Hazel tightened up her father’s jacket
against the cold air. The trick would be to keep it open enough so
as not to reveal her feminine curves, but tight enough that it
would not get in her way. She’d need to have access to the hidden
gun tucked in her waistband.
She reached up to run her hands through her
hair out of long running nervous habit, and at that moment the
reality of the situation hit her full force like an oncoming train.
The beautiful, curly hair her father always loved and got her
attention at the clubs, now roughly hacked off and piled up in a
washroom back home. She doubted it would be in any condition to
sell for wigs, but no way could her father’s hat have fit even with
it all bundled up. How she’d ever be able to go on stage after
tonight Hazel did not know. She wasn’t even sure there would be
another performance after tonight. Even if she lived, Hazel wasn’t
sure she’d have the heart to keep on singing. She feared what she
would learn this night would change her life so completely that she
didn’t know where things would go next.
Hazel crept slowly and carefully through the
hallways of the old abandoned clothing factory. To think, at one
point this place employed many people who made the very kinds of
clothing her grandfather sold in his shop. Also, it would be the
very same factory where her then dockworker father met her mother
when the family came to tour the location. Tonight, Hazel vowed to
find the person who had called for her father’s murder and bring
that person to justice, closing a chapter in her life.
At one point, she saw the man Cora called
Bertram standing on the other end of a scaffold walk, looking down
on an empty factory floor that once mass produced clothing. She
stepped out on the scaffold walk, and it creaked, causing him to
turn.
“Cora?”
Bertram turned, and realizing his visitor
was not Cora, he turned and fled.
Hazel chased the man down the corridors of
the abandoned factory, down hallways that seemed as if they would
go on forever. The object of her pursuit definitely gained an
advantage by knowing the area far better than she. Still, Hazel
refused to give up. This person stole her father’s life, and that
of the man who managed her singing career. Even after all these
years, it seemed this person made it his business to destroy her
life. Hazel drove herself to make sure that would not come to
pass.
Around corners and up stairwells she
followed her target, all the way to the top floor. She just barely
managed to keep him in sight, though the unfamiliar shoes slowed
her somewhat. Hazel didn’t dare call after the suspect to distract
him as that would give away her identity, and the tables might
easily turn if the man realized his pursuer to be female.
At last, her target ducked into the old
foreman’s office at the end of the hall. It dead ended here with
nowhere else to go. Unless, perhaps as Hazel did herself to leave
home, her target knew a way to safely get out the windows. She was
not going to hesitate any longer to give him the opportunity.
Hazel Atwood looked into the eyes of the man
she knew gave the orders to end her father’s life, and that changed
her Aunt’s life forever by abandoning her with a child. Staring him
down without fear Hazel found herself looking at a pair of eyes
which showed no ounce of compassion for humankind. They reflected
back a cold, heartless, wooden sort of soul. Now she struggled to
maintain a poker face, to not let him see the shattered little soul
left behind when her daddy went away.
My heart it aches remembering you
And everything you used to do
But now you’ve left and gone away
Leaving me alone to stay
It’s all tragic like a torch song
Hazel heard her heartbeat race more and
more, just like the intensity of the song increasing. Tension
gripped her muscles as her finger moved to activate the trigger
just as her father showed her as a little girl. He told her someday
she’d need to defend herself.
Time has passed and still I know
My heart it cannot let you go
You still live on inside
And I have nowhere to hide
It’s all tragic like a torch song
That moment would be today. Right now would
be an act of protection, but also an act of vengeance. If she did
this, the man would never be able to hurt anyone again. Not like
he’d hurt a teenaged girl named Hazel Atwood, and certainly
countless others.
She heard the sound of the bullet leaving
the gun, of her target’s body hitting the wall from the force of
the blow. Hazel took in the slithering sound as he slid down the
wall and collapsed in a heap to the floor. She hadn’t missed. Daddy
taught her well.
Then Hazel realized the shot hadn’t been her
own, and that she in fact heard the sound of a bullet whizzing past
her. Hazel looked at Bertram, clutching desperately at his chest as
blood oozed out from it.
