The Reservoir (18 page)

“I’ve never loved anybody but you, Tommie,” she said, “I’ve flirted with lots of boys, but it never meant anything. It’s different with you.”

“It’ll be all right,” he said.

He got dressed while she lay there unclothed. “I’ll call for you this evening, if I can get away,” he told her. He opened the door.

“If you can get away?”

“Sshh.” He glanced up and down the hall. A maid was coming out of one of the rooms. Tommie yanked his slouch hat down low over his head. The maid passed by, but before she went into another room she turned and looked at him a moment as if waiting for the rest of the story. Tommie glared at her and she disappeared. “I’m supposed to meet a friend for supper,” he said. “If I can break that off, I will. Otherwise, I’ll come afterward.” She seemed somewhat satisfied with this arrangement, and with that he headed out.

Going down the stairs he had a sudden glimpse of a future with her: He could turn now and go to her; they could get married this very day, live in Richmond and make a life together. He had seen an unpredictable power in that small frame of hers—she would take matters into her own hands if necessary—but also a vulnerability in his own character. Or was it simply good-heartedness? Was there any decision for him to make at all? He couldn’t hear himself think clearly, his whole head seemed cluttered with noise.

He headed out toward Marshall and the Church Institute, pulling his coat on as he walked west, head down. Lillian would want one of the better rooms. It would be a substantial sum of money; he would have to set aside the money so he would not be tempted to spend it at Lizzie Banks’s, or on a gift for Nola. He still owed money for his top-buggy, and, of course, he was saving for that house in Little Plymouth. And now he would have to part with a week’s worth of money. He could always pawn his watch and gold key. He could ask Lillian to pawn the key he’d given her, but she’d feel betrayed.

When he reached the asylum he pulled out a piece of paper on which he’d written the names of the matrons and superintendent, then knocked on the door. A squat middle-aged woman, her hair in a white kerchief, opened it and stood there waiting for him to explain himself.

“I’m looking for Dr. Moncure,” he said. “Is he available?”

“He might be and he might not be,” the woman said, eyeing the whole of Tommie and his clothing. “Who should I tell him is calling?”

“Walter Merton,” he said. “I want to see him about a cousin of mine.”

“What’s your cousin’s name?”

Tommie had not thought about giving Lillian a name. He blurted out, “Her name is Fannie Merton. We have the same name—we’re cousins, you see.”

The woman continued giving him the same implacable, bovine stare, her lower lip shadowing a bewhiskered chin. She shook her head. “We have nobody here by that name,” she said. “Could be she’s at another house.”

“No,” Tommie said, flustered. “She’s not here yet. I wanted to inquire about the possibility of her coming here.”

“Come in, then,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Paine, by the way.” She moved by rocking herself left to right, using the momentum to advance the opposite leg. He followed her into the foyer, which had been converted into a waiting room. She maneuvered her bulk behind a long table which served as a desk, and into a chair. Among the papers and books scattered on the table was an open appointment book. Mrs. Paine let out a sigh and said, “What was your cousin’s complaint?”

“Well, she’s in some difficulty,” Tommie said, shifting his weight on the sagging floorboards. “You see, she’s expecting, and she needs a place for her confinement.” He stopped, waiting for Mrs. Paine’s reaction.

Mrs. Paine looked at the appointment book, shaking her head, as though flummoxed about the purpose of the book itself. Then she looked at him. “And who is the father?” she asked, her expression unchanged, but her eyes perhaps a little softer, more sympathetic. Or perhaps, Tommie thought, merely curious, merely in search of another example of human folly and indiscretion that she could hold up as an example for young women to avoid, or that she could gossip about in the lonely evening hours.

“That’s just the problem,” he said. “We don’t—she doesn’t know who it is, and she needs a place to be. Maybe I should wait and talk to Dr. Moncure.”

“There’s no need for that atall, Mr. Merton. Mrs. Harrison and I do all the admittances. We don’t generally take on that kind of case. The institute is a benevolent organization, and we do all we can for all kinds of people. Mr. Paine—” (she crossed herself) “was an example of God’s benevolent work on earth. Even though he took to drink and drank himself to death nearly, still he got me to promise on his deathbed that I would carry on his benevolent work here. But we do have a reputation to uphold, and if we don’t know who the girl is or who the baby’s father is and who their parents are, we can’t just take people like that in. We did have a girl once, a shy, pretty little thing. A man said he was her father paid Dr. Moncure a hundred dollars, and after she had the baby she up and disappeared.”

