A light breeze blew through the open windows, carrying with it more flies. Mary pushed aside an errant curl. “I believe her.”
“I’ll ask it another way. You are a physician, and it is to your rational expertise that I apply. Do children in distress sometimes make up fantastical tales to remove themselves from a present, difficult occurrence? Say, imagining themselves somewhere else in order to mitigate an oppressive incident, like a rape?”
The color drained from Mary’s face. “Sometimes. Yes.”
“And if that is the case, isn’t it possible that Emma may have protected herself in other ways? Say, disbelieving what was directly in front of her because it was too difficult to accept the reality of her situation?”
“Emma is a bright girl.”
“But you are a physician experienced with battlefield cripples, are you not? In the war, weren’t there men after a battle who did not remember the particulars of how they were hurt? Or where? What is it that you doctors call that?”
Mary swallowed, discerning the direction of his inquiry, as did the entire courtroom, many of whom shifted in their seats, sensing the battle to come. A moment ago, there had been a general stirring, as if everyone were eager to be out. Now, though, all thoughts of departure had been abandoned. It was stifling in the room. Jury members, some of whom had shown signs of nodding off in the heat, now mopped their sweaty faces with already damp handkerchiefs and leaned in.
“I don’t think that is relevant here,” Mary said.
“Come now, Dr. Stipp. I didn’t ask your opinion of relevance. I asked you to reveal a well-known affliction. Many of our veterans suffer from it.” He turned. “I could ask the gallery to name it. Everyone knows it.”
“You are trying to make an implication that I believe is unjustified in this instance.”
“Perhaps this display of stubbornness on your part is what your colleagues objected to at City Hospital.” Until now, Hotaling had kept his face professionally impassive, his tone respectful. But now he allowed a sneer of contempt to drift in, prompting a tittering in the gallery.
Mary shot a fiery look of defiance at the district attorney. “What my colleagues objected to was mercy, Mr. Hotaling. To unprejudiced medical care delivered to needy women who have been denied even the most elemental care—”
Thayer groaned. He was leaning back in his seat, his head thrown backward in disgust. He slapped his hands on his bench and drew himself forward, his face a shade of pale crimson in the afternoon heat. “Stop this nonsense, Mr. Hotaling. You are arguing with your witness. And, Dr. Stipp, if the district attorney asks you a question, you are to answer it or you will be held in contempt. Is that clear? To both of you?”
Mary shut her eyes and appeared to falter as she reached into her reticule for a handkerchief. Her cheeks had turned a high, hot pink, though it was unclear whether the coloring was from fury or the closeness of the room. But it was very apparent that she understood that Hotaling had goaded her into an outburst.
“Soldier’s heart,” Mary said, in a tight voice.
“Ah,” Hotaling crooned. “Such a poetic term, is it not? And please enlighten us. What exactly does it mean?”
“It describes a nervous state of being, a kind of separation from reality, a skittishness.”
“I see. A separation from reality.” Hotaling paused and turned, nodding to the jury as he leaned nonchalantly onto the railing of the witness stand. “Could you equate the recent event in Emma’s life to the same kind of difficulties that soldiers suffered in battles?”
She swallowed. “One could, yes. But—”
“So, if a grown man could be confused about what exactly happened in a difficult situation, might not a young girl?”
“Emma’s situation differs in that while she was battered, she exhibited little to no signs of mental derangement other than exhaustion. And every day she improves. Only a soldier who does not improve is said to be suffering soldier’s heart.”
“You were in seclusion when Emma testified, but it may surprise you that not only did she try to leave the courtroom, but she wept a great deal.”
Mary drew herself up. “Weeping is a normal, healthy reaction to intolerable events. I believe that if you had been raped, you too would weep, Mr. Hotaling.” She ignored the quick inhalations of breath, the reverberations of staggered disbelief. Someone in the gallery blurted, A man, raped? Nonsense.
“Enough!” Thayer roared. “Ask a question, Mr. Hotaling. And the rest of you are to silence yourselves or I will muzzle every last one of you.”
