  If it was just Gladys, Jake was most likely the one riding her. But Emmert had mentioned a second mule – Bertie. So maybe M-Street wasn’t being straight with him about Jake. Maybe the girl was out there with him. One thing Emmert told him was a lie for sure. Katie Elgin had no home to go to in Brunswick.

  ***

  When they reached the end of the fence-line, Jake turned Bertie off the road and onto the trail along the edge of the field. He didn’t bother checking to see if April was following, since Gladys knew this cross-country stretch well. It led back to the pasture behind the farm, the final swing on a westward loop the mules must have walked a hundred times. As they passed through a tree break and got their first view of the house, Jake saw a distant figure standing in the backyard, waving them in. His father. The gestures continued longer than he expected, so he turned to cock his head at April, then prodded Bertie into an easy trot for the last quarter mile.

  “You had a visitor,” Emmert said as Jake reined Bertie to a stop and dismounted. “Said he was a friend of yours. I told him you were out at the creek with a camera.”

  “An investor? What did he want?” Jake and April had been at the farm for a week now and he was relieved that none of his victims had called on him yet. He had to remind himself that his trial wasn’t a particularly recent event. Nor was Blyth’s disappearance with the money. By now most of the investors were probably trying to forget about Secured Automotive Investments, but he was still glad his father had diverted today’s unexpected visitor.

  Emmert smiled. “He said he was a horse doctor here to check on Gladys. That sounded funny, so I asked if you told him you were looking for investors. I figured a real friend of yours would get mad or bust out laughing, but he said you mentioned it and he wanted to hear more.”

  “A horse doctor here to see Gladys? Was his name Cushing?”

  Emmert nodded. “Said everyone calls him Doc.”

  “We never talked about investing or Blyth. Maybe I told him I was taking Gladys to Sharpsburg, but I never said where I lived. What did he look like?”

  “Tall and lean. Long dark hair with a gray streak. Dark brown coat, mustache, and a beard.”

  “Cole,” Jake said, exchanging a glance with April. The swelling had receded, and the only hint of the thrashing she’d received at Cole’s hands was a pale rose hue around her right eye and cheekbone. She squinted and nodded in agreement at the name, looking more resolute than scared. “I don’t know how he found us. I never told him my name.”

  “He asked if April was with you,” Emmert said, “but by then I figured he was lying, especially after he said her name could be Katie.” He turned toward April. “Something felt wrong, so I told him you went home to Brunswick.”

  “Cole thinks April is Katie Elgin from Williamsport,” Jake said. “So he probably didn’t buy that.”

  “And I sent him down to the battlefield to look for you,” Emmert said to Jake. “He might drive over there, but I wouldn’t count on fooling him for long.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes ago.”

  “He’ll come back,” Jake said. “And we don’t want to be here when he does.”

  “What does he want?” Emmert said.

  “Something we don’t have. A toolbox that went missing from a boat that washed up in the flood, down past Swains Lock. He thinks April stole it. Maybe it’s full of diamonds. Or pirate maps.”

  “Do you know who took it? You could try to sic him on someone else.”

  “I can picture it,” April said, “falling into the water in a lock. Maybe I used to know what happened to it, but I don’t remember now.”

  “We spent a day looking but didn’t find it,” Jake said. “Some things are coming back, and maybe the next one will be the missing piece.” On his first day home he’d told his father that April lost her memory in the flood, and that he was taking care of her until it returned. He’d added that she was being pursued and couldn’t go to the authorities for help until she remembered more. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to defend herself against false accusations. She had to lay low for a while, and the less Emmert knew or said about her, the safer the three of them would be. “Right now we need to pack and go.”

  “Where?” April said.

  “We can take the back roads into town and cross the fields to Snyders Landing Road. That runs out to the canal near Horseshoe Bend. It’s seven miles on the towpath from where we camped at Antietam Creek, but not even three from here. And he won’t be looking for us in that direction.”

  Emmert said he’d feed and water the mules while they packed food and gathered their things. Jake and April trotted over to the corral to get the saddlebags, which they carried into the kitchen.

  “I wish it wasn’t a school day,” Jake said as he surveyed the contents of the icebox, cupboards, and bread box. “If my mother was home, we’d have fresh bread or pie.” He pulled out two pounds of hard cheese, a rump end of white bread, and a few leftover corn muffins.

  “I could live on cheese and brisket,” April said, “and we’ve got both. Not to mention smoked pork and apple jam. I bet you didn’t eat half as well in jail.”

  “You’re right about that. But I wasn’t doing twenty miles a night on the towpath either. Or sleeping on bare ground. That reminds me,” he said, stuffing the wrapped food into the saddlebags, “let’s get two more blankets. The ones here are better than the ones we brought.”

  They went upstairs and down the hall to April’s room. Jake had shared the opposite room with his older brother Howard while growing up, then reluctantly reoccupied it after his release from prison. April’s room had belonged to his sister Alice, who’d moved out after getting married two years ago. Jake leaned over to release the latch on a cedar chest at the foot of the bed, then lifted the lid with both hands, palms on the edge and fingers extended across the varnished top as he studied the contents of the chest.

