A Stranger in the Kingdom

by Howard Frank Mosher

  “When did you first learn that your father intended to take a job here in Kingdom County, Nat?”

  “Last spring. It would have been March, I suppose.”

  “Where were you living at the time?”

  “With my grandmother in Montreal.”

  “Were you going to school at the time?”

  “I was attending a private high school, St. Stephen’s.”

  “How would you describe yourself as a student, Nat?”

  Nat shrugged. “I’ve always gotten my A’s.”

  “Did you like living with your grandmother and attending school in Canada?”

  “Very much.”

  “What was your reaction when your father told you that you and he were going to be moving to Vermont?”

  “Well, I was happy to be with Dad. But I didn’t really want to leave Canada. I was pretty well established there Baseball practice had just started, and I had some close friends, you know.”

  “I understand, Nat Now let’s talk about your first days and weeks in the Kingdom. Did you like it here?”

  Nat paused. “School was all right, except that I was ahead of my class, especially in math. The other kids at school were friendly enough, most of them. They wanted me to play ball, and so forth. I don’t know. It wasn’t so bad here, but I missed my friends up home and Gram. She and I sort of looked after one another, you know. And I missed the city.”

  “You mentioned that you’d played baseball in Canada. Did you join the Academy baseball team?”

  Nat shook his head.

  “Please answer yes or no, Nathan,” Judge Allen said.

  “No, I didn’t play baseball here in Vermont.”

  “Did anyone else besides your classmates urge you to play?”

  “My father did. He was helping out with the Academy team, after Coach Whitcomb got sick. Dad wanted me to play. He’d been a standout player in secondary school and at university, himself.”

  “Nat, putting aside all modesty for a moment, how good a baseball player are you?”

  “Well, I pitched for my Canadian school’s ‘A’ team in my freshman and sophomore years.”

  “Why didn’t you play ball for the Academy? You obviously love the game, you’re an outstanding player, your dad coached, your school friends begged you to play.”

  Nat looked down at his hands. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “There were times, are times, when I don’t feel like playing or doing much of anything else. This was one of those times, I guess. About the time I moved here and baseball began.”

  “Was there anyone you could talk to about those times?”

  “Well, Jim Kinneson was my best friend here. He and I talked quite a bit. I talked to Dad some, but he’s pretty much of the philosophy that you grit your teeth and bear things, you know.”

  Nat paused again, looked at his hands, started to say something, then stopped.

  “Go ahead, Nat. What else were you going to tell us?”

  “There was another person I liked talking to.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Claire LaRiviere.”

  “How did things go for you after Claire came?”

  “Better.”

  “How much better?”

  “A lot, at first. She was an outsider too, and she’d lost a parent herself. Her father. They were very close; he was some sort of street performer. He was teaching her how to perform, too.”

  “How much time did you spend with Claire, Nat?”

  “Well, I guess you could say I spent a whole lot of bloody time with her.”

  “I’m sorry. Would you please repeat what you just said?”

  “I said we spent a great deal of time together.”

  “What, exactly, did you just say, Nat?”

  Nat shrugged. “I said a lot of time. We spent a lot of time together.”

  “Julia,” Charlie said, turning to the stenographer, “would you please read Nathan Andrews’ first answer to my question, ‘How much time did you spend with Claire?’”

  Julia flipped back a page. “‘How much time did you spend with Claire, Nat?’ ‘Well, I guess you could say I spent a whole lot of bloody time with her.’”

  “Thank you, Julia. Now Nat, I’m going to ask you some questions about what happened on Old Home Day. These questions aren’t in any way meant to embarrass you or put you on the spot. Just answer them as truthfully and as completely as you can. Do you recall where you were that evening?”

  “Yes. I was home. At the parsonage.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “Well, that was the night that old Pliny Templeton’s ghost, his skeleton, was supposed to walk. Jim Kinneson and I had planned to sit up and wait and see if it came to the parsonage. Anyway, Jim had come in about nine and gone upstairs to my room and fallen asleep.”

  “Were you and Jim Kinneson alone in the house at the time?”

  “No. Claire was there, too.”

  “Around eleven o’clock, Nat, precisely where were you in the parsonage?”

  The courtroom was deadly still.

  “We—I mean Claire and I—were in my father’s study. Jim was still asleep upstairs in my room.”

  “What were you and Claire doing in the study?”

  Nat paused and looked at his hands. Then he said softly, “We were necking on the couch. It wasn’t her idea as much as mine. I mean, she never forced herself on me or anything like that, no matter what people might think about her coming to town with that show. It wasn’t like that at all. We were friends. Anyway, we left the window open so we could hear when the shindig on the common ended.”

  A murmur passed through the room, and Judge Allen’s gavel rose; but immediately it was quiet again.

  “What happened next, Nat?”

  “I thought I heard a noise on the porch. But then I didn’t hear anything else, until all of a sudden the desk light went on. I thought, oh, no, my father had somehow come into the room. Then I saw this man’s head in the window.”

  “Did you recognize the man?”

  “Yes. It was Resolvèd Kinneson. He said, ‘Excuse me!’ in this very sarcastic voice.”

