Mittman, Stephanie (48 page)

"I'm
a mail carrier," Flannigan said. He sat tall in the stand as he said it,
daring Cabot to make something of it.

Cabot
did. "Just a mail carrier?" he baited Flannigan.

"And
there be no
just
about it," he said addressing the jury in his
heavy brogue. "It's a common man that thinks bein' a mail carrier is next
to bein' a pissant. Beggin' your pardon, but that's how it 'tis. Have ya any
idea what a mailman's privy to? What a man who pays attention can learn just
from the mail he's pickin' up and deliverin'? Love letters, past due notices,
I've seen 'em all."

"And
what did you see coming and going from both the G and W warehouse and then
again from offices above the Charter House Bar?" Cabot asked him.

"I
don't recall," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Davis
stood up and leaned forward, whispering to her. Dutifully she wrote down his
request and passed it to the clerk to hand to Cabot.

"Did
you know Selma Mollenoff?" Cabot asked after he'd glanced at the note and
put it in his pocket

"I
didn't kill her, Davey," Flannigan said to his son. "It weren't me
and don't you be thinkin' it was."

Beside
her, Ash turned in his seat. "For God's sake, take him out of here,"
he told Kathryn.

His
mother rose and she and Davis argued quietly until Ewing began to talk.

"It
was that damn ladies' stuff. Those Halton pamphlets with the doctor's
instructions. And those pictures of... well everyone knows what kind of
information it is she's sending to ladies."

Charlotte
heard herself gasp. Selma had been one of what Charlotte always referred to as
her "silent supporters"—women whose hearts were in the right place
but who wouldn't stand up and be counted. But all the while Selma had appeared
to be standing on the sidelines, she'd really been sending out Virginia's
mailings, using Ash's office to receive the donations and disseminate the
information. She'd been pulling the wool over Charlotte's eyes, and Ash's, and
everyone else's too. And somehow it had cost her her life. "I saw some
initials on the envelopes at both places and I couldn't help asking the lady
what it was she was sending. I remember the smile she give me, and the wink,
and saying she couldn't be tellin' the likes of a good Catholic like me."

"Then
how did you know what was in the envelopes?" Cabot asked.

When
Brent objected, he let it pass, but Flannigan blurted out the answer anyway.

"I
weren't openin' the mail, if that's what you're thinkin'. But glue ain't the
way it used to be and every now and then a letter finds its way out of an
envelope, and that's what happened once or twice with Miss Mollenoff's
mail." He folded his arms across his chest, then let them drop to his
sides as if it didn't matter to him anymore what people thought.

"And
what did you do about it?" Cabot asked.

"Take
the boy out of here," Ash ordered his mother.

Cabot
raised his hand. "Let him be," he said to Ash, and then addressed the
witness again. "You didn't do anything about it, did you, Mr. Flannigan?
Neither my client nor you would have hurt Selma Mollenoff for the world."

"That,
sir, Mr. Whittier, is the God's honest truth. I'd as soon have cut off me own
arm as hurt a hair on that woman's head, no matter how misguided her efforts
mighta been."

"Unless
of course, you were drunk and showing off, which you were, weren't you?"

"I've
been know to tip a few, as you well know. But I had nothing to do with the
fires."

"I'm
not accusing you of setting the fires, Mr. Flannigan. But you were drunk and
shooting off your mouth a bit, weren't you?"

"And
how was I to know that it would lead to this? Fires and killin' and him bein'
blamed?" He pointed at Ash. Charlotte came to attention and leaned forward
in her seat, everything clear to her now as she silently cheered Cabot on.

"And
how do you know that this man is innocent?" Cabot asked, looking over at
the table and no doubt seeing Ash's hand reach out for Charlotte's beneath the
table. It didn't cost him a beat as he went on. "Please, Mr. Flannigan,
for Selma's sake, don't let yet another tragedy come out of this. Someone
killed that dear young lady and it wasn't my brother, was it? Tell the court
how you know this man never set those fires."

Ewing
Flannigan shrugged uncomfortably. "They were braggin' in the bar, they
were. How they'd stopped the sinnin' and the fornicatin'. How the 'act' was
meant for makin' babies and not for women enjoyin' themselves."

"Are
you saying that these men admitted to setting fire to both warehouses in order
to stop the dissemination of materials vital to the concerns of women?"

She
and Ash smiled at Cabot as they recognized her words flung out into the
courtroom. Tears stung her eyes as Cabot smiled back and she gently slipped her
hand from Ash's and returned it to the table.

"Your
Honor," Brent interrupted, "is this witness willing and prepared to
name names?"

Flannigan
leaned back in the witness box. "I can be givin' you their names and their
address at work and at home. I know how much they earn and where it is their
relatives are writin' from. You know people think a mail carrier is as low as a
pissant, beggin' your pardon, but—"

Cabot
put his hand up to stop Flannigan's tirade. "Your Honor, I request that
all charges against my client be dropped. I could continue this case to its
logical conclusion at great waste to the taxpayers of the State of California
and—"

"The
state agrees to drop all charges," Brent said, "providing Mr. Flannigan
here is willing to cooperate with the state in the apprehension and arrest of
the party or parties responsible for the murder of Selma Mollenoff."

"You
thought I did it, didn't you, boy?" Flannigan called to Davis over the
pandemonium that had broken out in the courtroom.

Cabot
reached into his pocket and handed Ewing the note. On it Charlotte had written
Davis's request to leave his father alone. Cabot had done better. He'd
exonerated him before his son's very eyes.

