Lily looks back at the flagman. She feels a rush of gratitude that, despite how upset he is, he hasn’t abandoned her. “I’m going to need your help moving her up the slope.”
He stares at Lily. His trembling increases, but he nods.
Gently, Lily lifts the woman’s feet onto the sheet, then the woman’s shoulders and head, trying not to look at the damaged face, the rended arm. She folds the sheet back over top of the woman’s body. She looks up. The flagman still stares at her, frozen, and Lily realizes he can’t bring himself to touch the body. Lily swallows back a sigh of frustration. “Go ahead of me; light the way. Can you do that?”
He doesn’t move.
“I reckon your mamaw would want us to do right by this woman’s remains?”
Finally, he grabs the torchlight, steps a few feet up the path. Lily kneels beside the woman, slides her arms under the thin torso. She stands, slowly. The woman might weigh a little over eighty pounds, if that. Not much heavier than a big sack of flour at Douglas Grocers. Lily turns, faces the rise, then launches herself up, steady forward momentum.
At the top, she stops, panting. Men who’d been chatting and smoking go quiet, stare at her, at the sheet-wrapped body in her arms.
Lily hears a low huffing sound and a hoof clomp. She glances toward the noise and sees that the flagman in training has brought the mule cart alongside the train. Gently, with his help, Lily lowers the woman onto the cart floor.
When she turns back around, she sees that another man has arrived—Perry Dyer, a direct descendant of the Dyer who’d established the area, and Lily’s opponent in the sheriff’s race.
Why is he here? And since he no longer lives here, why hadn’t she seen his automobile parked near the turnoff where she’d left her own automobile?
But those questions can wait; she needs to focus on learning all she can about the deceased woman. She walks over to the group of men. “I have a few more questions—”
The conductor shakes his head. “We’ve lost enough time.”
Lily gives the man a stone-cold look—how inconvenient, the death of this woman. “It’s possible she didn’t simply fall, and if that’s the case—”
“Good God, woman, you’re not taking seriously my brakeman’s claim that he saw someone on the top of the tunnel?”
“Enough!” Perry snaps. “I’m hopeful that when I’m sheriff, people will respect my requests. In the meantime, we should respect our current sheriff’s requests.” He accents current with a smirk.
Lily sighs. She’s dealt with this conundrum before. Snap back—she looks defensive. Don’t snap—she looks meek. She turns away from Perry and toward the conductor. “It’s up to you,” she says as pleasantly as the late hour and her own irritation will allow. “You can delay long enough for me to finish up my questions—or I can report to your supervisor that you’ve impeded a legal investigation.”
One of the men snickers—the head brakeman, still tipsy. Lily walks over to him, stares directly into his watery eyes until his expression goes serious, and the other men quiet. It would be easy to write off those wrist marks as coming from some relative trying to keep the old woman safe, to dismiss the brakeman’s sighting as born of inebriation. Run a death notice; if kin claim her, fine. If not, too bad, but she can be buried with county funds for paupers’ graves. Then Lily can get on with her campaign.
But the notion turns Lily’s stomach.
Just as the flagman thought of his mamaw, Lily would think of her own mama, or dear Nana over in Rossville, or Widow Gottschalk, who lives on the farm with the Kinship Tree Lily’d once enjoyed jumping off of with her brother.
If she’s not willing to dig as deeply as she can for the truth about this death—to affirm whether it’s an accident or something else—why bother with all the exhausting sacrifices of running for reelection as sheriff? Her job is to uphold the rule of law for all of the people in her county—not a select few. This woman, this death, has to matter. Or winning the sheriff’s role would be only a hollow victory.
“I need the truth. As far as I am concerned, no consequences either way, but I must know,” Lily says. “Were you drinking before you climbed up the side of the engine, saw the woman fall, saw another figure on the tunnel top? Or after the accident?”
The brakeman gives Lily a long, scrutinizing look. He moves around a wad of tobacco inside his cheek, spits. “I take my job seriously. An’ anyhow, I’d be a fool to have a nip afore climbing up—and I’m a lot of things, but I ain’t a fool. I was stone-cold sober when I saw that woman fall, saw someone—or some specter—up on the tunnel. An’ I’ll swear an oath on a courtroom Bible and say it again if need be.”
