The Stills

by Jess Montgomery

  Lily had smiled at the anecdote. Ever since Caleb Jr.—same age as Micah, two years younger than Jolene—had figured out that he was their uncle, he’d tried to act like he was in charge of them.

  But her smile faded when she read Fiona’s note, scribbled in pencil—and, from the handwriting, in haste—on a penny candy bag.

  Wood alcohol swapped in delivery to Kinship Inn for tonight.

  That’s all the note says.

  But the import is much bigger.

  If Fiona’s note is telling the truth, tonight many people will be poisoned in the speakeasy. Lily has raided it a few times in the past year, but it always comes back.

  People will die.

  But why would George Vogel want to do such a thing?

  Is he trying to move in on another bootlegger’s turf?

  That doesn’t make sense. The speakeasy is mostly stocked by local moonshiners’ brew, or the occasional illicit bottle of homemade gin, or even wine fermented up from grape bricks.

  Surely this county is too small for him to care about. From what she’s read about his near arrests over the past year, questions arising about his claims that he’s simply creating legal Vogel’s Tonic, he must have bigger concerns than setting up shop in Bronwyn County.

  And yet—he’s married Fiona, who has ties here. Abe Miller has now been to her house twice, once with Luther, once with Fiona.

  Is George trying to send some sort of message by killing people?

  Or is Fiona being used to scare her, to bring Lily into a dangerous situation?

  The truth is, Lily doesn’t know what she’s walking into. But if lives are at risk, she needs to act—though both her head and shoulder are throbbing.

  Lily gives Jolene a friendly smile. “Honey, I need a proper sling to rest my shoulder. Could you take your mamaw with you upstairs and go fashion one out of a clean sheet?”

  Jolene looks so eager that Lily feels almost guilty knowing she won’t wear it once she’s at the Kinship Inn—she can’t conduct a raid in a sling, after all. Mama sighs, comes over to Lily, and cups her face with a cool, dry hand. She starts to say something but then gives her head a little shake before following her granddaughter, already running up the stairs.

  Lily looks at Benjamin. “Since you’re driving back to town anyway, would you mind—”

  “Yes, I mind.” Benjamin folds his arms. “Oh, I don’t mind driving you around, but I mind you not even considering asking me to do more.”

  Lily frowns. “What?”

  “You’re about to do something big, something dangerous. Probably something you’re going to need help with.” He waves his hands to shush her as she starts to protest. “Oh, I don’t mean ‘the little woman needs help’ kind of help. Don’t think me that much of a pig. I mean the sheriff needs help. A few deputies, maybe. But you’re not even considering asking me for help.”

  Lily stares at him. Starts to speak, then snaps her mouth shut again. Meets his glare with her own, then sees that he is well and truly miffed. That he is being serious.

  “Is it because I’m not from here?” Benjamin asks. “Because I’ve been here half a year, working among the miners, writing reports—which, yes, I know how soft that must sound, but to get the information, I’ve gone down in the mines with them—to do assessments on structure and practices, with the hope that safety can eventually be improved. I’ve talked to everyone who survived the Widowmaker explosion of ’24.”

  Lily’s eyes prickle. Her father, and Marvena’s first husband, were among the men who’d died in the aftermath, trying to save other miners, and then were buried alive. If Benjamin’s been talking to survivors, then he knows this.

  “And I care about people here. Lots of people.” He leans forward, cocks an eyebrow. “Some more than others. So, for God’s sake, if you need help, then let me help.”

  CHAPTER 20

  FIONA

  Friday, November 25, 1927

  6:00 p.m.

  “What are you doing in here?” Fiona demands.

  Klara jumps, turns from the dresser in Fiona’s old room, nearly dropping a framed photo she holds in her hand—the photo that had spilled out of her tote bag on one of the sharp curves on the drive over here.

  “Mr. Vogel told me that the two of you would take your aunt’s bigger room, now that she’s gone. And I should move in here,” Klara says stiffly.

  Across the small room, and without sickness to distract her, Fiona notes that the old photo is of a man and woman, a little boy.