***

They'd
been lucky to get out of the courthouse alive, which was becoming the normal
course of events for Charlotte these days. But this time she'd had Ash to
protect her, while Moss had seen to Kathryn. At the carriage the private
investigator had been waiting with a smile on his face.

He'd
shaken Cabot's hand and then Ash's. "It was a pleasure uncovering the
truth for a change," he'd said to Cabot. Over his shoulder as he walked
away, he'd added, "but now we're even, Whittier."

And
now they were back in the house where she and Cabot would grow old together as
she'd promised. Ash had looked surprised and hurt when she'd taken the seat
next to Cabot's chair in the carriage and had rested her hand on his arm all
the way home. He couldn't know what it had cost her to do it, how much she
longed to simply touch him, feel the texture of his skin against her palm, to
look deep into his eyes and see the love she felt reflected there.

"Charlotte,
may I see you in my office?" Cabot said when they were all in the foyer
and had given up coats and hats to Rosa and Arthur. "There are a few
papers before we're quite finished with this whole affair."

"Couldn't
they wait?" Kathryn asked. "It's quite the day for celebration."

"Indeed
it is," Cabot said, but his face didn't match his words. "We won't be
long."

"Davis,
why don't you see if you can find Van Gogh?" Charlotte suggested.
"I've made him a bed in the carriage house." At the mention of the
carriage house her insides tightened. If she lived here until she was a
hundred, nothing on earth would send her into that building again.

"Bring
him back into the main house," Cabot told the boy. "With this extra
wheel I think we can manage to stay out of each other's way."

Charlotte
felt her jaw drop, and drop again, farther, when Davis answered, "Yes,
sir, Mr. Whittier."

Cabot
nodded at the boy. "I owe you one of those little circles in my chair,
son," he said, indicating one with his pointer finger. "Remind me
tomorrow."

"Charlotte?"
Ash whispered from just behind her. "Haven't you told him about how you
feel? Doesn't he know about us?"

"Oh,
he knows," she said softly, allowing herself the luxury of looking at his
incredible face before pulling away. "And you're free. But I'm not."

He
looked more angry than hurt as she pulled away to answer Cabot's call.

"Charlotte?
Are you coming?"

"Yes,"
she called to him, hurrying to his office without looking back.

He
was waiting for her there, in the semidarkness, and watched her every move as
she came into the room.

"Sit,"
he said, and gestured toward the chair across from his desk as if that weren't
where she always sat when she worked with him.

She
did as she was told.

"You
were perfection in the courtroom today," he said, referring to the job
she'd done on Davis's case. He was studying her hair, her eyes, staring at her
shirtwaist, considering her hands.

She
complimented him back. "As were you." She shifted in her seat. Was he
imagining how it would be between them now? Now that Ash would be off to sea
again and they would be alone at Whittier Court?

"Ah,
well, it was your work that set me on the right track. I couldn't have done it
alone." He pulled his eyes from her and began to go through the papers
that cluttered his desk, reaching for books behind him and making notes.

"What
is it that we still need to do?" she asked him, anxious to toast the
victories and then crawl up to bed. Alone.

"As
I said, you were perfect," Cabot repeated. "I don't think before that
moment in the courtroom I—"

Things
would never change for her. She would spend her days listening to Cabot analyze
their cases and her nights dreaming of what might have been if things were
different. "Cabot, I appreciate your praise, but they are all waiting for
us. What is it we still have to do?"

He
put his hands together, almost as if he were praying, and touched his
fingertips to his lips.

"Face
facts," he said, pushing a hastily scrawled document at her. "Read
it."

Across
the top of the paper Cabot had written
Petition for Annulment of Marriage.

"I've
loved you, Charlotte, from the day I met you. You were such a silly child then,
so serious about wanting to be the best attorney in all of Oakland. I loved you
when you were learning the law and I was so proud of you when you were admitted
to the bar."

"Are
you saying you don't love me anymore?" she asked him, her eyes seeking out
the grounds for the annulment and finding only the truth—that the marriage had
never been consummated.

"I
love you more today than perhaps I ever did. Enough to open the cage,
Charlotte, and let you soar."

"I
promised that I would stay," she said, reaching across the desk and
feeling the warmth of his hand as he took hers.

"It
was never quite right between us, Charlotte. But it was never as wrong as when
we tried to play at man and wife. That isn't the way I love you, and it will
never be. I listened to you in that courtroom describe how a father should feel
about his child, and for the first time since I'd married you I understood what
was between us."

He
pulled a hankie from his jacket and handed it to her. Until then she hadn't
realized she was crying.

"It
doesn't have to be my brother," he said softly.
"You're free
to go anywhere, you understand."

"It
has to be your brother." Ash's strong voice had a crack to it as he stood
in the doorway.

"I
thought perhaps it did."

"I'd
promised him, Ash," she explained as he came to her side and knelt by her
chair.

"Make
your promises to that Whittier," Cabot said softly, easing out from behind
his desk. "Sign the paper and I'll push it through. I'd like to give you
away before I take Davis to London."

He
did a small circle on his way to the office door.

"Love
this third wheel," he said, tears clearly glistening in his eyes.
"I'll miss you, Charlotte, every day of my life.... Of course, while I'm
in London I may be too busy.... And then there's Paris..."

He
wheeled out the door to a good deal of commotion in the foyer.

"...
and Naples... and Rome..."

***

"Sounds
like you're missing out on quite a lot," Ash said, rising and pulling her
with him.

"Oh,
no," she disagreed, her face pressed into his chest while he stroked her
back. "I've got everything I want right here."

"I'll
never be able to give you the things he did," Ash admitted with a heavy
heart. "Trips to Europe, this fine house. My business is in shambles and
I've nothing to offer you."