A Thousand Generations

by Traci DePree

  “So what’s going on?” Gladys asked. “Have you found out more about Grandpa Horace?”

  “I have,” Kate began, then laid out all she had discovered, including the implication that finding the hidden mannequins in the basement of the former store meant Horace might have played a crucial role in smuggling the ill-gotten money from a bank robbery and a speakeasy with the help of an employee named Chris Nelson. When Kate finished, silence spread between them.

  “Did you know any of this?” Kate asked.

  “I have to tell you, honey,” Gladys answered. “I’m simply stunned.”

  Hearing the sadness in Gladys’ voice almost made Kate wish she hadn’t told her.

  “Wow,” Gladys finally added.

  “I don’t understand how you could’ve grown up never knowing what happened,” Kate said, trying to make sense of it.

  Finally Gladys said, “I guess I did hear about Chris Nelson being arrested, but as far as I was told, that had nothing to do with us or with Grandpa. Chris was just an employee. I’d never heard a word about him being involved in organized crime or using the boutique to smuggle money. Though it does make some things clearer now, some of the things that happened.”

  “Like what?” Kate asked.

  “The attitudes of people in town toward them at the time.” She paused in thought for a moment, then went on. “But I remember Grandpa Horace, Katie. He was a strong man who loved his family and who talked about his faith freely with any who would listen. This simply doesn’t jibe with the man I recall.”

  “That was the sense that I had too, but there has to be some way to reconcile all of this, doesn’t there?” Kate asked.

  “Of course,” Gladys agreed, then she conceded, “We were young, Katie. Adults protect children from hurtful things. Whatever really happened might’ve died with Marie and Horace.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Kate thought about heading to the historical society to do a little research on Simmonds, but it had been so long since she’d spent a day at home, enjoying the warm late-June weather and the sunshine, that she opted for finishing up a few things around the house first.

  Top priority was the stained-glass window for Phillip’s transom. She’d finally finished soldering the frame. All that remained was to rub on the patina that would give the solder lines their black charm, clean the window with neutralizing solution, and give it a final polish. The three steps took less than half an hour altogether, and Kate had to admit she was proud of the finished product.

  She held it up so the sunlight would hit the orange letters of “Antiques” as she admired it. She’d used oranges in a variety of hues and textures that added depth to the simple design.

  She wrapped the window in brown paper as before to take it to the store, then she gazed around her cluttered stained-glass studio and did a quick pickup.

  When she’d finished, Kate glanced at her watch. It was only 10:00 AM. She decided to make a few loaves of homemade bread. She hadn’t made any in ages, and there was nothing like the smell of baking bread in the house to inspire creativity in solving a mystery.

  Kate ran tap water until it was just the right temperature, warm to the touch. Too cool and the yeast wouldn’t activate, too hot and the yeast would be killed.

  She added the powdered yeast and mixed it into the water until it dissolved. Then she put it and the remaining ingredients into the large mixing bowl on her stand mixer and let the kneading hook take over the job.

  W.M. The initials continued to haunt her. Who was he, and what was that key for? Clearly he thought she could figure that out, or he would have offered a stronger clue.

  The mixer bumped with the motion until the white dough was ready to be set on the back of the stove to rise in a greased glass bowl. Kate placed a warm, slightly damp cloth over it and turned to clean up the counter and dishes. First, she filled the sink with sudsy water and put the mixing bowl, dough hook, and measuring utensils in. She washed and dried each and put them away.

  Then she pulled the envelope from her handbag and studied it as well as the key it held.

  I SEE YOU THINK LIKE I DO. MAYBE WE CAN SCRATCH EACH OTHER’S BACKS. He was apparently taking her bait, but she had to discover where the key went. It was ancient. She tried to think of what kind of place would still use such a key. She finished wiping the counters, then sat on a stool, absently paging through the pages of her cookbook, her mind traveling back and forth.

