The Stills

by Jess Montgomery

  Lily and Barnaby exchange looks, Barnaby bewildered and Lily concerned. If Zebediah is not at the hospital—but also not here—then where the hell is he?

  A sickening possibility grips her.

  “Actually—” Lily starts.

  But Barnaby gives her a small frown and a discreet shake of his head.

  “Thank you so much, sir,” Barnaby says. He stands up. His eyes soften, and his face widens with genuine sympathy. “I’m so sorry for your loss. And that we’ve intruded on you at this time. I—I’ll be praying for you.”

  Leroy looks up, surprised, and then grateful. Barnaby is sincere. Something in his eyes conveys that he’s suffered so much loss, too.

  Lily glances at his tattered, frayed coat, recollects how just before they came out here he said he was low on gasoline. Because he’d neglected to refill his tank—or because he’s economizing?

  Agents don’t make much—a reason some are on the take with the criminals they’re supposed to pursue. But if he’d been on the take with Luther or George, wouldn’t he have spent a little on himself? Sure, he might be smart enough to not display newfound wealth.

  But usually people on the take can’t resist flashing around wealth—just a little.

  Something about that thought snags at Lily, bothering her.…

  “Come on, Sheriff Ross,” Barnaby is saying. “Let’s let ourselves out.”

  As they head to the door, Leroy calls after them, “Dora’s buried just up the road.”

  Lily turns and looks at him. Nods. “I will pay my respects.” Not today, but soon. “Listen—I’ll be back to check on you all. All right?” She doesn’t mean as sheriff, and Leroy must know that. He nods in turn.

  Outside, snow has started falling.

  When the door has closed behind them, she turns quickly to Barnaby. Starts to snap at him but is taken aback when she sees him wiping his eyes.

  She gives him a moment, then says, “The boy is gone from the hospital, and not here!” Oh God. One of George’s men—Abe or another—must have taken Zebediah. But how did they find out that the boy was a witness to Luther shooting Colter?

  “We have to get to the Murphy farm. We can assume Colter is there, and now, I hope, Zebediah, too—”

  Barnaby sighs. “Funny as it might sound by now, I hate to argue with you, but suspecting Colter and Zebediah are at the Murphy farm, against their will, isn’t enough. Like I said on Friday, under the new search and seizure laws we don’t need a warrant to raid an establishment if we suspect Prohibition violations. But a private residence isn’t an establishment.” He shakes his head. “And even if Colter is there, we don’t know that he hasn’t turned. As for the boy, why, boys run off all the time. Maybe he found his family too restrictive, took this as a chance to run off.”

  Zebediah working alongside his father on her farm, eager to learn, flashes across Lily’s mind. Helping her. Carefully and proudly handing her the pie-filling apples that Ruth had canned. Lily’s eyes sting as she shakes her head. “The boy’s not like that.”

  “Colter and I were supposed to get Luther to turn over any documentation he could get his hands on, not just of violations of Prohibition, but of tax law. You said you’d have proof Thursday morning to support backup. No matter what Mrs.—what Assistant Attorney General Willebrandt said this morning, I’m going to need proof to convince the men in between me and her to sign off on sending in agents on a raid.”

  Lily thinks furiously as they walk in careful, halting steps down the narrow path through the snowy forest. Does she trust Special Agent Barnaby Sloan or not?

  Trust yourself. Nana’s words come back to her.

  Well, sure. Barnaby had been solicitous of Luther. But he’d also been trying to get Luther to turn over copies of tax documents and such. And her judgment of Barnaby had been clouded by Luther, his very presence making her doubt not just Luther, but her own thoughts and instincts.

  Yet away from Luther, Barnaby, though still wary of her, had been respectful. And his reaction to the Harkins family, whom he’d only just met—well, he was sympathetic.

  Trust yourself.

  “All right,” Lily says. “Here’s the proof I’m hoping to get. I’m—well, not friends, but sympathetic with Vogel’s wife. I’ll be at Luther’s funeral on Thursday morning. Fiona will be there. I think I can get a sign from her about whether or not the boy or the agent—or both—are at the farm. Would that be enough to go on?”

