The Stills

by Jess Montgomery

  “So was it an accident or did someone kill him?” George asks.

  “I don’t know,” Lily says. “That’s why I’m trying to establish exactly when Luther arrived, who he might have interacted with. But from your testimony, he came here on Thursday and the only time he would have had to see others was between late Thursday night and whenever he died, probably in the early hours of this morning. I’m hoping to find Arlie Whitcomb, who may be the last person who saw Luther alive. You’re all sure you don’t know Arlie, or where he is?” Silence. “If anyone has a sudden recollection about Arlie, let me know.” She stands up, stares down at Elias, who is now bent forward, head in his hands, crying softly. “But you’re free to arrange for his burial. His body is at the funeral home.”

  Lily pauses. Fiona watches her carefully, sees that Lily is trying to decide whether or not to say what’s on her mind. Does she know about the revenuer? She’s a law woman—would the bureau have already been in touch with Lily, if they think their man is missing?

  In spite of her best intentions to remain calm, her face flushes. She’s afraid of Lily Ross.

  Lily pulls Fiona’s gloves out of her pocket, walks over to Fiona, holds the pair out to her. “Oh, I almost forgot. You left these at my house the other day. You might want them. Feels like another winter storm is coming.”

  Fiona takes the gloves. Abe is looking at her, so she just coolly tucks them into the pocket of Aunt Nell’s bulky sweater, while patting Elias with absent-mindedly offered comfort as Lily says to George, “If I learn anything new about Luther, I’m assuming I can return with the information without fear of one of your men shooting me?”

  George chuckles. “I suppose. Depending on why you’re returning.”

  Lily’s only response is to arch an eyebrow.

  As she leaves, the man accompanying her follows, and Fiona finally interprets how he looks at Lily: With admiration, yes. But also respect.

  No one, certainly not a man, has ever looked at her like that.

  CHAPTER 27

  LILY

  Saturday, November 26, 1927

  4:30 p.m.

  Dusk drapes the hills and nestles into the hollers by the time Lily and Benjamin are on the topmost rise of Kinship Road, just before plunging into the coal town still called Rossville, though Wessex Corporation now rules. Lily can barely see to add to the notes she’s been writing out on the drive over, but she quickly looks them over.

  So, on late Thursday afternoon Luther had left with Abe Miller from the Murphy farm to get medicine for Elias. They’d arrived at Dr. Goshen’s, then, sometime after 4:00 p.m. They’d come to Lily’s later that evening, looking for Dr. Goshen, then gone back to the doctor’s house, gotten the medicine in the evening. But for some reason, after getting the medicine Luther had entrusted Abe with it and not returned to the Murphy farm that night or at any point since—assuming George and Fiona and Elias were telling the truth.

  On Friday morning, Luther had turned up at her office with Barnaby and both men claimed Luther was working undercover for the Bureau of Prohibition. Luther said he’d arrived in Bronwyn County on Thursday, along with George and Elias and Abe—but they could have easily been lying. On the other hand, they seemed genuinely surprised at the news of his death.

  Yet she’s verified he did not check in at the Kinship Inn before Thursday, and Benjamin had confirmed for her that Luther also hadn’t checked in Friday night. He hadn’t been back to the Murphy place. So where had he been staying? With Arlie?

  After all, Lily and Benjamin spotted him at the Kinship speakeasy on Friday night. He ran off with Arlie and, according to Hildy, turned up in Rossville and had a run-in with her, Marvena, Tom, and Jurgis—an event that Lily needs to check into.

  Then Luther turned up dead in Rossville on Saturday, the next morning, from a poisonous snakebite, according to Dr. Goshen’s assessment.

  Lily finally closes her notebook and stares out at the stark iced tree limbs flickering by as Benjamin drives slowly on the slick road. His carefulness, for one thing, had ensured she could write out her notes. Even more than his caution, Lily appreciates that he’s been silent since they left the Murphy farm. She senses that he’s unsettled by how cold she’d been about Luther’s death and in delivering that news to Elias, but he hasn’t asked her to explain.

  She wouldn’t know exactly what to say if he did ask. She can’t imagine revealing, not yet, the complete truth about how Luther and Elias betrayed Daniel in ways that led to his death.

