A Thousand Generations Read online

  “You could do as much or as little as you have time for. I know how much you have on your plate,” Phillip rushed on to say.

  Kate had seen how hard he’d worked to move the quaint store toward opening day. He’d been refurbishing the worn interior of the place, as well as attending a constant parade of estate sales and auctions, buying inventory to sell. And on Saturday, the hardwood refinishers had finished sanding and putting fresh coats of urethane on the tired floors.

  “What exactly did you have in mind?” Kate asked as Paul placed an arm across the back of her chair.

  “I was thinking that you could attend auctions and estate sales with me to help build my inventory. You have a good eye; I know you’d be invaluable. And maybe you could set up displays, do some computer work, and help out at the store once in a while until I get someone permanent. I can’t keep working the way I’ve been these past couple of weeks. It’ll kill me.”

  Kate immediately thought of Eli. He’d already seemed nervous when he’d met Phillip; how would he react to her working for a direct competitor? “I don’t know much about auctions,” Kate said. “I’ve gone to so few.”

  “I’d teach you the ropes,” he offered, a hopeful expression on his face. “Like I said it would be very flexible—whatever you can handle with your other responsibilities.”

  “I wonder about Eli though,” she said, glancing at her husband. “How will he react to me helping the competition?”

  “I’ve seen this kind of thing a lot in my business,” Phillip said. “The truth is, Eli and I won’t carry the same inventory. Antiques are so hit-and-miss. And since our stores are within walking distance of each other, shoppers will come to both. Copper Mill will be more and more known as an antiques destination and it’ll drive more out-of-town business into town. It could actually be good for Eli to have more than one store in town.”

  “You’ve really thought this through,” she said, impressed, as always, by Phillip’s thoroughness.

  He took a sip of his water and swallowed hard, looking over Kate’s shoulder. A line formed between his eyebrows, and Kate glanced back to see what was wrong. A stocky man moved quickly toward the door. He had a slight limp, and all Kate saw was the back of his balding head and his dark-colored jacket. “Who was that?” she asked Phillip.

  “Uh, I’m not sure,” he said, looking a bit nervous. “But he was staring at you.”

  Paul craned his neck to get a look too, but the man was gone.

  “It was probably my imagination.” Phillip shook his head and turned back to Kate. “So, what do you think about my proposal?”

  The food arrived, and they waited while the server set Kate’s steaming soup and the men’s dinner salads before them.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Phillip Loving,” Kate said as she dipped her spoon into the aromatic brown stock with melted swiss cheese across its surface. “I’d love to help get the new store set up. When do you want me to come?”

  “How about the day after tomorrow?”

  Chapter Three

  Kate and Paul were getting ready for bed that night after saying good night to Phillip. She’d been thinking about the mannequin and its connections to Paul’s grandfather since dinner. She wished she’d met him, though of course that would have been impossible. She tugged her earrings off and placed them in her jewelry box. She could hear Paul brushing his teeth in the adjoining bathroom.

  When he returned wearing cotton pajamas, Kate turned to him.

  “Did you have a good evening?” he asked.

  She nodded, and he paused to study her. “Something is on your mind,” he said, lightly touching her cheek with the back of his index finger.

  “It’s that mannequin,” she admitted. “I keep wondering what in the world it has to do with your family’s boutique.”

  “I can’t say I haven’t had the same questions,” Paul said.

  “So, tell me what you remember about your grandparents,” Kate said. “Maybe deep in the recesses of your memory is some clue to what this is all about.”

  Paul smiled. “What do you want to know?” He sat on the bed and took off his socks, tossed them at the hamper, then climbed under the covers.

  “What kind of people were they?” She got in bed next to Paul.

  “Hmm,” he began. “Where to start...Well, my grandparents lived outside of Copper Mill before I was born. We were a good hour away when I came around. Grandma Marie was a powerhouse of a woman—determined, hardworking, yet kind and generous. Of course, she was already quite old by the time I was born, and she was very sensitive. Cried easily. And she had a big garden in her yard.”

