Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters

by Emily Carpenter

  But I had to keep this in mind: there was the chance that Faulk had been behind my attack at the hospital. He could’ve picked up some less-than-legal tricks from his former boss Barnish and, figuring he could extort me into finding the coin for him, sent that asshole after me. Like Margaret said, I needed to be careful. But I also needed to find that coin collection.

  “Let’s split up,” I suggested to Althea and Griff. “See what we can find.”

  They agreed, Althea heading back to the dining room and Griff to the parlor. I moved toward the back of the house, eventually finding myself in the deserted, tastefully renovated kitchen. On the far wall, I opened a door, old and warped the slightest bit, and slipped in.

  I pulled the door shut behind me. The room was not a pantry, more like a closet with towers of cardboard file boxes and metal shelving units lining the walls. The shelves held cases of beer and boxes of wine and what looked like a jumble of household equipment. I breathed in the musty, uncirculated air and sighed, feeling the tingling sensation in my right arm again. I rubbed it, taking in the environment. This very well could’ve been the maid’s room. It was just the right size, and close to the kitchen. Which meant, if Margaret Luster’s theory was right, Dove may have slept in this very spot eighty years ago.

  I lifted the lids of a few boxes, but all they held were files. On the shelves, I sifted through the flashlights, extension cords, batteries, and various pieces of workout equipment. There were a couple of antique items too. A pair of fireplace andirons. A brass spittoon. A shoebox full of rusty, vaguely menacing-looking vintage kitchen gadgets.

  I looked out the window. The backyard was flat and, except for the U-shaped driveway, devoid of any vegetation other than grass and the occasional tree. I guess Jason Faulk hadn’t gotten around to landscaping yet. I wondered if Dove’s view had been the same. Had she felt lonely in this little room? Had she lain in bed, plotting ways to make money? Cooking up her traveling-evangelist act? Planning the big con?

  I turned my back to the window, my gaze falling on the door. It was nothing special, just an old paneled door layered with decades of paint and fitted with a simple bronze knob and plate. Below the doorknob was a keyhole with one of those old-fashioned bronze skeleton keys. I stared at it, faintly mesmerized until the door swung open and I jumped.

  Griff stuck his head in. “There you are. Find anything?”

  “Nope. You scared me.”

  “Sorry.” He slipped in and eyed the file boxes. “You gotta wonder what kind of secrets he’s hiding in there.”

  “Just because he worked for a cheat doesn’t automatically make him one,” I said, sounding more defensive than I intended.

  “Doesn’t mean that he’s not, either. Be careful.”

  “I know, I know.” I rubbed my arm again absently. It had started doing its tingling, throbbing thing as soon as I’d set foot in this house, I realized. Steadfast Coe’s house, where my grandmother might have lived for a time. It was a leap, but what if she’d hidden the coin here? What if somehow my arm . . . what . . . sensed it?

  Word of knowledge, the true believers called it. The thing Danny referred to last night. When a part of your body received a message from God or the Spirit or the other side. A word of knowledge might be a sign, but it was also more than that. You were supposed to do something with the sign—heal somebody, impart information. Uncover a secret . . .

  I let go of my arm. I was losing it, I really was. Reverting back to old habits and childish superstitions because of all the strain. I needed to focus.

  The coin, Eve. You have two days to find it.

  Tick-tock.

  “I’m going to check out the upstairs,” I said to Griff. “Maybe you should cover the first floor.”

  He nodded. “You got it.”

  Back in the cavernous hallway, I climbed a sweeping Persian-carpeted staircase. The expansive upper hallway—covered in an ancient paper of grapevines and foxes and smelling faintly of mildew and mothballs—looked like it had escaped Jason’s interior design efforts. So, too, did the first bedroom I came to. It was done up in mint green, wallpaper, bedding, and curtains. The room smelled of ancient dust.

  Near the windows was a sort of stand with a wooden box resting on top, a display box with a glass lid. I moved closer. Rows of coins winked at me. Gold, silver, and copper, thin and delicate with unfamiliar engravings of Native American headdresses and eagles and women with ropes of braids, the coins were nestled into perfectly matched slots cut into a blue velvet board. Then I noticed something irregular about the display.

