Evidence of Blood (43 page)

WARFIELD
: Treated. How?

STARK
: Medically. She gave them things.

WARFIELD
: Medicines?

STARK
: If you can call them that. Mostly plants from the woods up there on the mountain. One concoction was made of some wildflowers that grow down in the canyon. There were pieces of bark in it and sprigs of vine.

WARFIELD
: And to whom did she give these—well—we can’t really call them medicines, can we, Doctor?

STARK
: Certainly not. She gave them only to the dying. They were her special clientele, you might say. Desperate people. They’d buy anything.

WARFIELD
: But terminal cases, they were not her only patients, were they, Doctor?

STARK
: Well, no. She had other treatments, if you can call them that. Anyway, she claimed that she could do a great many things.

WARFIELD
: What things, Doctor?

STARK
: Well, for one, that she could get rid of a child, things like that.

WARFIELD
: Get rid of a child?

STARK
: She was an abortionist.

WARFIELD
: Did you verify any of these other things, Dr. Stark?

STARK
: Not on my own, no, sir.

WARFIELD
: You came to me instead, didn’t you, Dr. Stark?

STARK
: Yes, sir, Mr. Warfield. Since you were the District Attorney, I came to you.

Warfield had subsequently conducted his own investigation, assigning Ben Wade to go under cover by posing as a man with a recurrent and undiagnosable “stomach growth.”

WARFIELD
: And that’s all you told her, wasn’t it, Mr. Wade, that you had stomach trouble?

WADE
: That’s right. I said I’d had it a long time, and that it was killing me. I told her I’d been everywhere trying to get help, and it wasn’t getting any better.

WARFIELD
: And as a result of these conversations, did Edna Trappman agree to treat you for this condition?

WADE
: Yes, she did.

WARFIELD
: And did that treatment, in fact, take place?

WADE
: Yes, it did.

WARFIELD
: Could you describe it for us?

WADE
: We met at this house on the mountain. When I first talked to her, she said that she was planning on leaving Sequoyah in a few days, and that if I wanted a treatment, she’d have to do it right away. I said that was fine with me, and we set up an appointment.

WARFIELD
: And pursuant to that appointment, you met with Miss Trappman, didn’t you?

WADE
: Yeah, I did. We met at this place on the
mountain. She didn’t live there, but she sort of used it sometimes, I guess.

WARFIELD:
Used it?

WADE
: Like a home base or something. I couldn’t quite figure it out. It was just a shack, more or less, but done over pretty well.

WARFIELD
: When did you meet with Miss Trappman?

WADE
: The first time was on February 4. It was at night. We always met at night. I guess she liked it better. Anyway, I drove up the mountain to the place she said she’d be at.

WARFIELD:
And you found her waiting for you?

WADE
: Yes, sir. She was standing along the canyon rim, and she was wrapped up in a long shawl that went almost to the ground. The wind was blowing hard, and she had long black hair, and it was really whirling around her head. She looked real strange. It gave me the creeps.

WARFIELD:
But you didn’t run away, did you, Ben?

WADE
: No, sir.

WARFIELD
: What happened after you got there?

WADE
: I kept the car lights on, and they were shining right on her. She didn’t come toward me. She just stayed there on the rim of the canyon, like she was about to jump off of it or something.

WARFIELD
: All right, go ahead.

WADE
: Well, I came up to her, and I told her who I was, and she didn’t say anything. She just handed me a little bottle, and I gave her some money.

WARFIELD:
How much did you give her?

WADE
: Five dollars.

These were not the last of the county funds turned over to Edna Trappman, however, for during the next two months, as she returned sporadically to Sequoyah, then moved on, Wade continued to request treatments, then receive and pay for them.

WARFIELD
: So, finally, you shelled out close to two hundred dollars, didn’t you, Ben?

WADE
: Yes, sir.

WARFIELD
: Well, after all that money, did your stomach get any better?

The laughter which subsequently broke over the courtroom at Warfield’s facetious question had prevented the court reporter from hearing his answer:
INAUDIBLE
.

The laughter stopped immediately, however, when Trappman herself took the stand, and even within the bare, black-and-white minimalism of the transcript pages, Kinley could sense the tension that had arisen as Warfield began to question her. For there was something in her voice that penetrated and electrified the otherwise unadorned lines of the transcript, an eerie, crystalline clarity which Kinley always associated with an overmastering intelligence.

WARFIELD
: For the record, would you state your name and address, please.

TRAPPMAN
: Edna Mae Trappman.

