Bluebird, p.28
Bluebird, page 28
“That would be a stupid move on my part,” Willoughby replied calmly. “I have all the advantage here, don’t I?”
“You should have let me kill him,” John had said. Jerry wished with all his strength that he had.
“What are you doing here?” John demanded now.
“I wanted to see for myself how the famous Bailey brothers were still in business. Pretty easy, since I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. They led me straight to your house. Then I saw this pretty little thing carrying a crate to the barn and I thought, No, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep their stock on their property. But it appears you are indeed that stupid.”
Jerry was hot with fury. For the past week or so, he had ignored the vague warning pulsing in his chest that told him he was being watched. Never should have done that. Listen, Jerry! Never stop listening!
He had to get down there undetected. Travelling back in time to another tunnel, where silence was everything and listening was even more, he moved down the ladder like a cat, checking for loose gravel before he put his foot on the ground at the bottom. No rocks or dust in sight. Nothing to give him away.
From his belt, he grabbed his gun, then he turned toward the tunnel, his arms held straight in front, but what he saw froze him in place. Willoughby stood about eight or nine feet ahead of him, taking up most of the space in the tunnel, but he could see a little bit of blue at the bottom: the hem of Adele’s dress. Every part of her was shielded by Willoughby. There was no way to get a shot off unless he wanted to shoot through them both. His only option was surprise.
Adele made a little sound, like a hiccough, tearing Jerry’s heart. “Stop, Ernie,” Adele pleaded. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Let her go.” It was John’s voice. He was trapped at the far end of the tunnel. They’d never dug another entrance. There was no escape.
Willoughby was moving slowly forward, closing in on John, so Jerry edged forward a little faster, knowing the terrain so well. That’s when he saw Willoughby had Adele around the neck, his Colt 45 pressed against the side of her head. She was gasping back tears, trying to be brave, and in that moment, he wondered if it was possible to love someone so much he could actually die. Because seeing her there, witnessing her terror, was ripping him apart. He clenched his teeth together, knowing he had to focus. Solve this problem.
He was closer now, could see John, his gun raised, but neither of them could take the shot with Adele in front of Willoughby like a shield. No matter how John felt about Willoughby, Jerry knew John would never endanger her. John would give his life for hers. His brother’s eyes flitted to him for the briefest second. He didn’t want Jerry to interfere.
“What do you want, Willoughby? Our booze? It’s yours. I won’t even fight you for it.” John sounded a little more confident now, knowing Jerry was there, but Willoughby didn’t hear it. Willoughby never heard anybody but himself.
“If I wanted your booze, I would already have taken it. I think I’ve proven that. It’s you I want now, Bailey. You and your brother. You’ve humiliated me at every turn. You are gonna pay for what you did. I want you gone.”
“What do we owe you?” John asked. “How are we supposed to pay for saving your life?”
A slight pause. “Don’t try to turn this around. Frank would be here if it weren’t for you. I’d have a full hand and I could have gone out there to fight for our country. Come to think of it, if I’d gone, I could have shot you over there instead.”
“Many tried,” John said, rolling his eyes upward, pausing at the ceiling in an exaggerated way.
That was for Jerry’s benefit, and his heart constricted, realizing his brother’s intention. There had to be a better way. There had to be. He mouthed a no, but John never saw it.
In that moment, Willoughby shoved Adele to the side and fired off a shot, but John was already ducking, rushing at Willoughby. Adele dashed out of the way just as Willoughby raised the butt of his pistol and brought it down on the back of John’s neck. John dropped like a stone.
Without a second thought, Jerry leapt forward, one hand on his gun and the other reaching for the back of Willoughby’s coat, yanking hard to throw him off balance. He was heavy, and he fell with a thud.
Adele stood trembling against the wall, frozen, and Jerry reached for her hand. “Get out of here, Adele. Right now. For our child’s sake.”
