California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) (56 page)

The case was postponed again until
mid-September. During the three weeks Esther was back in Sacramento, she
decided to be in court if Alex took the stand. Sharon was confident that would
not be necessary, and at Ralston's urging he agreed not to call upon Alex
unless he was certain he would otherwise lose the case. The week before Esther
returned to San Francisco, Alex wrote to tell her Katherine McDonnell had
indeed found herself the powerful lawyer she needed. He did not mention the new
lawyer's name, but he was certain Sharon would need his testimony in the face
of the man's prominence and expertise. He suggested that Esther remain in
Sacramento, considering the "circumstances."

She quickly made arrangements for a
substitute teacher at the school and gave
Solana
enough money to cover expenses while she
was gone. She did not understand what Alex meant by "circumstances"
until she took her place in the court gallery the morning the trial began.

She was early; in another twenty minutes
the spectators would jam the rest of the balcony, eager for the circus they
expected the case to be. As she sat there, she pondered the effect Alex's
testimony would have on both of them should he have to take the stand. All hope
that he would not sank in eddies of hatred and fear fifteen minutes later, when
Luther Mosby, wearing only a moustache again, rather than Lincolnesque chin
whiskers, walked to the defense-counsel conference table with Katherine
McDonnell on his arm.

Outwardly it seemed obvious even at a
glance that Mosby was smitten with her. And that, authentically or not, she was
displaying far more than the feelings of a client. As the courtroom and gallery
filled, Katherine McDonnell repeatedly made physical contact with Mosby. In
turn, he leaned close, whispered, laid his hand on hers, reached out and gently
removed a speck of soot from her cheek, and generally kept every man who
approached to a distance of at least a yard.

The judge who had replaced Alex quickly
brought the court into session. Sharon railed for half an hour, repeating
himself, and displaying a singular lack of humility and a glaring insensitivity
toward the members of the jury during his opening statement.

The jurists were all middle-class
merchants; most of them, Esther guessed, were likely to have taken part in and
been burned by the artificially induced fluctuations of the Comstock market.
She shuddered, then felt a sense of hopelessness as she watched Mosby walk
calmly over to the jury and shake hands with each man.

"Gentlemen," Mosby said,
turning on the mellifluous, grammatically precise voice he had developed for
the courtroom and pausing theatrically. "No matter what our political persuasions,
I want you to know I have great respect for men like you. You are the people
who make this country what it is."

Esther caught a movement at the back of
the courtroom and saw Alex slip in and sit down in a chair held for him by one
of his marshals.

Mosby paused again. He smiled warmly,
with just enough restraint to be convincing, at each member of the jury. Then
he walked forward to the end of the jury box nearest the witness chair and
leaned almost casually on the railing.

"Gentlemen, I don't have to spend a
half hour and ten thousand words stating the realities of this case. It is a
simple matter of breach of promise, in writing, by a man we all know has broken
hundreds of promises—not to mention lives—in the past. I do not have to recount
the deceits, the savage acts of greed the defendant has engaged in while
manipulating the Comstock market for his own profit. You may not know that he
is now a silent partner in the Bank of California, that he enriches himself
personally every time he sends another man home to his family penniless or on
the verge of suicide. But I trust a majority of those sitting in this jury box,
perhaps half of the people in this courtroom have been, directly or indirectly,
victims of the plaintiff's heartless disregard of fairness and honesty."

Mosby walked over to where Katherine
McDonnell was sitting. "Gentlemen, here is another of his victims. A
woman, chaste when she met him, a woman honest and courageous enough to earn
her own daily bread alongside men in the rough-and-tumble of the stock
exchange. A woman with mettle enough to
stand
up to a man with a thousand times her
means. A woman seduced and despoiled after being promised the sanctity and
safety of marriage—in writing."

In a calculated action, Mosby walked half
the distance back to the jury and stopped. He looked at the floor and shook his
head. "Gentlemen, under threats from a place so respected in our judicial
system I cannot believe them, this poor woman's original lawyers abandoned her.
They were cowards and fools. You do not have to be a former State Supreme Court
Justice to know an open-and-shut case when you see it. You do not need much
courage to stand pat with three aces when a knave is bluffing."

Mosby turned and stared confidently at
William Sharon. "Oh, the defendant will attempt to establish that his
hollow promise is a forgery. But we know, do we not, what falsehoods he has put
his signature to in the past."