WARFIELD
: And your address?

TRAPPMAN
: I live where I am.

WARFIELD
: You have no address?

TRAPPMAN
: I don’t live any particular place.

WARFIELD
: You’re a drifter, isn’t that right, Miss Trappman, an itinerant?

TRAPPMAN
: I live in lots of places.

WARFIELD
: You live out of a car, isn’t that right?

TRAPPMAN
: Sometimes.

WARFIELD
: Mostly peanut butter from the glove compartment, is that it?

Trappman did not respond, but Warfield chose not to pursue the point.

WARFIELD
: All right, fine, we’ll let the address go. We know where you are right now, that’s the main thing. Well, let me ask you this, Miss Trappman, do you have a job at this time?

TRAPPMAN
: No.

WARFIELD
: Well, how do you manage to keep that car moving on down the road, then?

Rather than retreating into silence at Warfield’s question, Edna Trappman rallied suddenly and gave a remarkable answer.

TRAPPMAN
: I perform miracles.

The courtroom spectators had reacted with uneasy laughter, but rather than waiting for the court to intervene, Trappman had followed a remarkable response with an even more remarkable action. She had quieted the court herself.

TRAPPMAN
: Silence!

It was one of the few times Kinley had ever seen a court reporter use an exclamation point to describe the emotional pitch of a witness’s voice, and it must have been in response to the sound of that single word, or the look in her eye at the moment she’d delivered it.

SILENCE!

And from the transcript, Kinley could tell that the courtroom had fallen silent instantly, for without any intercession on the part of the judge, Warfield had immediately resumed his examination. But now he seemed ill at ease, perhaps shaken, as if by the same hard demeanor that had imposed silence on the court.

WARFIELD
: Well, I …I have a few …

TRAPPMAN
: Questions?

WARFIELD
: Yes, a few more for you to …

TRAPPMAN
: Ask, then.

She was now in full command, and the force of her control seemed to rise like a lingering smoke from the pages of the transcript.

WARFIELD
: Well, about making a living …

TRAPPMAN
: It’s all in your head.

WARFIELD
: What?

TRAPPMAN
: What you see.

WARFIELD
: You mean …

TRAPPMAN
: When you look at me.

WARFIELD:
I don’t know what you …

TRAPPMAN
: Looking for a cure.

WARFIELD
: …mean when you …

TRAPPMAN
: Looking for a way out.

WARFIELD
: Are you saying that you …

TRAPPMAN
: I provide the way.

WARFIELD
: …are guilty?

TRAPPMAN
: Yes.

And there, in that instant, the trial had ended. Warfield had immediately asked that Trappman’s spontaneous confession of guilt be accepted by the court, and the court had done exactly that. Minutes later, it found Trappman guilty on a charge of practicing medicine without a license, adjourned for two hours, then reconvened, at which time the court asked the accused if she had anything to say before it pronounced sentence.

She did. It was plain-spoken, rather than eloquent, and it was clearly the voice of a person who’d had little formal education, but Kinley marvelled nonetheless at her intelligence and moral agility, her ability to turn everything around.

TRAPPMAN
: I will say this, and nothing else. There is no way out. All the roads are blocked. There are just
voices. Everything is in your head. You can feel them sometimes, things crawling through you. Tiny feet. They aren’t real, these little animals. But we listen to them. We beg them. We pray to them. We want a way out of what is grinding us to death. It doesn’t matter what it is. A cancer. Polio. People tell their children. They say, “Don’t drink water when you are too hot. If you do,” they tell them, “you will get polio.” Is this practicing medicine? Or is it saying to a child, “Don’t be afraid. I know the way out. You don’t have to be afraid of getting polio and being crippled all your life. There is a way out, and I know what it is. Just don’t drink water when you’re hot, and then you’ll be all right. You’ll never get polio.” And children, they take this, and they go play, and get hot, but they don’t drink water, and polio, it doesn’t scare them anymore. They think they know the way out. It isn’t real. Nobody knows anything. It’s only a wish that gets you through. I don’t practice medicine. These people that come to me, they don’t want medicine. I practice magic. And sometimes, when it’s a problem in their heads, I give them magic for that, too. And when they can’t get over something, I show them how. I show them that everything’s a shadow. You see, they are all tied up in knots. They think it’s all solid. Their troubles are like stones. But even a stone can disappear. You just pick it up and throw it in the river. And, like magic, it’s gone. There’s no harm in any of this. Find what harm I’ve done, and make me pay for that. That’s all I got to say.