Wynn in Doubt (9 page)

Oliver says nothing. After a few minutes, he turns the volume back up, and the Vaccines flood the car. I can’t hear the lyrics or focus on the changing tracks. Finding out why Lola left and what happened to her is quickly becoming an obsession. In a way I feel like I’ll never be able to move forward in my own life if I don’t uncover her secrets. Her legacy, Grams’s resentments, my family’s expectations, my own doubts . . . these things are heavy. Sometimes it feels like the weight of them will bury me alive.

His calloused fingers gently scrape the skin just above my knee as he places his hand there. Taking my eyes off the road, I stare at them for a moment, not knowing if this is really happening or if I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. His voice is real, though, too real to be a dream. “We’ll find her.”

The highway blurs. I focus on the lane and on the answers I hope we’ll find in Kentucky. I don’t look at Oliver again. I’m not strong; I just don’t want him to see me cry.

seven

“You look familiar.”

Oliver shoves his hands in his pockets. The receptionist’s eyes are big and blue behind red Coke-bottle glasses. Long blonde hair falls in waves down her back, and her skin is as perfectly porcelain as her lips are perfectly pink. But something about that stare makes me think she’d be more at home behind padded walls than the front desk of the Kentucky Historical Society.

“He gets that all the time.” I step up to save Oliver’s anonymity. “My name’s Wynn, and this is”—why can’t I think of a single male name?—“Marcus. Dennam. Like the jeans, only spelled different.”

He rewards me with a grateful smile.

“Oh, that must be how I know you. I wear jeans all the time.” Her glasses slide down the bridge of her nose as she nods. “I’m Kathleen Rice,” she says, pointing to a green plastic nametag over her ample bosom.

“Nice to meet you. We’re hoping you can help us.” I dig the book out of my bag, remove the article, and unfold it. “We’re looking for more information about these people.”

Kathleen takes it from me and reads. Her lips move silently over each word. “Oh, Michael Craig.”

Oliver leans against the counter. “You know of him?”

She smiles brightly and tilts her head to the side. “No.”

“But then how’d you—” I begin.

“Oh”—she brightens—“it says his name, right here.” She taps the article with her finger. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Oliver and I share a quick look. This might take a while. “Um, do you by chance know anything about the woman in the photo?” I point to Lola’s bowed head.

Kathleen removes a magnifying glass from her desk drawer. The glass is as thick as the lenses over each of her eyes. “Sorry. I don’t recognize that name. She’s lovely, though.” She straightens and hands the paper back to me.

I look at the picture. Lola’s face and most of her body are obscured. Only her hat is clearly identifiable. “You can’t really see her face.”

The receptionist inclines her head toward me, adopting a more serious expression. “I was talking about her aura.”

Oliver coughs, and I suspect it’s to cover a laugh.

“Right. Okay. So where
can
we begin our search for more information?”

She places a finger against her chin and shifts from side to side. “I suppose you could begin with the microfilm of the original article.”

“We’d love to, but we don’t know which paper it came from, only the date.”

She looks relieved. “Oh, that’s an easy one. The only paper with circulation in Nelson County that would have printed photographs at that time was the
Kentucky Standard
.”

Oliver and I exchange glances again, this time surprised. Maybe there’s more going on behind those big eyes than I previously thought.

“Where are the microfilm files located?” Oliver asks.

“Oh, we wouldn’t have them for 1931.” She smiles serenely.

We wait for her to continue, but she seems content to do nothing more than sit before us.

“Okay.” Oliver draws the word out. “Then where
could
we find the original article?”

“The University of Kentucky libraries would probably have it.”

I nod encouragingly at her. “Super. Could you direct us to one of the branches?”

“Sure. But you won’t be able to get in this week. The closest libraries are closed for remodeling and inventory before the fall session begins next month.”

I’d assumed getting information on Prohibition moonshiners would be like finding a needle in a haystack, especially in Kentucky, but we’ve got to find somewhere to start. “Kathleen.” I say her name slowly, doing my best to guide her toward coherency. “Is there any way for us to find out about the people in this photograph? Here, in Frankfort . . . now?”

Again she smiles and nods but offers no further information. It makes me want to scream.

Oliver places a hand on my arm, then turns full rock star on the pretty receptionist. It’s my first experience with Famous Oliver. “If you could give us any clues on where to start our search,” he says, his eyes falling across her face, “I’d be forever in your debt.”

His voice is deep and lyrical, and it lulls Kathleen into a state of renewed focus. “Hmm . . . wait.” I can almost see the light bulb flashing above her head. “I’ve got the perfect place for you guys to begin your search.”

We inch forward. Waiting for her to speak is almost physically painful.

“The Internet.”

Oliver places a can of Coke on the gray desk at the Kentucky Historical Society where we’ve been stationed for several hours. I thank him by yawning in his face. My shoulders are full of kinks from pouring over online records. I thought the Internet was supposed to make everything easier, but so far we’ve come up almost empty-handed. Oliver discovered a few old census records, the most recent from 1920, listing Lola, her husband, William, and their daughter, Elizabeth, my Grams, who was only an infant when it was taken. After that, there’s nothing.

“It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth.” The can releases a hiss as I puncture the aluminum.

“Such a defeatist.” He steals the Coke from my hand and takes a drink before handing it back. I stare at the top, mesmerized by the intimacy of what he’s done. “We need to start thinking like her.”

“Like a 1920s housewife who became a renegade bootlegger in the span of a decade?”

He raises a finger to me. “Exactly.”

