Worthy Brown's Daughter

by Phillip Margolin

  “I don’t trust Hill, and Lukens is pathetic. I don’t think he’d be brave enough to sneak into an occupied room in the middle of the night.”

  “If you’re right, the situation is serious. I’m going to follow some leads and see what turns up.”

  “Good. I like Ben. I’d hate to see him hurt.”

  “I feel the same way,” Orville said. “So how is Worthy’s case going?”

  “Okay,” Matthew said, his tone guarded.

  “I assume you’ll call Mr. Brown’s daughter at the trial.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “To prove Barbour molested her. You are going to argue defense of another, aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Have you talked to Roxanne about what happened before you rescued her?”

  “Why is my case of interest to you?” Matthew answered defensively.

  “I’d like to help if I can. Barbour was despicable, and what he did to Mr. Brown and his daughter was inexcusable. You can count on me to do anything I can to see that justice is done.”

  “Thank you,” Matthew said, but his tone let Orville know that he would probably not hear from Matthew.

  “Are you okay?” Orville asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You look exhausted.”

  “I’ve just been working hard.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing else?”

  “I’m fine,” Matthew said as he stood. “I’ve got to get back to my office.”

  Matthew put some money on the table and walked away. As he crossed the street, he could feel Orville’s eyes boring into his back. Were Orville’s questions about Worthy’s case simple curiosity, or did Orville sense that something about the case was not right? Orville was very smart. Did he suspect that Matthew had killed Caleb Barbour? What a relief it would be if Orville proved that Matthew was responsible and Worthy went free, but there was no way Orville could prove his suspicions were true, assuming that he even had any. Matthew accepted the fact that no one could help him. This battle of wills was between him and Worthy Brown, and Matthew was being defeated soundly.

  CHAPTER 38

  The mind of Roxanne Brown opened like a budding flower. Heather tutored her in reading, writing, and mathematics then exposed her to history and geography when she saw how easily Roxanne absorbed any subject put before her. Little by little, the excitement and distraction engendered by her education helped banish the terror that had imprisoned Roxanne, but it did not make a dent in the pain caused by her father’s imprisonment.

  During one of their walks, Roxanne gathered her courage and asked Heather if she could arrange a visit to her father. Heather had dreaded that question because she had already broached the subject with Marshal Lappeus, who had told her that only attorneys and clergyman could visit the prisoner in the jail. Roxanne’s shoulders and spirits had sagged at the bad news, but her mathematics lessons had taught her that there were solutions to even the most knotty problems.

  One morning, Roxanne put on a pair of boots and a heavy coat and trudged down the winding road from Gillette House to the jail. It was a cold winter day, and the walk was several miles on a pathway turned into swamp by heavy rains. Roxanne turned up her coat collar, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and bent into the wind. She didn’t pass many people on the road down from Gillette House, but Portland’s population had swollen to three thousand souls by 1860, and she began to encounter its inhabitants as soon as she drew near the residential area that had sprung up on the edge of the city. A Negro girl was an oddity on the streets of Portland, but Roxanne was also the central figure in two of Portland’s most talked about trials. Even well-mannered passersby could be forgiven for staring. Those who were less refined directed cruel comments at her. Roxanne was focused on her mission and was oblivious to many of the comments, but some of the barbs struck home. Her fear and embarrassment increased with each insult, but nothing would deter her from carrying out her plan.

  Marshal Lappeus had told Heather that Roxanne could not visit her father inside the jail. He had said nothing about talking to him from outside, so Roxanne walked behind the jail to the muddy lot that Worthy’s cell window overlooked.

  “Daddy,” she called out.

  Worthy was spending more and more time lying on his bed, his mind drifting as he tried to dream away his time in jail. At first, he believed his daughter’s voice was a figment of his imagination, but a lump formed in Worthy’s throat when it dawned on him that Roxanne was really outside. He climbed onto the edge of his bed on wobbly legs and gripped the bars on the window to steady himself. He had never fully recovered from his beating, and the conditions of his incarceration had further weakened him. Worthy started to say something when he remembered Amos Strayer.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.

