The Hollows--A Novel

by Jess Montgomery

  Maybe that is enough for a funeral prayer.

  * * *

  An hour later, Hildy is back home, in her bedroom, packing her own travel bag. Mother and Merle wait downstairs.

  Her plan is in place. She has told them about Tom. About seeing the ghostly figure of an old-fashioned woman. About how confused and lost her mind has been.

  It had been too easy to convince them—as if they’d been waiting for this all along—that in the next few hours, after Lily is gone, they should take Hildy to the Hollows Asylum.

  I’ve been acting crazy, she’d said. Out of my head.

  They’d readily agreed.

  If I have time at the Hollows, to clear my head, I think I’ll get right. Be … worthy of Merle.

  He’d, at least, look shocked at the notion.

  Mother had agreed quickly—so quickly that Merle looked even more shocked by that.

  Just for a week or so, Merle had said quickly. Then we can marry. Right away.

  In that moment, Hildy knew she would never marry Merle. But she’d smiled. Nodded.

  Now something crinkles in Hildy’s pocket. Ah. The third and last postcard from Thea.

  Postcard

  May 2, 1908

  Dear Hildy,

  Oh, how I had hoped to send you cards from Rome, Madrid, even Oslo and more exotic locales! Alas, I hope you are not too disappointed in your old cousin to see that I am back in New York. Economic needs necessitated my return. At times, the hardest thing to do is the right thing. Though I long to return to the stage as a dancer, that is no longer feasible at my age. I’ve found a position as a typist, and sometimes, I think of my fingers as dancing on the typewriter, as if the machine is a stage. For it was only on the stage, playing a role—for that is what dance is as much as acting—that I feel truly myself. Is that odd? Or wisdom? When you are old enough, I hope that you will come to New York—which has as many charms in its way as Europe, and certainly more than Kinship!—and help me answer the question!

  All my love,

  Thea

  CHAPTER 29

  LILY

  Wednesday, September 29—4:00 p.m.

  “Sheriff Ross, would you comment on the events of last night?”

  “Where is your family staying?”

  “Have you identified any of the culprits?”

  “Will you be pressing charges when you do?”

  “Why are you leaving town now—especially after last night and with an election? Are you going to withdraw? Pay closer attention to your family?”

  While swiftly winding her way through the crowd that has gathered on the Kinship depot’s platform, Lily has ignored the barrage of questions from newspaper reporters from the Kinship Daily Courier, the Athens Messenger, and even from Columbus, blinked at the flashing lights of cameras but not paused to pose. That last set of questions catches her attention. She stops short, looks at the faces of the men blocking her way to the station, and steadies her searching gaze when she comes to a man with a self-satisfied smile curling up under his mustache—pleased he was the one who’d managed to get the little lady sheriff to stop.

  As Lily keeps her stare locked on his face, his smile dissolves under his mustache and his caterpillar eyebrows creep up. The other reporters glance at one another, then back at their notepads, pencils poised.

  Finally, Lily asks—her voice steady and clear—“Which newspaper do you work for?”

  The man straightens a bit. “The Columbus Dispatch.”

  “Take careful notes for your readers. I am not withdrawing from the election. I am taking a brief trip out of town because I am doing my job—following up in the case of the death of Thea Kincaide. Unless any of you boys have any leads you’d care to share?”

  Most of the men exchange confused glances—all except Seth, who gives her a quick nod of solidarity and an amused look: Give ’em hell, Lily.

  Lily presses on through the reporters and now townspeople who have stopped to see what new ruckus has beset the usually boring depot. The last time such a crowd had gathered here, George Vogel was leaving town with Fiona. Thank God that Cincinnati is such a big city—she is not likely to cross paths with the man.

  “What about your children? Don’t you have a mother and little brother to watch after—”

  Lily turns on her heel at the question. “They are fine. Leave my family out of this.”

  She finally enters the door. Thankfully, the train to Cincinnati is in the station and she quickly buys her ticket, then boards. She’d considered driving, but she still hasn’t replaced the spare on her automobile with a new tire and driving would take longer than the train—especially if she broke down along the way. Once in her seat, she opens her satchel and pulls out The Red Lamp, which she still hasn’t finished. After stowing her satchel under her seat, she opens the novel, stares down at the last page she’d read.

