CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chapter Thirteen

From the woods, two men watched Lisa and her nephew. Lisa raked the leaves and pulled weeds. Little Louis was in a playpen, which kept him safe while Lisa worked. He had toys which included a truck from the Sears catalog.

Soon Louis would be in school. Lisa thought how she would miss them.

Then Louis tried to climb out of the playpen. Lisa lifted him from the playpen. Louis ran around her, sometimes helping and sometimes getting in the way. Lisa asked him to pick strawberries and gave him a small bucket. That should keep him busy.

“Hide and seek,” he said.

“Not now,” she smiled at the child.

While Lisa worked, the two men watched. They were careful that she not see them. That would spook her. Once before they had spooked her and then she had hidden all day in the house with the door locked. It had been days before she came back out even though the plants needed weeding and the chickens needed feed. Vonnie had fed the animals when she came home, so they hadn’t gone hungry.

Lisa was a strange girl.

“Don’t know why we don’t pick her.” Miles said. “We aren’t going to pin the killings on her brother anyway.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. Anyway I got a better idea.”

They kept watching.

Lisa had to go to the bathroom. “You stay where I can see you,” she said to Louis. “Don’t go wondering off where I have to try and find you.”

Louis stopped only for a moment to look at her, and then went back to picking strawberries. Lisa decided to take no chances. There was no telling how much mischief he could get into in the minute or two she was in the outhouse. She picked him up and placed him back in the playpen. Louis whined and then sat down with a big frown. “Me scared,” he said.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Lisa didn’t believe her own words, but she had to pee. “I’ll be right back. Stay right there, and you’ll be safe.”

Years later, she would remember how she had a premonition. Something was not right. Something stirred in the bushes. She would be be forever haunted by the little boy’s words and her own sense that something was wrong that morning.

“Me scared.” Louis repeated. Lisa was scared to.

She went to the outhouse, looked around one last time and glanced at little Louis to make sure he were all right. Then she went inside.

“Let’s have some fun,” Sonny said. He ran over to the outhouse and placed a heavy board against the outside. “Wish I had a great big rattlesnake to put in there.” He was giggling so hard, he could barely talk.

Lisa heard the plank hit the door. She stood quiet for a second. She heard the giggling. “Who’s out there?” Lisa started pushing at the door. “Let me out,” she called.

Miles just laughed and backed away from the door. He sat down and decided to enjoy her frustration.

When he looked around to see what his friend was doing, he didn’t see Sonny. Nor did he see the child. “Sonny,” he called. “Sonny.”

Lisa yelled . “Let me out.” Then the screams were just screams. Lisa wailed as the walls of the outhouse closed in on her and the darkness terrified her. She never stayed in the outhouse for more than a few minutes. She was always too afraid. Now she imagined hanged men dangling above her head or just outside the door. She imagined snakes on the floor.

“Stupid bitch.” Miles wanted to take out his gun and start shooting into the outhouse. That might attract too much attention. Dennis Cheney’s farm was just the other side of those trees. And to that side, Cheney Creek lay silent and glistening in the sun as it ran toward the Menominee River.

Where was Sonny?

A scream came from the direction of the creek.

“Damn,” Miles ran toward the creek. The ground was uneven in the woods. A recent rain storm had scattered branches. A log lay in his path, and he tripped over it. His fall was cushioned by a bed of pine needles. He got up and kept running.

When he came out of the woods, he ran right into the creek. Sonny and the boy were perhaps a hundred feet to his right. Sonny was holding the child’s head under water. Louis had stopped struggling and his wet clothing floated above the waters. He looked fat and bloated like an over stuffed little scarecrow.

Miles tackled his friend. He pushed Sonny aside and tried to grab for the child, but Sonny got up and pushed Miles aside. The two men struggled with Miles trying desperately to get to the the little boy and Sonny fighting him off. Little Louis’ body flopped to the side like a rag doll. In the distance, Lisa’s screams were a movie soundtrack from Hell.

“Too late, man. Too late,” Sonny said. He lay exhausted on the bank while Miles struggled to get up and get to the child. Even before Miles dragged the wet form from the water, he knew it was indeed too late. Little Louis was dead.

“You stupid idiot. What makes you think you can get away with that?”

Sonny slowly got up and walked away. His wet clothing hanging to him. “We can hide the body.”

“Don’t you think he’ll be reported missing? This ain’t like a woman walking away because she can’t stand Mommy and Daddy and the farm anymore.

There’ll be a hunt for the child. The tunnels will ll be searched like they ain’t never been searched before.”

Sonny shrugged. “So leave the body here. Blame the crazy.”

“She’s locked in the outhouse,” Miles reminded his friend. “When we leave her out, she’ll see us.”

“I ain’t leavin’ her out.” With that Sonny walked away.

Lisa 1970

Lisa was scared. This was her second night in jail. She disliked the dark because scary drowned things floated in the dark. She imagined that she awoke in a sunken ship or a downed airplane. Wreckage surrounded her.

She was hungry. She hadn’t eaten. If she ate, they would drug her. Who were they? The jailers. Miles Olson.

She knew what his dad had done; she would tell. She knew what he had done. But would anyone believe her? They hadn’t in the past.

They would kill her.

She must be very careful.

The lights went off at ten. At first she was too afraid of the dark to sleep. She lay staring into the blackness until her eyes adjusted. She could see shades of gray and the black cell bars. After a long time she slept.

When she awoke, it was still dark, but a faint light shown from some where, like someone had dropped a flashlight that was still on. Something hung from the ceiling of her jail cell.

She remembered. The hanging. His feet dangled in the air. His face was purple and the eyes looked right at her. And. And.

And wet sea weed. That’s what hung from her jail jell. Lisa started screaming.

1940

Vonnie had a bad cold, and she was feeling anxious to be home. Her chores were caught up and though Lucinda was having a difficult pregnancy, Vonnie knew she was needed at home.

“Go,” Lucinda urged. “There’s nothing more you can do here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’d rather be alone. I hate to have anyone with me when I vomit.”

Vonnie smiled at that. She remembered her own pregnancy, and how she often needed to be by herself as nausea and cramps raked her.

“Honey, I can always be outside the door. Always there for you.”

Lucinda clutched her stomach and smiled. She was so big she could have swallowed a pickle barrel.

“Maybe you’re having twins.”

“One baby will be enough,“ Lucinda insisted. But she knew her husband’s mistress was expecting a baby, and Brad planned to pawn it off as their offspring. How would Brad explain two babies? Would he say they were twins? Lucinda didn’t feel well enough to think about that. It would be enough to just get through this pregnancy. She wished Jack could be with her.

“Go. Go home,” she told Vonnie. “If I need anything, my father’s here.”

Vonnie drove slowly home. At every bend in the road she expected to see some terror.

She knew she was letting her imagination get away for her. But since Ezekiel ’s death she felt vulnerable. Of course, she missed him. But it was more than that. Ezekiel had protected her. But surely she wasn’t in danger.

She felt as fearful as Lisa. She was imagining the things Lisa might imagine. A hanged man might dangle from a tree branch, his tongue purple; his red face horribly blotched and swollen; his eyes bulging.

A deer might lay at the side of the road, shot, its intestines dripping onto the dirt.

Why did she think some terror awaited her? She hardly remembered her real father and didn’t know how she felt about his disappearance. Yes, he was probably dead. Maybe he had been murdered like Jack and Lisa said he had been. Still a part of her held out hope that he might come back to them some day.

Ezekiel hadn’t taken the place of her real father. Ezekiel had been a friend, a father-figure and a needed influence in her life.

Ezekiel had been kind and patient. Thanks to him she had a Civil War widow’s pension which helped make ends meet. She owned a house, five acres and a small garden. Lisa had a place to stay and so did Jack when he came north. She had a son, and she loved little Louis more than anything.

Life had been good to her, she decided. So why this feeling of impending doom? It was like there might be a bad car wreck around the next bend in the road. Or perhaps an airplane might fall right out of the sky and destroy her home, her sister, and her son.

Vonnie drove her car into her driveway and parked as she always did behind the house.

Jack met with Abe Bernstein at the restaurant. They ordered steaks and whiskey. “I remember when this stuff was hard to get,” Abe said as he sipped his drink.

“You managed.” Jack reminded him. He didn’t believe for a minute that any of the Bernsteins had ever been so poor he couldn’t afford the best.

“So how is the private detective business,” Abe wanted to know.

“It’s not how I make my money,” Jack reminded him. “But it’s good to have an office and rub shoulders with real business men. They give me ideas.”

“Jackie, you are a real business man. So am I.”

“The cops asked me what I knew about the Michigan highway killings.” Jack said. “They ask from time to time. Some might think I was involved.”

“They figure you’re from the Upper Peninsula. You’ve been in prison there. You got connections. You have ways of finding out things.”

“I could be the killer.”

“You can’t be. You ain’t been back there.”

Actually Jack went back often. He needed to keep track of his sisters and Lucinda was expecting his baby though no one else knew that.

Vonnie saw the board wedged against the outside of the the toilet shed. Who had put that there? Why was it there? Had a snake crawled inside? There had been a huge pine snake in the back yard, but Dennis had killed it. Perhaps there was another snake.

As she neared the outhouse, she heard soft weeping. Someone was in there. Lisa? Little Louis? Lisa would not lock the child in here. Yet the crying sounded like that of a baby.

Vonnie tore the board away and swung the door open.

The weeping continued. It sounded like a small lost puppy. Lisa sat in the corner hugging her knees and sobbing uncontrollably.

“Who did this too you?”

Lisa didn’t answer. Instead she crawled out like a wounded animal might crawl after a severe beating. She crawled away from the stench; her fear followed her. It had been too complete, too overpowering to dismiss in a ray of sunlight.

“Lisa,” Vonnie made her voice as soft as she could despite her own mounting terror. “Where is Little Louis?”

Lisa stopped crawling, turned her thin body around and sat bug eyed for a minute staring into the trees. “He wouldn’t come. I begged him to let me out. After the men went away. When I couldn’t hear their voices anymore. I told him to come and sit by the door and we would wait. But then I remembered. He’s in the playpen. See over there.” Lisa looked over at the empty playpen.

Vonnie sat on the ground beside her. “Where is Little Louis?” she repeated. “Where is my son?”

Lisa looked around as if when she turned her head the child would be there. Then she started screaming.

Vonnie hurried into the house calling for Louis. No answer. She ran through every room. He had to be here someplace.

Then she grabbed the telephone. “Please help,” she cried. When the operator found Dennis’ number, Vonnie frantically told of Lisa’s imprisonment inside the outhouse and of the missing boy.

“Somebody locked her in there, and… and I can’t find Louis.”

“I’ll be right over,” Dennis promised.

“I’ll get the police.” the operator said. She had stayed on the line as operators often did.

At headquarters Miles Olson was waiting for the call.

It was Dennis who found Little Louis. He had Miles call Doc Tracie, so both Lisa and Vonnie could be sedated. Dancing Bear, Dennis’ girlfriend, served Camomile tea with some herbs including valerian.

Dennis didn’t want the women to know he had found little Louis until after Doc Tracie arrived. Miles had other plans. He said he wanted to get their reaction. Dennis pushed Miles away from the house. “You tell those two women they just lost that sweet little boy, and I’m going to break you in two, right here, right now.”

