Now, who are the Bad Guys, again?

The "Why" of the Late Prohibition Era in Puget Sound, WA

Oh, bad guys. Villains. They make a story so interesting, especially when those doing the dirty deeds are supposed to be the good guys. My story, Welcome to Cottage Bay, begins along the shores of a mythical salt waterside town set in the South Puget Sound of Washington State during Prohibition. And what story during that time wouldn’t be complete without the pious, the underpaid, and the hypocritical souls of that era.

It’s set in a time not too long after what became known as Black Tuesday, the Stock Market crash of 1929. By then, Prohibition stunted so many industries related to spirits, wine, and beer – agriculture, wood barrel-making, and transportation, just to name a few – it fed a financial fire storm culminating in this great social and economic disaster.

After October of 1929, the Great Depression really got her “Mad On.”

Welcome to Cottage Bay

Our historical fiction and romance is set at the apex, or rock bottom, of Prohibition, depending on your point of view. Our heroine, Rose Nicovich, is part of a Croatian family of fishermen living in a mythical waterside town of South Puget Sound, Cottage Bay. She’s a teacher and the evening and weekend librarian; desperate to keep the family afloat when her father dies suddenly a month after Black Tuesday in 1929. She is also charged with assuming the reins of the new family business, distilling bootleg whiskey. By this time, Rum Runner Roy was incarcerated on McNeil Island following a kangaroo court of a trial. His conviction was fraught with tampered and manufactured evidence, coached witnesses, threatened jurors – you name it. Bootleg industry chaos followed the wake of his boat trip to prison.

The local, state, and federal Prohibition authorities were frequently infighting and when they weren’t doing that, they were charging at full speed up and down the Puget Sound waterways chasing a new band of rum runners in very fast boats. The illegal whiskey industry (and law enforcement) was at a crossroads – whether booze from Canada or what we call “rot gut” moonshine. It was coming in big shipments or just a trickle, depending on whether law enforcement was cooperating with one another or with the bootleggers.

Enter Rose Nicovich and her delightful batch of spirits, including bourbon, rye whiskey, and even a special vanilla whiskey, suitable for special holiday celebrations. No Prohibition Agent would take notice of a humble immigrant family of fishermen puttering out of Cottage Bay to Seattle, selling their locally-caught fish directly to restaurants and markets – or at least that was the plan. Meanwhile, a false compartment below the hatch and the fish held a much more profitable catch – whiskey.

 Part 1: The Pious

AKA, the self-righteous, sanctimonious “Dry” advocates for Prohibition.

It’s important to understand that women built the Prohibition movement as a platform to secure the right to vote. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League, were arguably the most powerful PACs of the day. They pushed, prodded, and lobbied Congress, shaming elected officials and bureaucrats, alike. It’s no coincidence that after ratification of the 18^th Amendment in 1920, enacting a nationwide prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcohol, that the 19^th amendment was ratified in 1921 (finally) securing a woman’s right to vote in America.

If you gasp in wonder at how it took a constitutional amendment for women to vote, please don’t. Since its inception, our Supreme Court has been a political tool as often as it’s been an independent, judicial body. In 1875, by a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court ruled, Minor v. Happersett, that a woman’s right to vote was left up to the individual states and was not guaranteed in the constitution or in the 14^th Amendment. It took another 46 years and another constitutional amendment to gain that right.

In order to define their platform, members of the “Dry” movement vilified those who drank and decried the evils of alcohol. These pious Christians – men and women, alike – painted alcohol as a family abuser. The “Drys” pointed to families without food, saying the cause was from husbands who drank all their wages. In communities across America, they campaigned on the premise that alcohol caused moral decay at such epic proportions that without such laws, our society would crumble. They just glossed over the notion that alcohol abuse might have been a symptom of the problem in the yawning and ever-widening economic gap between the “haves” and “have nots” – leading up to Black Tuesday, 1929.

With their moral dander aflutter, and wielding Christian Family Values as a political baseball bat, theirs was a fevered pitch demanding the government enact Prohibition laws.

Part 2: Enter, the Underpaid … and the Desperate and Despicable

As if to magnify all of this political tumult, Washington State granted women an early right to vote in 1873, though our state Supreme Court repealed it (to my earlier point). In 1910, Washington ultimately granted women the right to vote in state elections and ballot measures. As a result, our women’s movement helped pass a ballot measure in 1915 enacting the prohibition of alcohol several years earlier than the rest of the country.

OMG. What were we thinking?

Given our location in the apartment downstairs from Canada, where they struggled with prohibition laws and ultimately restored its legality (we LOVE you Canada) you could clock with an egg timer how long it took to set up whiskey smuggling operations over water, railway, car, and airplane. We had a solid jumpstart on how-to reasonably run an illegal alcohol industry.

A real-life historical figure of this era was the whiskey king pin, Roy Olmstead. He was known affectionately as Rum Runner Roy, and called The Gentleman Bootlegger. He was a former Seattle Cop and also a class act. He didn’t even allow his men to carry guns. Roy’s brand of How to Win Friends and Influence People taught us to join forces with law enforcement. So he recruited just about everyone along his route from the San Juan Islands to Seattle, from a lowly sheriff’s deputy to the Coast Guard. Everyone got a little extra cash at the time it was desperately needed. Financially, everyone struggled.

To make matters worse, when America passed the federal law prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and purchase of alcohol, the US Treasury was left holding the short straw. Underfunded and understaffed, they had the responsibility of policing a law that no one but a self-righteous few believed in. And Treasury paid their Prohibition Agents “pour” wages to enforce this wildly unpopular law. An agent’s pay during that time ranged from around $1200 to $2400 a year, barely enough to remain in the middle class. It was no small wonder they were so easily corruptible.

Part Three – The hypocritical

By 1930, Prohibition was a wildly unpopular law. The Drys and the Wets were at odds, with the members of the WCTU and the Anti-Saloon league holding a death grip on the Republican Party – they were desperately trying to maintain their political hold with command of Prohibition. They wanted all bootleggers, rum runners, and moonshiners rounded up and publicly hung, drawn, and quartered, by any and all means necessary. In the pursuit of protection for the American Family and these Christian Family Values, the ends surely did justify any and all means.

In this story, you will meet a couple real-life historical figures who broke the law, created chaos in the streets, planted evidence, modified wire-tap transcripts, intimidated and coached witnesses, and actually sold recovered whiskey from the back of their company cars.

Yep, they were Prohibition agents.

