Girl Waits with Gun (34 page)

I froze and gripped Fleurette so she wouldn't move.

The guard shoved him through the courthouse door, but he fought to keep it open and kept shouting at me. “Miss Kopp! Don't let them send me to Trenton! Don't make me go back!”

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked at Deputy Morris with astonishment.

“I'm sorry about that, Miss Kopp. They shouldn't have brought him through this way. He's not supposed to see any of you.”

In as calm a voice as I could muster, I said, “What was that about going to Trenton?”

Deputy Morris shrugged. “I don't know. He went in for a hearing yesterday about his sentencing. He doesn't want to go back to state prison. I guess he thought he was going to serve his time here.”

“What's the difference?” I said.

“Oh, the state prison's terrible. Foul, dark, cold, overrun with rats and lice. Nobody wants to go to state prison.”

“There's an easy way to stay out of prison,” Norma said. “Don't break the law.”

“PLEASE DON'T TELL ME
that yet another man is writing threatening letters,” Sheriff Heath said when I was admitted to his office the next day. “I haven't the manpower to keep the criminal element away from the Kopp sisters.”

“I had an idea about George Ewing,” I said.

He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Why not? No less than five of the finest legal minds in Bergen County have already reviewed the case, and several of our lesser minds have considered it as well. What's your idea?”

I said nothing but waited for him to remember his manners.

“Pardon me, Miss Kopp. Please. Go ahead.”

I sat down across from him. “When he shouted at us on the courthouse steps yesterday—”

“Yes, I'm very sorry about that. We have a passageway for bringing prisoners from the jail to the courthouse, but they were doing some work there. They shouldn't have brought him around without checking to make sure you'd gone home.”

“It's all right,” I said. “But he said he didn't want to go back to prison in Trenton.”

Sheriff Heath shrugged. “Of course he doesn't want to go to Trenton. It's the worst prison in the state.”

“He likes it better here?”

“Well, it's clean, the food is edible, and we wash their clothes once in a while. We don't treat them like pigs in filth. And you know, he got beat up in Trenton. That wooden leg makes him a target.”

“Then why don't you make a deal with him?” I said.

He didn't say a word, but I could see him considering the idea.

“Offer to let him serve his term here in Hackensack as long as he agrees to tell the truth,” I said. “Make him promise not to claim responsibility for crimes he didn't commit.”

The sheriff looked up at the ceiling. “It's not a bad thought,” he said. “We haven't been able to come up with anything to offer him. It didn't even occur to us that he expected to serve his time here. Now that he knows he's going back to Trenton, maybe he would be more willing to negotiate.”

“Is that something you can do? Can you fix it so he stays in Hackensack?”

He jumped to his feet. “I think so. We're still waiting for the sentencing, but we have a good judge on the case. The question is whether we can get Ewing to go along with it. Perhaps you could convince him, Miss Kopp.”

I gripped the sides of my chair. “Me? Why should I talk to him?”

“He's been asking about you. He seems to be genuinely sorry for what he's done. Don't worry—there will be steel bars between you. You'll be completely safe. This time I actually can promise you that.”

“Right now? But I . . .”

“Unless you haven't the nerve,” he said, flashing one of his rare smiles.

“Of course I have the nerve,” I muttered.

I followed him out of his office and down a corridor I hadn't seen before, into a narrow room furnished only with a row of white chairs. Along one wall was a series of small metal doors, each the size of a cupboard.

“My guard is bringing Mr. Ewing down now,” the sheriff said. “I'll do most of the talking. Don't answer any personal questions.”

I nodded and took a seat. He continued, “Just try to win him over and encourage him to tell the truth. Remind him that he'll be out soon and there's no need to claim responsibility for someone else's crimes.”

Just then the cupboard door slid open, and I was faced with a row of metal bars and, behind them, a sleepy and surprised George Ewing.

He broke into a smile when he saw me, exposing those crooked front teeth. “Miss Kopp! I didn't think it'd be you!”

Sheriff Heath leaned around so Mr. Ewing could see him and said, “George, Miss Kopp asked especially about coming to visit with you.”