Mosby turned and looked back over the
heads of the spectators and witnesses to where Alex sat. Remembering Alex from
the morning "Todd Alexander" punched him out at the hotel, Mosby
glared for a moment.
Better no one knows I have any animosity toward him in
the unlikely event he testifies
, Mosby thought, and quickly turned away.
"The defendant may also call upon a witness of outwardly impeccable
reputation to besmirch further this good woman's name. But—should he do that—we
will show, through cross-examination, the testimony of a medical doctor, and—if
necessary—a married woman patient…" Mosby quickly glanced to his left, and
Esther caught sight of Dr. Sims sitting two rows diagonally in front of Alex
"…just how
peccable
, if you'll excuse the expression, that
respected witness's reputation actually is."

Esther stifled a moan as the court broke
into restrained laughter.

"In
short, gentlemen, the defense will prove, point by point, something that you
already know. That there is a liar and a thief in this courtroom. A man capable
of stopping at nothing, not even the humiliation of a defenseless woman, to get
what he wants without paying for it. His base character is so well known to
you, I do not even have to speak his name. The merits of the defendant's case
are so patently clear, I do not even feel the need to ask you to come to a
verdict in favor of this lovely, innocent, physically bankrupted woman. For I
know you will be just. Gentlemen, that is all I have to say."

"You were masterful in court today,
Luther. Simply masterful."

They were in the rooms registered to
Marcy Lovell, after returning from dinner at an out of the way restaurant. He
had run out of talk, large or small. "Lawyering isn't what I do best,
either."

She looked puzzled but knew exactly what
he meant.

"Come here," he said, pulling
her toward him and kissing her. He saw the effect on her, gauged that her
desire was as strong as his. "I don't want to leave you here alone
tonight."

"Luther, it's too soon. What would
it look like if anyone found out."

"No one will know," he
whispered, kissing her again and brushing a hand across her breasts. He heard
her stifle a small, involuntary sound of arousal. "I'll leave before
dawn."

He kissed her again.

"Luther—"

"Come here, I said" He pulled
her slowly down on a couch, rolled over on top of her, grew more certain of
what he was doing when the feel of his genitals on hers made her close her
eyes.

"Luther—"

"You want it just as much as I
do."

"Yes, but—"

"But
nothing. It's not too soon, the way we feel about each other. We don't have to
act like two kids." And then he heard himself say, "I want to marry you,
don't I?" It shocked him for a moment, but he did not retract a single
word.

"You
can't
testify!"
Esther pleaded as they sat in front of her fireplace late that night. "It
will ruin you!"

Alex sighed. "It's not me I'm
worried about, Esther. It's you. And I don't see how I can avoid hurting
you."

"I don't care a damn what's said
about me! There are other places to live besides San Francisco or the state
capital. But think of what it will do to your career; think of what you'll be
put through!"

"I'll just have to resign."

"But why? Sharon doesn't deserve
such sacrifice."

"I no longer have a choice, Esther.
I was informed today that Sharon applied for a subpoena. During the recess
following Mosby's opening statement."

"Oh, God."

"Mosby's in love with her, you
know."

"Either that or he wants her badly,
for whatever reasons."

"What an irony. Once, a long time
ago, here in San Francisco, I had an altercation with him. That time I told you
about, when I thought I had seen you in the street? I beat him pretty badly.
Caught him—abusing—a young woman. I'm sure he must remember."

She pondered telling him that it was a
double irony, then decided not to. She put one arm around him and gazed into
the fire. "You didn't want me to come at first because of circumstances. You
thought it would stir up grief over Warren."

"Yes. And now there's all the more
reason you ought to go back to Sacramento."

"Why? Mosby will simply issue a
subpoena, and I'll have to come back." All the hatred, all the desire for
revenge was flowing back into her. She wished she had hired an assassin, had
had Mosby killed when it was possible. She wondered for a moment about having
it done now, but she knew Alex might easily be implicated. "I will simply
have to speed up my plans for leaving Carter. We will take Todd and—"

"You were in the restaurant when
Mosby challenged Warren. Do you think he'll recognize you? Not as Esther
Carter, but as a friend of Barnett's with an ax to grind."