I know, right? Yeah, whenever you get people in power, you also risk having those people abuse it. Especially when you underpay them and give them moral license to skirt the law because the ends justify the means. It’s a lethal cocktail.

One of these real-life characters was Agent Richard Fryant, who originally hailed from New York, where he worked as a telephone wireman. In Seattle, he put his skillset to work skirting what wiretap laws we had back then, and being coached by Assistant Prohibition Directory, William Whitney, to perjure himself in the pursuit of convicting Roy Olmstead. You will also meet a particular brute, Agent James “Two Guns” Johnson. His nickname came from a penchant for wearing a gun belt with two holsters. He was famous for shooting into the air when he had an audience. Oh, and he was a back-shooter, too. A real moral giant, he was.

Washington’s US Attorney, Tom Revelle, felt those type of tactics were totally justified. “Some of them deserve a good killing,” he said, in confidence to Senator Wesley L. Jones, Washington State’s ranking Republican Senator. “I am not losing any sleep if now and then a bootlegger is killed.”

“Kinky” Thompson was another Prohibition Agent who was so brutal that he beat an entire family to death – including their nine-year-old child. In a community once known for maintaining civility while rum running, it got particularly brutal with the removal of Roy Olmstead and the introduction of these kinds of enforcers and their tactics. You will not meet “Kinky” in this story – he was shot and killed in 19XX. Shocker.

Turnabout is Fair Play

This idiom is kissin’ cousins with others, such as Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword, or What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander, or, my personal favorite, What Goes Around, Comes Around. These types of sayings are rooted in experience.

Skirting the law in pursuit of enforcing it, brutal investigation and arrest tactics, withholding, modifying, or manufacturing evidence to get to a conviction – yeah, soon enough, the enforcers of Prohibition got served up a dish of their own making.

Welcome to Cottage Bay is a great big old story – It’s a love story, it’s several loves, actually. It’s also a story set during The Great Depression and includes a bit about Croatian commercial fishing during that time in history. This story weaves together real-life places and people with tales of this era in Puget Sound. It’s important that I get it “right” or at least that I present my understanding in a way that allows you to consider more and draw your own conclusions. I feel honored that the Dream Angels entrusted me with these characters and their story. In the telling of it, I hope I do right by all of them – the fictitious ones as well as the real life figures who shaped our history.

The importance of creating connection and common ground to inspire, encourage, and comfort others

I’ve been writing stories just about my whole life. When I can’t sleep, I’ll work out dialogue or a chapter in my head and it busies that part of my brain enough so I can drift off. Every once in a while, I’ll dream all or part of a story—and that is true for Welcome to Cottage Bay.

As the story emerged for me, so did the stories around each character. Antonio, Rose’s sweetheart, for example was from Chicago and a huge Cubbies fan. Antonio, Rose’s sweetheart, for example was from Chicago and a huge Cubbies fan.  It was a memory he shared about the Cubs that established a strong connection to her young brother, Collin.  As some know, the 1908 Cubs season came to a historic tie with the New York Giants with what’s been dubbed The Merkle Boner game on September 23^rd, forcing a playoff game on October 8.  Antonio’s father took the family to that historic 1908 Cubs-Giants playoff game all the way up in New York City from Chicago.  Antonio witnessed the magic of pitcher Three-Finger Mordecai Brown and catcher “noisy” Johnny Kling in that historic game.

Sharing a bit about his love for baseball and the Cubs began a life-changing relationship between Antonio, Rose and the entire Nicovich family.  It underscores the truism that sometimes a seemingly small thing sparks the most important things of our lives.

Why are these connections so important? 

It signals we share common ground, that we can understand each other.  This historic game was legend to a young baseball fan—and to him, those who played the game were gods.

The Chicago Cubs pitcher, three-fingered Brown, lost his other two digits in a farm machinery accident.  He turned his disability into magic by perfecting a knuckle-ball or curve ball that dropped at the plate like no other.  Noisy Johnny Kling created a legacy of getting into the heads of his opponents—both at the plate as the team’s catcher and on the field.  His chatter earned his name.  Together, this dynamic pitcher-catcher duo saved the Cubs’ season, securing their place at the 1908 pennant championship.

The Most Exciting Day in Baseball

Behind-the-plate umpire, Bill Kelm, spent 37 years calling major league games, so for the sake of reason, we’ll consider his an expert opinion.  At 2:45 on October 8, 1908, he joined the other umpires on the field and later, called this historic playoff game, “the most exciting day in baseball.”

Over 250,000 people attended. People fought for tickets.  Some got into the stadium with none; others with tickets were left standing outside when the first pitch was thrown.  All in, it was the largest crowd ever gathered in the world for a sporting event. Three-fingered Brown relieved starter Jack Pfiester, two-thirds of the way into the first inning and went on to allow just one hit and one more run.  Noisy John caught a stupendous game and also, made a hit, batted in a runner, and himself scored a run.

The game ended with the Chicago Cubs beating the New York Giants 4-2, clinching their spot in the Pennant. Yet, the championship pennant race that year was truly anticlimactic to this one playoff game.

Nearly 22 years later, this common ground and connection sealed the deal between Antonio and his future brother-in-law, Collin. They were aboard the Nicovich family fishing trawler one afternoon, The Sea Horse, and Collin blurted out the question. Antonio knew that his question wasn’t really about baseball.

It’s not just a question

“How come the Cubs haven’t been back to the World Series,” Collin asked, after hauling in the nets for the third and final time that day.  Antonio was tying off a last bit of rope, wending around a cleat.  He laughed at the boy’s why questions, this being the tenth or twelfth of the last half-hour.

“Well, to answer that, we have to ask ourselves a few other questions,” he said, standing up from his task and turning his attention directly to Collin.  “You ready?”

“Yes,” Collin nodded, solemnly, as if this were an important quiz.

“Okay, well, I heard your team won the district championship a couple of years ago.  Is that right?”

“Yep.  We went unbeaten the whole season,” Collin said, proudly.

“Why was that, you think?”

“We had the best players, and the other teams had some rotten luck that season, with losing players or coaches.” Clearly, Collin had thought about this a time or two.

“Have you won the district championship since then?”

“Well, uh, no,” he admitted, sheepishly.  Antonio’s line of reasoning was taking shape.  “So, why is that, you think?”

“Well, uh, our best players went on to the higher age bracket, and then last year was my dad’s first year at coaching because our other coach retired.”

“To everything there is a season,” Antonio said.  “Players move on, coaches retire.  It’s important you recognize a special group of people brought together at just the right place and time.”

