Love and Bootlegging (Book Five)

Chapter 17: John Hevan's Corpse

"That was when I taught her everything about reading and writing. While my parents were out, drinking and talking with their friends, I taught Mariah at my house, drinking tea and eating my mother's blueberry muffins."

"Everyday, we covered basic learning and read small sentences until Mariah learned how to read inked words on pages and how to create them."

"Eventually, she started telling me about herself: her mother was white, like me, but she died in the Chicago race riot when she was in her teens. Frank, Mariah, and their father later moved to New York, in order to get away from racism."

"Frank worked as a shoe shiner, while her father worked as a janitor in a local college."

" 'But afterwards,' " Mariah continued. " 'They were fired for standing up to their rights. It took us a couple of weeks to find work. That was when a friend of Frank's got this amazing idea: we decided to build a speakeasy under Old Crow. ' "

" 'With some help from your brother,  we were able to get enough alcohol and the money to built it.' " "I never knew Creek had so much money, probably it was from working tediously in the car factory."

" 'I worked as a waitress until it burned down,' " Mariah sighed. " 'I thought all hope was lost until Creek discovered a sewer tunnel that lead to another library.' "

"Did Creek told Brooklyn about this?" I wondered. Probably not, because according to the journal, Brooklyn went ballistic when he encountered Creek. He demanded him to quit his job as a bootlegger and continue his life in the factory, but Creek refuses, saying that it was the only job to keep his family afloat.

" ' Mariah even told me that there was a secret passageway to the library,' " I growled. " 'First of all, where did you get the money and the booze?' " Creek swallowed a gulp and told me the truth: the money he earned it from working cars and the booze, he knew a guy who can smuggle drinks from foreign countries.' "

" I couldn't believe what I was hearing." Welcome to the club, Brooklyn. I thought. That's when Brooklyn decided to put his foot down: he is going to go back to the library and dump every bottle of illegal liquor into the sewers. Creek tries to stop him, telling Brooklyn that he was making a huge mistake, but his older brother wouldn't listen to him.

Brooklyn's writing stopped abruptly as I turned to the last page of the journal. "Blank," I muttered to myself. Annoyed, I flipped back to the full entry and studied the writing. He written this final entry in 1922, and he vanished in 1933. Something isn't right here, I thought. I chose to keep exploring the tunnels until I have more evidence on this killer.

Taking a deep breath, I tossed Brooklyn's journal into my bag and roamed around until I received a text message from my father. I reached into my pocket as I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen. As usual, the message was in Morse Code. It was Dad's idea, because most strangers might interpret them as dots.

I think he got the idea of texting Morse Code from World War II movies and a book on secret messages, which he received from Uncle Seth when he was fourteen. It was in case we're in trouble. I have gotten the something from the knife, Dad typed. You're right as always, I found traces of Brooklyn's blood on the blade.

What about the fingerprints? I typed back. Did Frank or Creek killed him? The response took him awhile for Dad to answer. No, they didn't kill Brooklyn. Dad answered. They belonged to John Hevan himself." What? I thought. Frank and Mariah's Dad killed him, Dad typed. Your friend Paige also knows where Creek was at the time.

For some reason, he was trailing after Brooklyn. According to Creek, he was trying to ward off Brooklyn, but he didn't listen to him.

I stared hard at my phone and recalled something from Creek's note: he wanted to warn Brooklyn about something, but I am guessing it wasn't about the fire. It was about his decision of getting rid of the alcohol.

Frank and John told Mariah not to introduce herself to Brooklyn, not because she was African-American, but maybe this wasn't their first time as bootleggers.

What were their occupations in Chicago? I typed.

According to some records, Dad typed back. The family had a reputation for selling illegal drinks to every state in America, especially to criminal gangsters, like Al Capone and the North Side Gang. Frank and John's criminal records were bad, except for Mariah. I am guessing that she didn't want to be a part of this, neither did her mother.

Uncle Seth asked around and found something from an old relative. 

A few minutes later, Dad sent me an old, withered photograph of Frank and his father handing bottles of alcohol to Al Capone. Like his father, Frank wore a gray suit and fedora. They seemed to be upset when they gave him their bottled booze.

I was about reply to my father until I stepped on something soft and squishy. "Ugh," I groaned in disgust. Please don't be a rat, please don't be a rat.

Slowly, I removed my foot and glanced down. It was a trail of blood staining the floor. I took a step back and recoiled. "What in the world?" I breathed.

This blood looks like it has been there for decades. Swallowing a gulp, I followed the trail until I found myself at the end of the tunnel. I stumbled into a metal ladder, stretching until it made it to a small door.

Meanwhile, I saw a dead skeleton, lingering  around the ladder. It had a torn gray suit, a fedora, and black shoes. As I took a careful steps towards the inanimate corpse, a huge rat leaped out of its bony ribcage.