Chapter 33

Cassandra took the girls back to the lodge for their afternoon nap while Daddy and Warren traipsed off to the Eatery for a snack and something to drink. Daddy invited me to go but I wanted to be alone.

Once everybody left I realized I was still clutching Cassandra’s True Detective magazine. Thumbing through it, I settled on an article about the smuggling of rum from Jamaica. Fifteen minutes later, my jaw came unhinged and my wide eyes gazed unseeing out over the river.

Tossing the magazine aside, I headed for the lodge in search of Jones.

I stopped by my room first to change out of my bathing suit and into my usual cotton dress. I didn’t want to confront Jones without being properly attired.

He was in the apartment, not at the radio table but at the desk on the opposite wall. The windows were thrown wide open against the heat. Two oscillating fans blew air at each other from opposite ends of the room, rustling several piles of paper on the desk that would have gone sailing had they not been held down by paperweights. Jones was bent over an open checkbook; I could hear the tip of his pen scratching its way across the paper.

“Jones?”

He looked up, magnified eyes blinking. “Oh. Hello, Eve.”

“You busy?”

“Just working my way through a pile of invoices. Trying to get caught up before Cyrus gets home tonight.”

“He’ll be here tonight for sure?”

“According to his latest telegram, yes.”

I shivered as I thought about Uncle Cy traveling home with Aunt Cora’s body. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Jones must be feeling.

“Um, Jones?”

He grunted. He tore off a finished check and slid it into an envelope.

“Can I ask you something?”

He licked the envelope and sealed it. “I guess so.”

“You don’t have to tell me, but I was just wondering.”

My pulse escalated and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I took a deep breath to calm myself.

Jones looked annoyed. “Well, I can’t tell you anything if you don’t ask your question,” he said.

“Um.” I took a few steps closer. He didn’t invite me to sit down. I would have declined anyway. His pen was scratching out another check. “It’s about the radios,” I said.

He nodded. He picked up another bill and studied it. The pen moved in rapid strokes as he scribbled something on the invoice.

I took another tentative step toward the desk. “You were receiving information. I mean, from Cincinnati. Weren’t you?”

The scratching stopped. The pen slowly dropped to the desk. Jones turned to face me. “What do you mean, Eve?”

With another deep breath, I admonished myself not to back down now. “Those bedtime stories you listened to. They were coded messages, weren’t they, telling you when you could expect the next shipment of liquor to come in on the train.”

The red eyes narrowed behind the lenses. “Why do you think that?”

I swallowed. I felt the spittle slide down my throat, leaving my mouth dry. “I read about that kind of thing in a magazine just now.” My voice had weakened but I compensated by lifting my head higher.

“You did, huh?”

I nodded.

“What magazine was that?”

Because I didn’t want to admit to the name, it came out in a whisper. “True Detective.”

He laughed. One swift cutting laugh. “And you believe what you read in a rag like that?” He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “Anyway,” he added, “what difference does it make?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. Not really. I just want to know.”

“Uh-huh.” He slid his glasses back on and pulled another statement from the pile.

A bead of sweat slunk down my back. “If you don’t tell me otherwise, Jones, I’m going to believe you were helping Uncle Cy with the bootlegging, that you didn’t just know about it but you were telling Uncle Cy when the liquor was coming in on the train.”

Blood rose to his pale cheeks, turning his skin eerily red. When he spoke he didn’t look at me. “It doesn’t matter what you think, does it, Eve? Another few days and we’ll never see each other again.”

“I know that, Jones, so I just want to know why. Uncle Cy never treated you like a son. He never even treated you like a real member of the family. Why did you help him?”

“I didn’t help him!” Jones yelled. I gasped as he banged the desk with an open palm, pushed back the chair, and stood abruptly. He walked to the window and looked out. The view was of the gas station, where even now the illegal liquor sat in its hiding place, awaiting customers.

“Then why did you do it, Jones?” I asked quietly.

He leaned his head back and took a deep breath. “I did it for her. For my mother.”

I didn’t respond. I waited. After a moment, he turned from the window and looked at me. “I did it for my mother,” he said again, “because we needed the money to try to save her.”

And now she was dead, her body riding in a casket halfway across the country, heading home for burial. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not judging you, Jones. I understand why you’d do it. I really do.”

He feigned a smile. “Thank you, but I doubt it. You can’t possibly understand. My mother loved me. She was the only person who ever did. She and my father. Now they’re both dead.”

I felt something terrible in my chest, an actual constriction of my heart because I knew what Jones said was true. To everyone other than his own parents he was the red-eyed devil, the freak, the boy to be hushed up and hidden away.

I fumbled for something to say. I made several false starts, but Jones cut me off by asking, “When are you leaving?”

“You mean, to go back to Minnesota?”

He nodded.

“Saturday.”

“Good.” He walked back to the desk and sat down. “You know, you can tell the police about my involvement, but it won’t matter. Not anymore.”

“I have no intention of telling anyone anything. You know that. That’s why we’re leaving. So Daddy and I don’t have to live a lie.”

He looked at the wall and I looked at his profile. His head bobbed slightly; he appeared deep in thought. Finally he said, “Go on home and forget you ever came here. Just forget about this place, Eve. That’s the best thing you can do.”

A silence settled between us, weighted with sadness. As I had so many times before, as I had when his mother died, I wanted to throw my arms around Jones and comfort him.

Hesitantly I said, “I mean it when I say there’s one good thing I’ll never forget about this place, and that’s you, Jones.”

Slowly he turned his gaze to me. We looked at each other for what seemed a very long time. His face relaxed, and though his eyes were sorrowful, one corner of his mouth turned up in the smallest of smiles. “You take care of yourself, Cousin Eve.”

I breathed deeply and nodded. “You too, Jones O’Brannigan.”

I moved to the desk and put my hand over his. He looked at it, then circled his fingers around my own and squeezed gently. He hung his head, as though against some inner pain. For a moment I thought he might kiss my knuckles or press my fingers to his cheek. But he didn’t. He pulled his hand from my clasp and picked up his pen. I dropped my hand to my side and left the room.