“Would you step out of the car, please?” Tommy asked.
I could barely stand and found I had to lean against the fender for support. Too late, I noticed that the blanket had slipped off, exposing my cargo in the back seat. I watched in a daze as Tommy uncorked one of the bottles and sniffed. How could this be happening to me?
“I’m going to have to arrest you, Harriet,” Tommy said. He seemed truly surprised. I was even more surprised. Unlike my great-grandmother Hannah, I had been caught with the goods!
“So you see?” I told Tommy, “I did it to help a friend in need. Bertha and Lyle have two small children, and I don’t have anyone to worry about but myself. I don’t intend to make a career of rum running, and neither do they. I just wanted to do a good deed.”
I didn’t tell Tommy, but after thinking about it for the past twenty-four hours, I also think that I did it because I was angry with all of the maddeningly heroic people in my family: Great-Grandma Hannah, who helped free millions of slaves; Grandpa Horatio, who saved an entire town; and Grandma Bebe, who not only conquered Demon Rum in our family and our town but also helped the entire nation go dry. And even my lovely, shallow, socialite mother was about to succeed in a way that would change the life of every woman in America. And what had I ever done?
“I come from a long line of heroes and heroines, Tommy, and I wanted my chance to be brave. But there aren’t any more causes to fight for. I’ve been left out and left behind. I’m plain-faced and ordinary. And now, apparently, I’m also a criminal.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea,” Tommy said, looking up at me. “You’re not plain-faced. And you’re certainly not ordinary.”
“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if I believed him. I wondered if he believed me.
“The funny thing is,” Tommy said, leaning back in the booth, “I believe your story.”
“You do?”
“No one could make up something as wild as that,” he said with a grin.
I felt only a small measure of relief. “So I guess Lyle was right. I guess the police were watching his house, after all.”
Tommy’s brow furrowed. “I wasn’t watching his house. I stopped you because you were driving too fast.”
“You’re joking!”
“No. When I saw that it was you, I was going to let you go with a warning—but then I spotted all those bottles in the back seat and I had no choice.”
“The blanket must have slipped off.”
“Apparently. The liquor was in plain sight.”
“Poor Lyle,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t know how he’ll ever pay back all the money he owes. Some very big people are going to be awfully mad at him.”
The furrow in Tommy’s brow deepened, but I didn’t think he was worried about Lyle and Bertha. “So that means . . . Lyle’s customers must still be waiting for their delivery,” he murmured.
“I suppose they are. . . . Why? What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking that if I called in some federal agents to help me, we could go raid the place. You had an awful lot of alcohol in your car, Harriet, so I’m guessing it must be a very large operation.
Do you still have the address?”
“I do.”
Tommy leaned forward, his gaze intense. “Listen, if you give it to me and we’re able to catch the big guys, maybe the judge will be more lenient toward you and your friends for cooperating.”
I did some quick thinking, and I didn’t like Tommy’s idea. “Your plan would get my friends into trouble, and right now you don’t have any evidence against them. The liquor was in my car. But if you go crashing in to catch the bad guys, they will think Lyle tipped you off. And if Lyle doesn’t pay back the money he borrowed, he and Bertha will be even worse off than when they started.”
“Maybe so, but—”
“I have a better idea. Let me make the delivery and collect Lyle’s money first. Then you can move in and make your arrests.”
“I can’t involve you in this. It’s much too dangerous.”
“Well, I’m not giving you the address unless we do it my way.”
I crossed my arms and lifted my chin. Tommy would recognize the pose.
“Now, Harriet—”
“Look, I was going to drive there last night and make the delivery, so how is this any more dangerous? Please, let me try to undo some of the harm I’ve already done.”
We argued about it until we had each drunk enough coffee to keep us awake for a week. In the end, Tommy reluctantly agreed with my plan, since it was the only way he would ever make the arrest and close down a secret gin joint. We walked back across the street to the police station. Night had fallen by now, and it was dark outside.
