by Caleb Carr
Mr. Darrow just held up his hands, taking his turn at playing innocent. “I apologize, Your Honor, if my remarks were inappropriate.”
“Inappropriate and inadmissible,” the judge fired back. “The jury will ignore the defense’s remarks concerning the witness’s current assignment for the New York City Police Department, and those remarks will be stricken from the record.” The warning gavel was lifted once more, toward the defense table. “And don’t try that kind of thing with me again, Mr. Darrow. I will tolerate no mention or exploration of any subject that does not concern this case and this case alone. Now proceed with your questions.”
“I have no further questions, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow answered, sitting down.
“Mr. Picton?” the judge said. “Do you wish to redirect?”
“If redirection could wipe the jury’s memory clean of aspersions, Your Honor,” Mr. Picton said, “then I would redirect. As it cannot, I will not.”
“Then the detective sergeant is excused,” Judge Brown answered, “and the state may call its next witness.”
“The state,” Mr. Picton announced, “calls Mrs. Louisa Wright.”
There was a small commotion at the back of the room, as Mrs. Wright made her way in through the mahogany doors.
CHAPTER 46
While the former housekeeper was walking down the aisle, the Doctor leaned over to ask Mr. Picton: “What about Parker?”
Mr. Picton shrugged. “Two of Dunning’s deputies were supposed to escort him up on the early train this morning. They should have arrived by now. I’ll have to get to him this afternoon.”
Wearing an old-style blue dress, Mrs. Wright walked steadily and proudly through the gate in the oak railing, turning her grey-haired head and sharp features to the defense table just once and registering no emotion of any kind when she saw Libby Hatch. To Bailiff Coffey’s oath she near yelled a solid “I do!” and then stated her name like she expected somebody to challenge her on it. It was an attitude what she never lost through all of Mr. Picton’s opening questions, during which time he established a very clear picture of what life in the Hatch house had been like. Libby had been a woman of very changeable temperament, Mrs. Wright said, and when she felt that her own desires were being frustrated, she was capable of flying into extreme rages. Mr. Picton made sure the jury understood that Louisa Wright had no great love for Daniel Hatch and felt no jealousy toward her former mistress: as she’d told Miss Howard when we first got to town, the only people that she felt any genuine sympathy for or attachment to in the house were the three kids, who’d grown up so rattled by their father’s crankiness and their mother’s changeable moods that they sometimes seemed to be in a constant state of nervousness.
“Now, then, Mrs. Wright,” Mr. Picton finally asked, after he’d painted this none-too-pleasing picture of the Hatch home, “when would you say that the Reverend Clayton Parker became a regular visitor to the house?”
“Well,” the old girl answered, mulling it over, “he generally dropped by at holidays, Christmas and such, and of course he took care of christening Clara—but he didn’t start paying what you’d call regular social visits until later. Clara’s first birthday, I think, was the first night he actually stayed to dinner.”
“And how often did he visit after that?”
“Oh, at least once a week, and sometimes more often. Mr. Hatch was taking more of an interest in the church’s business by then, you see. A lot of people’ll do that, when they start thinking that they don’t have much time left.” Mrs. Wright hadn’t meant the statement as a joke, and she was surprised when it got a laugh from the galleries. “They will!” she insisted, folding her hands tightly, like she was embarrassed. “I’ve seen it happen.”
“Of course you have,” Mr. Picton answered. “But was Mr. Hatch’s interest in the church the main reason for Reverend Parker’s increased presence at the house?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow droned. “The question calls for a speculative answer.”
“I shall rephrase it, then,” Mr. Picton said, before the judge could order him to. “Mrs. Wright, was it Mr. Hatch that the reverend spent the greater portion of time with during his visits?”
“No, sir,” Mrs. Wright answered with a little scoff. “After all, how long does it take to write a check?”
That got more laughs out of the crowd, and the judge responded in his usual manner: with irritated raps of his gavel. Leaning over, he scolded Mrs. Wright gently: “The witness will please try to keep the element of sarcasm out of her responses.”