  “I think so. I can go back up to Columbus, assemble a team on standby. Can you get a telegram to me, fast? Let’s see, by the time it gets through—”

  “Better than that. I can send a—a friend to let you know to come. His name is Benjamin Russo. He works for the Bureau of Mines, and they, too, have a branch office in Columbus. So he knows the way, and the city, well. He could be there in an hour, hour-and-a-half.”

  Barnaby nods. “Better to deputize him, make it official.” He looks warily at the gray sky speckled with sifting snow. “I’ll jot down my home address, too, in case he needs to find me after hours. And if you’re the praying type, pray for good weather by tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Back in her office in the courthouse, Lily holds her hands over the radiator heater just under the window. Even with gloves, she’d gotten cold on the drive back from the Harkinses. She wishes for a cup of tea, but there’s no time for that, so she indulges in closing her eyes for just a moment to focus on the goodness of the warmth emanating from the heater.

  Lily sits down, opens her notebook, writes up what’s happened so far today.

  Then she loops back, rereads everything.

  Something is off, though, about the timeline.

  Luther had been in Rossville for several days at the boardinghouse before Thanksgiving. Then, on Thanksgiving, at the Murphy farm. That night, at Dr. Goshen’s. Later, at the Harkinses’ place and in Rossville. Friday morning in her office, Friday night at the Kinship speakeasy, later still that night at the gospel church. Then dead on Saturday.

  But where had he spent Friday night? Not with Arlie—his daughter, Sally, would have told her that. Not at the Kinship Inn after the raid. Not at the boardinghouse—Benjamin had confirmed that.

  At the Murphy farm? That seems unlikely. If he’d gone back there and George—well, Abe or one of George’s other men at George’s behest—had killed Luther, they’d have just dumped his body somewhere. Not set his corpse up so dramatically all the way over in Rossville.

  What’s more, Lily’s notes remind her that not only is Luther’s automobile still missing, so is his flask. It’s next to impossible to believe that he’d found the Lord and tossed it aside. And another question mark—Pastor Stiles’s comments make it seem unlikely that Luther had actually been bitten by a snake—

  Lily startles at a knock on the door. She looks up to see the clerk of courts. He looks alarmed. “Couple’a deer hunters here, Sheriff. Seems they came across an automobile, in a ravine, off Kinship Road. You know—the sharp turn afore you turn on the state route to Portsmouth? And there’s a man inside. Dead, they say.”

  * * *

  Arlie is in the driver’s seat of Luther’s automobile—the automobile license matches the number Elias had given Lily—and from the look of him, he’s been dead several days. The cold has at least mitigated the smell of death.

  She shuts the driver’s side door carefully—it’s not that slamming it could startle poor Arlie, but doing so seems disrespectful. Lily and Dr. Goshen climb up the incline to the men waiting on the road. The snow is falling faster now, along with dusk.

  “Can you pull the automobile out?” Lily asks the tow truck driver. She’d gotten him, Mr. Arlington, and Dr. Goshen to all follow her out to the site.

  “Yes, ma’am,” says the tow truck driver. He works at the only dealership in Kinship—the only one in the county.

  The others walk down the side of the road to where they’ve carefully parked their own automobiles.

  “How long you reckon—�
�� Lily starts.

  “From the rigidity, and other signs, I’d say three, maybe four days,” Dr. Goshen says. “Could be longer. The wreck wasn’t enough to kill him, though. Could have been a heart attack, he goes off the road, his body heat would have kept the interior of the automobile warm for a little bit. Then the freezing temperature seeps into the vehicle.”

  So it’s possible Arlie wrecked just a few hours after seeing his daughter.

  They wait in silence while the tow truck driver finishes his work.

  Next comes the gruesome task of extracting Arlie from the automobile and loading him into Mr. Arlington’s hearse.

  “Ma’am, you don’t need to—” the tow truck driver starts as it’s clear Lily is going to help.

  Both the doctor and the undertaker suppress small smiles, even in this grim situation. They know better than to tell Lily she can’t do something because she’s a woman. Yet her half eye roll is for herself as much as for the men who think it’s still 1890—why does she remain surprised by these lingering attitudes?