  Seeing Luther had been unpleasant, but she’d never cared for him in the first place. He’d always been crude and unkind, always mocked Daniel as a “half-breed” because Daniel’s mother—the second wife of his and Luther’s father—was Indian.

  But Elias—brother to the father of Daniel and Luther—had been more like a father to Daniel than an uncle. Elias’s steady, constant presence had been a source of comfort and reassurance while Daniel was away in the Great War.

  Elias’s betrayal had rent her to her depths, left behind a rankling cold thorn. Seeing him had only ripped her open again, made her see that all this time since Daniel’s death she’d just been pushing that thorn deeper, as if she could bury it.

  Benjamin pulls to a stop in front of one of the squat, simple miners’ houses that line up along either side of the road like sentries.

  “Is this the right one?” Benjamin’s question is the first time he’s spoken on the drive.

  Lily looks at the house, the neat lace curtains in the window, the handmade wreath on the door. Hildy’s touches, though Hildy doesn’t live here—not officially at least. Lily suspects her friend spends more nights here, in Tom’s house, than she does in her own.

  “Yes,” Lily says. “It’s Tom’s place.”

  She should get out, go inside, get a move on with interrogating Tom, and later Jurgis and Marvena, about their encounters with Luther. Lily swallows hard, her stomach turning at the awfulness of having to interrogate her friends about the murder of a man she reviles.

  “I can go in, or I can stay here, either way,” Benjamin says.

  Lily looks at him, his dark eyes wide and encompassing, while he waits for her to tell him what she wants.

  All at once, what she wants is to not have to ask anything of anyone. Lily wants to pull him to her, feel his warmth, his touch, his kindness. For that to be enough to at last expel the venomous cold that’s rankled deep inside her all along since Daniel’s death, numbing her from the inside out, as if her soul has been frostbitten.

  But Benjamin cannot heal her. Only time, and her own choice to let go of the cold deep inside her, can do that. Maybe then she’ll be ready for Benjamin. Or someone like him. She has no way to know when that might be, though.

  “It’s up to you,” she says.

  Lily opens the automobile door, steps out into the cold, shuts the door behind her. She forces herself to stare straight ahead as she ascends the porch steps.

  But when she hears Benjamin get out of his automobile and follow her, she smiles, just a little, to herself.

  * * *

  Tom’s company-owned house is crowded: Jurgis, Marvena, Nana, and Frankie have come down from Marvena’s cabin on this Saturday night to share supper and, Lily guesses, to face her together. From their somber expressions, Hildy has forewarned them.

  As Lily and Benjamin take off their coats and get settled, Nana shoos Frankie and Alistair into the kitchen to help her make rolls for Sunday morning breakfast. Warm, sweet scents soon waft out, as does Nana’s tender fussing at the children not to eat all of the sugar-cinnamon filling—a rare treat—before it can be used in the rolls.

  Here, in the tiny room—Jurgis and Marvena on a small couch, the rest of them on kitchen table chairs pulled from around the table—the atmosphere is cold, even with the coal-fired stove in the kitchen warming up the house.

  “I’m here to talk with each of you about the death of Luther Ross,” Lily says. “Now, I haven’t seen any of you since Thanksgiv
ing at my house”—dear Lord, has it only been two days since they’d all gathered at her house, cheerfully enjoying one another’s company, no idea of the storm that was to descend on all of them?—“except Hildy when she fetched me this morning, and Tom and Jurgis briefly after I arrived to the scene of Luther’s being found. I won’t say ‘murder’ site, because I don’t believe he was killed outside the coal-mining company. I spent a good deal of time with Marvena on Friday. Yet it was Hildy who told me this morning that you all had run-ins with Luther both Thursday night and last night after the barn dance.”

  “Started to tell you on Friday about the night before,” Marvena mumbles, still looking down at her nervously clasped hands, “but in the end, I didn’t. Had a fool hope that his presence would amount to nothing. But that vermin ain’t nothing but trouble.”

  “Just speak plain, Marvena,” Lily says.

  “You don’t have to speak at all!” Jurgis snaps. He puts his hand on Marvena’s back, a tender gesture that, in spite of the stifling tension, Lily is relieved to observe. He might be disappointed in what he sees as Marvena’s lack of faith, but he still believes in her.

