Grave Danger

by Rachel Grant

  “I was only sixteen when my mother died,” Laura continued. “My brothers Earl and James were even younger. Billy was eighteen, but he went off to fight the war in ’42. Daddy’d been running the company since 1920, so it made sense for him to stay in charge. As we got older, we each took on jobs and responsibility for the company. Yes, I managed the hotel and restaurant. I worked there from my eighteenth birthday until I retired in 1995. Earl took over property management, which he still does, and James ran the logging operation, which closed down in 1999.”

  “What about Billy?”

  “When he got back from the war, he tried to take over management of the sawmill, but Daddy didn’t think he was ready for such a big job. Earl and James agreed.” She paused, and then added quietly, “Eventually, so did I. Billy worked alongside Daddy to learn the ins and outs of sawmill management. He was preparing to take over. But that never happened because Daddy outlived him by seven years.”

  The Montgomery family operated on a business structure that resembled a monarchy. No new king until the old one died. Libby searched for a way to introduce a subject closer to her research questions. “Did the hotel employ any Indians under your management?”

  “Oh Lord no! You can’t trust an Indian to do an honest day’s work.”

  “Aunt Laura,” Jason said. “You can’t say things like that.”

  “Let her speak, Jason,” Libby said, knowing she wasn’t defending the elderly woman so much as trapping her. “What about logging?” she said quickly to keep the interview momentum going. “Did any of the Kalahwamish do any logging for TL&L?”

  “Yes. They were cheap labor.”

  “So they were paid less than their white counterparts?”

  Laura’s eyes hardened. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “It was dangerous work,” Libby added.

  Laura said nothing more.

  Libby made a note to check the mill’s personnel records to see what the standard compensation for Indians had been. Jason couldn’t sue her for including information documented in TL&L’s ledgers.

  The more she learned about the discrimination the Kalahwamish people had suffered at TL&L, the more she understood why Rosalie wanted this part of the history of Coho documented. But, if it was any comfort to the local tribe, Lyle hadn’t treated his white employees much better.

  “I do remember one time when an Indian worked in the mill management office. In the early fifties, I think. Billy hired him. Daddy caught the man stealing and beat him, then threw him out. No Indian was hired to work in mill management after that.”

  Billy was Jason’s grandfather. Emotion flickered in Jason’s eyes, but it passed before she could discern his reaction to Laura’s words.

  The interview continued for another forty-five minutes. For Libby’s report, the conversation went splendidly. Laura continued to say things to paint the management of TL&L in the worst possible light with her racist comments. Sickened by Laura’s words, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for this woman who was raised with the anger and hate of a bigot like Lyle Montgomery. Who could Laura have been if she’d been born into a different family?

  When Laura and her dog left the room, she looked satisfied that she’d vented some of her hostility, but Libby suspected she’d end up regretting their conversation.

  Jason went in search of his Uncle Earl and returned with a wary-looking Earl in tow. She changed the cassette and hit record. She asked for permission to tape the interview and include the transcription in the report. His softly voiced “Yes” would protect her legally, but once again she wondered whether she’d pay a karmic price.

  Yesterday she had conducted oral interviews with different mill workers, gathering as much information as she could about the settlement and management of TL&L. She had heard stories that Millie Thorpe Montgomery unwillingly gave up control of her company to her husband. Kicking and screaming, they’d said. One man commented that Lyle did the kicking, Millie the screaming. Some of those kicks broke Millie’s ribs. Libby wanted to hear the official Montgomery version of events. “Your mother, Millie Thorpe Montgomery, ran the mill from the time of her grandfather’s death in 1919 until she married your father in 1920. Then Lyle took over at TL&L. I’m wondering what you, Earl, and Laura were told about how that came about. Was the transition smooth?”

  “My mother had no business running a sawmill,” Earl said.

  “My understanding is that her grandfather,” Libby glanced at the family tree, “Andrew Thorpe, practically raised her in the mill management office. I would think she’d have known quite a bit about running the mill.”

  “That was before I was born. But the woman I knew could never have held such an important job.”

  Sadly, Libby suspected this statement was true. By the time Millie had Earl, she’d been married to Lyle for eight years. In that time, she’d had two late-term miscarriages and given birth to four babies, three of which survived. Libby couldn’t help but wonder whether the miscarriages had been caused by Lyle’s beatings. Earl’s memories would only be of the grieving mother and defeated wife who’d lived in fear.

  Jason sat in the same seat as before. His face remained impassive, and Libby wondered what he knew about his great-grandfather’s abuse of his wife. Given their lunchtime conversation, she didn’t think he’d volunteer the information.

  “Laura told me her job at TL&L was running the hotel. I understand you took over property management when you turned eighteen.”

  “Yes.”

  Libby reminded herself not to be vague. To get him to talk, she’d need to ask pointed questions. “So your job was to manage the employee housing. There were many Indians who worked for the logging operation, and some who worked for the mill, but I’ve found no records to indicate any tribal members lived in company housing. Why is that?”

  “The loggers lived in tents in logging camps,” Earl said.

  “And the mill workers?”

  “The Indians preferred to live with their own kind on the reservation.”