She took off running, and from the sound of her breathing he could tell she had made it to the bottom of the shaft. He turned to check on her, and in that split second, Willoughby rose and went for Jerry like a steam engine, bowling him onto his back, closer to the shaft. His hands closed around Jerry’s throat, and his knees slammed down onto Jerry’s wrists, freeing his gun. It all happened so fast. Jerry was aware of the pressure, of the thumbs cutting into his neck, and he gasped for breath, struggling against Willoughby’s hands as spots began to appear in his vision. Then all at once the weight was gone, and Jerry gasped in air.
Wheezing, he staggered to his feet. John had drawn Willoughby deeper into the tunnel, toward the storage room, where he’d be trapped. The two big men were tussling over a gun, the meaty sound of fists on flesh traveling through the earthen walls. Jerry blinked to clear the lingering spots in his vision and found his gun, lying a few feet from where he’d fallen. He scooped it up, but before he could aim, a gunshot cracked through the air.
For a moment, neither Willoughby nor John moved. Then John looked down, an expression of disbelief on his face, and Jerry saw the bloom of blood that was opening fast on his brother’s chest.
A second later, John locked eyes with Jerry. And he smiled.
And Jerry suddenly knew exactly what his brother was going to do.
“No!” he screamed.
Willoughby spun back toward Jerry, his gun pointed directly at his chest. He wouldn’t have missed this time, but John changed all that. With a triumphant shout, he grabbed the beam that connected most of the ceiling—the one he had warned Adele never to touch—and using all his might, he hauled it down. There was a hideous crack! like frozen river ice breaking apart. Before Willoughby could even think of pulling the trigger, the world collapsed in a roar, dousing the lights, and throwing Jerry back into the tunnels of Belgium. Except this time the earth didn’t fall on him. It thundered down in a solid wall, knocking him back under the shaft and choking him with dust, but letting him walk free.
John had made sure Jerry was clear before he’d done the unthinkable.
Darkness.
Silence, broken only by a loose rock trickling down the devastation and Jerry’s thundering pulse.
“John,” he whispered into the blackness. No one answered.
Struggling to breathe, Jerry stood and reached out both arms to brace himself between the walls, knowing the paths he and John had dug, side by side, brother by brother. He took only three steps before his boot hit a solid wall of dirt. He could go no farther. Thirty feet of earth had crushed the tunnel, the storage room, and the two men within.
“John!” he cried desperately, but there was never a chance he’d hear his brother’s voice again. “John!”
On his hands and knees, he began to dig, sobbing as he clawed through the dirt. His hands were useless against the infinite earth. A thousand shovels could not have reached John in time. But how could Jerry stop? How could he let his brother go?
The earth had finally come down. It hadn’t taken a hundred thousand boots after all. Just one brave man and a promise to keep his brother safe.
epilogue CASSIE
— Present Day —
From the corner of her eye, Cassie watched Matthew peer out the window of her car, looking intrigued but slightly uncomfortable, squeezed into her tiny Prelude. The sight made her smile.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, not looking the least bit put off.
“It’s a surprise,” Cassie replied coyly.
“Haven’t we had enough surprises lately?” he teased, his brown eyes warm. “At least tell me that wherever we’re going there’s food.”
She nodded. “You won’t be disappointed, Mr. Flaherty.”
She’d decided to take him to the Dominion House Tavern for supper, to thank him for everything. Especially considering everything that had happened over the past few weeks. So really, to thank him and to celebrate. And as a Flaherty, she thought he’d appreciate the Irish pub, as well as the history behind it.
After discovering the skeleton buried in the sinkhole behind the barn, Cassie had reached out to a professional team of archaeologists so they could excavate the site and confirm Cassie and Matthew’s suspicions that it could have been a tunnel or even a hidden storage room for the Bailey brothers. Mrs. Allen had been overwhelmed with excitement with everything that was happening, and Cassie had actually feared for her heart when Matthew suggested he would take time off his renovations so she could take what she wanted from the house and use it to expand on the museum’s Prohibition exhibit.