“Then I repeat my earlier question,” Hotaling said, “which I would like to point out, with all due respect, Your Honor, that the doctor refused to answer. Dr. Stipp, if a grown man could be confused about what exactly happened in a difficult situation, might not a young girl?”
“Of course, it’s possible, but—”
“Even when grounded in all other particulars, say for instance, where it happened, or even other minuscule details?”
“Often minuscule details, but—”
“Thank you. That will be all. The prosecution rests, Your Honor.”
—
Mary did not at first rise when she was dismissed. Even as Judge Thayer hammered his gavel and declared the court in recess until nine o’clock the following morning, she remained stolidly in place. She turned to watch the jury filing out of their enclosure, their sidelong glances expressing a chary disdain that she had not detected earlier when she had taken the stand. Even Harmon Pumpelly allowed himself the indiscipline of raising his eyebrows at her. Hotaling had succeeded in baiting her, as had the hospital committee, taking easy aim at her deepest passions. What a fool she had been to let them.
And to what purpose was Hotaling working? To make a case that a distressed Emma could not possibly tell the difference between one man and two. Hotaling didn’t want the truth. He wanted his truth, which was a far simpler thing to prove.
And it seemed he was even willing to jeopardize his entire case. For why wouldn’t the jury then disbelieve Emma about everything? Would they even convict Harley of rape? Even after Jakob’s concession that a rape had occurred? Would they declare Harley not guilty and would a defeated Hotaling then refuse to search for the real culprit?
After Emma had testified, Elizabeth had whisked her away. Mary had not even seen her or had word of Emma’s demeanor on the stand. The information that Emma had tried to run away had come as a shock.
From the gallery people were throwing surreptitious glances her way as they shuffled out the door. Now freed of Thayer’s censuring gavel, snippets of their conversations floated toward her. A woman who talks like that in public? Can’t even tell the difference between imagination and reality when a child tells a tale? Thinks so much of herself she doesn’t even ask her husband for help?
And, That Harley’s obviously as guilty as Satan.
Jakob and Hotaling were stooping over their desks and shoving papers into carrying cases. Hotaling finished first and left without a word.
“Tomorrow,” Jakob said to Mary, then tucked his case under one arm and acknowledged William with a crisp salute and disappeared into the vanishing gallery.
William and Mary waited to leave until everyone had cleared the courtroom and the clerk was surveying the pews for lost belongings. They exited by the side door and went into the witnesses’ room and retrieved Elizabeth and an exhausted Emma. Then they went out to the street via the back door, where Harold awaited them on Maiden Lane with the carriage.
Unnoticed by anyone, Gerritt Van der Veer, having left the courtroom earlier with the crowd, drew back behind one of the stately oaks on the courtyard grounds, a workman’s cloth cap slung low over his forehead, a pair of smoked spectacles hiding his eyes.
Chapter Forty-Three
EXTRA
WHO IS THE OTHER MAN?
PROSECUTOR B
ADGERS EMMA O’DONNELL
THE BRAZEN FEMALE DOCTOR MARY STIPP LECTURES JURY THEN IS PUT IN HER PLACE
DEFENSE CLAIMS SO-CALLED OTHER MAN RESPONSIBLE
The newspapers had produced, within an hour of the end of the day’s proceedings, a riot of Extra Editions that made their way into the ravenous hands of the city’s occupants, who devoured them with their evening meals, reading aloud to their families and arguing over whether or not James Harley was the true attacker. One of those readers was Gerritt Van der Veer, who tossed aside his copy of the Argus without reading past the headlines. Jakob studied his father from across the dinner table. Only he and Gerritt were at table tonight. Viola and her maid had disappeared earlier that morning. The cowering staff claimed ignorance of her whereabouts, and none could make eye contact with Gerritt. The staff reported that at one o’clock that afternoon Mrs. Van der Veer had called for a hack and into it had packed a trunk, her maid, and herself, then driven off to an unknown destination. After every servant echoed this story, the cook asked whether Mr. Van der Veer wanted dinner served in the dining room at eight, as usual? Mrs. Van der Veer had arranged for roast lamb.