The prisoner nodded vigorously, his eyes wide. He had an innocent and earnest air about him. He seemed like the kind of man who could easily be talked into wrongdoing. He was pale and gaunt, with newly shorn hair and a clean shave. His eyes were ever so slightly too far apart, and his lips trembled when he spoke, giving him a kind of stutter.

He turned back to me, leaning into the bars of the window and speaking to me in a near-whisper. “Miss Kopp. Miss Kopp. Don't let them send me back there. Can't you say a word to the judge? Nothing too terrible happened to you and your sisters, did it? Just a bunch of threats, but you girls are all right, aren't you?”

Sheriff Heath raised his hand to stop him. “George, Miss Kopp came to me this morning with a fine idea. I wonder if you'd be willing to consider it.”

He looked back and forth at us with suspicion. “I don't usually like it when the sheriff has an idea.”

“I think you'll like this one,” Sheriff Heath said. “What would you say if I went to the judge and asked him to let you serve your sentence here in Hackensack?”

He leaned forward and grabbed the bars. “You would do that? Sheriff, you would do that for me?”

“I think I—”

But Mr. Ewing wouldn't let him continue. “You know, I've been in a dozen jails in New Jersey, and there is not a one as fine as yours, Sheriff. I've been telling the other men. Some of them have never been to jail before, so they don't know how good they have it in here, Sheriff. It's a fine place, sir, it really is, and it would be an honor to serve my sentence here. I thank you, sir, for the invitation. I accept. I do. I accept.”

“Well, that's not all there is to it, George,” he said.

Mr. Ewing let go of the bars and sat back. “What else is there, Sheriff? Do I gotta pay rent? What's the catch?”

Sheriff Heath suppressed a smile. “If I could get rent from each of you, I'd have a much easier time with the Freeholders. No, George, what I need you to do is to stop taking credit for Henry Kaufman's crimes. Just tell the truth about what you did, but don't go around taking responsibility for the rest of it. Henry Kaufman's got to be punished. You need to help us with that.”

Ewing filled his cheeks with air and blew them out, then raised his hands in a sign of bewilderment. “I don't know what you mean, Sheriff. Why would any man claim responsibility for a crime he didn't commit?”

“Because he was being paid to do so,” I suggested.

“Paid?” George Ewing said, leaning forward in surprise. “You can get paid for that?”

“Or threatened. Did Henry Kaufman threaten to come after you if you didn't confess to the whole thing?”

He looked down at his hands and mumbled, “Something like that.”

I leaned over and whispered in the sheriff's ear. “Can't we put him on a train as soon as he's served his time?” Sheriff Heath glanced at me and nodded.

“Listen, George. You just do your part. Tell the truth about this every time you're asked. You might be called to testify at Henry Kaufman's trial. Just tell them what really happened, and I'll keep you right here in Hackensack and make sure no harm comes to you. I'll even put you on a train when we set you free.”

“You will?” he said.

Sheriff Heath nodded. “I'll drive you to the train station myself. I'll see that you get on safely. Where would you like to go, George?”

He sat back in his chair and let out a long breath. “Oh, boy, sheriff. I'm going to have to think about that. Can I let you know later?”

Sheriff Heath grinned. “You can let me know in six months, George.”

AFTER GEORGE EWING WAS LED AWAY
, the sheriff stood and called for the guard to let us out. “I have to say, Miss Kopp. That was the best break we've had a long time. I might even go talk to John Ward. With this kind of leverage, maybe we can get a confession out of Kaufman.”

“Who's John Ward?” I said, following him down the corridor.

“Kaufman's lawyer. You've seen them together.”

I stopped. “Ward? Are you sure that's his name?”

Sheriff Heath turned around and frowned at me. “Of course that's his name. I've known John for years. I serve divorce papers and eviction notices for him. Although why he got mixed up with a man like Kaufman—”

“Then we've got him,” I blurted out.

“Who?”

“Just—that's it. We've got him.”

