The River to Glory Land

by Janie DeVos

  “And her grandmother, too,” Granddaddy added softly, with pride in his eyes.

  Chapter 15

  Looking Ahead

  May, 1928

  The ship’s whistle sounded sharply against the revving engines, signaling our imminent departure. Checking my watch to confirm that it was exactly 10:00 a.m., I took one last look up and down the sidewalk in case there were any late arrivals, before waving the ‘all clear’ to our pilot, Billy Collier, and hurrying up the gangplank to board the Full House. This cruise would be our sixth since our maiden voyage, and things were going quite smoothly. Staying out of the way of the deckhands as they untied our lines from the pilings, I double-checked the names on the manifest to see if I’d missed anyone who had reservations but hadn’t shown up. Confirming that everyone was on board and accounted for, I made my way up the outside stairs to the open deck above.

  People were excited about the dinner cruises we were offering on Daddy’s elegant new ship. The fact that folks could drink and gamble to their hearts’ content, without worrying about being hauled off to jail, was enough to sell out the tickets for our first cruise in less than twelve hours. Even though we were in the off-season, and our winter tourists were up north again, the demand was far greater than we’d expected. We had decided to have two different rates, with the higher one being November through mid-March, and a much-reduced rate from late March until the end of October. We also decided to add additional trips to the number originally planned. Instead of doing one every two weeks, we decided to increase our schedule to once a week. Even though we’d only been in the party cruise business for six weeks, we stayed fully booked. Because of that, my parents and grandparents were considering building another ship.

  The three-level ship, looking much like a white paddle wheeler minus the wheel, had been expensive to build, even with the blueprints and some of the materials on hand. My family knew the cruise needed to be appropriate for the sort of clientele we were catering to, which were the moneyed people who came to Miami in the winter and were used to the finer things in life. We knew we had to impress them with the highest quality of food and drink, as well as excellent service, and tasteful surroundings. Thus, my father had built a state-of-the-art motorized ship, one hundred and twenty feet long, and my mother had handsomely appointed it with beautifully crafted furnishings, fine silver, crystal and china, stained glass lamps, and professional gaming tables. Their combined efforts had created one of the finest ships ever to grace the waves in the state of Florida.

  “Weather’s nice this afternoon,” my father said as he came down the steps from the pilot house, which sat at the front of the ship’s upper level. It was on this open deck that people could mingle and enjoy the sights, be they Miami’s ever-changing skyline, or the natural beauty of the Bahamian Islands. The main level below offered a dining area with bar and kitchen, and the lowest level housed the gaming tables, as well as another bar.

  “What are we picking up this afternoon, and is Scott or one of the Bahamians bringing the liquor in?” I asked as we stood by the railing watching the Spinnaker, its dock, and the rest of Miami Beach’s skyline shrink as we put more and more distance between us.

  My father and grandfather preferred using Scott, but if he was busy doing other things, which was quite often, then they called Bimini or Nassau in advance and one of the distributors’ smugglers delivered the liquor in their fast boats out of the islands. With their runabouts equipped with enormous engines, the Bahamian men could deliver the order in no time at all. They were exceptionally skilled drivers and able to operate most any type of watercraft. My father entertained the possibility of offering a couple of the finest drivers the opportunity to captain his hydroplanes in upcoming races, but the amount of money they made running liquor in just a month’s time far surpassed what my father could pay them in a year.

  “One of the fellas out of Bimini is dropping off two cases of whiskey, three of gin and one rye. That should be plenty with the stock we still have. If we load any more than that, chances are we’ll have quite a bit left when we re-enter the three-mile limit, and we don’t need the border patrol on our backs.”

  “Is he bringing it on from Nassau, or off the Senorita Mia?” I asked, referring to the two hundred and fifteen-foot concrete cargo ship that was a floating liquor warehouse just off Bimini.

  “Probably the Senorita Mia. We’ll rendezvous with him about six miles out at twelve thirty,” Daddy replied.