I sat in a wooden chair in the back room and listened while Tommy made some phone calls and enlisted two federal agents to help him. “Okay, it’s all set up,” he finally told me. “Your car is still behind the police station, where my partner parked it last night. The alcohol is in the evidence room, but we’ll put it all back in the car. . . . Listen, are you sure you won’t change your mind and just give me the address?”
“Quite sure.”
I watched the police load all of the liquor into my car. I felt exhausted. I hadn’t slept very well last night on that squeaky iron bunk, and I just wanted to get this over with and go home.
“I still have reservations about this,” Tommy said as I slid behind the steering wheel. “I don’t like putting you in danger.”
“You didn’t put me in danger. I did it to myself with my misguided notion of becoming a heroine. Besides, you’ll be watching out for me tonight, right?”
“Every step of the way.”
“And listen, Tommy. Please wait until I drive away so the bad guys won’t think Lyle tipped you off. And please let him and Bertha keep the money. They really need it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Thanks. Okay, then,” I said with a sigh, “let’s get going. I have a Sunday school lesson to prepare, remember?”
I put the car in gear and drove away, careful not to speed this time. My nerves felt jitterier than they had last night—but that might have been from all the coffee. The address Lyle had given me was on the other side of town and belonged to a run-down warehouse next to the brickyard. I could see the dark void of the river behind it and Garner Park in the distance. Tommy and his agent friends would be disappointed if this turned out to be just a storage facility and not a gin joint, after all. Presumably he had followed me, even though I hadn’t seen his car’s headlights.
I pulled around to the back of the building as Lyle had instructed me to do. The windows were all boarded up, but I did see a door. I parked as close to it as I could and got out of the car. I knew that I should have been nervous or excited or something, but I wasn’t. I felt wide awake from all the coffee, but otherwise numb. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman wearing a lot of lipstick and rouge opened it a moment later. I was relieved to hear lively music and laughter coming from inside. It was a gin joint. Tommy would be pleased.
“I have a delivery from Lyle,” I told her.
“Just a moment.”
She closed the door, and as I stood waiting in the shadowy alley, I suddenly realized why Tommy had been worried about my safety. These people could tie me up and toss me into the river and keep both the liquor and the money. Who would ever know? I hoped he was watching out for me.
The door opened again, and three burly men came out. I backed up a few steps, but they were interested in my cargo, not me. The woman held the door open for them, counting the bottles as they carried the crates inside. When they finished, she pulled a fat wad of bills from her pocket and paid me.
That was it. The end of my adventure. The police didn’t swoop in with guns blazing, as I half expected them to do. The alley was quiet except for a train whistle in the distance. Tommy and I hadn’t discussed what I should do afterward, so I got back into Grandma’s car and drove to her house. She was in her nightgown and robe.
“Where in the world have you been?” she asked when she saw me. “You look like someone dragged you through a mud puddle.”
“You would never believe it.”
“You joined the circus and they shot you out of a cannon?”
“No . . . I spent last night and all day today in jail.”
“Oh, dear. Well, you’d better sit down and tell me all about it.” I followed her into her dining room, then halted in shock when I saw her table. It was bare! I was looking at a shiny wooden tabletop for the first time in my life. There wasn’t a paper or leaflet in sight—only my grandmother’s Bible lying open on top of it.
“Grandma! What happened?”
“I cleaned my table off,” she said with a flip of her hand. “And it was about time, too, don’t you think? But sit down, dear, and tell me why you were in jail.”
I drew a breath as if I were about to leap off Grandma’s swing into the river. My words all came out at once. “I’m only out on bail and I’m still in a whole lot of trouble, but Tommy said he would testify in court that my story was true and he thinks the judge might be lenient with me because I cooperated with the police and helped them arrest the really bad guys.”
I had just thrown a great deal of information at her, but when I paused to take another breath, she had only one question for me. She smiled when she asked it. “Who’s Tommy?”
“Huh? . . . Oh, you wouldn’t believe that, either.”
“Try me.”
