Girl Waits with Gun

by Amy Stewart

  Fleurette turned back to the man handling our registration. “Did you think I was with the circus?” she asked, incredulous.

  The world’s tallest man stepped in before the clerk could compose an answer. “A little thing like you?” he said. “We’d put you on the trapeze. How do you like heights?”

  Norma couldn’t stand it any longer. She took Fleurette’s arm and dragged her across the lobby, leaving me to sign the register and take the key from the clerk. The circus man apologized to me but then said, “You’re not quite the world’s tallest girl, but we could find something for you.”

  Fleurette, still straining to hear us, shouted, “My other sister’s got a bird act!”

  Norma nearly yanked her off her feet, and they disappeared behind a wide stone column, one of Fleurette’s blue feathers sailing along behind them.

  WE WERE GIVEN A SUITE of two small rooms and a private bath on the fifth floor. I was reminded immediately of the Mandarin. Although our rooms in Newark looked out not over Fifth Avenue but over Broad Street, giving us a view all the way to the courthouse where our trial would commence in the morning, they had the same cosmopolitan air about them. Both the Continental and the Mandarin furnished their hotels with the busy city-dweller in mind, offering small and well-appointed writing desks and leather armchairs for reading under the electric chandeliers.

  Fleurette set about exploring our rooms as if she were snooping around someone’s bedroom, opening drawers, peeking into the closet, lifting the sheets, and looking under the mattress. “I’d like a room just like this,” she said once she’d examined every corner of it.

  Norma didn’t voice any opinion of the room, but dropped into a chair and pulled her shoes off with a great sigh of relief. “I wonder if we can have supper on a tray,” she said wearily.

  “On a tray!” Fleurette said. “In here? Aren’t we going to dine downstairs with the circus?” She was already tearing through her trunk in search of a dress that would make precisely the right impression on a room of circus performers. I very much hoped she didn’t own such a thing.

  Norma gave me a desperate look—she hated to eat in a room full of strangers and had always detested restaurants and lunchrooms—and for once I agreed with her. We needed to rest and settle our minds before the start of the trial.

  “I’m sure they can send something up,” I said. “Norma’s right. We don’t need any more excitement tonight. We have a very important job to do tomorrow.”

  Fleurette flopped across the bed and rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “I think we deserve one nice evening out before we have to sit in a stuffy courtroom all day.”

  I sat down next to her and pulled her chin toward me. “We’re not just sitting,” I said. “Remember what the sheriff has told you. Our testimony will make all the difference. We have to do the best we possibly can. Don’t you want to see Mr. Kaufman punished for everything he’s done?”

  “I suppose,” Fleurette said carelessly. “Only—did you really mind so much?”

  “Mind what?”

  “Henry Kaufman. I mean, wasn’t it the most interesting year of our lives? We learned to fire a gun and, and rode in an automobile, and you got to run around with the sheriff, and we never would have met Lucy Blake, and what about—”

  “Don’t talk like that,” I said.

  Norma groaned. “We can’t let her testify. Can’t we say she’s too young?”

  “No, really,” Fleurette said, sitting up and cocking her head at me. “Can you honestly say that you wish Henry Kaufman had never run us down on Market Street? If you could do it again, would you have kept us home from Paterson that day?”

  Norma shifted in her chair and she, too, was staring at me. We all knew the answer, but I wasn’t about to say it.

  58

  CELEBRATED KOPP CASE ON TRIAL TODAY AT NEWARK

  NEWARK, JUNE 3, 1915—Harry Kaufman, a well-known silk dyer, of Paterson, came up today for trial in the United States District Court, Newark, on an indictment charging him with sending threatening letters to Miss Constance Kopp, of Wyckoff.

  Sheriff Robert N. Heath, who developed the case against Kaufman, was an important witness for the prosecution.

  This case has been pending since last July and sensational testimony is expected as an outcome of the trial.