  “The marshal told Miss Heather I couldn’t go inside the jail. He didn’t say anything about outside.”

  “If Deputy Strayer sees you, he might arrest you.”

  “If he tells me to go, I’ll go. Let’s just talk now. We . . . we might not get another chance.”

  “You talk and I’ll listen,” Worthy whispered. “That way, there’s less chance the deputy will know you’re outside.”

  ROXANNE TOLD HER FATHER ABOUT her life at Gillette House, and Worthy’s chest swelled as she reeled off her accomplishments. He would be leaving this world soon, but he would be leaving behind a wonderful young girl who was growing into an accomplished young woman. Life would be hard for a Negro child in this world where color meant so much, but Roxanne could read and do sums—skills Worthy had never dreamed of mastering. The world was changing, and Roxanne gave him hope.

  The day grew long, and Roxanne said good-bye because she had to return to Gillette House to finish her chores. Worthy lay down on his bed and tried to picture Roxanne in ten years. A big smile spread across his face as he imagined a fine young woman with a husband and children like his Polly had been, only free. Maybe Roxanne’s family would live on their own farm. There was a husband and wife in Portland—free Negroes—who owned a store. That was a wonder. Roxanne was smart. Maybe she and her husband would own a store some day.

  Worthy could not imagine much more than that for a girl, but what if one of Roxanne’s children was a boy. Would he grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer? Wouldn’t that be something? A grandson he could call doctor!

  Worthy sobered. If that did happen, he would never know about it. He would never know any of the truth about his daughter’s future past his hanging, and he was going to hang. Worthy’s heart seized up, tears clouded his eyes, and he cried for all the things he would never know: the wedding he would not attend, the grandchildren he would never get to hold.

  Worthy’s face grew hot with sorrow, and he let go for the first time since he had been imprisoned. Seeing Roxanne had done this to him; but seeing her so happy made the pain worthwhile, and knowing in his heart that Roxanne would be all right was worth any sacrifice.

  CHAPTER 39

  In the weeks preceding Christmas, Roxanne’s duties kept her from town. On the first day she was able to break away from Gillette House, she was stunned to find a crowd surrounding a wooden scaffold that had been erected in the field behind the jail. Roxanne listened to the excited chatter of the crowd and soon learned that the noose had been prepared for Kevin O’Toole, the jail’s other inmate.

  O’Toole had shot a man named Flynn through the meat of his arm, wounding him. Flynn had gone to his room to lie down and recover while O’Toole brooded in the saloon where the shooting had occurred. That evening, as Flynn lay sleeping, O’Toole had crept into Flynn’s room and cut his throat.

  Roxanne stood on the edge of the crowd as O’Toole walked from the jail to meet his fate, reading scripture the whole way. The crowd grew silent as he was led up the wooden steps to the plank platform. Roxanne
’s imagination substituted her father for the condemned man, and her heart beat rapidly.

  “You got anything to say to these people?” Marshal Lappeus asked O’Toole.

  “I do,” O’Toole answered, his voice catching.

  “Then say your piece.”

  O’Toole looked out at the crowd. He was tall, and his time in the lockup had given him a skeletal appearance that made him look far older than his twenty-two years. He’d combed his long brown hair to look his best on his last day. There were shadows under his muddy brown eyes. When he spoke, his voice shook.

  “I did kill Jake Flynn, and I’m sorry I done it. But I had my reasons, and I want you to know it wasn’t from pure cussedness. I knew Jake, and he knew me. Some three months before I killed him we had a quarrel over cards where Jake stabbed me with a knife and would have killed me if my friends didn’t stop him. Ever since, I wanted revenge because that quarrel wasn’t my fault. Also, Jake was threatening me whenever he could and said he would kill me, first chance he got.