Mrs. Paine propped her elbows on the table, put her fingertips together, and gave Tommie another sad cow look.

“I could pay that much,” Tommie said. A week’s pay suddenly seemed like nothing—he’d agree to any price, and somehow find the money. “It’s very important that she have a place, but she should only need it for a few days, and not until March.”

“I know it,” Mrs. Paine said, real sympathy in her voice now. “But we just can’t help you here, young man. What did you say your name was?”

Tommie was confused at first, wondering if giving the right name would lead to the right answer. “It’s Merton, Walter Merton, and I’m a good Christian, and so is she, my cousin. We’re not Roman Catholic, but we go to church all the time.”

“I know you do, but—”

“And we come from good family.”

“Around here, you said?”

“No, but not far away—just over in New Kent.”

“Oh, I have family in New Kent. You probably know the Tripp Broadnaxes?”

Tommie nodded vaguely. “I think so,” he said, “I’m sure my daddy does. Gosh, if it’s a matter of money, it doesn’t matter how much it is, and she wouldn’t think about up and running away. She just needs a quiet place for a while, because of the delicate situation.”

“I know. And her daddy sent you to ask about it?”

“Yes, ma’am, well he’s dead. She has no father.”

“Mr. Merton, I wish we could help you, but I know Dr. Moncure would say no. Have you tried the Magdalen House?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. He was beginning to feel like a mouse in front of a large, soft cat.

“Some people call it the Spring Street House because it’s on Spring Street, but I’ve always called it the Magdalen House. It’s mostly for indigents, but they might take a case like yours.”

“But there are lying-in places, aren’t there?”

“Oh, yes. If you have the money, there’s places for anything, anything atall. ’Twasn’t so when I was coming along. You couldn’t just walk into a saloon on Main Street in the middle of the day, and into a house of bad repute at night. People had morals then. Now it’s just sin everywhere you go. People smoking, spitting, gambling, cussing. Nosir, in my day, people didn’t act that-away. They behaved theirselves, and people got along just fine, even if they didn’t like each other.”

“Yes, ma’am, but where would I find such a place, if I had the money? A sure enough lying-in place?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “There was a place somewhere out near Monroe Park, but I think it’s gone. But seems like I heard of a place out past the college a ways. You could try them at the Magdalen House. Or ask Dr. Moncure. He’d know. But, I’ll tell you, that kind of place is for the very rich only, the kind that think they can buy their way out of sin. I know some nice people that are rich, but you can’t buy your way to heaven, you understand.”

Tommie nodded, and Mrs. Paine crossed herself.

“You want to wait for Dr. Moncure?” she asked. “I’ll go see if I can find him.”

“No,” Tommie said. “I’ll go on to the Magdalen House and ask them.” He got up to leave, thinking he had already stayed too long.

“Pray about it,” Mrs. Paine was saying. “God will answer your prayers.” Tommie told her he would, and she crossed herself and said, smiling sadly, “Jesus loves you.”

Out on the street he started the trek down to the roughneck Oregon Hill neighborhood. Magdalen sounded like the right sort of place, even if it was for indigents—better, in fact, because it would be affordable and obscure, and he would just tell Lillian it was the only lying-in place available. Magdalen would be a good name for a whorehouse, he thought, then like Aunt Jane said a quick prayer for forgiveness. He passed Judge Crump’s house with its pillared porch and corniced windows, its iron gate hiding a prim little garden—someday I’ll own a house in town just like that, Tommie imagined. Or, better, something like the old John Marshall house a few streets over. That was how a lawyer should live—a plantation taking up a whole city block, with its own carriage house and stable. For those who worked hard and were blessed with God-given talent, anything was possible: A country lawyer could become chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. There would be dinner parties every week and a servant for each guest, and on outings he’d have to decide between the brougham or, for fancier occasions, the barouche.

He did not relish going down to Oregon Hill, where hoodlum sons of mill workers engaged in territorial battles in the middle of the day. He did not like the idea of going down there only to be turned away by the Magdalen House, so he was going to trust to Providence that when the time came they would take Lillian in. He would make sure she was well provided for, and then return when it was over and help her figure out what to do with the baby.

