Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters

by Emily Carpenter

  Where had that come from?

  “Let’s hope Steadfast made use of those hiding places,” Ember said.

  “Or Dove,” I added. “She could’ve been the one who hid the coin.”

  “We’ll see,” she said with a wink. Then she ran halfway up the stairs, threw out her hands, and raised her face to the ceiling. “‘Tony, Tony, look around. Something’s lost and must be found!’”

  Chapter Thirty

  Florence, Alabama

  1934

  Ruth had always been a light sleeper, but with Steadfast’s escapes and the ever-present hope that Dell would reappear on her windowsill, she’d gotten jumpier than Jesse James’s watchdog. The night of the Billy Sunday meeting, she woke to the sound of thumping from directly overhead. Sounded like Steadfast’s room.

  She’d left the window open—she did every night now just in case Dell should happen by—and the night air was April-soft and pungent with the smell of lilacs. But Dell wasn’t there and now she heard footsteps. She snatched her wrapper from the hook on the back of the door and flew into the entrance hall. The front door was shut—thank you, Jesus—but there were wet footprints leading from the door to the stairs.

  Good goddamn gravy.

  A thief in the house? Was that possible? She thought of the black pistol Steadfast kept in the back of the drawer in his wife’s dressing table. If she was quiet, she could scoot in there and snatch the gun, quick-like, before the scoundrel caught sight of her.

  She started up the stairs, keeping close to the wall to avoid the squeakers. Halfway up, she heard another thump.

  Bloody hell. She scampered up the remainder of the steps and flung the door to the mint-green room open, feeling for the gun in the drawer. When her fingers touched metal, she drew it out, shaking, and pulled back the slide.

  Her heart thundered and her breath came in short gasps. She crept stealthily out of the room and across the wide upstairs hall to Steadfast’s door. She laid her fingertips on the wood, leaning close, but she didn’t hear anything. She eased the doorknob to the right and pushed open the door a crack.

  The room was dark and stuffy, the way Steadfast liked. All was quiet. She pushed the door open wide enough to slip through and saw the room wasn’t entirely dark. It was lit by one candle. The flame stood tall and thin in the airless room. And in the glow, she saw Arthur Holt.

  She let the gun drop down by her side. “Arthur!” she whispered.

  He was standing by the bed, his hat in his hands. He stepped toward her and gulped.

  She almost laughed at the incongruity of seeing him in Steadfast’s bedroom. “You scared the devil out of me. What are you doing here?” She glanced at Steadfast, completely still on the bed.

  Arthur wore an expression Ruth hadn’t seen before and couldn’t quite discern. Was it sheepishness? Shame? She couldn’t tell. He was still dressed in his navy trousers and white shirt and tie from the Billy Sunday meeting, but now they were soaked. He must’ve gone back out after he dropped her and Bruna at their houses and gotten caught in the rain . . .

  “Ruth. I’m so glad you’ve come.” His voice came out in a rush, and immediately she knew he’d been up to no good. “I just wanted to speak with him. About the fair and our new venture.”

  She felt paralyzed. She knew she should do something, but she couldn’t decide what it was.

  “I thought if I explained it,” he went on, “he’d surely see clear to giving you the time off.”

  Arthur spread his hands and sent her a look of desperation. Ruth’s heart started back up with its skittery beat, and she felt icy all over. She knew what a lie sounded like, and this was one if she’d ever heard it.

  “I was anxious to talk to him, to see if I could make him understand. You have to believe me, Ruth—”

  “Believe you?” She looked at the old man again, and this time, she saw that his head was twisted unnaturally, his chin thrust toward the ceiling, his lips parted. She rushed to the bed and, putting the gun on the night table, leaned over Steadfast.

  Steadfast’s face was waxy and white, and Ruth’s warm breath was all that stirred the air between them. She laid a hand on his chest, then his cheek. Feeling a rush of shame and then engulfing sorrow, she turned back to Arthur.