  The words swim before her. She’d said her family was fine—but they weren’t. Micah had wailed, clutching her legs, begging her not to leave, and Jolene had tried to look stoic, but Lily could see she was terrified. Even Caleb Jr., who reminded her often he didn’t have to listen to her because she was “just” his sister, had welled up and begged her for a good-bye hug.

  Meanwhile, Mama and Mrs. Gottschalk had reassured her they’d be fine, and Lily tried to convince herself this was true—after all, she’s only going to be gone for a few days. She had deputies keeping watch at Mrs. Gottschalk’s house—as well as at the sheriff’s house and jail, where Margaret, despite her protestations, remains.

  The train jerks forward, several uneven jolts as it pulls out of the station.

  Lily closes The Red Lamp and clasps her hands atop the novel. Her mind is too aswirl to concentrate on reading. She stares out the window, taking in the countryside of southern Ohio as the train passes out of the Appalachian foothills and into the flat land near the Ohio River. Dusk is upon the land, brushing and infusing the trees and small villages—even smaller than Kinship or Rossville—with hues of lavender and sage and coral.

  It’s not her family members’ faces she sees in her mind’s eye. She can’t stop seeing Hildy’s devastated visage at catching her gaze of pity. She was trying to protect her friend—but now she fears she’s wounded her.

  Focus.

  Her job now is to get to Cincinnati, talk to Dr. Neil Leitel. Find a way to get him to tell her everything he can remember about his mother, Thea. Surely there must be something he can tell her that will help crack this case.

  She opens her satchel, returns the novel, and pulls out her notebook. Her notes had all seemed a jumble; she hadn’t had a chance to review them, try to piece them together like a quilt, finding patterns and order. Her jaw slackens as she stares at the blank page. Oh yes—she’d shoved her notes at Hildy to type up.

  With a sudden sharp aching that feels like a knife to her gut, she wishes for her dearest, oldest friend, Hildy. Lily closes the useless blank notebook, shoves it alongside the novel in her bag, and presses her eyes shut.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, she thinks to the rhythm of the train, to Hildy’s visage floating, ghostlike, before her.

  The train jolts and Lily’s eyes open. Darkness fills the train window. Night has fallen, and now they are pulling into the station in Cincinnati.

  Thursday, September 30—9:45 p.m.

  “Do you require more coffee, miss?”

  Lily pulls her gaze from the restaurant window to the waiter standing next to her table. He stares down at her, unsmiling, no coffeepot in hand, eager for her to leave.

  Behind him, most of the tables, covered in red-and-white-checked tablecloths and topped with candlesticks, are empty, except for a few where couples still linger over coffee and dessert. Lily is the only person sitting at a table alone in Sonny’s, and she’s drawn stares—her singularity a curiosity, but so too her long-sleeved, collared, modest dress. The other women are garbed in sleeveless, glittery dresses, their heads topped with feathered caps. Her clothes�
�and probably her demeanor—mark her as a rube from outside the city.

  Yet she can’t be annoyed, so sated is she from a heavy, exotic meal—a soup with meatballs and spinach, salad with black olives, lasagna rich with mozzarella cheese, garlicky breadsticks, and a dessert she’s never heard of before: a slice of zuccotto, a cream-filled sponge cake topped with chocolate icing. Though she doesn’t require, or even desire, more coffee, she lifts an eyebrow and says with exaggerated politeness, “That would be lovely.”

  As the waiter turns on his heel, Lily’s gaze wanders to the cold window, as it has so many times during the meal. She’d tried to focus on the moment, rejoice in the outlandish tastes of the extravagant meal, think how she might describe it to Mama and Jolene, Hildy and Marvena. And yet, every few bites, her attention turned from warm restaurant to rain-streaked pane, from the bustle of pedestrians and automobiles on the main street in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, to Boyd’s Gymnasium across the street, where a neon-lit marquee advertised the evening’s featured event: a boxing match. Eddie Tyler versus Frank Leoni.