That night he had dinner with his old friend Tyler Bagby, who had married only a year ago. He sat in the little parlor talking to them, thinking of what a lucky fellow Tyler was. He lived a confined life in a small, dingy house, but he was a banker now, with a kind if not especially attractive wife, good prospects, and no baby on the way. When his wife was out of the room, Tyler, with a smile now more ironic than droll, said, “The married life ain’t bad, Tommie. You should try it.”

Walking back to his hotel, Tommie knew he should call on Lillian, but why risk being seen with her again? He had spent the evening with Tyler, who could vouch for him should the need ever arise, though why it should Tommie couldn’t imagine. He had ten dollars in his pocket, and he suddenly decided to visit Lizzie Banks’s. There was a new girl named Pauline Lacount with large breasts and a smiling leer that made him feel everything was right in his world. He sent a note to Miss Merton at the Exchange Hotel, apologizing for not being able to come by and saying he would write. He didn’t sign it.

At the door of Lizzie Banks’s, he lifted the knocker, then placed it gently back down. He saw Lillie as he had left her, lying there on the bed, holding him without a word. Again he lifted the knocker. He set it down and turned on his heel and headed back to his hotel.

On the train home the next morning he watched the farms flash past—the bare trees, the cattle on colorless fields under a bark-gray sky—and tried to remember the excitement of traveling to Richmond with his father eight years ago. But he could not shut out the clamor in his mind. The insistent rattling of the wheels on the track told him over and over,
Watch yourself, now, watch yourself, now, watch yourself, now
. He tried to amuse himself with an image of Pauline Lacount, leaning over him half naked, her bodice down around her waist and her soft breasts swaying toward him like big handfuls of white dough. He caught the glance of an old woman sitting opposite—she smiled politely, knowingly, and his heart raced.

• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN •

T
HE
A
MERICAN
H
OTEL
employees take their turns on the stand. Night clerk Julius Dodson at first seems nervous, his soft fleshy hands shaking as he describes finding the torn note. But sensing the courtroom’s complete attention to his words, he warms to the limelight. Colonel Aylett introduces the torn note as evidence, asking if Dodson recognizes it.

“I strenuously object, Your Honor,” Crump complains. “No one has demonstrated the relevance of this note. It has no signature on it, or identifying mark of any kind. It’s not properly part of the res gestae of evidence.”

“We’ll prove that it is,” Aylett says.

“You’re putting the cart before the horse.”

Judge Hill says he’ll give the matter some thought, but in the meantime the prosecution may continue. Tommie sits there watching Colonel Aylett, whose nephews were his boon companions in school, doing everything in his power to put the noose around him. He has no grudge against Tommie, has never even met him, and yet he brings in people like this hotel clerk to bear witness against him. Tommie’s reputation is already in tatters—what with locals dubbing him a monster, a machine, cold-blooded when he sheds no tears at court, and guilty when he so much as leans forward to look at a piece of evidence—now he’s only trying to save his neck. He pictures the gallows … yet that simply cannot be his fate. He had a chance to come clean, yet he waited and waited—for what? God was clearly not going to give him a nudge; he had to make up his own mind to act.

“And you say you tore that note up on Saturday and didn’t find it again until Monday?” Evans asks Dodson.

“Yes, but—”

“And there was at least three days’ worth of trash in the cans you examined?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you glanced at the note before you tore it up, but now you think it’s the same one that William Lane brought back undelivered?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many other notes were in the wastebaskets?”

“A few. I don’t remember exactly.”

“You don’t remember? I see. Thank you. I’m finished with this witness.”

Slim Lane gets on the stand and takes the oath, looking wide-eyed with uncertainty. Meredith warms him up as well as he can with innocuous questions about his job at the American and how long he has worked there. Then he asks him about March 13. Slim gives his testimony haltingly, staring mostly at a corner of the room as though reading his responses from some script posted there. On the cross-examination, he shifts to the other corner. He carefully avoids looking into the fifth pew where he knows Wren is watching, that bear with the big nose and the hole in his chin. He remembers what Wren told him, but he’s afraid if he looks at him now he’ll forget what he’s supposed to say.

“You say you never could find this mulatto boy who supposedly delivered a note from some gentleman out on the street?” Evans asks.

“No sir.”

“And how long did you search?”

“Three days at first, but then Mr. Wren told me to keep looking.”

“And you never found him?”

“Nosir.”

“At your police court deposition, you mentioned you had a look around Room 21 on March thirteenth when Miss Merton was there. What did you see on her bureau?”

“I didn’t see much. I just got the note from the lady.”