  I was just as happy that Scott wasn’t meeting us because the man truly grated on my nerves. The last time he had landed his plane close to our boat to deliver our stock, I’d seen a beautiful blond-haired woman peering out from the passenger seat. Recalling the pretty brunette I’d seen with him at the bar in the Helm, I couldn’t help but wonder how many women he had in his stable. He was arrogant and a womanizer, and I disliked him immensely. But I had to admit, he was excellent at his job, and dependable, too. Just as Buddy DeMario had been. The Detroit mobster had served us well by setting us up with two experienced card dealers out of Las Vegas.

  So far, things were running smoothly. The fact that we never brought too much liquor back into U.S. waters — not enough to sell, anyway—had kept the authorities away, especially the uncompromising, by-the-book border patrol.

  Suddenly, I saw Neil Aldrich walk along the portside passageway on the deck below us, then duck through one of the doors.

  “Why is Neil Aldrich on board? Is Laura with him?” I knew she’d returned to Miami after her mother had passed away soon after Laura had arrived in Illinois, but I had yet to run into her. I didn’t want to at that moment.

  “No, no,” Daddy replied. “Our usual doctor, Dan Mooreland, is down with the same flu your grandfather has,” Daddy replied. “And the other doctor Dan rotates with had two surgeries scheduled today, so I called Neil. It was good of him to come out.”

  “Yes–yes, it was,” I said, feeling as though I was supposed to agree with him, but also feeling as though I wanted to get away and catch my breath. I avoided Neil whenever I could, which had been fairly easy with Laura out of town. Though they came into the restaurant often, they never came in alone. “Excuse me, Daddy, but it’s time for me to mingle with our guests. I’ll come up to the pilot house and check in with you after a while, okay?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I need to get up there and see if Billy wants anything.” Before I could turn away, he pulled my face toward him and kissed me on the forehead. “You do a terrific job, Lily. You really do.”

  I avoided Neil the rest of the morning, but I wasn’t as fortunate in the early afternoon. As scheduled, the boat bringing the liquor to us cut across the water at exactly 12:30 p.m. As I watched him approach from the second deck, I could see the wake the fast moving craft made, creating a white-water V trailing behind him. The boat was a turquoise blue, so it blended in perfectly with the water, but the engine was loud enough to wake the dead, making it impossible for the boat to pass undetected. In the Bahamian waters, where we were, liquor was legal, and the noise of a boat’s motor was not an issue.

  Two of our deckhands carried the cases down to our stock room on the lowest level, where I would inventory it with the rest of the liquor we already had on board. On a few occasions, we’d come back with too much and had no choice but to dump some of it overboard. However, we put the bottles into lobster traps, with the intention of picking them up on our next trip out. It worked one time, but the trap and everything in it had been stolen from us the second time. We knew it was bound to happen, but it still beat having the law down our throats.

  As I worked in the stockroom, Neil stepped in, and we startled each other.

  “I’m sorry,” he laughed. “I didn’t know you were in here. I just need some antiseptic and gauze. José cut his hand shucking oysters.”

  “Is he all right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Neil nodded, laughing. “But he almost
passed out at the sight of blood. Kind of like someone else used to do.” His reference was not lost on me and I smiled

  “How are you?” he asked, his laughter turning into a soft smile.

  “I’m all right,” I nodded. “You?”

  “I’m doin’ okay. Laura’s back,” he said, looking directly into my eyes as if gauging my reaction.

  “That’s good,” I said, unsure what he expected me to say.

  “Lily, I…”

  “Neil, the brooch,” I said quickly, intentionally cutting off whatever he was starting to say. “Don’t send me anything like that again, okay?” He started to object, but I stopped him. “It’s not that I’m not grateful, but it’s…not right. What we did wasn’t right. So, please, let’s just let things be,” I said. I tried to smile, but my face refused. “People are bound to get hurt.” We looked at each other for a moment, not saying anything. Then I moved past him. “I need to—”

  “I’m staying at the Flamingo Hotel on the Beach, Lily,” he said, cutting me off and freezing me in my tracks.