Now Gerritt pushed a dollop of mint jelly around his plate. “You know where your mother is, don’t you, Jakob?”
Jakob pushed back from the table. He’d torn into his meat, and now it sat in his stomach like a stone. The afternoon had been an agony of concentration. “Mother has a mind of her own.”
“She never did before. She’s still furious about that black eye I gave her when she got back from that unannounced trip to Manhattan City.”
Jakob had found Viola hysterical, locked in her bedroom, holding a wet cloth to a red welt below her left eye. It had taken all Jakob’s self-control to rein in his fury. Then hours and hours to help his mother to formulate a plan.
Jakob reached for the decanter of wine, poured himself a glassful, and downed the burgundy, wrinkling his nose at the sour taste after the sweetness of the jelly. “You ought not to hit your wife, Father. Then perhaps she won’t leave you.”
Gerritt had gotten up from his chair and was pacing, practically trotting from one side of the dining room to the other. At any other time, he would have sharply rebuked Jakob for that remark. Instead he said, “I’ll find her.”
“Why? You don’t love her.”
This, too, elicited none of his father’s usual rage. “It’s not a question of love.”
“You said you would free her if I defended Harley. You readily agreed. What does it matter to you where she is?”
“It’s about control, Jakob. I can’t have my wife flittering off like a lightning bug whenever the notion comes to her. If you know where she is, then return her to me. And I think I made it clear that her freedom was contingent upon you winning. Now, tell me how you think you are going to save Harley after such a poor performance today?”
Jakob put down his knife. “You were there?”
“Yes, in my best laborer’s costume. I must say that it was a pleasure to go incognito. No one recognized me.”
“Then you know that my saving Harley rests on the fact of finding the man who actually raped Emma.”
“Possibly.”
“How possibly?”
Gerritt contemplated Jakob over the long expanse of table, littered now with their half-finished meal and guttering candles. “It’s an odd thing to have to be a detective, isn’t it, in order to save a man from prison? But in this case, of course, your only edict is to save Harley. Cast doubt on him as the perpetrator. There is no need to point any specific fingers, no need to make another man’s life miserable. If you are successful in proving that another man is the rapist, then you are in effect condemning that man to prison, aren’t you? Provided, of course, that he is brought to justice. But that would be a criminal undertaking, wouldn’t it? The Albany Penitentiary is a cesspool. No man belongs there. By saving one man, you in effect save two if you are skillful enough to save Harley without ruining another man’s life in the bargain. And as long as you save Harley, you will have fulfilled your promise to me and earned your mother’s freedom. Isn’t that all you wanted in the end? Her freedom?”
“Yes, but it seems Mother has earned her own without any help from me.”
“I doubt that, Jakob.”
“I thought by now that you would have learned not to underestimate women. Or your son.”
“Then you have already reached your goal.”
“Perhaps.”
“I know who you are, Jakob. I know you will act in the best interest of this family.”
“Yes, Father. You have my word on that.”
Gerritt eyed Jakob through heavily lidded eyes. “Shame about Captain Mantel and all those bribes. Did you know he was taking money under the table like that?”
“I think it was a shock to everyone.”
“You’ve already perfected the lawyer’s tool of deflection, I see. What do you know about it?”
“That was Farrell’s thing. I think he was tired of being the captain’s shill.”
“You don’t seem to mind being mine.”
Jakob smiled evenly.
“But don’t Captain Mantel’s actions call into question everything he does? In certain circles it’s known he has a taste for young girls.”
Jakob said, “I thought you favored not pointing fingers.”
“Fine. We can talk about Van der Veer Lumber. The new office is finished. Good profits, despite the flood.” Gerritt lifted his eyebrows. “And you’ll be glad to know that we saved the safe and I’ve put the books back.”
“Glad to hear it. Good night, Father.”