“Right,” Collin digested those words, nodding and looking out at the water.  “So, it’s just bad luck.”

“Winning a game, or a pennant, isn’t everything,” Antonio said.  “Sometimes the greatest gain, or lesson, can be found in losing a time or two.”

“We really want to win districts this season,” Collin said, admitting his yearn. “But I worry that maybe we used up all our good luck on that one season and, well, maybe now we’re cursed.”

“Ah, I see,” Antonio answered, thoughtfully.  He wondered if Collin thought that losing his father was part of a string of bad luck and that somehow he’d done something to bring such misfortune on his family.  “Hmmm, that’s a serious concern, that.” And Antonio sat down on the trawler’s port side, mid-ship.  Motioning for Collin to join him, he stroked his chin, thoughtfully.  Giving himself a minute, he pulled a cigar out of a pocket inside his jacket and lit it up, puffing on it to ensure it was lit.

“Good luck. Bad luck,” Antonio said, shaking his head as he puffed a bit more on his cigar.  “Did you know that I lost my Da, in January?”

Collin nodded a ‘yes’.

“So, that was bad luck, right?”

“Losing your dad is always bad luck,” Collin said, quickly.  He should know, Antonio thought to himself.

“Well, it’s a loss, for sure,” he agreed.  “But after my Da died, I came out here, right?”

“Yes, Rose said it was because he told you to.”

“Yep, I came because my Da told me to.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, better than just staying put and crying about him being gone. So, what’s happened since then?”

Collin could quickly tick off all the things that happened.  “You came here.  You beat up Marko, who deserved it and if I were bigger, I’d have helped you.  Now you and I play baseball together and you’re helping with fishing and, well, you’re dating my sister.”

“Yep.  All good things.”

“So, you’re saying it took bad luck to make good luck?” Collin was confused.

“No, I’m saying that these are just things that happen.  It’s part of life.  It’s what we do with these things.  It’s our determination to keep on going.  That’s not luck.  It’s perseverance.  It’s hard work, with a little faith thrown in.  That’s what matters.”

“So we make our own good luck,” Collin said, extrapolating.

“In a matter of speaking.  Good luck, bad luck, it’s not luck.  It’s just life.  It’s how we handle it by not giving up, by working through our grief and our loss.  That’s what makes all the difference.”

They sat for a moment, The Sea Horse rising and falling with the waves.  It was a sunny day, just like Antonio’s first day out on the water with Tomo, earlier in the week.  He thought how much changed in just a few days.  Collin seemed to join in his thoughts.

“A lot has happened in just a little while,” he agreed with Antonio’s silent conversation.

“And, over the past few months, you kept house so your sister could work, and your family could work through your grief of losing your own Da, like I lost mine.”  Antonio clapped the boy’s shoulder.  “Well done, Collin.  I’m proud of you.  Your father would be, also.”

Collin continued to look at the water then wiped his face with his sleeve.  Antonio was respectful to not mention he saw tears in the eyes of his young friend.   After a minute, he seemed composed again.

“Your cigar smells good,” he said, sniffing the air. “I’m hungry.  Did Rose and Anna pack food?”

Connections. Common Ground. They are the only thing

Ah boys, thinking with their stomachs!  And Collin's last comment signaled he was good on Antonio’s explanation.  Their connection led to common ground and a healthy discussion to sort things out for a grieving kid.

Vince Lombardi said “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.  And while I don’t always agree with Coach Lombardi on that theory, a similar thought comes to mind about Antonio and his ability to encourage and comfort young Collin.  Remember, this imaginary conversation, it took another 15 years before the Cubbies got their Goat Curse. I’d say it underscores the very real truth that good luck or bad, we really make our own by how we respond to the events and things going on around us.

It’s tragic to lose one’s father, at any age, like Collin and Antonio had each just experienced in their own lives.  Yet, not wallowing, finding a way through our grief. Connecting and helping one another…how we respond makes all the difference in our lives and the lives of others.

So, yes, the connections we make are so important.  It’s from this common ground, we can create camaraderie, friendship, a shared sense of purpose, and yep, even love.  And, you know I believe that love changes everything.

 

The more I thought of Rose Nicovich and her hundreds of whisky barrels, the more I wondered what life in Puget Sound was like during the waning days of Prohibition just as the Great Depression got underway.

I’d never written a historical fiction and romance before, so I figured I better figure it out.  Historical accuracy is important to me.  As I learned more, I was captivated by about how spot-on my dream was about Rose, her bootleg whisky, and, well, everything.  My journey went from the Internet to the phone and ultimately sent me to The Smith Tower; a Seattle edifice of the time that became a haven for both bootleggers and billionaires.

Seattle was one of the first to get the ball rolling with Prohibition, enacting a statewide ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol on January 1^st 1916…Oh snap, who wouldn’t LOVED attending a New Year’s Eve party in the diner at the Smith Tower that year?  If time travel exists, I know where I’m going, first.  Leading up to this new law were obvious signs; painted by a legion of piety, all decrying the lack of morals and impending downfall of their young state.

Don’t get me wrong, Seattle has always been progressive in terms of granting rights, to women in particular.  It was these same women in Washington who got a collective head of steam and led the state’s temperance movement, vilifying alcohol as the root of social decay and a destructive force to marriage and family.  Outlaw an easy-to-produce elixir and throw in the collective desperation of a Great Depression.  It was a foregone conclusion for one to become a bootlegger.

Meet Joe.   

Probably the most important character I met in my journey to understand the Smith Tower and her illustrious people was Joe Teeples, author of In the Shadow of the Smith Tower.  For research, Joe invested a couple years as a Smith Tower elevator operator, docent and guide. Over lunch, the phone and email, he gladly shared all that he learned.  He helped me really know each of these Seattle pioneers and the important role they played in our local history.

By the time prohibition ended, with the passage of the 21^st amendment in 1933, Seattle (and the Smith Tower) played host to thousands of people hell-bent on defying the law of the land.  At its height, there were around 4,000 speakeasies in and around town and millions of gallons of bootleg whisky consumed throughout Puget Sound.   Hypocrisy abounded throughout the country and nowhere more specifically than in prohibition-era Seattle.  Through Joe’s introductions, his became a guiding light to help these characters make their way to and from Cottage Bay.

Meet the extended “Fam”.

Teeples’ book introduced me to an extended network of real-life characters who played important roles in Prohibition-era Seattle, culminating around the time the Great Depression gets underway.  Through Joe I got to know folks like Rum Runner Roy Olmstead, a Seattle Cop-turned-Bootlegger whose wife, Elsie, hosted a nightly children’s story hour over the radio from the Smith Tower.  It’s said she used her show to broadcast codes warning Roy and his crew about impending police raids on bootleg whisky deliveries throughout Seattle’s waterfront.

