Lovelier than Daylight Page 23

  But neither his innocence nor her anger would help her nieces and nephews. His father was right—the children must come first.

  Thirty-Two

  THE BOX JINGLED WHEN SUSANNA SHOOK IT GENTLY. It came from an address in Columbus. Could it have something to do with Rachel? She forced herself to slow down and open it with care. A letter lay on top of a folded bundle of green material. With unsteady hands, she tore it open.

  Johann Giere

  30 Wall Street

  Columbus

  Miss S. Hanby

  21 State Street

  Westerville

  Miss Hanby,

  My father has been informed of your family’s current situation after the loss of the barn. Please accept his offer of assistance. If you agree to give George Leeds the money, my father will assist you to find a way to support the children. He knows many employers in Columbus, some who pay well, perhaps for a nurse or tutor. It would mean the end of your college plans, and thus I hate to write it. But I know you would not accept an outright offer of charity, and even my father cannot offer to take on a decade’s support of six children over whom he will have no authority. He does wish to assist you, and to keep your family intact, as he was not able to keep his own together.

  I myself am sending the enclosed package as a token of my esteem for your uncle and aunt, in the hope that it will be an encouragement to them after their recent loss.

  Sincerely yours,

  Johann

  If it had been a gift to her, she would have thrown it away unopened. Her chest hurt, and a knot began at the center of her brows. He had betrayed her trust, after convincing her with his every action—and kiss—that he would care for her. It did not make sense, but she had heard men sometimes behaved so. She had been very foolish to let him kiss her and to give him a piece of her heart. If it hurt to breathe when she thought of him, she had only her naïveté to blame.

  She would see what he had sent to her uncle to be sure it was not offensive in some way. She took out the green bundle and unwrapped it.

  Shining in the folds of the cloth was an awl. Needles, a whole case of them. Mallet, chisels, embossing stamps.

  Johann had sent her uncle a new set of leatherworking tools, some with the same beautiful, polished wooden handles that had been ruined in the fire.

  The mingled gratitude and confusion made her want to cry. Why did he continue to do such kind things? Of course it would be an encouragement to Uncle Will and Aunt Ann.

  She rose, gathered the bundle in her hands with a clink and went to Uncle Will’s bedroom door. “Uncle?” she called.

  “Come in.”

  She pushed open the door with her elbow.

  He was reading in his chair, his spectacles on.

  “Look,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. Giere has sent this to you.” She brought the bundle over and laid it in his lap. He set his book on the side table and unwrapped the cloth. A soft sigh was his only response at first. He touched the metal with his fingertips, picked up the awl, and hefted its weight in his palm. His eyes brightened.

  “An unusually thoughtful gift,” he said at last, laying it down and picking up the case of needles. “How did he come to know about my tools?”

  “He came to visit and I showed him the barn.”

  “And his purpose?”

  “He wished to persuade me to use his father’s money to get the children. He said we had only a few days before George would leave the state and our opportunity would be lost.”

  “And I suppose you told him we are no longer able to consider that generous offer from his father?”

  “Yes.” The silence was heavy. “But he sent me a letter today with this new suggestion that I consider taking a position his father might procure for me, a position with an income that would allow me to go forward with the plan to reclaim the children through George.”

  He looked up from the tools, his brown eyes fixing on her face. “And what is your opinion? You would have to give up your studies.”

  “That seems a small thing now.” She knotted her fingers together. “It’s not why I’m reluctant to accept.”

  He paused and gave her a keen look. “You don’t want to accept it from him, from Johann Giere.”

  “No.” The hurt flashed in her heart. “He has betrayed us once. I’m afraid he might do so again. What if it’s all for the newspaper, some new scheme?”

  “It does not appear that way to me,” Uncle Will said, musing. “Not in the least. Have you ever thought, Susanna”—and his voice was gentle and warm—“that perhaps you are a bit hasty and intemperate in forming some opinions?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Once we know our own weaknesses and temptations, it behooves us to work against them and understand when they are most likely to blind us.” He took off his spectacles and folded them.

  “Yes.” She looked down at the rug at his feet. “I’ll try, Uncle.”

  She turned and went out, her face hot. Did he know or suspect what had passed between her and Johann? If he did, perhaps he would understand why she could not easily be as calm and rational as he.

  But she would stop excusing herself. She would face her weakness, be more careful, and learn the truth, whatever she had to do. But she would need to act quickly, for the time to pay George was running out like sand. The German bakery was fragrant with fresh rolls, sugary pastries, and pretzels. Susanna’s mouth watered at the delicacies on the loaded trays. But there was no money for any extras—even train fare had become risky, an investment rather than an everyday expense.

  “May I help you, miss?” A man in a white apron with a cheerful red face greeted her with the expected accent, though without the elusive, musical quality of Johann’s speech. “A poppyseed roll for you today?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I have a favor to ask of you, instead, sir.” She had already been turned down twice by other merchants on High Street. But she would keep asking all day, if necessary.

  He stopped in his reach for a tray and straightened up. “Yes?”