I push out a loud sigh. This is pointless. Lola didn’t want to be found and made damn sure she wouldn’t be, apparently. We’ve searched under her married name, her maiden name; we’ve tried interchanging her first and middle names, and searching only by first name and county of birth. We looked for the original article and through a series of local essays on the county during the years she may have lived there. Oliver thought we might find her by association, so we tried looking up Michael Craig. We found similar information on him as we did on her. Nothing more than census records that told us no more than who he was living with—they appeared to be his brothers and a sister-in-law—the birthplace of his parents, and his chosen occupation, which was listed as farmer.

“Yeah, he was growing whiskey in his backyard,” Oliver had said.

Without online access to death certificates—and that’s if they even still exist; Kathleen dropped by to twist the knife in my side, telling us many old records had been lost to fires—finding out what happened to Lola is starting to look impossible. I thought we’d be doing things the hard way, coming out here to search for answers on foot. But it turns out there isn’t an easy way to find someone who wanted to be lost. It’s as though she never existed beyond being Grams’s mother. Save for the article. I pull it toward me and reread every line. There’s got to be something that will lead us to her.

“Here”—Oliver’s hand comes close to mine—“let me see that.” He pulls the paper across the desk. I take the moment to look at him, unobserved. His black hair is thick and slightly longer on the top. It curls a little at the ends. His lashes are the same, just as black and thick. I love his eyes. They’ve always reminded me of a lake in the winter, the way they can change from light to dark in a matter of moments.

He looks up. They’re a light, clear gray right now. I should probably look away, but I don’t want to.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

Our closeness has nothing to do with the small desk. I feel like we’re connected in a way that goes beyond a shared experience. His fingers touch the back of my hand. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Okay.”

“The house.”

I blink, not following his thought. “The house?” His finger moves light and slow down one of mine. My heart races.

“What if”—he taps the article in front of him—“the house is still standing?”

Of course. The article said the Craig house and grounds were searched following Lola and Michael’s arrest. If he really was her lover, she might have lived there, too. I reluctantly pull my hand from beneath his and shuffle through the small stack of printouts to my right. Most of the documents look the same, but I know the one we need, the 1930 census. The one closest to the date of the article and the last time Lola left a trace.

“Got it.” I set the paper down between us and drag my finger down a dozen rows before landing on the one I want. I turn the paper vertical to read the swirling script running along the edge of the page. It says “Fairview Road,” and beside Michael’s name, there’s a house number.

Driving through rural Kentucky in July is like driving through a tunnel of green. Trees stretch to embrace one another over the top of my car. I wish I could enjoy it, but all I can think about is the house at the end of this road. The house Lola may have once called home, if it’s still there
. Please let it be there.

“You okay? You seem a little wound up.”

“I’m fine.”

“That bad, huh?”

How does he do that?

“I’m just excited. If it’s still standing . . . she might’ve lived there. There could be a picture of her. I’d finally get to see her face.” The thought makes me giddy. “I just have this feeling that I’m going to sense her presence or something.” I sneak a look in his direction. “Stupid?” He stretches his arm out, and his hand rests on the back of my seat. For a minute I thought he was going to touch me. I blush.

“Not stupid. But let’s try and go in with no expectations. That way, we can’t be disappointed.”

His reluctance to play along dulls my excitement but can’t stamp it out. “I can’t believe we drove all this way and ended up finding what we needed online,” I say, leaning into the steering wheel.

“Not everything, just the first clue, and we would’ve found the house anyway.”

“How’s that, Columbo?”

He rubs his hands together. “Good old-fashioned detective work.”

“Ah. So you’re a traitor to our generation. Eschewing technology in order to do things the hard way.”

“The proper way,” he corrects me.

I take my foot off the gas, allowing the car to turn into the winding road naturally. Oliver’s good mood is infectious, and I can’t help but tease him. “I bet the only thing you use the Internet for is to search for the closest Chinese takeout place.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He looks over, grinning. “That’s way too complicated.”

“Come on. You must at least be adept at social media. How else did you get a following for the band?”

He looks out the window, his fingers drumming on the back of my headrest. “Tony took care of setting all that stuff up. My job was to write songs and play music. I don’t care for this brave new world. I think I prefer things as they were.”

“Before Twitter and Instagram?”

“You’ve never known frustration like singing your heart out to a crowd of people looking at you through their cell phones. It takes them right out of the moment.” I look sideways and watch a frown cross his face.

“It really bothers you, huh?”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Technology keeps us connected.”

“I disagree. Technology gives us the illusion of being connected. You can’t connect with someone by poking them on Facebook. That’s not friendship. That’s staving off boredom.”

“So if I hop on my timeline later to check in, I shouldn’t poke you?”

A whisper of a dimple appears on his left cheek. “You can poke me any time you want.”

Flustered and a little heated, I return my attention to finding our destination. The road Oliver instructed me to take bends and winds like the ones in Candy Land. My sisters and I loved that game, though Tabby almost always cheated by using Gumdrop Pass when she wasn’t supposed to. Franny would run off to tell Mom, Tabby chasing after her, and I’d stay to clean up the mess.

We come out of a low and winding bend, and a flat valley opens on either side of the road. Oliver tells me to take the next exit and turn onto an outer road, paved only by packed dirt. The trees and brush are thick on this side of the parkway. The area has a wild, untamed look.

“There.” Oliver points to a driveway. A green-and-white sign marked “KHS” has been driven into the ground at one corner. “What do you think that means?”

“I don’t know.” I pull into the drive. A log cabin with a slanted roof and wide porch sits a few hundred feet from the road. My heart jumps into my throat at the sight of it. As we approach, I stop the car to read another, larger sign at the mouth of the driveway.