Miles backed away. Dennis was not quite six feet tall, but he was strong from farm work, and Miles believed that he could break a man in two. Anyway Miles saw his dad’s car come into the yard and decided now was not the time. He sure didn’t want a lecture from the old man on how to do police work.

Doc Tracie broke the news to the sisters as gently as he could. After an injection and some more tea. Vonnie settled down. She knew she had to be strong. Lisa sobbed uncontrollably.

“It looks like the little boy wandered over to the creek, and he may have fallen in.” Leo explained.

Lisa started talking in a calm almost hypnotic way. “The men did it,” she said.

Leo thought she had fresh information. Something that would help him find the pranksters who locked her in the outhouse. He had no idea what had really happened to the little boy. But if he caught the kids - it had to be kids - who pulled this prank and locked Lisa in the john - he planned keeping them in the jail on bread and water until they were old enough to get out of town. But surely kids had not killed the little boy.

“The men,” Lisa repeated.

“Who?” Leo asked.

Miles stood in the corner where he was thinking he should have killed her instead of just locking her in an outhouse. He knew he had to reign Sonny in. The man was too violent, and too unpredictable. At least this girl was a known crazy. Whatever she said would be dismissed as crazy ramblings.

Lisa spoke. “The men who wore bed sheets and hoods and they had torches. They did it.”

Leo sighed. Why had he even bothered to start questioning her? “What were they doing with torches in the daylight?” he asked. She could be feigning disorientation and shock. Maybe she had drowned the child herself. There was no telling what a crazy might do.

Lisa looked up at Leo; after a minute, she said, “You were there.”

He stumbled backward. He knew she was talking about that other time. The time her dad was killed. He had removed his hood, and he was sure she saw him. But she had been just a child. What did she remember?

Did she think he had anything to do with what happened to Vonnie’s son?

Doc Tracie said Lisa suffered from the worst case of shock he had ever seen. He considered placing her in a hospital.

“The men are in the yard.” she said.

Miles heart almost stopped. He was more spooked than his dad. Had she seen him and Sonny? She knew it was men, plural who had locked her in the outhouse. She knew some men had been in the yard. Was there a peep hole in the outhouse? What difference did it make? The girl was clearly crazy. She wasn’t making sense.

“What men?” asked Doc Tracie.

“I told you. They are wearing sheets and hoods and Pa said, ‘Don’t let her see.’ Then Pa was swinging and he is dead. They killed him. They came back for Louis. This time they didn’t let me see.”

“Enough,” snapped Leo. “Enough. She’s a lunatic. Always has been.”

Lisa inhaled loudly and stared at him. It was like she could see through Leo. Or she could see him wearing a sheet and pillow case. She saw him as he had looked and acted on a day long ago.

Dr. Tracie looked at the bruises on Lisa’s hands. “She’s been through a lot. The fingernails are clawed almost to the bone. Look in the outhouse. You can see where she clawed at the wood trying to get out.”

“Some kids playing a practical joke,” Miles insisted. “Maybe the drowned Brianka brat out there. Yeah. That’s must have happened. The dumb kid locked her in here and then drowned himself.”

Leo gave Miles a stare that shut him up.

“That was Ezekiel’s ’s little boy, and you will speak of the dead with respect.”

Miles frowned. Everyone knew that kid didn’t belong to the old man.

Leo continued. “Looks like the little boy wandered to the creak and drowned.”

“No.” Lisa shouted. “There were men outside. I heard them talking. And Louis was in his playpen. He couldn’t get out.”

“Get that crazy out of here,” Miles said.

“Accidental drowning,” Leo concluded.

The doctor led Lisa into the room where Vonnie was sleeping thanks to the sedative he had given her. Dancing Bear’s herbs had helped. “Can you stay with her?” Doc asked the Indian woman. He knew Dancing Bear was as dependable and as capable as the best registered nurse. If Vonnie needed care, Danni would know what to do.

Chapter Twelve

Emil and his family packed several picnic baskets with food and then they piled into cars and a truck. When they got to the Cheney place, everyone grabbed a hamper or helped carry one.

There were eighteen Mountain Ridge Mynters including the grandchildren. Emil counted heads as Mary knocked on Ezekial’s door and waited. The women had been up since before dawn cooking.

They brought three cooked turkeys, platters of pork cooked three different ways, six roasted chickens, bowls of mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, corn and squash; four apple pies and a strawberry- rhubarb pie.

Vonnie opened the door and stepped aside. She looked at all the baskets of food. “What are we going to do with all this?” She exclaimed.

“Don’t worry. You’ll need every morsel. Most of the town will turn out for old Ezekial’s funeral. After all, he was the only Civil War veteran left in this town.”

“I don’t know how we can handle it.”

Emil nodded to Dylan. “We’ll set up a barbecue pit in the barn, and that should keep everyone warm out there. We can make serving tables from old boards, cover them with tablecloths.”

“I don’t have enough tablecloths,” Vonnie protested. “Where will I get the boards?”

“We brought all the supplies we’ll need.” Emil nodded to his sons, and they set to work. Emil then turned to Lisa. “You must be the sister-in-law.”

She nodded.

“You think you can help my kids get this show on the road? Dylan, find a chore for this pretty lady.”

Lisa blushed. She had never been called a pretty lady before. She didn’t think she was pretty, but she smoothed her dress and appreciated the compliment.

Emil glanced around and saw little Louis, Vonnie’s son, peaking nervously from beneath the kitchen table. “Who’s taking care of this young man? Dylan that would be you and the pretty lady.”

“My name’s Lisa” she said shyly. “I take care of Louis.”

“He looks like a real handful. Why don’t you let Dylan help you?” Emil walked away, and soon he and Vonnie were directing traffic and finding chores for everyone except Lisa and Dylan.

“Is Louis going to the funeral?” Dylan asked.

“Oh my Gosh, the funeral. I was just about to get ready.”

“Go on,” Dylan said. “I’ll watch Louis.”

“I have to get the him dressed too. Vonnie and I were about to do that.”

“I’ll dress him. Show me where you keep his clothes.”

Lisa led Dylan upstairs. As far as she knew no one had been up there before except family. “That was Ezekial’s bedroom” she said. “You can dress Louis in there. I’ll get some of his clothes.”

“My name is Louis.” The little boy said.

“I have a brother named Louis,” Dylan told him. “He’s outside setting up picnic tables.”

Lisa said, “That’s nice. I mean about you having a brother named Louis. I mean…” She felt frustrated, and she blushed. Dylan was very good looking, and she had been around few people her age since the orphanage. She backed away. “Are you coming to the funeral?” She asked Dylan.

“Dad is. The rest of us would go, but we have to stay here and set things up for a dinner afterward. Like dad said the whole town’ll be here. It’s not everyday we get to bury a Civil War hero.”

Ezekial’s funeral was the first Lisa had attended since her mother’s funeral. Back then she hadn’t understood that her mother was gone. And she had kept waiting for her pa to show up. She had been just a little bit older than little Louis back then.

She would miss Ezekiel. She sat beside Dennis with little Louis between her and Vonnie, and she listened as first the minister and then the mayor and then some state senator droned on and on about the courage of men like Ezekiel Cheney.

After the long services, the coffin was brought outside and lowered into the ground. Vonnie stood at the edge of the grave and wept. Lisa backed away until she stood at the edge of the cemetery. She looked around and noticed her mother’s headstone. She touched the rough granite. Was Martha Brianka’s ghost here watching the ceremony?

Beside Martha’s grave stood that of Louis Almasy.

She knew why they were buried here together slightly away from other graves. Martha had married a Jew; Louis had shot himself. Good Christians would not let such sinners be buried in their midst. Lisa knew that she herself was not a good Catholic. Despite the upbringing at the orphanage, she did not consider herself a Catholic at all.

Then Vonnie picked up little Louis, and they let Dennis drive them home.

As promised, the Mynters had the funeral feast ready. Mary had even brought a guest book for visitors to sign. Back at the farm house, Louis joined about a dozen other children in play. They chased each other around the chicken coup and played endless games of hide and seek. Lisa wanted to play with the children, but Louis seemed to have forgotten her as he laughed and lost his shyness in the presence of other little ones.

Lisa found a corner to be alone. Strangers buzzed around her. She didn’t know them, but they seemed to know about her family.

Bits and pieces of conversation drifted toward her.

“So you think the wife will inherit the farm?”

“Let’s hope not.”

“He was what? A hundred years old. No way did he father that little kid.” “Of course, not. But Louis is his heir. After all, he did marry the mother. Must have been drunk.”

“She probably got him drunk.”

“What gets into an old geezer? Marrying a young girl like that?”

“She’s a Brianka girl.”

“Didn’t they all get ridden out of town?”


 “Their pa did.”

“Should have been on a rail.”

“It was. At least that is what some people say. Some say the pa just high tailed it out of town. Didn’t want a bunch of brats.”

“I heard the pa got himself killed.”

“Should have run the whole lot out of the state.”

“Is the brother - what is his name? - still in prison?”

“He got out. Lord knows where he is now. But he won’t show his face here. That’s for sure.”

“Rinaldi would run him out of town.”

“Why would he care?”

“Brianka had some thing for Lucinda Rinaldi. They were close.”

“I don’t believe it. Not for one minute. What would the likes of Lucinda Rinaldi Davies want with someone like Jack Brianka?”

“Well, she’s married and living in Washington now. Her husband’s big shot senator from one of those fancy families out East. At least things worked out good for her.”

“No way was that girl involved with Jack Brianka.”

“Lucinda was always a sucker for taking in stray animals and giving out handouts to hoboes.” The woman who said that was shaking her head and looking like she just ate something distasteful.

Mary’s husband walked up to him. “What? You don’t like my wife’s cooking?”

Enrico Rinaldi had not gone to the church service, but he had sent flowers to the church. Vonnie hadn’t expected to see Lucinda, but late in the day as other guests were headed for home, Lucinda’s chauffeur drove her new Ford Opera Coupe into the farmyard. The chauffeur wore a beard, and his hat was pulled low, so no one could see much of his face. He opened the car door for his passenger and then stayed beside the car. Lucinda rushed to her friend’s arms.

She wore a black two piece suit with black pearls on the bodice and a kick pleat in front. “I’m so sorry,” she said as she hugged her dad’s maid.

Vonnie had tears in her eyes. “He was so good. He married me when I was pregnant. He never cared who the father was. He left the house to me. He never asked for anything but help with the chores.”

“Ezekiel was a good man,” Lucinda agreed. “None better.”

“Like your dad,” Vonnie said.

“And your brother.”

Vonnie turned away from her friend. How she missed Jack. She dried her eyes and then poured Lucinda a cup of coffee. When Vonnie looked out the window, she noticed one of the Mynter girls was serving the chauffeur lemonade. He kept his head down.

“How long are you in town? Lucinda, everyone has been so worried about you. I have to call your dad now.”

My father and I already talked. In fact, I just came from his house. I didn’t tell him everything, but enough. I’m not going back to Brad. My father has withdrawn all financial support from Brad’s reelection campaign, and he is supporting my decision to divorce Brad.”

“I know how awful he treated you, but he’s so powerful. Will he cause trouble?”

“He had better not.”

“What if he goes to the newspapers? What if he tells reporters that…”

“That I am a Negro. He won’t dare. He’s too afraid of my father and my father’s money. I’ve hired lawyers.”