  W.M. had inserted the newspaper article no doubt to make sure she would connect him with the lost fortune. She chuckled at the irony, considering that she’d planted the mannequin in her car for that same purpose.

  Kate turned another page. She noticed a recipe with a full-color photo on the opposite page with the caption “A Mexican Treat.” The picture was what stopped her: a shell-shaped pastry like the one she’d eaten not that long ago.

  Conchas, Connie Rae had called them.

  An old family recipe. But Connie Rae Loggins was hardly Hispanic. Even her maiden name, Simmonds, was in no way Latina. But her first husband’s name was: Jose Manuel.

  Manuel! But was it just a coincidence? Or was the name Manuel her link to W.M.?

  It would take a good hour or more before the dough was ready for the oven, so Kate plugged her laptop into the phone connection and dialed up the Internet.

  Her home dial-up connection was much slower than the computers at the library, and she would have preferred to head there. But since she was in the middle of baking, she decided this was better than nothing.

  After waiting several long moments for the browser to pop up, Kate finally typed in “Jose Manuel” and “Connie Rae Manuel.”

  Up came the words Your search—“Jose Manuel” “Connie Rae Manuel”—did not match any documents. But on the side of the page was an ad that said, “Find Connie Now” with a Web site link to publicbirth-marriagerecords.com.

  Kate clicked on the link, which sent her to a blank form. She filled out the information she’d written down at the library—their names, including Connie’s maiden name, Connie Rae’s father’s name, 1931 as the year of their marriage, and Harrington County as the place of the wedding.

  1931. Kate considered that year while the next page took its time loading. It was the year after the bank robbery. How old would Connie Rae have been? She’d said she was born in 1915, so sixteen. Awfully young to be a bride, though Kate knew young marriages were commonplace during that time period when people often didn’t live past fifty.

  Finally a page came up that listed records pertaining to Connie Rae Simmonds Manuel Loggins, along with those for Jose Manuel.

  She clicked on the birth certificate for Jose Manuel, and what she read stunned her.

  Under “mother” was the name Veronica Alanzo Manuel, and under “father” was the name Jack R. Leonetti.

  Jack Leonetti had a son! And that son had married Connie Rae Simmonds.

  Kate’s mind flew to the diary entry Horace had written of the fishing trip. He’d spoken of a teenage boy. Kate retrieved the small trunk in the living room and reread the section from the red notebook. Horace, it seemed, had no inkling who the boy had been in relation to Leonetti. At least his entry didn’t seem to indicate that.

  Kate returned to the computer, still shocked that Connie Rae had married Jack Leonetti’s son.

  But why didn’t the boy have his father’s last name? Why Manuel and not Leonetti? No doubt it was because Jack was wanted by the newly formed FBI. Kate typed the mother’s name, “Veronica Alanzo Manuel,” into the Google search bar.

  Several articles appeared. The third listing captured Kate’s attention immediately. It was from an article in the archives of a Laredo, Texas, newspaper.

  The February 3, 1914, headline read:

  MEXICAN “ROYALTY” RUNS AMOK

  Veronica Alanzo Manuel, daughter of one of the most influential men in the Mexican government, Carlos Manuel, adviser to the president, has eloped with famed gangster Jack Leonetti of the Uni
ted States. Reports state that the couple was seen near Cabo San Lucas last weekend on their honeymoon. According to a resort patron, the young wife, no more than nineteen years old, was wearing a large diamond ring, showing it around to fellow patrons and calling herself Mrs. Jack Leonetti.

  When asked if her father knew of the marriage, Veronica stated an emphatic yes, though Señor Manuel was not available to confirm or deny his knowledge of the union.

  A marriage certificate was filed in Mexico City on January 27, 1914.

  Kate tried to take it all in. If Jack and Veronica were married, why wouldn’t she have taken his name? The next article that popped up answered her question almost immediately. It was an annulment declaration for Veronica and Jack. The marriage had lasted a full two weeks before it was over.

