The Evening Spider (14 page)

“Certainly.” He pushed the doctor's journal over to me, and I gazed down at the handwritten words. Dr. Graham liked to give his T's long, sweeping crosses, giving the words a grim sort of drama.

“Are his notes so minimalistic that he never says what was wrong with her?”

“As I recall, there was one other note that referred to this patient. I believe it was a few pages back.”

Wallace slid the journal back and turned pages backwards.

“Okay. That's right. Frances Barnett. A few days earlier.”

Wallace pointed to an entry that said:

18 December 1879. Frances Barnett. Hysterical symptoms. Possibly suicidal in nature.

“Oh,” I said. My hand, which had been idly stroking Lucy's hair, froze. “Jesus.”

“I recall that there is no other mention of her in the few months prior to this. I believe I checked when I first came across this.”

Wallace tapped the bridge of his glasses, pushing it tighter against his nose. “Perhaps it was going on for some time before her family turned to a doctor for help. No group therapy or holistic healing in nineteenth-century Haverton, I'm afraid.”

I smiled, trying not to look impatient. “I know, I know. But . . .”

“I noticed from the pages I just read that Mrs. Barnett had a baby. Let's see, now. A whole year before she was sent away. Seems rather late for postpartum to have been the main issue, no?”

I glanced down at Lucy's head. “Uh . . . I'm not sure.”

“Unless there was another baby in between?”

I shook my head. “No. No second baby in the journal.”

Wallace shrugged. “Because that was common, then. One after another. Anyway, postpartum or no, it was easier for a woman to find herself in a hospital like that than a man.”

Wallace made an apologetic face, as if he were responsible for this injustice.

“Naturally,” I nudged.

“A husband could put away a wife at his discretion. The populations of those hospitals were often more female than male.”

“Right,” I said. “Makes sense. But weren't there similar hospitals in Connecticut?”

“Yes, there were. Interesting that they chose to have her travel all that way. I wondered about that the first time I saw that note. But I've read a thing or two about the Northampton state hospital. It was considered state-of-the-art, at the time. They relied more on ‘work therapy' than restraint or seclusion or some of the more barbaric methods of the time. Still not a place I'd have wanted to hang out, but . . .”

I nodded in spite of the sick feeling ballooning in my stomach again. Frances Flinch Barnett was sent to Northampton
five days
after she'd mused in her journal about the amount of arsenic necessary to kill someone “significantly smaller” than Mary Stannard.

Lucy whimpered and wriggled against my chest, throwing a fist against my chin.

“So perhaps the Northampton hospital was a place they felt she'd fare better, or have a better chance of recovery.” Wallace shrugged, then took off his glasses. “Would you by any chance like a coffee? We have a machine in the other room.”

“Better not,” I said. This conversation was already making me pretty jittery. “I think I'm going to have to get going soon. My daughter needs a nap, I think. But thank you.”

“Well, now.” Wallace shifted his weight, pulled his foot up to his knee and gripped his sturdy brown shoe. “I suppose now
you know a little something more about Frances Barnett than when you walked in. Maybe not the something you wished to find out.”

“Yeah. Maybe not.” I got up and bounced Lucy gently.

Wallace's eyebrows twitched hopefully. “I imagine you want to find out more?”

“If I can.”

“Would you mind if I kept Mrs. Barnett's journal for a couple of days, until I can read it through?”

“Not at all,” I said. It was a relief to think of Frances Flinch Barnett's words in someone else's hands for a little while.

“I'm not sure how much more we can find out,” Wallace admitted. “But I can't tell you how eager I am to keep reading, and then maybe after that we could set up an appointment to share some ideas about that? We might see if her death certificate is on file here in Haverton. If she died here, then we'd at least know she got out of the asylum. If not, perhaps you could pursue the death records in Northampton, Massachusetts? I believe if she died at the hospital, the record would've been filed in that town.”

Lucy, who'd apparently had enough, threw her head back and wailed.

“That would be nice,” I said, bouncing away from Wallace. “Why don't you e-mail me when you're done reading? In the meantime I'll see if I can find her death record at the town vital records. . . . in the meantime, we're going to get out of your hair now.”

“You weren't in my hair,” Wallace said but nonetheless got up hastily and opened the maroon door for me.