  Marvena takes Jurgis’s hand into her own, and finally, she’s no longer twitching. “After we left your place, Jurgis and me, we got into a fight over what I done. He said I ain’t given our church’s way the time it needs. Then Tom got into it, defending me, and Nana and the children got upset, and Hildy used her toughest schoolmarm voice to shut us all up.”

  Despite the grimness of Marvena’s description, Lily allows herself a small grin.

  “We went on in silence, until we got here. Hildy was helping them unload things, before heading to her place, of course—” Well, more likely, from Hildy’s blush, she was going to stay the night, and though Lily knows that’s frowned upon, she can’t help but think, Good for you, Hildy. A twinge of envy, that Hildy can embrace love again, spikes Lily’s heart. She twists on the chair, tries to find a more comfortable angle. “And we were fixing to load up the mule cart, and figure how to get Nana and Frankie to it without waking them up—they’d fallen asleep the last little bit of the drive—when, well, Luther staggered by. He was by himself—no hired men with him. So drunk, he was staggering around like a rabid racoon. Meaner, too. Spotted us, started yelling that he’d show me. That’s all he said—I’ll show you. Like he was fixing to do something.”

  “You sure he put it like that, like he’d do something in the future?”

  Marvena nods. “That’s what he said. Then again, his speech was slushy.”

  Lily considers what she’d already wondered—could Luther have shot Colter, left him for dead at Marvena’s still, make it seem like Marvena had killed him? “Go on.”

  But Jurgis speaks next. “Lily, I shouted at Luther to get lost. I know I shouldna ’cause of course that just egged on the sot. He laughed, said he was back, had been back for a while and staying at the boardinghouse in Rossville, right under our noses.”

  Ah. So everyone at the Murphy farm today—Elias and George, Abe and Fiona, even the housekeeper, Klara—had lied. Luther has been back in the area for a while, but not staying at the Kinship Inn. Staying, instead, at the boardinghouse.

  That would put him in the area at the same time as Colter. And could explain how he might have run into Arlie, who lives in this part of the county.

  “He said we were all too dumb to catch on,” Jurgis is saying, “and that soon he’d have Wessex Corporation sell the mine back to him and it’d be Ross Mining again and he didn’t have to listen to miners and their—well, he used an unsavory term.”

  Hildy glances at the entry to the kitchen, where the children and Nana are still caught up in their own chatter. She leans forward, whispers, “He said ‘whores,’ Lily. He called us whores.”

  “Oh God.” Lily swallows hard. Though no one cares about Luther’s opinion, words like that still sting. Her gaze is drawn to Benjamin, to wonder what he thinks of all this, but she can’t read his face. He is calm. Inscrutable.

  “But we ignored him,” Tom adds, “until he ran over and grabbed Alistair by the arm. Alistair was about to shake him off, but Luther just spit in my boy’s face. Said he’d be back in the mines soon. And this time, he’d see to it that a dynamite blast would lay open his guts and what little brains he has.”

  Lily’s teeth clench until she feels the pressure in her temples. How had they kept from killing Luther on the spot?

  “Well, I started beating on Luther, first to get him off Alistair,” Tom confesses. “But then I couldn’t stop—”

  “And I joined in,” Jurgis says. “I wanted to kill him, Lily.”

  “We all did,” Marvena says.

  Even Hildy nods.

  Well, Lily doesn’t blame them for such feelings. Maybe even for acting on the impulse, as awful as Luther has been to all of them in the past. But the rule of law applies, even to one as loathsome as Luther. Maybe especially. If exceptions are made, where are those lines drawn?

  “Hildy put a stop to it,” Marvena says. “By then, Nana and Frankie were awake, and terrified. Hildy pulled Alistair out of the melee, ordered Jurgis and Tom to stop acting like damned fools. They released Luther—and Hildy looked him dead in the eye, told him to get his sorry ass—them’s her words—outta her sight.”

  Lily can’t help but look at her once quiet friend. How she’s changed and grown. She gives Hildy a small smile.

  But Hildy says, “I’m not proud of what happened—of any of us.”