  Kate pictured the home that was now Paul’s cousin Gladys’ residence.

  “She and Ma put up jar after jar of canned goods. I can still see them lined up on the shelves under the basement stairs, so colorful and mouthwatering.” He lay back on the pillow and rested his head on his hands, elbows splayed.

  “I don’t remember Grandma Marie ever being angry,” he went on. “She always had a smile, but she didn’t have an easy life. She and Grandpa emigrated from Ireland and moved to Wisconsin. But that first winter, everyone got sick with typhoid. Three of their eight children died. It was devastating.”

  “That poor woman,” Kate said, imagining the heartbreak of losing even one child.

  “They moved to Tennessee the next spring,” he said. “Decided Wisconsin winters were more than they could handle.”

  “As for Grandpa, I never knew him. I do remember hearing about his funeral—grandma said the church was packed. People came from miles around, and everyone talked about how generous he was, always willing to invite a stranger in for a meal. That’s why I can’t bring myself to believe that mannequin was part of any kind of illegal activity.”

  “You mean the bullet hole in the mannequin’s arm?” Kate asked.

  “Yes,” Paul said. “It just doesn’t fit the picture folks painted of my grandfather.”

  “I wish I’d met your grandparents,” Kate said, snuggling close to her husband.

  “Grandpa was crushed when the store finally closed,” he added, his voice lost in reverie. “Dad told me that years later. The boutique had been his pride and joy. When it was gone...he kind of faded with it.”

  “Why did they have to close?”

  “The Depression. From what Dad said, it had been a miracle they’d stayed open as long as they did after the stock market crashed. People were cutting back everywhere to stay afloat financially. Fewer and fewer people bought ready-made clothes, and many started sewing their own.”

  Kate nodded, knowing the Depression had affected every part of the world in much the same way. She’d heard the same from the stories her own parents told.

  Paul went on. “Grandma Marie lived with us when I was small; she would sometimes tuck us in at night. She didn’t rush through the bedtime routine like Mom did. So we’d beg for her to put us to bed—my brother, Charlie, especially. She knew exactly what we were doing, trying to stay up late, but she didn’t care. She’d take time to talk and listen to us, and she’d always pray with us.”

  “She sounds like a wonderful woman.” Kate reached to squeeze his hand.

  “She was.”

  “Maybe that’s why you turned out so well.”

  KATE MADE THE BED the next morning after Paul headed off to the church. His comment the night before had stuck with Kate—that the idea of his grandfather’s involvement in illegal activities didn’t fit the man he was known to be—so she decided to follow up on her comment to Eli about hiring a ballistics expert to look at the supposed bullet hole in the mannequin. She’d called the sheriff and told him about the hole and her suspicions. But he’d seemed skeptical and said the mannequin was hers and Eli’s to do with as they wished.

  Maybe she’d been wrong, and it wasn’t a bullet hole at all. An expert would be able to tell her that.

  Ballistics experts weren’t listed in the Yellow Pages, Kate discovered, so she called a local
gun range.

  “Hermie’s Gun Club,” a hoarse-sounding woman answered when Kate dialed the number.

  “Yes,” Kate began. “I’m looking for a ballistics expert.”

  Dead silence on the other end.

  Kate went on. “An expert on old guns...”

  “And this is for...?” the woman asked.

  “I’m doing a little research, and I need an expert to confirm or contradict my theory.”

  “Huh,” the woman said, sounding completely unimpressed. “How old a gun are we talking here?”

  “From the beginning of the 1900s to the 1930s, I’d say.”

  “Zach Boelter would be your man. You want his number?”

  Kate could hear her shuffling through papers before coming back on the line and reading off the man’s phone number. Kate thanked her before hanging up, then immediately dialed the man’s number.

  “Zach” was all he said. His voice was rich and deep.