  She’s never heard of either man, never been a fan of boxing. More than a year ago, she’d come to hate the sport when she discovered how it had once brought out the worst in Daniel, and permanently connected him to George, who’d backed Daniel as a boxer long before she’d met him.

  Yet here she sits, idly stirring the remaining coffee, staring through the window at the boxing gymnasium across the way, all because George is likely in there.

  She’s this desperate because so far, her trip to Cincinnati has proven fruitless. She’d slept fitfully in her room at the Sinton Hotel the night before, then this morning gone to the University of Cincinnati in search of Dr. Neil Leitel. But he didn’t have office hours today, and the philosophy department secretary—a gaunt man who made the Sonny’s waiter seem downright jolly—had declined to share Neil’s schedule or classroom location or home address, even when Lily had introduced herself as the sheriff from Bronwyn County and explained why she was looking for him. In fact, the secretary had scoffed, giving her a quick appraisal, followed by a dismissive look. When she’d loitered in the hallways, asking students if they knew Dr. Leitel, she’d gotten similar reactions. A few hours into that, and a member of the Cincinnati police—summoned by the secretary—had arrived to tell her she was causing a disturbance. She’d then challenged the police officer to take her in, and he’d done so. Lily managed to talk her way up to a lieutenant on the force but still couldn’t get anyone to help her locate Neil. She had no jurisdiction here, she was reminded, and if Dr. Leitel had broken ties with his mother, well, that was his business.

  Finally, Lily had returned to her hotel room, tried to nap, but restlessly tossed and turned, trying to think of any other way to track down Leitel. The only one she could come up with was to ask George for his help.

  But if getting someone to tell her where Leitel lived was impossible, she stood no chance prying that information out from anyone about the powerful and secretive George. Then the notion arose from the back of her mind: if there was one thing George cared about besides power and money, it was boxing. And Boyd’s Gymnasium was where, she knew, Daniel had boxed when George was his sponsor.

  So Lily had taken the streetcar to this part of town, her heart pounding when she saw the marquee was alight. She’d crossed the street, walking up and down the sidewalk, ignoring the occasional stares, telling herself this was a fool’s errand. She stopped in mid-stride as an automobile pulled up and Abe Miller stepped out, holding the door for George as he followed. She’d stopped breathing when Fiona emerged. She’d almost not recognized Fiona, in her short, glittery dress, mink stole, and feathered hat.

  But as soon as something—perhaps the power of Lily’s stare—made Fiona look over her shoulder in Lily’s direction, Lily had ducked in the nearest business: Sonny’s Italian Diner, in business since 1912.

  She’d remained, and asked for a table, and ordered an expensive meal, and lingered over it. Sure—if anyone had the connections to unearth Leitel’s address, it would be George. But would getting it be worth becoming, even in a small way, obligated to George? Why not go home, rule Thea’s death an accident—the easiest and, most would agree, the prudent thing to do. Then return to her campaign. Take care of her family. Make amends with Hildy.

  Why, tomorrow she could even go shopping, get presents for Mama, Hildy, Mrs. Gottschalk, the children. And Marvena—she wouldn’t wear it, but she’d get a good laugh out of a sequined cap. And while shopping downtown, if she happened to drop into the Cincinnati office for the Bureau of Mines to wish Benjamin Russo good luck—a warm gesture on behalf of the folks of her county before his move to her area—why, now, sitting in this sophisticated restaurant rather than late at night in her parlor, that didn’t seem so ridiculous—

  Lily startles at a man clearing his voice at a table near hers, and when she looks up he’s glaring at her. She realizes she’s been tapping her spoon hard and loud in her cup, sloshing coffee out on the tablecloth. She gives him and the woman with him a quick, apologetic smile, puts aside the spoon, looks from her nearly empty cup to the window, back again.

  What if she does enjoy her coffee, return to the hotel tonight, to Kinship tomorrow, and tell everyone who cared—which, really, was Hildy—that she’d done her best on behalf of Thea, and return to focusing on her campaign and the problems back home?

  Take the first choice, and she’ll know she has given up on an old woman whose death is too easy to discount.

