Her third—and final—set of foster parents had been a kind, older couple who understood her, at least a bit. They encouraged her to restore the precious book and even gave her a little money for the project. With it, Cassie bought the best acid-free album she could find, a pair of white cotton gloves, and a fine point, permanent marker. Using a regular pen on the backs of the photos might damage them, she’d learned, plus the ink would fade over time, so the marker was important. Her foster parents cleared a space for her at the desk they used for their bills and taxes, and she set to work removing all the photographs from the old album. Over time, some had lost their black adhesive corners, but others clung stubbornly to the old paper. For each of those, she turned a blow dryer on very low, giving the photo just enough heat to melt the remaining glue, then slid dental floss underneath to free it. She neatly transcribed the dates and names on the backs of the photos then reordered them in the new album, using fresh notes in corresponding margins.
When it came to the few bits and pieces of newsprint in the album, she had more of a challenge. The poor-quality paper, originally manufacturedinexpensively out of unpurified wood pulp, was barely holding together by that point. Among the articles was the announcement about Jeremiah and John Bailey’s departure for Europe in 1914, then their return. She also had one that spoke of her grandmother Alice’s brothers—John Jr. and Edward—heading to the next war. Cassie couldn’t do anything about the damage that had already been done to the paper, but she was determined to prevent it from getting any worse. After fixing what she could, she had transferred the photos to the album as carefully as if they were broken glass.
Now, Cassie brought the box to the cracked leather armchair in the corner of the room. Tom, her cat, hopped silently onto the armrest and pressed his soft, grey head against her. A year ago, she’d come across him at the side of the road, the newborn blue still bright in his eyes. His mother had been hit by a car, and little Tom mewed helplessly at her side. Scooping him up in her arms, Cassie had brought him to the closest vet then carried him home.
“Let’s be orphans together,” she’d whispered into his little ear.
As she settled in with the box, he lay down next to her, his purr vibrating against her hand. With her other one, she raised the lid, and she felt a rush of nostalgia at the sight of the heirloom inside.
Usually, she perused the book for her own entertainment. Today she had a mission. She removed the scrapbook and set the box aside, intent on rereading the small number of newspaper articles, in search of any clues that might hint at the secret bottles in Matthew’s wall. But she lingered over the photos of Jeremiah and John, hearing again the thrilling stories her grandmother had told her—about how the brothers had had the courage of lions, digging tunnels beneath the battlefields of the Great War, then how they had come home and dove into the rum-running business, which came with its own perils.
Whenever Grandmother Alice spoke of her own father, Jeremiah, she described him as a quiet, bookish man, and while he wasn’t very talkative, he was a loving father. She didn’t know much about her uncle John. Hehad died before Alice was born, and her father rarely mentioned him, just like he rarely mentioned the Great War. Alice’s impression of John came mostly from the way people in town talked about him. Like he had been a wild man. A dangerous man. But sometimes, when her father was out, Alice’s mother would tell her a different story. She said her uncle John was a good, courageous man. She said he had saved Alice’s father’s life time and time again. That was why they had named Alice’s older brother, Johnny. But the shadow her uncle John cast had never completely faded. When Cassie or her mother did anything remotely crazy, Grandmother Alice would claim that it was because of the “wild Bailey streak,” coming straight from John.
Cassie’s gaze lingered on Alice’s older brothers, Johnny and Teddy. They had gone off to fight in the next war, but they had died months apart during the campaign to liberate Italy from the Germans. Every time her grandmother got to the memorial announcements in the newspaper, she would pause, tears in her eyes. She was the youngest, born eight years after Teddy, and as of 1943, she became an only child. She told Cassie that the house was so much quieter after that. Alice did what she could to care for her devastated parents for the rest of their lives, but nothing was the same.
Finally, Cassie turned the page and touched the photograph of her grandmother, missing her with a pang. Beside it was one of her mother in her wedding gown, looking happy next to her dad. All these people, once young and vital and living their lives, were gone.