  “Yes, this is Kate Hanlon,” Kate began, introducing herself and telling the man about the supposed bullet hole in the aged mannequin.

  “So you want me to tell you if it’s a bullet hole or not?”

  “Yes,” Kate said, hoping the man would agree to look at the mannequin.

  “Well, that’s easy enough. And if it is a bullet hole?”

  “I guess we’d like whatever information you can offer. What kind of a gun or bullet it is, that kind of thing.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I’m free right now if you want to meet me.”

  Kate gave him Eli’s address and promised to join him there, then hung up and called Eli to let him know what was going on.

  Minutes later, she parked her black Honda in front of Weston’s Antiques and climbed out of the car.

  Set back from the road, the store was a two-story house surrounded by a white picket fence. A large wooden sign invited shoppers in to browse. The front steps were flanked by gas street lamps, and rocking chairs were lined up on the porch, offering weary shoppers a resting place.

  Kate made her way inside. The interior was dark and smelled of musty antiques. She paused to allow her eyes to adapt. The sound of men’s voices emanated from the back room, so she wove toward them through the narrow rabbit trails created by the collectibles that filled practically every square foot of the place. Eli waved Kate inside the office when she reached the door.

  “This is Kate Hanlon,” he said. “Kate, this is Zach Boelter.”

  Kate held out her hand to the man.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Kate said.

  Zach Boelter could have been Santa Claus if it weren’t for the tattoos that lined his thick arms. He had the same white beard, bushy eyebrows, and button nose.

  The man said in the deep voice she’d heard before, “No problem.” His brows knit together, and he turned to examine the bullet hole.

  The mannequin was laid out on a worktable that just fit the dummy’s petite body.

  How did ballistics experts spend their days? Kate wondered as the man sniffled loudly. Did they go from one crime scene to the next? How many crimes with guns were there in any given area, especially rural Tennessee?

  Eli paced like a cat in a cage.

  Boelter looked annoyed. “Are you gonna hover all day?” he said to Eli, who flushed red and took a stool alongside the other two.

  “You’re not going to damage it in any way, are you?” Eli asked.

  “Do you want me to do my job or not?”

  “Well, I...,” Eli began. He looked nervously at Kate.

  “Can you tell anything just by looking at the hole?” Kate asked.

  The man lifted a metal ruler from the red toolbox he’d brought in with him and measured the diameter of the hole.

  “It’s definitely a bullet hole. I can tell by the way the hole is pushed into the wood; it’s not drilled or hammered. And it didn’t come out the other side, so it’s still in there. As for the type of bullet...without extracting it, I can’t really say much.” He bent over his toolbox again and withdrew a small hand saw and a drill with a hole saw on the end. He lifted them to Eli, silently asking permission.

  “I don’t know...,” Eli said.

  Kate smiled at him, understanding his frustration. Ever the antiques dealer, Eli knew that any alteration to the wooden lady would decrease her value. Boelter turned to Kate.

  “Oh, go ahead,” Eli finally said. “We need to know.”

  Boelter put on goggles, and Kate watched as he deftly sawed a line. “The bullet is lodged here,” he said, pointing to the place just above the saw’s line. He’d gone only halfway through the upper arm. Then he placed the hole saw at the top of the arm and turned it on. He pressed down until the tool extracted an eight-inch tube of wood, hollow at the top but solid at the bottom. Carefully he chipped away at the wood until a small lead bullet remained.

  With tweezers he held the find up for them to see. “The wood must’ve been soft when this baby went into it,” he said.

  “How can you tell?” Kate asked.

  “It’s intact, didn’t shatter the wood when it hit.” Placing jeweler’s glasses on, he turned the black object around and studied it. “No doubt about it,” he murmured.

  “So?” Eli asked after a while. “What can you tell us?”

  “This is a bullet from a Colt .380.”

  “A Colt .380?” Kate repeated.