  “But wasn’t it company policy to exclude them from housing?”

  “No, they didn’t want to live in the TL&L houses.”

  “That seems odd. The mill houses were, and are, constructed better than the reservation homes. On the reservation, you might find two or three families living in one small house. I would think they might prefer a mill home.”

  “Libby,” Jason said, casting her a warning look.

  She knew she traversed a fine line. She’d managed to get her opinion into the transcript. It wasn’t exactly what Rosalie wanted, but it would suffice.

  Earl looked at Libby with unflinching coldness. “If you aren’t going to listen to my answers, Ms. Maitland, then I hardly see the point of this interview.” He stood and left the room.

  Jason leaned forward and picked up her tape recorder. She fought the urge to grab it back. He wouldn’t erase her words, would he? With Earl’s last statement, she would look worse in the transcript than he would.

  To her relief, Jason only hit the stop button. “I know what you’re doing,” he said.

  “I’m doing my job.”

  “You could try your best, but fail. Rosalie can’t fault you for that.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to fail. Maybe I want to accomplish what Rosalie asked for.” And for the first time, she realized she did. Millie’s nightmare spoke to her on a very personal level.

  “I’m watching your face as you ask these questions, and I can see that you’re bothered. You don’t like putting them on the spot.”

  “No. I don’t. I feel sorry for Laura and Earl.”

  “But you’re going to publish the transcripts. That’s going to make them look bad.”

  “Yes,” she said softly. Guilt stabbed at her. “Jason, I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing it to get your father his permit. I’m doing it for Coho, which will benefit from the jobs the Cultural Center will bring. It’s business. I’d expect you to understand.”


  He stood and handed her the tape recorder. “I’ll get James.” He left the room.

  She pulled out the cassette and broke off the tab that allowed the tape to be recorded over, and then labeled the tape with the date and Earl’s name and tucked it away in her bag.

  James entered the room behind Jason. James was the first of the Montgomerys to greet her with a handshake and a smile. “Let me guess,” he said, “Laura was belligerent and Earl didn’t say anything?”

  Libby smiled with genuine relief. This interview looked promising. “Before we start, I need your permission to tape this and publish the transcript in the report.”

  “Sure. So, what do you want to know?”

  “What I really want to know is: was your father the bastard everyone says?”

  “He was worse.”

  Jason gave her a hand signal she interpreted as him taking his hat off to her. He leaned back, but she still felt his sharp scrutiny.

  James sat at the edge of his chair and looked eager to speak. “What I really want to talk about is Billy.”

  “Why Billy?”

  “He was the best of us. Jason here, his grandson, takes after him. You can write whatever you want about my father, but you need to balance the bad with the good that my brother did.”

  “What did Billy do?”

  “Billy arranged the secret meetings that launched the first union strike in 1946. He knew Momma would have wanted him to. Momma hated the way our father ran the company. Billy was smarter than the three of us put together. My biggest regret is being browbeaten into voting with Earl and Laura to give our father his way. If I’d voted with Billy, it would have been a tie. We would have had to compromise.”

  “Billy didn’t agree with Lyle?”

  “Never. The two were always at odds. At first, Billy fought him in the open, challenging his decisions and demanding that things be run differently. But Lyle was relentless and would convince Earl, Laura, and me to oppose Billy. So Billy found other ways to get around Lyle. Everyone suspects it was Billy who got the union going. He didn’t just arrange the secret meetings. He also must be the one who selected the strike date that would best serve the union. At least our mother had one kid to be proud of.”

  Millie Thorpe Montgomery was at the center of all that interested Libby in this heartbreaking family saga. The bright, vibrant girl who’d married badly. “Tell me about your mother.”

  “I was only ten when she died, but I know her grandfather raised her to run the mill. She cared about Coho and the mill and all the people who worked there. I understand she was a different woman, vivacious and warm, before she married my father and let him take over.”

  “I’ve asked your sister and brother this, it’s important. Did she give up control willingly?”

  “No,” James said. “He used his fists to convince Momma to give up control. People here played dumb and acted like she betrayed them each time she signed another legal document that my father needed from her. But they all knew he beat her into it. We all knew. My earliest memories are of my father backhanding her across the room, grabbing her by the hair. Even threatening us, if she didn’t do what he wanted.

  “People blamed Momma. But no one stood up for her. No one protected her. And us.” He looked down. “I hope some of them will begin to understand if they know the truth. Your report can do that for her.”

  According to Rosalie, Libby’s job was to give the tribe a voice. Now James wanted her to speak for Millie. Yesterday a mill worker eagerly told her the story of how Lyle fired people for the absurd cause of calling his home “Thorpe House.” Everywhere she turned, she found people begging for vindication because Lyle Montgomery had mistreated them. She feared the list of grievances was endless.

  She interviewed James for over an hour, changing the tape several times. Unlike the interview with Laura, it was a pleasant conversation and would give her plenty to work with. Finally, James stood and reached out a hand to her. “It’s been a pleasure, Ms. Maitland. I look forward to reading your report.”