  “When I shot Flynn, he drew first, as God is my witness, but I was lucky and didn’t get hit, whereas he got hit. I should have left it there, but I took to thinking on it and drinking. I knew if he didn’t die, there’d be no end to it, as Flynn was a man who held a grudge.

  “I see many young men in this crowd, and I want you to take a warning from this not to drink or gamble, neither, because we wouldn’t have quarreled if we wasn’t playing cards, and I wouldn’t have killed him if liquor hadn’t got the best of my judgment.

  “I got to pay now, but I hope this will be a lesson, as I said. And I hope I go to heaven, as I’ve been a good churchgoer my whole life, when I had the chance, and I am truly sorry for what I done.”

  O’Toole stopped talking, and the marshal asked him if he was through.

  “I guess,” O’Toole answered in a subdued tone. “Except I see my friends below, and I want to wish them good-bye.”

  The marshal took the Bible from O’Toole’s shaking hands, tied his hands behind his back, and covered the young man’s face with a hood. The crowd had turned somber while listening to the condemned man’s last words, and they were quiet when the marshal put the rope around his neck. Roxanne saw a few women dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs.

  Marshal Lappeus positioned O’Toole over the trapdoor and stepped back. Then he pulled a lever, and the trap opened. O’Toole dropped through, his body jerked, the rope snapped, and he dropped to the ground. The crowd gasped. O’Toole, blinded by the hood, his hands bound, writhed on the ground shouting, “Jesus, save me. Jesus, save me.”

  O’Toole’s friends rushed under the scaffold and pulled him out as the marshal and his deputies scrambled down from the gallows. The crowd began chanting, “Let him live,” and surged forward to surround the cowboy, who sagged in the arms of his companions, weeping and praying.

  Marshal Lappeus, a deeply religious man, had been moved by O’Toole’s words. It was only a few weeks before Christmas, and he could not discount the possibility that a higher power than the state of Oregon had overturned O’Toole’s death sentence. Justice Tyler had imposed that sentence. Since he’d never encountered something like this, the marshal wished he could consult with Tyler, but the judge was riding the circuit, so Lappeus conferred with his deputies while gauging the mood of the crowd. After a short discussion, he decided to let O’Toole ride off with his companions on the condition that he promise never to set foot in Oregon again.

  Roxanne had been stunned by O’Toole’s miraculous escape from the grim reaper. Until the rope broke, Roxanne had accepted her father’s fate. Now she wondered if the aborted hanging was a sign, and if there had been others as well.

  One came immediately to mind. It had lain on the end table in Mr. Gillette’s library. In A Tale of Two Cities, an act of heroism saves a condemned man. Why, she asked herself, had that particular book been left for her to find? And there was something else, another discovery she’d made in the library: a shiny, fully loaded Colt revolver in the lower drawer of Gillette’s escritoire.

  CHAPTER 40

  Father,” Heather Gillette said. “There’s someone you must meet and some things you must listen to, even though I know you won’t want to hear them.”

  Benjamin Gillette was not expecting Heather or Orville Mason, and he had no idea of the identity of the nervous young man Mason had ushered into his office. The boy was dressed in a clean blue suit, a pressed white shirt, and a bow tie. His chubby face bore traces of acne, and Gillette guessed that he was still in his teens. On entering, the young man doffed his hat and stood at attention in front of Gillette’s desk.

  “What’s this about, Heather?” Gillette asked, confused by the sudden intrusion.

  “Orville will explain why we’re here.”

  “Mr. Gillette, this is Emmett Bradford, a clerk at the Evergreen Hotel,” Orville said. “Emmett, tell Mr. Gillette what you told me about Miss Hill’s activities.”

  Gillette turned to Heather. He looked furious. “I told you Miss Hill was not your concern.”

  “I believe you will be glad that your daughter asked me to look into this matter, sir,” Orville said. “Please hear us out.”

  Gillette looked as if he wanted to throw the intruders out of his office, but he loved Heather dearly and knew she had his best interests at heart.

  “Very well,” he said, making no effort to hide his displeasure. “But make this fast. I’m pressed for time.”