Vonnie hoped her friend would be all right. She knew how racist people could be. People still sometimes referred to her and to Lisa as Jew brats. “Lucinda, please stay away from Jack. You can protect yourself. But he’s an ex con now.”

“Jack and I are seeing each other.”

“What about your father? He doesn’t want you married to Jack”

“He doesn’t know. I told Father I got a motel room after I left Brad and that I needed to be by myself to think things over.”

“If your dad finds out you were with Jack, he’ll kill Jack.”

“No, he won’t.”

Vonnie shook her head. Enrico Rinaldi certainly wouldn’t want Lucinda seeing his ex gardener. There was too much sadness to talk about Jack just then. “Come out to the barn,” she told Lucinda. “There’s enough food to feed an army. The Mynters brought most of it, but just about everyone brought something. We’ve got every kind of salad and side dish you can name.”

“Heavens, no. My stomach is queasy. It must be the stress of the last few days.”

“ How’s Lisa working out? She hasn’t burned your dad’s house down, has she?


 “She’s just so nervous about everything; she makes father nervous. How soon can you come back?”

“Tomorrow.”

When the back door opened, they both looked that way. The chauffeur took his hat off and Vonnie ran to her brother’s arms.

Jack and Vonnie walked along the gravel road that separated Dennis’s land from hers. Leafy trees provided shade. The sun seeping past the leaves created patterns on the road. A creek bubbled past them.

“Sorry, I couldn’t make the funeral.”

“You can’t be recognized,” Vonnie told him. “Would they throw you back in jail?”

“Most likely they would just escort me to the county line and tell me to keep moving. Unless the sheriff wants to set me up for some new crime. They haven’t caught the Michigan killer yet. Miles would love for it to be me.”

“Miles would shoot you. So would Lucinda’s dad. I’ve got my job to worry about.”

Jack gave a short laugh. “Are you more concerned with losing me or your job?”

“I don’t want to move. It would be hard on Lisa.”

“Stay here. You’ve got this land; you can help Lisa, and she can live here. Mr. Rinaldi won’t blame you for anything I do.”

They walked in silence for awhile.

“Lisa doin’ all right?” he asked.

“Yes, she’s fine.”

“What about the nightmares?”

“She’s better. But still scared.”

“Of what?”


 “Hanged men. Darkness. Do you think our pa was murdered that night?”

“He’s dead, Vonnie. I have it on good authority. A Detroit gang helped cover up the lynching.”

“Then maybe she did see him killed that night?”

He didn’t answer right away. “We can’t change the past,” he finally said.

“So what’s the future? Are you going to marry Lucinda? She loves you.”

“We can’t marry. Her dad is backing her decision to divorce Davies. But he doesn’t know about us.”

“He suspects,” Vonnie said. “You didn’t drive her right up to her father’s house, did you?”

“No. I got out of the car. She took over the wheel and went on alone. I sat at the Yorke cafe while she visited Enrico.”

“So what happens next for Lucinda? Another loveless marriage? She’s such a fine person.”

“Maybe her next husband will be worthy. I just know it can’t be me.”

A week later Vonnie was in the Rinaldi’s kitchen washing breakfast dishes, when Lucinda came in. The senator’s wife was still in her nightgown.

“You didn’t eat much’ Vonnie said. “You want me to make you something else?”

Lucinda shook her head. “I’m pregnant. It’s Jack’s baby. Brad never touched me. Jack was the only one.”

Vonnie hurriedly dried her hands and sat down beside her pretty employer. “What are you going to do?”

“Have the baby, of course, and force Brad to help support it.”

“He’ll know it isn’t his child. He’ll cause a scandal.”

“No, he won’t. Before I left, he told me his mistress was having a baby, and I was to raise it.” Lucinda laughed. “He said I was to be the mammy. He’s announced we are having a baby. The joke will be on him.”

“Maybe you can go to Europe and have the baby secretly, and then you can bring it back and claim it’s a cousin’s baby or that you adopted it. That way Jack stays out of this. No one will know the truth.”

“No one except us. We will know who the father is. And Jack. I can’t keep it a secret from him. He would know anyway. And Brad… And Brad…”

Vonnie took Lucinda’s hand. “Lucinda, I’m scared. This could get Jack killed. You know what happened to my pa.” Vonnie hardly dared think about what had happened to her dad.

“Jack told me,” Lucinda said simply.

The two women clung to each other.

Lucinda had told her dad that she and Brad had never had relations. That had been the truth. She didn’t want to lie to him now, but it was necessary. “There was one time. Just before I left. I guess he thought it would keep this Nigger in her place,” she said.

Enrico stared at her for a long time. She knew he didn’t believe her. “Lucinda, did he rape you?”

“No.”

“Do you want to tell me where you were those weeks after you left Brad.”

She turned away. She didn’t answer. He knows, she thought.

After a long moment, he asked, “Do you want me to call the senator?”

“I’ll do it,” she said.

Lucinda and the senator had unfinished business. She bought a gun and went to Washington herself. She let herself into the spacious home that her dad had rented for them.

Brad would have to pick up the next year’s rent if he could afford it. Her father sure wasn’t paying the bills anymore. She went right to her bedroom where the closets were bare. A black maid followed her into the room. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Davies,” she said.

“What happened to my things?” asked Lucinda. “Do you know?”

“Senator Davies ordered them put out. He took your jewelry. I think he sold it.”

“Okay,” Lucinda said simply. She sat for a minute catching her breath. Then got up to go.

As she started down the stairs, the maid called after her. “Mrs. Davies, wait. Some of your things are still here. We took some of the dresses. They’re so pretty, and we wanted to remember you. I’ll get the dresses.”

“No,” Lucinda said. “Please. Keep them. I don’t want any reminders of my life here.” She hurried the rest of the way down the stairs and almost made it to the door when Brad Davies came home. He dismissed the maid.

“I was leaving, but as long as you’re here, we have business to discuss.”

“I have no business with Niggers,” he said. “Just get out.”

“Don’t you want to tell me about your mistress and the baby I was supposed to be mammy to.”

He didn’t answer. Shades of gray covered his face as if great anger descended on him.

She smiled. “Turns out, Brad. We’ll have a baby, after all. I’m pregnant.”

He gave a brief laugh. “It looks like you got something out of your visit to Jack Brianka. You think I didn’t have you followed? What will your father say? You little tramp.”

“The baby gets your name. Unless you want to tell people you were never a husband to me and why.”

“Just get out.”

“On my way.” she assured him. “I’m not asking for child support. Just the name, Senator.”

With that she hurried out the door. She didn’t feel safe until she was in the hired car and on her way to the airport. Thank heavens it wasn’t his baby that she was carrying.

TO BE CONTINUED:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Chapter Eleven

Elaine knew she had made a mistake. Everyone said Emil Mynter had money-lots of it. Hadn’t he given his two oldest daughters huge weddings that reportedly rivaled the wedding of Lucinda Rinaldi to Senator Davies? The local newspaper may have been exaggerating, but the Mynter girls wore gorgeous dresses from a Detroit bridal shop, and the weddings were catered by the finest chef in Upper Michigan.

Emil paid for everything his kids needed. The two oldest sons were studying engineering at Michigan Tech. Mary and Elsie had new homes and their husbands were starting new businesses. Emil’s younger sons, those old enough to drive, had cars, and they would soon be on their way to college. Dylan didn’t want to go to college. Shouldn’t he have had a bigger house?

“Then I have to pay more in taxes on it,” Dylan had said.

“So get your pa to help,” Elaine had insisted.

Dylan never asked for money from his dad. “My dad isn’t a millionaire,” he had said.

“Tell your brothers and sisters that. They go with their hands out. At least we could have gotten a decent wedding . Dylan and Elaine had been married by a justice of the peace and then they had been served dinner prepared by Dylan’s sisters, Mary and Elsie. It just wasn’t fair. Emil had said he was paying for the college educations on installments and that Alice was paying for her big upcoming wedding with own money. There was some nonsense about a distant aunt leaving Alice some money. Elaine knew it was all lies.

Just where did the Mynter money come from anyway? How could he afford these things unless Mrs. Almasy really had a fortune in those tunnels and Dylan’s dad had found it.

It was hers then. Mrs. Almasy had left everything to Jeff. Jeff would have wanted her to have it.

Now Dylan who was as boring as his lunch bucket, was working nights at one of the Rinaldi mines to earn extra money. Elaine was raising chickens for the egg money, and they were counting pennies to make the rent and the groceries.

Elaine was even expected to keep a garden.

She called her mother.

“Darling, what is it? Is something wrong?” Mrs. Dabb asked.

“I wanted to talk.”


 “Honey. it’s 11 p.m.”

“Dylan’s working midnights, and I’m bored.”

“Read a book.”

“I don’t want to read a book! Mama, we’re broke. We’re always broke.”

“Just for now. Dylan’s a hard worker and…”

“Dylan’s a lamp post. He doesn’t have anything to talk about. He comes home and just goes to bed. He’s no fun. He’s boring. I wish I’d never married him.”

“Honey, you’re lucky you have him. He has a job and with this Depression that makes him lucky. Your daddy was out of work. Remember Emil Mynter got your daddy a job at the Rinaldi’s mine.”

“Mama, I want to wear pretty dresses. I want to live in a nice house.”

“That will come in time. You know old Emil’s a rich man.”

“He’s broke just like us. At least he always says he is.”

Mrs. Dabb knew her daughter had to stay with Dylan. It was the only way to eventually tab into Emil’s accounts. “I’ve got a friend who works at the bank. Emil makes huge deposits every month. He says he’s selling some old family jewelry. What family jewelry? When his wife was still living, she never even wore earrings.”

“If he’s got money, it’s for his other kids. He doesn’t give Dylan anything.”

“Nonsense. Everyone knows Dylan’s his favorite. He’s doted on that boy since Dylan was a child. Dylan is special. Not retarded, but he is slow, and he feels things deeper than others. I think Emil and the others try to protect Dylan. He’s very sensitive.”

“Don’t bet on him not being retarded. Look, Mama, I gotta go. I’m feeling tired.”


 As soon as she hung up, Elaine went t her closet. She had a pair of slacks she had made out of a couple yards of black cloth. They looked really sexy on her, and she loved the way Claudette Colbert and Katherine Hepburn looked in black slacks in the picture shows. It was too late to catch a movie, but there was a bar down the street. She could walk down there.

Lucinda wore a white dress, pink hat and matching pink handbag and shoes to her first White House reception. She had shopped carefully as she always did for clothes. She hated that one dress could cost more than a miner’s pay for a year. That seemed very wrong, but she knew that as a senator’s wife, and she must make a good impression.

Mrs. Roosevelt greeted her kindly. The First Lady’s handshake was strong. Mrs. Roosevelt was tall like a statue, and she wore a flowered dress that Lucinda really liked. The first lady was not pretty, but intelligence and kindness danced like partners in the president’s wife’s eyes. Lucinda wanted to tell her how she and her father had voted for the president, but now she was a Republican senator’s wife. She could not confess to voting for a Democrat for president.

There were those who believed that her own husband would be president someday. She looked about and wondered what if would be like to live here in the White House. She decided that she would not like it. How much longer could she endure this sham of her marriage to Brad?

