31 Bond Street (12 page)

March 15, 1857

C
linton and Thayer walked up Centre Street to the Tombs. The sky, which had been so blue earlier, now had patches of yellow light bleeding through clouds the color of greyhounds. The city prison loomed like a stone ziggurat. Designed like a mausoleum in the Egyptian style, it had high façades of granite, and a portico of four columns, topped with palm fronds.

The usual throng mixed along the street. Since the incarceration of Emma Cunningham, a thin assemblage of crime reporters and
hangers-on lingered around the doorway all day. A soapbox orator had placed a carton near the crowd and was sermonizing to no one in particular: “It’s the crime of the century!” he cried. “Every now and then a tremendous explosion blows off the covering and lets us look in upon the rotten heart of a certain style of city life. We have looked inside this house at 31 Bond Street with loathing. We see the bitter end of a man’s career, his very life, which came about when he traded the sweet caresses of domestic purity for the polluting caresses of a ‘black-hearted woman.’”

“This fellow sounds like he’s been sacked from the
Herald
,” said Clinton as the two headed up the granite stairs.

Thayer, who had seen Emma the day before, replied, “I’d say she’s feeling black hearted. Prison life is taking its toll, now that the prison routine has set in. There has been a marked difference since the reporters’ visit.” Emma had been arraigned and charged, and a full indictment for murder in the first degree swiftly followed. The grand jury had found the case to be largely circumstantial, but even without physical evidence, a weapon, or an eyewitness, they determined that Emma Cunningham had the means and the motive to commit the crime.

The press had clamored for an opportunity to interview Emma in jail, and after pondering it carefully, her defense team decided to oblige them. A stream of reporters was handpicked from each newspaper, with a select group chosen to ask the questions. The most notable benefit was that at the first mention of the press, the Chief Warden, knowing that the city prison was a favorite source of journalistic condemnation, shifted Emma permanently to one of the largest and most commodious cells, then provided her with a good bed, a carpet, and a writing desk and chairs. She was permitted to have some personal effects brought in and special meals. For the day of the interview, Emma was given the advantage of her own
wardrobe, some books, an embroidered pillow, and a navy blue bombazine silk dress.

Clinton had calculated that the brief personal interview would humanize her to the public, after a month of caricature and misleading reports that were being issued by the newspapers and the District Attorney’s office. While Emma had been sequestered in house arrest in her bedroom, she was not seen by anyone, and her image was that of a mysterious recluse, upon whom all evil intentions could be fixed. In the interval before the jury was to be selected, it was essential to create a picture of sympathy and an antidote to the hearsay and rumor. By giving the newspaper readers a brief encounter, he hoped to present her as respectable and sympathetic, a woman in the flesh.

The public fascination with Helen and Augusta was almost as strong as with Emma. Two attractive girls, well acquainted with the art of fashion and seduction, had inspired a public curiosity usually granted a celebrated actress, even though they had done nothing more than huddle near their mother, crying, wearing the latest hat. When their mother was incarcerated they were placed with a distant relative, a stern woman who lived on Second Avenue. After a day or two, Augusta had chosen to separate and requested to stay at the home of a childhood nanny, an old lady who lived by the river on Bedford Street in Greenwich Village. On the appointed day of the press interview, the two girls were brought to the jail through a back entrance. They came well coiffed and wearing their nicest dresses.

The pressmen crowded down the stone corridor in a pack. Helen and Augusta were brought in first, for a quick visit. Under the watchful eyes of the reporters, they did not disappoint. They fell into a tearful embrace with their mother, as the scribes noted every detail. When the girls were led away, Emma stood erect, facing the
reporters from behind the bars, ready to address their questions. Reporters in the back of the crowd bobbed up and down, trying to spot every item and book title in her cell. She answered their questions, one by one, holding her hands clasped before her, responding with respect and candor.