Slowly Hazel turned to look behind her to
find her former singing manager’s wife standing there, holding a
smoking gun pointed in Bertram’s direction. Her eyes emanated sheer
anger. Slowly the woman lowered the gun.
“Cora, toots,” Bertram coughed as he
struggled to speak. “It didn’t have to end this way. Your husband
wasn’t any good for you. That’s why I offed him, so you would see
the light and come with me where you’ve always belonged.”
Cora didn’t respond but kept the gun
lowered. Hazel walked over to Cora, who stood rigidly with the gun
still in her hand.
“You want him to die, don’t you?” Hazel
deduced. “Cora, this won’t bring your husband back.”
“Stop meddling, Atwood! My poor late husband
was a good man who just got in the way. That’s not what this is
about. Bertram and I, we’ve got more personal matters to deal
with.”
Bertram collapsed to his knees, having lost
enough blood to no longer be able to stand fully.
“I should shoot you back for what you’ve
done,” he coughed. “But I can’t bring myself to.”
Hazel focused on Cora. “Listen, Cora. I’m
going to try and save him. If you feel you need to shoot me, I’m
not going to stop you. But I can’t let him die. I now realize I was
wrong.”
Hazel ran over and tried to do what she
could to help stop the bleeding, but made sure to keep talking to
Cora. “Cora, your husband paid me to follow you around. He feared
you were getting in deep with some sort of trouble. I know that you
had an eye on Bertram. So why shoot him?”
“He wouldn’t give me what I wanted,” Cora
said coldly. “All the money and the power, and I could not get the
one thing I wanted most.”
“What could be so important that it’s worth
possibly getting sent to jail?”
Cora stood there quietly and did not answer.
Hazel finished what she could to help Bertram.
“Why are you doing this?” he spoke
quietly.
“My father may be long dead thanks to you,
but my Aunt Luella Wall is still very much alive and deserves to be
able to come face to face with the man who ran out on her and
changed her life.”
Just then, Hazel looked over at Cora,
shocked to find that Cora had it pointed at both Bertram and
herself.
“Cora, what are you doing?”
“You said that your Aunt who runs the
clothing store is Luella Wall.”
“Yes I did,” Hazel replied, stunned. “But I
don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“Luella Wall happens to be my birth mother.
She gave me away. She doesn’t love me.”
Hazel slowly looked back at Bertram laboring
for breath. Things started to click into place. That meant Cora and
Bertram’s relationship never was romantic in nature. If Cora’s
statement held true, then she would be Bertram and Luella’s
daughter.
“So the one thing you wanted from Bertram
was the love of a father and he couldn’t give it.”
“Finally she gets it,” Bertram whispered.
“You’re slower at putting the pieces together than your old man. I
knew Luella hired him to track me down years later but at the time
I didn’t know why this gumshoe tailed me. Finally one night me and
some of my boys ambushed him, and tortured him until we made him
sing. Then I learned about all the connections, and about Cora,
though he didn’t know her name. Your father may have been a big,
strong man, but in the end we took control, and his life with it.
Sadly, he also found out too much about what was really going on
with my plans. Couldn’t let that knowledge get out.”
Now anger swelled within Hazel. Bertram
reminded her of the original mission, why she undertook all this to
begin with. Originally she’d saved his life to try to allow her
Aunt closure, but now that she knew Cora to be the missing
daughter, things took a very different turn.
“All those years my Aunt Luella suffered
after being led astray by a scum like you. My father lost his life
on your orders while trying to find you after you fathered Cora.
Cora’s birth kept my Aunt Luella from ever finding a happy life.
Now Cora, you’ve tried to kill Bertram. I’m beginning to wonder how
I can let either of you keep living; your existence continues to
hurt me and the people I love.”
“Looks like I’ll be making my exit soon,”
coughed Bertram. “It’s curtains for me, toots.”
Bertram fell back limp, dead. Hazel looked
over at Cora, whose face remained emotionless.