“Mrs. Davies. Mrs. Davies.” someone called. Lucinda still thought of herself as Lucinda Rinaldi. She hardly recognized the name. Mrs. Davies was her mother-in-law, whom she had met only a few times, and who was clearly not impressed with her son’s wife.

Then she felt an arm on her elbow. The woman who faced her was around fifty with perfectly styled white hair. She looked lovely despite her age, but Lucinda noticed there were no smile lines on her face. This woman lacked Mrs. Roosevelt’s warmth. Lucinda could see that lack of warmth right away. “Mrs. Davies, I’m Amanda Merriman of the Philadelphia Merrimans. I do not believe we have been introduced.”

Lucinda started to introduce herself.

“I know who you are. The entire town is buzzing about Brad Davies’ lovely wife. I believe your family is in mining. They must be making a fortune. Lend Lease and all those automobiles coming out of Detroit. They need the iron ore.”

Lucinda didn’t know what to say.

“What organizations do you belong to, dear.” Mrs. Merriman asked.

“I’m a member of the Baptist church.”

“Dear, you have such a sense of humor. There are must-belong clubs here in Washington. And if your qualify, well, of course, you’ll qualify.”

Lucinda took a step backward; she would not be invited to join anything if these people knew she was a Negro. She took another step back and bumped into a pretty dark haired lady wearing a blue dress. Both the lady and Lucinda apologized.

Mrs. Merriman sighed. “What is that dreadful woman doing here?”

“Who?” Lucinda really didn’t know anyone and felt slightly lost.

“Mrs. Kennedy. The woman you just bumped into. Her husband is some kind of a movie producer, and they must have at least a dozen kids.”

Lucinda changed to subject. “I love movies. Perhaps later I’ll talk to her.” She knew she was supposed to slight the dark haired woman, but she wouldn’t.

“No. No. No. You don’t want to associate with shanty Irish. That is almost as bad as being a Negro.” Mrs. Merriman pronounced it, Knee-Grow.

The word shook Lucinda. “I I didn’t…” Lucinda backed another step away. She disliked the Merriman lady intensely.

“Now. Now, dear, you are new to Washington. How are you to know who is whom? But that woman’s husband thinks he will be president some day. He wants to be the first Irish Catholic president or he wants his oldest son Joe to be president. Imagine. We might as well elect a Negro.”

Lucinda wondered how she could escape.

Mrs. Merriman kept talking. “Speaking of Negros, we have a chapter of the Klan here in Washington and some women do belong.”

“No.” Lucinda said.

“It’s very respectful. No sheets or hoods. It is just about keeping those people in their places, but I quite understand if you don’t want to join. The Klan is so-so middle class, but I do know some very influential members. Woodrow Wilson and Warren Harding were members, you know.”

Lucinda found herself bumping against a wall. She could back up no further.

“Have any of your ancestors served in the military?” Mrs. Merman asked.

Lucinda should have known enough to lie or to at least to have been vague, but she didn’t know what to say, and she wanted to say something positive about her family. They might be Negroes, but they had served this country. She spoke truthfully. “Civil War, American Revolution.” Her dad had served in the Spanish American War.

“My dear, that is wonderful. I have the paperwork here. You can join the Daughters of the American Revolution. Of course, you have to document…” the woman rambled on and on as she reached into her bag for some membership papers. “You just fill those out and then send them back to me.”

When Brad came home, Lucinda was almost through packing her suitcase. She was surprised that he even came into her bedroom. She was accustomed to being ignored except when it was time to ask her father for more money.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m going home for a few days.”

“Just as well,” he answered. “Stay out of sight for a few months.”

She kept packing.

“Lucinda, we need to start thinking about having a baby.”

“That’s going to be difficult, isn’t it? You haven’t touched me since we got married. And I don’t want you touching me.”

“A friend has agreed to bear our child. In fact, she’s already pregnant. When the child is born, we’ll say it is ours.”

Lucinda dropped the scarf she was packing and whirled to face him. “A friend?”

“You know I can’t have a child of Negro blood.”

“But you can take Negro money. Brad, you’re broke and your family is broke.”

“Shut up, Lucinda,” He advanced toward her like he was going to hit her. “You think I like our current arrangement?”

“I know I don’t like it. I’m going to talk to one of my father’s lawyers.”

“You’re what?” He shouted and then more calmly, he said, “I won’t let you.”

“Nothing says my father has to support us or your political career. When he cuts off the money, you’ll willingly divorce me.”

“You forget how important this marriage is to your father. He wants to see his little Black girl in the White House pretending she is good enough to be First Lady.”

“My father doesn’t know what a monster you are.”

“He doesn’t want to find out. Now you play the nice little White wife with a child or I divorce you, divulge your dark little secret, and you and your father won’t show your faces in polite society again.” He paused for effect. “It sure won’t be good for his business. I don’t care how much iron ore is needed. White people don’t do business with Niggers.”

She caught her breath. Her father did want to belong. But these people were such snobs. After a moment, he said, “Now go have your little visit. Make it a long one. Nine months should be about right. When you come back, you can be a nice little mammy.”

As he started toward the door, he noticed the paperwork from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Lucinda had not filled it out. “Wishful thinking, Lucinda.”

“Blacks served honorably in all our wars. Crispus Attucks …”

“Died in the Boston Massacre. You aren’t related to him.”

“No, But my great-grandfather served in the….”

“Who cares? The DAR checks the background of all applicants. They wouldn’t even let Marian Anderson sing for them. You should be cleaning their toilets.”

An impromptu band played at the Four Corners Bar. Elaine sat down and ordered a rum and Coca-Cola. She took a few sips and then she let the music and the booze move her. She walked out on the dance floor and wiggled her butt seductively.

One of the men at the bar eyed her appreciatively. “You look like a boy in those slacks,” he said.

“I ain’t no boy.” She could see her reflection in the mirror. The perfectly arched eyebrows; the painted red lips, the earrings and strand of imitation pearls that her mother had given her. Her breasts were noticeable under the thin fabric of her blouse. She was sure the stranger at the bar could see her small waistline and full hips.

“No,” he agreed, “You ain’t no boy. Buy you a drink?”

She walked toward him and nodded toward her own glass. “It’s already paid for. Conversation costs ten bucks.”

He laughed. “Ain’t you heard? There’s a Depression going on.”

She shrugged and turned away.

“How about a dollar?” He asked.

She ignored him. In the mirror she saw him fumble with his wallet. He pulled out a ten and placed it beside her glass. “This better be good,” he said. “You don’t look like the talking type.” She turned and faced him.

“What if we make it a down payment on something more?”

“How much more you got on you?”

“Twenty bucks.”

Plus the ten made thirty bucks. But he might be holding out on her. “Got any more?”

He reached to take the ten back. But she beat him to it. “I’ll take that other twenty.“ she said.

The bar in Detroit where Jack sipped a cold beer was larger, noisier and busier than the one where Elaine flirted with the redneck.

“We got us a killer.” Ben Fuller the state police captain told Jack. “We got missing women. Some of them have shown up on the roads to the north.”

“What do you want?”Jack asked.

“To catch the guy.”

“You think it’s me?”

“I don’t even think you robbed that gas station. The one you got sent to prison for.”

“Maybe we should form a club,”

The trooper pushed his glass aside. He wasn’t much for drinking, but he had wanted to establish some trust with Brianka. “This is what we got. Fifteen known victims from before you got sent to prison on 1936. The killings seemed to stop; we don’t think they did.”

“What makes you think the killer was busy even while I was in prison?”

“We got disappearances. Lots of places in the Upper Peninsula to hide bodies.”

“But now they’re getting found again?” Jack asked.

“Some of ‘em. There could be a whole lot more we don’t know about.”

“Maybe there’s more than one killer,” Jack suggested. “Seems there’s been a whole lot of victims.”

“He could have an accomplice. Or maybe somebody copying the killer’s work. But if there is a copy cat, he knows a damn lot about the killings. There are similarities. Details we never released to the public.”

“So why you talking to me?”

“I got a hunch you’re in this someplace.”

Jack smiled. “So you do think I am the killer. ” “I think the killer knows you, hates you and wants us to think you’re the killer.”

“Now you’re scaring me. I’ve got two sisters living in Mountain Ridge. They’re…”

“They’re vulnerable.” Fuller said. “Both are the killer’s type. Young, pretty, dark hair. Some of the victims resemble your sisters.”

Jack put his glass down. It felt like his heart and everything else in his entire being had stopped. He had never thought about the killer targeting women just because they bore some resemblance to Vonnie and Lisa. “That’s silly.” He said after a moment. “There are thousands of dark-haired, pretty women in Michigan.”

“Why’s this hick deputy so set on getting you put out of the way?”

“It wasn’t just the deputy. My ex employer. Let’s just say he had reasons for wanting me to leave.” Now Jack thought about another pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl. Lucinda. “That had nothing to do with the killings,” Jack said after a minute. “That was different.”

“So what was it?” The cop wanted all the answers, but Jack wouldn’t give him this one.

“Personal,” Jack said after a minute.

“The Mountain Ridge cops must have it in for you too.”

“The cops always have it in for guys like me.” He swallowed the last of his beer and walked hurriedly from the bar.

Five hundred miles away in Mountain Ridge, Dylan Mynter opened the door to his home. He was surprised to find the kitchen light on. Elaine was usually in bed with all the lights off when he came home. He set his dinner pail down on the table and sat down heavily in a chair.

Mine work was mostly digging and despite his strength, he came home with every muscle aching. After a second, he heaved himself to his feet and began slowly walking toward the bedroom. He had just entered the hall when he heard her giggle. So Elaine was still awake. Perhaps she was reading one of those ladies magazines she loved so much.

Tonight he was home early. He had a flu and just couldn’t endure being sick so deep in the mines. He needed the money and tried to stay, but the foreman had sent him home.

He took another step and thought he heard another voice. This voice was much lower. A man’s voice. Was she listening to the radio?

Dylan kept walking. When he opened the bedroom door, it was very dark. His eyes started to adjust.

Two bodies hurriedly separated from each other. They moved off the bed like shadows move in a dark movie theater.

He turned on the light. A naked man struggled to find his clothes.

“Who the hell are you?” The man asked.

“My husband,” Elaine said.

Half asleep Jack opened the door to his apartment; there stood Lucinda. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Jack. I just don't know.”

Vonnie had made Mr. Rinaldi blueberry pancakes with fresh butter and maple sugar from the Cheney farm. He seemed distracted during breakfast and then went to his study.

She had just started the dishes when he came into the kitchen. “Can I sit down?” he asked.

She nodded. It was, after all, his home.

“I was going to a ask you to come to my study, but that seemed too formal for this conversation.”

“What can I do for you, sir?” She dried her hands and sat down at the table opposite him.

“Have you heard from Lucinda?”

“Not for several days. She likes to call and talk. You’ve probably seen the phone bills,” she paused. “She calls collect. I hope you aren’t upset.”

“No. No. I want my daughter calling. Keep her on the phone. Keep her talking.”

There was silence for a minute. Vonnie was unsure where Mr Rinaldi was going. Was he aware of how unhappy Lucinda was in her marriage? She did not want to tell him what Lucinda said in confidence. Lucinda was far above Vonnie in class, but they enjoyed a warm friendship and shared confidences. Lucinda had no one else to turn to.