  With this information in hand, it wasn’t hard for Kate to discover that W.M. stood for Walter Manuel, Connie Rae and Jose’s only son, born in Taos, New Mexico, in 1932. But that would make the man in his mid- to late seventies. He couldn’t be the same person who’d broken Phillip’s store window and run from her. So, on a hunch, Kate searched to see if W.M. had any children. She scrolled down the page, and there it was, a son. Walter Manuel Jr., born in 1964, no doubt the grandson who’d called while Kate had been visiting Connie Rae.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Walter Manuel Jr. wasn’t listed in any of the phone directories, not even online. Kate had called Deputy Spencer immediately to tell him what she’d learned in her research. He’d promised to let the authorities in Pine Ridge know to send a squad car past the Simmonds sisters’ homes in hopes of glimpsing the man, but beyond that there wasn’t much he could do. Skip had said he’d call her if they came across his path, but by the next day there had been no call.

  Kate asked around town to see if anyone had seen the man with the limp or heard of Walter Manuel Jr., but it was a dead end. Kate even headed back to the courthouse to see if county land records would provide some lead. But there was nothing.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Kate had agreed to help out at the antiques store since Ellie had to take the day off to take her mother to a doctor’s appointment. It had been a while since Kate had been at the store for any length of time so she was glad to spend some time with Phillip. Kate had brought the finally completed stained-glass window in. Phillip had looked at it and smiled, though he didn’t say anything. Merely meandered to the checkout station and sipped his coffee. Kate wondered if he regretted asking her to make it.

  Customers came in the front door—two women carrying oversized purses. Kate asked the women if she could help them. When they said they were just browsing, she turned back to dusting the front of the store.

  While she worked, she caught a glance of Phillip. His head was bent to paperwork behind the checkout desk, and he was scratching his head. He kept sighing heavily. Something was bothering him.

  When the women ambled to the back of the store, Kate said, “You know”—Phillip lifted his gaze—“I could install the stained-glass window for you.”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I appreciate all the hard work you put into it, but...I don’t know if I want to put anything up there now.”

  She glanced to the clear pane that was opened to let in air on the warm summer day “Oh...,” she said.

  Phillip exhaled and moved to busy himself with a lampshade in the front window display. Kate waited for him to return to the checkout before she brought up the next subject she had in mind.

  “I’m going to head over to the historical society tomorrow. Lila said she’d be there. I want to figure out where that supposed speakeasy was located, the one that Nelson ran. Would you like to come help me look?”

  By the way Phillip and Lila had acted at dinner the previous week, Kate assumed that he would jump at any opportunity to see Lila. But his brow furrowed, and he bent down, pretending to be preoccupied with the display case.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  He didn’t fool Kate. “What’s going on, Phillip?” she asked.

  “Did I say anything was going on?” He shuffled the small objects around, not bothering to look up.

  “Is everything okay with Lila?”

  “Not really,” he said softly. “It’s me.”

  “Meaning...?”

  He picked up a bottle of vinegar water from the shelf behind them and moved to clean the front of the glass case.

  “Phillip,” Kate said, trying not to sound too motherly but knowing she probably did, “tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” he confessed, looking up at Kate. “We were getting along great. She’s a wonderful person.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  He paused. “She’s not Ginny.” His brow furrowed, and his gaze returned to his work.

  “Of course she’s not Ginny. No one can be Ginny.”

  The female shoppers returned from the back, offering their thanks and then leaving without purchasing anything.

  Phillip let out a heavy sigh, then went on. “Everything was going great. We’d gone out a few times and were really getting along well. We have a lot in common. We both love history and adventure, and...” His words trailed away for a moment.

  “And?”

  “Then Eric called.” He paused and ran a hand through his thick hair. “I could hear the hurt in his voice when I told him about Lila...”

  “Oh, Phillip,” Kate said, “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do this to him.”

  “Do what?” Kate said. “Eric knows you loved his mother. Deep inside he wants you to be happy again.”