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

O
f course, it was not
blood
that attracted me to the Mary Stannard affair—not at first. It was not the violence or even the scandal. It was the way all of the minute elements of it promised to affect the outcome. It was that lovely notion that if you broke the event and its objects into enough tiny parts, and examined them thoroughly enough, you could arrive at the truth. And it was, perhaps more than you realize, your involvement that attracted me to it. I missed you—and I missed our long conversations about your studies. Perhaps I was a bit jealous that you'd begun to share those details with Louise instead of with me.

Do you remember that I sent you a few letters?
Dear brother, come visit me! Little Martha's grown so much, you'll scarcely recognize her.
I was trying to appeal to your avuncular side.

Surely you remember that I finally had to make a trip to New Haven to see you—under the pretense of visiting Mother for a few nights. It took some planning, and some convincing Matthew. In the end, though, Dr. Stayer encouraged Matthew to have me take a holiday.

It was such a perfect autumn day that we strolled back and forth over the New Haven green, talking of the stomachs and the poison under the bright blue sky. You told me of Mary Stannard's brain and stomach and liver and womb—all in different jars and different labs at Yale. Despite the gravity of our chosen topic, I took such pleasure in our reconnection—and in the hours away from Martha, while Mother tended to her.

If Johnson is nervous, he doesn't show it. But when he steps up in that courtroom, it's not just the ears actually in the room that will hear his words. Reporters from all around are attending, ready to scribble down every word.

What do you think makes this trial so special, Harry? Is it the science? Or the brutality?

Probably both. Either way, I intend to be in the gallery when Dr. Johnson testifies. He's not the only Yale professor who will be on the stand. I plan to hear as much of the scientific testimony as I can.

I wish I could join you.

Perhaps, Frances . . .

What is it, Harry?

Perhaps you can.

I stopped walking to stare at you, and was warmed by a familiar twinkle in your eye.

You found Mother lonely on this visit, did you not? You think she will be needing another visit from her daughter and granddaughter quite soon. Kindly old Matthew couldn't possibly argue with that.

I laughed and felt some of the years of separation lift from us—your years of study, mine of wifely duties and new motherhood. You still knew my mind, after all.

Ah . . . we shall see. But would I be the only woman in attendance?

Surely you wouldn't. Many women seem quite compelled by this case.

Of course they are, Harry. I'm not sure how it is for a man. Maybe a man could not ever see himself in that girl's stead—while a woman would more easily do so, and be much troubled by it.

A man can be equally troubled by such evil, don't you think?

I suppose so.

Perhaps the science is easier to consider than the brutality.

How do you mean?

All you bespectacled men of Yale . . . separating the girl's parts into jars and obsessing over them. Does it perhaps allow you to forget the girl herself? The whole girl? Who had thoughts and emotions just like ours, right up until the final moment?

It does nothing of the kind. It only gives us power to give her—and her family—justice. We wouldn't care to do that if we cared nothing for her humanity.

I'm not certain of that.

Are you trying to argue that your gender makes your interest in the case more noble somehow?

Of course not. Oh, but the poor Stannard girl. Who was she, and how did she stumble into such great misfortune? What were her exact steps that day? How was it that she found herself alone with a murderer in the wood that afternoon, and was there any moment when she could have turned and found her way back unscathed?
I
would have recognized that moment, wouldn't I have, had it been me? Wouldn't we all like to convince ourselves of that? What made the girl so trusting, and so unlucky? Even if you all examined every cell in her body, you wouldn't have found answers to those questions.

You were silent then. Perhaps you thought my questions had
ceased to be interesting and had become too flighty. Perhaps I embarrassed you in some way. I didn't care. I kept talking because I had been so long starved for meaningful conversation.

Shame we do not have the opportunity to study the cells of the murderer. Wouldn't you like to have the chance to do that as well? Is there something inherent about him—about the specifics of his makeup or the sum of his parts—that makes him capable of such a thing? Or are both of these people—murderer and victim—fundamentally like us, but for a few missteps?

Do you remember how you replied, Harry? No?

Father used to say that you were more ambitious than me, Frances,
you said
. I think, in a sense, that might be true.

Haverton, Connecticut

December 12, 2014

I
wasn't ready to go home. Not alone. Or rather—alone with Lucy. I was too rattled by what I'd just learned about Frances. I wasn't sure what to make of her sad story, or its potential connection to my experience in the house. If Frances had died in an asylum, I'd think she'd want to haunt
that
building instead of mine. Wasn't that how these things were supposed to work?