Mr. Rinaldi cleared his throat and then began speaking. “Brad called several times because Lucinda took off. She said she was coming here to visits me. Wouldn’t she have told you if she was coming? Wouldn’t she have told me?”

Of course, Lucinda would let her know to have her old room ready. “I’ll make a few phone calls.” Vonnie said. “I’ll try to find out where she is.”

“I’ll be going for a walk,” he said. This let her know she could make a private call from the house.

He knew she would be calling Jack.

Vonnie watched as he left. Though his coat and hat could not be that heavy, his shoulders sagged under their weight.

When he was out of sight, she picked up the phone and asked for long distance.

“What do you want to do?” Emil asked. He and Dylan were seated at Emil’s table, having morning coffee.

Dylan didn’t answer.

“I know you love her,” Emil said as gently as he could.

“I don’t want her back,“ Dylan said as tears spilled into his coffee. He had never hurt another human being before in his life, but he had just put a man in the hospital. The man would survive a concussion and a few broken bones. Dylan had wanted to kill the man. Had the stranger known Elaine was married? It was her Dylan should have punched. But he could never do that. Not to Elaine. Not to any woman.

“We’ll fight her. Infidelity.” Emil promised. “There aren’t any children. You’ll get the house.”

“She can have it.”


 “You can’t do that, Dylan. You need to make her pay.”

Dylan just shook his head. “Dad, I know you paid cash for the house. I’ll pay you back.”

Emil was grateful that Elaine had no idea how much money the family really had. They would play Dylan up for a pauper. Elaine was lucky she was getting the house. He would see that was all she got.

“Low sperm count or something, “ Elaine told her beautician. “He just can’t keep it up, if you know what I mean.”

“So you’re divorcing him?”

“Damn right.”

“You sure you don’t want to hang in there for the money?”

“What money? They’re always telling me how poor they are.”

“Everyone knows there’s money. New cars. Nice houses. College educations for the boys. The Mynters pay cash for houses and aways have money for anything else they want.”

“Yeah, there’s money,” Elaine agreed. “Too bad I don’t know how to shake it loose.”

The morning came when Vonnie woke up and Ezekial didn’t. She knew a little about first aid, and tried to revive him. Then she called Dennis and Leo for assistance. Dennis sped right over.

Lisa nervously made coffee. “Are you sure he's dead?” she asked Vonnie. “What do we do?”

Vonnie sat down and cried.

Mr. Rinaldi called at ten. “I heard,” he said simply.

“I’ll send Lisa over to make your breakfast.”

“Don’t worry. Take the day off. I’m capable of making my own coffee. I can manage until you’re ready to come back. You are coming back?”

“Yes, of course. And thank you.”

Miles and Leo arrived about two hours later with the coroner, who wrote out a death certificate that said Ezekial had died of natural causes.

“You’re going to be a rich widow.” Miles said.

“How do you figure that?” Vonnie asked. She sipped her black coffee and didn’t offer the deputy any. She wanted him to leave.

“Old Ezekiel had what close to a hundred acres, maybe more.”

“The land mostly belongs to Dennis,” Vonnie said simply. “Ezekial was so proud of this land.” Vonnie nodded toward Ezekial’s nephew who sat at the table.

“Nifty,” Mills smiled and winked in a way that let Vonnie and Dennis know the Deputy suspected they were having sexual relations. She didn’t care for the implication. Dennis’ girl friend, Danni stopped wiping down the counter and glared at the deputy.

“There’s a will,” Dennis said when Miles and most of the others had left. Lisa had gone off to the Rinaldi mansion where she was doing the chores Vonnie usually performed.

“He told me,” Vonnie said. She knew about the will. Ezekial had explained it to her. Ezekial had been like a beloved father to Vonnie. Having lost her own father so long ago, this relationship was something she needed and that she depended on. Still Ezekial had been one hundred years old. It was time for his spirit to move on. She dabbed a tear from her eye.

Dennis was still talking.“You keep the house and about five acres. I can let you have more if you want.”

Vonnie shook her head. The house was more than enough. Ezekial had given her so much.

“You’ll get a widow’s pension.”

She nodded. “That’s more than I deserve from him.”

“Actually it’s from the government, and you will need it with a baby to care for.”

Vonnie was making plans. She would keep the chickens and the cow. She would continue to work for Mr. Rinaldi. She would plant a small garden and maybe sell some of the vegetables and eggs. She had Lisa to help her.

TO BE CONTINUED

Chapter Ten

Lucinda’s wedding ended.

The church had been packed mostly with Brad’s friends and relatives. The bride’s gown had been made especially for her in Paris and hurried to Lansing on the fastest ships and cars.

The guest list included a who’s who in American politics, academia and film. They had all flown to Michigan to attend the wedding of a rising star in the Republican Party. Brad would be president someday. Everyone said so. Well-wishes crowded around the couple. Movie stars and congressmen did not interest Lucinda. She found them boring.

These people were too fancy, too smug, too self important.

Somehow she must find a way to sometimes get back to Mountain Ridge and her friends.

She had wanted to invite Yvonne, but Yvonne had a farm to run and she had a baby. How Lucinda wanted to see little Louis.

She knew she had to put Jack behind her. She was a wife now, and though her marriage may have been political to unite her family to Brad’s family’s old world political connections, she still wanted to make a good wife. There are some clubs that even wealth and a seat in congress could not buy a way into. And Brad had been so good about her secret. Not every man would marry a Negro, even one as beautiful and wealthy as Lucinda Rinaldi.

The Davies family name would introduce her and her dad to the society that he dreamed about. She was not interested in the great families of New York, Boston and Washington D.C. Her dad was not that interested either. It was just something he wanted. Being a Negro often made Enrico feel inferior. But he and his daughter would rise to the pinnacles of society. He hoped to see her in the White House as hostess and first lady.

Lucinda’s politics were very different than Brad’s. While she was a New Deal Democrat and she knew her father had voted for Franklin Roosevelt, Brad was a Republican who opposed Roosevelt’s ideas for Social Security, and Works Projects.

Brad planned to oppose Roosevelt in every possible way.

With the wedding over, Lucinda retreated to their hotel room while Brad said good night to political cronies.

She brushed her hair and dabbed Lovely perfume behind her ears. She had read in a ladies’ magazine that the best way to get the full effect of a perfume was to rub on baby oil first. Lucinda did this. Then the perfume. She inhaled the rich aroma and hoped her husband would enjoy it. She wanted to be special for him. Was he not an important man?

She admitted she was a little nervous. This was her wedding night. Then she heard the bedroom door opening. She turned and smiled. “Darling.”

He still wore his tuxedo from the wedding, tie askew, and she suspected he was intoxicated.

“I put some blankets on the couch, Lucinda.”

“What?” she got up; her chartreuse silk nightgown caressing the curves of her young body.

He thought how cat-like she moved, as he reached for a decanter of brandy. “You’ll sleep on the couch. When we get to my house in Lansing, you will have your own bedroom like a maid.”

This was not the way a wedding a night should be. “You don’t want me?”

“Of course, I am tempted. You’re a damn beautiful woman. But you are a Negress. What kind of a white man sleeps with a Negress?”

“You knew I was a Negro when you married me.”

“And unfortunately I need your dad’s money. Now go out on the couch like a good girl.”

“No.” she surprised herself with her sharpness. “Father’s money is paying for this room and it financed your campaign. If anyone will sleep on the couch, it will be you. Better yet go get your own room. If you can afford one.” She sighed and sat back down at her vanity table where her cosmetics and perfumes were arranged around her.

Was there a way to change this? To make him see she was his wife and as good or better than any other wife. Lucinda had the best clothes, the best education and she was the daughter of perhaps the richest man in the state. She would not be treated this way. If he wanted an annulment, she would agree. But he didn’t want that, did he? He wanted her father’s money.

When she looked back at him, his eyes filled with hatred and anger. Suddenly he was striding toward her like a cowboy ready to beat a horse. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her to her feet and then shoved her to the floor. “Get up and walk out that door before I drag you.”

Frightened, she obeyed. She walked into the living room part of their hotel suite, grabbed her purse and ran for the door. But he grabbed her again, this time by the arm. His fingers dug into her flesh and hurt her terribly.

“I knew you’d try to run.”

“I’ll get my own room.”

“Now how will that look on our wedding night?”

“I’m calling my father.”

“Sure, call your father and I’ll call the newspapers. He opened a drawer in one of the desks. It continued her father’s birth certificate. “Race: Negro.” It read. “You think you covered your tracks so well. No one ever bothered to check. But you walk out that door, and I call the newspapers. Neither you nor your precious daddy will be welcome in white society again.”

“I’m your wife.”

“Time enough for an annulment. But we can’t have that now. Can we?”

“What do you want?” She couldn’t believe she was crying now.

“Daddy’s money and for you to know your place. You'll be a hostess and nothing more. You make any trouble for me, and I have your birth certificate too. We don’t want to disappoint Daddy now, do we?”

“If it’s so easy to check my background, it will be easy for others. What are your chances of making it to the White House with a Negro wife?”

“I can make the originals disappear. I may not be as rich as daddy, but I am more powerful. You remember that.”

She slowly walked to the sofa. “Don’t bother me anymore tonight,” she said sitting down.

He stared at her. As soon as he was sleeping, he suspected she would call her father. Maybe Enrico would end the marriage. His new little slave girl needed a lesson in obedience.

When he walked toward her she gave a small yelp. Was he going to hit her?

“Is that anyway to treat your new husband?” he asked. He pulled her to him. For a moment, she thought he would rape her. Instead he yanked her toward the closet and then tossed her in like she was an old overcoat. He locked the door.

She wanted to scream. Instead she sank to the floor and felt his shoes rub against her sides like they were kicking her. She cried until she fell asleep.

Lucinda knew she was trapped. If she told her father, Brad kept her isolated, treated her worse than a maid, Enrico would kill Brad.

A divorce would mean the end of her father’s dream of high Washington and New York society. The truth about her family would come out and make headlines.

She must endure her marriage.

Enrico awakened when he heard a noise. Someone was walking outside his bedroom door. He thought it must be an intruder and reached for the the gun he kept at his bedside. The doorknob turned. Click. The door opened. From the light of the full moon outside his bedroom window, he saw a flash of white material and a feminine form outlined in the darkness.

He set the gun down and reached for the lamp switch; the room was filled with light. Lisa Brianka stood in the doorway.

The light hurt Enrico’s eyes, but Lisa Brianka’s eyes were closed. She moved in a circle around the middle of the bedroom floor. Her face upturned toward the ceiling. It was as if she could see something through her closed lids.

For just a moment, he was paralyzed with something close to fear.

“Lisa,” he shouted, hoping to pull her out of her trance.

Her nightgown was diaphanous and he worried about the indecency of having a young woman in night clothes in his bedroom at an ungodly early hour. He shouted her name again.

She did not seem to have heard him.

Eyes closed, she continued to look to the ceiling. “Hanging,” she said softly and then she screamed and fell toward the floor. There she crouched in a sort of sitting position as if she were playing with a cat. “Pa’s hanging there,” she pointed to the ceiling. “Don’t hit me. Don’t kick me.” Her body jerked. She fell sideways like someone had pushed her or kicked her. Then she was still for several minutes.