“I am, sir!” she answered, looking a little offended. “That’s all Mr. Hatch did when the reverend came—write checks, and maybe talk for a few minutes about theology. The rest of the time it was the missus that looked after their—guest.”
“And why was that?” Mr. Picton asked.
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” Mrs. Wright replied. “I only know what I saw, six or seven times.”
“And what did you see?”
Stiffening her back and narrowing her eyes, Mrs. Wright lifted a pointing finger in the direction of the defense table. “I saw that woman and the Reverend Parker. Out in the birch grove, about a quarter of a mile from the house.”
“And what were they doing?”
“They were not doing the sorts of thing that a reverend generally does with a married woman!” Mrs. Wright answered, as offended as she would’ve been if the incidents had occurred just yesterday.
The judge sighed wearily. “Mrs. Wright, the question is a direct one. Do please try to make your answers follow suit. I’ve got enough wordplay to contend with in this case.”
Mrs. Wright looked up at the bench, a shocked look on her face. “Do you mean—I should just say what I mean?”
The judge tried to smile. “It would be most refreshing.”
Mrs. Wright folded her hands in her lap. “Well, I don’t know as—but if you order me to, Judge, well …” She took a deep breath and went on. “The first time, I went looking for the missus, being as Clara’d been taken sick. I saw her in the birch grove with the reverend. They had their arms around each other. They were—kissing.”
More mumbles in the crowd netted more raps of the gavel from the judge.
“And the other times?” Mr. Picton asked.
“The other times—well—” Mrs. Wright shifted uneasily. “Some of them were the same. But others—well, it was the middle of summer, those times. Warm, like now. The ground’s soft in that grove, with a fine moss bed. And that’s all I’m going to say, judge or no judge, court or no court. I’m a decent woman!”
Mr. Picton nodded. “And we certainly wouldn’t ask you to behave in an indecent manner. But let me put the question to you this way, Mrs. Wright: Would it be accurate to say that you observed the defendant and Reverend Parker in a state of partial or complete undress?”
Now starting to positively squirm, Mrs. Wright nodded. “Yes, sir. It would.”
“And engaged in physical intimacy?”
Her discomfort seeming to turn to anger, Mrs. Wright barked, “Yes, sir—and her with a husband and the sweetest little girl anybody could ever wish for back at the house! Disgraceful, I call it!”
Nodding as he started to pace before the witness chair, Mr. Picton slowly asked, “I don’t suppose you could give me precise dates for these events?”
“Not precise, sir, no.”
“No. But let me ask you this—would you feel sure saying that they preceded the births of Matthew and Thomas Hatch by at least nine months?”
“Your Honor!” Mr. Darrow called out. “I’m afraid the state is indulging its taste for suggestion again.”
“I’m not so sure I agree with you this time, Counselor,” the judge answered. “The state, though they have been an infernal nuisance about it, have introduced evidence that speaks to opportunity and means, in this case. I’m going to allow them to start approaching the question of motive. But you do it carefully, Mr. Picton.”
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p; Looking like he could’ve kissed that white, fuzzy head what was bobbing behind the bench, Mr. Picton said, “Yes, Your Honor,” and then turned back to his witness. “Well, Mrs. Wright? Would you say that the timing was about right, with respect to the birth of the two younger Hatch children?”
“It was awfully close,” Mrs. Wright replied with a nod. “I remember remarking on it to myself at the time. And when the boys came out looking the way they did, well… I drew my own conclusions.”
“And how was it that they looked?” Mr. Picton stole a glance up at the bench. “I ask you not to be presumptuous here, Mrs. Wright.”
Wagging a finger toward the defense table again, Mrs. Wright said, “Those boys didn’t get their coloring—their eyes, their skin, their hair—from Mr. or Mrs. Hatch. Anybody could see that. And there was something else, too—when you live in the house that you work in, you get to know its rhythms, so to speak. Mrs. Hatch slept in a separate bedroom from Mr. Hatch. When they were first married, they spent some nights together in his room, but after Clara came … well, Mr. Hatch never slept anywhere but in his own bed. And if the missus ever went into Mr. Hatch’s room again, other than to take him food and medicine when he was dying, I certainly didn’t witness it.”