  Boelter nodded. “They were the first pocket hammerless pistols that Colt produced. There were roughly twenty-six thousand of the guns made.”

  “When were they manufactured?” Kate asked, impressed at the man’s extensive knowledge.

  “Between 1902 and 1929.”

  “So...,” Eli said, turning to Kate, his expression a cross between excitement and puzzlement. “What does this mean? Looks like something happened to cause her to get shot.” He looked at Kate, his eyebrow raised.

  Kate wished she knew what to say, but she didn’t have an answer. All she had was more questions.

  AFTER BOELTER PACKED UP his toolbox and said farewell, Kate headed to the library to see what else she could find out about the Colt .380.

  Housed in a historic two-story brick building in downtown Copper Mill, the library was a favorite spot of Kate’s. Not only did her dear friend Livvy Jenner work there, but it was also where she often dug up the details of this or that mystery in town on the high-speed Internet computers, which were much quicker than her doggedly slow dial-up connection at home.

  Livvy was talking to a patron as Kate entered, so Kate offered a silent wave as she made her way to the bank of computers on the second floor.

  No one else was there, except an elderly woman who was reading a paperback romance novel in a corner chair. She glanced at Kate briefly and then returned to her book.

  Kate clicked the computer to life, then typed in “Colt .380” in the Google search window.

  Several links to pages selling collectible guns came up first, as well as a page containing photographs of a frolicking horse. She refined her search adding the word pistol.

  On the first page that came up was a link to a site that gave the history of the small firearm. Kate read about the early manufacture of Colt guns and their military use. They were small pistols and thus easy to hide. She clicked on a picture of the gun to enlarge it. It was a small black pistol with the image of a rearing horse etched in the top of the stock.

  As Kate read on, she was struck by a single statement on one of the sites. It read, The Colt .380 was the gun of choice for gangsters.

  Gangsters? Kate was stunned.

  Then a few paragraphs down, it read, John Dillinger pulled a Colt .380 on the officers who surrounded him when he was killed outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago in July 1934.

  “John Dillinger?” Kate whispered to herself. She’d heard bits and pieces about the notorious gangster before. She typed in several search words, including “John Dillinger,” “gangsters,” “organized crime,” as well as “Pine Rid
ge” and “Copper Mill.”

  What she discovered was a labyrinth of criminal activity.

  It was a dark time in Harrington County, one site read. Practically from the day Prohibition became law, crime exploded across the nation. Easy money was to be had, and those with low morals felt no qualms about taking it for themselves, especially given the sad state of the economy of the day.

  Men like John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson took to the business of crime, committing bank robberies while others funded lucrative speakeasies across the country. These men often worked legitimate businesses as “fronts,” places where they could launder their stolen, ill-gotten funds without the suspicion of local authorities.

  In Harrington County, it was no different. Secret “clubs” as they were called, provided illegal alcohol for anyone who merely sought them out and knew the right password.

  While Kate was aware of this history in the nation’s past, reading it in black and white and realizing that it had touched those who had lived right there in Copper Mill left her speechless. How had such depravity found a foothold in the quiet hills surrounding the Smoky Mountains?

  And further, how had a bullet from a Colt .380, the gun of note for gangsters, ended up in Horace Hanlon’s mannequin? That piece of information sent a chill of dread down Kate’s spine. What did it mean? Did Horace have connections to gangster activity?

  Chapter Four

  Kate headed over to Loving’s Antiques on Smith Street the next morning after she finished washing the breakfast dishes. She’d been thinking about her Internet findings nonstop and what the make and model of the handgun could possibly mean about the mannequin. Of course, anyone could have purchased the once-popular model gun. And it had been used by police officers as well as those on the wrong side of the law, she reasoned.

  Parking in front of Phillip’s store, Kate glanced at the facade before climbing out of the car. It was a vintage building in brown brick with copper-colored shutters and a green awning that was in dire need of replacement. Still, the quaint store had a lot of potential.