“For goodness sakes, he’s your father! Don’t
you feel anything?”
“No. Neither of my parents loved me. Why
should I feel for them?”
“That’s not true. Luella didn’t want to give
you away. Let me take you to her, introduce you.”
“I’m really not interested.”
Hazel heard the click of the gun. Without
pause, Hazel shot at Cora before Cora could shoot at her. Her
father trained her well in hopes she would be ready for
self-defense. To Hazel Atwood, tonight’s actions constituted a sort
of self-defense—the protection of the emotional self. She hoped her
Dad would forgive her for the shootings, wherever he might be. As
to what Aunt Luella might think, she didn’t know how in the world
she would tell her.
“Well played, Hazel Atwood. Welcome to the
family.”
Hazel looked up at the man whom she’d found
captivating from the moment they met.
“I don’t understand.”
“My name is Edmund Atwood. You are my
granddaughter, and your father was my son.”
Hazel looked at him doubtfully. “My father
said all his family was dead.”
Edmund shook his head sadly in the negative.
“He did not mean it in the literal sense, my child. By that turn of
phrase he meant dead to him. In your father’s youth, we lived well,
and he dreamed of being a police officer. His mother then got sick,
and caring for her meant he couldn’t complete the schooling he
needed. After her death, he got mad at our family and left to forge
his own future to not be reliant on us.”
Hazel shuddered at the idea she’d been
captivated by the man who now appeared to be her grandfather and
somehow quite all right with being absent from her life for
years.
“But you look like you are doing well enough
for yourself without your wife or your son, or caring about your
granddaughter.”
“When the market crashed, I lost all my
money. That’s why I went into the speakeasy business. Ultimately,
when I needed someone to look into why my booze runs stopped
happening. When I told you at our earlier meeting that I’d wanted
out, that only became true after my son died; after that, all the
booze profits in the world didn’t mean much. Turned out Bertram was
rerouting the profits for himself. I hired my son. I knew that he
and his little girl really needed the money, and he finally gave in
to his pride and took it. I didn’t know I would send my own son to
his grave. All I have left is my newfound money, but it doesn’t
make me happy. I want someone to share it with.”
Hazel looked around her at the dead bodies
of Cora and Bertram.
“Even someone you’ve seen just kill
someone?”
“Yes, even so. In fact, we better contact
the police to clean up this mess. Tell them that you shot in
self-defense before they could hurt either one of us. Which is the
truth after all, at least as far as you’re concerned.”
Hazel looked down at the dirtied clothes she
wore.
“And how exactly am I supposed to explain
this?”
“You’re an entertainer, my dear. Surely you
can come up with some sort of costuming reason that explains the
outfit and hair, and how it just so poorly timed with ending up
here. As to why you were here, admit that you came here to meet
your grandfather. No sense hiding it now. The bodies will have this
all over the news.”
Hazel and Edmund headed out the foreman’s
office door.
“So what were you doing here anyway? Did
they kidnap you? Were they planning to hold you for ransom?”
“My reason for being here was to complete a
business transaction, one I didn’t expect to live through. But you
saved me.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Bertram and I were to meet here and go over
the final papers for him to buy this abandoned factory from me. He
didn’t know it was me, all he had was a company that I controlled
but I wanted to carry this final step out personally. I’d done it
as a trap to hope to lure him back into town, but also hoped you’d
figure out who he was in time and get here as backup since I
figured Bertram would want to take all the money I have—which you
did and I thank you.”
“Thank you, I guess,” Hazel said. “You got
plans for this place? Now that the deal’s off I mean.”
“Actually I do have a thought,” Edmund said
as they walked outside into the dark night. “I was thinking it
might make a good converted nightclub once the investigation wraps.
The history may add some mystery and intrigue. Our nightly main
attraction performer spot would be open. Would you be interested? I
hear it’s a passion of yours.”
Hazel looked over at the newfound member of
her family, still a bit dumbfounded and dazed by it all. “Maybe
tonight won’t end tragic like a torch song after all.”