“I see. Then when was the last time you saw Mrs. Hatch go into her husband’s room?”
“The night the children were shot,” Mrs. Wright answered. “She was flying all through the house—I couldn’t stop her, I was too busy trying to help the children. But she locked herself into Mr. Hatch’s old room for a good five minutes.”
“Locked herself?” Mr. Picton repeated. “How did you know that she locked the door?”
“She was in there when the sheriff and Dr. Lawrence came,” Mrs. Wright answered with a shrug. “They tried to get to her, so Dr. Lawrence could give her something to calm her down. But the door was locked. After a few more minutes she came back out, still screaming and running all around. She said she’d found her husband’s gun, and that she was afraid she was going to do herself some injury with it. She told me to get rid of the thing—so I wrapped it up in a paper bag and dropped it down the old well.”
“And do you remember what kind of paper bag it was?”
Mrs. Wright nodded. “Mr. Hatch’d bought everything in bulk, to save money. We still had a whole crate of bags from Mr. West’s factory.”
Mr. Picton moved to his table and picked up the piece of paper bag what Lucius had cut away from the Colt revolver the evening he found the thing. “So the bag would have borne this imprint?” He handed her the snippet of brown paper.
Studying the thing, Mrs. Wright nodded. “Yes, that’s right.” “You’re sure?”
“Certainly I’m sure. You see, two years ago West’s bag company moved this writing, here, from the bottom of the bags to up around the top. If you have enough of the things, you notice.”
“And do you have enough of the things?”
“Yes, sir, I never throw them away. A widow living on an army pension can’t be too careful about expenses.”
“No, of course not. Well, thank you, Mrs. Wright. I have no more questions.”
Mr. Picton sat down, still looking very pleased that none of Mrs. Wright’s testimony had been excluded from the record. Mr. Darrow, on the other hand, seemed to be going through one of those on-the-spot strategy shifts of his: holding his hands in front of his face and knitting his brows tight over his eyes, he waited a minute or two before saying anything or moving.
“Mr. Darrow?” the judge asked. “Do you have questions for this witness?”
Finally showing some movement, but only in his eyes, Mr. Darrow mumbled, “Just one or two, Your Honor.” Then, after another pause, he stood up. “Mrs. Wright, did you ever observe anything in the defendant’s behavior that would’ve led you to believe that she might’ve been capable of murdering her own children?”
Mr. Picton, who’d only just settled into his chair, got right back up. “I must object to that, Your Honor. The witness is not qualified to speak to such matters. We have alienists who will tell us what the defendant might or might not have been capable of.”
“Yes,” the judge replied, “and no doubt they’ll contradict each other and get us absolutely nowhere. The witness is a woman of uncommon good sense, it seems to me, Mr. Picton—and it was you, after all, who argued to have her impressions included in the record. I’ll let her answer.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow said. “Well, Mrs. Wright?”
Taking a moment to think it over, and stealing another look at Libby as she did, Mrs. Wright said, “I—hadn’t counted on being asked that question.”
“Oh?” Mr. Darrow said. “Well, I’m sorry to surprise you. But try to come up with an answer, all the same. Did you ever, during all the years that you were in her employ, suspect that Mrs. Hatch was capable of murdering her own children?”
Mrs. Wright looked to Mr. Picton, and the struggle what was going on in her mind was plain to see in her face.
“What the hell’s Darrow doing?” Mr. Moore whispered. “I thought that was supposed to be one of our questions!”
“He’s seen what the jury’s inferring from her testimony,” the Doctor answered. “He wants to rattle her by attempting to force her to make an outright accusation.” He leaned forward anxiously. “But will she be rattled …?”
Mr. Darrow folded his arms. “I’m still here, Mrs. Wright.”
