Evan Hunter - Lizzie

And now, Lizzie knew, they would go on and on about her dresses. Trying to determine which dress she was wearing on the morning of August 4, when all was confusion following the murders. Trying to determine whether or not there had been blood on any of the clothing in her possession. Whether, too, there had been paint stains on one of those dresses.

The paint stains were important.

She watched as Assistant Marshal Fleet came to the stand again, dressed in civilian clothing as he’d been last August, he of the sloping brow and sparse hair, narrow eyes that appeared on the verge of tears, though certainly they were not, an unkempt shaggy mustache that hid his mouth almost entirely, a high collar and simple dark neck scarf. Robinson had once mentioned to her that a good lawyer never asked a question to which he did not already know the answer — though he himself had been surprised earlier by Officer Mullaly’s testimony about yet another part of the disputed hatchet handle. She herself did not expect any surprises from Fleet now. Her mind wandered as he testified that he’d arrived at the house on that Saturday, August 6, just after the funeral procession had left...

The two hearses and eleven hacks made their way slowly toward the Oak Grove cemetery, an ivy wreath on her father’s bier, a bouquet of white roses and fern leaves bound with a white satin ribbon on her stepmother’s. Inside the house, they had lain within their caskets as if entirely at peace, the mutilated portions of their heads turned so that the cuts could not be noticed.

“Did you examine all the dresses that you found there?”

“We looked at them, yes, sir.”

Immense crowds of people lined the streets. As the procession moved slowly along North Main in the hot August sun, Lizzie — sitting with her sister in the first hack behind the hearses — saw many of her father’s friends and associates raising their hats in respect.

“Did you see, either in that closet or in any other closet in the house, or anywhere in the house, a dress with marks of paint upon it?”

“No, sir.”

Several hundred people stood about the cemetery grounds, awaiting the burial. A dozen policemen kept the crowds back. No one in the funeral party left the carriages during the ceremonies save for the pallbearers, her Uncle John and the officiating clergy.

“Did you find any blood upon any dress? Did you find anything that looked like blood or any discoloration of any kind?”

“No, sir.”

Fleet rose ponderously and stepped down from the witness box. She heard State Police Officer Seaver called. She watched him approaching the stand. She watched him as he placed his hand on the Bible.

At the cemetery, Reverend Buck opened his Bible and began reading. “ ‘ I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.’ ”

“I commenced on the hooks and took each dress,” Seaver was saying, “with the exception of two or three in the corner, and passed them to Captain Fleet — he being near the window — and he examined them as well as myself, he more thoroughly than myself.”

“... went and called her sister Mary, saying quietly, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ And when she heard it, she rose quickly and went to him...”

“I did not discover anything upon any of those dresses.”

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled; and he said, ‘Where have you laid him? ’ ”

“I did not see a light blue dress, diamond spots upon it, and paint around the bottom of the dress and on its front.”

And now Captain Desmond was on the stand, telling of his part in the search of the house that Saturday, and in her mind’s eye she saw the Reverend Dr. Adams standing beside the graves and praying for the spiritual guidance of all, and the inclination of all to submit to divine control, praying that justice would overtake the wrong that had been done and that those who were seeking to serve the ends of justice might be delivered from mistake, be helped to possess all mercifulness, as well as all righteousness, and praying at last that all might be delivered from the dominion of evil.

“Did you see anything that attracted your attention with reference to any dress?”

“No, sir,” Desmond answered.

“Did you see any dress that was soiled with paint or with spots of any sort?”

“No, sir.”

On that day of the funeral a telegram from Boston informed the police that they should not allow the bodies to be buried. Following instructions they returned both caskets to the hearses and then moved them into a receiving tomb.

Her sister Emma was dressed entirely in black.

There was a buzz of excitement in the courtroom as she walked toward the witness box, took off her glove and placed her hand on the extended Bible. Her face appeared tranquil, her pale white complexion only faintly tinged with a pink blush as she took the oath in a low, firm voice, and then replaced the glove on her left hand. There was a look of sadness, almost resignation, Lizzie thought, in her large brown eyes.

That her sister would stand by her, she had not the slightest doubt. Watching her she felt an all but irresistible urge to cross to where she was sitting, take her in her arms and hold her close, comfort her as she herself had been comforted by Emma after the death of their mother all those years ago. It was Emma who’d told her that on her deathbed, their mother had extracted a promise that she would always watch over Baby Lizzie, as she’d called her. Emma, as part of that obligation, had insisted on paying half the costs of the trial, a heavy burden she need not have assumed.

She was saying now that she was Emma L. Borden, that she was the sister of Miss Lizzie Borden. She was saying she had lived at the house on Second Street for twenty-one years at the time of the murders. She and her sister had always lived there with their father and Mrs. Borden. She told how she had been in Fairhaven when she received Dr. Bowen’s telegram, and had come home, of course, as soon as she could, arriving on that Thursday of the murders at about five o’clock.

She said that she had made a search for the note her stepmother was said to have received that day.

“I looked in a little bag that she carried downstreet with her sometimes, and in her little workbasket,” she said. “I didn’t find it.”

She told how she had caused a search to be made for the supposed writer of the note.

“I think there was an advertisement put into the paper by my authority. In the News. The News is a newspaper of large circulation in Fall River. It was there for some time, I think several days, perhaps. It requested the one that carried it,” she said. “I think it referred to the messenger. I don’t know. I didn’t see the advertisement.”

And then Jennings asked her about the ring.

“My father wore a ring upon his finger,” she said. “It was the only article of jewelry he ever wore. He received the ring from my sister Lizzie... I should think ten or fifteen years before his death, I can’t tell you accurately.”

Their eyes met. Emma’s brown and appearing moist now. Lizzie’s gray and blinking to hold back tears.

“Previous to his wearing it, she had worn it,” Emma said. “After it was given to him, he wore it always.” She paused. “It was upon his finger at the time he was buried.”

The courtroom was utterly still.