She was so good, they never, ever, broke her code and she was never convicted of conspiracy to distribute bootleg whisky.  Rum Runner Roy was not so lucky.

There were other real-life characters that found their way into this story.  Agent Richard Fryant was a real-life expert at wire-tapping and hid out in the bowels of another local building eavesdropping on conversations, ultimately convicting ol’ Rum Runner Roy for his “crimes” of distributing whisky.  As a former peace officer, Roy forbid his crew to carry guns and they were a much different “mob” than what history traditionally holds from that era.  In contrast, Agent Fryant was a particularly bad egg and I thoroughly enjoyed ensuring he did NOT get his man in Cottage Bay.

Another favorite of mine was Hattie Freeman, the Smith Tower Switchboard operator.  I gave her a fictional cousin, Jessie, who served as Cottage Bay’s switchboard operator and police dispatcher.  Those two helpful souls made a powerful and effective team to blunt Agent Fryant’s work in town.

Meet Doc.

Probably my favorite character ran a speakeasy just up the hill from Smith Tower.  Visiting Joe at the Tower one day, I turned the corner to the ladies room and walked smack-dab into who is now my boyfriend, Doc Hamilton.  Well, really, I bumped into the life-size cut-out of his image.  He stands at the base of the main floor’s beautiful Mexican onyx marble hallway and staircase.  Joe actually took our picture together.

As a black man, in real life Doc Hamilton cut a unique figure in the community—he owned a night club in Seattle during a time when it was hard enough to run a restaurant and speakeasy as a white man.  Doc Hamilton gives up a story to be told more fully in the second book of this series, First Christmas in Cottage Bay, I am now writing.  Doc deserves a spotlight and to be fully known in a history that sometimes (often) sweeps people of color out of the timeline.

Along with these bootleggers and up-n-comers, there were major characters whose personalities came forth in the story.  Women like Bertha Knight Landes, who served as Seattle Mayor from 1926-28 and was the first female mayor of a major American City.  Another Mayor, Frank Edwards, defeated Landes, and was recalled immediately after his second election.  Drama! Oh My. 

Louis J. Forbes was yet another real character in Seattle history.  Forbes became Seattle’s Police Chief in 1928 during the Edwards’ administration and served until 1931.  During his tenure, he introduced modern communications, installing trial radios in several patrol cars.  He predicted that a future police force would be completely radio-patrolled.

In our story, Forbes served as host for the area Police Chiefs’ Ball, held in the Dome Ballroom of the Arctic Club, truly in the shadow of the Smith Tower.  I am enchanted with the tiffany-esque Dome Room and know you will be, too.

Learn a bit more.

There are several articles and books that helped me get a good feel for Prohibition and the Great Depression as well as how it impacted Seattle and the Puget Sound area.  Joe’s profile of the Smith Tower served as a guidepost that fueled my fascination with this pivotal era in both national and local history.  I share each story with you hoping you enjoy learning about these people and their places as much as I did.

In the Shadow of the Smith Tower, by Joe Teeples

How dry we were:  Piecing together facts and artifacts from Seattle’s Prohibition era, by Brad Holden, Seattle Times, April 21, 2019

Prohibition in Seattle, Seattle Municipal Archives, online exhibits

The Roaring Twenties and Prohibition, History.org

The Great Depression History, History.org

Prohibition in the Puget Sound Region (1916-1933), Historylink.org, by Brad Holden

A brief history of Prohibition-era Seattle, Sydney Parker, Dec 22, 2015

30 Women who Shaped Seattle, by Allison Williams, Seattle Met magazine, December 2019

Seattle Prohibition: Bootleggers Rumrunners & Graft in the Queen City, by Brad Holden

Lost Roadhouses of Seattle, by Brad Holden

The hidden history of the Arctic Building, by Meg van Huygen, July 20, 2017

 

 

 

 

The gravel made a companionable, earthy crunch as Rose walked from Cottage Bay’s library in the early spring twilight.

Just before a secluded forest area along her homeward route, she passed the row of small rental cottages. For the past two weeks, there stood the big man from Chicago. What was his name?  Tommy, Toby, Tony?  She knitted her brows, trying to remember what someone said earlier that week. Locals also said he was wise guy come to cause trouble. He dwarfed the covered porch, smoking a cigar. The glow lit up his face.

Tonight, Rose dared to look at him and said “good evening.”

“Nice night for a walk,” he replied, brown eyes crinkling kindly.

The Great Depression was in full swing and people were critical of newcomers. Rose felt abashed for her unfair judgement based on others’ gossip. She looked down at her worn brown loafers and entered the forest walk. The shoes didn’t really go with her grey cotton dress, but she had a long day and the shoes were comfortable.

Her mind drifted back to that Black Tuesday a few months earlier.  She never did get those new shoes.

A short way into the forest, Rose heard twin steps, like hers, behind her. Was the Italian man from Chicago following her? Deciding to be brave, she whipped around, arms encircling her small load of library books like a shield.

“Hello, Rosie,” said a dark and menacing voice. But it wasn’t the man from Chicago. Marko Sutich glowered over her lecherously, as if he were expecting something. The smell of bad whiskey assaulted her senses and she thought that it was ironic, given the fact that there was a national prohibition on the sale of alcohol. Which was why this fisherman’s daughter and her father decided to distill their own.

Hundreds of gallons of it, in fact, still sat aging in fresh American oak barrels in the hidden dirt-floor cellar of their home. The only problem was that when Rose’s father died from his heart attack on that fateful Black Tuesday after Thanksgiving, he left her without a plan. He was to sell this first batch of whiskey through his fishing contacts. She simply just didn’t know who they were, nor what to do.  The question haunted her day and night. What Rose knew for certain, was that during this season people weren’t paying a lot of money for freshly caught fish but, sure as the weather changes, they would put down whatever they had to buy bootleg whiskey.

Rose’s job as a Cottage Bay school teacher by day and now her second job as the afternoon librarian had kept her family afloat since her father died. Rose’s brother, Collin, was only nine years old and while he helped Rose so much around the house, there was little he could do to provide for the family.  Her mother, Sanja, took to her bed right after the funeral, only leaving that dark cave of grief for brief moments. It was a fight to clean her up and wash the bedding every few days.

