Chapter 3
3
T he next morning—morning being a relative term, given they seldom rose before noon—Sam bustled about the kitchen making them breakfast.
Alistair had offered to help—he always did—but Sam had been afflicted with his cooking before. Burnt toast, burnt coffee, and eggs of such horrible texture magic had to be involved.
Not wanting to cause a fuss, Sam claimed to enjoy cooking more than he actually did, in exchange for Alistair doing some of the other household chores. The arrangement would remain the same once they got an apartment of their own.
If they got an apartment of their own.
Sam sighed and pushed the line of thought aside. Alistair wasn’t dragging his feet on purpose. The Chicago underworld was in flux right now, and like it or not, they were part of it.
Not what he would have chosen, or what he’d imagined for himself when he’d run away from the only home he’d ever known. Of course, he hadn’t actually had a plan then, beyond “get to Chicago.” Still, he wouldn’t have picked working in a speakeasy or drawing hexes for a gangster if he’d had the option.
He shouldn’t complain—he wouldn’t have met Alistair if not for The Pride. And though the rich were getting richer, as they always somehow did, a lot of people were struggling. He was lucky not to be one of them; otherwise, he might have had to go home to Gatesville.
The thought turned his stomach sour. His relationship with his family was…difficult. After his older brother Jake died in a tragic accident, he’d tried hard to make it up to his parents for being the surviving son. But nothing he’d ever done had been enough, until the night he finally snapped and ran away to Chicago.
If he hadn’t been able to find Eldon here, if his cousin had turned him away, he would have had to go back home.
A part of him still feared it might come to that, somehow.
Alistair sat at the table, reading over the baseball scores in the newspaper. He seldom did more than glance at the headlines when it came to the actual news. Given everything he’d said about the reality of the war versus the rosy pictures painted by the newspapers both during and after, Sam supposed it made sense. Who was to say the propaganda had ended with the war?
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said when Sam slid the plate in front of him. “Damn it, the Cubs lost the season opener last night. That new pitcher, Kremer, that the Pirates picked up is something else.”
“He certainly is,” Sam said, as if he had any inkling of what Alistair was talking about. He never understood the fascination professional sports held for other people.
Alistair brightened. “We should catch a game some night.”
Sam made a noncommittal noise and buried himself in the front section. As usual, most of the news involved tragic deaths: a man hit by lightning, ten people killed by a train, and three more from a building collapse. Tucked away near the bottom of the front page, below the story of an unfortunate woman whose life hung in the balance after swallowing a safety pin, was a headline that immediately caught his eye.
Local Funeral Home Misplaces Body
When the family of Mr. Robert “Bobby” Watts went to the Panek Funeral Home to view the remains of their recently deceased son, they were shocked to learn that the mortuary has lost the corpse. Despite records of Mr. Watts being delivered to the funeral home, a thorough search turned up no trace of the deceased. Police believe the incident to be the result of a cruel prank.
The article was short on detail, enough so that it might be a coincidence. Sam cleared his throat. “Alistair? Will you look at this?”
Frowning, Alistair took the paper from him. His amber eyes scanned the article, the line between his brows deepening the whole time. “Huh,” he said at last.
“Do you think it was…you know…Bobby from last night?” Sam asked. “It’s the same funeral home that Sullivan had handle Eldon’s funeral.”
Alistair bit his lip—then shrugged. “It doesn’t concern us,” he said, tossing the paper onto the table. At Sam’s expression, he sighed. “Listen, Sam, I get why you’d be upset. Somebody out there clearly has no respect for the dead. But it isn’t our problem to solve.”
“I know, but he was so young, and his family…” He trailed off.
“It’s terrible; I agree.” Alistair’s eyes softened and he took Sam’s hand. “I feel bad for them; I do. Hopefully Sullivan will send some of his men around, scare whoever did this into handing the body back over. But this doesn’t involve us.”
“He died in my arms,” Sam said quietly. He felt again the limp weight, Bobby slipping out of his grasp. The sound of him hitting the floor.
“I’m sorry.” Alistair squeezed his hand. “Leave this to Sullivan, though. Hopefully it’s just a stupid prank, like the police said. But Bobby did work closely with Sullivan, so there’s always the chance it was more.”
“More?”
“The gangs usually respect the dead. Sullivan himself has made arrangements for rival bosses. You should’ve seen the funeral they threw Torrio—mounds of flowers everywhere, a procession a mile long, the works. Everyone acting like they wouldn’t have killed him themselves if the opportunity presented itself. But things are unsettled right now.” His eyes darkened. “It’s not impossible that some punk looking to make a name for himself figured this was a way to make Sullivan look bad. If so, he’ll learn otherwise quick enough, and we don’t want to get in the way of that lesson.”
“Maybe.” Sam frowned. “But how would they have known Bobby was even dead, let alone at the funeral home?”
“Chances are, they paid off someone at Panek’s to tell them the next time Sullivan sent business their way.” Alistair picked the sports section back up. “I wouldn’t want to be in Mr. Panek’s shoes right now, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Yeah.” Sam wanted to argue, but really, what could he do about it anyway? Wander around Chicago looking for a dead body? “You’re right.”
Alistair winked at him. “Always am.”
Alistair left early for The Pride, so Sam found himself at loose ends. Tonight was his night off, and he puttered around the house, trying to concentrate on cleaning rather than on the night before.
Well, not the end part so much, but certainly the beginning. He couldn’t forget poor Bobby’s limp weight slipping out of his grasp, the sound his body made when it hit the floor. The smell.
Alistair thought it was just poisoning from bad hooch. And maybe it was; not like Sam had ever seen someone die from poison before. Alistair, on the other hand, had seen too much death. The Distinguished Service Cross in his room at The Pride attested to that.
