Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

The judge sighed wearily. “Mrs. Wright, the question is a direct one. Do please try to make your answers follow suit. I’ve got enough wordplay to contend with in this case.”

Mrs. Wright looked up at the bench, a shocked look on her face. “Do you mean-I should just say what I mean?”

The judge tried to smile. “It would be most refreshing.”

Mrs. Wright folded her hands in her lap. “Well, I don’t know as-but if you order me to, Judge, well…” She took a deep breath and went on. “The first time, I went looking for the missus, being as Clara’d been taken sick. I saw her in the birch grove with the reverend. They had their arms around each other. They were-kissing.”

More mumbles in the crowd netted more raps of the gavel from the judge.

“And the other times?” Mr. Picton asked.

“The other times-well-” Mrs. Wright shifted uneasily. “Some of them were the same. But others-well, it was the middle of summer, those times. Warm, like now. The ground’s soft in that grove, with a fine moss bed. And that’s all I’m going to say, judge or no judge, court or no court. I’m a decent woman!”

Mr. Picton nodded. “And we certainly wouldn’t ask you to behave in an indecent manner. But let me put the question to you this way, Mrs. Wright: Would it be accurate to say that you observed the defendant and Reverend Parker in a state of partial or complete undress?”

Now starting to positively squirm, Mrs. Wright nodded. “Yes, sir. It would.”

“And engaged in physical intimacy?”

Her discomfort seeming to turn to anger, Mrs. Wright barked, “Yes, sir-and her with a husband and the sweetest little girl anybody could ever wish for back at the house! Disgraceful, I call it!”

Nodding as he started to pace before the witness chair, Mr. Picton slowly asked, “I don’t suppose you could give me precise dates for these events?”

“Not precise, sir, no.”

“No. But let me ask you this-would you feel sure saying that they preceded the births of Matthew and Thomas Hatch by at least nine months?”

“Your Honor!” Mr. Darrow called out. “I’m afraid the state is indulging its taste for suggestion again.”

“I’m not so sure I agree with you this time, Counselor,” the judge answered. “The state, though they have been an infernal nuisance about it, have introduced evidence that speaks to opportunity and means, in this case. I’m going to allow them to start approaching the question of motive. But you do it carefully , Mr. Picton.”

Looking like he could’ve kissed that white, fuzzy head what was bobbing behind the bench, Mr. Picton said, “Yes, Your Honor,” and then turned back to his witness. “Well, Mrs. Wright? Would you say that the timing was about right, with respect to the birth of the two younger Hatch children?”

“It was awfully close,” Mrs. Wright replied with a nod. “I remember remarking on it to myself at the time. And when the boys came out looking the way they did, well… I drew my own conclusions.”

“And how was it that they looked?” Mr. Picton stole a glance up at the bench. “I ask you not to be presumptuous here, Mrs. Wright.”

Wagging a finger toward the defense table again, Mrs. Wright said, “Those boys didn’t get their coloring-their eyes, their skin, their hair-from Mr. or Mrs. Hatch. Anybody could see that. And there was something else, too-when you live in the house that you work in, you get to know its rhythms, so to speak. Mrs. Hatch slept in a separate bedroom from Mr. Hatch. When they were first married, they spent some nights together in his room, but after Clara came… well, Mr. Hatch never slept anywhere but in his own bed. And if the missus ever went into Mr. Hatch’s room again, other than to take him food and medicine when he was dying, I certainly didn’t witness it.”

“I see. Then when was the last time you saw Mrs. Hatch go into her husband’s room?”

“The night the children were shot,” Mrs. Wright answered. “She was flying all through the house-I couldn’t stop her, I was too busy trying to help the children. But she locked herself into Mr. Hatch’s old room for a good five minutes.”

“Locked herself?” Mr. Picton repeated. “How did you know that she locked the door?”

“She was in there when the sheriff and Dr. Lawrence came,” Mrs. Wright answered with a shrug. “They tried to get to her, so Dr. Lawrence could give her something to calm her down. But the door was locked. After a few more minutes she came back out, still screaming and running all around. She said she’d found her husband’s gun, and that she was afraid she was going to do herself some injury with it. She told me to get rid of the thing-so I wrapped it up in a paper bag and dropped it down the old well.”

“And do you remember what kind of paper bag it was?”

Mrs. Wright nodded. “Mr. Hatch’d bought everything in bulk, to save money. We still had a whole crate of bags from Mr. West’s factory.”

Mr. Picton moved to his table and picked up the piece of paper bag what Lucius had cut away from the Colt revolver the evening he found the thing. “So the bag would have borne this imprint?” He handed her the snippet of brown paper.

Studying the thing, Mrs. Wright nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“You’re sure?”

“Certainly I’m sure. You see, two years ago West’s bag company moved this writing, here, from the bottom of the bags to up around the top. If you have enough of the things, you notice.”

“And do you have enough of the things?”

“Yes, sir, I never throw them away. A widow living on an army pension can’t be too careful about expenses.”

“No, of course not. Well, thank you, Mrs. Wright. I have no more questions.”

Mr. Picton sat down, still looking very pleased that none of Mrs. Wright’s testimony had been excluded from the record. Mr. Darrow, on the other hand, seemed to be going through one of those on-the-spot strategy shifts of his: holding his hands in front of his face and knitting his brows tight over his eyes, he waited a minute or two before saying anything or moving.

“Mr. Darrow?” the judge asked. “Do you have questions for this witness?”

Finally showing some movement, but only in his eyes, Mr. Darrow mumbled, “ Just one or two, Your Honor.” Then, after another pause, he stood up. “Mrs. Wright, did you ever observe anything in the defendant’s behavior that would’ve led you to believe that she might’ve been capable of murdering her own children?”

Mr. Picton, who’d only just settled into his chair, got right back up. “I must object to that, Your Honor. The witness is not qualified to speak to such matters. We have alienists who will tell us what the defendant might or might not have been capable of.”

“Yes,” the judge replied, “and no doubt they’ll contradict each other and get us absolutely nowhere. The witness is a woman of uncommon good sense, it seems to me, Mr. Picton-and it was you , after all, who argued to have her impressions included in the record. I’ll let her answer.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow said. “Well, Mrs. Wright?”

Taking a moment to think it over, and stealing another look at Libby as she did, Mrs. Wright said, “I-hadn’t counted on being asked that question.”

“Oh?” Mr. Darrow said. “Well, I’m sorry to surprise you. But try to come up with an answer, all the same. Did you ever, during all the years that you were in her employ, suspect that Mrs. Hatch was capable of murdering her own children?”

Mrs. Wright looked to Mr. Picton, and the struggle what was going on in her mind was plain to see in her face.

“What the hell’s Darrow doing?” Mr. Moore whispered. “I thought that was supposed to be one of our questions!”