She emphatically proclaimed her innocence. She claimed that she was unaware of the horrific occurrence in the bedroom below until the following morning. She pointed out that on the night of his death, between the hours of five and midnight, the whereabouts of Dr. Burdell were unknown. She declared that surely there were others who had been with him that night, and whoever those companions were, they were highly suspicious, by the very fact that they had not stepped forward as witnesses. She spoke about her personal distress at the slanders that had been leveled toward her during the Coroner’s inquest, and told the reporters that she was nothing more than a dedicated mother and a noble wife to two deceased husbands. “I was fit to be his wife,” she insisted of Dr. Burdell, “despite all that is said about me,” and tears sprung to her eyes. “I have suffered so by the indignity of the comments delivered by servants and others who do not even know me.”

The performance went brilliantly and ended when the Warden banged on the bars and the prison officers herded the reporters away. The following morning, the
New York Times
mentioned her bombazine silk dress and the encounter with her daughters. “Her features are regular,” the paper noted, “her eyes green. Her hair is a dark black and brushed plainly away from her temples. The expression of her countenance when she is speaking is amiable and prepossessing, that of a well-bred woman. She certainly bears herself with a degree of self-possession and with great composure. Whether she be ultimately found guilty or innocent, we remark here that none of the previously published newspaper portraits have given the true sense of her personal appeal and charm.” Clin
ton was pleased at the report but knew that her performance had been nothing short of a spectacular feat of will.

A light dusting of snow began to fall on Centre Street. It was the middle of March and spring was late. When Clinton and Thayer passed through the Egyptian portal, any association to the pharaohs ended. The interior of the penitentiary was dank and foreboding, with a central court that rose upward four stories high, with occasional murky shafts of daylight entering through openings in the fortresslike walls. Tiers of balconies circled the inner courtyard in rings, and iron stairs zigzagged upward between them. From the balconies came the distant whine of prisoners, the clanking of bars, and the sharp rebukes of wardens.

The two lawyers started the climb to the top where Emma was held along a special corridor. They had to follow along the balconies, passing rows of inmates, who appeared hungrily at the bars, with thin arms holding out tin bowls for food. The first tier was for minor offenders: brawlers and knuckle-busters, pickpockets, inebriates, and gin thieves and a whole row for prostitutes, who lounged on thin cots and called back and forth to one another. The next level was for the more infamous: burglars and arsonists, ruffians, gang members, and dirk men, who made dexterous use of ropes and garrotes to accost honest people on their way home in the dark, and deprive them of their possessions.

The third tier had an aisle known as the Murderer’s Block, for those who had already been sentenced to death. Each cell had a small window in full view of the prison yard where the scaffold stood. The final ceremony required a solemn roll of a drum, and then a shroud was placed over the condemned man’s head. When the spring was touched, an iron weight fell toward the ground, which jerked up the other end of the rope, and the hatch lifted, launching the criminal into the air, leaving him dangling, in a fresh suit provided by a charity. The only motion was a slight kick of the
feet, like a person who had lost his footing and was endeavoring to find a more secure terrain. Then whispers and cries would come up from the cell blocks below that had no view, calling, “Have they jerked him yet?”

Emma was still detained on the isolated hall reserved for special prisoners, those with well-connected families, or politicians who had been on the dole. The chief matron hurried toward them with a key, allowing them entry. Emma was pacing about. Her face was still lovely, but the prison air had left a grey cast upon her complexion and dark shadows under her eyes. In this light, it was not hard to picture her skin becoming papery and lined with age.

“My daughters were here this morning to visit,” she began, “and they say they continue to overhear the most slanderous lies.”

“You must put your best face forward, and try not to pay attention. You must remain strong,” Clinton said.

“But the accusations still tear me up inside. They vilify me.” She was agitated, walking back and forth, wringing her hands.

“The trial will be more of the same, perhaps worse. A desperate prosecution is the cruelest.”

“God knows I was fit to be the wife of Dr. Burdell!” she said. “They say I was not. He need not ever have been ashamed to call me his wife!” Clinton and Thayer glanced at each other. She was caught up in the plight of prisoners—too much time alone to spin endless scenarios to their own defense.

