Sweet Mercy (24 page)

He had stepped aside from the window enough that I could see who was outside playing croquet. It was George Sluder and his wife, both dressed fashionably in white croquet clothing as though they were at a country club. He wore neatly creased slacks, a short-sleeved shirt, and a white straw hat with a black band; she, a narrow sundress and floppy brimmed hat that sported feathers on one side. They laughed and chattered freely, unaware that they were entertaining the men in the dining room.

I looked back toward the table. “I'll be right back with your water.”

“Thank you, miss. Much obliged,” said moustache man.

Why they couldn't see that I was already in the middle of running an errand was beyond me. Mother and the girls had been waiting an unreasonably long time for the Jell-O. I huffed as I made my way back to the kitchen and was relieved to see Annie at the sink. “Annie, the men in the dining room need a pitcher of ice water. Would you mind taking it to them?”

“Sure, honey,” she said as she wiped her hands on her apron. She looked wide-eyed at the tray in my hands. “You'd
best run that Jell-O upstairs before it melts and the girls have to be drinking it with a straw.”

I thanked her and hurried back to the dining room. The man at the window was lighting another cigarette. Moustache man was pulling on his moustache. One of the men playing cards folded while the other pulled a pile of chips toward him with a shout of triumph.

“Annie will be bringing your water in a minute,” I told them.

Moustache man nodded.

I turned to go. When I reached the threshold to the front hall, cigarette man snorted out another hearty laugh. “Yes, sir, gentlemen,” he announced merrily. “I believe this one's in the bag.”

B
y nightfall, Cassandra was sick, which left us playing a sort of musical chairs with our sleeping arrangements. She and Warren stayed in Mother and Daddy's room. Daddy took the single bed in my room, and Mother and I took the second double bed in Cassandra and Warren's room so that we could be with the girls.

The night was hot and sticky. We had the windows thrown open and two oscillating fans blowing air about the room. Effie and Grace managed to fall asleep about nine o'clock, both stripped to their underwear and cuddling cold water bottles. For Mother and me, sleep didn't come so easily. We abandoned the top sheet early on and lay sweating in our cotton gowns.

“Mother?” I whispered.

She rolled toward me. “Yes, Eve?”

“Are you glad to be going back to St. Paul?”

She was quiet a moment. “Yes, I think I am. It seems more like home than Ohio does.”

“But we didn't really have the chance to get used to Ohio. You know, to make it home.”

“No, I suppose not.”

She rolled over again, away from me.

“Mother?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you know why Daddy wants to leave?”

“Of course. He feels our place is in St. Paul.”

I pushed a strand of sweaty hair off my forehead. “But, I mean, the real reason. Do you know the real reason he wants to leave?”

Mother sighed. “If you're talking about Daddy and his brothers, Eve, it's no secret he feels out of place here. He thinks he can't live up to their success. We probably never should have come to Ohio in the first place. Your father hasn't really been happy since we arrived.”

So Mother still had no idea about the bootlegging. Daddy hadn't slipped up and told her. Would we ever tell her, I wondered?

No. Probably not. Better for her not to know.

“Do you think Daddy will be happy again in St. Paul?”

“Yes. Eventually.” She turned onto her back again. “You don't want to go, do you, Eve?”

Of course I didn't want to go. And yet, we couldn't stay. Maybe once we reached St. Paul and I was free of the black secret in my heart, I would feel light again. And young. And hopeful. “I'll try to make the best of it,” I said.

“You'll be all right.” Mother looked at me and smiled. “You can go back to the school you know and graduate with all your friends. I should think you'd be glad about that.”

“Yes. I guess I have that to look forward to.”

After a moment, Mother turned her face toward the ceiling. She shut her eyes and said sleepily, “And besides, Eve,
you don't really have any reason to want to stay here, do you? I can't imagine what Mercy has to offer that St. Paul doesn't have.”

I thought of Link, had been thinking of Link ever since he left me standing alone on the island the day we buried Aunt Cora. If things had been different, I might have loved him.

A tear formed at the corner of my eye and slipped down the side of my face. “No,” I said. “I don't have any reason to stay here.”

Mother yawned loudly. “I didn't think so. Now let's try to get some sleep, all right?”

“All right. Good night, Mother.”

She rolled over one last time, and I could soon tell by her breathing that she was asleep. I thought about Link and shed a few more tears until I too drifted off to a place of fitful dreams.