"I—I don't think so." She
hadn't thought of that, hadn't even considered what would happen if Mosby not
only remembered her from that night in Sacramento but realized who she actually
was. She wondered for a moment whether telling everything to the jury would
make any difference if he did. Alex's name would still be tarred, their
relationship would still be revealed. Beyond that, it would probably rob her of
the opportunity, later, of doing what she now knew she would never abandon
again for as long as she lived.

"Perhaps it won't be necessary for
me to testify," she whispered, leaning over and pressing her head against
Alex's shoulder.

"I hope not. Perhaps I can cover
things in such a way—"

"Let's not think about it. If it's
necessary, then well do it with all the stops pulled out. We'll make a life
together somewhere else. Start all over again, just as though you'd never left
Bent's Fort and we came west this year."

He put his face in his hands. "I
love this place. I wanted to make my life here."

"So did I." She felt the
sadness in him as much as her own.
To hell with it
, she thought.
To
hell with having my private revenge. If I tell all in the courtroom, Mosby will
be as good as dead, anyway. At least in California. God knows if he's still
punishable by law for what he did to me. But surely it will ruin him, and Alex
will come out of it with sympathy enough to continue on the bench.
She
gently massaged his neck. "We'll find a way to stay here. I know we
will."

And then she began thinking about what
Mosby might do after she had told it all.

The trial dragged out over an eight-day
period. Sharon kept to his word about not calling Alex until it was absolutely
necessary. From the gallery, Esther watched Mosby outmaneuver Sharon and his
witnesses; it was like observing a cat toy with a field mouse. He displayed an
artist's representations of Sharon's signature traced and enlarged from a dozen
documents. Then, after Sharon objected so stridently the judge threatened to
have him removed from the courtroom, Mosby showed each member of the jury the
promissory love letter the banker had written to "Marcy Lovell,"
individually, handing over the letter, waiting patiently until it was read,
taking it back, holding it, staring for ten seconds at the jurist who had just
read it, and then moving on to another without saying a word.

During the first five days Esther lost
all appetite and ability to sleep. Tossing fitfully despite the detective Alex
had hired to act as a watchman when she was at the house, she was plagued by
expectations that Mosby would kill Alex or have him killed, come climbing
through her window to murder her in her bed. As each day passed, her hatred for
Mosby rose to the levels it had reached in the years before Alex returned from
the war. Yet each day she grew more certain that Mosby would not strike at them
during the trial. He knew there was no need to as he demolished every claim
Sharon made, thwarted every one of his strategies in the certainty that the
banker would never bring a scandal down on Ralston's best friend by calling
Alex to the stand.

By the time the second week of the trial
opened, Sharon had turned his case over to another attorney. Alex had not been
asked to testify, and Sims had remained in his seat at the rear of
the 
courtroom. Ralston was nowhere to be
seen. Mosby had never even glanced up toward where Esther sat. There had been
no mention of her, no suggestion that anyone but Alex knew she was sitting in
the gallery, and there had been no word of a subpoena being delivered to her
home in Sacramento. As the clerk called the court to order, she wondered if
Sharon would take a new tack. But then his lawyer stood up and intoned,
"The prosecution calls Judge Alexander Todd."

Esther glanced at Mosby. He had his hand
on Katherine McDonnell's arm—Esther could never think of her as Marcy—as Alex
was sworn in. There was a look of shock on his face, then wrath as he pulled
his hand back and let it drop beneath the conference table strewn with
notepads. It was clear from the sequence of expressions that Mosby never
dreamed his own efficacy in the courtroom would push Sharon to approve this
costly, desperate move; and that he fully understood Alex's testimony would
seal the case against the woman he loved and make the two of them the
laughingstock of San Francisco.

"You are acquainted with the
plaintiff, Marcy Lovell?" Sharon's lawyer began.

"Yes."

"Would you please state to the court
under what circumstances you met her, and what that acquaintance led to during
the year prior to your departure for service in the Union Army?" Sharon's
lawyer turned, placed his fragile-looking fingertips together, and started
slowly toward Mosby and Katherine McDonnell. Even before Alex began his answer,
there was a look of knowing superiority written all over the lawyer's face.