  “I’ve been there for a couple of weeks,” he quietly explained as I turned my head slightly to listen to him. “Laura is still at the house. She found the receipt for the brooch with your name and address on it for the delivery boy.”

  Again, neither of us said anything for several seconds but Neil finally spoke. “She asked me if I was in love with you.”

  “And what did you tell her?” I softly asked. My back was still turned to him.

  “I told her I thought I might be.”

  “I have to go,” I whispered, turning my head to watch where I was going. I figured it had to be better than where I’d already been.

  Chapter 16

  Gone Missing

  I awoke late the next morning, grateful that everyone was gone by the time I got up. It was a rare luxury to sleep late and then have the house to myself, but I needed it more that morning than at any other time I could remember. I’d hardly slept, thinking about Neil and Laura, and how much of their undoing had been my fault. Then, during the wee hours of the morning, after a night of ruthless self-chastising, one thing became crystal clear: I needed to leave Miami. Getting up, I went to my vanity mirror and plucked Ben Slevin’s business card out from between the frame and the glass. He told me to call him if I ever wanted to dance professionally, even dangling Ziegfeld’s name in front of me. I turned him down because the time wasn’t right. Now it was.

  I looked at the clock on my nightstand, but seeing that it was only 3:50 a.m., I knew it was way too early to call Ben. I got back into bed and finally fell asleep. The certainty of what I needed to do for the good of all concerned was the best sedative of all.

  After my second cup of coffee, I called Ben at his home in New York. A woman answered and politely informed me that he was “indisposed at the moment” but that she would be happy to give him a message. I left my name and number, poured a third cup of coffee, then sat down at the table to think about the things I needed to do if I was going to leave town.

  First, I would need to give my grandparents plenty of notice at the hotel. They’d need someone to host the lunch crowd in the Hibiscus Room, and find a new dance instructor—someone with the right image. My parents would need to find a new hostess for the dinner cruises, too. That job, as well, required a certain panache.

  Suddenly, the phone rang. I let it ring several times before I picked up the receiver. I didn’t want to seem overly anxious.

  “Hello?” I said, trying to sound both blasé as well as sophisticated. However, the caller did not respond with the velvet-smooth male voice I anticipated.

  “Lily?” It was Francine. “Lily? Are you there?” She sounded absolutely panicked.

  Immediately, my sultry, sophisticated act was gone. “Francine? It’s Lily. What’s wrong?”

  “Thank God,” she sighed. “Listen, I haven’t seen Olivia for two days, so I called her at her job this morning and the receptionist said she hasn’t come in to work either. Has she been at your folks, or sick with the flu, or somethin’ ?”

  “No!” I was absolutely chilled to the bone. “She’s not been home. Francine, when was the last time you saw her?” My mind was running in a thousand different directions: Had the hospital been called? Did anyone know where her car was? Did she say anything strange or unusual the last time anyone talked to her? And who was that someone, and when was that? Unfortunately, Francine hadn’t called the hospitals yet, and no one knew where her car was, and Olivia seemed fine last time she’d seen her, though she couldn’t speak for anyone else who might have talked with her.

  I was trying to deal with the situation as calmly as I could, but Francine was talking a million miles an hour and only half listening to me. “Francine!” I said loudly. “Now you listen to me! Did Olivia have any secrets that you’re aware of? Something that might be related to her disappearance? And before you answer me, you ask yourself this question: ‘If I lie and something happens to Olivia, how long will I be in the slammer for withholding pertinent information. You ask yourself that, Francine!” I waited for what felt like an hour until finally Francine answered.

  “She’s been runnin’ booze with the Doxley brothers, especially with Albert, and the last I heard, she was headed out to your family’s Key Biscayne place for a drop off. But that was early in the morning, day before yesterday, and she should have been back by that afternoon.”

  I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to slow my rapid breathing. “How long has she been doin’ this, Francine?” I asked in a controlled, flat voice.

  “Since just after we ran into Albert Doxley at the Lemon Tree, the night of my birthday. Things started soon after that,” she said.

