The Cliff House Strangler (38 page)

I looked up, to find Fanny studying me speculatively. “Your
head is aching, isn’t it, Sarah? Too much work and too little food and rest. I think I can help with that, as well.”

Leaving me to pick at my pie, she bustled over to one of her cupboards, took out several small tins, and placed some of their contents in a square of cheesecloth. She tied off the cloth and placed it in a pan of hot water to steep.

“My mother brought this recipe with her from West Virginia,” she said, placing the pan and a fresh cup on the table. “Willow bark, chamomile, and peppermint leaf, with a touch of honey. It helps a headache every time.”

I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was right; my head felt considerably better when I left her cozy kitchen for home, although whether it was due to the apple pie or the willow-bark tea, I’d probably never know. Fanny had also tucked a small package of the ingredients for the tea into the hatbox for me to use over the next few days.

It was as well that my head had ceased throbbing by the time I reached my home, since Papa greeted me with stunning news: That afternoon, in the course of a routine hearing for a boy caught shoplifting, Judge Mortimer Raleigh had keeled over on the bench, dead of an apparent heart attack.

“Wasn’t he the presiding judge at Madame Karpova’s arraignment a few days ago?” Papa asked. At my bewildered nod, he continued: “The courthouse has been buzzing about how she ranted at Raleigh, telling him he’d die before the week was out.” He eyed me in obvious bemusement. “If I didn’t know for a fact that your client was locked up in a jail cell, I’d say she’d found some way to kill off old Mortimer, using some kind of Gypsy herbs to make it appear as if it were his heart.”

“I don’t understand it, either, Papa,” I said, still in a state of shock. “It’s uncanny, but most of the time Madame Karpova is right. She prophesied that Judge Raleigh would be greeting his Maker before the week was out. Apparently, that’s precisely what he’s doing.”

B
ecause I was due in court the following morning, I had no opportunity to speak to Madame Karpova about Judge Raleigh’s death. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. If this had been her first prediction to come true, I could have attributed it to coincidence. But it was not her first. I had never been a believer in psychic phenomenon, but this gave me pause.

I’d spent a restless night, too keyed up over the impending divorce hearing to sleep. Toward morning, I’d finally dozed off for an hour or two, then awakened with another throbbing headache. After Charles changed my bandages, I brewed a cup of Fanny’s willow-bark tea and set about preparing myself for court. My spirits lifted as the headache gradually receded. I wouldn’t have hurt Charles’s feelings for the world, but I was convinced Fanny’s tea worked better, and faster, than my brother’s headache powders. And with the day I had before me, I could only say a silent thanks to my neighbor’s mother for bringing the remedy with her from West Virginia.

Fanny had also been correct about the hat she’d lent me. It not only worked well with my bandaged head but was the perfect accessory for the light gray plain-cut suit I planned to wear for the proceedings.

The Sechrest divorce hearing was scheduled to begin at nine o’clock. Arriving at the courthouse, I was pleased to see Alexandra’s mother and sister waiting with her outside the main entrance. There was a strong family resemblance, perhaps intensified at the moment by the state of their nerves. All three looked as if they were on their way to the gallows, rather than entering a court of law.

Also standing with them was Alexandra’s neighbor and friend Mrs. Jane Hardy. I had spoken to Alexandra’s maid, but the woman stubbornly refused to step foot inside a courtroom. Nor did she care to become involved in a divorce, since she had been raised to believe the disintegration of a marriage was contrary to church law. I wasn’t unduly concerned about this. I was fairly certain the judge would grant my client a divorce. Gaining custody of her children, however, would be an entirely different matter.

As I led the four women into the courtroom, it seemed strange to see Robert sitting at the respondent’s table across the aisle. The one time we had appeared in court together, it had been as colleagues fighting to save an innocent, if eccentric, man from the gallows. Now we were adversaries in a case that would decide the fate of a mother and her two small boys. Judging by the look on his face, Robert felt as uncomfortable with the situation as I did. Upon our arrival, he nodded his head rather stiffly and bade me a staid good morning. I replied with equal formality.