Alex cleared his throat. "I was
introduced to Miss Lovell—she called herself Katherine McDonnell then—by a
friend who was slightly acquainted with her. Within the space of a month,
Miss—McDonnell instituted a fraudulent—"

"You mealy-mouthed, lying son of a
bitch!" Mosby shouted at the top of his lungs, lifting the conference
table in front of him and flipping it over on its side with an earsplitting
crash. "You'll never have the chance to foul this woman's name." The
crazed sound of Mosby's voice paralyzed Esther. He rushed forward, hurdling a
leg of the table and bowling Sharon's diminutive attorney over as he ran
straight at Alex. She caught sight of the bowie knife, and gasped as two
marshals finally stopped him a yard short of the witness chair.

Alex recoiled involuntarily.

"
You sniveling, cowardly bastard!
"
Mosby screamed as the marshals wrestled with him and locked tightly on the hand
holding the knife.
"I'll kill you for this!"
Freeing his left
arm, Mosby leaned forward and reached out, grabbing Alex's shirtfront and
pulling him forward.
"You're not worthy even to look at a woman like
Katherine McDonnell!"

The crowd, silent after a shocked,
audibly collective intake of breath, broke into an uproar that drowned out the
judge's startled gaveling. The marshals dragged Mosby away from the witness box
and struggled to pull the knife from his hand. For a moment Esther was
immobilized by fear and rage. Then she jumped up and ran down several steps to
the gallery railing, looking for a way to climb down into the courtroom. It was
impossible. She looked at Mosby, saw him spit at Alex and then almost break
loose again as one marshal tried to pull his arms behind his back. She turned
and raced up to the gallery exit, rushed down the hall and the stairs, and
pushed through the door to the courtroom.

A sheriff was assisting the marshals now
as they hauled Mosby toward the door to an anteroom. She saw Katherine
McDonnell moving slowly toward Alex with her hand hovering over her partially
open purse. Esther shoved through a half-dozen people, eluded the clutches of another
peace officer, scrambled, then fell over the railing separating the crowd from
the bench and the witness chair. Katherine McDonnell had almost reached Alex as
Esther regained her footing, rushed forward, and caught up with her.

"
You no-good bastard!
"
Katherine McDonnell shrieked. She shoved her right hand into her purse and
grasped something just before Esther threw herself into the woman and drove her
back against the judge's bench. Moving fast, Alex climbed over the rail in
front of the witness chair and pulled Esther up off Mosby's dazed lover. A
marshal raced over to them as the judge continued to pound his gavel and call
for order.

"Marshal,
this woman is a friend," Alex said quickly. "She acted only out of
concern for my safety. Please take her, carry her if you have to, back into
chambers, and stay with her until I join you."

After they had locked up Katherine
McDonnell as well as Mosby and the trial had been recessed, Alex collected
Esther and insisted on driving her home.

"That was a foolish thing to
do," he said when they had ridden in silence for ten minutes. "You
could have been hurt."

"I wanted to kill her."

"My God, what a temper." He
laughed. "You would have done that just to save me a lump on my
head?"

"She had something in her purse. A gun.
Something."

"Perhaps you're right. She did
request that a woman friend take her purse just before she was removed."

"I
hate
them. Hate both of
those vile—"

He reined the carriage to a halt.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute! Take it easy, Esther."

"I'd like to kill both of
them."

"Easy… easy." He put his arms
around her, and she pushed her face into his shirt as she finally began
sobbing.

"He… he… he… might have killed
you."

"They'll take that into account at
his trial."

"They… they'll put him away? Lock him
up?"

"No doubt about it."

She wiped her nose with the handkerchief
in his breast pocket. "And her?"

"Contempt, at least. Assault for
Mosby."

"They should both be put in prison
for the rest of their lives."

Alex brushed Esther's hair out of her
eyes. "Well, I doubt they'll do that. But I'm sure he'll be convicted and
given a stiff sentence."

He leaned over and kissed at her moist
cheeks, then her mouth. "You really must love me to do something like
that."

"Have you ever doubted it?"

He looked at her and smiled.
"Doubted?" He thought carefully for a moment, then laughed again.
"No, I've had a few questions. But I guess I've never really doubted it.
In any case, if I had, the doubts would be over now."

She pulled close to him again, grateful
that she could feel his warmth, the strong beat of his heart. "I know what
some of those questions might be, Alex. Someday—not now, not anytime soon—I
will answer all of them for you. And when I do, you will understand many things
and love me just as though we were never apart."

He kissed her softly. "But I do
now."

"Then perhaps you'll even love me
more."

"That's not possible," he
whispered, cradling her head in his hands. "Not in this life,
anyway."