Ace Atkins - Devil’s garden

“No, sir.”

“And you have related to the jury everything that occurred there on that day as you know it?”

“Yes, sir. Everything.”

“YOU’RE SAFE.”

“What time is it?” Sam asked.

“Noon,” Jose said.

“I need to get up.”

“You need to rest.”

“I feel fine.”

“You have a fever.”

“Why’s it so dark?”

“I pulled the curtains,” she said. “You want me to open them?”

“Please.”

Sam found his feet and dropped his head into his hands. The afternoon light was white and harsh and he squinted and looked down at his skinny legs and stocking feet.

“Where’s the baby?”

“In the bedroom,” she said. “Asleep.”

Jose softly shut the door separating the two rooms of the apartment. She walked back to Sam carrying a little bottle and spoon. “You need to take this.”

“I need a cigarette. Would you mind reaching in my coat?”

“Sam?”

He looked at her, blurred in the light behind her, and he closed one eye. “Open up.”

He did. The balsamea tasted horrible.

She poured another spoonful.

“I wired my aunt,” she said. “We can stay there until I get settled in Montana.”

He nodded. She found his cigarettes and a book of matches.

“I can arrange to have my checks sent direct to you.”

“That’s good of you, Sam.”

“It’s not good of me,” he said. “Don’t ever say that.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The City is nowhere to raise a child. The sooner the both of you get on that train, the better.”

“Whatever you say.”

“But you don’t understand?”

“There are other jobs.”

“Not for me,” he said. “I’m not strong enough to work the docks and not educated enough to work in an office.”

“You could go back to school. To business college.”

“And how would we make it?”

She was quiet.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said. “You have my word. As long as I can work a job, those checks will keep coming.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“I believe you.”

Sam stared at the window, his eyes adjusting, curtains skittering in a cold wind. By the kitchen table, he noticed his steamer trunk, pulled from the bedroom, open and waiting.

“Thought you might need to get packed,” Jose said, catching his stare.

“And I want you to take this for luck.”

She smiled with her eyes and handed him the little card given to them at Mary Jane’s birth. On the flip side was her hospital number and footprints stamped in ink.

He didn’t say anything, only tucked the card in his jacket. He did not meet her eye as she continued to talk, only watched the curtains that brought in the cold air and the smell of the sea. The baby started to wail in the next room. Sam lit a cigarette and watched Jose go, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

“NOW,” MILTON U’REN SAId, pacing, smiling with those sharp teeth, his long bony fingers clasped behind his back, “you stated that you never attempted to borrow a key from Mr. Fishback during August of 1919 in Culver City? Is that correct?”

“That is correct.”

“Now, where were you employed during August of 1919?”

“I had my own company.”

“You had your own company, yes, but where?”

“At Culver City.”

“And you had a studio there?”

“No, sir.”

“Were you using a studio?”

“I was renting a studio there.”

“And from whom were you renting the studio, if from anyone?”

“Mr. Lehrman.”

“Yes, then during August of 1919 you did occupy the studio in conjunction with Mr. Henry Lehrman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you do not recall whether you had a conversation about Miss Rappe with Mr. Fishback?”

“The conversation never occurred.”

“Yes or no would be sufficient,” U’Ren said.

U’Ren was sweating now and the sweating pleased Roscoe a great deal. Roscoe stopped tapping his pencil and leaned back into the hard chair. He crossed his legs, resting his ankle on knee.

“You knew Miss Rappe before the fifth of September, did you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How long had you known her?”

“About five or six years.”

“About five or six years?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Before Miss Rappe came to your rooms on the fifth of September, did you know that she was coming there?”

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Fishback didn’t say anything to you about her coming there?”

“He said that he was going to phone her.”

“Do you know whether or not he did phone her?”

“I didn’t hear him phone.”

U’Ren took a breath, his jaw twitching. He stared down at the courtroom floor as if it would provide him some kind of key, some kind of answer, to make Roscoe reverse a story he’d been telling for months and had been playing time and again in his mind.

“How long a time elapsed from the time you saw Miss Rappe go into room 1221 until you went into room 1219?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

“What did you do when she got up and went into room 1221?”

“I got up. I don’t know what I did, went to the Victrola or something, or danced. I don’t know. I don’t remember that time.”

“Well, how long a time would you say elapsed from the time you saw Miss Rappe go into room 1221 until you went into room 1219?”

“Couldn’t tell you.”

“Well, was it a half hour?”

“No, I don’t think it was that long.”

“Well, fifteen minutes?”

“I wouldn’t say what time it was. It was-”

“Isn’t it a fact that when you saw Miss Rappe going into 1221 that within two or three minutes thereafter you went into room 1219?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No.”

“And nothing you have heard during this trial refreshes your memory upon that subject?”

“When Miss Rappe went into 1221, I fooled around.”

“It was more than two or three minutes after Miss Rappe went into room 1221 that you went into room 1219?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, how much longer than two or three minutes?”

“Well, probably five or ten minutes.”

“Probably five or ten minutes,” U’Ren said, parroting it back, throwing up his hand carelessly. “All right, what were you doing in that five or ten minutes?”

“Just fooling around in that room.”

“Just tell the jury what you were doing the next five or ten minutes.”

“All right, I suppose I danced with Miss Blake.”

“Not that you supposed. Tell the jury what you remember doing.”

“I don’t remember what I did in the room,” Roscoe said, looking to the jury, wanting to tell them that he’d been drunk out of his mind. He leaned into his left arm, resting on the stenographer’s desk.

“What time did Miss Rappe go into room 1221?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“What time did Miss Rappe go into room 1219?”

“Like I said, I never saw her go into 1219.”

“What time did Mr. Fishback leave your room?”

“Between one-thirty and a quarter to two, I guess.”

“To go motoring and view some seals for a motion picture?”

“Yes.”

“Between one-thirty and a quarter to two,” U’Ren said, repeating for the jury. “Did Miss Rappe go into room 1219 before or after Fishback left your room?”

Roscoe looked to McNab, who sat behind the defense table stifling a yawn.

“I went into 1219 after Miss Blake had come back from Tait’s Café for rehearsal, sometime between two-thirty and three o’clock. I don’t know when Virginia Rappe entered.”

“Do you recall doing anything from the time that Miss Rappe went into room 1221 until you went into room 1219?”