Quiet Dell: A Novel (49 page)

Mason was opening his door with the hotel key. Bless Grimm, he had helped them; and William, waiting to hear Mason’s answer, would stand by them.

“Let’s go through into my room,” she said, turning on lights, “and sit here, on the settee.” She watched him order on the hotel phone and thought to put off her news, to be sure he ate his meal, but found she could not.

“Mason,” she said, and he turned to her. “I must tell you something that is important and difficult.” His face paled. She went on hurriedly; unconsciously, she extended her open hands toward him, and he took them, pressing her fingers in his smaller ones as though to hold on through the moment at which they’d arrived.

“Sheriff Grimm has made inquiries; he told me that your father passed away some days ago.” She must say it all at once. “He was drinking, as you’ve said he does, and fell asleep in his bed, and did not wake up. It was very cold—it is, very cold—”

“He froze, then.”

“Yes, he froze, and felt no pain, for he was asleep.”

Mason nodded. Duty was in his lap. “I don’t have to be afraid, then—” His voice broke and his eyes filled.

“No, never.” Emily clasped him to her gently, tearful herself, and was silent until he looked up at her, as though for reassurance. “If you want to stay here after the trial, I shall help you find a situation. If you have no reason to stay, you might consider coming
back to Chicago with Duty and me, where you would make your home with us, and when you are ready, attend a good school, perhaps a boarding school such as I attended myself, where you would receive an education and have friends your own age. But your home would be with me.” She paused, trying to gauge his reaction. “It would be a big change for you.”

“Yes—” His eyes widened and he blinked, cringing ever so slightly in that old, involuntary movement. “I mean, yes, I want to come with you. I will . . . help you, and take care of Duty—”

“Of course, but you needn’t help . . . at home, with clippings and filing newspapers. You will just be at home, studying, getting ready for school, seeing a new place, a big city, Chicago—”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “and I will go to school, like other people.”

“Yes, and I could become your legal guardian. Your home with me would be protected. Might you agree, Mason?”

He nodded, his eyes still brimmed with tears. “And does it mean, no one can take me away from you? My mother used to worry, that if anyone saw where we lived and knew she was sick, they would take me away from her, and her not strong enough to get me back.”

“Ah, Mason.” His head on her shoulder released a weariness that seemed to fall down all around them. “My boy,” she said, and knew it was true for the first time. “You have a home always. I will honor your mother, just as you do, and try to guide you.”

“She would be so glad.” He closed his eyes for a moment, his long lashes brushing his cheeks.

Emily held him close beside her. “I’ll engage a tutor to help you, and perhaps in spring you can apply to schools, nearby I hope, so that you can come home easily to see Duty and me, and Eric and William, on weekends and holidays. For we would all miss you a great deal, if we don’t see you often.”

“And I would miss you,” Mason said. He looked wistful, uncertain.

“But we will be together.” She smiled softly. “What is it, Mason?”

“Sometimes”—he faltered—“I think about stealing, to know I still can. I’m afraid to forget.”

“Afraid to forget—you put it so well.” She sat a moment, then
took up her purse and opened it to him. “Steal from me then, Mason, only from me, and tell me about it if you like. To know you’re protected, after so long, will take time.”

He reached inside and brought out a small pearl button, and clasped it in his hand. “I’ll keep it to remind me.”

Emily blessed the anonymous glove whose button had come loose months ago, no doubt. His eyes were full, and hers as well. She touched her mouth to his forehead, and sat back. “Are you hungry? I’m starved.”

He nodded, for they could smell the food arriving, and heard the knock at the door.

Mason went to the door and opened it wide. Mr. Woods wheeled in the cart and looked at them over the table as he set it, for they were both gazing at him so happily.

“Can I tell him?”

“You may tell him, Mason, and tell whomever you like. It is not a secret.”

Mason said, with shy pride, “Mr. Woods, Miss Thornhill will be my legal guardian, and I will be going home with her to Chicago when the trial is over.”

“Well, my stars. That is good news for both of you.” He shook Mason’s hand, and then Emily’s.

•   •   •

They ate as though famished, and then Emily insisted Mason take a warm bath and go to bed, where he might read his library books as late as he liked. He was asleep in twenty minutes, and she put on her hat and coat, and took Duty out on the leash. It was frigid. The night sky above her was clear and pierced with lights, the line of the horizon curving above dark hills.

