Mittman, Stephanie (42 page)

"Put
this just outside the door," Old Lady Whittier told him, pointing to a
small table covered in more of that thin black cloth.

He
pointed toward the door and cocked his head. Whyever did she want the table
outside?

"I've
no idea," she whispered with a shrug, and gestured with her head toward
the old women. "They said it had to go outside. And they want a basin with
some water there too."

He
wiped his hands on his pants. The doc's side table was a real nice one, with
turned legs and carved roses around its edges. Miss Mollenoff was always
rearranging the gewgaws on it and the doc was always telling her to leave his
books where they were. Davis backed away from the table and right smack into
the old woman, nearly knocking her over.

"Take
it outside," Mrs. Whittier told him. "And put a towel out there
too."

A
towel? Was
someone gonna bathe out there?

"And
don't argue."

Was
he arguing? He hadn't said a word. He didn't suppose anyone was going to tell
him where the doc's towels were kept.

Like
it had a dozen eggs upon it, he lifted the table carefully, moved it a few
inches, and put it down. It wasn't all that heavy, there was no question he
could move it, he just didn't want to bang it into any walls or anything.

"I'll
help you," a young woman said, and took up the other side of the table.
She was dressed like the older women but she didn't seem to Davis to be more
than fifteen or sixteen. Except maybe around her eyes, where she looked a lot
older.

He
took a deep breath in the hopes of spilling out all his words at once, but by
the time he was ready to answer, she had the table halfway out the door. As
fast as he could he wiped his hands dry and grabbed on to the opposite side,
more trouble than help, he supposed. Carefully they set the little table down
together, and she went after a bowl while he searched around the kitchen for a
towel.

"He
deserves better," the girl said, sniffing back her tears while Davis put
the cloth beside the bowl just as the doc's carriage pulled up at the front
stoop. Dr. Mollenoff came out of the carriage slowly, his steps even heavier than
they usually were—and that seemed like he had lead in his boots.

Two
men, all in black like the women, with hats and overcoats and solemn faces,
hurried down from the coach and stood by the doctor's side while more men—there
were two carriages full of them—escorted him up the stairs and waited while he
washed his hands in the water the girl had put there for him and then dried
them on the towel Davis had found.

"So
you're learning the rules of shivah?" the doc said to Davis, cupping his
chin and twisting his head gently this way and that, as if Davis's bruises were
the only thing on his mind. "Ach. Does it hurt much? No?" The doc
shrugged and moved slowly toward the door. "Later we'll have to see to
that cut."

Behind
the doctor each man stopped to wash his hands before they, too, went into the
house.

Davis
followed them, dipping his hands quickly in the water and wiping them on the
damp towel. Before he did it, washing seemed like a pretty dumb thing to do,
but when he walked into the house clean, it made him feel good. He could almost
remember his mama's voice telling him that cleanliness was next to godliness.

He
took up a position against the back wall, as far from the happenings as
possible, and closed his eyes. Around him, men and women cried and he felt the
tears well up in his own eyes too. Because his mother had been swallowed by the
sea, there'd been no body for the wake. Miss Mollenoff was already buried, so
here again, there was no way for him to say good-bye. And a ride up to Mountain
View on the horsecar would cost him a dime, which was ten cents more than he
had.

Across
the room he saw Charlotte and fought the urge to run to her. He was too old to
bury his face in some woman's skirts. Even if the woman was an aggie. He didn't
know when Charlotte had slipped into that pile, only that she was there, like
his ma. One of the ones you just wouldn't think of trading. Sometimes though,
like with his ma and Miss Mollenoff, the "keepers" got stolen away.

"Ah,
that's the
Yortzeit,"
some man in black said softy to him, pointing
to a candle that the doc was lighting. "That will burn for seven days. All
through shivah. You remember that."

Shivah.
Yortzeit.
It
was a stupid religion that had words that sounded like sneezes, but he kept the
thought to himself.

He
was keeping more than ever to himself these days.

***

Charlotte
waited for the candle-lighting ceremony to be over before seeking out Kathryn.
She was certainly in no hurry to tell the woman how court had gone that
morning. Bail revoked. Bail denied. Just as Cabot had said. And jury selection
to start the next morning.

Without
her.

Not
only didn't he want her at the defense table, he didn't want her in the
courtroom.
Bring her again,
he'd told Cabot as the guards were taking
him back to his cell,
and I'll change my plea to guilty.

Cabot
had just nodded.

And
she had had to stand there as if her heart weren't bleeding on the floor, as if
Ash's were just another case, as if she didn't know that he was trying to
protect her.

Not
ten minutes later a clerk informed her that Virginia Halton's case had finally
been scheduled. Oral arguments would be heard at ten the next morning.

Of
course, Cabot could have made that happen all along. He'd chosen now to get her
out of the way. And if that was the way he and Ash wanted it, that was the way
it would be.

Kathryn
was busy with Eli, her hand on his arm as she spoke. Eli was nodding at
whatever it was she was telling him, and he stopped to lift a stray hair away
from Kathryn's eye.

It
was nothing. An innocent gesture. And yet it was so intimate that the breath
burned in Charlotte's throat.

"Want
some?" Davis asked, appearing suddenly at her side and holding out a glass
of wine to her. When she took it, he wrinkled up his nose a bit and rolled his
eyes. "Kosher," he warned.

She
took a small sip. The wine was thick and sweet, and felt heavy on her lips. It
coated her tongue and she felt it inch down her throat and disappear.

"The
mister?" Davis asked after a big intake of air. Cabot was making great
progress with the boy. For a second she wondered if Davis would like to have
Liberty.