I gathered that the man sitting next to Robert was Luther Sechrest. This was my first glimpse of Alexandra’s husband, and I covertly studied him as I opened my briefcase and arranged my papers on the table. Although he was seated, I judged him to be of average height, and handsome enough, in a cocky sort of way. He had longish brown hair, combed back from his brow, and a neatly trimmed mustache. His eyes slanted slightly upward and were golden brown, reminding me of a wolf I had once seen in the zoo. I was sad to see that the look he gave his wife, who was seated next to me at the petitioner’s table, was one of ownership, rather than love or sorrow that their marriage had come to this unhappy end.

Behind Robert and Mr. Sechrest sat a group of men, all well groomed and smartly dressed. Quietly, my client identified the Reverend Henderson, the pastor of their church; Mr. Leighton, the elderly owner of Leighton Mining; and three of Luther’s employees, or “ruffians,” as Alexandra had described them.

“I don’t know how Luther convinced Reverend Henderson to testify on his behalf,” she whispered, looking hurt. “We’ve always been on excellent terms. I can’t imagine he would say anything derogatory about me.”

“Does your husband contribute to the church?” I asked, hating my suspicions even as I sought to confirm them.

“Actually, Luther is one of the parish’s most generous benefactors.” Her eyes lit with sudden understanding. “Oh, Sarah, this is going to be much worse than I anticipated.”

I patted her arm and tried to look optimistic. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. In cases like this, you never know what might happen.”

As we were speaking, Gideon Manning hurried into the courtroom. “I’m sorry to be late,” he said softly, slipping in beside my other witnesses in the row directly behind our table. “I . . .” he paused, and his gaze flickered across the aisle to Luther and his cronies, most of whom were now staring in our direction. Robert, in particular, appeared interested in what we were whispering about. I saw him shake his head in answer to some question asked by his client; then I turned my back to him, the better to hear what Gideon had to say.

Leaning over the wood panel that divided us, Gideon Manning said in a soft, faltering voice, “I’m afraid I did something illegal. I was just so afraid Alexandra—er, Mrs. Sechrest—would lose custody of those boys, I had to try.”

“What have you done?” I demanded, fear forming a knot in my stomach at the word
illegal.

“I waited until Sechrest and his men left the house for court; then I sneaked inside.” He held one hand against the side of his
mouth so that those on the other side of the aisle could not make out his words. “I still had a spare key to the front door, you see.”

Beside me, Mrs. Sechrest sucked in her breath. “You shouldn’t have taken such a chance, Gideon. You might have been caught, or even arrested.”

He smiled grimly. “Only the servants were home, and I know their routines well enough to keep out of sight. What I wanted was in Luther’s office.”

“And what was that?” I asked, wishing he would get to the point before the judge arrived to start the hearing.

“These,” he said, pulling some letters just far enough out of his pocket so that they were visible to my client and me but not to the “enemy camp” across the aisle.

“Are those the letters you wrote for Mr. Sechrest?” I asked in growing excitement.

“Yes, at least the few I could find. These were in the locked drawer of his desk.” I could tell by his sheepish expression that he had jimmied the lock to pull it open. “He either destroyed the rest or they’re in his safe.”

“To whom were they sent?” I asked.

Without answering, he spread out the half dozen letters so I could see the addressees’ names. I didn’t recognize the first few names, but the fourth letter brought me up short. It was addressed to Senator Percival Gaylord!

I took it from his hand and examined it carefully. On the surface, it appeared innocent enough, but upon reading it a second time, I detected a more sinister intent. It read:

Senator Gaylord,

Your order has been arranged and is being processed by a trustworthy man long in my employ. I will notify you when the order has been executed according to your instructions.

Your faithful servant,

Luther P. Sechrest

“This letter refers to an order,” I whispered to Gideon. “What sort of business does Sechrest do with Senator Gaylord?”

Manning opened his mouth to answer but was cut off as the clerk of the court announced the arrival of Judge Phillips. Whatever he’d been about to say would have to wait until later.