  “Should we take a quilt instead?”

  “Fingers,” April said in a faraway voice that chilled the back of his neck and severed his thoughts. It was the voice she used when a memory resurfaced. “Hanging onto a rail. Four sets of fingers, two pairs of hands. It’s noisy, with rushing water and men screaming. Two sets of fingers disappear, then the other two, and it’s quiet. Just a pair of hats on the deck.”

  Jake summoned the other shards of the puzzle, looking for a dark edge with which to mate this new piece. “Hats,” he said hoarsely. “You had another memory about hats. Back at Pennyfield Lock. We heard bullfrogs croaking in Muddy Branch, and you could picture two men sleeping on a boat deck, with their hats pulled down over their eyes. Are these the same hats?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You saw a shadow across their legs, and you said it went past the rail and onto a stone wall. I asked if it was your shadow and you said you didn’t know. Is there a shadow in this new memory? Is there a stone wall in the background?”

 
She shook her head. “I’m further away than I was before. And I’m not looking at the background, I’m watching the fingers.”

  “What about your own fingers? When I asked you at Pennyfield, you thought maybe you were holding shackles. Are you holding anything while you’re watching?”

  “No. My hands feel light. I’m tracing my fingers along the base of my neck. Something that used to be there is gone.”

  ***

  Cole barely braked as he swung into Emmert Reed’s driveway for the second time. It hadn’t taken him long to conclude the locktender had sent him on a fool’s errand. There’d been no sign of Jake or the mules along Antietam Creek, and nothing photograph-worthy about the trees between the bridges. Passing the barn, he looked for the saddlebags and blankets he’d seen hanging on the fence only ninety minutes ago. Gone. He skidded to a stop at the end of driveway, inflating a cloud of dust.

  This time Emmert came out the front door. He stood on the landing as the dust dispersed and Cole strode briskly around the front of his truck.

  “Did you find him?”

  Cole answered by bringing his hand up from his thigh in a motion too fast for Emmert to see, twisting his hips, and driving his fist into the older man’s gut. Emmert jackknifed at the waist and gasped for a breath, his face red and arms hanging useless. Cole stood silently for almost a minute while Emmert’s hands settled on his knees and he slowly regained a breathing rhythm.

  “You lied to me, Emmert.” He pulled his pistol from his coat pocket, flipped off the safety, and used the end of the barrel to lift Emmert’s chin. “Stand up. You’re going to show me your house and anyone that’s in it.” Emmert’s face was still blotchy when he straightened. Cole spun him around, pressed the muzzle against his back, and prodded him forward through the door.

  They proceeded methodically from room to room but saw no one on the first floor. Cole dismissed the basement when they encountered an unbroken spiderweb on the stairs. They didn’t find anyone upstairs either, but Cole could tell that the bedrooms were in use.

  “Jake staying in this room?” he said. It had two beds, one made up and one with its bedding carelessly pulled together.

  “Yes.”

  “How about the one across the hall? Looks like a girl’s room.” He prodded Emmert through the doorway and into April’s room.

  “This is Alice’s room. She’s visiting with us for a few nights.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She’s with her mother at school. She offered to help out in the library while she was home. They should be back anytime.”

  Cole nodded, not believing the explanation. He lifted the muzzle from Emmert’s back and stepped around him to peer into a cedar chest at the foot of the bed. Its lid was propped open and there was only a thin layer of sheets inside. Someone must have taken the rest of the contents and left in a hurry. Probably Jake and the girl. He turned to face Emmert, aiming the barrel at his chest.

  “I heared you used to play three-card monte, M-Street.” He saw Emmert’s eyes widen, as if he was surprised by the reference. “I’m going to make the game easy for you. Deal you three cards face up, so you can choose the right one for sure. Here’s your two of spades: go to the sheriff. You do that and Katie Elgin goes to jail for killing Lee Fisher. And Jake’s an accomplice, so he goes back to prison.

  “Here’s your queen of hearts: get Jake to turn the girl over to me. I’ll leave you alone. You and your family can live in peace.

  “Here’s your two of clubs: keep doing what you been doing, helping Jake and the girl play hide and seek. I’ll catch ‘em pretty soon, and when I do I’ll take the girl. And I’ll put Jake’s feet in a bucket of cement and drop him off the Harpers Ferry bridge.”

  Cole gave Emmert a few seconds to think.

  “Which card are you picking, M-Street? Take the girl back to Edwards Ferry and give her to me there – that’s your queen of hearts. Pick the wrong card and I’ll come back to settle up when I’m done with her. Next time there won’t be no winning card.”

  The sparkle had gone out of Emmert’s eyes, and now he was just a gray worried man. “If it is April you want,” he said hesitantly, “and nothing to do with Jake… since she’s in Brunswick with her family…”

  Cole flipped the pistol in his hand, grabbed the barrel, swung the grip away, and slammed the butt into Emmert’s temple. Emmert exhaled a squawk as he crumpled unconscious onto the bed. Cole watched to confirm that the locktender was still breathing.