“You’ve been amazing about all this hassle,” Cassie said. “You haven’t had a day alone there since you found that skeleton. I bet you’re sorry.”
“Not at all. I told you that day you came to the house that I think history’s important to learn. Too many people thinking about the ‘now’ and not the ‘then.’ Plus it’s exciting. I never thought I’d be in the middle of an archaeological dig.”
“Well, thank you for not getting angry at me for hiding my connection to your house. I don’t know why I didn’t just say it up front.”
“You didn’t know me. I wouldn’t have expected you to tell me anything, so there’s no apology needed. Actually, it makes the house even more special, knowing that one of the owner’s descendants is literally walking in it.” His mouth twisted to the side a bit. “I should probably tell you something too, since we’re sharing family secrets. I told you that my dad and I used to work in construction. He’s the one who showed me the satisfaction that comes from rebuilding old houses. He’d love what I’m doing now. Anyway, a few months before he died, we had a fight over something stupid. I don’t even remember what it was anymore, but I reacted by leaving home without a word and heading to the oil rigs. After a while, I thought about coming back, tail tucked between my legs, but my pride got in the way.” His gaze travelled to the window. “I wasn’t there when he died. He never knew how sorry I was in the end.” He cleared his throat. “So there’s my guilty secret.”
Cassie kept her eyes straight ahead, trying to keep her expression neutral. “I’m so sorry, Matthew.” How alone he must have felt. She knew that kind of loneliness. “I bet he knew you were sorry.”
“Maybe. My mom always said I got my stubbornness from him.”
“You know you can’t blame yourself, right? His death wasn’t your fault.”
He hung his head. “That’s what people say.”
“So then you came all the way to Windsor? Why here?”
“I remembered him saying something when I was a kid about a second cousin twice removed living here once upon a time. He always said he’d like to come here someday.”
“You came here for him.” She looked over at him. “You’re working on that house as a tribute to him, aren’t you?”
He shrugged lightly. “I guess I am.”
“And now you’re rebuilding your life and a house at the same time.”
His smile returned. “Yeah, and I was doing fine with that until I found that bottle, then you showed up talking about legends and smugglers.”
She laughed. “I messed up your plan, didn’t I?”
“You did,” he said, but he was smiling, showing those deep laugh lines around his mouth.
“Should I be sorry?” she asked.
“I’m not,” he replied, and a warm tickle of nerves fluttered in her chest.
For so long, Cassie had blamed herself for her mother’s death, and with that guilt had come the belief that she’d caused her own loneliness. That she deserved it. But then Matthew had walked through the museum doors, and being around him was changing her. She could feel herself coming more alive every day, just like the old house. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe it wasn’t really her destiny to be alone.
“I’m thinking of stripping some of the wallpaper and painting a couple of highlight walls in the house,” he said, changing the subject. “Kind of updating on a small scale.”
“You think people would prefer updates to the original when you’re selling?”
He looked shocked that she would even ask that. “Who’s selling?”
Relief rushed through her. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“So as I was saying, for wall colours, what do you think of a light green in the living room, to complement your great-grandmother’s awful sage cupboards?”
She laughed. “They’re not that awful.” She pulled into a parking spot near the Dominion House Tavern and turned to him. “Ready to go back in time?”
The pub was one of her favourite places in the city, even when it was crowded with university students. She could hardly blame them. The furniture might be worn down, but the old white house oozed history and smelled like comfort food. Cassie and Matthew grabbed one of the booths, then they both ordered a beer and a burger. He added extra fried onions to his.
Looking around appreciatively, he said, “So this is where Jeremiah and John swigged whisky, eh?”
“Here and a lot of other places. Before the food gets here, I wanted to show you something,” she said, then she reached into her bag and pulled out her precious family scrapbook, along with a clean white cloth. She set the cloth over the table, placed the leather-bound book on it, and slid it across the table to him. “This is the story of the Baileys.”
