Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

“He’s seen what the jury’s inferring from her testimony,” the Doctor answered. “He wants to rattle her by attempting to force her to make an outright accusation.” He leaned forward anxiously. “But will she be rattled…?”

Mr. Darrow folded his arms. “I’m still here, Mrs. Wright.”

“It-” Louisa Wright wrung her hands for a few seconds. “It’s not the kind of thing to bandy around-”

“Really?” Mr. Darrow replied. “It seems to me you’ve done an awful lot of ‘bandying’ already. I wouldn’t think this would give you any pause. But let me make it easier for you. You claim that Mrs. Hatch was engaged in what sounds like it was a pretty torrid affair with the Reverend Parker. Don’t you think it would’ve been easier for her to run off with him, once her husband was dead, if she didn’t have three children to drag along?”

“That’s a hard way to put it,” Mrs. Wright answered, glancing at Libby again.

“If you can think of an easy way to put such accusations,” Mr. Darrow said, “you just let me know. Well, Mrs. Wright?”

“You don’t understand,” the woman said, a little more defiantly.

“And what don’t I understand?”

Mrs. Wright leaned forward, eyeing Mr. Darrow. “I have children, sir. My husband and I had two, before he was killed in the war. I can’t imagine what would drive a woman to do something like that. It isn’t natural. For a mother to end any life that she brought into the world-it just isn’t natural.”

“Your Honor, I’m forced to ask for your help here,” Mr. Darrow said. “The question was, I think, pretty close to clear.”

“Mrs. Wright,” Judge Brown said, “you’re only being asked for your opinion.”

“But it’s a terrible thing, Your Honor, to accuse someone of!” Mrs. Wright said.

Mr. Darrow, smelling her fear, moved in closer to the witness stand. “But the state is accusing her, Mrs. Wright, and you’re a witness for the state. Come, now, you knew that Mrs. Hatch had been written out of her husband’s will-that the only way she could inherit his money was if the children died. Didn’t that make you at all suspicious?”

“All right, then!” the woman finally hollered. “It does make me suspicious-but it’s still an awful thing to accuse someone of!”

“It does make you suspicious, Mrs. Wright?” Mr. Darrow asked quietly. “Or it did? Let me see if I follow you. You say that Mrs. Hatch had a violent temper sometimes. You say that she was romantically involved with the Reverend Parker. And you say that she wanted her husband’s money. And all of this, you now say, is grounds for believing that she killed her children-although you didn’t make any such accusations at the time.”

“Of course I didn’t!” Mrs. Wright protested. “I was only asked for my opinion a week or so ago!”

“Exactly, Mrs. Wright,” Mr. Darrow answered, very satisfied. “Tell me-have you ever known any other women who raised a hand to their children?”

Mrs. Wright’s face grew puzzled. “Yes, of course.”

“Ever heard of any who were unfaithful to their husbands?”

Shifting nervously, Mrs. Wright tried to rein her voice in. “One or two, perhaps.”

“How about any that married rich old men to get their hands on their money?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you think any of them would’ve been capable of murdering their own children?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I say, Mrs. Wright.”

“I-I don’t know.”

“But you’ve got pretty definite suspicions about Mrs. Hatch. Now , I mean.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Mr. Darrow replied, coming in close again. “Mrs. Wright, isn’t it true that you only think Mrs. Hatch might have killed her children now because the assistant district attorney and his investigators suggested to you that she might have done it?”

“Your Honor!” Mr. Picton shouted, popping up. “If the counsel for the defense is implying that the witness is lying-”

“Your Honor, I am implying no such thing,” Mr. Darrow answered. “I’m simply trying to trace the origins of Mrs. Wright’s suspicions, and to show that they, like so many other things in this case, seem to lead back to the assistant district attorney-and to the people who are advising him in this matter.”

“Mr. Darrow,” Judge Brown said, “I thought we had seen the last of insinuation, here-”

“And so we have, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow answered obligingly. “I have no further questions for this witness.”

There was a long pause, during which Mr. Picton watched Mr. Darrow sit back down with a combination of anger and temporary confusion in his face.

“Mr. Picton?” Judge Brown finally said. “Do you wish to redirect?”

Mr. Picton turned to the bench. “No, Your Honor.”

“Then the witness is excused,” the judge said, at which the shaken Mrs. Wright made her way down from the stand. Judge Brown looked to Mr. Picton again. “Do you have another witness for us, sir?”

Trying to get himself fully composed, Mr. Picton looked anxiously to the door and then to Sheriff Dunning, who only shrugged once. “Actually, Your Honor,” Mr. Picton replied, “the state’s next witness has apparently not arrived yet. He was due to be escorted to town by two of Sheriff Dunning’s deputies, but I don’t know-”

Just then a young boy slipped through the mahogany doors. He was wearing the uniform of the Western Union company, and in his hand he was clutching an envelope. After asking the guard at the door a question, he was directed toward Mr. Picton’s table, and made his way down the aisle.

Seeing him, Mr. Picton said, “This may be word of the witness now, Your Honor-if I may have just a moment.”

“A moment , Mr. Picton,” the judge said, sitting back.

The delivery boy passed by our two rows of seats, then handed the envelope to Mr. Picton and asked him to sign for it. Doing so quickly, Mr. Picton tore the telegram open and read it quickly; then he read it again, as if its contents made no sense to him. Finally, on the third reading, his face lost all its color, and he sank into the chair behind him.

“Picton,” the Doctor whispered, watching him, “what is it?”

Judge Brown leaned forward in his chair, looking both concerned and a little irritated. “Mr. Picton? Are you well, sir?”

“Your-Your Honor,” Mr. Picton breathed, struggling to get back to his feet. “I-” Staring at the floor underneath him without really seeming to see it, Mr. Picton finally caught his breath, cleared his throat, and looked up. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. At this time the state was to have called the Reverend Clayton Parker. He was due to take the early train this morning in the company of two of Sheriff Dunning’s deputies. Apparently there was an-accident-”

“An accident?” the judge echoed. “What kind of an accident?”

Pausing and looking at the telegram again, Mr. Picton said slowly, “Apparently Reverend Parker fell under the wheels of an approaching train at the Grand Central Terminal this morning. He was severely injured and taken to a nearby hospital. He died there forty-five minutes ago.”

The news hit the room as hard as the train must’ve hit the reverend. The people in the galleries-some of who’d been members of Parker’s congregation-broke into open commotion, and a few were moved to tears. As for our group, we were all too stunned to say or do anything at all. There was no confusion among us, of course: we all knew that there was no chance that the death had actually been an accident. Getting killed by a train at Grand Central was almost impossible, unless somebody was helping you: somebody experienced at such things, somebody strong, somebody crazy enough to pull such a job in the middle of a large crowd, and somebody who wasn’t worried about the presence of two sheriff’s deputies. Somebody wound up on burny, for instance; somebody like a Hudson Duster.