  Lily nods. “You did the right thing, telling me that you all saw Luther Thursday night. But you said you saw him here yesterday as well—that had to be after Benjamin and I saw Luther at the Kinship Inn. I’d gotten a tip that wood alcohol would be swapped into the speakeasy supply. We didn’t find it. But I did see Luther at the speakeasy, along with your cousin, Marvena—Arlie. Any idea where he might be? Or why he was with Luther?”

  “Heard tell Arlie moved from his old cabin,” Marvena says. “Not sure exactly where to. Brother Stiles might know. But Arlie, well, he always did have a predilection for trouble—”

  “He was saved just a few months ago, baptized in the river—” Jurgis protests.

  “Well, I reckon he’s backslid!” Marvena snaps. “Seems to be in our blood.”

  “Now, Marvena—” Tom starts to admonish his sister, but Hildy gives his hand a squeeze, and he hushes.

  “So you don’t know why Luther and Arlie would have taken up?” Lily asks.

  “No,” Marvena says. “I even approached Arlie when I went back to—well, you know. Brewing. But he said he wouldn’t do it, warned me not to. Told me to just have faith.” Her gaze softens with worry as she looks toward the kitchen. From the sounds of it, the children have settled down, fallen under Nana’s spell, but Frankie is singing a hymn. Her sweet voice is so clear, so steady, that it’s hard to imagine the same child can be wracked with asthmatic attacks.

  “All right.” Dark is already falling. Lily will have to wait until the next day to track down Arlie. “I need to ask where each of you were last night, after eight p.m.”

  Hildy starts to speak, but Tom cuts her off. “Hildy, you don’t have to—”

  “It’s all right,” Hildy reassures him. She looks evenly at Lily as if daring her to pass judgment. “I was here, with Tom. Alistair can vouch for Tom. I’m sure neighbors can, too.”

  Lily nods. She has no inclination to pass judgment on Hildy. Her passing thought is, Good for you. For both of you. Then she refocuses on the question at hand.

  “And I’m guessing Marvena and Jurgis, you can vouch for each other, and Frankie and Nana can also—”

  But Marvena abruptly stands. “Friday night, we had another special prayer meeting, for Dora Harkins. And for Frankie. Arlie showed up, with Luther.”

  “Why was Luther there?” Lily is taken aback. Luther was not the spiritual type.

  “I don’t know how or why they connected Friday night—or before—but Arlie had some cockeyed idea that Lu
ther could find God. Be redeemed. They were both drunk, though.” Marvena snorts with disgust.

  Jurgis tries to pull her back into her chair. “Marvena, no, you don’t gotta—”

  But Marvena holds her ground, slaps his hand away. “It’s better this way, Jurgis. You just take care of Frankie for me.” Tears are running down her face when she looks back at Lily, but Lily knows they’re not for what Marvena is about to confess. They’re tears of worry for her child. She’d do anything—sacrifice anything—for Frankie. “Well, Luther disrupted our service. Some of the men pulled him out. And I ran after him. I—I was handling a rattler. He’d gotten away, but had fallen down. I set the snake upon him, Lily. I killed him with that snake. I tossed the snake into the woods, and Luther staggered away.”

  Jurgis stands, too, puts his arm around his wife. “She’s just saying that to protect me. After he got bitten, I ran after Luther, caught up to him, and beat him up. Left him unconscious in the woods. I didn’t come back home until late in the night. I knew I’d killed him.”

  Lily looks at Marvena, then at Jurgis. Maybe both of them are lying. Maybe only one, to protect the other. But neither is going to say they believe the other murdered Luther.

  “You realize what you have done? You’ve both confessed to murder. I’m going to have to bring you both in—at least for a few days, until I can get this truly sorted out.”

  Lily looks at Benjamin. His demeanor remains still, calculated, and Lily can’t help but take comfort in his steadiness. “I need you to do me a favor. Could you go to the boardinghouse, see if they’ll tell you when Luther arrived?”

  She returns her attention to Marvena and Jurgis. “I’ll wait here, while you let Frankie and Nana know that you need to come to town with me for a bit.” She fights back tears as she sees them streaming down Marvena’s face and turns to Hildy and Tom. Hildy’s chin quivers, but she, too, holds back her tears. “Maybe Nana and Frankie can stay here?”

  “Of course,” says Tom.