And, it was a fight facing Rose in the twilight. Marko Sutich wasn’t calling on her to ensure safe passage home.  His drunken, angry smirk told her that, clear as if he’d announced his intentions out loud.

“Marko, you need to go home,” Rose said. “I told you, already, I don’t want to see you.”

“Oh, Rosie, you’re going to do much more than just see me,” Marko leered, his threat wove heavily around her like a noose. “After I’m done with you, it will take days to dig the gravel from your knees. You’ll have no other choice than to be my wife,” and he spat the words in his drunken rage.

“Oh, Hell no.” His vow made her mad. He went too far, threatening her with rape to make her his wife.

“Then you can join Maggie Flynn working at the Seafarer’s club, that’s all you’ll be good for.”  To punctuate his threat, Marko took a huge stride and shoved her, hard, onto the gravel pathway.

As Rose struggled to regain her feet beneath her, Marko unbuckled his belt and begin unzipping his pants.

That’s all he did, because a huge fist pounded itself into Marko’s jaw, sending him and his pants, which already sagged halfway down his legs, caterwauling end over end.

Marko crawled up, zipping his pants and buckling his belt, spitting on the gravel. Antonio stood in between them, his bulk becoming a formidable wall. Rose noticed that he didn’t have the refined features of what the movies showed of Italian mobsters. He was more like what she saw around her little fishing village filled with Croatian and Serbian immigrants.

“Do you want more?” Antonio asked, throwing his still-glowing cigar onto the path and crunching it like Rose knew he would do to Marko’s head.

Marko just turned and ran away, hollering over his shoulder, “I’m gonna get you, WOP,” using the slur that stood for With Out Papers. His weak threat made Antonio laugh out loud.

“You just do that. Come by any time. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Antonio turned to face Rose. He cradled her elbows as he helped raise her from the gravel pathway.  “You alright?” he asked, softly. It was almost a whisper.

“I’m. Just. Fine,” she willed herself not to cry, focusing on her skirt and straightening its dirty crumple caused a few moments earlier. Antonio knew she fought for composure, and offered his elbow. Rose reached for it, accepting his unspoken invitation.

“Of course you are,” he agreed. “Now, let me walk you home.”

“My brother will be waiting for me. Please don’t say anything. It would upset him too much.”

“Well, I should talk with your father about it,” he said.

“You could visit his headstone over at Cottage Bay’s cemetery,” she answered, with more than a small amount of irony in her voice.

“And mama is still in bed, so, she’s not much help, either. It’s been a tough winter and this would probably break her and my younger brother, Collin. And, truthfully, me, too.”

“I don’t want you to be broken. You, or your family,” he said, earnestly. “I will never tell them what happened, but in exchange, I’m your new escort. Just to make sure that he doesn’t threaten you again.”

Rose sized him up and made a decision. Her parents taught her to never judge a book by its cover.

“I’m Rose Nicovich,” she said, as if by giving her name she signaled agreement with his offer.

“Antonio Taramare,” he offered his free hand which Rose shook, sealing their arrangement.

“What brings you here, Antonio? Folks just don’t come to Cottage Bay,” and she leaned over to pick up the library books that were lying in a pile next to her.

“Maybe I came to fish?”  He bent down, lifting the books himself.

“Maybe.”

“What?” he laughed, his head tilting upward. “You don’t think I can fish?” he said with more than a little Chicago wise guy lilt. The pair continued on their path in a comfortable silence.

He reached over and gently handed the books to her.

“Oh, well, a fisherman and a gentleman,” she said, emphasizing the conjunction.

“I suppose I don’t look or sound like the fishing type.”

“I don’t think there really is a fishing type.”

“My grandfather gathered his family and fled his fishing village, Trieste, to escape the fighting of World War I,” Antonio explained to her as they walked along the forest path.

“Oh, so your family is from Northeast Italy,” she said.  “I read about how that part of Italy used to be part of the Hapsburg Monarchy and made up of Slovenians.” Rose tipped her cards. Librarians and teachers knew a little bit about a lot of things.

“Well, we are and we aren’t. That part of the world has always had its own identity. But, maybe like your father, my father loved the sea.”

“Oh, my father did love it,” Rose said. “And, he shared his love for it with his brother, my Uncle Tomo and our families. They live just down the street. Well, he does, my Aunt Sara passed away years ago in the flu epidemic.  My cousins, Tomo, Jr, and his youngest son, who is named Sebastijan after my father, fish with him and my dad and Collin, or at least they did. They have an older sister, Anna, who is just a couple years younger than me.”

“We left behind a big family behind in Trieste. Like yours, they fished together for generations. When his father took them away from the sea and brought them to America, My father, Giovanni, lived his life searching to find a life like it, here. Before I was born, my father moved our family from New York to Chicago and settled near Lake Michigan. It was supposed to be for only one year. And, well, we just stopped, there." He looked down at the ground, as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.  Rose could understand that. Talking about her father was also difficult. The loss was just too soon.

“He died just after the New Year. Just before he passed, he asked me to come out west and look for the sea. So, after I felt mama was ready, that’s what I did. I’m the last of her children not yet married, so I wanted to be sure she was looked after before I left.”

“And, you came here,” Rose said. “How did you think to look for Cottage Bay?”

“I just kept looking for a town and a people who made their lives around fishing,” he said. I started up north a ways. Found Poulsbo, but it was too much lefse-and-lutefisk and oom-pa-pa music for me.”

Rose laughed at him poking fun at the Norwegian town up the peninsula by about 40 miles by car, and a much shorter distance by boat.

“Oh, lefse is delicious,” she assured him. “When it’s warm, you can smear it with butter and cinnamon sugar, then roll it up and eat it; just one taste and you’d change your mind.”

“Well, you’ll never get me to eat lutefisk again, so just forgetaboutit,” Antonio said that last phrase, emphatically, sounding as Chicago Italian as Rose imagined they came. He even spoke with big arm gestures, by sweeping his hands outward as if in exclamation.

“Duly noted,” and Rose stifled a laugh. Antonio smiled back at her.

“I’m glad you are smiling. You are beautiful, especially when you smile,” he said, quietly. Rose blushed deeply. Maybe it was the compliment. Maybe the intimacy of his tone. After being saved from certain pain and anguish, Rose could be nothing but grateful. And, she was quietly remorseful for having not spoken to him sooner than just tonight on his front porch. He, too, was grieving from the loss of his own father. All the more acutely felt, she thought, having moved away from his family and friends. It was April; his father had been gone no more than four months. It was two months more freshly lost than her own father. She knew how it must still sting, like an open, raw wound.