  Fiona crosses to Klara, grabs the photo before the older woman can react, steps back. “Is this your family?” She asks the question gently, softly, as if probing a sensitive, never-healed wound, and from Klara’s expression, that is the case.

  Klara just nods. Fiona hands back the photo. “Must mean a lot to you, bringing that photo on even a brief trip.”

  “My husband. My son.”

  “From when you lived in Germany?”

  Klara’s eyes widen. “Yes.”

  “Abe mentioned them today. When he was driving me out to Sheriff Ross’s.”

  “Why—why would he bring them up?”

  “Oh—I was just trying to get to know him better. Asked how he met George, that he must have been George’s first friend here,” Fiona says. “He said no, you are a distant cousin to his mother—well, to him, too. And your families came here together.”

  Klara’s expression closes. “That is true.”

  Fiona bites her lip, looks down. “He said, well, he implied, that something tragic happened after you all came to Chicago.” He hadn’t, but that much was easy to guess. “That you—you had something to do with the tragedy?”

  A complete fabrication—but so easy to say, later, if called on it, that Klara must have misunderstood Fiona’s question. She waits a beat, looks up to see Klara’s face pale and drawn.

  “The boys—George, Abe, Ralf—they were playing in the street.”

  “Yes, Abe said he’d met George at school?”

  Klara nods. “Yes. And Abe was always around. He didn’t like being at his own home. His father was hard, cruel. Hard to imagine, but back then, Abe was a scrawny kid, picked on. George watched out for him, at least at school. My boy didn’t like him much, though—I think Abe picked on him, sometimes, just to have someone he could think he was bigger than. Anyway, one day Abe and Ralf argued over a ball, and George got mad and threw it—he meant no harm—but Ralf wanted to impress him, ran after the ball. He didn’t see the streetcar—” Klara forgets herself, brings her hands to her mouth, drops the photo—but Fiona catches it before it can fall to the floor.

  She studies the photo for a minute. After George’s nightmare, he’d said something about a boy running. A ball. Had guilt made him protect Klara? And had Klara blamed Abe this whole time for her boy’s horrific demise?

  Fiona puts the photo on her dresser, guides Klara to the edge of the bed, helps her sit down, sits next to her. “How—how tragic. I’m so sorry. And—and was there then a falling-out between George’s mother and father and your husband? Did he leave after? I mean, if he blamed your cousin’s son—” Of course, she knows from Abe that Klara’s husband died on the boat.

  Klara puts her face to her hands. “George’s father died back in Germany. My husband and I—we took pity on George and his mother. Thought we’d bring them over with us. But my husband died on the boat over. The four of us, we lived together. George’s mom and I worked at a clothing factory, took in washing, whatever we could do to make ends meet. George was just a boy, you see, but he had to watch after Ralf. George got tired of that, especially after he became friends with Abe, who was always over. Picking on Ralf. Putting George up to picking on him, too. I don’t blame George for what happened.”

  “I always get the sense George loved his mother very much,” Fiona says, hoping this will nudge more information from Klara.

  But now Klara is wiping her eyes, standing up. “I had all your things moved to the bigger bedroom.”


  “Thank you.” Fiona doesn’t stand up or make to leave, though. She puts her hand to her neck, by the red marks, gives her hand a little shake so her sleeve falls back and Klara can see the bruises on her arm.

  Klara frowns. “What happened to you?”

  Fiona drops her hand quickly, as if she hadn’t wanted Klara to see. “Abe,” Fiona says. “He—he got rough with me. Said George always trusted him before I was around, and I said, well, Abe didn’t always seem trustworthy—” Fiona stops, claps her hand to her mouth, as if horrified at sharing that she’d said this—when of course she wasn’t. “Oh God. Abe never mentioned Ralf, not by name. But he referenced an accident, said you should have been paying more attention.… Do you suppose he’s the one who threw that ball? Made George confess—or made George confused, and think he’d caused the accident?”

  Klara’s eyes narrow, and Fiona worries she’s pushed too far. “I paid as much attention as I could—especially since George’s mother was sickly much of the time. Abe has always been a bully.” There’s more to their stories than that, Fiona thinks. “Are you going to tell George?”