  “I know you often wrap purchases in newspaper. Do you by any chance have the issue of the Westbote from July twenty-third?”

  His faint eyebrows arched and he shuffled behind the counter, bending down to open a drawer. He rifled through papers. “Ah, yes. Here it is. You would like it?”

  “Yes, sir.” She peered at the sheets in his hands. “Just the front page.”

  He separated it from the others, folded it, and handed it across the counter. “You read German?” The note of surprise made it clear that he did not think so.

  “No, sir. But it has personal value to me.” For better or for worse, depending on the outcome of her mission today.

  “Very well.” He smiled.

  “Good day.”

  “And to you, miss.”

  The shop door chimed and she once again made her way up High Street, dodging more impetuous pedestrians. She would not take the lumbering horse car, now that every penny must be saved just to get through the winter. Walking was no real hardship, not through the orderly, wide streets of Columbus.

  The florist’s shop was as perfumed and vibrant with color as she remembered. She let the door close gently and approached the counter.

  “Orange lilies again, miss?” The old woman from before hobbled out, impeded by her curved spine, but bright faced, even mischievous. How did she remember one single purchase from two weeks ago, not even made by Susanna herself? It was disconcerting—especially given the nature of her errand. But she would not falter.

  “I have a request to make of you, ma’am.” She pulled out the newspaper sheet and unfolded it. “I hope you will forgive me, as a total stranger, but you are the only person I could think of who spoke German but was not involved.”

  “In what, young lady?” The woman sounded almost teasing.

  Susanna felt her ears burning. “I cannot say. But I would be grateful if you would
read this one short article for me.” She prayed the woman could read, and that she would not offend her by asking.

  “Let me see.” The woman braced her elbows on the countertop and leaned over, running her finger over the words. She hesitated on the name under the article and darted a quick glance at Susanna, but said nothing. After she had finished tracing a few lines silently, she spoke. “I can translate it for you, sentence by sentence. Is that what you wish?”

  “Yes, please.” Susanna might have been on trial and waiting for a verdict, for how her palms moistened and her pulse raced.

  The woman began, reading the German silently to herself and then translating in halting English as she searched for equivalent words.

  And there was nothing but a statement of the events that had occurred. No railing against the United Brethren, no scorn for Westerville. With every sentence closer to the end, Susanna’s chagrin grew. Her uncle was correct—she had rushed to judgment and lost her temper. Johann was loyal; he had not been a Judas. It was the Dispatch reporter who made the cutting remarks that placed their faith and the temperance movement in such a bad light.

  She could hardly stand to see her faint reflection in the polished surface of the countertop. She had been low and mean to accuse Johann when she had received nothing but assistance and compassion. The truth overturned her mind like a rock, and she could not bear the ugliness she saw wriggling there underneath. And what was worse is that he must have seen it at once, with the clarity of innocence accused.

  How had he been so patient with her after bearing the brunt of her harsh words? It reminded her of her uncle for a moment— how Uncle Will spoke so gently, even during an argument, even when strongly opposed to something like the saloon. She knew very well what Proverbs and the book of James said about taming the tongue, and if she believed, why did she not also speak in love, as God had asked her? She felt herself crumbling inside.

  Johann had even pleaded the children’s case with his father on her behalf, after what she had done. She could still accept the position Mr. Giere had offered and agree that he could pay George in order to get the children for her. There was no trick or betrayal here, except the trick she had allowed her own assumptions to play on her judgment.

  Her face flushed and downcast, she thanked the florist and left the shop. Even in her shame, relief swept through her like the breaking of a dam at the thought of the children, home at last.

  But first she had a very humble apology to make, in person, at the Giere Brewery.

  Thirty-Three

  THE POLICE REPORT SAID SUICIDE. SUCH ASSUMPTIONS were always subject to question and often led to good stories. Twice before, Johann had discovered an apparent suicide to be a murder, when the report came from the bad part of town. And Mr. Reinhardt loved those stories, so Johann’s task was clear.

  Johann looked at the address on the paper in his hand. Yes, this was it. A rundown saloon near the river, faded to brown, chunks of mortar showing all across its façade where bricks had fallen out over the years. The door was faded wood, rough and shabby. He took hold of the doorknob with care so as not to end up with a splinter in his knuckles.

  Inside, the saloon reeked of mildew. He approached the bar. A small man in suspenders was puttering with bottles on the back shelves and did not look up until he had switched them to his satisfaction and checked the labels.

  “A drink for you?” he asked with a brusque tone.

  “No, thank you.” It was eight in the morning.

  The barkeeper shrugged. “Suit yourself. Whaddya want then?”

  “I’m a newsman. I want to ask you a few questions about the death here yesterday.”

  “I don’t talk to newspapers. Too much trouble comes of it.” “But the police report said it was a suicide. Surely that can’t be any trouble.”

  “I didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. How did the man die?”

  The barkeeper’s mouth stretched in a thin line and he turned back to his bottles.

  Not promising. And strange, because barkeepers were usually garrulous and up for any excitement.