They walked along with the wind gently shushing new leaves hanging on maple branches above them.  As if in quiet accompaniment, the fir needles joined in. The sound made a melodious percussion alongside evening song birds. It was a clear twilight. Who said it always rained in Washington State?  Stars twinkled through the trees and as they came into the clearing the pair could make out Collin waiting for his sister. He sat on the porch steps with the family dog, a retriever mix who panted and wagged his tail at Rose.

“I was getting worried about you,” he said and stopped petting the dog.

Clearly he took his role as the now man of the house seriously. Collin moved to grab something behind him and then kept his hands busy by working a baseball into a mitt he wore on his left hand.

“I’m sorry about that,” Antonio said, with the utmost respect. “We just met and I was talking more than walking. Won’t happen again.”

“Well, Buddy and I were about to come looking for you,” Collin said, trying to sound as grown up as possible for nine years old.  The dog, hearing his name, stood up and made a woof sound, begging for a pet. Antonio reached forward and indulged him.

“This is Antonio Taramare,” Rose said introducing him to her brother. “He just moved to town and I’ve invited him to have a late supper with us.”

Antonio turned to her, the surprise all over his face.

“I put that big black pot in the oven at four o’clock, just how you told me,” Collin said, proudly, not catching the unspoken conversation.

“You fellas keep yourselves busy and I’ll finish up getting dinner ready,” Rose directed over her shoulder as she climbed the porch steps and glided into the house.

Collin just looked down, and continued working the baseball into his glove. Buddy sat next to him, looking expectantly at the ball.  Clearly, he wanted to play.

“You just get that mitt?” Antonio asked, nodding at Collin.

“My dad gave it to me for my birthday, last fall,” Collin answered. “Haven’t really had a chance to break it in yet and our first game is week after next.”

“Well, why don’t I throw to you a bit,” Antonio offered. “Nothing breaks in a new mitt better than catching the ball.”

“Okay,” Collin answered, shrugging his shoulders. Antonio couldn’t tell if he really wanted to play a little catch with him, but he went with it anyway. He remembered what it was like to be nine. Baseball was pretty much what it was all about. Even when one was trying to act like it was no big deal.

So they took turns. Antonio would throw the ball in a solid line to Collin and, since Antonio didn’t have a mitt with him, Collin would toss it back gentle enough for Antonio to catch it with his bare hands. Then Collin remembered something. “Hey, my dad had a mitt,” he shot over his shoulder bounding up the porch and into the house. A few moments later he returned and tossed the mitt to Antonio.

Then they played a game of catch, back and forth. Sometimes Antonio would lob the ball high up into the air, simulating a fly ball. Other times, he’d pitch it on the dirt, so it rolled like a grounder. It was silent except for when Antonio would call out words of encouragement, “nice catch” or “good eye.”  Every once in a while they would indulge Buddy and throw a ball for him, who never seemed to tire of the game. He barked happily as Antonio and Collin threw the ball back and forth to one another.

After a bit, Rose came out onto the porch wiping her hands with a dish towel.

“Soup’s on, if you can tear yourselves away from the pennant game.”

It was a hearty stew, even if there were only little pieces of meat in it. Antonio specifically spooned for the potatoes, beans, and carrots and accepted a soft round bread roll. Collin tore into his dinner as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. They talked about baseball, with Rose nodding along with their conversation.

“Well, the Cubbies haven’t won a pennant since 1908,” Rose said, inserting herself when it came to a lull as the boys chewed their food. “And, you’re still a fan?”

Antonio was floored. She knew the game? The look on his face was funny to her and she laughed.

“Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I don’t follow baseball. It’s 1930, for heavens sakes. I actually played softball in high school.”

“Yeah, she’s really good,” Collin said, obviously proud of his sister.

“You cook like the top chef at Drake Brothers’ and you love baseball,” Antonio said. “What can’t you do? Seriously.”

“Change the oil on our truck,” Collin boasted. “But it’s okay because I like to work on engines. Dad taught me.”

“What’s Drake Brothers’?” Rose asked, chewing thoughtfully on her bread roll.

A woof from the dog and his tail wagging at the door interrupted her question and called out that familiar guests had arrived. In the door came a tall man, a young woman about Rose’s age, and two boys. Antonio guessed, rightly, it was family come a-calling.

“Oh, we’re too early,” the man said as he let himself in the front door.

“Not at all,” Rose said as she wiped her hands with a napkin and waved them in.

“Antonio, this is my Uncle Tomo, and my cousins, Anna, Tomo, junior, and young Sebastijan,” she said, standing up and walking toward all of them.

“I’m not that young,” Sebastijan, the younger, protested.

His dad ruffled the top of his head, “It’s just a figure of speech, Seb. He was named for his uncle, my brother, Sebastijan, who was Rose and Collin’s father. And that’s how we’ve always called him.”  He reached forward to shake Antonio’s hand as Antonio stood to greet him.

“Antonio Taramare,” he offered, shaking hands with the family patriarch. “I escorted Rose home from the library tonight,” and Antonio could tell that Tomo was sizing him up. Everything hinged on being accepted by the family’s newly assigned patriarch.

“I had a big bunch of books with me that I dropped on the way home,” Rose interjected. It was the truth.  Sort of. “Antonio heard it from his porch and came to help me. I invited him to dinner to thank him.”

“Well, I made a peach cobbler and it was too much for just us,” Anna interjected. She was the little mother of their household and knew the burden Rose now carried. Tomo never remarried after their mother died. Sanja stepped in and Anna learned quickly from her, caring for the boys who were only three and just a baby when the Spanish flu took its toll on their mother. “One of the boys said they heard Collin playing catch and I figured you could use dessert with dinner,” and she winked at Rose conspiringly when no one was looking.

“Oh, you must live close by,” Antonio guessed. He was glad that Rose and Collin had family looking in on them. It explained why Marko had to wait for a moment he knew she would be alone to pounce on her.

“Just through the field, on the other side of the property,” Tomo junior, said, thumbing that-a-way.

“We were just finished with dinner,” Rose assured them. “Let’s go into the living room, everyone.”

“I’ll help Rose with the cobbler,” Uncle Tomo said, taking the dish from Anna. She said nothing and arched an eyebrow at her father.

“What? Can’t a man help out in the kitchen once in a while?”

“It would be a first,” Anna laughed at her dad.

“You wound me, young lady.”

As everyone bustled into the living room, Rose busied herself getting a pot of coffee brewing. Tomo came alongside and said, “Who is this man?”

Rose, who had come to rely on Tomo so much over the past six months, had no pretense with her uncle.