  The published story of the Black Hand letters sent to Miss Kopp caused a discharged inmate of the State prison, whose home was Somerville, to add to the terror of this kind of correspondence by himself writing letters to her promising an exposure of the plot. His capture was cleverly made by Sheriff Heath. He is now serving a sentence in the Bergen County Jail.

  FLEURETTE TOOK THE NEWSPAPER FROM ME, looked it over again to make sure she wasn’t mentioned, and then fanned herself with it. The courtroom was hot and crowded. Not a single window could be opened for fear of the proceedings being overheard in the street.

  “I intend to deliver the most sensational testimony,” Fleurette said.

  Sheriff Heath, who was seated just in front of us with his deputies, turned and frowned at me. This was my cue to correct Fleurette.

  “You know they only say that to sell papers,” I said quietly, but loud enough for the sheriff to hear. “You must give them only the plain and truthful testimony they require. Only answer questions that you are asked to you directly. And if anyone—”

  “I know! You don’t have to keep reminding me,” she hissed.

  “You don’t have to keep treating this like a party game,” I said, prompting a kick from Norma.

  “Stop it,” she whispered. “Both of you.” She cast a dramatic glance behind her, and I turned to see the row of reporters waiting to write down anything we said. They had already described Fleurette as “sixteen and so attractive that she had been threatened with kidnapping” in yesterday evening’s paper, a line that I knew we would hear repeated for weeks. I didn’t want to give them any more salacious details.

  The bailiff rose and announced the arrival of the jury. Twelve somber men filed in and took their seats behind the heavy oak partition that separated them from the rest of the courtroom. I looked them over and tried to guess at their dispositions, but their expressions revealed very little. They seemed to be ordinary men, shopkeepers or clerks. They kept their eyes on the empty chair soon to be occupied by the judge.

  Once they were seated, the bailiff announced the arrival of Judge Haight, a tall and broad-shouldered man who seemed too young for his steely gray hair. Then the attorneys for each side were introduced. We were represented by United States Attorney Lynch, and Henry Kaufman by a Mr. Joelson. The judge asked Mr. Kaufman to rise and hear the charges against him.

  Until then, we had not had a good look at him. He was seated a few rows ahead of us on the other side of the aisle. When he stood, I realized that he was wearing much the same sort of suit he’d had on almost a year ago when his automobile collided with our buggy. It was a finely made suit meant to flatter a vain man, with delicate pinstripes and a series of careful darts that would make even a portly man like Mr. Kaufman look trim and strong. He wore a silk vest of a somber dark blue and a pocket square to match.

  He looked so small in the enormous, crowded courtroom, and strangely insignificant. He was an unimportant man who had nonetheless been the most important person in our lives for the last year.

  “Mr. Kaufman,” said the judge. “You are charged with sending threatening letters through the United States mail to the Misses Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp. How do you respond?”

  “I am not guilty, Your Honor.” This brought out a murmur from the reporters. The judge cast them a sharp look.

  “Please be seated, Mr. Kaufman. Attorney Lynch may call his first witness.”

  Sheriff Heath slid to the end of the bench and walked to the witness box to take his oath. He wore a better suit then he ordinarily did, a black serge meant for church, and a collar so stiff and high that he could hardly turn his head. He’d been to the barber just that morni
ng for a cut and a shave that I could tell were a bit too close for his liking. His mustache was trimmed a little shorter than he usually wore it, and he looked exposed because of it.

  He took his seat and began his testimony, recounting the events of the last year, beginning with our meeting that day in the prosecutor’s office. His answers were as brief and colorless as they could possibly be, and the attorney’s questions were carefully phrased to keep them that way.