  He had botched the approach—he should have come in as a customer and drawn the man out gradually. He would have to look elsewhere for his answer.

  The city morgue was a familiar place, with its sharp alcohol odor and the trace of garlic that signaled arsenic in the embalming fluid. Perhaps the stench had been worse before the war made embalming so popular. Still, it was gruesome how the cadavers lay there with blue feet and hands, many unwanted and unclaimed except by doctors and schools of medicine. They would pay handsomely for embalmed cadavers to dissect.

  He had only been waiting ten minutes in the front room when the coroner’s assistant came through the door. He was a young man in a brown suit, Mr. Jeffries the name, or so Johann thought he recalled. The man had been wearing the same suit the last time Johann came here for a story. Brown. It would be the appropriate color to disguise blood stains. The thought made his stomach churn—or maybe that was just from the strange odor.

  “Mr. Giere, you have a question?” Jeffries looked rushed today.

  “Yes, I’m seeking the suicide brought in yesterday.”

  “Suicide . . . suicide.” Jeffries rolled his eyes in reflection, his mustache twitching. “Ah, yes. That body hasn’t gone out yet, though it will go to the medical college this afternoon. Do you need to see it?”

  “If you would be so kind.” Though it seemed strange to refer to the exhibition of a body as a kindness. “And perhaps I might follow it to the medical college to see what they conclude?”

  “Their conclusion will be the same as mine and the coroner’s.” Jeffries led Johann back through the door and into the main room. Several large mortuary tables with marble tops bore cadavers. Johann tried not to look too closely at the one dissection already in progress. Crime was one thing, medicine was more chilling, with its scientific coldness.

  Jeffries led him to a body that lay unscathed on the farthest table. “Here it is.”

  Johann restrained a shudder. They seemed inhuman, these inert corpses waiting to be flayed and pinned. He moved to within a foot of the body and looked at it.

  He felt the blood drain from his face and he stood rooted to the spot.

  It was George Leeds.

  “Go closer and you’ll see what I mean,” Jeffries said with authority. “The man reeked like a distillery when he came in. Our embalming merely finished the fine pickling he had already given himself. Drank himself to death in an alley. We see ’em every week.”

  George’s eyes were open—no loved one had witnessed his death and closed them. They stared glassy and vacant at the ceiling. His mouth hung open and rigid.

  What would he tell Susanna? Even if she decided to agree to his father’s solution, her last chance was lost. His stomach, already roiled at the sight of the messy dissection, threatened to revolt. He certainly wasn’t about to bend closer to sniff the corpse, as Jeffries had suggested.

  “That is all I needed to know, Mr. Jeffries. Thank you for your time.”

  “Good afternoon.”

  “Oh, one more thing.” He turned at the door. “I’d like to look at some of your records before I leave. For some of our city institutions.”

  “It’s public information. Ask the clerk to show you the files, then come back to me if you have any questions.” The coroner’s assistant took no further heed of him and went to the wall to retrieve a brown-streaked smock hanging there.

  Johann hurried out, trying not to inhale more of the smell.

  As soon as he finished here, he must tell his father about George, and perhaps gain his advice.

  But he could not imagine any wisdom that would soften the blow for Susanna—the loss of yet another hope, whether she had chosen to pursue it yet or not. He would have to pray that in her stubbornness, she would find some other way to retrieve the children, without asking his father to pay George. Because heaven had taken that ch
oice out of her hands.

  “George Leeds is dead.”

  “What?” His father dropped the pen in his hand and spun around in his chair.

  “He poisoned himself with whiskey.”

  His father leaned back against the seat with a groan. “He is one of those men who ruins others whether he lives or dies.”

  Struggling to master his anger, Johann sat in the chair against the wall, next to the desk, where he could see his father’s face. “A selfish man.” Johann couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. “Consumed by his own vanity. I suppose it’s natural that he wanted to go onstage.”

  “Not all actors are prideful beasts,” his father said. “Your Uncle Fritz once wanted to be an actor, more than anything in the world. He loved the words and the creation of a vivid dream onstage. He wanted to write as well as act.”

  “He did?” Neither Johann’s father nor his uncle had ever discussed this. “Why didn’t he do it?”

  “We experienced so many partings, Fritz and I. The loss of our brother, the deaths in ’48, then all those we left behind to come here.” His eyes fixed on the wall ahead of him, which bore a map of Bavaria. “I believe it taught us the value of our family, of dedication and sacrifice, of the illusions of success when one has lost those who would have shared it. We had heard it so often in sermons, but life taught us its truth.”

  “If only George Leeds had learned a similar lesson.” Johann crossed his arms and bit back the additional comments that threatened to spill from his lips. Imprecations would be of no use—the man was dead. “What will I tell Miss Hanby?”

  “We have done everything we can.”

  The finality of the words was like a punch in the gut. The faces of the Leeds children were real—they were not characters in some sad fairy tale, but human souls about to be torn from their true family and given over to strangers. And if the strangers were unkind, the children would have no recourse, no power to resist cruel treatment.