“He saved me from Marko, tonight,” she said, plainly.

“Saved you? What do you mean?” Tomo asked in disbelief.

“I mean,” she took a deep breath, steeling herself. “Marko came at me in the forest. Stinking drunk. He had already thrown me on the ground. If Antonio hadn’t been there…” she trailed off.

Tomo gathered her into his arms. He understood. Rumors had been rampant about Marko and Maggie Flynn a few years ago. Some said she’d gone to him, willingly. Others, who spent more time with Marko than they liked, felt differently about that.

But Marko’s brother, Aleksander, was the Cottage Bay Chief of Police. No one dared accuse Marko; especially when Maggie moved away for a time and then returned to say nothing about what happened.  Maggie worked at the Seafarer’s Club; a private bar of sorts that skirted the rules of prohibition in a town whose residents openly disagreed with the law. Other than tending bar, since she returned Maggie kept to herself and was distant from her closest childhood friends, Rose and Anna.

Anna poked her head in the door, “Can I help with anything,” she asked, hopefully.

“Of course,” Rose said, wiping the corners of her eyes. “Take this tray out to everyone,” she pointed to the platter on the counter. “But would you put the little plates and forks on it? I’ll bring the coffee out in a moment.”

Tomo got there first, reaching for the plates, forks, and more napkins from the cupboard. He knew his brother’s family kitchen almost as well as his own. He lifted the tray and assured Anna he had it covered then made his way into the living room.

Anna came into the kitchen and poked her head into the icebox, withdrawing cream and putting together a quick coffee service, including sugar and small spoons. She and her cousin had a lot of practice helping each other. Nowadays, she helped almost as much at Rose’s home as her Aunt Sanja and Rose helped out at hers, starting from when her mother passed away.

“Thanks, Anna,” Rose said, genuinely.

“Oh, I just worried he was giving you the third degree,” she said, shushing her cousin. Truthfully, the girls, only two years apart in age, were more like sisters. Especially now, when Anna could give back to Rose the comfort and reassurance given to her when she lost her mother.

“He’s not that bad,” Rose laughed. “You know I’m glad you all are here.”

The girls brought coffee out into the formal living room to find the group talking baseball while Antonio and Tomo dished out peach cobbler.

“Well, I was only four years old when the Cubbies won the 1908 pennant,” Antonio was saying to the boys.  “But my father took our whole family to the last game against the giants.  It was something else, seeing the pitcher, three-finger Mordecai Brown, win the game like he did.”

“A pitcher with only three fingers?” Collin was incredulous.

“It was just amazing,” said Tomo. “Your father and I used to try to pretend we were Brown and Johnny Kling when we played baseball.”

“Who was Johnny Kling?” Sebastijan asked, working Collin’s baseball into his glove.

“He hasn’t even answered the question about Brown and his three fingers,” Tomo Junior said.

As Rose and Anna poured coffee for the grownups, Antonio nodded in thanks for his, “just black, please,” he said to Anna when she offered him cream and sugar. “So, Mordecai was a farm boy and because of an accident with a farm machine, he lost part of two fingers.  But, he spent years working to turn his disability into an advantage by perfecting a wicked curve ball. I remember watching as he relieved Jack Pfiester on the mound in that final game against the Detroit Tigers. I just knew the Cubbies would win the series.”

“What a memory,” Tomo Junior observed.

“Yes, it was. And, Johnny Kling was part of it.”

“How do you say?” Sebastijan asked.

“Well, from 1906 to 1910, the Cubbies won four National League titles and two world series. He was a big part of that, Noisy John, was.”

And they went one to talk about his role in chattering on the field and how the words shouted on-field made a big contribution to the psychology of the game. Anna gave a knowing look to Rose, and she winked, again. Rose smiled into her cup of coffee. This was good.

It was drawing to the end of the evening. Antonio knew it. He was the first to stand and make his apologies. “Well, tomorrow is another day. Probably time for me to turn in, much as I’d love to stay and talk baseball all night long.”

Tomo stood, next.

“Thank you,” he said. “It was a nice night and very nice to meet you, Antonio.”

“Well, Anna’s cobbler topped off a great meal. Haven’t eaten this well since leaving Chicago.”

“Charming. And diplomatic,” Anna observed, with more than just a little humor in her voice.

As they made their way out the door, two very large cats came up the porch steps and went into the house. Rose chuckled at the obvious surprise on Antonio’s face.

“The tortoise-shell colored one is Snap and the black and white is Dragon,” Collin said, pointing at each of the two cats then picking up the tuxedo cat as he wended his way around Antonio’s legs. “Even though Snap is a girl, it’s Dragon who is really sweet.”

“They both rule the roost around here,” Rose said. “Buddy does their bidding, not the other way around.”

“Well, these are two of the biggest cats I think I’ve ever seen,” Antonio petted Dragon whose purr sounded like a small motor. “And this one does seem very nice.”

“And, they earn their keep,” Collin boasted. “A couple of times a week, we find dead mice on the porch.  Rose and I think they are gifts and always thank them for their thoughtfulness.”

No one spoke about the fact that Sanja, Rose and Collin’s mother, stayed upstairs the entire evening.  What they didn’t know was that she sat on the risers listening to everything. It was the first time she’d ventured out of her room, un-coaxed, since her husband’s funeral six months prior.

The smell of cooking and coffee, and the laughter and talking, drew her out of her cave. She was disheveled. Raw. But, wiping her eyes, she sat listening to every word. Thinking. Sanja Nicovich was a thoughtful person.

The Second Black Tuesday of the Year

“Set it down wherever Rose says it should go,” Sanja Nicovich called down the stairs.

Sanja deemed the red velvet sofa too out of place for their front room.  Her husband, Sebastijan, usually called “Seb”, and her brother-in-law, Tomo, were pressed into service to stow it in the basement.  Everyone was restless this week after Thanksgiving. At the end of October, the Stock Market crashed. It rocked the country on what was already being called Black Tuesday. Now, the country was reeling and their Christmas season didn’t seem like it would be so merry and bright this year.

Sanja instinctively knew they all needed something to do today, an otherwise calm Tuesday. Since the Peninsula Hotel paid for their last order of fish with this sofa, instead of cash, it had been cluttering up the house and needed a new place to go. This afternoon was just as good a day as any and Operation Stow-the-Sofa was now well under way.

Sanja and Seb’s daughter, Rose, just home from her teaching job at Cottage Bay’s school, waited for the trio, pointing to the place in the basement, as if ‘X’ marked the spot.