  “What did you do?” she screamed.

  He’d backed all the way across the room. “He was already like that when I got up here. I swear to it, Ruth! I swear!”

  She stalked across the floor, grabbed fistfuls of his wet shirt, and shook him. “You murdered him! You murdered him!”

  He let her shake him. Let her scream at him, then he even let her slap him, once, then twice. On the third time, he caught her hand.

  “Ruth, you have to listen to me. He was already dead.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she cried.

  “Do you have eyes? He was an old man! This is what happens to old men. They die, peacefully, in their beds. In their sleep. And that’s what happened.”

  He released her. Mopped his face with both hands. Ruth clamped her mouth shut.

  “I’m a Christian man, Ruth. I believe in the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not murder. I wouldn’t hurt anyone; I just came up here to talk.”

  She was still trembling, but she’d begun to settle. Doubt was creeping in. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe it was just a terrible coincidence and he was as horrified by the situation as she was.

  “What happens now?” She wasn’t asking him, not precisely.

  He slumped and gave a half-hearted shrug. “Bruna’s brothers will inherit all his money, and she’ll get nothing—because that’s the way the Coes work. And they’ll turn you out, I suppose.” He inhaled then blew it out. “But it’s okay. You girls’ll be fine. Because you’re the Hawthorn Sisters, and I’m going to make sure you’re well taken care of.”

  Ruth was trembling and Arthur put a hand against her face. His hand didn’t feel like it could’ve snuffed the life out of an old man. It just felt strong and warm, even gentle. Tears gathered in her eyes.

  “You touch people, and you heal them, Ruth,” he said quietly. “That’s a powerful gift.”

  Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she could only shake her head.

  “I don’t, not always. They imagine they’re healed, or they heal themselves with a positive outlook. It’s only sometimes I think it might be real—”

  He interrupted her. “Shh. It doesn’t matter what happens or why they think it happens. The important thing is that when people see you up there—in the lights, your hair shining like flames—they believe you.”

  She started crying softly, tears raining around her nose and slipping into her mouth. She didn’t completely understand why. Steadfast Coe had been a thorn in her side. He’d devised new ways to torment her every day—stonewalling, sulking, and fussing from sunup to sundown. He’d even shot at her, for the love of Jesus, but the last time they spoke, he’d been so different. He’d been tender and generous. He’d trusted her.

  She’d loved him, she understood that now.

  “And now you’ll have all the time you want to minister with Bruna.” Arthur let his hand drop gently to her shoulder. “But we have a problem. You see that, right?”

  She blinked up at him, wiping her clouded eyes. “No.”

  “They’re all going to think the same thing you did. That I killed him.”

  “No. No, they won’t. Not if you explain—”

  He let out a humorless laugh. “He’s a rich man. Was a rich man. And I’m a poor preacher’s son. They’re going to think exactly what you thought—that I killed him, either to get to his money through his granddaughter or because I was angry that he was taking your time away from the Hawthorn Sisters. In fact, they might even think we did it together.”

  Ruth felt another twinge of doubt. The words came out so smoothly, his logic running a couple of steps ahead of hers.

  “I didn’t want to say this right out . . .” he continued. “But I’ve thought of something. A way w
e can . . . not fix it, of course . . . but turn it around.”

  “Turn it around?”

  He spoke carefully, deliberately, like he was picking his way over broken glass. “If we hide him and tell everyone he’s wandered off, like before, no one will question it.”

  The skittering of her heart stopped. So did her breathing. “If we just leave him in his bed, no one will question it either,” she answered in a level voice.

  “You’re not listening to what I’m saying, Ruth. Everyone in town will search for him, but only for a few days, and only just around here and maybe down to the river. If we hide him good, they won’t find him. And they’ll just think he did what he’s done before, roamed down to the river or somewhere and gotten himself lost.”

  No. She could never do that to the Faulks. To Bruna.