  “The queen of hearts is in the middle,” he said, pivoting toward the door. “Dream about picking her while you sleep that off.”

  Chapter 28

  Candlelight

  Thursday, April 24, 1924

  Jake felt scattered sprinkles as they crossed the field toward Snyders Landing Road, himself on Bertie with April following on Gladys. The late-afternoon sky had grown steadily darker, so it looked like if the clouds opened in earnest it might rain for a while. He spat disapprovingly. He knew the Sharpsburg farms all needed rain in the spring, but he never cheered its arrival. What bothered him was not knowing when it was going to end. The apprehension in that well-worn line of thought brought him back to Cole.

  “He’s not going to stop,” he said as they turned onto the road and April brought Gladys alongside. “Not until he gets the toolbox or you or both.”

  “Let’s hope he’ll settle for the box.”

  “He might, but it doesn’t seem like he’s looking for it right now. He’s just looking for you.”

  The raindrops grew fatter and more frequent. Jake glanced at April, who hadn’t seemed to notice the weather. Her bare forearms were glistening.

  “Then maybe we need to find it and leave it somewhere for him,” she said.

  “That’s what I was thinking. But first you need to remember where it is. We checked the locks between Swains and Edwards Ferry. If it fell in, someone must have fished it out. Someone who knew it was there.”

  “You mean me, since I saw it fall in.”

  “Maybe. Or your older brother. Or Lee Fisher, if he was with you.”

  April turned toward him, brow furrowed and hands balled into fists that clutched the reins.

  “Are you saying you think I killed him?” she asked in a strained voice. “So I could get the box and whatever is in it?”

  “No,” Jake said evenly. “One of your memories was being with him at the sandy cove – the one upriver from Pennyfield. You told him about finding a necklace on the river bank. You said you thought he was honest and nice. I can’t imagine you hurting someone you trusted.”

  “But I remember thinking something bad might happen to him. And something did.”

  “At someone else’s hands,” Jake said, with greater assurance than he felt. He didn’t believe Cole’s claim about a witness seeing April slash Lee Fisher’s throat, and there might be other reasons the sheriff wanted to question her about Lee’s death. But he couldn’t escape the feeling that April wasn’t as innocent as she appeared. Her memory of two men sleeping on a boat deck while she stood nearby holding shackles was unnerving. Especially when juxtaposed with today’s recollection: twenty fingers clutching a rail and then letting go, leaving behind two hats as the screams of men fell silent.

  If April had been complicit in a killing before the flood, the moonshiners were the likely victims, he thought. And from them, she and any conspirators – Lee Fisher? Cy Elgin? – would have inherited the Emorys’ toolbox. Leaving April the only one to account for it now. Based on his own set of observations, Cole must have reached the same conclusion.

  “I can’t imagine slashing someone’s throat.”

  “Good,” Jake said. He turned toward her and forced a smile. “And I don’t think you’ll ever remember doing that.”

  When they reached the canal they found it drained, liked most of the lower levels they’d walked. But the swing-bridge was still intact, so Jake swung it closed and they used it to cross. On the towpath he turned Bertie left, downs
tream.

  “Are we going back to Edwards Ferry?”

  “Not tonight. I thought we could camp three miles upstream at Horseshoe Bend, but we’ll get soaked there if this keeps up.”

  “So in the other direction, you’ve got a warm, dry cabin in the woods? With real beds and a fireplace?”

  Jake grinned. “You’ll have to settle for the next best thing. But it’s only a mile away.” He prodded Bertie forward on the towpath, which tracked the sinuous course of the river here and was starting to soften from the rain. Near the apex of the next bend, he dismounted and told April to wait with the mules. Then he crossed the puddled canal floor and pushed into woods that fronted the steeply-rising rocks beyond the berm. After exploring a few minutes in each direction he returned to the towpath.

  “It’s not a palace,” he said, helping April dismount. “But it should stay dry.” They led the mules across the canal and up onto the berm, and Jake guided them a hundred paces along the treeline to the path to the Killiansburg Caves.

  Across hundreds of centuries, rainwater finding its way down to the river had carved underground shortcuts through the limestone hillside, hollowing out passages that opened into vestibules in the moss-spotted faces of the rock walls. Some of these cave entrances were too small or halfway up the cliffs, but a few were head-high arches that emerged at the base, with sculpted rock overhead and flat-swept sand and dirt underfoot. Jake had found the one he was looking for.

  “We used to play games out here when I was a kid,” he said. “Flags and Raiders. Wolf Pack Hunt.”

  “So you must know the best hiding spots.”

  “The best ones are the hardest to reach. And the least comfortable. This one’s a good compromise.” He lifted the saddlebags off Bertie and carried them into the cave, then gestured for April to follow. Past the entrance the room widened to almost six feet across, with just enough headroom to stand upright. Further back the walls began converging toward the heart of the cave. Fifteen feet in, most of the passage was blocked by a clot of fallen rocks.