  “Oh—oh—no. I couldn’t.” Fiona widens her eyes. “With Abe saying George has always trusted him—well. Would George believe me?” She makes tears well, easily. At last, she stands. “I’m sorry to barge in on you. But I’m glad your photo didn’t break. I—I’m not feeling well. I’m skipping supper. Please tell George that I’m going to lie down for awhile and I’ll eat something light later.”

  CHAPTER 21

  LILY

  Friday, November 25, 1927

  8:30 p.m.

  Lily and the three men who’ve accompanied her as deputies—Benjamin and two others—enter the basement speakeasy of the Kinship Inn. For a moment, before they are spotted, the activities continue on as before: a poker game in one corner, other men and a few women talking at the few tables and at the bar. The bar is the only permanently affixed furniture; hastily assembled wooden tables and chairs fill the rest of the windowless room. Each table and the bar are lit by coal-oil lamps, behind which a makeshift counter holds bottles and glasses. In the side wall is the opening to a dumbwaiter for sending illicit drinks up to the hotel’s tiny restaurant or food down to the drinkers, but otherwise the walls are bare. A pall of cigar smoke thickens the air, along with side notes of alcohol and ladies’ perfume.

  As eyes settle on Lily, the room mutes. The hush soon breaks as patrons jump up and run.

  Lily had told her men to let them run—all except the barkeep. Her goal was to clear out the place tonight, have armed deputies around the Kinship Inn, put a stop to the delivery that Fiona had forewarned her of. Then she had a few questions for the barkeep.

  But something—instinct, maybe—makes Lily look to the other corner.

  It seems the room hushes and stills around her as she focuses on him.

  Luther.

  He’s with Arlie Whitcomb, Marvena’s cousin and the Holiness gospel deacon. But Arlie is just in the periphery of her vision.

  Once she spots him, her eyes do not leave Luther.

  Their gazes lock.

  Well, of course he’s here. Playing both sides. Always and only just for himself.

  But for a scant moment, his eyes widen. Shame? After all, just that morning, he’d been in her office, claiming to help the bureau. No sorrow floods his gaze. But not at being caught. Something deeper flickers. Regret. Maybe it’s just liquor loosening whatever smidge of humanity is left pooling at the bottom of his dark soul, but it strikes Lily that Luther’s regret is over a lost chance for connection. For forgiveness.

  In the next moment, without so much as a blink, a filament seems to fall over his eyes as they narrow and thin into pitiless, cold dashes. His cigarette falls to the table as he jumps up.

  Lily rushes toward him. She needs to catch him, show the bureau they can’t trust him.

  Luther shoves his ever-present flask in his hip pocket, then pulls out his gun from his front pocket. His hands shake.

  She draws her own weapon, and it remains still in her hand, ready to do her bidding.

  Lily coldly notes Luther’s expression transition to confusion, fear, wonderment: Would she really shoot him?

  For just a second, Daniel’s handsome face flashes before her. Bloodlust for vengeance at any cost rises scorching and thrumming. The sound of a woman screaming seems to come from a great distance, from far outside this room.

  Yes, yes, she would shoot him.

  She aims, wanting nothing more than to shoot Luther dead on the spot for his part in all the many threads that had been woven into a net that had snared Daniel from this life, from her. Recklessly, she doesn’t care what doing so might cost her later, what ramifications would inevitably thunder out from such a moment. She just wants the moment.

  But Arlie picks up a chair, throws it at her, and it crashes against her sore shoulder. The blinding, ricocheting pain is sufficient to make her hesitate for just a moment, and that hesitation is enough for Luther to escape from the room.

  From her grasp.

  * * *

  Mr. Kline, who serves as the speakeasy’s barkeep, pats his handkerchief across his brow. He’s sweating profusely, though the basement storeroom is so cold.