Lily nods. All right then. It’s quite possible the woman wasn’t from here—no one claims her, and her feet indicate a softer life than this region would offer. And the brakeman was sober when he saw the fall and a possible witness.
Lily turns to Perry. “I need someone from the village to see if they can identify her.”
Perry nods. “I reckon I should take a look. If she’s from here, or near here, I’ll know her.”
“You know everyone in the village?” Lily asks.
“There are about a hundred souls that live in or near the village and I’ve lived here all of my life until I moved to Kinship—so yes, by sight if not by name.”
Lily turns and walks toward the cart. She hears Perry following her. When he catches up at the back of the wagon, she carefully pulls aside the cloth. Perry stares as Lily shines her flashlight on the woman.
“I don’t recognize her,” he says. Then he starts to hurry away.
“Mr. Dyer, what are you doing here?”
He looks at her. When she’s seen him in Kinship, he’s always given her a hard look and a dubious smile, but tonight his expression is nervous, and his hand trembles as he pushes his hair, hanging in oily strands from too much pomade, back from his forehead. Weariness cloaks his shoulders, and his uneasiness tells her it’s not just from the lateness of the hour, or the shocking sight of the woman’s damaged head.
“I have friends here.” His grin is forced. “Thought I’d campaign a little.”
All right—but it seems odd. He’d moved with his family into Kinship, seemingly as eager as his wife to settle in the county seat after his father passed away.
“I didn’t see your automobile at the turnoff,” Lily says. “Seems a long hike in from Kinship, for a handful of votes.”
“You would have left your automobile by the main turnoff,” Perry says. “There are other accesses that are more remote, but less of a hike or wagon ride. Besides, my comings and goings are none of your business.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the train has pulled away again. Lily has taken and rechecked statements from all of the train crew, and the owner of the mule and wagon has agreed to take her back to her automobile. He’s waiting, impatiently, and yet Lily stands at the top of the Moonvale Hollow Tunnel, grasping a thick tree limb to steady herself. She hasn’t found anything to add to her investigation. Her inspection, in the moonlight and with her flashlight, has yielded nothing more than a few broken twigs, which could as easily be from critters as from people. There are no cleared paths to the top of the tunnel, so no footprints in the thick grass and brush. Though low, thorny limbs snag at Lily’s skirt, there is nothing so convenient as a scrap of cloth caught in a bush to prove the brakeman’s claim.
The sooner the better to drive the body to the undertaker and fetch the town doctor—who doubles as the county medical examiner—to see what they might learn from careful examination.
Still, Lily lingers, edging forward, into the strange pull that open space always exerts on her—that high limb of the Kinship Tree over Coal Creek when she was a kid, the top of a ridge when out walking in the hills, here now on the top of a tunnel. Not an uncommon impulse; she’d heard others speak of it, the pull against all rationality toward open space beyond a rim. Lily toes the earth covering the tunnel’s edge
. So easy to fall. So easy to be drawn forward.
Perhaps, as Perry suggested, the woman had simply wandered from a far-tucked-away cabin, remote to even Moonvale Hollow Village. Found herself here. Felt the pull. Forgot the surety of the plunge to earth that would follow giving into it. Or just stumbled.
No—this isn’t a spot anyone would simply wander to. Clambering up the steep side of the tunnel had tested Lily, even though she is fit, and relatively young at twenty-eight. Assuming the woman was alive when she came up here, how would she, more than likely fifty years Lily’s senior, have managed it on her own? Coming here must have been purposeful—whether or not on her own volition.
Lily steps back, yet still gazes down to the cart, to the white sheet wrapped around the woman’s body that gleams in the full moon. Without anyone willing to claim the woman, it would be nigh on impossible to find out what happened to her in those final moments.
In the distance, a hound dog howls—some scent has caught its attention. In spite of the night’s horrors, Lily grins. A good hound could track where the woman had come from. And she knows who to ask for such help. Marvena Whitcomb …
Something glimmers, off to the left, catches Lily’s gaze. It’s the shimmering boy again, still merrily chasing his ball. Or dog. He stops, turns, looks at her, and grins. Lily presses her eyes shut. Weary. Just weary. Seeing nonsense born of her own weariness.