Should he call the sheriff? That would make gossip and trouble. He didn’t want that for either himself or for the poor girl, who was obviously unhinged. He needed to call her sister, but he feared that if he moved past her; she might awaken or become violent.

He watched her for a moment.

And then very slowly she got up and left.

As soon as she left the room, he got up and locked the door.

He would definitely call her sister. But not tonight. What if Lisa lingered in the hall? It would wait until tomorrow. Perhaps he needed to have a phone put in his bedroom. But it should be okay, if he just kept the door locked.

Lisa got up early to prepare his breakfast. When Mr. Rinaldi tasted the coffee he spit it out. “It tastes awful.”

She tasted the coffee herself; it tasted the same as always. But Mr. Rinaldi had opened the sugar bowl and tasted a little bit of the contents. It was salt.

“I’m so sorry. I must have gotten the containers mixed up.” Both salt and sugar came in huge bags. It was easy to mix them up.

“Just go get the sugar,” he had snapped at her.

She flew to the pantry, opened the sugar bag, but it fell over and sugar spilled all over the floor. She started to sweep it up, then he was beside her. “Never mind that. Get my bacon.”

The bacon burned on the stove. She’d forgotten it. Smoke filled the kitchen.

He stormed out of the house saying he would get breakfast at the cafe.

Lisa easily put out the fire that had consumed the bacon, but she found herself shaking.

Cleaning was no easier. She started in Mr. Rinaldi’s bedroom, but knocked over a vase and it shattered into a million pieces.

If anyone thought mine owners had an easy life, they didn’t know the world of Enrico Rinaldi. His secretary had quit. His midnight foreman had a drinking problem and had to be fired. He asked Emil Mynter to find him another foreman, but in the meantime his other foremen would have to work double shifts. Even if he could find a capable secretary and a new foreman, training them would take time.

There was demand for more ore particularly from England and Germany who Enrico knew were preparing for another fight. He prayed Franklin Roosevelt would have the wisdom to keep America out of a European war. Of course, Roosevelt was running for another term and he could lose in November to Alf Landon. Political analysts thought it would be a close race, but Landon was favored.

Enrico planned to vote for Roosevelt again despite backing his Republican son-in-law. Roosevelt was doing what he could to pull the nation from the grips of Depression. That was more than the Republicans were doing.

There had been a meeting of the mine owners where Enrico had been pressured to cut wages. Other mine owners were not only cutting wages, but laying off workers.

Too tired to argue, Enrico said he would think about it.

When he got home, he met a crying maid. Lisa Brianka, babbled about breaking a vase.

He didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

“You just take the money out of my wages.” she had blubbered.

“That won’t be necessary,’ he assured her. He didn’t like the vase anyway. Where had it come from? Had Lucinda bought it as a favor to some poor shopkeeper.

Lisa was still crying when he climbed the stairs. He hated firing people, but he didn’t know how much longer he could endure ruined breakfasts and blubbering. Crying women made him nervous. On top of that he had to keep his bedroom door locked at night because of the ramblings of this strange girl. He would talk to Lucinda. Maybe she could take Lisa to work for her at the Lansing house.

Brad was running for the U.S. senate. Maybe Lisa could help Lucinda when she had to move. But then what would Enrico do for a maid? If only that other one, Vonnie, had been able to stay.

The house was quiet as he shaved and bathed and then crawled into bed. He was exhausted; sleep came quickly.

Then Lisa screamed.

March found Lucinda back in Mountain Ridge. Her husband had flown to Washington on state business. He had agreed to let her visit her family and friends. He knew she wouldn’t tell her father; she would be too ashamed, and she knew Brad would hurt her if she said anything. Lucinda sometimes feared her husband would kill her. He had threatened her. Anyway her father thought he could enter high society. He was planning his own trip to Washington. She couldn’t destroy his dream.

Brad had once asked Lucinda if she knew what an up-pity Nigger was. Sometimes she felt she just couldn’t take the degradation anymore. She functioned as a hostess, and then he dismissed to her room like the lowest maid.

There was, however, someone she could talk to and share her deepest darkest secrets. She sat in Vonnie’s warm kitchen at the Cheney farm house and ate an apple pie smothered in homemade vanilla ice cream.

“You have to leave him,“ Vonnie said.

Lucinda shook her head. “This means too much to my father. Even though people don’t know we’re Negroes, still so many doors are closed to us. We’re newly rich and to the people who matter, we’re no better than shanty Irish or Jews.”

“People who matter? Shanty Irish?” Vonnie almost had to laugh at that, but the phrases made her sad at the same time. “My dad was Jewish. It’s why a lot of people don’t like us.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” Lucinda said as she sipped Vonnie’s coffee and knew the contrast between them. Lucinda wore a $300 dress custom made by the best dressmaker in Detroit. Vonnie ’s dress was one she had made for herself.

Lucinda’s hair was professionally styled. Vonnie cut and styled her own hair.

While the kitchen smelled of freshly baked apple pie, cinnamon and coffee, the furnishings were old. It was so different from Lucinda’s world of maids and shiny appliances.

“About Lisa,” Vonnie said.

“I’m so sorry.” Lucinda said. Her dad had mentioned his problems with Lisa.

Vonnie already knew some of it. Lisa had called a few times crying, and Mr. Rinaldi had asked her if she could come back to work. “But she will be staying with us now. I go down and pick her up in the evenings and I drop her off first thing in the morning. I have to be up anyway to help milk the cows.”

“That’s extra work for you.”

“It’s better for Lisa. She’s afraid unless I’m there for her at night. I wish Jack could be here.”

Lucinda took a deep breath. She still thought about Jack often. “Father had nothing to do with what happened to Jack.” she said. “Miles railroaded him and …and…”


 “And what?” Vonnie asked.

“Miles even thought Jack was the killer.”

“Killer?”

“Girls have disappeared and the police found a few bodies. The state police are saying Mountain Ridge is the center of a killer’s activity.”

Vonnie shivered. Both women were silent for a few minutes. They knew the sheriff’s son thought Jack was riff raft.

Miles Olson met with Michigan police Captain Ben Fuller at the Yorkie Cafe in Mountain Ridge. “What’s on your mind?” the state policeman asked.

“You got anymore on the Michigan killer? You know the serial killer.”

“Like what?”

“New victims.”

The two men sipped their coffee in silence for awhile. Finally Fuller spoke. “We haven’t had anything recently. If he’s still out there, he could’ve moved to a new area.” Fuller paused and sipped more of the black coffee. “He could be hiding his victims better. There’s a theory there are more bodies. We’ve got lots of missing women in this state and lots of people saying there’s a copy cat killer or more than one.”

“But nothing’s shown up recently,“ Mills clarified.

“Women are still missing.”

“That happens all over.” Miles said.

“We got twice the national average. That hasn’t changed.”

“Then you think the killer’s still out there.”

“I don’t know what to think, Miles. What do you think?”

“We got a vagrant name of Jack Brianka. I’ve had my eye on his for a long while.”

“And”

“And he tried to rob a gas station last year. I got him sent up to Marquette. He’s doing time there now.”

“How long’s he in for?”

“He should be getting out soon. He got a year and that’s mostly used up.”

“A year? For robbery?”

“He’s got some high level friends. He worked as a gardener for the Rinaldis. Originally they gave him five years, and that wasn’t nearly enough.”

“You think Enrico Rinaldi’s gardener’s our serial killer?”

“Like I said, I’ve had my eye on him. The family’s no good. One of his sisters just had a baby a couple months after getting married to a Civil War veteran no less.”

“A ninety-something year old guy knocked her up?” the police captain almost choked on his coffee. “You’ve got to be making this up.”

“He ain’t the father. You can be sure of that. Who knows who’s the father? For all I know the girl was doing tricks from the Rinaldi mansion.”

“You’ve got some imagination.”

“The other sister is a lulu. Crazy as can be.”

“Is that her name? Lulu?”

“Her name’s Lisa, but she has nightmares, roams around at night in her nightgown, talks about hanged men. The girl is a real basket case. She was out on the lawn at the Rinaldi’s one night. The neighbors called us in.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Just sharing some information, cop to cop. The killings have stopped since Jack Brianka went jail.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“I know it. And when Brianka gets out of jail, somebody gotta keep an eye on him.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” said the police captain.

Lisa walked through the woods.

Her red coat purchased from the Sears catalog even had a hood, and it protected her from some of the morning cold.

She knew Almasy house was at the other end and there was even a path. She looked at the old house. She knew she had been here before. She had been taken there the night she lost her parents.

She remembered the thick carpets and the chandelier hanging…swinging. It had frightened her. Why? The house had not seemed safe. She had expected hooded figures to jump out from the shadows. Then her mother was lying in a box. She understood now. Her mother was dead . Lisa knew about coffins now, but she hadn’t then.

She had wanted her mother and had tried to crawl into the coffin. Lisa remembered her mother’s dress was dark and made from a stiff, scratchy material. Her mother had been so still like a doll, and her mother had not tried to hold her. She remembered the strong arms that had pulled her away from her mother’s body. The arms had not been soft and soothing like her mother’s arms used to be.

She had wanted her ma.

She had wanted her pa.

Instead there was that awful old lady telling her that she must never tell anyone what happened. “It was all a nightmare.” the old lady had said. “You imagined it all. No one will believe you.”

What had happened that night? Her mother had died. Her father had disappeared. They told her he left town because he didn’t want to be saddled with the kids.

But she did remember why her pa would never come back for her. How she wished she didn’t remember.

If she closed her eyes, she could see the rope around his neck, his face twisted in pain. She didn’t want to remember him that way. “Pa,” she whispered as if he could hear her and come to her.

That scary old lady knew what really happened that night. Lisa was sure of that. Why had the old lady lied to her?

The killer watched Lisa as she moved down the path. He had watched her before. She would be easy. Too bad he was taking time off. No more killing until Jack Brianka got out of prison. But there had been a few. He couldn’t resist.

Bodies had to be carefully hidden.

The girls who disappeared carefully chosen.

It wouldn’t do to kill Jack’s sister. Not now. Would it? Miles said she couldn’t even disappear. Jack had to look guilty.

Of course, Jack couldn’t come back here; it was a condition of his sentencing.

But how far away would he stay with both of his sisters here?

The killer would have liked to rape Lisa as he and his buddy had once raped Vonnie. He wanted to kill her, and make the body disappear as other bodies had. But if the Rinaldi’s maid went missing, that would cause problems. Some people would know he was still here and that he hadn’t stopped killing. There were other ways of dealing with Lisa Brinaka. It just had to wait until later.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Chapter Nine

Lucinda Rinaldi honored veterans of American wars at her home every Fourth of July. Most of the men who came were veterans of the Great War which the United States had entered in April of 1917 or like her father veterans of the Spanish American War. A few had fought in the Civil War.

She didn’t mind inviting others. Certainly the young women of Mountain Ridge were interested in attracting veterans no matter what their age. And what’s a party without dancing and flirting. There would have to be ladies at the event. Lucinda sent out invitations to any young lady interested in attending.

The town girls valued their invitations. A veteran was marriageable material because he had a pension. With the country deep in a Depression, even Lucinda’s father didn’t know how long it would be before he had to start laying workers off. Those military pensions looked very inviting to young women whose fathers and uncles and the boys they would normally consider marrying were looking for jobs. A pension was a steady income. And widows got pensions too.