  One of the slots—the one in the center—was empty.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tuscaloosa, Alabama

  1934

  Reverend Robert Singley had a dilemma. What he must do was clear: bring his harlot Ruth home where she belonged. To him. But he didn’t know where she had got off to, and he had no idea where to begin his search.

  He meditated upon the problem, mulling it over by day as he walked the streets of town, at night praying at his bed on his knees for a divine answer. After seven long days, he concluded that when Ruth ran from Pritchard, she likely needed money. And as generally the only work was in the textile mills, she’d probably headed to one of the many that dotted the state. Possibly the one in Birmingham, the town closest to Tuscaloosa.

  Ruth working in a mill seemed altogether reasonable to him. And if there was one thing he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that his Ruth, his love, was a reasonable girl. Hadn’t she confessed to her impurity, her moral corruption, at the moment of her impending marriage to his nephew? This certainly spoke to her having a measure of sound judgment and sensible ways.

  He closed down his sister’s house, gassed up her car, and drove the fifty-three miles to the city. He got a room downtown at the Thomas Jefferson, had a dinner of steak, potatoes, and scotch, then went to sleep. The next morning, he drove to the mill and asked to speak to the foreman.

  The foreman, a dyspeptic-looking man wearing a crushed-felt hat and a sour expression, hadn’t heard of Ruth. Nor had any of the women or little boys and girls he pulled aside at quitting time. One older girl, dressed in striped overalls, two greasy pigtails hanging down her back, caught his eye. When the coast was clear, he waved a dollar at her and ushered her into his car. Once there, he issued two quick slaps across each temple to quiet her down. She stared at him with large eyes, though not quite as frightened as he thought they should be.

  He patiently ran through his litany again. “She’s about your height. Would be sixteen or seventeen by now. Name’s Ruth Lurie. Red hair, skin like milk, with a regal bearing. The bearing of a lady. If you saw her, you’d know her. When she’s in a room, ain’t nobody looking at nothing else.”

  “Well.” The girl made a show of rolling her eyes. “How nice for her. But I told ya. I ain’t seen nobody with no regal bearing at this place.” She chewed on her lip. “Although now that I’m thinking about it, I do know other girls you might like. And they’d treat you plenty nice.”

  “I’m not looking for a whore.” He sat back on his haunches and scanned the length of the girl’s dirty overalls.

  “They’re nice though, these ones. They follow the preachers, the tent men that go up and down setting up meetings. These ladies is cheap and clean and don’t cause no trouble. They cater to the Lord’s men.” She straightened. “As a matter of fact, there’s one in town now. Brother Comer, from over in South Carolina. Plenty a ladies along with him with milky whatnot, I can assure you. I can take you, if you want. He’s set up just over in Pell City, if I remember correct.”

  “I don’t want a whore. I’m looking for my wife!” He struck her hard, this time with his fist, so she’d get the message loud and clear.

  But truth be told, after discussing Ruth’s many admirable physical attributes, not to mention being in such close quarters with this girl who smelled of cotton lint and kerosene, he’d gotten himself an itch. The itch. He held his hands up, and she scrambl
ed back, bumping her head on the window behind her.

  “Would you like a present?” he asked affably.

  She narrowed her eyes. “A present?”

  He removed his black hat and pointed to the brim. Tied there was what looked like a narrow pink satin ribbon. “This would look nice on the ends of those pigtails, don’t you think?” He unwound the pink satin ribbon, the tie from his dead sister’s robe, and held it between his hands like an offering. “It’s plenty long enough.”

  And indeed, it was.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Florence, Alabama

  Present

  I lifted the lid of the coin box, slowly so it wouldn’t creak, and leaned in for a closer look. Coins of all sizes and colors nestled snug in their slots. But they were dull and clouded. No one’s cherished possessions, from the look of it. Clearly, they hadn’t been cared for in a long while.