  “Did either you or Claire say anything?”

  “I said, ‘Shut that bloody light off.’”

  “And?”

  “And he did.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “Well, I was going to tell my father, but I couldn’t figure out what to say to him, without . . . you know, admitting what we were doing on the couch. So I just went up and woke up Jim, and pretty soon after that Resolvèd showed up with his shotgun.”

  “Nat, you said you were necking on the couch. What do you mean by that?”

  Looking at his hands, Nat said, “We were. . . . making love. Going, you know, all the way.”

  “Was this the first time you and Claire had ‘gone all the way’?”

  Very softly, Nat said no.

  “When was the first time?”

  Nat sighed. “The second night she stayed with us.”

  “During the five weeks that Claire stayed with you, how many times would you guess that you and she made love?”

  “A great many. As often as we could arrange.”

  “Nat, did Claire ever tell you that she was pregnant?”

  Nat looked at his hands. “Yes, she did. She told me on the night after Old Home Day. At first I didn’t know what to tell her. I asked if she was sure, and she said yes. I asked if—if she thought I was the father. She said yes. She said I was the only possible father. I suppose in a way that made me feel good—I mean, that she hadn’t been with anyone else—but I didn’t know what she should do, until it occurred to me that she ought to tell my father. That’s what I told her to do.”

  “Thank you, Nat. That’s all for the time being.”

  To my surprise, Zack Barrows rather than Moulton stood up to cross-examine Nathan. He walked threateningly toward the witness s
tand and stopped not more than a foot away from my friend.

  “Young Andrews,” he said, “I’ll remind you that you are sworn to tell the truth. Do you know the term for lying in a court of law?”

  Nat just looked at him.

  “That term, young man, is perjury. Perjury is not a nice term. The punishment for perjury is not nice. The punishment for perjury is severe. Now, young Andrews, do you know your Vermont geography? I assume you do, since you seem so quick to tell us about your high marks in school. Very well. Do you know where Vergennes is? Vergennes is some miles south of Burlington. Vergennes has two distinctions. It is the smallest incorporated city in the United States of America. And it is the home of Vermont’s reform school for boys who are ungovernable and commit perjury in a court of law. This school is not noted for being a nice place, either. Over the years I have sent many boys—”

  “Objection!” Charlie said.

  “Sustained! That’s quite enough, Zachariah, and I do mean enough. If you want to question the witness, go ahead. But I won’t have you terrorizing him.”

  “I just want him to be certain in his own mind what will happen if he commits perjury, your honor. I want him to know about that reform school, that’s all. Now Nathan Andrews, you’ve testified that you felt you didn’t fit in here, that you felt like an outsider, that you couldn’t cope with adjusting to a normal boyhood in this village. You couldn’t cope with playing baseball like any other boy. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “At times.”

  “Well, Nathan Andrews, you’ve had some rough sledding, all right. Going to a good school, being asked to play a game you yourself have told us you excel at, ‘necking’ every night with a pretty little girl who didn’t know any better. Let’s go to the night she disappeared, the night of August sixth. Did you neck with her that night?”

  “No, I didn’t. How could I? She was gone and so was I. I was in Montreal.”

  “Just before you left you didn’t slip up to the quarry with her? And maybe take along your father’s gun—”

  “Your honor, this is sheer idiotic speculation. Nat Andrews isn’t on trial here. The prosecutor seems to be badly confused. He’s grasping at straws to try to prove that somebody named Andrews was involved in this murder.”

  “Sustained,” Judge Allen was saying. “Mr. Barrows, I am telling you right now to stop this impertinent line of leading questions. Nathan Andrews is certainly not on trial here today. You’re undercutting your own case, sir.”

  “I’m sorry, your honor, but let’s not forget that an innocent girl was murdered. In between all these melodramatics, a young girl was brutally killed.”

  Zack turned back to Nat. “Let’s go to another episode. Did you or did you not, Nathan Andrews, knock the LaMott boy off the Boston and Montreal train trestle back in June, and nearly drown him?”

  “Your honor, once again I must object that the prosecutor is deliberately leading the witness, or trying to, with inaccurate and totally unsubstantiated innuendo.”

  “Sustained. You will rephrase that question, Mr. Barrows.”

  “Nathan Andrews, did you knock the LaMott boy off the trestle?”

  “He fell off the trestle, and I jumped in after him and pulled him out.”

  “Did you hit him before he fell?”

  “He tried to hit me. I ducked and reached out and swatted him. He fell and I went in after him.”

  “Nathan Andrews, you have testified that you advised Claire LaRiviere to talk to your father and tell him that she was pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  “After you proffered this wise counsel, did it occur to you that when the baby was born, your father would certainly know that you, and no one but you, had to be the father?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I know so. And on that illuminating revelation, I shall turn this versatile young witness back over for your redirect, Charles.”

  “Nat, I want to ask you just one more question,” Charlie began. “Did you at any time before or after Claire’s death tell your father that you were very probably her baby’s father?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Thank you, Nathan. If Mr. Barrows has no further questions, I’d like to recall Reverend Andrews to the stand, your honor.”