  She quickly packed up her things and then stepped out the front door onto the wide front porch to wait for Jason as he shared a private conversation with James. She stared out over the town that unfolded below them. More than a hundred homes owned by TL&L were laid out in an even grid pattern, with the largest houses positioned closest to the seat of power.

  It was here, on this porch, that Lyle had stood and viewed his domain. He probably felt as if he ruled the world. Behind him, inside the house, lived the wife and children he controlled through pain and fear. In front of him were the homes of his employees, people he controlled with low pay, poor working conditions, and the ever-present threat of firing and eviction.

  Libby took a deep breath of sea air, hoping to cleanse her lungs and her mind from the oppressive thoughts. She looked down on the Shelby house across the road from Discovery Bay, pleased her borrowed home was as far from the Montgomery mansion as possible.

  Jason joined her on the porch. “Well, I think you got what you were looking for,” he said with mild sarcasm.

  “Are you going to cause legal trouble for me?”

  “At this point, my actions will all depend on the presentation. You’re smart, Libby. Legally, I can’t stop you from publishing the transcripts.” He sighed. “Aunt Laura was a real piece of work. Nice job getting her to vent. Usually opinions like hers are only shared in the safety and comfort of a Klan meeting.”

  She smiled. “Now tell me what you really think.”

  He laughed and stepped off the porch.

  She followed. “You’re just angry with her because she spoke so frankly. I’m appalled by her views, but I realize where they came from. Personally, I feel sorry for her. For all of them. Everyone I talk to has a grievance with Lyle.”

  “Be grateful you never met him.”

  “I am. What was your relationship with him?”

  Jason looked sideways at her as they strolled across the lawn to the front gate. “Is this for your report?”

  “Personal curiosity. Off the record question.”

  “He was the meanest sonofabitch I’ve ever met. And that includes some of the scumbags I’ve defended in my law practice.” He stopped in front of a rose bush. “And no, I won’t elaborate, even off the record.” He reached out and plucked a perfect flower just on the cusp of opening. He offered the rose to her.

  Pleasure mixed with dread. Maybe Simone was right about Jason. Maybe he wanted to be something more than a legal advisor. She reached for the flower, noticing for the first time that he’d rolled up his sleeves, exposing his skin. On his forearms were several long scratches. Scrapes he could have gotten from blackberry vines.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOURS LATER, AFTER INTERVIEWING a few Kalahwamish tribal members, Libby returned to the Shelby house. The disturbing encounter with Jason weighed heavily on her mind. She considered calling Mark and telling him about the scratches she’d seen on Jason’s arms, but wondered how that would be perceived. And if Jason got wind of it, what would it mean for her relationship with her client?

  But if Jason had been hiding in the bushes, he wouldn’t want her to see the scratches, she reasoned. And scratches weren’t conclusive evidence. Telling Mark would probably cause her trouble, make her seem as if she were overreacting again. She would, however, remain guarded in her interactions with Jason.

  Tired, she headed for the staircase, looking forward to a long, hot soak in the claw-foot bathtub. She came to a surprised halt on the upstairs landing. Bright light spilled into the hallway from under the door of her office. She approached the room slowly, wondering whether she was being foolish—foolish for being afraid, or foolish for entering the room, she didn’t know which.

  She turned the knob, and pulled the door toward her, glad that this door opened outward, and therefore couldn’t serve as a hiding place for anyone inside the room. She scanned the room, and then slowly stepped inside. She circled her desk, opening drawers. Everything
looked normal. She sat in her comfy desk chair, noticed the flashing light on the answering machine, and hit the play button. The voice message was short and sweet: “Back off, bitch.”

  She dropped her head to the desk. Caller ID had said “Blocked” but she recognized the voice: Aaron. Dammit.

  With a deep breath, she stood from her desk and looked around the room one more time but didn’t see anything out of place, so she flipped the switch and left the room. She must have left the light on this morning.

  She started to head to her bedroom, when another dim light under the door of the adjacent office caught her eye. Simone had a key to the house, and she used this office. Maybe she came by today?

  She pushed open the door and glanced inside. The light table glowed eerily in the otherwise dark room. She slowly approached the table.

  A piece of paper rested on the bright surface, a photocopy of an October 1940 newspaper article, which she’d made at the library just that morning. The headline read: MILLICENT MONTGOMERY DIES IN FIERY CAR ACCIDENT.

  There was no doubt in her mind. She had left that page in her office on her desk this morning with the rest of the copies she’d made at the library. A tremor began at the back of her neck and spread the length of her body. Was this a warning? A threat?

  She should call the police, but feared that once again, no one would believe her.

  A loud bang sounded and she jumped.

  Ohmygod. The door to her office had slammed shut. Someone else was here. She raced down the stairs and out the front door as she dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone.

  “MS. MONTGOMERY, I REALIZE YOU’RE UPSET, but I can’t arrest Ms. Maitland for stealing an arrowhead based on nothing more than your belief that she took it.” Mark stood in the stark foyer of the Montgomery mansion with Luke Roth and Laura Montgomery. He’d been called there on his night off because Laura felt her charges deserved none other than the police chief’s attention. He wouldn’t have given in to her demands, except Libby was involved and somewhere along the line, he’d begun to feel protective of her.