  “He’s a big man,” Lily says, and indeed it takes the four of them to move Arlie to the back of the hearse. The task is difficult, strains her still-aching shoulder, but she’s not the only one affected by it both physically and emotionally. Even Mr. Arlington, who is used to dealing with the dead, looks ashen.

  Yet as she’s starting back to her automobile she notes Dr. Goshen leaning into the back of the hearse, lingering over Arlie. Lily pauses, cranes her neck to see the doctor patting Arlie’s pant pocket, then quickly checking his coat pockets. She turns her head, continues her trek, but out of the corner of her eye she sees that the doctor looks relieved.

  Lily swallows hard, as a theory quickly rises in her mind.

  Dr. Goshen gives her a long look. Lily smiles and hollers, “I’ll meet you later. I need something checked on my automobile!”

  She gestures the tow truck driver over to her automobile and kneels by one of the tires.

  “What seems to be the trouble, Sheriff?” he asks politely. “The axle was bent when we got it back to the shop, but I know the boys took extra care—”

  “Just keep looking over my tire like you’re concerned,” she says.

  Finally, the hearse pulls away. She waits a beat, then says, “I want to take a look in Luther’s automobile.”

  He frowns. “Here? It’s getting dark—”

  Lily pulls a flashlight out of her tote bag, switches it on.

  “All right then.”

  He cranks the wench to lower Luther’s automobile, and Lily climbs in the passenger side. She gags a little at the smells that have collected inside the automobile—besides the smell of body fluids, there’s stale cigar smoke and alcohol scents.

  But a ten-minute search is worth it.

  In the glove box, there’s a packet of money. A quick examination reveals that there’s at least five thousand dollars, probably the money Luther was supposed to receive from the undercover agent, plus—oh. Lily guesses that the rest is money Luther had from George to try to bribe the agent. He’d played both sides—thought he’d get away with it—but then Elias had a heart event.

  She checks the back seat, under the front seat—and there it is. The flash of Luther’s flask. She pulls it out, studies the fancy etching with his initials.

  Lily steps out of the automobile. “You got a lighter?” she asks the tow truck driver.

  He nods.

  She opens the flask, sniffs. It’s alcohol, more rank smelling, though, and the flask is a little over half-full. She pours a bit on her handkerchief, carefully seals the flask, puts it in her pocket. Then she holds out her handkerchief, dampened end dangling. She looks at the driver. “Light it,” she says.

  He does, and it flames quickly.

  She drops it almost immediately, and it extinguishes in the snow.

  But she’s had time to see: those flames burned a deadly pale blue.

  CHAPTER 32

  LILY & FIONA

  Wednesday, November 30–Thursday, December 1, 1927

  LILY, NOVEMBER 30, 6:00 P.M.

  Mrs. Goshen peeks out through her barely open front door and frowns out at Lily. “The doctor isn’t back yet.” She starts to shut the door, but Lily sticks her foot in and jerks the door from Mrs. Goshen’s hands.

  Lily had sped back from the crash site, hoping to get to the doctor’s while he was at the funeral home helping to move and prepare Arlie’s body.

  “I need to come in, Mrs. Goshen.”

  “It’s after hours, so unless you have a medical emergency—”

  “I’m here as sheriff. Let me in. I’d rather not force my way in.”

  “You can’t do that! You don’t have a—a—warrant or anything—”

  “I’m here on suspicion that you are harboring illegal alcohol. Under the law, I don’t need a warrant. I just need a suspicion.” Lily shoves the door with her shoulder, grimaces as sharp pain reminds her that she’d dislocated it just a few days ago.

  Mrs. Goshen stumbles back as Lily enters. Her eyes dart to the door, but Lily has brought along a deputy.

  “Please,” Lily says. “I think you should have a seat.”

  Mrs. Goshen sits down in her own waiting area, while Lily’s deputy sits down across from her. His other job is to keep watch for Dr. Goshen and not let him run away. He pulls his pistol, holds it on his knee, and Mrs. Goshen stares at it like she’s about to burst out crying.

  Lily sighs. “I don’t think it’s necessary to hold a gun on Mrs. Goshen,” she says.