  “Is that even possible?” Phillip lifted miserable eyes to Kate.

  Kate paused to study him. “That’s a question only you can answer.”

  AFTER A QUICK BREAKFAST the next day, Kate pulled her car into the parking lot outside the Harrington County Historical Society and glanced at Phillip in the passenger’s seat. He’d finally agreed to come after some coaxing from Kate but had been sitting on his hands the whole way over, like a schoolboy who was being punished. Kate realized that probably wasn’t so far off, only it wasn’t a teacher doing the punishing; he’d been punishing himself.

  Theirs was the only vehicle in the historical society’s parking lot, save for Lila’s little red Volkswagen Beetle. As they approached the building, Kate decided July felt more like August that afternoon, with temperatures swelling into the upper eighties. Kate wore capris and a light T-shirt, while Phillip donned jeans and a Henley.

  Lila was seated behind a stack of newspapers at the large table when Kate and Phillip came in. Kate saw the hurt in her expression when he offered her a faint hello.

  Lila stared back at the papers and mumbled “Hello” in reply.

  “We need to talk,” Phillip said.

  Kate felt suddenly like a third wheel.

  Lila shrugged and said, “We already talked.” Then she turned to Kate. “You’d mentioned wanting to look for possible locations of Leonetti’s speakeasy before?”

  Kate nodded as Lila motioned for her to follow. The three of them moved past the room of file boxes into another. The fact that the historical society had been a school in its for-mer life meant there was plenty of space to store historical paperwork.

  “I pulled up some boxes of police reports from that time,” Lila explained. “I didn’t look through them, though. There’s simply too much to read.” She shrugged, and Kate could see she was trying to deal with her emotions regarding Phillip’s presence. “And until everything is categorized, dated, and in a decent database, we’re stuck looking through haystacks.”

  Lila smiled briefly, then quickly left them to begin their search.

  “I really hurt her,” Phillip whispered. “What have I done?”

  “Give her time,” Kate cautioned. “And yourself,” she added. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll work out.”

  They were soon immersed in pages of police reports dating from 1928 to
1934. By four o’clock, Phillip’s hair was sticking straight off his head from rubbing his scalp as he flipped from one page to the next.

  “This is crazy making,” he said. “How are we ever going to find what we’re looking for?”

  Kate understood how he felt. Her eyes were strained from reading all morning, and her back ached from sitting in the hard wooden school chair. Finally she got up to stretch, twisting her body from side to side in hopes of easing the tension. So far they’d found nothing. Not a single clue that would tell them where the speakeasy had been.

  “I’m going to take another look at Simmonds’ book,” Kate said, making her way into the adjoining room. But when she looked on the shelf where the box containing the self-published book was kept, she noticed two copies of the volume. There had only been one before, and knowing the historical society’s firm rule about not checking items out, she wondered why she hadn’t seen the second before now.

  As she lifted both copies from the shelf, a piece of paper fell to the floor, and Kate bent to pick it up. On it was written an address, or more accurately the legal description of a property, beginning, “Part of the North Half of the Northwest Quarter of Section 43, Township 112 North, Range...” It went on for a good two paragraphs, and at the bottom were the words “UNLOCK THE DOOR. BRING WHAT IS MINE OR YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.”

  Kate’s palms began to sweat. She furrowed her brow and turned the sheet over. It was the same block writing as before, and the intent was clear. Manuel had guessed that she’d come back to the source, looking for the door that his key would unlock. Kate shivered at the thought that the thief seemed to know her so well.

  “Lila,” she said as she moved to the outer room where the younger woman was still working. There was a box of tissues on the table next to her, and she quickly stuffed one of them into her pile of papers before turning to Kate.

  “Yes,” she managed in a cracking voice.

  Kate felt bad for her. She could only imagine how difficult it was to fall in love with a grieving man who wasn’t yet ready to return her feelings.