Wonderful.
She already had Ash tried, convicted, hanged, and was giving away his things.
The reality smacked her hard enough to snap her head back. Frantically she
gulped for air. Davis, clearly alarmed, nearly pushed her into a chair while
people looked on sympathetically, most of them in tears themselves.

Selma
was dead. Sweet, tough Selma, who wasn't afraid of anything. Even in the
hospital she was more worried about the contributions for "the
cause," as she called it, than she was about herself.

"Are
you all right, dear?" Kathryn asked, Eli having left to go off with nine
other men to pray. "Was court an awful scene?"

"Kathryn,"
she said, taking the woman's hand in her own, "things look very bad."

"Cabot
will take care of it," Kathryn said, refusing to look at Charlotte.
"He always has and he always will."

"I'm
sure he'll do his best," Charlotte agreed.

At
that Kathryn raised an eyebrow. "Of course he will. Why wouldn't he?"

"Excuse
me," a young girl said, bending over with a tray of food for Charlotte and
Kathryn. "Aren't you Mrs. Whittier, the lawyer?"

Charlotte
nodded, for all the good being a lawyer did her. He'd banned her from the
courtroom! Her courtroom, to which she'd fought so hard to be admitted.

"Oh,
Miss Mollenoff just thought the world of you! And now your husband's brother
has gone and... I mean... not that you can be blamed for that... It's just...
Well, it's really nice of you to come, considering..."

"I
thought the world of Miss Mollenoff too," Charlotte said. "As did my
brother-in-law. And Ashford Whittier wouldn't hurry a squirrel out of his way,
much less hurt a woman. I hope you'll remember that, despite anything you
hear."

Charlotte
wondered how many times over the course of the next few weeks she'd have to say
those same words. And whether there would ever come a time when everyone would
know that Ash had had nothing to do with either fire. Even Cabot had wondered
after the first fire— not that she felt he was justified. But the second fire
had to have convinced Cabot, and everyone else, that a man like Ash wouldn't
have risked hurting Selma for any amount of money.

"Are
you a friend of hers?" Charlotte asked the girl.

"I
know the doctor," she answered, her cheeks reddening while she busied
herself examining the little fish balls on the platter she held.
"He—"

Charlotte
stopped her. She didn't want to know what Eli had or hadn't done, or which one
of the women this young girl was. Was she the one whose father had brought her
to him bleeding and near death from another doctor's attempt to rid her of a
problem? Was she the one who had punctured herself with a coat hanger? Was she
the one who had swallowed a bottle of Nature's Own in the hopes of helping
nature take the course she wanted it to?

"He's
a good man," the girl said. "A good doctor."

Charlotte
agreed wordlessly.

"Still,
he's lucky to have a minyan today to say Kaddish," she said, pointing to
the group of men who stood rocking on their heels and mumbling. "In our
faith it takes ten men to pray for deliverance."

In
Ash's case it would take twelve men—a jury—to give him the same.

***

Hell.
That was where he was. And if he'd ever thought he was there before, he was a
fool.

Oh,
the look on her face when he said he didn't want her at the defense table! At
least, as far back as she was, he couldn't see her face when they'd started
hurling charges at him. Couldn't see her expression when the district attorney
brought up his associations with women all over the waterfront who might help
him run if he wasn't locked up like some animal. They certainly hadn't been
leaping to his defense yet.

He
paced off his cell again, making sure it hadn't gotten any smaller in the last
few minutes. Twelve steps in one direction. Eight in the other.

What
must she have thought of him when Brent pulled out his record and listed the
brawls, the public drunkenness, the
lewd and lascivious conduct
charges?

And
Cabot! Had his brother used his objections any more sparingly, Ash would have
suspected he was sleeping with his eyes open. For all the help he was, his
brother might just as well have spent the whole day at home drinking himself
into oblivion as he'd planned.

At
least Ash had made it clear that Charlotte wasn't to be in the courtroom again.
Cut the ties. Let her loose.

Eight
feet in one direction, twelve in the other. He took the knife from his dinner
tray and scratched one short vertical line into the wall over his cot. And then
he lay down on the bed, shut his eyes, and watched the tears course down
Charlie Russe's face until he finally fell asleep.

***

Cabot
was waiting in the foyer when Charlotte and Kathryn came through the door.
"How were things at Eli's?" he asked.

"Charlotte
tells me it didn't go well in court," Kathryn said, ignoring Cabot's
question.

"I
suppose Eli was beside himself with grief," Cabot responded.

"She
says that your defense is tenuous at best." Kathryn allowed Rosa to help
her off with her shawl but waved the girl away when she tried to lead her to a
chair.

"Was
the boy there?" he asked Charlotte. "He was just beginning to like
Selma, you know. Said something about her maybe not being an aggie, but still
he didn't think he'd trade her."

"An
aggie?" Charlotte asked. Cabot and Davis had actually had a real
conversation? About Selma Mollenoff? Her Cabot? And Davis? She was too stunned
to hear Cabot's answer. "What?" she asked, realizing he'd asked her a
question.

"Marbles,"
he said. "You ever play marbles as a little girl, Charlotte?"

"If
you can just get him out on bail again," Kathryn said, "he could
escape to the islands. A person could lose himself there forever, don't you
think?"

"I
cannot get him out on bail while he is on trial, Mother," Cabot said.
"Nor do I relish the thought of my brother as a fugitive from
justice."

"Do
you suppose he should have run? I mean now, with hindsight?" Charlotte
asked him. She wished with all her heart and soul that he had, and more than a
small piece of her wished that she had run with him, no matter the cost.

"As
I was saying," Cabot said, "aggies are marbles. They're the special
ones that no self-respecting marbles shooter ever trades away. They're the ones
you don't bet because you feel their loss for a long, long time."