Yet when she opens her eyes and sees only moonlit foliage, disappointment snatches her breath away.
CHAPTER 4
HILDY
Wednesday, September 22—2:30 a.m.
In the first moment after startling awake, Hildy looks around wildly, disoriented to find herself on the front porch swing at Lily’s house. As she shivers, it all comes back to her—the lonely drive home from Rossville, leaving her father’s old automobile at her house, starting to creep in through the back door. Then she’d stopped—the house, even before entering, felt strangely quiet. On nights Hildy got back late from tutoring, Mother was usually dozing in the parlor and would herself startle awake, fuming and fussing. Tonight, Hildy knew, she wouldn’t be able to easily deflect Mother’s suspicious queries and comments: Tutoring? So late? A woman should not be out driving at all, what’s more at night!
So Hildy opted for a walk around Kinship, hoping to compose herself before going home, but then she’d seen the parlor light burning in the front window at Lily’s house, saw Lily’s mother moving past.
Hildy had hurried to Lily’s front door—Mama’s presence meant that Lily would have been called away. How late? She usually asked Hildy to come stay with the children, Jolene and Micah. That would have awoken Mother. Before Hildy could worry about the implications of that, Mama answered Hildy’s light knock and affirmed that Lily had been called out—a body hit by a train just outside Moonvale Hollow Village.
Mama had given Hildy a worried look—without any pestering questions about the lateness of the hour—and tried to send her home. Hildy, noting the basket of laundry in Mama’s arms, the weariness etched around Mama’s mouth and eyes, had shooed her on up to bed, insisting she’d stay and finish the children’s laundry.
After Mama went up to bed, Hildy washed the clothes on the wringer washer in the mudroom, then pinned them up on the clothesline, working by moonlight and coal-oil lamp. Even with her heart hollowed out by Tom’s rejection, she smiled as she worked, imagining Lily’s grumpy-yet-grateful reaction to Mama and Hildy doing household tasks, unasked. As far as Hildy’s concerned, Lily’s constant struggle is recognizing that it’s all right to take a little help, time to time.
Laundry complete, Hildy went to the front porch swing to sit a spell, hoping the chill night air would keep her awake. She stared at the full moon, contemplated the long silences between cricket chirps so early this fall, portending a tough winter to come. The chirps became sufficient lullaby, and soon in fretful sleep she found Tom. Images she’d hoped to avoid by staying awake.
Now, as she stands to stretch, the porch swing creaks on the hinges. Then she jumps, spotting someone in the street, standing out of the pool of the flickering streetlight. Yet sufficient moonlight silhouettes a woman in a hat and long skirt, and Hildy senses the woman staring at her.
Missy Ranklin? The bedraggled young woman, who lives on a small farm with her husband, seven-year-old son and two older stepchildren, has come into town, either on foot or by mule, several nights of late to complain of her husband’s rough treatment. Hildy pities Missy—just seventeen when she wed, and from far back in the hills. She no doubt thought she was finding freedom from poverty by marrying Ralf, even though he is twice her age.
Hildy shudders, thinking maybe she’s not so different from Missy. In Merle, Hildy sought refuge from her dreary life with Mother, from the prospect of being an old maid, pitied in Kinship for never quite getting past mourning the loss of Roger. Until she fell in love with Tom. Yes. Fell in love with Tom.
What would Lily think of that? Admonish her to speak up, tell Tom she was strong enough to be his? Once, Lily herself, after a fight with Daniel before they were married, had snuck out of her parents’ home to go to his boxing match at the Kinship Opera House. Hildy knows that Lily sees her as … not weak, necessarily. Tender. Too tender. So more than likely, she’d tell Hildy to count her blessings with practical Merle.
After all, Lily barely contains her frustration with Missy—if she won’t file a formal complaint, there is nothing Lily can do, shy of giving her husband a talking-to. Still, Hildy wishes Lily had more sympathy. It is not as easy as Lily thinks for most women to speak up for themselves. At least, it is not easy for women like Missy. Or Hildy.