  And then there was that empty slot.

  “Trying to clean me out?” a man said behind me. I turned so fast I knocked the box and it wobbled on its stand. My arm shot out, the right one, and I caught it just in time.

  He didn’t seem perturbed by my gaffe, just kept his appraising eyes on me. “Or do you just happen to be a random numismatist who crashed my party for a closer look at my exceedingly rare coin collection?”

  He had a deep voice softened by a honeyed accent. His face was grown-up-frat-boy handsome with premature wrinkles around his eyes, probably from too many poolside summers and Aspen winters. He had artfully mussed blond hair and TV-ready teeth. Handsome in a way. Like central casting’s idea of a young upstart governor.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”

  He glanced at the box. “They’re error coins, struck on the wrong metal or stamped off-center. One’s a mule. Nickel on the front, dime on the back.”

  He opened a dresser drawer and drew out a small silver flask. He held it out, but I shook my head. “During the renovation, I moved them up here, even though any thief worth their salt wouldn’t bother to steal them. Altogether, they’re probably only worth a few thousand. Now the missing one . . .” He gestured at the empty middle slot. “That one was priceless. Or so the story goes.”

  My heart nearly shot out of my chest. “No kidding.”

  He knocked back a slug from the flask. “Mm, yeah. The Flowing Hair Dollar. Exceptionally rare coin. Minted in 1794 and modeled after the Spanish dollar. In 2013, a Flowing Hair of lesser quality and value than my great-great-grandfather’s coin sold at auction for over ten million. I’ve been told that Steadfast’s would probably go for fourteen to fifteen. Which would mean, if we could find the damn thing, I could finally afford to renovate the rest of this house.”

  He chuckled, but I was full-on shaking now, nerves getting the best of me. “It’s lost?”

  “So the story goes. People around here have been gossiping about what happened to it forever, but it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction. Sometimes I think my great-great-grandfather made the whole thing up. Like he never owned it to begin with.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re into coins?”

  “I’m not a numa . . . numa—” I faltered.

  “Numismatist. Yeah, I see that now. You’re press.” He dropped one hand in the pocket of his slim-fitting gray wool pants. Gestured with the flask. “So, you’re just plain ol’ snooping.”

  “No, actually.” I looped my badge over my head and tossed it on the dresser. “I’m not press either.”

  His body tensed, eyes locked on mine. I could tell he was bracing himself for bad news.

  “My name is Eve Candler. I’m the granddaughter of a woman who I think may have worked for your great-great-grandfather, Steadfast Coe.”

  He slumped. Gave me another look, then let out an incredulous laugh. “Wait. What?”

  “Her name was Dove Jarrod, but she went by Ruth Davidson back then.”

  He shook his head. “You know, they said running for office would bring the cranks out of the woodwork, but this is one for the books.” He caught himself. “Not that you’re a crank. That I know of. It’s just . . . the one thing I didn’t expect was anyone showing up with a family connection. Most of my family are . . . not interested in affairs such as these,” he concluded weakly.

  I just stood there, twisting my fingers. Anything I said in response to that would definitely be wrong.

  “You’re from California, correct?” he asked.

  I straightened. “How did you—”

  “Oh, I know of Dove Jarrod,” he said. “A.k.a. Ruth Davidson, a.k.a. one half of the Hawthorn Sisters. And you’re right. She did work for Steadfast, for a short time.”

  In response to my stunned look, he gave me that photo-ready young-governor look. Recovered already, apparently, from the shock of finding me snooping in his coin collection.

  “Honey, don’t look so surprised. You’re on the buckle of the Bible Belt and it’s a big old shiny rhinestone one. If there’s one thing we’re proud of around here, it’s our hometown evangelists.” He straightened an expensive-looking lavender tie. “Me, I’m a good Southern boy. Got my letter down at First Baptist, walked the aisle so many times I could sing “Just as I Am” backward in pig Latin, and could beat the Apostle Paul’s ass at an old-time sword drill until he wept like a baby.”

  “Wow,” I said. I hadn’t expected this.

  “Jason Faulk. And for the record, I’m impressed you got the number of ‘greats’ right.” He offered his hand and we shook. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  I hesitated. My story was ready to go—simple and mostly the truth—but still, now that the moment was here, jittery nerves were muddling my thoughts.

  I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, mustering whatever charm remained in me after the past twenty-four hours. “Actually, Mr. Faulk, I need your help. I’m making a documentary about my grandmother, for our foundation, and I wanted to ask you a few questions about her time here. If you happen to know anything.”

  He cocked his head. “Sounds intriguing. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “I’ve heard some rumors—”

  “Oh, God. Not those.” He grinned. “And it’s Jason. Please.”

  I managed a tense smile in return. “Some rumors about that missing coin . . . and my grandmother.”

  “That she might have stolen it?”

  “That, and that she might have . . .” I swallowed. “. . . actually, been the one who killed him.”

  He looked thoughtful. “I can tell you the gossip I’ve heard. But it’s just a bunch of old-timers telling ghost stories.”

  “Anything could help.”

  He sat on a small silk bench at the foot of the bed. “The older people around here used to talk,” he began carefully. “Some of them said your grandmother may have had something to do with Steadfast’s disappearance. But I’ve also heard it was his daughter or my great-uncle. Some people have even claimed that . . . get this, Dell Davidson, the outlaw, passed through Florence back then and while he was here, offed Old Steadfast.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, honestly. When somebody disappears, people like to talk. Build tall tales. But in the end, that’s all it is, talk.”

  I nodded. None of this helped me really, but his words did set me at ease. Or at least closer to a sense of ease than I’d expected. Maybe I could trust this guy after all.

  “The truth is probably a lot simpler,” Jason said. “Steadfast probably had some type of dementia, maybe even Alzheimer’s, and wandered off. He definitely had OCD. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Undiagnosed, obviously. It wasn’t something doctors knew how to treat back then. But my grandfather told me that’s why Steadfast collected the error coins. He obsessed over the mistakes, and his compulsion was to collect and hide them, here in the house. At some point along the way, he came across a Flowing Hair, not an error coin that I know of. But my assumption is that he hid it anyway along with the others.”

>   I contemplated this.

  Jason scratched his jaw. “In the sixties, my grandfather found two of those coins behind fireplace bricks. And I found one when I was a kid, jammed up under a windowsill in the bedroom across the hall. To tell you the truth, I never thought anyone stole the Flowing Hair. I’ve always believed it was right here in the house.”

  I dropped down on the bench beside him. “Are you serious? You really think it’s here?”

  “Steadfast was nothing if not consistent with his compulsion. I seriously doubt your grandmother had anything to do with its disappearance. Or his death. She was just a girl, right? There’s no way she could’ve killed him and hidden his body.”

  Relief coursed through me. Jason Faulk didn’t believe I had the coin. And it was clear he hadn’t sent anyone after me.

  I inhaled. “Can I be honest with you?”

  “I wish you would.”

  “Yesterday I was attacked at an event honoring my grandmother in Tuscaloosa. I couldn’t see the man who did it, but he told me he had Steadfast’s remains. His bones. He showed them to me.”

  His mouth opened and he let out a brief “huh” of disbelief.

  “He said he wanted to ruin Dove’s reputation and her foundation. He said that unless I gave him the coin that she supposedly stole in three days, he was going to take the bones—and a signed confession from Dove—to the police and tell them that she murdered Steadfast.” I took a breath. “I’ve got two more days to find the coin or I’m toast.”

  He looked at the spot above my eye. “So that’s where you got that shiner, huh?”

  My fingers went to my face and I nodded. “He also said Dove didn’t die of natural causes. He claimed he killed her.”

  No reply.

  “Did you hear me?” I said.

  He shook himself, yanking loose his expensive-looking lavender tie. “You’ll have to forgive me. Tonight, I was prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of trickle-down capitalists and well-meaning homophobes. Not someone who may possibly untangle my fucked-up family history.”