Several hours must have gone by, but I was wading through such shallow sleep that when Grace moaned quietly, I sat straight up. “Gracie? What's the matter?”

“I'm so thirsty, Auntie Eve.” Her voice was small and hoarse.

“I'll pour you some water,” I said, moving toward the pitcher on the dresser.

“But I want lemonade.”

“Lemonade?”

“Please, Auntie Eve?” She gave off a weak pathetic wail.

“Shh,” I said. “You'll wake up Effie and Grandma. You know I have to go all the way down to the kitchen to get lemonade, don't you?”

“But I want it.”

I sighed. “All right.” I lifted my cotton robe off the hook
on the back of the door. “But try to be quiet until I get back. I'll be as quick as I can.”

The door squealed on its hinges. I stepped into the hall and closed it gently behind me, making sure it latched. I looked down the length of the dimly lit hall and sighed again. The kitchen seemed a long way off at this hour. Plus, I'd have to pass by Thomas at the front desk, and I didn't relish the idea of walking by him in my nightclothes. For whatever reason, I'd begun to feel increasingly uncomfortable around that strange little man.

But Grace was waiting for her lemonade and I didn't want to disappoint her, especially if that was the only thing that would encourage her back to sleep. I padded quietly along the hardwood floor in my bare feet, hoping to go unheard by the guests who were no doubt sleeping as restlessly in the heat as I had been.

Halfway down the hall, I stopped and listened. There had been something outside. . . . Tires on gravel? Footsteps somewhere? I wasn't sure. I looked back over my shoulder, then forward again. I must have been hearing things. After a moment, I moved on.

I was at the top of the staircase—my hand was reaching for the banister—when the front door to the lodge flew open, banging in fury against the wall. I gasped loudly and froze. In the same instant someone yelled “Stop!” and I was grabbed from behind and pulled to the floor, but even as I was going down I saw a swarm of men rush into the front hall with weapons drawn. I had just enough time to register that some were police officers in uniform while others wore plain clothes with red armbands, but I had no time to ponder what it all meant. At once, a shot rang out from the sitting room,
and one of the officers went down while another swung his tommy gun around and sent a hail of bullets back.

Thomas, at the desk below, reached down for something and came up shooting. A plainclothesman went down, but he had hardly dropped to the floor when a second barrage of bullets sent Thomas flying back against the mailboxes, his hands in the air, his shotgun spinning away from him as he screamed and sank to the floor. The next few seconds were a muddle of men swarming the first floor, some disappearing through the cellar door, others pounding up the stairs and spreading out across the second floor, shots ringing out below me as well as somewhere down the hall behind me, and oddly, a wild tangle of camera bulbs flashing. Someone—no, several men were downstairs taking pictures of the unfolding carnage while a man who reeked heavily of cigarette smoke held me in his grip, both arms around me so that I was nestled in a tight cocoon. I wiggled but he wouldn't let go. I didn't know whose side he was on and whether I might end up with a bullet in my brain, but even if I didn't die of a gunshot wound, I felt as though I might drown beneath his stifling bulk. I gasped for air as waves of fear sent shivers all the way through me.

Panicked guests tumbled out of their rooms and filled the hall behind us with screams of terror. A deep-voiced someone yelled, “Federal agents! Everyone get back to your rooms!”

“Let me up,” I begged. “You're hurting me. I can't breathe.”

Loosening his grip only slightly, he said, “Not yet, little lady. Not until the coast is clear.” I recognized the voice. And the smell. It was cigarette man, the man named Bert who'd stood at the window and laughed at the Sluders playing croquet.

I wiggled again, but he was too strong for me. “What's happening?” I asked.

He didn't answer.

“Bert!”

“Here!”

“See Mrs. Treadwell out, will you?”

“You got it.” Quietly, he said to me, “Okay, I'm going to let you go now. But you're not going down those stairs. You understand?”

I nodded. At last his arms relaxed and his weight was lifted off of me.

Free of him, I drew in several deep breaths. My heart pounded in my chest and my ears rang in the aftermath of the machine-gun fire. Trembling, I pulled myself up to my knees, leaned toward the railing, and grabbed a baluster with each hand. The shooting had stopped, and down in the front hall someone was leaning over the wounded officer. The officer was alive still and writhing in pain. The other man down, the plainclothesman, lay motionless in an ever growing circle of blood. Thomas, also dead, lay alone behind the desk, his glasses askew on his face and his mouth hanging open as though he had died mid-scream.