“It—” Louisa Wright wrung her hands for a few seconds. “It’s not the kind of thing to bandy around—”
“Really?” Mr. Darrow replied. “It seems to me you’ve done an awful lot of ‘bandying’ already. I wouldn’t think this would give you any pause. But let me make it easier for you. You claim that Mrs. Hatch was engaged in what sounds like it was a pretty torrid affair with the Reverend Parker. Don’t you think it would’ve been easier for her to run off with him, once her husband was dead, if she didn’t have three children to drag along?”
“That’s a hard way to put it,” Mrs. Wright answered, glancing at Libby again.
“If you can think of an easy way to put such accusations,” Mr. Darrow said, “you just let me know. Well, Mrs. Wright?”
“You don’t understand,” the woman said, a little more defiantly.
“And what don’t I understand?”
Mrs. Wright leaned forward, eyeing Mr. Darrow. “I have children, sir. My husband and I had two, before he was killed in the war. I can’t imagine what would drive a woman to do something like that. It isn’t natural. For a mother to end any life that she brought into the world—it just isn’t natural.”
“Your Honor, I’m forced to ask for your help here,” Mr. Darrow said. “The question was, I think, pretty close to clear.”
“Mrs. Wright,” Judge Brown said, “you’re only being asked for your opinion.”
“But it’s a terrible thing, Your Honor, to accuse someone of!” Mrs. Wright said.
Mr. Darrow, smelling her fear, moved in closer to the witness stand. “But the state is accusing her, Mrs. Wright, and you’re a witness for the state. Come, now, you knew that Mrs. Hatch had been written out of her husband’s will—that the only way she could inherit his money was if the children died. Didn’t that make you at all suspicious?”
“All right, then!” the woman finally hollered. “It does make me suspicious—but it’s still an awful thing to accuse someone of!”
“It does make you suspicious, Mrs. Wright?” Mr. Darrow asked quietly. “Or it did? Let me see if I follow you. You say that Mrs. Hatch had a violent temper sometimes. You say that she was romantically involved with the Reverend Parker. And you say that she wanted her husband’s money. And all of this, you now say, is grounds for believing that she killed her children—although you didn’t make any such accusations at the time.”
“Of course I didn’t!” Mrs. Wright protested. “I was only asked for my opinion a week or so ago!”
“Exactly, Mrs. Wright,” Mr. Darrow answered, ve
ry satisfied. “Tell me—have you ever known any other women who raised a hand to their children?”
Mrs. Wright’s face grew puzzled. “Yes, of course.”
“Ever heard of any who were unfaithful to their husbands?”
Shifting nervously, Mrs. Wright tried to rein her voice in. “One or two, perhaps.”
“How about any that married rich old men to get their hands on their money?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you think any of them would’ve been capable of murdering their own children?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say, Mrs. Wright.”
“I—I don’t know.”
“But you’ve got pretty definite suspicions about Mrs. Hatch. Now, I mean.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Mr. Darrow replied, coming in close again. “Mrs. Wright, isn’t it true that you only think Mrs. Hatch might have killed her children now because the assistant district attorney and his investigators suggested to you that she might have done it?”
“Your Honor!” Mr. Picton shouted, popping up. “If the counsel for the defense is implying that the witness is lying—”
“Your Honor, I am implying no such thing,” Mr. Darrow answered. “I’m simply trying to trace the origins of Mrs. Wright’s suspicions, and to show that they, like so many other things in this case, seem to lead back to the assistant district attorney—and to the people who are advising him in this matter.”
“Mr. Darrow,” Judge Brown said, “I thought we had seen the last of insinuation, here—”
“And so we have, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow answered obligingly. “I have no further questions for this witness.”
There was a long pause, during which Mr. Picton watched Mr. Darrow sit back down with a combination of anger and temporary confusion in his face.
“Mr. Picton?” Judge Brown finally said. “Do you wish to redirect?”
Mr. Picton turned to the bench. “No, Your Honor.”
“Then the witness is excused,” the judge said, at which the shaken Mrs. Wright made her way down from the stand. Judge Brown looked to Mr. Picton again. “Do you have another witness for us, sir?”