Lucinda, Vonnie and Lisa had been busy for days cleaning, buying extra supplies, making salads, puddings and breads. July Fourth at the Rinaldis was to be the biggest celebration of the year in Mountain Ridge.

As the guests arrived, Lucinda and her father greeted them and offered them punch. Music streamed from the new phonograph Enrico had ordered from Detroit. Soon couples were waltzing about. Lisa and Yvonne busied themselves putting cookies out on trays and seeing that everyone had enough to eat and drink.

Ezekial Cheney arrived in his wheel chair. His nephew Dennis pushed him into the room. Ezekial, one of the few Civil War veterans still around, loved to tell tales of meeting at Campus Martius in Detroit with men from all over Michigan. Young George Armstrong Custer had been there wearing a captain’s stripes. Ezekial had served under Custer in the war. He surprised many people by calling the great Custer a coward and a fool. “If I had been with Sitting Bull, I would have shot the idiot myself,” he said.

Ezekial had even seen Abraham Lincoln once when the president visited the soldiers after a battle. Lucinda invited Dennis to help himself to the snack table and Vonnie wheeled Ezekiel over to a table and then brought him date bars, his favorite cookie, and punch.

“How about some of those pretty sugar cookies, over there?” he asked her. Vonnie hurried off to collect a plate of sugar cookies and added some chocolate heart-shaped candies. “Have you tried the ice cream yet?” she asked when she brought him the plate.

“Just a little.”

“Of course.” She quickly served him the ice cream, and as she did, her apron fell slightly away revealing her swollen belly.

“Whose the lucky guy?” he asked.

“Beg your pardon, sir.”

“Old guys like me get to ask impolite questions. Put it down to senility.’ He had noticed and she hoped he was the only one who noticed. If Mr. Rinaldi noticed, she would be fired. She scooped the ice cream on his plate in silence.

“You’re pregnant, ain’t ya?”

“She wanted to run into the kitchen. “Excuse me, sir, I must check the - something’s on the stove.”

“He gently took her arm and held her there beside him “Please stay. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

She nodded and sat beside him, still feeling uneasy.

“You’re one of the Brianka girls?”

She still didn’t answer.

“I met your brother a few times. He came to the house and helped me fix some flooring. I tried to pay him, but he wouldn’t take anything.” Ezekiel waited as if expecting her to say something. “I didn’t believe he tried to rob that gas station. If he did, they wouldn’t have given him such a short sentence.”

“Sir, I really have to go.”

“Okay, but I need someone to push me home after this here wingding is over. My nephew over there deserves a good time without this old man to push around. You come and do this old man a favor.”

“I’ll ask Miss Lucinda.”

“I ain’t trying to get dirty with you. I won’t hurt you. You send that pretty Lucinda over, and I’ll ask her myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Emil had explored and mapped most of the tunnels. He knew Jeff Hollander had claimed to see something terrifying in the tunnels, but that Mills Olson had gone into the tunnels and found nothing in the place where the priest claimed murdered women lay strewn about.

Jeff Hollander was not the type of man to frighten easily, but Emil thought maybe he had instead found a batch of Rose’s old moonshine, and that the old brew perhaps inspired a bad dream. Whatever had spooked Jeff Hollander, had spooked Hollander good.

He put the house up for sale.

Emil made his way from a mine tunnel into Rose’s tunnels and from there right up to the house, but he didn’t want to go into the house. That would be trespassing. Somehow being in Rose’s tunnels did not qualify as trespassing. At least not to Emil’s way of thinking. After all her tunnels connected with some of the mines including the very mine that Emil worked for. Rose had trespassed when she built these tunnels. A part of Emil’s job was to see to mine safety.

He stood at the entrance that if it were not blocked and locked would lead into Rose’s house. If Rose had a fortune here, it was close by. He sensed it. She would want her fortune where she could easily get it. She might have hidden her money inside the house. Unlikely. Hollander would have found it.

Even if he were sloshed on old moonshine, Jeff Hollander would have found any treasure hidden in the house. Down here, Emil was more at home than Hollander ever would be. Emil had explored the tunnels to the right. Now he would go to the left. This led away from the mines. This was where the treasure would be hidden.

Emil noticed a recently blocked passageway. Someone had come down here recently and closed that way off. Why? Was this the section where Jeff Hollander had his nightmare? Emil moved slowly. He noticed footprints on the ground. This is near where Jeff Hollander and Miles Olson had looked for some nightmare killing ground.

He turned away from the blockage, and followed a tunnel deeper into the earth.

He turned toward a small manmade chamber that looked like a natural cave. Something metal glittered in his light. It was a rusted still. Emil backed from that chamber. He moved on.

He found another hollowed chamber. Empty. This part of the tunnel curved and twisted like a snake and lead nowhere. It dead ended.

There had to be more. He went back to the empty chamber. It was perfectly hollowed out with smooth walls. Why had it been created? Something about this one was different than the other dead ends. This was more round and more like a room. It had had a purpose. But what?

Carefully Emil examined the walls and the floor. He noticed a small indentation beneath the cave’s wall and he inserted his fingernails there. There was something hidden here. It was very hard to see in the dim light and in the black on black of shadows. He rubbed the floor, clearing away dirt until he made out a small door.

It was artfully hidden; he slowly opened the door in the cave floor.

Vonnie took Ezikeal home in Lucinda’s Rolls Royce. She hated leaving the cleanup to Lisa and to Lucinda, but Lucinda had insisted. Ezekiel as a Civil War veteran was a Mountain

Ridge treasure, and if he wanted Vonnie to take him home, then Vonnie would take him home. When they got to the farm, the ranch hand helped Ezekiel out of the car, into the wheel chair and then wheeled him up to his front porch. Instead of steps, Emil had a wooden ramp attached to his porch.

Emil pointed to the ramp. “Your brother helped my nephew build that.” Vonnie got a jug of lemonade from a picnic basket in the car and poured him a large glass. He told her where she could find ice cubes in his kitchen. She poured herself some lemonade too.

“I’m ninety-five years old,” he said when she was seated.

“My goodness,” she did some quick arithmetic, “You must have been born in 1840. Who was president then? Do you know?”

He grinned. “Martin Van Buren. That was an election year. William Henry Harrison won, but then he caught a bad cold at his inauguration, and died a month later. I was a year old and had lived under three presidents. You haven’t lived under many more presidents and you’re…”

“Eighteen,” she said. “I’ve lived under five presidents, and Franklin Roosevelt is the best.”

“He is. I liked Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt a lot, but this one we got now is a good man. Did you know he’s in a wheel chair just like me?”

“I didn’t know that,” she admitted.

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Then he asked, “Are you going to marry the boy that got you pregnant?”

She didn’t know what to say. “Please…”

“I ain’t being nosey, and you don’t have to answer, but I’m a lonely old soul out here. I could use someone to clean the house and cook my meals. My nephew does what he can, but he’s got over 400 acres to take care of.”

Vonnie listened to his words and stared out across his yard at stalks of corn blowing gently in the breeze.

“I already deeded most of the farm off to my nephew, but I kept these five acres. I got a pension and if I had a wife, that pension would go to my wife after I die. It ain’t much, but it buys electricity and I don’t need much in store bought food. I ain’t doin’ this very well, but what I’m saying is that you got a home here if you want it.”

Tears stung Vonnie’s eyes. “I couldn’t ask you to…”

“I’m asking you.” He interrupted in a voice louder than he intended. “I’ll give your young ‘un a name and you get my pension for the rest of your life. And you get the five acres after I’m gone.”

“I couldn’t,” she repeated.

“Okay,” he accepted her answer. It had been brash of him to make such a proposal. “You know I would never have touched you.”

“No. No. Mr. Cheney, I am so honored by your offer. I thank you.” Tears streamed down her cheek. She took a handkerchief from her purse.

He let her cry; he didn’t know what else to do or say. Like many men of his generation, the sight of a crying woman was almost painful to him. But he just didn’t know what to say. His proposal had embarrassed him. But he did need someone, and he sensed that she was in trouble.

“I have no place else to go.” she said after a minute.

“He took her hand and squeezed the tiny fist still clutching a handkerchief. “You do now. And I promise you, I won’t bother you none except for some cleaning and maybe help getting around.”

Lisa stood at the edge of the woodland. She always avoided the paths that wound through the trees because the woods scared her. Vonnie said the trees formed a small city park, but Vonnie too avoided this small forest. Walking around the group of trees took Lisa out of her way, but she didn’t mind the walking.

Once she reached the other side of the woods, she stared up at Almasy House. She had been there as a very small child. Her mother’s body had been taken here. This house had something to do with what happened to her pa. Something had happened in this house and after that her parents were gone. She still had Jack and Vonnie, but their old house was gone. It was all because of this house and the scary old lady.

Where had her family lived? In one of the houses at the edge of the tree area. Was their old house still there? Would she recognize it? What did Almasy House have to do with the house where she used to live with her parents, her brother and sister?

Almasy House was empty now.

The old lady who had lived here was dead. Father Hollander who inherited the house had placed it for sale. He said he had seen something awful in the tunnels under the house. Lisa had heard much of the local gossip, and she knew the people who lived here in Mountain Ridge did not like Father Hollander anymore than she did.

Church attendance was down; a new priest from Detroit had taken over. Hollander had beaten her and Jack when they lived in the orphanage. He said it was to get the Jewishness out of her. She hated him, but he wasn’t the only one she hated.

Lisa remembered the old lady. “You must never tell what happened tonight,” the fancy lady had told Lisa all those years ago. “Your daddy left town. He didn’t want to be saddled with little kids. He left. Anything else is a lie. No one will believe you if you say anything else.”

The woman had told her over and over, “You mother went to heaven, and your daddy went to China.”

A sound came from the woods and Lisa turned at the sound. Some small animal darted through the bushes. She saw a tall pine tree. These were called Norway pines. Lisa listened as sounds in the forest receded. She remembered what had happened that night. She remembered what the lady said she must never tell.

Lucinda and Brad had lunch at his hotel. He rattled on and on about the wedding plans. He listed the names of the invited. More important he thought was how much people would donate to his campaign after they met his beautiful wife. Was he trying to impress her by listing the names of wealthy donors?

She knew how important this marriage was to her dad, but she had to tell Brad.

“Brad,” she began. “There’s something you need to know.”

He put his hand on top of hers. “Yes,” he smiled. “Where shall we spend our honeymoon? The Riviera? Paris? Wouldn’t it be great to sail around the world on on one of those big ocean liners? But unfortunately I have legislative duties and a campaign to run. I can’t be away that long. We may have to settle for Mackinaw Island.” He seemed very excited. Why did she suspect it was an act?

“Please,” she begged, “You must listen to me.” Then the words stuck in her throat for awhile. No, she must not be ashamed of who she was. Her family had worked hard to raise themselves out of slavery and poverty. “My grandfather was what they called a Buffalo Soldier. They were Black soldiers who…”

“I know who your grandfather was, Miss Reynolds.” he snapped. “Yes, dear. I know your family’s secret. I know your family’s name before they changed it. We will not speak of it again.”

That surprised her, but pleased her too. She had been honest. Now they could go ahead with the wedding. Her father would be happy. But would she be happy?