I shut my eyes against the sight, but even so the image of Thomas lingered there behind my lids. Nausea swept over me. I hung my head and gave off a low cry that ended in a whispered prayer, “Oh, God, help me.” Rocking forward on my knees, I pressed my lips into a small tight line and waited for the nausea to pass.

Finally I ventured a look over my shoulder at the people milling about in their doorways, clutching their robes, ashen-faced. Making his way through the crowd was Bert; he had a
hand on Ada Sluder's elbow as he led her toward the stairs. She appeared wraithlike in a white floor-length nightgown, her eyes wide, her hair disheveled from sleep. When they passed me and headed down, I saw the cuffs that held her slender hands behind her back. I watched slack-jawed as she was led away like a criminal and wondered why the man had called her Mrs. Treadwell. Bert and Ada Sluder were followed by two other men, the poker players, escorting a handcuffed and obviously agitated George Sluder down the stairs. Looking vulnerable and slightly ridiculous in his bathrobe and slippers, he hollered threats about calling his lawyer while one of the poker players repeatedly told him to shut up.

Somewhere down the hall, a woman shouted, “They're dead! Oh, dear God, they're dead!” And a man's voice responded, “Get her outta here, will ya?”

My head spun as though I was in the middle of a nightmare, one from which I couldn't wake up. I didn't know what was happening or who might be dead. Everywhere, upstairs and down, pandemonium reigned. Footsteps went on beating the floor, women wailed, men shouted in angry voices, and in the next moment, sirens screamed outside and surrounded the lodge like a gathering of banshees.

I didn't dare move from where I was. I clutched the balusters until my hands ached, waiting for it all to end and wondering whether it ever would. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Mother and Daddy were beside me. “Eve, are you all right?” Mother asked, her eyes roaming over me as though looking for wounds. “You're not hurt, are you?”

I shook my head and she knelt and pulled me into her arms. I buried my head in her shoulder and clung to her like
a child. “Someone is dead down the hall, Mother,” I cried. “Who's dead? Is it Cassandra and Warren?”

“No, Eve, no. Of course not. They're all right. I just spoke with them.”

“Then who's dead, Mother?”

“I don't know.” She looked up at Daddy.

He too knelt down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Stay right here until this is all over, all right?”

I nodded.

He stood and started down the stairs. Mother hugged me tightly once more and, kissing my cheek, rose to follow him. They were halfway to the bottom when Uncle Cy, himself in handcuffs, stumbled into the front hall, a man on either side of him gripping his elbows.

“Cyrus!” Daddy yelled, picking up his pace.

Uncle Cy looked over his shoulder at Daddy but didn't respond. Both men holding him looked up as well, and I recognized Captain Macnish. An array of camera bulbs flashed and all three men blinked. In another moment, Uncle Cy was taken out the front door. Daddy and Mother followed.

More footsteps pounded through the hall below and another handcuffed figure appeared. Jones. Escorted by two men in plain clothes and red armbands, he walked docilely with his head down. He hung his head further as the flashbulbs went off. I wanted to cry out to him, but my breath caught in my throat. Tears pushed at the back of my eyes. “Dear God,” I whispered, and in those two words were a thousand pleas I'd never be able to give voice to. And then he was gone.

A couple of ambulance attendants rushed in through the front door and gently lifted the wounded officer onto a
stretcher. The man who had been bending over him stood and watched, still holding a shotgun in his right hand. He was not a police officer; he wore dark slacks and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. On his right bicep was the red armband. After the attendants whisked the stretcher out the door, he went on standing there in the sudden silence. As quickly as the raiding men had come, they now dispersed. Even the photographers had disappeared. The front hall was empty, save for the two dead men and the lone figure holding the gun.

I watched as he moved to the dead man lying in the pool of blood. He stepped gingerly around the blood and felt the man's neck for a pulse, a futile gesture. His fingers left the man's neck and traveled to his eyes to close the lids.

He stood and sighed heavily. I didn't hear it, but I saw his shoulders rise and fall. Moving to the front desk, he laid down his gun. And then he looked up. Our eyes locked. I gasped; his name escaped me in whispered disbelief.