It sat alongside a photograph of Alistair’s original witch, his first love. He and Forrest enlisted together, while Sam’s poor eyesight kept him out of the army. They’d both technically survived the war, but in the end it killed Forrest anyway.
Alistair seldom talked about it; Sam supposed he wouldn’t either, if he’d been over there in the mud and the blood. It had all sounded so glorious in the newspapers and on the radio, but apparently the reality had been quite different.
It was early evening when there came a knock on the door. Sam froze out of habit—but no, Ursino was dead and Eldon’s hex consigned to the flames. No one was out to get him anymore.
Even so, his heart beat faster when he went to answer the door. He swung it open to find a middle-aged man in a suit standing there.
For a moment, the familiar face was so out of place that Sam didn’t recognize him. Only when he said “Sammy,” in a disapproving voice did things click into place.
“Mr. Dodge?” Cornelius Dodge lived on a farm down the road from where Sam had grown up, went to the same church, and regularly played cards with his father. “What are you doing in Chicago?”
The disapproving expression remained fixed on his face. “I had business here, so your parents asked me to check on you. Can I come in?”
Sam wanted to slam the door in his face. He wanted to go back in time ten minutes and refuse to answer the door in the first place. Hide under the bed and pretend no one was home.
Instead, he stepped aside. “Sure. Come in.”
Sam made coffee and opened a package of Hydrox cookies, arranging them on a plate before taking them out to Mr. Dodge. “I’m afraid they’re store bought,” he said apologetically. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
Mr. Dodge sighed heavily, but helped himself to the cookies anyway. “I see you’ve taken over poor Eldon’s house.”
“Poor Eldon”—as if anyone from Gatesville had bothered to come to the funeral. “I thought it would be all right to stay, temporarily,” Sam said. “I’m trying to find somewhere else; I know the house isn’t mine.”
Mr. Dodge paused, a Hydrox halfway to his mouth. “Find somewhere else? Sammy, you need to come home right this minute.”
Dread stirred in his gut. “Is something wrong?” God, if Mom or Dad were sick, or something had happened to Opal…
“Wrong?” Dodge stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Do you have any idea what you put your family through? They thought you were dead! I was at the funeral; Muriel couldn’t even stand up unassisted, she was so devastated.”
Unbidden, an image of his mother’s face came to Sam, though it was hard to picture her crying over him. “I…I didn’t realize…that is, I never meant anyone to think I was dead.”
“Your parents went through hell,” Dodge said flatly. “Trust me, I know what it’s like to lose a son. It’s not a grief I’d wish on anyone.”
Tommy Dodge came back from the war a different man than he’d left. When he died, the newspapers reported it as the result of an accidental fall, even though everyone knew he’d hung himself in the barn.
Sam felt himself shrinking. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.” But he hadn’t corrected their misapprehension when he learned of it. Eldon himself had told him not to, and at the time it had seemed for the best. His parents had always said he should have died instead of Jake. He’d believed they’d be happier thinking he’d jumped into the river and drowned.
Had he been wrong? They’d acted like they hated him…but here Dodge was, saying they were crushed by his apparent death.
Had he been mistaken all these years? Misinterpreted everything about his own life?
“Kirk aged ten years,” Dodge went on. “And Muriel had to take to her bed again, due to the shock of receiving your letter about poor Eldon. Even your sister’s marriage has been strained. You have to go home, Sammy. You’ve put them through too much. Don’t you care about them at all?”
“Of course I do,” Sam said miserably. “I just didn’t think they cared about me.”
“They’re your family!” he scoffed. “Of course they love you.”
Bands of guilt constricted across Sam’s chest. “I’ll write to them.”
“You need to come home.” Dodge glared at him. “Your family needs you. Think of your mother—she already lost one son, and first to think she’d lost the other, then to find it was all a cruel lie…I just don’t understand how anyone could be so heartless as to put her through that.”
Shame burned through him, scorching the happiness he’d felt after leaving. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, but it felt so inadequate.
“Not to mention the financial strain you’ve put them under.” Dodge pursed his lips, as if he hated to speak of something so crass as money. “Your ‘funeral’ wasn’t free, you know, even if they could only put up a headstone. Not to mention Kirk will have to hire someone to replace you in the drugstore. The money from the sale of this house will help, but most of that will go to your aunt and uncle.”
Sam hung his head, utterly miserable. Mr. Dodge was right; he should never have let them believe he was dead, should have rushed home the moment he read the article about his supposed drowning in the papers.
But the thought of leaving Chicago, The Pride, Alistair, made Sam want to throw up. Going home again, back to his old life, working in the pharmacy with Dad, no magic, no excitement, no nothing…
He couldn’t. No—he wouldn’t .
Still, this was his family they were talking about. He owed them, didn’t he?
“I can’t come home,” he said through a tight throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dodge. I’ve got a new job lined up. I can send money to help cover the bills.”
Dodge shook his head. “Well, if that’s the best you can do,” he said in a voice implying he was certain it wasn’t. “I’ll let Muriel and Kirk know you’re still alive.”
“I’ll write to them,” Sam promised, even though he didn’t want to.
“I see you have a telephone—give me the exchange information to pass along to them, in case there’s a family emergency.”
He wanted to refuse, but couldn’t think of a reason to do so. Once he’d scribbled down the number, Dodge stood up and collected his hat. “I need to catch my train. Thanks for the cookies, Sammy.”
Sam walked him out. The moment the door was shut, he sagged against it, tears stinging his eyes.
He couldn’t go back. But he loved his family, even if he didn’t like them very much. If he could help them, he should, right? At least when it came to money.
After a long moment of fighting back tears, he peeled himself off the door. He needed Alistair. Snatching up his flat cap, he headed out into the Chicago night.