  I sat in the courtroom and watched this man, who had been a complete stranger to me a year ago, tell the story of my life. The parts he left out came back to me anyway: the nights I spent sleeping alongside Fleurette with a revolver on my nightstand, listening to her breathe and watching the unmoving but wakeful form of Norma on the floor under the window. Norma and I out in the snow, our revolvers drawn, patrolling on our own after the deputies left. And Lucy Blake, with her arms wrapped around her boy, and those of us who had a hand in his recovery standing by, delighted and a little stunned by the outcome.

  The jury heard none of that, but I could hear it all in the silences between Sheriff Heath’s answers.

  After the sheriff had answered all of the questions put to him, Attorney Lynch dismissed him and called me to the witness stand.

  I took my oath. Attorney Lynch asked me to describe the events of July 14, 1914. I didn’t look at Mr. Kaufman. I looked at Fleurette, who had shown remarkable restraint in her choice of courtroom attire and made herself a fashionable but dignified skirt and shirtwaist of deep cranberry. The attorney had wanted her in pink, with bows and lace, but she’d refused, saying she was too old for such a thing. She did indeed look older, but as I spoke, I saw her as she had been that day, in her dress of rose-colored taffeta, trapped under our broken buggy with Dolley kicking and groaning alongside her.

  At the attorney’s prompting, I described my efforts to collect payment for the damages to the buggy and the subsequent threats and insults hurled our way.

  “And what did you do in response to the threats?” Attorney Lynch said.

  “I got a revolver to protect us.” There was a sound from the jury—something like a gasp quickly suppressed. I turned and looked directly at them, which I had been instructed not to do. I didn’t care. I wanted their full attention.

  “And soon I had use for it,” I told them. “A few nights later I looked from my bedroom window on the second floor and saw a man behind the house. When he raised his gun to my window, I shot at him. He returned the fire. The bullets struck the house close to the window where I was.”

  The jurymen stared at me. Attorney Lynch cleared his throat to draw my attention back to him.

  “Please read for the jury the letter you received on November 19, 1914,” he said, handing me Mr. Kaufman’s letter demanding that I deliver a thousand dollars to a girl in black. I read the letter and handed it back.

  “And how was this letter delivered?”

  “By the United States Postal Service. You can see the postmark for yourself.”

  He then asked me to recount the night I spent waiting for the girl in black and the other particulars of the case. It was exhausting to tell it all at once. Just as I thought I could not bear to answer another question, the attorney thanked me for my testimony and invited Mr. Joelson to take his turn.

  “Miss Kopp,” Mr. Joelson said. “My client regrets the inconvenience caused by the collision of your buggy and his automobile.”

  Inconvenience? He paused as if he wanted a response from me, but I’d been instructed to only answer questions. I remained silent. Did he consider everything that happened in the last year an inconvenience?

  Getting no response from me, he continued, “And he considers his payment of the fine imposed by the court to be the end of the matter.”

  Attorney Lynch stood. “Your Honor, does Mr. Joelson have a question for Miss Kopp?”

  Before the judge could speak, Mr. Joelson said, “Miss Kopp, did you ever receive a threatening letter signed with the name Henry Kaufman?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Did you ever receive a letter with Mr. Kaufman’s return address on the envelope, or the insignia of his business on the stationery, or any other mark that would indicate that the letter had been sent by him?”

  “Just the initials H. K.”

  “And did you ever see Mr. Kaufman fire a gun at you or your sisters?”

  “I saw a dark figure matching his general description.”

  “What about his automobile? Did these men who threatened you ever arrive in an automobile that you could be certain belonged to Mr. Kaufman?”

  “Only the first time,” I said. “After that they waited until after dark.”

  “The first time? Which time are you referring to?” he asked with a false sense of confusion.

  “The first time he drove past my house,” I said evenly, looking right at Mr. Kaufman now, who quickly looked down at the table when he found my gaze on him. “He and a few other men drove past and shouted insults at Fleurette.”

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Joelson said with obvious and exaggerated relief. “The time he yelled out of a passing car. I thought you were referring to illegal behavior.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, and Attorney Lynch knocked a book off the table, making a loud bang on the bare wooden floor. This was my signal to stay quiet.