I drove about a mile from the historical society and then turned into the Stop & Shop parking lot. Though I wanted to go in and buy a few things and clear my head, Lucy was already blissing out with her pacifier, eyes closed. It wouldn't be smart to bring her into the bright light and bustle of a grocery store.

Popping a lullaby CD out of the car's player, I turned the volume down low and hit
scan
on the radio. Maybe I could find some news, at least, and feel like a woman of the world for a moment. As the radio spat out blurbs from different stations—a car sale ad, a male country singer with an expertly macho whine, some Taylor Swift—I wondered who listened to the radio regularly anymore. My parents did until they retired to Santa Fe two years ago. Until then my mother had always
listened to the same obnoxious morning show on her way to work. Did she miss those aging DJs now, I wondered, or had it always just been a way to survive the daily monotony?

My thought was interrupted by the loud gurgle and pop of a distant radio station. Before I had a chance to turn it down, the radio scan had moved on to its next station.

“Bring it to me . . . Bring it on home to me . . .”

I jumped.

Then the scanner moved on to another station, feeding me a line of German sung by a baritone on public radio.

“Wendy?” I whispered.

I reached out and started pressing buttons madly, trying to scan backward, which the radio wouldn't allow. What had the station been? Ninety-three point something? I moved up and down that range, trying to find the song again. After about a minute, I gave up.

It was that old Sam Cooke song. The one Wendy loved.

Wendy had introduced me to Sam Cooke. Not on purpose, exactly. She was always studying with her headphones on, listening to a little portable CD player. One time, while I was trying to write a paper, she was sprawled on her bed, writing a letter to her ex-boyfriend on seashell stationary, picking at her lilac afghan, and whispering to herself “Yeah . . . yeah . . . yeah.” She must've had the song on repeat, because she kept “Yeahing” for about a half hour until I slammed my copy of Thomas Paine's
Rights of Man
down on my desk and shouted, “What are you
doing,
Wendy?”

Wordlessly, Wendy had taken her CD out of her player and put it in my stereo. She played the song for me so I could hear
for myself Sam Cooke singing “Yeah” with a backup singer echoing “Yeah.” Wendy hummed along until it was over and then said, “Isn't this an awesome song? I love it.”

And I didn't think the song was half bad.

Wendy then told me a little bit about Sam Cooke—about all of his early success and his violent death. She played me “A Change Is Gonna Come” and I had to admit that one was pretty damn good, too.

“I listen to music from the sixties, mostly,” Wendy had admitted. And then she looked at me as if expecting some sort of judgment. “And not the cool part of the sixties. I know it's really weird.”

“Oh, I don't know,” I'd said, returning to my work. “It's not that weird.”

My response was kind on its surface. But I'd had a feeling, at the time, that Wendy wanted to be weirder than she was, and I had not particularly wanted to indulge her.

Now I glanced into the backseat mirror above Lucy's seat. The pacifier had fallen out of her mouth, and her head had fallen to the side. Unbuckling my seat belt, I leaned into the backseat and nudged her shoulder. She shifted and sighed. I returned to my seat and closed my eyes.

No, I hadn't ever been willing to indulge Wendy. Not in the least. Not even on the very last morning.

You'll actually feel better if you get up and get your ass to class. Or at least take a shower and have a little breakfast, and see how you feel.

I had barely looked at her as I slipped out of the room. She was facedown, surely pouting into her pillow, her half-grown
bangs hanging over her wrist, which was mashed against her forehead. Her knee poking out from beneath the twisted sheets, her toe tangled in that light purple afghan.

UUUUUURRRH—eeep! Bang!

That was how I'd left her.

That afghan. Washed nearly to a dull gray, pilled and dirty at the corners and with such wide holes that often Wendy's bare foot would emerge from it while she was sleeping. Her mother had crocheted it when she was a baby, she'd told me once.

“No,” I whispered and curled my fingers so tight that my nails dug hard into my palms. “Shut up.”

Lucy sighed in her sleep and made a slurping noise—sucking on her now-imaginary pacifier.

We needed a destination—so she could sleep longer and so I could think about something else. I picked up my phone and tried Stephanie Barnett's number for the third time since our conversation had ended abruptly the other night. I got her voice mail again.

I typed in “GreatCuts” and found there was only one in this part of the state. It would be a twenty-minute trip. I didn't know what I'd do when I got there, but I didn't care. For the moment, anywhere was better than home.