“That brings me to our business today, Madame,” said Thayer. “Can we discuss a few incidents that have come to my attention?” Thayer had a list of questions—loose ends that he was pursuing to counter the prosecution’s case. Almost every person that had known the victim had been interviewed by the Coroner or discovered by the press, and it was important to prepare against testimony from future witnesses. The defense needed to close all holes, but this was going to be difficult, given her state of mind.

“First off, let’s all have a seat,” said Clinton. Thayer and Clinton sat in hardback chairs, and Emma sat on her cot, facing them.

Thayer hesitated, then began: “Were you aware that Dr. Burdell had a mistress?”

Emma looked taken aback. It was the look of someone who is ready to flee from danger, Thayer being the danger at hand.

Thayer quickly interjected: “This has no reflection on your own character, in our eyes as your counsel, and we have no intention of disturbing you with unpleasantness from the past. However, we have it upon good information that Dr. Burdell had a mistress and was seen with her often. I am sorry if it is painful for you, but our understanding is that if the prosecution called this woman as a witness, her existence might prove the motive of your jealousy.”

Emma still looked stunned. Her eyes darted about, as if she was groping for a way to react to the news. It was never easy for a woman to listen to the details of her own debasement.

“No, I knew nothing of that,” she said. As Clinton watched, he saw her pause, and wondered if she was telling the truth. “Now,” said Thayer, looking down at his page, to continue. “Fortunately for us, her husband, having becoming aware of this scandal, has whisked her far from the city, where I believe she will remain. I suspect she will never testify, but we need to plan for the remote possibility.”

Thayer flipped through his pages, and continued. “Do you know if there was money that Dr. Burdell owed, or any parties in particular that might have been aggrieved by his business pursuits.”

Clinton watched Emma carefully. Again, Emma looked stunned, as if the probing was a personal assault. “He was a very private man, in all matters, both business and personal, he kept such information to himself. He conducted his business in his office or private rooms. As for these associates you are asking me about, I cannot tell you what went on behind closed doors.”

“You lived in that house, didn’t you?” asked Thayer. “We know
that in the past, Dr. Burdell was engaged in certain business ventures, not all of them above board. You would have had a peek behind those doors, wouldn’t you? You might have seen some of the goings-on?”

Clinton tapped his foot impatiently. It was a warning for Thayer to tread lightly. The young man had a litigator’s instinct, but he needed to be trained to save it for the courtroom. Only the poorest of defense lawyers unleashed it against their own clients, and the most disreputable hoped to rattle their clients and raise their fees.

“I’m sorry, Madame,” Thayer said. “With all due respect, I recognize that you trusted Dr. Burdell, and it must be distressing to learn the many ways that he was not worthy of that trust. In bringing up these difficult matters, as your counsel, we are looking for clues to other individuals or actions, all with a motive to vindicate you.”

Clinton interjected, “We need you to trust us and think hard, and tell us what you might have seen or heard.”

“I know there were individuals that he was meeting to do business with on the night of his death, but I do not know who they were. He did not confide that matter to me. I know that he was dealing in matters to do with land. I fell asleep and woke only briefly when I heard the carriage outside, and immediately fell asleep again. He had probably been in some improper place on Friday night, I do not know who he was with.”

This was the spot when Emma’s story always became the most dramatic, and sure enough, she began to sob. “I am so worried for my daughters, and the things they are hearing. My whole life has been guided by the aim to be a noble woman, to bring them up, as respectable girls. God knows I was fit to be the wife of Dr. Burdell. To slander me as they do…when we were going to live happily together. When we were going to go to Europe.”

“The marriage was not witnessed by others, and there is no
record besides the minister. His memory is not certain. Was there any other way that the marriage was known to the public?”

“We were seen publicly all around the town and at the theatre, and his intentions to marry me were plain to everyone. As far as his intentions to my family, they were clear as well. He paid for the tuition for my daughter at her school.”