  I started to ask Francine if Olivia and Albert were involved romantically, but rather than waste time talking about things that I wanted Olivia to answer herself—if she was even able to answer for herself—I told Francine not to call anyone else, or talk to anyone else about this until she heard back from me.

  Immediately, I changed into a pair of canvas trousers and denim shirt, and then filled a small burlap bag with a few medical supplies, a dry set of clothing, half a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheddar cheese. Next, I filled a jug with water from the tap and started to leave. But when I was halfway out of the front door, I thought of something I might need (though I said a silent prayer that I wouldn’t), and I hurried back to my bedroom where I grabbed a .38 Special out of my nightstand. After checking to make sure it was loaded, I jammed it down in between the small of my back and the waistline of my trousers, and then raced out of the house and down to our dock, where one of our family’s small runabouts was always tied up. I jumped into the boat, stored my supplies, stuck the gun away in a small concealed compartment just below the instrument panel, and started the engine. Once it was running smoothly, I climbed back onto the dock, freed the lines from the pilings, jumped back into the boat, threw it in gear, and took off down the Miami River. Unfortunately, a fairly stiff northeast wind had kicked the waters up enough to create two to three foot waves. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone out on a day like this, but I had no choice. I headed east on the river until I came to Biscayne Bay, where I turned south. Six miles to the southeast lay Key Biscayne, and our cottage, and I prayed the entire time that I would find Olivia there. Alive.

  Chapter 17

  Broken Things

  I approached the cottage from an angle, hoping that if someone other than Olivia was inside, they wouldn’t see me coming. Tied up further down the beach was another runabout, but I had no idea whom it belonged to, or where the owner of it was because the beach was completely empty. About a quarter mile northeast of the cottage, I killed the engine in order to come in as quietly as I could, and then I let the boat run up onto the sand. I had no idea what I might be walking into, or, more importantly, who, so I quietly made my way through a thick gr
ove of palm trees on the north side of the cottage. Staying low, I cleared the shelter of the grove and ran up to the side of the house and peered into the guest bedroom. The beds were made, and nothing seemed out of place, so I went around the corner to the west window and looked in at an empty kitchen. Immediately, I was on alert, for a variety of glasses and dishes sat unwashed on the drain board by the sink, and I knew that no one in our family ever left a mess before departing.

  I moved on to the next window, and peered into my parents’ bedroom, but nothing seemed amiss in this room. Moving around the corner to the south side of the house, I looked in on the combined dining area and living room. I didn’t see anyone in this room either but things were scattered all over the floor, and bric-a-brac that had been on end tables and our coffee table had been knocked over, some broken. Lying near the cold fireplace, at the opposite side of the room from me, was a mound of something, or a large sack of some kind, though from this distance I couldn’t make it out clearly. So, staying low, I hurried around the corner to the front of the house, skirted the porch and ran to the northeast corner window, which was exactly opposite the one I’d been peering through by the dining area. From this vantage point, I was able to see the mound much more clearly, and, without a doubt, it wasn’t a mound of something but rather someone. And when that someone moved just enough so I could make out the person’s hair color, I knew it was Olivia. Not caring if anyone else was in the house at that point, I tore up onto the front porch and tried the door, but it was locked. I raised my fist to pound upon it, but stopped myself just before my hand struck the wood. I hurried down to the bottom porch step, where I stuck my hand in the open end of it and pulled out our hidden key.

  My hand shook as I tried to fit the key into the lock, but I finally got the door open, then ran to Olivia and knelt down by her. The early afternoon sun was nearly overhead by then, but there was enough light in the room to illuminate the right side of Olivia’s head, which was terribly battered and bruised. Just above her temple, her platinum hair was encrusted and matted against her skin with dried blood. I could see a cut above her right eyebrow that was the source, or one of the sources, of the bleeding. The movement of her hand caught my eye, and I looked down to see it jerk slightly. I saw that her knuckles were scraped and raw, and her forearm was badly bruised.