  Lily finds the case of liquor quickly, tucked in a storage cabinet in the examination room, other bottles of Listerine and hydrogen peroxide and such pushed aside. She’s relieved at finding it quickly for her own sake but also because she’s glad to save Mrs. Goshen the indignity of a search of their private abode upstairs.

  The case has already been opened, and a bottle is missing. Lily opens an overhead cabinet and pulls out a rolled bandage from a neat stack and then drops the bandage in a metal pan. She pours on some of the liquor, then opens the drawer, pulls out a lighter—useful for sterilizing needles for splinters and such. She sets the cloth aflame, and again, the flames are a barely visible pale blue.

  By then, Dr. Goshen has returned and is sitting next to Mrs. Goshen. He has his arm around her, and she leans into him, crying.

  Lily sits down across from them, ignoring Mrs. Goshen and giving the doctor a cold, pitiless stare. “I just found a case of industrial alcohol with methanol, repackaged in liquor bottles, in your examination room cabinet,” Lily says.

  “How do you know that’s what’s in there?” Dr. Goshen sneers.

  “I tested it. Flames burned pale blue—methanol.”

  The doctor looks away.

  “I was warned that the supply might be delivered to the Kinship Inn’s speakeasy. That’s why I held the raid the other night.”

  Dr. Goshen looks back at Lily. “Well, it wasn’t delivered. I—I have that alcohol for … medical reasons.”

  “Medical reasons? For industrial alcohol?”

  “Sterilizing examination and surgical instruments. And such.”

  “Or you’re working with George Vogel and he wanted the alcohol to sicken the locals and send along a message—work with him, or else.”

  Dr. Goshen narrows his eyes. “Why would you think I would do something like that?”

  “I wondered about that, too. Then I realized. Money,” Lily says. “You haven’t exactly hidden it—your new automobile.” She nods toward Mrs. Goshen, the flashy ring on her finger. “Jewels for your wife.”

  “Our spending habits aren’t your concern,” he says coldly. “Or proof.”

  “A few days ago, at the funeral home, I noticed you checking Luther’s pockets—and I noticed something else. He didn’t have his flask on him,” Lily says. “And today, you checked Arlie in the same way—no doubt also looking for that flask. Luther was never without it.”

  “So?”

  “I
found it, in Luther’s automobile, after you left the scene of Arlie’s wreck. It had fallen under the passenger seat,” Lily says. “I tested the alcohol. It also burned blue. And though Luther had such a drinking problem he wouldn’t have noticed—or maybe not even cared—about the taste, witnesses say he was acting ill at the Holiness gospel church. It would take a great deal of alcohol to make Luther ill—unless it was industrial alcohol that had been substituted in his flask. A splash of that alcohol in a mixed drink would make someone sick. Consumed straight up, and in the quantities and at the rate Luther drinks, well. Even with his tolerance level, you knew he’d quickly get very ill—and soon it would kill him. What I’d like to know is when you substituted his alcohol. It had to be sometime on Friday—”

  Mrs. Goshen sits up, pulling away from her husband, who looks perplexed. Through her tears, she says, “It was on Friday night. Luther came back for the case of alcohol, while Arlie waited outside, but—”

  “But I wouldn’t give it to him,” Dr. Goshen says. “I’d had a change of heart, was planning to tell you, Sheriff, and—”

  Mrs. Goshen shakes her head. “You said that Luther had changed the circumstances, made it too dangerous to do, that all Luther was supposed to do was pay off that revenuer, then stay put at the Murphy farm, but instead Luther had been running around, and you demanded to know where. Luther screamed it was none of your business. While you all fought, I realized this nightmare would never end, unless Luther was out of the way. It all started with Luther not following orders. It was easy enough—I slipped out, got his flask from his coat pocket, and quickly switched the alcohol.”

  “You—you don’t have to say any of this,” Dr. Goshen says. He looks at Lily. “Please, she doesn’t know what she’s saying—”

  “You were looking for something on Arlie,” Lily says. “Was it Luther’s flask?”

  Dr. Goshen nods, looks away, defeated, as Mrs. Goshen wipes her eyes and focuses on Lily. “Arlie brought Luther back late on Friday night, realizing how sick he was. And then Arlie took off in Luther’s automobile. Luther was too sick to protest.”