It had taken Cassie a long time to convince herself that she was not to blame for her mother’s death. She could never forget how it had ended, though, with her standing helplessly to the side as her mother crashed down those stairs. Not that a ten-year-old girl could have prevented that fall, but still, it weighed on her. As she got older, she understood the role grief and alcohol had played that day, but even that knowledge couldn’t entirely erase her guilt. As soon as her mother had taken that fateful last step, Cassie had been left alone. She was stillalone, all these years later. Maybe she always would be. And maybe she deserved it.
Matthew thought her interest in the bottles and house was simply because of her job, but it was so much more than that. The faces staring back at her now were the reason she cared so much. There was one little detail she hadn’t mentioned to him. One thing she’d kept to herself: Cassie was the last of the Baileys. She was the only one left.
Monday morning, Cassie threw herself into her work, planning to concentrate on the archives. It was good timing; Mondays were slow, with few visitors. She set Matthew’s original bottle on the back desk as inspiration, then started flipping through files of local newspaper clippings, photographs, and interviews, all from the 1920s. There were mentions of raids and robberies involving local gangs, and sure enough the Bailey name came up a few times, usually in reference to John, but another name kept popping up as well, often in connection to the brothers. And it was one Cassie didn’t recognize: Ernie Willoughby. She bookmarked each mention, then began a new search for information on him. Almost right away, she came across all different sorts of articles, including social announcements.
YEAR-END BASH A HUGE SUCCESS
Well-known businessman Ernie Willoughby hosted his annual event of the season last Saturday, with a stunning array of guests dancing in their finest and a wondrous exhibit of fireworks to cap it all off.
An hour or so later, Mrs. Allen swept silently into the room, her spectacles hanging from a delicate gold chain around her neck. Cassie sensedher coming up behind her, and in a moment was aware of the older woman peering curiously over her shoulder.
“Working on a new project?”
Mrs. Allen was a quiet, serious woman, the epitome of what people might expect of a museum curator. Her enthusiasm for history carried over in the way she always encouraged Cassie to look into projects that might bring more value to the museum. Mrs. Allen was closing in on eighty years old, which meant she knew some of the legends from the area. That could be very useful to Cassie in this particular situation. As much as Cassie had planned to keep this project to herself, she’d run into a bit of a brick wall. She was forced to admit she could use some expert help.
“Well, it’s kind of a long story,” she said.
“History is full of long stories,” Mrs. Allen replied. “And I am here for history. If you’d like assistance, tell me how I can help.”
So Cassie told her the story of Matthew’s discovery, keeping her own personal history out of the telling, at least for now.
“How wonderful. I know that house. It’s been neglected for years. So you’re helping him find out more information?”
“I’ve been trying to learn more about the Bailey brothers and figure out why fifty bottles of their whisky would have been permanently left in their living room wall,” Cassie said.
Mrs. Allen looked impressed. “Fifty bottles! It sounds like that Matthew fellow might have come into a small fortune. Are you investigating their value for him?”
“Not yet, but I will. I want to understand the story behind the bottles first.”
The curator frowned slightly. “Well, abandoning them there wouldn’t have been done on purpose, Cassie. Something must have gone wrong. Perhaps you should be looking into events that were going on around that time. Something that could have endangered the Baileys.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” she said. “The only suspicious thing I could see was this article.”
MISSING PERSON: ERNEST “ERNIE” SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY OF WINDSOR
Police are requesting the public’s help in determining the whereabouts of Windsor businessman Ernest Willoughby, who has been missing for three days. Sources close to Mr. Willoughby report that he was not planning to leave the city. In fact, he was expected at a few meetings that he ended up missing…
“From everything I can read, he was never found. He’s mentioned alongside the Baileys a few times, but they didn’t seem all that friendly with each other. They may have had a rivalry. Can you think of anything else that might have been going on around that time?”
“Ernie Willoughby,” Mrs. Allen said, tapping her fingers on the desk. “He was a bit of rumrunner royalty around here. He had a little army of thugs, from what I recall hearing. Like a smaller, local version of Capone, one might say. You’re right, I don’t think he was ever found. There were rumours he had owed money to someone and escaped to Florida, but there was also speculation that he could have been murdered. I’ll take a look in my records, see if I can come up with something.”