“Mr. Lane, you were under oath to tell the truth then, just as you are now. Tell us what you saw on the bureau.”

Slim glances down at the Bible sitting on the edge of the evidence table. “Something gold and shiny, but I don’t know what it was.”

“But it could have been a key?”

“Yes I think it—I think it could’ve been a key.”

“Thank you.”

Meredith redirects. “Mr. Lane, what you saw that day three months ago might easily have been something else besides a key, mightn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

“What else could it have been?”

“I think,” Slim says, staring at the corner of the room closer to Meredith, “it could’ve been a ring, or a piece of lady’s jewelry, or a brass hinge maybe.”

“I see, and how long do you think you looked at the bureau?”

“Two, three seconds.”

Hunter Hunt gets up and relates how a man came to the hotel inquiring after a friend of his sister’s, but upon seeing the lady from Room 21 said she was not the lady he was looking for. Hunt then ushered the man into the parlor. He identifies Tommie as the man. Evans asks about Hunt’s duties, then throws him a curve. “What color coat was the man wearing?”

Hunt glances at Tommie. “Dark brown, I believe.”

Evans reads from a transcript. “So not light-colored, as you stated at the police court?”

Hunt is quiet for a moment. “Yessuh, I believe it was light-colored, a sort of light brown.”

“So the fact that the prisoner was wearing a light coat at the police court didn’t lead you to think the man you’d seen was wearing the same-colored coat?”

Hunt scratches the side of his head. “I don’t remember the color. But I’m pretty sure that’s the same man.”

The Violet Bone letter is introduced, over Crump’s vehement objection, and Violet Bone herself is brought forth. Tommie watches as a pretty young lady with blond curls comes forth—a girl with a sweet manner and a quiet confidence, a girl, the prosecution all but says, much like Lillie herself. She has been living in Baltimore and has not received any communication with the deceased since before Christmas. She does have a sick aunt, but she did not write the letter in question, though it does look something like her writing, she admits.

Meredith next produces a piece of paper containing a poem in a neatly written hand. He explains to the judge that it was found beneath the lining in Miss Madison’s trunk. It is so disgusting that he cannot read it to a courtroom filled with ladies and gentlemen. The judge allows him to pass it around to the jury, each member of whom takes his time with it. Then he calls to the stand a banker who has many times served as a handwriting witness. The banker examines the poem, then the sole letter from Cluverius found in Miss Madison’s trunk. The letter is dated from the time she was living with her grandfather and contains nothing incriminating—just pleasantries and a reminder that she was overdue for a visit to Little Plymouth. The banker says that the two papers appear to be from the same hand.

Crump snorts. When his turn comes, he asks, “You call yourself an expert?”

The banker is uncowed. “No sir, I never did.”

“Yes, you did just now. Mr. Stenographer, read back the first question and answer.” The stenographer does and there is no mention of the word “expert.” Crump fumes, “You don’t mind my calling you an expert then?”

“You may call me what you like, Judge Crump, but I object to your making me call myself something I never have.”

Tommie is twisting in his seat. He knows the poem. It’s from
Wisdom for Girls
, but how Lillie came to have a copy of it in her trunk he has no idea. Anybody could have sent it to her, and here they’re claiming it’s in his own hand. His teachers praised his handwriting, though a callous boy from Gloucester said it was prissy. Tommie later found an opportunity to hit him in the face.

Mrs. Mary Dickinson of Millboro’ Springs takes the stand. She becomes an immediate crowd favorite with her charming laugh and mountain accent. “No,” she laughs, her eyes crinkling and bosom jouncing, “I would not say Lillie was a particularly brave person. She didn’t like sleeping without one of my little granddaughters being in the same room. And she had a time crossing the river by herself in the little boat.” Then she grows thoughtful and quieter. “She was the sweetest thing.”

“She wasn’t the sort, then, to go off to a secluded place by herself?” Meredith prods.

“Oh, no sir. Not hardly.”

“And when she got back from Richmond in January—who did she say she visited there?”

“She said she saw her cousin Tommie.” At this, the crowd begins buzzing and murmuring, and Hill has to rap his gavel, not bothering anymore to explain why. Crump whispers something to Evans, then leans over and glances sharply at Tommie, who keeps his eyes on the witness.

“And before she left for Richmond in March,” Meredith continues, “how did she seem to you?”