—
Later, in his study, Gerritt proceeded to slowly empty his decanter of Scotch. He had flung open a window overlooking State Street. They were out there, the Stipps and the O’Donnell sisters, across the verdant blackness of the park. This unimaginable rift with Jakob and Viola was their fault. But for the blizzard, none of this would have happened. He should never have gone to the cemetery for their funeral. If he hadn’t, the two families’ lives would not now be entangled and all would be as before. He paced back and forth before his fireplace. A breeze riffled the scattered papers on his desk. He stopped midpace and took another swallow of Scotch. The alcohol burned. Why was Jakob forcing the issue? His sole job had been to defend Harley. Emma had been his gift to Jakob, a high-profile case meant to catapult him out of lumber and into the dirty business of justice, as Jakob had wanted. It was a father’s task to aid his son, as it was a son’s task to aid his father. But the ungrateful boy would tell him nothing. Over the last eight weeks, Jakob had revealed not one iota of his strategy, plans, or evidence, not even the identity of his witnesses. He had all but disappeared from the house, too, though Gerritt had heard that he had been frequenting the State Library, using it as an office in lieu of a comfortable perch in his own home. Over the past weeks, the boy had rarely returned in the evening until long after the sky had faded into that twilit gray of late spring. On the few occasions Jakob had deigned to return early, he had sequestered himself with his mother, who’d also deserted Gerritt, taking her meals in her bedroom. Jakob, Gerritt had learned, had been taking most of his at Jacob Morgan’s restaurant on State Street, hunched over midday and evening bowls of soup like an ill-paid clerk or secretary.
And Viola. God. That churlish woman.
Since Viola had returned from that little trip of hers, he’d become a ghost in his own house, relegated to dining alone or at his club, sending messages back and forth to her through the servants, who tiptoed through the house uttering one-word answers to his inquiries about whether she had gone out (yes), and where (a shrug). She had left him—at least in any way that mattered—and though he’d long ago left her, Viola’s defection battered his general sense of dominion. Nothing, not even his shameful loss of control when she returned from that jaunt with Mary Stipp,
had moved her. She was simply indifferent to request or provocation. For incomprehensible reasons, recently she had instituted a standing quarterly order for new dolls to be sent to her from some shop in Manhattan City. He’d been there with her once. That overheated and perfumed box was located somewhere on Broadway near Union Square. Damned expensive things, those dolls were, too. French, Viola said. Special. She had bushel barrels of them. Thirty, forty, he didn’t know. He’d indulged her. She kept them locked and private in that cell of hers upstairs, and he doubted she ever even looked at them after she’d enshrined them behind glass.
And where was she now? It was a relief not to have to suffer her tonight, but she’d left without his permission. He ought to feel well rid of her, but there was something about having her, even hiding in that bedroom of hers, that allayed his unease, much as he didn’t like to acknowledge it. He preferred to couch it in terms that most men would understand. Control. Task one when the trial was finished was to find her, if only to appease his sense of self. He wandered upstairs with his highball glass newly refilled, the liquor sloshing over the glass rim as he pushed open the door into Viola’s room. The air was cold and dark, the windows shut against the night. He felt his way to her bed, half expecting to discover her asleep. His eyes adjusted a little to the darkness, and he sat down, his head bleary with alcohol. His rage had exhausted him. He lay back on the cool pillows, letting his arm extend over the edge of the bed. His eyes fluttered shut. He felt the highball slip from his grasp, heard the dull thud of the tumbler hitting the carpet, even imagined the slow wash of Scotch flooding its fibers, all without noticing the glass eyes of a curio cabinet full of staring dolls.
—
Across the park, Mary and William were again sitting up the night in Claire and Emma’s room, something they had not done since the first few nights of the girls’ return. All evening, William had bolstered an exhausted Emma with reassurance. She had grown confused under Hotaling’s deliberate diversion of the truth, as had half the courtroom and probably even the jury. It had taken great effort to convince Emma that she had done well. Now it was late evening and he and Mary were huddled under blankets in a pair of chairs, watching Emma and Claire sleep. It was the first moment they’d had to speak privately, though throughout dinner and afterward they had sought out one another’s gaze repeatedly. In the hallway, Elizabeth was playing a Brahms lullaby. Every night Elizabeth lulled the girls to sleep with the hypnotizing strains of Brahms.
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