“We’ve been sitting like hens on these milk crates for far too long,” she laughed. Once they set it down, she took a seat on the sofa, then scraped one of the wooden crates over and gave it double duty as an ottoman, kicking her feet upon it.

Brown hair streaked from the sun, she wore the same green eyes as her mother. Rose was tall for the time.  At 21, she stood eye to eye with most of the men she graduated with from the University of Washington in June. In 1929, women were rarely attending university for education, much less graduating with a double major, as Rose had done. It was a far cry from where her parents came from, her father, an immigrant Croatian fisherman, and her mother, a former brothel owner.

Both parents were equally proud when she brought her degrees in Library Studies and English home to Cottage Bay. Theirs was a quiet little fishing village tucked into the heart of Puget Sound, just across the water from Tacoma. Rose began teaching in the fall but during the summer her father tutored her so she could complete her apprenticeship in another profession: Bootleg whiskey production.

“Well, I know that the milk crates are staying,” Seb pointed out and grabbed one of his own, taking a seat next to his daughter. Tomo sat down next to his brother and the trio gazed across the expansive space, beyond where the cement floor became dirt.

Couldn’t miss that the two were certainly brothers. They were just two years apart in age, with nearly identical sandy brown hair and brown eyes. As fishermen, the pair were so active there wasn’t an ounce of extra girth on their lanky frames. Same was true for Sanja, with platinum highlights just frosting her brown hair, at least that’s what she called them instead of plain old grey hair. Rose loved that about her mother.  Sanja served as mother to Rose and her younger brother, Collin, who was just nine years old, as well as being a surrogate mother to her brother-in-law’s daughter and two boys. It kept her busy all day long, yet she seemed ageless.

Everyone’s attention was now fixed on the nearly 150 barrels of whiskey incubating where they were quietly stowed over the last few weeks. No one in their waterside community suspected a thing of this average, upstanding family. They were just simple fishermen, of course. At least that was what Seb hoped everyone would assume.  In fact, he had a plan to deliver both fish and whiskey via their purse seiners in the light of day, hiding in plain sight.

It would be quite an accomplishment if he pulled it off. Whiskey was illegal and as fisherman-turned-rum runners, they were now officially breaking the law. Desperate times called for desperate measures, Seb reasoned with himself as he stretched his arm. It had been aching lately and tugging the sofa down the basement steps hadn’t helped it any.

Sanja saw him flex as she navigated the steps, holding a tray with jelly jars bookending an assortment of cheeses in the middle. She gave him a stern look, as if to say, don’t push yourself, but was also mindful of her husband’s pride, so she wouldn’t say anything out loud.

Tomo looked warmly at his sister-in-law and got up to help her with the tray. He pulled over another wooden milk crate, turned it upside down and transformed it into a cocktail table. Her role was firmly established as the revered matriarch of the family. Everyone loved Sanja.

“Where are the boys,” Tomo wondered aloud to the room. “It’s awfully quiet upstairs.”

“They’re either still playing cards or if it’s not raining they might be throwing a game of catch.” Sanja had a mental radar for everyone in the family. “Tomo junior told me Anna will be over a little later because she wanted to study a bit. Some of her nursing classes are pretty tough right now.”

Seb got up from his seat, grabbed the glasses and picked up a wine thief on his way to the barrels.  He dipped the instrument into a barrel after uncorking it at the top. “Funny that it’s called a wine thief,” he laughed. “Since it also robs the whiskey barrel.”

“We’ll call ours a whiskey robber then,” laughed Sanja. She sliced up some cheese and handed small chunks, plus bread, over to her seatmates. Turning again toward her husband, Sanja patted the seat next to her—the sofa was big enough to handle all four of the Nicovich rum runners. He didn’t sit, though. After handing everyone a glass, he held out his hand in a motion to stop.

“Now, hold your horses, everybody,” he cautioned.

“I’ve got a second batch for you to taste, side-by-side with this one. I’ve been dying to sample it now that it’s been in the barrel a couple of months.”

Tomo sniffed his glass while Seb grabbled four more jelly jars and went further back, along the far wall.  “What’s this, brother?” he called out.

“You’ve got bourbon, there, that our Rosie made,” said Seb, and he nodded at his daughter. “But she also made a rye whiskey that we’re aging in our basement. Over in yours, we have more bourbon but also some blended whiskey, as an ode to my Canadian fisherman mentor.” All together, they had 300 barrels of illegal whiskey across both basements.

Returning with the other four glasses, now filled, he set them down on the tray atop an upturned milk crate and looked at everyone, expectantly, hands on his hips. They looked doe-eyed back at him, clearly waiting for instruction.

“Well, go on then,” he nodded, giving permission. “Stuff won’t drink itself.”

“Okay boss man,” his wife laughed.  “Which one do we try, first?”

“Try the bourbon, it’s sweeter. Then try the rye.”

The bourbon, boasting sugars from the corn, was indeed sweeter. It was still at full-proof, and very young, but the promise of months in the barrel was savored by each palette. Next came the rye whiskey, and while also new to the wood, it held a bite on the tongue that more than hinted to a delightful spirit.

“You did good, Rosie,” her father congratulated her. “You have a talent for this beyond anything I’ve taught you.”

“Well, it is alchemy as much as science,” Sanja observed as she sipped from her jelly glass.

“And you know our daughter is pretty magical at anything she puts her hand to.”

“The student becomes the teacher,” Tomo agreed. “This batch is better than any we’ve done, yet.”

Everyone nodded, including Rose, who savored the fruits of their labor, sipping and smiling. Despite the economy, the lean season, and the fact they were now criminals, she was happy. While people paid for their last catch of the season with things a red velvet sofa, they would fork over their last dime for a barrel of whiskey.

Things were looking up for the Nicovich clan. Rose mentally began writing a list of things to buy with their illegitimate profits, like new paint for both homes, Anna’s school tuition, and maybe a new pair of shoes. Her brown loafers were practical but not so pretty.

A nice glow now covered the room, from more than the hurricane lantern and casement windows.  Sebastijan stood and stretched again. His arm still ached.

Beyond the house, the trio could hear laughter and shouting. “The rain must have stopped and the boys are outside playing a game of catch,” said Sanja, arching an eyebrow at her husband and Tomo.

“We should join them,” Seb said, nodding to his brother.

Tomo nodded his head in agreement. The brothers bounded up the basement steps, through the front door and onto the porch, eager to play a game of catch with their boys.

And that’s where Seb clutched his chest and fell. He was dead before he hit the floor.