  “Go ahead,” Orville told the boy. “You have nothing to fear.”

  Bradford shifted nervously from foot to foot. “Well, sir,” he said, his voice shaking, “it’s like I told Mr. Mason. Miss Hill has entertained Justice Tyler in our dining room.”

  Gillette looked past Bradford to his attorney. “I see nothing untoward about an occasional dinner, Orville.”

  “Tell him the rest,” Orville told the clerk.

  Bradford blushed, and his fingers worried the brim of his hat. Gillette looked puzzled.

  “Go ahead,” Orville urged gently.

  “Well, sir,” Bradford said, his eyes fixed on the pattern of the Persian rug that covered the office floor, “she . . . Miss Hill . . . she entertained Mr. Caleb Barbour in her room.”

  “Caleb?” Gillette repeated dully.

  “Tell Mr. Gillette about the champagne.”

  Bradford swallowed. There were beads of sweat on his brow.

  “Well, sir, one time I was asked to take a bottle of champagne to Miss Hill’s suite, and Mr. Barbour was there.”

  “How were Mr. Barbour and Miss Hill dressed?” Orville asked.

  “Mr. Barbour was in his shirtsleeves with his shirt open at the neck, and he was lounging on the couch in the sitting room.”

  “And Miss Hill?” Orville asked.

  “I only saw her for a second. She was in another room. But I believe she was in a dressing gown.”

  Gillette’s gaze dropped to his desktop, but Orville was certain that he was not seeing any item set upon it.

  “Do you wish to ask Mr. Bradford any questions?” Orville asked.

  “How many times did Mr. Barbour spend the night?” Gillette asked.

  “I can’t say for certain, sir. There were two times I know for sure he visited. When I brought up the champagne, he left close to dawn.”

  “And Justice Tyler, has he ever gone up to Miss Hill’s room?”

  “No, sir, not that I saw,” Bradford answered quickly.

  Gillette asked a few more questions, but his heart was not in the interrogation. Orville thanked Bradford and saw him out. Then he sat across from his client.

  “There’s more, Ben,” Orville said softly. “I sent a telegram to Clyde Lukens’s firm. They confirmed his version of the origins of the money found in his room in Phoenix. The firm gave him fifty dollars for expenses. A week before he arrived in Phoenix,
he wired them that he had orders totaling approximately two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  Gillette exhaled sharply.

  “And I’ve uncovered something that’s more disturbing than everything I’ve just told you,” Orville continued. “I had a sketch of Miss Hill made surreptitiously. I sent the sketch to a Harvard classmate who is practicing in San Francisco. He employed a gentleman who is comfortable circulating in the city’s less reputable precincts to seek information about the woman in the drawing.

  “I realize that a sketch is not an exact representation of a person’s features, but I can attest that my artist created an excellent likeness. According to my friend, the woman in the sketch bears a striking resemblance to a prostitute who disappeared from the city shortly after her pimp—Warren Quimby—died under mysterious circumstances.”

  “Surely you don’t think . . . ?” Gillette began, finding it impossible to complete the sentence.

  “Absent an identification made by someone who knew the woman, I cannot form an opinion with any certainty,” Orville said, “but I wanted you to know what I’d discovered. I suggest most strongly that you make further inquiries about Miss Hill’s background, given what I’ve uncovered.”

  CHAPTER 41

  James Lappeus owed his position as marshal to saloon power. In 1858, the electorate showed its opposition to ordinances regulating the sale of liquor by choosing Addison Starr, co-owner of Portland’s first distillery, as mayor. In 1859, Lappeus, co-owner of the popular Oro Fino Saloon, was elected city marshal. Lappeus had been so big as a child that there was no one to bully him, so he grew up affable and secure. “Peace officer” was a perfect title for him because he would not tolerate anyone brash enough to disturb the serenity of his surroundings. Rowdy customers of the Oro Fino and obstreperous lawbreakers melted into docility when this smiling giant curled his thick fingers to form a ham-size fist.