The hotel was quiet. She passed her room and went to William’s, and knocked softly.

He opened the door, his robe pulled loosely on, and led her near the window to see her face in moonlight. “What’s your news, Emily?”

“It’s cold out, very cold,” she whispered. “I must get into bed with you this second, and Duty too. Take off my boots.”

“Only your boots?”

“For now.” She’d shed her coat and hat, and leaned back as he held one ankle, then the other, to his naked thigh, and caressed her feet inside her heavy stockings. She pulled his robe away and followed him into bed. They lay embraced, the dog near them. “William, he said yes. He’s so happy, to know he’s safe.”

“He’s far more than safe, but safety may be what he can comprehend just now.”

“So much to do. I must find a tutor, a larger apartment, yet I must be near the
Tribune,
and in my same neighborhood.”

He was taking the pins from her hair and lifting it free. “Emily, you have a larger apartment.” He waited to meet her eyes. “I’ve bought the apartment next door, which is twice the size of yours, and has a deep broad terrace, with planted beds. The construction of breaking through is finished. The small details must be completed to your taste.”

“What? Do you mean, we have the entire floor?”

“It was meant to be a surprise, a luxurious love nest. Now it shall be more. There are two additional bedrooms, one for Mason, each with a bath. A library, a living room with a fireplace, a kitchen to be fitted out, a small conservatory by the terrace—” He stroked her face. “Emily, you look stunned.”

“You must have been engaged . . . for months—”

“In the purchase and planning, yes. The breaking through was not difficult. It was one apartment, years ago; there’s still some fine architectural detail. It all occurred to me because I needed to dodge neighbors on your floor. Safety concerns me, sadly, just as it concerns Mason.” He searched her eyes. “I hope you’re not unhappy, that I took your life in hand without permission.”

“My life is in your hands. I gave permission long ago.”

He held her face and kissed her deeply.

“The taste of you,” she said, “like heaven. Oh, I must go. The trial begins in a few hours. I must sleep.”

“You will.” He pulled her before him to the edge of the bed and pushed her clothes up between them. “Don’t you need this now? Time is short, for we met so late.” He stopped her voice, his fingers on her teeth. “It will take a moment, and let you sleep soundly, so soundly, to face tomorrow.”

December 8, 1931

Stage left featured a single row of chairs for witnesses. Gretchen Fleming held her purse on her lap; Emily could see her press and release the clasp. Coley Woods and Truman Parrish sat to her right, with two men unknown to Emily.

Eric leaned close to her. “Bank tellers.”

Yes, Lemke’s checks. The tellers, their fitted suit jackets buttoned, their pocket squares neatly obvious, were here from Uniontown.

Dr. Goff was on the stand to “produce and identify” the band tied around the neck of “the last woman found in the ditch,” Dorothy P. Lemke. “This is a webbing band,” Goff said, holding it up. “It looks like it might have been a buggy strap, and it was placed around her neck like that.”

Morris interrupted him. “And tied there?”

“No, sir, it was not tied there. There was a buckle or something on the end, and when we took it off it dropped to the floor, a metal fastener or buckle, and we did not pick it up then, and it became lost.”

“For want of a nail . . .” Eric said under his breath.

The buckle was part of the murder weapon; why else, but to
tighten it and watch her struggle, would Powers have attached it? Emily imagined it falling away, trampled by Goff or the police.

Exhibit “Band” was filed; Morris asked Goff to produce what tied or wrapped the body in its burlap sack.

“Yes, sir. This is part of . . . what I understand to be a liner for an inner tube on an automobile tire . . . placed on to protect the inner tube.”

Exhibit “Inner Tubes,” tattered pieces, was marked and filed. And yes, Goff had accompanied police and Powers to the morgue, to view the victims. “Heavens, isn’t that horrible” was Powers’ placid remark. Emily glanced up to find William in his box-row seat, staring ashen faced at the players on the stage.

Morris called, first a bank teller and then a cashier, from the Second National Bank of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Both identified Powers as the man who came to the bank on August 1, 1931, demanding payment on two checks written on the bank—by Dorothy Pressler Lemke, and by Dorothy A. Pressler. One A. R. Weaver had endorsed both, and the combined amount was in excess of four thousand dollars. Weaver returned, they said, on August 7, and got the funds. Asked to identify the man who obtained the money, both witnesses, in turn, pointed dramatically at Powers.

