“Two witnesses ready to testify, and now the Supreme Court is letting the Pinkerton kidnapping stand. Everything you said would never happen. If this isn’t being ‘sold down the river,’ I don’t know what is.”
Darrow pulled a deep breath, pursed his lips and blew slowly, intentionally, as if to flicker an invisible candle, but not extinguish it. “I have a plan in action that might— Well … I’ll just say, I’m not done, Bill. Not by a mile.”
Silence spanned between them until Haywood finally spoke. “Anything good you can tell me?”
“I’m optimistic about the jury.”
“Optimistic. I guess that’s something,” said Haywood.
“You recall the rancher, Mr. Sebern, this afternoon?”
“Yeah—why the hell did you take him?”
“For one thing,” murmured Darrow, “we were out of peremptory challenges. But I wanted him anyway.”
“Why? He’s no friend to us.”
Darrow shook his head. “He was just putting on. He wanted to get chosen by Borah. Truth is, he’s full-bent for labor.”
“I doubt that. A rancher? ”
“I have it on good word,” said Darrow.
Haywood squinted his good eye. “Your spy said Sebern is favorable to us, but Sebern told Borah the opposite? Somebody’s double-crossing somebody, either Sebern or your spy.”
“If I thought it was my spy, I wouldn’t—”
“I’ve seen men who could deceive the devil himself.”
“Me too.” Darrow sniffed, looking at Haywood. “But advantage is of no use unless it’s seized. Besides, my spy was recruited by one of your people.”
“Who?”
“Miss Capone. They’re sharing a bed.”
“Jesus. Carla Capone? Lucky him.”
Darrow stood to leave. “Borah needs all twelve, but we only need one. And Sebern may well be our one. So … that’s something.”
Haywood puffed his cheeks and exhaled. “That and a jitney nickel, Clarence. A goddamned jitney nickel.”
<><><>
– 57 –
FRIDAY
May 3, 1907
Darrow was in his Saratoga Hotel office, writing and re-writing his opening argument, when Captain Swain knuckle-rapped the door frame and entered.
“You’re back,” said Darrow.
“I am. We arrived this morning.”
“And?”
“Rode the train with me.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“The Occidental. No ties to us.”
“Good. He knows when to go?”
Swain nodded at his pocket-watch. “Guard’s changing at two.”
“All right,” said Darrow, examining his own watch.
Swain leaned on a chair. “My God, that skinny, deaf man stinks.”
“That bad?”
“Death’s head on a mop stick. I felt for the people in our car,” Swain said, walking to the window. “And he’s near deaf entire. Worst train ride I ever took. Trial starts in a week?”
“Yes. Next Thursday. We can’t have any surprises. We know where all their people are?”
“Briefed an hour ago. All here. McParland, Borah, all of em.”
“You got them off your trail, right? When you went?”
“They followed me to Pendleton, Oregon, then I doubled back, right on down to Ogden. My man who stayed back said they rode that train all the way up to Spokane before they realized I’d vanished.” Swain chuckled to himself.
Darrow shook his head. “They’re still following me here.”
“Yeah. The same two, plus one more now.”
“We need a solid plan for when I slip out. It’ll have to go even smoother than yours did.”
“I’ve got some ideas—things we learned watching them track me. I’ll tell you when it’s nailed down.” After a beat, Swain asked, “How’s Mr. Haywood?”
“Good as expected,” said Darrow. “They have two on me?”
“Yes.”
“Get him off of me for the afternoon.”
“All right. Any particular reason? Are you going to see Lillard?”
“No,” Darrow said abruptly. “How many are on you, since you’re back?”
“Two.”
“And on Miss Minor?” Darrow asked.
“One. Winnie just goes from here to the courthouse to visit him, and otherwise she’s with Mrs. Haywood.”
“And Mrs. Haywood? They’re watching her?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And Miss Capone?”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody?”
“No. They don’t have anybody on her.”
“Not on Carla Capone? Why not?”
Swain clicked his tongue. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t find that curious?”
“Guess they don’t think she’s of value anymore.”
“How would they know that? Why not track her? They know she’s loyal to the union. Hell, she killed one of their men. You don’t think that’s crooked?”
“Maybe. But they know she’s with Jack Garrett, so, maybe they think he’s watching her for them?”
“I don’t know. He’s not always with her.” Darrow calculated aloud. “Who do they track? Us, right? Our people. And the jurors.”
“That’s right.”
“And who do they not track?”
“Their own people. And everybody else.”
“Exactly,” said Darrow.
“But Haywood sent Carla here,” tried Swain.
“Yes, but ... if she’s actually working for McParland ... then they wouldn’t waste a man to follow her.”
“I bet it’s ‘cause she’s with Jack.”
“I don’t know. Feels wrong.”
“You can’t see wolves in every cupboard.”
“No,” said Darrow, disquiet fogging the room.
“Tomorrow morning then,” said Swain. “Eight o’clock?”
“Yes,” replied Darrow.
Swain brightened. “That juror you got while I was gone—Mr. Severeen—heard he’ll be our ringer.”
“Sebern,” Darrow corrected.
“Should I double-check him?”
“Too late for that.”
Swain touched his mustache. “Who was your source on him?”
Darrow lifted his eyebrows and gave a slight shake of his head. “Carla. She was told by Jack, her turned-Pinkerton.”
“Hmm,” murmured Swain.
Darrow sighed. “Sebern’s already been selected and sat, and I open in the morning. So, that’s that.”
“Yeah ... guess that’s that,” said Captain Swain.
<><><>
Two hours later, a gaunt man worn by weather, whiskey, and the quest for worth, strolled out the front doors of the Occidental Hotel. He was following a map given him by Clarence Darrow, who had just come to see him, entering and leaving the Occidental by way of the alley.
Wearing a dirt-gray coat torn at the arms, over-sized brown britches, and a twice-crushed bowler, the man now crossed the Ninth Street bridge over the Boise River and strolled to Main Street. There he glanced left at the Idanha Hotel one block up, turned right and walked nine blocks to where Main Street became Warm Springs Avenue. After another mile, he turned left on Penitentiary Road, and a short walk later stopped in front of the heavy prison gate. He found the pedestrian door and entered. Inside, he addressed the pinch-faced guard who didn’t look up from the desk. “Come t’ see my nephew. Name’s Lloyd Lillard.”
“Oh, have you?” mocked the guard, still writing in a ledger book. He looked up and paused at the sight of the skeleton before him. “So, Ichabod, who’s your nephew?” When Lillard cupped his ear, the guard repeated louder, “Your nephew—what’
s his name?”
“Steve Adams.”
The guard flagged a palm. “No, that fella ain’t allowed visitors.”
“I’s the only family he got.”
“He has family? Wouldn’t have figured. ’Cept, the resemblance. But, it don’t matter no how—no visitors. Alive or dead ones.”
Lillard missed the insult, his ears having been damaged decades prior in a tunneling blast. “Fella give me this from the judge,” he said, presenting a paper.
The guard unfolded and read it, considered Lillard, looked at the clock, and then back to Lillard. “I gotta telephone the judge.”
“How’s that?”
The guard pantomimed using a telephone. “The judge.”
“What’s that?” asked Lillard, pointing at the guard’s gesture.
“A telephone. Never you mind.” The guard shook his head then shouted to be heard: “I’ll talk to the judge!”
“Ain’t stoppin you, is I?”
“Telephone’s in the warden’s office,” the guard mumbled to himself, standing. He then left with the note. Lillard couldn’t hear the phone chatter in the next room. The guard returned and again spoke loudly. “You’ll need to be searched, Mr. Lillard. Can’t take nothing in. And you can’t touch him. Just talk.”
Lillard frowned and nodded.
The guard sighed, unsure if he’d been heard. “Ok, let’s go.”
<><><>
– 58 –
THURSDAY
May 9, 1907
When the case of the State of Idaho versus William D. Haywood began, on May 9, 1907, Boise was a city on silent edge, as if holding its collective breath. There had always been threats of violence upon both camps. The Idanha Hotel had received nine bomb threats over the prior five months; the Saratoga, twenty-two. But since the jury had been selected, new rumors abounded: planned assassinations of Orchard or Adams—or both. Supposedly, riflemen were on the roofs, aiming for Haywood’s attorney, Clarence Darrow, or at the special prosecutor, Senator Borah—or both. And some said hidden bombs were planted beneath the floorboards, set to kill Judge Wood or Haywood—or both.
The courthouse lawn played host to the chaos—a flurry of anxious humanity. The bulk were the curious and general intriguers. There were also hundreds of union men, including many with their wives and children, standing in solidarity with Haywood, the man who had stood with them in their darkest days and coldest nights. Further out, at the edges, stood the civilized and moneyed, including mine owners and their representatives. Though privately they were rooting for revenge, payback for Haywood’s damage to their body corporate, collectively and publicly they feigned to be inconvenienced by the whole affair, as if trying Haywood was a nuisance, judicial resources being best spent elsewhere. Why not just hang the man and be done with it? At least Senator Borah was one of them, so watching him eviscerate the cyclops scoundrel would be entertaining. They had that.
Also present were over fifty leading reporters, the vast majority being men with press badges in the bands of their bowlers or homburgs, each representing either a newswire (including Associated Press and Reuters), or a major city daily, or a magazine. Eight new telegraph wires had been erected for just this event, running from the Western Union offices on Main Street to the makeshift press room on the second floor of the courthouse. That morning, those lines were humming with phrases such as: “The eyes of the civilized world are on these great proceedings.”—“A most determined struggle between labor unions and capital.”—“One of the great court cases in the annals of the American judiciary.”—“Destined to be the greatest trial of modern time.”
Inside, the halls were not as crowded as the outside masses would seem to indicate. Rather, Judge Wood had ordered the Ada County Sheriff’s office to guard the granite building’s main doors, limiting access to only those with direct business in the matter, and their select attendants. As a result, only a hundred people or so filled the courtroom’s gallery and the outside passageways—plus the reporters, who came and went from the courtroom to the telegraph machines on the second floor, and occasionally outside to a row of provisional privies along the edge of the courthouse lawn.
***
In the courtroom, Neva sat at the left end of a long bench at the front of the gallery, just behind Haywood. Her invalid chair was beside her. For the trial days, she chose not to wear a hat and to keep her look plain: waistshirts, skirts, jackets, on mixed and matched rotation. No dresses. No significant jewelry. Nothing to draw attention. (She told Winnie to do the same.) She had hoped her agreement to attend the trial would allow her the choice of where to sit—the back of the gallery being her preference. But Darrow wouldn’t allow it, saying that if she sat anywhere other than directly behind her husband, it would doom him. Though that tempted her all the more toward the back, she sat where she was instructed, staring at the broad shoulders of Bill’s coat, contemplating his straight, brown hair. The jailhouse barber had cut the bottom at a small slant, leaving the left lower than the right. She wished she could fix it. A voice shouted within her: Why? She was done with him. Done. After what he’d screamed at her upstairs the other night. Calling her crippled. She hated him. She renewed her vow never to speak to him. That was in her power. Her choice. The one thing. Even if he turned around right then and there and asked her something, she wouldn’t speak. What would she do? She would just look away, she told herself. Pretend not to have heard him. But, of course, he wouldn’t turn. In fact, he didn’t seem aware of her presence at all.
To Bill’s right sat Darrow, also at the defense table, dressed in a black, three-piece sack suit with a dark tie. He was doing his job, but why did he have to be so good at it? He should’ve let her sit in the back. Or not come at all. Further right, across a narrow gap, the prosecution’s table bore the well-carved Senator Borah, sitting orthodox and composed, along with two assistants. Borah was as fetching as ever. She remembered him lifting her from her invalid chair when they met—the evening she made her deal not to testify in trade of protecting George. To her left was the empty jury box. And around Bill’s left shoulder she could see the empty witness box. Around his right shoulder stood the judge’s bench, also empty. And in front of the bench was the stenographer at his table, straightening a stack of extra ribbons beside a brand-new invention—the Ward Ireland stenotype machine. George, always fascinated by the latest contraption, had said one was to be used in this trial. Beyond remembering that, she gave it no mind.
She heard shuffling and looked back over her right shoulder. Several men were entering, moving down the center aisle. Guessing they were Pinkertons, she wasn’t surprised when they slid into the front two benches behind Borah. More people were entering, including Carla Capone. Neva didn’t know what to think of her. Rumors were, Carla had dropped her loyalty to the Federation. But no one seemed to know anything to support that notion. More likely, it was just that she’d once been an outspoken supporter, but now wasn’t. It wouldn’t mean anything in most situations. But it rang bells in an organization as melancholic and angst-riddled as the Federation.
But hadn’t she, the wife of the labor union’s president, done much the same? Others were saying she no longer defended her husband—which was true—but they didn’t know that for certain. Just a few months ago, she would’ve set them straight. But now she found herself numb to it all. Neva watched Carla slide into a row on the other side of the center aisle, near the middle of the gallery; then noted an affectionate glance between Carla and a tall Pinkerton on their second row—a young man with extraordinary, sky-colored eyes.
Then came more people, and in their lead was Winnie, her hair done up, wearing the diamond earrings Bill gave her for Christmas. Neva kept her frown facing forward as Winnie slid in to her right. Some socialist you are, Sissy, Neva fumed silently—then remembered they were called Bolsheviks. She looked again at Bill’s crooked haircut. Her Bolshevik-yet-capitalist sister w
ould never fix that—wouldn’t even think to do so. She envied Winnie that freedom of mind. Then she smelled George and all her angry thoughts seemed to evaporate, like stink overwhelmed by a fragrant candle. She turned. He’d slid in behind her. Good. Moments later, with the gallery full and settled, the bailiff ordered everyone to stand. The jury filed in, taking seats in their long box. Neva studied their faces. Do the right thing, she silently implored.
***
Darrow also watched the jurors, contemplating them one by one, wondering what they were thinking. He had made as good of choices as he could, he assured himself. The cattle rancher—said he’d been working his place most days over the past weeks, thus he didn’t know much about the matter and thought any man should get a fair trial, union or not. The real estate man, and the two in construction—all solid. They would be fair. Then there were the other cattleman. And the horse rancher. And Darrow’s silent ringer, or so he hoped: the sheep rancher, O. V. Sebern—a devout labor union man. Then the owner of a mercantile, and—
Darrow stopped and returned to Sebern. What was that look? The older man was watching Haywood, almost studying him. Jurors in criminal cases were loath to look directly at the accused. Or if they did, it was quick—just a glance, then away. No eye contact, no connection, no risk of inadvertently communicating hope, or receiving a nonverbal plea. But Sebern had walked in, sat down, and begun studying the accused. And he seemed to be doing so with narrow-eyed contempt. Then those eyes shifted, softened, and he gave the smallest of nods. Who was that for? Darrow turned to his right and back, just in time to catch Jack glancing from Sebern to Darrow, and then a hasty pivot forward. What could that look have meant? Did they know each other? Had something transpired between them? But he knew the answers before he asked the questions. Just as he knew it was all a futile exercise at that point, just a palliative habit—examining puzzles his gut had already solved, like writing already-completed tasks on a to-do list just for the satisfaction of marking them off. Only there was no satisfaction here.
American Red Page 47