“She seemed agitated in her mind. Like something wasn’t quite right. And she said a queer thing. She said she had a kind of bad feeling about the trip. And I told her she didn’t have to go, but since she was going to help an elderly lady I didn’t press it.”

“Bad feeling about the trip? I should say so.”

The parade of witnesses keeps moving through, each one questioned minutely by both sides. A streetcar driver named Loach testifies that he picked up a young couple at about nine o’clock the night of the thirteenth and drove them out to Reservoir Street, but he won’t swear that the prisoner is the same man. He’s also unsure whether he picked them up at Twelfth, across from the American Hotel, or farther down, around Fifteenth. The woman was short and stout and wore a red shawl.

Mark Davis, proprietor of the Davis House, relates how he chatted and ate an apple with the prisoner around midnight, nothing apparently amiss. He also states that the prisoner stayed at his hotel in early January.

Then Gretchen O’Banyon takes the stand, spreading excitement through the crowd. Tommie has not seen her for at least a year and he hardly recognizes her; she has her hair up in a way that makes her less attractive. She’s thinner and unpainted and wearing a high-necked blouse and navy skirt, and looks altogether less like a prostitute and more like a working girl.

She explains that she works at Mrs. Goss’s cigar store now, but did work at Lizzie Banks’s house. Meredith asks her what she did there.

“I entertained gentlemen,” she says, looking straight at Meredith.

“And do you recognize the prisoner?”

“Yes sir, he came and visited me and other girls several times at Lizzie Banks’s.”

“And what name did he go by?”

“Walter Merton.”

“Walter Merton,” Meredith repeats. “Are you sure?”

“Yes sir.”

On cross-examination, Evans does his best to confuse and scare her, asking what she did before coming to the house of ill repute, and exactly when she saw the prisoner. “And you think you saw him there?”

She glances first at Meredith for encouragement. “I know he was there. I don’t think nothing about it.”

“Who did you first tell about having seen him?”

“Mr. Meredith and Jack Wren. Mr. Meredith came first, but Ada and Ella and I wouldn’t tell him anything because we didn’t know who he was.”

“I see,” says Evans. “And then Mr. Wren came?”

“Yes, and he showed us a picture of the man and I said, ‘Mr. Wren, I know nothing in the world about it.’ And he says, ‘Uh huh, I know so-and-so.’ Then Lizzie told me to go on and tell what I knew.”

“What did he mean by he knows so-and-so?”

“He knew something about me that I didn’t want repeated.”

“What was it?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Did you used to go with Mr. Wren?”

“You don’t have to answer that!” Meredith shoots out, and Gretchen, with a quick glance at Wren sitting in his customary place, claps her mouth shut. Wren gives her a smug smile and a wink—his little birds can always be counted on to sing for him and nobody else. He plans to hand the city a nice fat bill when this is all over, though the publicity alone is making it more than worth his while.

During a break Tommie and his lawyers meet in a guarded room adjacent to the judge’s office. Tommie and Mr. Evans take seats, while Crump and his son stand. Crump folds his arms and stares out the window at the people across the street in Capitol Square. Tommie follows his gaze and sees a colored man with no legs dragging himself on a little wheeled board and holding out his cap. A blond-haired girl in a blue dress puts some money in and goes skipping off. Now Crump lights a cigar and turns his back to the window. “What people will do to survive is amazing,” he says. “Tommie, did I ever tell you what it was like here when the Yankees came calling?”

“No, sir,” Tommie says, knowing that Crump is building to some monumental chastisement.

“I was here until the last day. The lower part of the city was all smoke and fire, fire and smoke. Warships exploding in the river, mobs looting liquor stores. This was before we’d given up the city, mind you. Soldiers in hospitals suddenly discovered they could walk—they could by God run. Then the old men and boys who’d been guarding the city left with the Confederate government out across the bridges and all hell broke loose. I left too, but I’m told the prisoners in the penitentiary broke out, and got away, most of them. Just like that, their world was made anew. But Tommie, there’s no war going on. So unless we have an earthquake or a flood like I’ve never seen in my lifetime, you’re stuck in prison. When somebody like Mrs. Dickinson gets on the stand and says Miss Madison told her she saw you in Richmond last January and it’s the first your counsel has heard of it—well, I don’t know what to think. How can you explain such a thing? Did you, in fact, see her here then?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“Mrs. Dickinson would have no reason to lie about that under oath. So either Miss Madison lied or you’re lying now. Which is it?”