Emil’s two oldest daughters, Mary who had just turned 22 and Elsie who was 20, were to wed in September. They planned a double wedding. “Too bad Almasy House is closed. I always wanted to be married there,” Mary said. “It used to be such a great mansion.”

“If we could afford a mansion, why not go to a nice mansion and maybe get married on Mackinac Island.” Elsie said.

“Don’t worry about expense,” Emil told them. He rented the most expensive hall in town and paid for honeymoons in San Francisco for each couple.

“Dad, save your money. We don’t need to go to San Francisco.” Both couples had their own savings, after all.

“It’s not like we’re Lucinda Rinaldi,” Elsie added.

“I have my resources,” Emil had told them. He had never been a big spender and giving his children elegant weddings would be his one extravagance. He knew he had to be careful. No one must suspect where his money came from, not even the girls. Not yet.

He had not believed in a treasure buried in the tunnels beneath Almasy House, but he had found Rose’s secret stash, and it was much larger than he or anyone else imagined. It would make sure his family never wanted for anything again.

Emil was sitting in the kitchen of his home with his two daughters. His wife had died the year before and he still missed her, but the girls kept the kitchen spotless and looking like a picture from one of those ladies’ magazines. Mary had made the pink gingham curtains and Elsie made the matching tablecloth. A younger daughter, Alice made red potholders that somehow looked good with the pink gingham. The appliances gleamed. Mary would polish them after each use.

“One small request,” Emil had said. “Dylan will be the best man at the weddings.”

“No problem,” Both his daughters and his soon-to-be-sons-in law agreed. They all liked Dylan, the girl’s younger brother.

Emil had raised seven boys and three girls in this house that still rang with activity. His wife was gone now. The two oldest boys were off at Northern Michigan University studying engineering. Mary and Elsie would soon be off raising families of their own. The girls were talking about Dylan.

“Maybe he’ll stop mooning over Elaine Dabb”

“What’s Elaine up to lately. She was after that priest.”

“I understand he’s left town.”

“He’s still around. And she’s still living with him. He still owns Almasy House.”

“Will he reopen it?”


 Emil shut out his daughters as they talked about the big house. He was glad the priest seemed to have lost interest in the tunnels. Rumor had it he had gotten a scare down there and would not return. Emil had worried about running into the priest and being chased from the tunnels or at least the tunnels closest to the house where the priest might claim ownership.

Yet as a mining engineer Emil had some rights down below.

The girls were back to wedding plans. Flowers, dresses and honeymoons. Let the girls plan. There would be time enough later to tell them about his good fortune. He decided the two oldest girls would be his best confederates. Could he tell them and not their husbands-to-be? What about his other children?

Sonny and Miles met for a drink. Both wore their uniforms. Sonny was a Michigan State trooper and Miles was a Mountain Ridge deputy sheriff.

Their beers were cold as ice shacks and foamy like snow piles. The Ink Spots sang on the juke box.

“What’s this town coming to?” Sonny lamented. “Used to be a white man’s town.”

“Still is,” Miles assured him. “It’s gonna stay that way as long as my dad is the sheriff.”

“You get rid of those Jews yet?

“You mean the Brianka girls? I got rid of their brother.”

“He’ll be back.”

“Not if he wants to stay out of prison. Old Man Rinaldi arranged an easy sentence, but Jackie Boy has to stay out of town and away from Lucinda Rinaldi.”

“Those Rinaldis. I would’t be surprised if they ain’t got Indian or Jew or even Nigger blood in them.”

“Don’t matter what they got except money, and they got plenty of that.”

“I tell ya Jews hire other Jews. You ever see Rinaldi in a church?” Sonny gulped more beer and the foam stayed on his mouth and day-old whiskers.

“I ain’t goin’ up against Enrico Rinaldi,” Miles insisted. “He owns the biggest mine in town and he ain’t laid no one off yet. We done lost enough jobs to this here Depression. And what is Roosevelt doing about it? Nothing.”

“I’m not talking about going against Rinaldi. But those two maids of his.” Miles remembered the night they had followed that older Brianka girl from the movie theater. They had tackled her in the woods and raped her. “One of ‘em is leaving.” he said.

“Which one?”

“The older one. She’s marrying. now get this; she’s marrying Ezekiel Cheney. The guy is a hundred years old or close to it, but she’s gonna get his pension.”

Sonny swallowed his drink. “If she’s marrying old Ezekiel, she’ll be alone out there in that farm house. Easy to get to.”

Miles nodded. “You know we ain’t got a Klan here no more. None that I know of.”

“We got us,” Sonny said.

“We got another problem,” Miles sipped his beer slowly.

“You mean that priest? No one believes he saw anything. He’s too spooked to go back from what I can tell. He wouldn’t even go back in the tunnel with you.”

“We gotta fix this.” Miles insisted. “We gotta make sure he don’t say no more about bodies in those tunnels.”

“I done closed that section…”

“He’s a loose end, and we gotta deal with it.”

“Which one of us is gonna do that?”

While the Mynter girls planned their weddings, Lucinda Rinaldi allowed professionals to plan hers. She had confessed her family’s secret or tried to, but Brad already knew. She was grateful that Brad still wanted her, but she didn’t love Brad.

Surely she wasn’t the first bride in history to go to the altar without love in her heart for the man she would marry. Brad Davies needed her father’s money and her dad needed the prestige of being related to the Davies.

Her marriage would open doors for her dad.

How had Brad known about her family? Could others find out? Of course, there was always a trail no matter how hard her father had tried to cover up their Negro blood. It was there.

Brad was ambitious. He’d probably win the U.S. senate seat in November.

No one must ever know the truth about her family.

Even with her dad’s wealth and her soon-to-be husband’s old family name, she knew there was danger. And Daddy said he had seen Klansmen dressed in sheets and pillow cases right in the lobby of Almasy House. But that had been years ago. It was the time that Jack Brianka had lost his family.

Jack said that the Klan had attacked the family on the night his mother died. His father had disappeared. She wondered what really happened to Jack’s dad. Some people said he had been lynched that night. And the Briankas weren’t even black. They were Jewish; and she knew some people disliked the Jews as much as they disliked the Negros.

The Klan existed here in Mountain Ridge and probably in every community. Lucinda was scared.

Miles drove to the house where Hollander and that Elaine girl were staying. He knocked on the door, and Hollander answered.

“I got a county commissioner wants someone to take a look at the house,” Miles said. “Make sure everything is up to code.”

“House? You mean Almasy House? What does he need to do?”

“Not sure,” Miles admitted. “He wants you to meet him there tomorrow morning.”

Yvonne Brianka married Ezekial Cheney at the Mountain City Courthouse on September 23, 1935. He was ninety-six and the bride was nineteen. Present were Vonnie’s sister, Lisa, her employer Lucinda Rinaldi and the groom’s nephew, Dennis Cheney, who had to rush home to farm chores. Dennis was fifteen; his parents had died in a car accident in December and he ran a 400 plus acre farm with help from his uncle Ezekiel and a few seasonal farm hands. The mule had been retired before his parents died, and it was replaced by a new John Deere tractor. The crop that year had been a good one.

Vonnie promised to save some wedding dinner for him.

After the ceremony, the wedding group minus Dennis went back to the Rinaldi kitchen where they ate ham, mashed potatoes, buttered corn, fresh bread and apple pie.

Lucinda gave the couple one thousand dollars.

“We can’t take this. This is a fortune,” Vonnie protested.

“Please,“ Lucinda smiled. “I’m going to miss you. The two women hugged. When they had a few monuments alone, Vonnie said, “I don’t know if Lisa can handle the chores alone.”

“She’ll be fine. She’s a hard worker.”

“The nightmares might come back.”

Lucinda knew it must have been difficult for the siblings to lose their parents when they were so young. “You have to give Lisa a chance. She’s stronger than you think. She can’t grow if you and Jack keep smothering her.”

“I hope she’ll be all right.”

“I wish we had reported…,” Lucinda paused. She was one of the few people who knew Vonnie was expecting a baby. “reported what happened to you. You were raped. This. This baby isn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” Vonnie said. “I want this child. Thanks to Ezekial, I won’t have to give the baby up.”

Then the couple hurried off in a taxi that would take them to the farm. They had talked over their individual needs and had an understanding. They would have separate bedrooms. Vonnie would keep the house and help Dennis run the farm. In return, she got room and board, a father and a last name for the baby she was expecting, and she would get five acres and a widow’s pension when Ezekiel died.

It was a marriage of convenience, and it saved her. She could not continue working for the Rinaldis. Enrico could not have a pregnant maid in his house. People would talk.

Who would believe she had been raped? Even if she had reported the attack, people still might not believe her.

Lucinda’s father was very sensitive to town gossip that was already speculating he could be the father of Vonnie’s baby. This was the best solution for Vonnie and for Ezekial.

But was it the best solution for Lisa?

Hollander arrived at Almasy House a half hour before his scheduled appointment with this commissioner or whomever it was who would inspect the house. It had been several months since he and Elaine moved out. A cobweb swung from the ceiling. A thin layer of dust covered the sheeted furniture. Why had he wanted to inherit this monstrosity. It wasn’t worth the years he had spent courting the old woman.

Rose’s bank accounts had been a disappointment. There had been no fortune, at least none he had found. What this place needed was an exorcism. But then he wasn’t a priest anymore. Let the evil spirits have the place.

He heard a noise in the cellar. Had that inspector arrived early? He moved toward the stairs, flipped the light switch. Nothing. Of course, the power was off. He himself had arranged for that. He heard a noise behind him, felt a shove and then he was falling head first down the cellar stairs. The cement floor came up to meet him.

He remained conscious at the bottom of the cellar stairs. Two pair of large men’s shoes approached him. He couldn’t move his head. He couldn’t look up to see who stood over him.

“Look at that. He’s still breathin’ A fall like that shoulda killed a man.”

“How we gonna finish him off?”

“Gotta be a board around here some place. Ain’t there a brick.”

Hollander closed his eyes. He didn’t feel the blow that killed him. But he knew one of the men who delivered it. It was that dumb deputy, the sheriff’s son.

At first, Elaine didn’t worry. Jeff often spent the day at the library or in one of the local restaurants. Sometimes he would go fishing.

Night came. She thought he might be with friends. Except he had made few friends in town. People mistrusted him. He had been dismissed by the Catholic Church; he lived with her and showed no sign of buying her a ring. People called what she and Jeff were doing “shacking up.” Elaine’s parents and their friends detested Jeff Hollander.

Early the next morning, Elaine called Leo’s office. “Jeff’s’ missing. I’m sure something happened to him.”

“When’s the last time you saw him?” Leo asked.

“Yesterday. He went to Almasy House. He was meeting somebody there. Somebody from the county.”

“Don’t see why anyone from the county would want to go there. You sure?”

“I just know he didn’t come back and something may have happened to him.”

“You got a key to that there old house?”

“No. Maybe. I think Jeff keeps one on the dresser. He might have taken it with him.”


 “I’ll be there in half an hour and then if you have a key, we’ll go look around at the old house.”

“Di I have to go back there. The place gives me the creeps.”

“I’ll have Miles do it. Just give him the key if you have it.”

Miles had his back to; his dad, and he was going through some old files when the call came in. He smiled. “Don’t mind if I do take this call.” he said.

He knew the door to the house would be open. He and Sonny had left it that way.”

TO BE CONTINUED: