Page 7

Carly

Yawning, I poured myself a cup of coffee, enjoying the peace and quiet before Drew woke up. Leaning against the counter, I brought the hot cup to my mouth and took a sip while I stared out the window of our apartment. It looked to be another chilly day in the Big Apple.

Not that I would know.

I rarely left the apartment.

Heading over to my desk, I booted up my computer and took a seat while I waited for the black screen to change to blue.

For the last several months, I’d been digging into my grandfather’s past, and while it wasn’t pretty, I was finally getting somewhere.

Well, at least I thought so.

Like most things that wanted to stay hidden, I had to dig and dig for any nugget of information. Like when I sent off for William’s birth certificate. What should have been a straightforward task turned into another mystery, because when I sent off for it, I got back two of them. Both were issued by the State of California, but each had conflicting information. If that wasn’t bad enough. The birthplace for William’s father was also from two different states.

One in California, the other in Nebraska.

One certificate showed John Franklin Doherty, William’s father, was born in California in 1918, but the certificate listed his mother’s name as unknown.

The other stated that John Frances Doherty was born in 1917 in Nebraska. That certificate listed William’s mother’s name as Hyacinth Rose McGregor, born in 1924 in Nebraska.

After looking into Hyacinth Rose, I found something interesting. Hyacinth Rose McGregor was the daughter of Kellen McGregor and a woman name Kathleen Reynolds, who just happened to be the great-great aunt of Darrin Reynolds, the very man who raped Remi and made life a living hell for the Golden Skulls, and that’s when everything began to fall into place.

Not only was I able to trace William Doherty’s genealogy all the way back to his great-grandfather, Adam Doherty, but it also opened the door to the truth of the Doherty Family line and the creation of the Golden Skulls. According to online documents and newspaper articles of the time, the club wasn’t really a club back then. More like a gathering place for locals to sit around, drink, and have a good time.

However, in 1920, things got really interesting when the United States government cracked down and prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale ofalcoholic beverages.State legislatures curtailed the alcohol industry, and then the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution formally introduced nationwide Prohibition on January 16, 1919, thus beginning the Golden Skulls.

The club wasn’t originally a motorcycle club.

It was a bootleg operation that produced and sold alcohol to the surrounding towns. And a very profitable one, according to the newspapers. My research showed the club thrived until 1923, when an unknown assailant beat and sexually assaulted Frances Doherty, leaving her for dead in the woods behind the clubhouse. The police interviewed everybody associated with the club, except two members who disappeared without a trace, also taking off with all the money the club had made. As to who those two men were, the papers never identified them, only saying associates of the club were suspects.

Yet for Frances Doherty, her nightmare ended tragically when she died giving birth to a son, John Doherty, William’s father. To make matters worse, the Doherty Family refused to take in the infant and wanted the child to be placed in an orphanage when Brian Doherty decided to raise his sister’s bastard within the club and outside the law.

Soon, members of the Golden Skulls delved deeper into crime. Investigators linked several members of the club to numerous bank robberies and murders in the region. Though the local police could never pin anything on the club or its members. Over the years, the club grew and so did its criminal activity.

Then, everything just stopped. One minute, the club was the most feared outlaw gang in Nebraska, then almost overnight, they disappeared. Vanished, as if they never existed, until the club reappeared in California shortly after the Vietnam War.

Leaning back in my chair, I looked at all the documents and files I had accumulated since Mother’s death and the death of the Society , knowing the answer I sought was in there somewhere. I just had to piece it all together. I still wanted to know why William turned bad. But now, I was more interested in who the two missing members were and where they went, and that’s when I remembered Justin’s words about everything being connected.

Frowning, I leaned forward and typed George Stone into the search bar. Instantly, hundreds of articles, pictures, and newspaper clips appeared, along with a family genealogy.

Clicking on the link, I sat up straighter when I saw that the Stone Family didn’t originate from New York like almost everyone believed. Gregory Stone, the founder of the Soulless Sinners Motorcycle Club, was born in Nebraska, yet married a woman named Ophelia Sumner in New York in the summer of 1927.

“Now that’s interesting,” I whispered to myself.

“Mom, are you talking to yourself again?”

“Only when it’s important.” I smiled at him as I stepped away from my desk.