  The judge glanced up at the clock. It was nearly noon. “We’ll break for lunch,” he said. “Court will reconvene at one-thirty. In the meantime, I’d like to see both sets of counsel in my chambers.”

  At the Monitor, Dad pulled down the blinds, put the CLOSED sign on the window, and locked the door in order not to be bothered. But no sooner had Mom started to unpack our lunch than the phone began to ring.

  My father snatched the receiver off the hook. “Hello? Hello?”

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s that damn crank caller,” he said. Then he spoke again into the receiver. “Listen, whoever you are, I am here to tell you that—What? What’s that?”

  My father listened for perhaps fifteen seconds, then said, “All right, we’ll be here,” and hung up.

  “Well, that’s one mystery solved,” Dad said. “We know who the crank caller is.”

  “Who?”

  “Ida LaMott. Apparently she’s been working up the courage to identify herself. She said she and Frenchy are on their way over here with something very important to tell us.”

  “Did she say what it was about?” Mom said.

  “Only that it had to do with the trial. James, ran across the street to the courthouse. As soon as your brother comes out of the judge’s chambers, tell him to get over here as fast as he can. This may not amount to a hill of beans, but whatever it is Ida wants to tell us, he ought to hear it.”

  “I’d like at this time to recall the Reverend Walter Andrews,” Charlie said an hour later when court reconvened.

  Although he maintained his erect bearing, the minister looked dreadfully tired as he took the stand.

  “Reverend Andrews, you’ve testified that on the evening of June twenty-eighth, the evening Claire LaRiviere appeared at the parsonage you were doing some historical research. What was the exact nature of this research?”

  “I was interested in the background of Pliny Templeton—the founder and first headmaster of the Kingdom Common Academy.”

  “How did you first hear of Pliny Templeton?”

  “From your father, Charles Kinneson. Not long after I came to town this past spring, he told me how Pliny ran away from slavery, with the help of your great-grandfather, and established the Academy here in northern Vermont. The tale captured my imagination.”

  “Was there any particular reason for this, apart from the fact that Pliny was a Negro?”

  “Well, my own great-grandfather had come north from Mississippi via the Underground Railway. His son, my grandfather, was the first Negro Presbyterian session member in Canada, and at divinity school I wrote my thesis on the Presbyterian church’s efforts to help fugitive American Negroes become established in Canada.”

  “Was there anything else that especially intrigued you about Pliny Templeton’s stoty?”

  “Well, there’s the legend that Pliny was the first Negro college graduate in America. Actually, although Pliny did graduate from Middlebury College he had several Negro predecessors at other American colleges, including both Harvard and Yale. What really intrigued me about the man was the end of his life.”

  “What particularly intrigued you about the end of Pliny Templeton’s life, Reverend Andrews?”

  “To begin with, the fact that he allegedly committed suicide over a doctrinal dispute between the church and his school. I was curious about it and decided to look into the entire situation.”

  “Your honor, this has nothing to do with the murder of Claire LaRiviere!” Sigurd Moulton cried out.

  “Judge Allen, if you’ll let me proceed free from the interruptions of the various prosecutors, I’ll demonstrate the relevance of this line of questioning in good time.”

  “Go ahead, Mr
. Kinneson. Get to your point as quickly as possible.”

  “Thank you. Reverend Andrews, I’ll come back to the matter of your research into the life of Pliny Templeton in a moment. Before I do, though, I’d like to ask you who, besides you and your son, had ready and free access to the parsonage this past summer.”

  “Anyone who wanted or needed to come there was welcome, Mr. Kinneson.”

  “I understand that. What I’d like to know is who came and went on an informal basis? Without knocking, let’s say. Or at odd hours.”

  “Well, sir, as far as I can remember he always knocked, but your father quite often dropped in of an evening. Many nights he’d stop off on his way home from covering a meeting or working late at the newspaper office, and we’d visit until all hours. Your younger brother, Jim, used to call for my son. And in late July I hired a local woman, Mrs. Ida LaMott, to come in to clean three times a week. She came and went without knocking. So, for that matter, did Claire LaRiviere.”

  “What there anyone else who had access to your house? Anyone from the church? A session member, for example?”

  “The sexton, Elijah Kinneson, held keys to both the church and the parsonage. So far as I know he never came to the house except when I called him, though, say to fix the furnace or plumbing or some other practical matter.”

  “But the sexton did at your request assist you with those matters? The furnace and plumbing?”

  “Yes, upon request.”

  “How many times did you request the sexton’s assistance over the course of the spring and summer?”

  “I’m not sure. Four or five, perhaps.”

  “Was he prompt in responding?”

  “So far as I can remember.”

  “How would you characterize his attitude toward you at those times?”

  “Irrelevant, your honor,” Moulton said. “The church sexton’s attitude is hardly at issue here today.”

  “The sexton has already given critical testimony in this trial, your honor. Surely the jury has a right to be aware of any information that might have a bearing on that testimony.”

  “Proceed with care, Mr. Kinneson.”

  “Reverend Andrews, how would you characterize Elijah Kinneson’s attitude toward you when he came to the parsonage?”