  “I was thinking . . .” He moved closer to her, his face open and alive. “Forgive me for saying this, but this is a fortuitous turn for us. I mean, we could use it for the good, like the Lord promises. Romans 8, ‘All things work together for good.’ A death is a sad thing, but we can use it for good, to His glory.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “At the fair, in July, there will be a miracle.” His eyes were bright in the candlelight. Alive with a kind of fever. He looked half-crazed now. “A revelation, of sorts.”

  “Arthur, no—”

  “Yes, yes.” His brain seemed to be clicking away, his eyes unfocused. “One of the Hawthorn Sisters will get a vision from the Lord, showing her where Old Steadfast Coe ran off to. Where he spent his last moments just before he came face-to-face with his Maker.”

  “One of the Hawthorn Sisters?” she said.

  The candle flickered and the light left his eyes. He straightened to his full height and looked down, studying her with a detachment that sent a bolt of fear into her chest. He smiled then, a strange curling smile, but his eyes had returned to their previous hardness.

  “Good Lord, Ruth, why do you have to be this way? Why can’t you be easy like Bruna? Sweet and submissive and adaptable like a godly woman should be? Why do you turn everything into a battle?”

  She stood very still. Very conscious of the gun she’d placed on the table a couple of paces behind her. She could whirl around, grab it, and shoot him now. Tell the police she’d come upstairs to find him attacking Steadfast.

  She could kill him.

  But Bruna would be heartbroken. She might never forgive Ruth. And Bruna was all she had. Bruna, even more than Dell, was the one person she couldn’t live without.

  He went to the old man’s desk, pulled a sheet of stationery out, and scribbled something on the bottom. “Come here.”

  She moved closer. He’d signed his name at the bottom of the paper.

  He pushed the pen to her. “Go ahead, sign it. It’s our agreement, that we’re going to do this together. I’ll fill in the rest later. This way, if you ever think about ratting me out, I’ll make sure all the right people know.”

  She knew it was wrong, but she was afraid. So she took the pen and signed her name directly under his. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Then he pulled the sheet over Steadfast’s head.

  His voice took on a brisk, businesslike tone. “Now Ruth, listen close. The plan is, we’ll hide him together. Far away from town. Then, at the fair, when it’s time for the revelation, the Lord will speak to you and you’ll bear witness to the crowd.”

  “Bruna’s going to be out of town.” It was the only thing she could say.

  “I’ll talk to her daddy. Man to man. He’ll listen to reason.”

  Her insides felt as if they were being squeezed, and she couldn’t think. There might not be any proof, but Arthur had killed Steadfast, she was now as sure of that as she’d ever been of anything.

  “You won’t breathe a word of this to Bruna. You will not say a thing. Do you understand?” Now his face looked monstrous in the candlelight.

  “Yes,” she said. Because she did. She understood that she’d just given her life and her future over to Arthur Holt.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Florence, Alabama

  Present

  We didn’t find the coin.

  But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. We ripped Jason’s house apart, top to bottom, pulling out drawers and cabinets, throwing up window sashes and clearing out closets, but came up with nothing. Well, next to nothing. Griff came across an old pistol. It had been stuck down in the lining of an ancient portable ice chest, which was crammed back in the tiny, airless maid’s room off the kitchen.

  “Vintage Colt 1911,” Griff said, studying it with admiration. “Classic World War I. The army sold these after the war. Steadfast probably bought it for home protection.”

  I felt a chill run up my spine.

  Ember motioned for the gun and ejected the pistol’s magazine. “Empty.” She popped the magazine back in.

  Jason took the gun from her. “You know, that reminds me. I heard a story once about Steadfast. Apparently, he shot a woman who worked for him in the foot.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “You think he took a shot at Dove, and that gave her a reason to murder him?” Althea asked.

  “I just think we need to be open to any possibility,” Jason said.

  Ember regarded the rest of us. “It’s no secret the men in our family were a bunch of oddballs. Jason’s granddad Orillion built himself a bomb shelter down in the Dismals Canyon complete with a state-of-the-art arsenal. Our great-uncle James ran off with four different women, but his wife wouldn’t divorce him, so he always went back to her.

  “The women on the other hand . . .” She ran her fingers over the windowsill, then pushed open the window and leaned out. “Mothers in our family always planted a hawthorn tree when a baby daughter was born. There used to be a big one here, out front, but I think it got hit by lightning or something. My Granny Bruna’s tree is still going strong, though, over at the house where she grew up. And there’s one across town too. That’s my aunt Deborah’s.”

  “What about your tree?” I asked. “Is that the one in your front yard?”

  “Nobody planted one for me,” she said simply. “That one was already at the house. That’s how I knew the place was meant for me. It was a sign.”

  After we concluded we were done for the day, Althea, Griff, Ember, and I headed out for meatloaf and fries at a restaurant on the main drag. Althea and Griff said they’d go back to Jason’s. I wanted to head over to the library to see if I could dig up any old newspaper clippings about Steadfast’s disappearance or the coin in the archives. The thought of it filled me with gloom. Research seemed like the last thing that was going to crack this case.

  We dropped Ember at her house, then went back to the hotel. I did a sequence of yoga poses, working my arm with a series of stretches, then took a scalding shower while Althea called Jay. When I was done, I sat on my bed, toweling my hair dry, already feeling better from the exercise.

  Althea grabbed the remote and muted the TV. “You know, this thing you’re doing—looking for the coin. It’s really incredible, you know.”

  “Oh, well. I don’t know about that.” I tossed the towel over the back of a chair and started brushing my hair with my right hand. It felt good to force it to work again. In all the stress of the past few days, I’d been favoring it.

  “That’s what family does,” I said. “You look out for each other.”

  “I admire how you do that. The way you’re so committed to keeping them safe.”

  I lifted one shoulder. “I love them.”

  She propped her head on one hand. “So, here’s a question. What would happen if you didn’t do it? Take care of them, I mean. What would happen if you let them figure out their own stuff?”

  I sent her a rueful grin. “They’ve got some really serious stuff.”

  “I remember. Your mom’s breakdown. Danny’s drinking. How much they depend on the foundation.”

  She said it so
simply. Three short sentences—making my life sound so uncomplicated and clear. But there was more to it, wasn’t there? There was my self-imposed isolation. The careful and constant balancing act of lies and half-truths. The crushing weight of feeling—of knowing—I was the only one who could protect the people I loved.

  If I let my family figure out their own stuff, I’d have nothing left to do but face mine.

  She raised a hand. “I get it. None of my business.”

  I hesitated. “It can be, if you want.”

  I knew I was taking a risk. If Althea was only on this trip because she was after the coin, this might be one way to get it. Convince me to confide in her, to shift my allegiances from my own family to her. The thing was, she’d already started to feel like a friend. Someone I could trust. Even if she did have ulterior motives, I still wanted to talk to her.

  I swung my legs around to face her on the other bed. “What would you suggest I do?”

  She scooted against the pile of pillows. “It just seems to me that this belief you have—that Diane’s going to curl up and die without the foundation—well, she knows you think that and she’s using it to hold you hostage. It may not be Piper Laurie locking you in a closet full of crucifixes, but it’s still manipulative. Some people might even call it abuse.”

  I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “You’d call it that?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just making an observation.”

  “Well, all due respect, but you don’t see everything.”

  “Okay.” Althea’s tone was gentle. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Look. My mother’s a fragile person. She doesn’t handle life’s difficulties well. When Danny and I were small, our father left. Then Mom left, psychologically. It wasn’t her fault, and I understand how hard it was for her, but still . . . what she did had consequences.”

  “That must’ve been traumatic.”

  “It was a learning experience for sure.” I shrugged.

  “Look, I get that I’m inserting myself into a situation where I don’t belong. I do that sometimes. Jay says it’s my big heart. It’s really that I’m plain old nosy.”