  Ask for George ’s help in finding Neil—on the thin chance that Neil will have any information that will shed light on Thea’s motivation to leave the asylum, and thus on her death—and she’ll owe George a favor in return. Favors from people like George are never given freely, without strings. He’ll collect. Probably not right away. Sometime when she won’t see it coming.

  “Madam? Your coffee?”

  The waiter is back, and Lily’s hand with the spoon is hovering over the cup.

  She looks out the rain-glazed window, at the boxing club. As Hildy’s face crosses her mind, her heart pinches at remembering Hildy’s hurt expression when Lily had rebuffed her friend’s idea for helping uncover the truth about Thea. She hadn’t even bothered to find out what the idea was. Why, she’d lectured Leroy, the guard she’d fired, for not caring enough about the least among them, even quoting her favorite Bible scripture. And yet he’d helped her secure the prisoners away from the house until the danger was over. If she is not willing to do what she must for the most vulnerable—a frail, elderly woman with dementia who’d suffered a brutal end—she’ll always wonder, even if she wins the election, if she really deserved to be sheriff in her own right.

  Lily sighs. Maybe her request will be so pathetically small in Vogel’s world that he’ll forget to come collect. If not, she’ll have to trust herself to be clever enough to deal with his demands. Dealing with difficult choices—and making uneasy compromises—is also part of the job. She smiles at the waiter. “I’m sorry. I’ve changed my mind.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, inside the gymnasium, Lily presses her handkerchief to her nose. The smell of sweat and body odor is overwhelming. As in the restaurant, she is the only unaccompanied woman, but here that meant she’d already slapped away hands grabbing for her rear end.

  Determinedly, she forces herself through the crowd, down to the first row where George, Abe, and Fiona all sit. She’s almost there when a man grabs her arm this time. Without even glancing toward her, Abe lifts a hand. The man mutters something, but Lily can’t hear it as the crowd erupts when one of the boxers lands three fast blows on the other fighter. But he lets go of Lily’s arm and she stumbles forward.

  She slides past several people, who yelp in annoyance even at her temporarily blocking their view of the fight, and finally gets to George. There is nowhere to sit, so she stands in front of him, blocking his view. He looks up at her, and it is all Lily can do to not turn away
from his hollow dark eyes, the pleased grin that lifts his thick jowls, saying without words, Ah, Lily, at last. I knew you’d come to me someday.

  “Hey, lady, move your ass!” a man a few rows up shouts down at Lily.

  “Or get in the ring and put on your own show!” hollers his friend.

  Lily’s heart pounds, but not at the men’s crude catcalls. There is still time to back away—but abruptly, Abe stands, gives a curt nod to Fiona, who pointedly avoids looking at her as she follows Abe out to the aisle.

  George pats the seat next to him.

  Lily slowly sits next to George. She doesn’t want to look at him, but the sight before her—one boxer on top of the other, punching him repeatedly in his face—turns her stomach. She’s starting to regret her heavy meal. One referee pulls the top boxer off, and another kneels next to the one on the floor, counting to ten as the man goes still.

  “Mr. Vogel, I—”

  He holds his hand up.

  Lily waits for the count to come to a conclusion. Half the crowd roars with pleasure, while the other half groans at the outcome. George does not react. Surprised by his silence, Lily looks over at him. He looks not quite bored but not intrigued, either.

  Without looking at her, he says, “Tell me what you came for, Sheriff Ross. Or walk away now and we’ll pretend that you never tracked me down.”

  CHAPTER 30

  HILDY

  Friday, October 1—11:30 a.m.

  Hildy stirs the chicken noodle soup in her bowl. To her surprise, it smells delicious. Even more surprising, she is ravenous.

  Her hand trembles, though, and she can barely get the spoon to her mouth without dripping its contents back into the bowl. Finally, she slurps down a noodle and some broth.

  Tasty. Well seasoned. Not what she’d expected from lunch at the Hollows.

  In the next instant, her stomach roils. She gags—not at the taste or the smell, or even sitting packed onto a hard bench with so many others in the women’s dining hall. The soup hits her stomach wrong. She’s been nauseous, worse than her monthly menstrual cramps, since she woke up this morning. Her head—so woozy. Her skin—tingly, almost numb.