SHERIFF HEATH DROVE ME HOME
and waited while I ran inside for the envelope. I'd hidden it in a bureau that we'd moved from my room to Mother's to barricade the windows. I stood looking at that bureau, a curiously dark, hand-painted piece of Viennese artistry, and thought how strange it was that its latest purpose had been to shield us from bullets.

I rushed down the stairs, saying not a word to Fleurette, who was at her sewing machine, or to Norma, who was completing some kind of small carpentry project in the washing room. The sheriff pulled away as soon as I was back in the car. “Wait,” he said. “Let me see it.”

He stopped in the middle of the road and took the envelope from me. There, in Henri LaMotte's faint handwriting, was the lawyer's name: Ward.

“I can't believe I missed this,” he said. “These are the same photographs you showed me before?”

I nodded. “I didn't know who Ward was until you told me.”

Without a word, he handed the envelope back to me and lifted his foot from the brake.

THE LAW FIRM OF WARD
&
M
c
GINNIS
kept a suite of rooms in the Second National Bank on Colt Street, one of those monstrous brick and limestone affairs with every sort of column, dormer, tower, and Corinthian flourish known to the stone-carvers of the previous century. It had survived a fire that burned most of the city when Fleurette was a little girl, and traces of black soot were still lodged in the crevices of its scrollwork, giving it the appearance of a building that had been drawn in artist's charcoal.

I didn't know exactly what kind of law Mr. Ward practiced, but as soon as we walked into his office, I could see that he practiced it with sophistication. The walls were lined in mahogany panels that glowed and smelled faintly of furniture polish. A red carpet woven with a diamond pattern muffled the sounds of the street, and the room was lit with new electric brass chandeliers. A pair of fan palms flanked a window, rising from identical Chinese black-and-gold lacquer pots perched on tiny cast-iron claw feet.

Presiding over this stylish lobby was a girl of about twenty in a polka-dotted dress. She sat behind a dainty secretary's desk furnished with a typewriter and a telephone. She looked up at us from under a halo of honey-colored hair, and I could see at once that she was not the usual harried clerk one met in an office in Paterson. She looked more like the kind of girl who posed for the cover of
Vogue
, with enormous blue eyes, three perfect freckles alongside her nose, and lips drawn like a bow tied in red ribbon. They must have held auditions to find a girl like this one. I could not imagine that she walked into their office by chance.

“Good afternoon,” she said, offering us a warm and dimpled smile.

“We've come to see Mr. Ward,” Sheriff Heath said. “It's an urgent matter. Is he in?”

She lifted her elegantly drawn eyebrows. “If I could keep track of where those two are at any hour of the day, I might be able to run this place like a respectable law office.”

I glanced around. “It seems respectable to me.”

“Oh, it looks nice enough, but those two—”

The sound of footsteps and laughter in the hallway made the young woman jump up. The door opened and two men burst in, grinning.

“Gertie, you won't believe it,” said a tall, thin man with curly hair and a pipe dangling out of his mouth. He stopped when he saw us. The man he was with—shorter, rounder, red-haired, and freckle-faced, with pale green eyes and an eager smile—came to a stop just behind him.

The girl attempted to introduce us, although I hadn't yet given our names. “Mr. Ward, I—”

He pulled his pipe from his mouth and looked me over. “Never mind, Gertie,” he said, and then, correcting himself, “Miss Nolan. Bob and I are old friends. Good to see you, Sheriff,” he said, taking the sheriff's hand and pumping it vigorously. “What kind of trouble am I in today?”

He grinned at me and I resisted the urge to return his smile. John Ward was not handsome, exactly, but there was something both intelligent and impish about his expression, as if he were about to tell a joke or perform a skit. From the little I'd seen of him in the courtroom, I could only imagine the kind of theatrics he was capable of putting on in front of a judge.

Once his appraisal of me was complete, he remembered his manners and introduced himself. “John Ward, miss. Attorney at law. My partner, Peter McGinnis. And you have met Miss Nolan.”

“How do you do,” I said. “I am Constance Kopp. I have come—”

“I thought I knew you!” Mr. Ward said, elbowing his partner in the gut. “It's the girl from that Kaufman case. All right, Petey, you go on without me.”