Now Hildy starts to call after the woman in the street, but an automobile turns the corner, and in the headlights Hildy catches the woman’s profile. An old-fashioned full-skirted formal dress. A brimmed hat. Tall, wide shouldered. Definitely not Missy or Mother.
Yet there is something familiar about the stiff stance, the shoulders pressed too far back. As if the woman is preparing for a fight.
Hildy blinks as the headlights flash in her eyes, and when she blinks again the woman is gone. The night momentarily shifts to stillness, and a breeze stirs, as if the night is sighing at Hildy’s silliness. For Hildy wonders if she’d seen the woman at all.
The automobile door squeaks shut in the lane beside the house. Hildy hurries inside, reaching the kitchen, dimly lit by a coal-oil lamp burning on a small table, as Lily comes in through the mudroom.
Lily’s blouse is smeared with dirt and … blood? Yes, blood. Lily does not appear harmed. And yet Hildy’s heart thuds as her gaze meets Lily’s, gleaming with anger. Whatever she’s been investigating has stirred something deep and dark, and Hildy tenses with sudden worry, knowing that her friend will not let go until she sees it through.
Surprise at Hildy’s presence flickers across Lily’s face before her expression quickly reassembles itself into its standard composure ever since Daniel died. Resolute. Quiet.
Lily washes her face and hands in the pump sink. “It smells good in here.”
Earlier, Hildy had made sorghum cookies and left them to cool on a white platter. Hildy looks at the treats, and whereas earlier she’d been pleased with how they’d turned out, had anticipated how the family would enjoy them, now they seem frivolous. Lily has blood on her blouse, for God’s sake.
Lily turns from the sink. “Saw that the wash is done.”
Hildy nods, eager for her best friend’s approval. “Yes. I brought the mail in, too. Left it on the parlor desk and dusted a little. Not that it needed it overly much.”
Hildy doesn’t want to say where she’d actually been tonight, so she stares down at the sorghum cookies as she offers up an explanation that is at least true, if not complete: “I—I’ve been having trouble sleeping of late. I was taking a walk, when I saw Mama”—though Hildy never became her daughter-in-law, she’s always called Lily and Roger’s mother by the affectionate term they used for her—“through the front
window and—”
“Must have been a long walk. Sent for you after eleven. No answer at your house.”
Hildy looks up, startled. Lily doesn’t seem overly concerned. She is eating one of the sorghum cookies, famished. Still, Hildy’s heart pounds. Mother is such a light sleeper. Why hadn’t she answered the door? Maybe she’d taken an extra dose of Vogel’s Tonic for her aches and pains—the tonic is alcohol watered down to barely within the limits of the Volstead Act to make it Prohibition legal, but to hear Mother tell it, it’s an elixir from the Good Lord himself.
Lily finishes the cookie and smiles—kind, but patronizing. How must she look to Lily? Soft. Biddable. No depths to plumb. That’s what Tom would say, too. Maybe they’re right.
Unexpected sorrow rises, but she quells it, admonishes herself for being so emotional. Tom had pushed her away. Told her to go ahead, marry pragmatic, safer Merle. Maybe she is foolish, wishing at her age that Merle would make her heart flutter like Roger had, like Tom does—
“Hildy? Are you all right?”
She looks up, sees again in her friend’s expression how Lily views her: soft.
Hildy’s jaw tightens. “I am fine.” She gestures at Lily’s blouse. “What happened? Mama said you were called out because of an accident on the track at Moonvale Hollow?”
“No one in the area can identify the woman. I’m going to have to go back out.”
Hildy moves to the stove, picks up the coffee kettle. “I’ll make you boiled coffee, then, and sandwiches.”
“No, don’t bother.”
Hildy’s shoulders drop—Lily always seems to wave away her offers of help.
“All right—the coffee.”
Lily is patronizing her, yet Hildy is grateful. At the sink, Hildy pumps water into the kettle. “So what were you able to suss out?” Knowing Lily, she’d examined every detail at the site. Sometimes she wishes she could go with Lily on her investigations, but Lily insists she’s best suited to her work as jail mistress—though that will end once she marries Merle.
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