  “Was that incident included in your complaint against my client, Miss Kopp?”

  “I don’t believe it was.”

  “Then you have not seen, with your own eyes, this man or his automobile involved in any of the incidents included in your complaint, is that correct?” He pointed dramatically to Henry Kaufman, who had his hands folded quietly on the table in front of him.

  “Not precisely,” I said.

  “And you have no way of knowing if someone else was behind these alleged threats? George Ewing, for example, who I believe was the next man in line to threaten the ever-popular Kopp sisters?”

  “I have no reason to believe anyone else was behind it.”

  “Then you are dismissed, Miss Kopp.” I began to rise when he said, “Wait. There is another matter. Please take your seat again, and I do apologize for the inconvenience.”

  I settled back into my seat and kept my eyes on him. Attorney Lynch had warned me not to look at him if I got confused, as it would make the jury think I was looking for a signal.

  “You’ve paid a visit to Mr. Kaufman’s place of business, haven’t you?” he asked.

  I did my best to keep my face composed and said, “I have never paid a social call on Mr. Kaufman.”

  There was the sound of stifled laughter from the reporters, which the judge quickly suppressed with his gavel.

  Mr. Joelson tried again. In a booming, staccato voice, he said, “What was the purpose of your visit to Mr. Kaufman’s factory?”

  In an equally loud voice I replied, “To collect the money owed to me for the damages to my buggy.”

  “And was that all?”

  “To make a polite request that he refrain from harassing my family.”

  “And what was the result?”

  “This trial is the result.”

  The courtroom erupted in laughter. Even the men on the jury wiped their eyes and shook their heads. The judge pounded his gavel and ordered a break for lunch.

  I left with great relief for Attorney Lynch’s office, where coffee and sandwiches had been brought in so we could discuss the case in private. A pretty young secretary passed the basket of sandwiches around while Attorney Lynch said, “That went as well as we could’ve expected. Joelson has decided he needs to offer no defense on his client’s behalf as long as he can continue to get you girls on the witness stand saying that you never saw Kaufman do a thing. He wants to convince the jury that the evidence is entirely circumstantial. It’s exactly what I would do if I were him.”

  “But it won’t work, will it?” I asked.

  Attorney Lynch pushed a corner of his ham sandwich into his mouth and shrugged, ch
ewing thoughtfully. “I don’t predict the future, Miss Kopp. I just make the case.”

  NORMA TOOK THE STAND IN THE AFTERNOON and answered the same questions that had been put to me, giving answers even briefer and more terse than my own.

  “Did you see the man who threw the bricks through your window?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone get a look at him?”

  “No.”

  “Not one of you could provide even the most general description?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t that odd, for three such observant girls?”

  “We were asleep.”

  That was the longest answer she gave. Attorney Lynch had asked her to try to soften her expression on the witness stand, but Norma frowned at Mr. Joelson and did not cast a particularly kind look upon me or Sheriff Heath when she left the stand, as if to suggest that we were equally responsible for taking her away from the farm for a week and getting her involved in a federal trial at Newark.

  Fleurette took the stand late in the afternoon, looking remarkably cool and unruffled despite the long day in a hot and crowded courtroom. She’d been preparing for her role as if it were a stage debut, and I worried that she might get it in her head to improvise. But she answered Attorney Lynch’s questions with a calm composure I don’t think she possessed a year ago. Her hair had been carefully rolled into neatly sculpted curls, and she’d powdered her nose and arranged herself in her chair so that she sat perfectly straight, making herself as tall as she could.

  “When did you first become aware that you were the target of a kidnapping plot?” Attorney Lynch asked.

  “In August,” she said. “We received a letter delivered by brick mail.”

  A few people in the courtroom tittered at her choice of words.

  “Do you mean that the letter was tied to a brick and thrown through the window of your family home in Wyckoff?” he asked.