The hearing went much as I’d expected. After I had suffered the by now customary stares and murmurs of those individuals who had never before seen a female attorney, Judge Phillips called upon my client to state her reasons for requesting a divorce. As planned, I asked Alexandra’s mother and sister to bear witness to Luther’s brutality toward his wife, as well as Alexandra’s superior attributes as a mother. Although their testimony was hesitant and somewhat timid, I thought Judge Phillips seemed disposed to believe their sworn statements.

Beside me, Alexandra tensed and grabbed my hand when it was time for her mother and sister’s cross-examination. I murmured encouraging words, but in truth I wasn’t sure how they would bear up under rigorous questioning. I caught Robert’s expression as he stood, and read honest regret at his having to subject these gentle-women to such an ordeal. I also read blame that I hadn’t persuaded my client to accept her husband’s offer, and thereby avoided all this grief.

Robert truly was a gifted courtroom attorney. He had once confided to me that this was his dream, the reason he had left Edinburgh and come to America. He’d said he’d known that, as long as he stayed in Scotland, he would always remain in the shadow of his father, who was one of Scotland’s leading defense attorneys. Now it seemed that dream was coming true, albeit at my expense. He framed his queries so cleverly that Alexandra’s mother and sister soon grew muddled and began to contradict their own testimony. Both women left the stand in tears, and my hand bore the marks of my client’s fingernails where they had dug into my palm.

Next, I called my client’s neighbor, Mrs. Jane Hardy, to the stand. To my intense relief, she made a far better witness than her
predecessors, boldly describing Mrs. Sechrest’s bruises and ill treatment at the hands of her drunken husband. Robert utilized all his considerable skills, but he was unable to shake one word of her testimony. As far as Mrs. Hardy was concerned, Mrs. Sechrest was a virtuous, loving wife and mother. The very idea that she might be a slave to the bottle was ludicrous.

After Gideon Manning had his turn describing the troubled marriage, I called a very nervous Alexandra Sechrest to the stand. As I led my client through her tearful testimony, I caught the judge glancing at Luther in ill-disguised censure. For the first time, I allowed myself to hope that he might award her the children after all.

My brief moment of optimism was quashed when it came time for the respondent to refute our case and Robert called Luther Sechrest as his first witness. Sechrest slowly rose to his feet, a faint smile on his lips and a swagger in his step as he approached the witness stand. His entire demeanor radiated an easy self-confidence and the assurance that he held all the trump cards needed to win the case.

After his witness was sworn in, Robert asked him to describe his twelve-year marriage to his wife, Alexandra. Sechrest testified that the first eight or nine years had been everything any man could hope for. His wife had been obedient, respectful, modest, and diligent in carrying out her household duties.

“When did you begin to notice a change in your wife’s behavior?” Robert asked.

Luther went on to weave a complex and utterly false story about his wife’s growing drinking problem, which he stated had begun in the last three or four years.

“And how did this affect her relationship with your two children?”

As Sechrest described horrific examples of a drunken, out-of-control mother, Alexandra cringed in her seat next to mine. “None of it is true,” she whispered, obviously holding herself together by
sheer force of will. “Luther is the one who behaved like a madman. How can he tell such terrible lies?”

When Sechrest proceeded to relate how on one occasion his wife had severely beaten her sons for committing some minor infraction, I’d had enough.

“Objection,” I said, rising to my feet. “Unless Mr. Sechrest saw this with his own eyes, it is hearsay.”

“Did you personally observe this incident?” asked the judge.

Luther gave a slight smile. “No, Your Honor. But I have witnesses who were present. They’ll be happy to describe the unfortunate episode to the Court.”

Which was nothing less than the truth. One by one, Robert called several of Sechrest’s servants to the stand—along with his stable of thugs—all of them substantiating their employer’s damning testimony. The coup de grâce, of course, was delivered when they accused my client and Gideon Manning of carrying on an adulterous affair under Luther Sechrest’s roof. Although I did everything I could think of to countermand their testimony, I was unable to budge them from their well-orchestrated stories. I glanced at Luther Sechrest as the last of his cronies left the stand, and my anger flared as I observed the self-satisfied smile plastered upon his arrogant face.