  He waves his sweaty handkerchief at a crate. The gesture is enough to nearly tip his considerable girth from the edge of the stool. “The crate doesn’t look any different than usual. I don’t know what arrangements either Mr. Williams or Mr. Bennett makes—if they both make them, or just one of them.” He’s referring to the hotel manager, who resides on premise, and the hotel owner, who happens to be a county commissioner. In the past two raids, Lily’s interviewed each of them and both denied any knowledge of the speakeasy. It keeps popping back open, though, so the notion that they aren’t aware of its existence is poppycock. “Usually, the crates arrive Sunday nights.”

  Sure, Lily thinks. Fewer eyes on the streets, in the alleyway.

  “But this time, it came this afternoon?” Lily asks. She sits on another stool near Mr. Kline. Benjamin stands by the door.

  Mr. Kline nods.

  “I noticed Luther Ross was here—along with an unlikely friend, Arlie Whitcomb. A cousin of Marvena Whitcomb Sacovech’s.”

  Mr. Kline shrugs. “So?”

  “Have you seen Luther here often, recently?”

  “Just tonight.”

  “Was he acting unusual? Did you overhear him say anything of note?”

  “He did seem agitated—more so than I remember him being in the past, at least,” Mr. Kline says. “He asked me and a few others if we’d been bothered by, or seen, a revenuer.”

  Lily lifts an eyebrow. Did he mean Special Agent Barnaby Sloan? Barnaby had said he was heading back up to Columbus.

  “Did he describe or name this revenuer?”

  “Didn’t give a name. Said he was younger, skinny.”

  So, not Barnaby. But that could describe Colter DeHaven. Barnaby had said Colter wouldn’t arrive in Columbus until today—but Zebediah had been firm in saying the revenuer he’d seen shot, whom he’d tried to get to the Pentecostal church, was Colter.

  “Did he mention any injuries to the man?” Lily asks.

  “No,” Mr. Kline says.

  “Well, what did you—or others—tell him?”

  “I told him no—hadn’t been bothered by any revenuers. Can’t speak for anyone else, told him. I was too busy serving drinks—until you showed up.”

  Lily looks at the crate. “Newly arrived?”

  Kline shrugs.

  Lily turns to Benjamin. “Do you mind opening the crate? My shoulder—”

  Benjamin grabs a crowbar and levers open the top.

  She studies the box, full of unlabeled bottles. Lily pulls out a bottle, opens it. A quick sniff—it smells like regular alcohol. She crosses to Mr. Kline, sticks the bottle under his nose.

  “Does this smell like the usual stuff?”

  He shrugs. “Stronger. But sure.”
<
br />   “You’d have served it.”

  “Yes.” He sighs. “And most folks would have liked that it’s stronger. How many nights am I going to be in lockup this time?”

  “One, maybe two,” Lily says.

  But it’s widely rumored that the judge enjoys the occasional cocktail, though usually in the privacy of his home. So he will most likely let Mr. Kline off with another warning.

  “There’s a way to test if this contains methanol that’s more telling than smell,” Benjamin says. “My chemistry background might come in handy for you.”

  * * *

  Outside, in the alley behind the Kinship Inn, Lily trains her flashlight so Benjamin can see to work quickly. Mr. Kline is standing next to her, curious. She knows he’s not going to run off, so she hasn’t bothered to handcuff him or walk him to the jail just yet.

  Benjamin drops a handkerchief into an empty metal bucket. Then he pours a generous portion of the alcohol from the new shipment into the bucket.

  “Watch for the color of the flame,” he says. “Yellow would mean the alcohol content is ethanol—potable. Pale blue—it would be nearly invisible in the day—means this contains methanol.”

  “Methanol? Ain’t that what’s been talked about in news stories about big-city liquor?” Mr. Kline says. “That stuff can kill you!”

  Benjamin steps several feet back, lights a cigarette, inhales deeply so that a goodly portion of the cigarette’s tip flames orange. Then, quickly, he flicks the cigarette into the bucket, at the same time that he jumps back into the darkness.

  The flames jump high, over the bucket’s rim. Yellow flames.

  This alcohol—though illegal—isn’t the lethal methanol.

  Why would Fiona have left her a note, sent her on a raid that was—at least in terms of stopping the serving of methanol—pointless? Especially given how risky it would be to do so in the presence of Abe Miller?