He looked at her, eyes bright, then carefully opened the book. “This is incredible,” he breathed after a moment, taking in her work. “You did this?”
She beamed, pointing at the first photograph. “Those are my great-great-grandparents, Robert and Elizabeth.”
He leaned in. “That’s my house when it was being built,” he said. His finger traced the familiar door, the windows. “This is amazing.”
She flipped the page. “And this is the infamous Jeremiah with his brother, John, just before they went to World War I.”
“They don’t look so tough.”
“This is Jeremiah afterward. Looking a little tougher now? He got his scars in an accident in the tunnel.”
Matthew studied the cool, serious face of Jeremiah, then he turned back to the earlier photo, before the war. He looked directly at Cassie, fascinated. “Did you know that you look like a female version of Jeremiah? I mean, give or take a hundred years, you could be twins.” He jabbed a finger at Jeremiah’s brow. “That’s the same look you get when you’re focused on something.”
“That’s what my grandmother Alice always used to say.” She drew his attention to a photo of a woman in uniform. “This is Jeremiah’s wife, Adele Savard.”
“I stand corrected,” he said. “You might look like Jeremiah when you’re serious, but that smile is pure Adele. Wow. DNA is amazing.”
She glowed, hearing the affection in his voice. “Adele was an incredibly brave woman. She served as a Canadian nurse in World War I. They were called Bluebirds because of the colour of their uniforms. Apparently, she and Jeremiah met in a field hospital. He was so taken with her that he put a bird on his whisky label to honour her.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “She’s a brave woman to get involved with rumrunners, but I suppose she’d seen it all during the war.”
She showed him a small newspaper announcement featuring a photo of a smiling young woman with an older gentleman in a white coat. “This is one of my favourite articles.”
MEDICAL CLINIC ANNOUNCES IT IS READY FOR BATTLE!
Dr. Wesley Knowles is pleased to announce that Nurse Adele Savard has been hired to work with him at his medical clinic on Sandwich Street. Nurse Savard, with her captivating blond hair and piercing blue eyes, comes to the clinic with a surplus of medical experience, having recently returned from her position as a Canadian Nursing Sister at a Clearance Station Hospital in Belgium. This reporter is looking forward to his next visit!
The next page included the newspaper articles Cassie had found about the Bailey brothers and their rival, Ernie Willoughby. At the bottom of the page was John’s death certificate, which Mrs. Allen had uncovered after a bit of searching through the city archives. For a few moments, she and Matthew were silent, reading between the lines of the newsprint, filling the gaps with the new information they’d found in the tunnel.
When Matthew had first dug up the skeleton, Cassie had assumed it belonged to Ernie Willoughby, since she’d just been researching the missing gangster at the museum. She suspected the worst, thinking that her wild ancestor John Bailey had stooped to murder over the raiding of his warehouse and ruination of his business. Then the archaeologists dug deeper and found evidence of a second body—as well as bullet fragments. After a few days, they uncovered what they believed to be a storage room, filled with broken green bottles. To Cassie, it felt as if the last puzzle piece was sliding into place.
Given the violence of the day, the documented rivalry between Willoughby and the latter’s disappearance, and her grandmother’s stories, a shootout seemed the likely explanation for what they’d found. During her research, Cassie had been so focused on Jeremiah that she’d never really paid attention to the fact that John had died the same year the business went bust. If John and Willoughby had both died in that tunnel, it explained why the business had ended so abruptly. She became convinced that the second body belonged to John, and she’d submitted her own DNA to test against his remains, just in case.
But that was all she could find out about the mysterious Bailey boys. The rest was lost to time.
“It must have torn Jeremiah apart to lose John,” Cassie said. “If only they’d quit even one day earlier.”
Matthew looked thoughtful. “I wonder if that’s why he boarded up the wall with those bottles. Grief, regret, probably guilt.”