“He’s Tommy O’Reilly, the police superintendent’s son. Remember the bully whose shins I used to kick all the time? Well, he grew up to be a policeman, and he’s the one who arrested me last night.”
“For kicking him in the shins?”
I shook my head. I felt close to tears because I was afraid to tell her the truth. “I was only trying to help a friend, Grandma. I wanted to do something brave and noble and heroic like you and Mother and Great-Grandma Hannah did. I even prayed for help the way Hannah did, and asked God to blind Tommy’s eyes, but it didn’t do any good. He saw what I had in my car, and he arrested me.”
“I’m guessing you weren’t hiding slaves.”
“No,” I mumbled. “Alcohol.”
“I see.”
“I don’t understand why God didn’t answer my prayer like He did for Hannah. She broke the law, too, by helping slaves escape.”
“Prayer isn’t a magic trick, Harriet. When my mother prayed, it was to a Savior she knew and loved and talked to all the time.”
I propped my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. “I’m so sorry, Grandma. I know you must be so disappointed in me. I know how hard you fought for this law and how much you hate alcohol, and the only reason I did it was because a friend was in trouble and she has two small children who were going to suffer, and besides, I wasn’t going to drink any of it or make any money for myself, but even so, I wouldn’t blame you if you were furious with me and—”
“Harriet, Harriet . . . I’m not angry with you.” She stood next to my chair and wrapped her arms around me, resting her cheek on my hair. I hugged her tightly in return and sobbed. When I finally stopped crying, she sat down on a chair beside me.
“You’re right, I have worked hard to make certain that alcohol was banned. I’ve devoted my entire life to temperance because I saw how much pain and suffering alcohol caused. But you know what? Every day now I read in the paper about the crime spree that Prohibition has caused, and I wonder if I’ve been fighting the wrong battle all these years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus’ harshest words were for the moral guardians of His day—the Pharisees. They wanted to dictate morality, too, but Jesus called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs. It isn’t our calling as Christians to write laws that force people to live moral lives. As much as our communities might need it, and as bad as things are, imposing our morality on others isn’t the answer. It doesn’t work. People may be forced to give up alcohol, but they are still going to hell. That’s our calling—to bring people to Christ—not to force them to behave the way we want them to or to solve all their external problems.”
She reached for my hand and held it in her own. Her skin felt as soft and fragile as tissue paper. “We can make stricter laws, Harriet, but people will just figure out a way around them if their hearts are hardened. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, but it couldn’t make people accept the Negroes. They’re still hated and treated unfairly and given only the poorest paying jobs. When the suffrage amendment passes and women are allowed to vote, there will still be many more battles to win. Men who are biased against women aren’t going to treat us equally overnight. No, there aren’t enough laws in the world to change human nature. We’ve had the Ten Commandments since Moses’ time, and people still murder and steal every day. Only God can change people.”
“But your work wasn’t in vain, Grandma, just because people are breaking the Prohibition laws.”
“That’s true. But I’ve come to realize that our short time here on earth isn’t about what we accomplish, but about what sort of people we become. I’m at the end of my life now, but when I look back on the work I’ve done, I see that God was using it to teach me to care about someone besides myself. He’s been working compassion in your mother, too. And also in you, judging by the risk you just took for your friends. And God also uses our circumstances to teach us to rely on Him. That was the first lesson I ever learned when I helped deliver those slaves in our wagon. That’s why my mother brought me with her in the first place. She told me that we grow stronger every time our faith is tested. That’s how we learn to trust God.”
“Am I ever going to get a real task to do?” I asked. I gestured to her barren dining room table. “Look—your work is all done. Even the table is finally cleared off. And Mother’s suffrage amendment only needs one more state to approve it and it will become a law, too. What’s left for me to accomplish?”
“Harriet, God has already given you a task to do for Him.”
“He has? What is it?”
“Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
I sighed. “Where in the world do I begin doing that job?”
Grandma smiled. “Why, you start by teaching your Sunday school class tomorrow.”
It seemed like a very paltry beginning.