Coley Woods confirmed that he was employed at the Gore Hotel as night porter on the night of July 30, 1931. Yes, he remembered a white woman who registered that night, Dorothy A. Lemke. “Around one-thirty in the night . . . I responded for the baggage.”

“What do you mean?” Morris asked.

Emily leaned toward Eric. “He thinks the answer too well phrased to be understood by the rabble.”

“I went out,” said Coley Woods.

“That should be clear enough,” Eric said quietly.

Truman Parrish followed Woods on the stand. Morris asked that he produce and identify the Gore Hotel registry sheet showing
the name of Mrs. Dorothy A. Lemke. Parrish offered the broad white sheet. “It is registered, ‘Mrs. D. A. Lemke.’ ”

Law objected. “There is no definite proof that this is the same party. . . . Mrs. D. A. Lemke . . . is not the name or initials of the party claimed to have been killed—”

Gretchen Fleming stood in her seat, flames of color in her cheeks, but Morris quickly asked for a short recess. Witnesses were shown offstage to the left, the jury to the right. By turns, counsel, judge, and defendant, dog-collar-chained once more to his minder’s steel cuff, left the stage. Four state troopers’ boots resounded in perfect time until the general clamor eclipsed all.

•   •   •

She stood in the lobby with Eric.

“Take this water, Emily. Are you all right?”

She drank. “Are you, Eric?”

“It helps to know there is life beyond the opera house. We will go back to Chicago, Emily, to lead changed lives.” He leaned with her against the wall, out of the milling crowd.

“Your life is changed, Eric? By Charles O’Boyle?”

“Yes, changed. We are seeking adjacent accommodations. A stairway closed off, easily restored, a door built through; we shall be neighbors and business associates.”

“That is how it’s done,” Emily agreed, smiling.

“Have you something to tell me, Emily?”

“I think someone else might like to tell you.”

“He did. Mason joined William and me at breakfast, and told us both. Not a secret, he said.”

“No, when so much is, and must remain so.”

“It’s curious, isn’t it? Social convention restricts and threatens, yet class and convention protect us if we behave within certain parameters.”

“Not everyone is so fortunate.”

“No, but we are all quite capable of being happy.”

She wanted to embrace him. “Yes, and Mason will come with us. You will be Uncle Eric.”

“Far too bourgeois. But I will be his family, with you. He must be allowed false steps, Emily. He will surely make them.”

“As will I, Eric. What do I know of children? Only to respect him and try to help him. William says my family is his. I still feel as though eggshells may crack.”

“Emily, they will, or not, despite your vigilance. Dare to hope. What’s destroyed is in the past, and we are attending to it.”

Chimes rang; an intermission was over.

•   •   •

So much to say. Morris had needed to prompt other witnesses, but he would have drilled Gretchen Fleming to answer only what was asked. He must direct her intense desire to lash out at Powers. Her sister, but for the Eichers’ deaths, would have remained anonymous darkness in a ditch. Now one victim might avenge another.

Gretchen Fleming took the stand; her testimony was practice for Law’s cross. Emily could almost hear Morris: don’t let him bait you, confuse you. Don’t look at Powers, look at me.

Morris approached her. “Please state your name.”

“Mrs. Gretchen P. Fleming.” She clutched the purse hidden on her lap.

“Mrs. Fleming, did you know Dorothy Lemke, or Pressler, in her lifetime?”

“Yes, she is my sister.”

Present tense, Emily noted.

“What was her maiden name?”

“Dorothy Pressler.”

“Did she marry?”

“Yes, sir, she married Lemke, from St. Paul, Minnesota.”

“Did she continue to be the wife of Lemke?”

Emily silently counseled her: no comment on the scandal or reason for divorce.

“She separated from him in 1924. Divorced.”

Quickly, smoothly, back and forth.

“How did your sister write her name, or do her banking, if you know?”

“When she left her husband in 1924, she sold her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, for about four thousand dollars, and so they settled the money, and she brought the money on to Worcester, Massachusetts. She had hard feelings with her husband.”