Quiet Dell: A Novel (52 page)

“That is right,” Powers said.

Morris stood beside the jury box, as though to ascertain the tale for their benefit. “And I suppose Mr. Johnson did the same with the other check?”

Powers was unperturbed. “I did not see him do anything.”

“What date did the check bear that you gave Mr. Johnson?”

“It bore the date of August eighteenth.”

“That check, of course, was never presented?” Morris looked at the jury.

“It was presented to me,” Powers said.

“It was never presented to the bank?”

“No, sir.”

“And you merely cashed these checks for Mrs. Lemke, a woman who was leaving you for another man, on July thirtieth, for the purpose of accommodating her?”

“In one sort of way, yes. . . . Mr. Johnson had offered me thirty dollars for doing that.”

A tidy fee, Emily reflected, improvised for the jury’s benefit.

Morris observed that Powers, making no arrangements by telephone, telegraph, letter, or otherwise, drove five hours from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, to Hagerstown, Maryland, to look for a friend whose address he did not know, despite an “acquaintance” of about four years. And where did the defendant stay in Hagerstown on July 30, since he could not find his friend?

“Stayed in a sort of tourist home,” Powers replied shortly.

Morris walked close to Powers, and raised his voice. “Did you see anybody in Hagerstown on that occasion who knew you?”

“No.”

Morris turned to slowly pace the stage. “You haven’t the least idea of the name of the place where you stayed . . . and you came down to Uniontown again on July thirty-first . . . arrived after the banks had closed . . . and rather than come back to Clarksburg to leave these two checks for collection, you spent the night in Uniontown?”

“I decided to do that.”

“Nor have you made any effort to ascertain where you stayed
that night. And you do know . . . that Mrs. Lemke . . . spent the night of July thirtieth at the Gore Hotel in Clarksburg.”

“I have seen that a number of times in the paper, yes,” Powers said.

Morris asked, as though distracted, “Mr. Powers, where does that road go that passes your garage?”

“Out in the country?” Powers appeared nonplussed. “To Mount Clare, as I understand it.”

“In other words,” said Morris, “it is the road between Quiet Dell and Mount Clare?”

“That is what I understand.”

“Now, as I understand you to say, you spent the night of July thirty-first in Uniontown.”

“Yes, I was in Uniontown, or close to Uniontown.”

Morris went near him. “Did you or did you not, about nine o’clock in the evening on July thirty-first . . . drive on that road from Mount Clare toward Quiet Dell, and have tire trouble?”

“No, sir, I have never had tire trouble on that road in all my life.”

“And didn’t you, on that occasion, talk to various members of the Jones family?”

“I don’t know the Jones family.”

Morris paused, and took his seat.

Law, in the redirect, asked one question. “I will ask you to state, Mr. Powers, whether you were in Clarksburg on July twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, or thirty-first.”

“No, sir.”

The gavel sounded. Court recessed for lunch.

•   •   •

The three witnesses seated onstage were surprise afternoon additions: an older man dressed in clean overalls, a young woman in a simple muslin dress and bonnet that hid her face, and a young boy, Mason’s age, or Hart’s, wearing new trousers. His white shirt showed the faint burn of an iron on one cuff. They refuted Powers’ flimsy Hagerstown alibi, placing him at their farm the night of July
thirty-first, asking to borrow pliers to fix a flat on his car, stopped below on Quiet Dell road.

Unlike Powers’ meandering tale, their chilling account was clear. Morris questioned “the Jones family” one by one, ending with the child, whose open, freckled face was utterly guileless. His very presence onstage, as the tale played out, underscored a sense of horror in the audience.

Emily listened, spellbound: Morris established that Jones’ daughter, Ada Thompson, twenty-one, was visiting her father last July. Most country girls were married at her age; this one removed her bonnet to reveal the blond countenance of a milkmaid. She was slender and lovely, perfection itself.

“I seen him on my dad’s farm at Mount Clare about the last of July,” she repeated, “nine or nine-thirty at night.” She added a detail. “He hallued, ‘Boys’ . . . up through the corn—”

Here there was faint laughter, for she was certainly no boy, but the corn was tall; Powers would only have glimpsed her at first. Emily could feel the men around her entertain visions of meeting this girl in a fragrant cornfield at the height of summer twilight.

Ada Thompson cast her sloe-eyed gaze across the lit assemblage, demanding silence. “I was all in white. . . . He walked right up to us . . . he asked my name . . . and said his name was Pierson.”

Emily looked up at William in his box seat and stood to leave, making her way quickly into the aisle. She would cover this story and file it quickly, rather than ramify Powers’ lies. No interview required; every quote was in the testimony. Powers’ car, broken down on the road, just as on that other night—

William caught up with her in the driven snow, on the street. “Emily, Powers is likely to be recalled. You’re leaving? Are you all right?”

She could barely see in front of her but walked on quickly. “Why is everyone asking me if I’m all right? Of course I’m all right. I must write this quickly and file. Law will weep and wail at the end; should the jury recommend mercy, I want this town to finish
what they began in September.” William took her arm, for the sidewalk was slick with ice, but she turned on him sharply. “You needn’t follow me. Go back if you like.”

He stopped her. “I’m here for you, Emily, and I pray to God it turns out in whatever way allows you to live beyond it. Will hanging do it? The state, even a mob, can’t make him suffer anything comparable to the terror and mayhem he created—”

“But someone, something, must!”

“We can’t know. We don’t see into any realm but this.”

“You’ll say next that this is all there is.”

“You know I don’t quite believe that.”

Snow, sharp with ice, flew at them in gusts.

She pulled him to her and turned in to the wind. “Come with me, then, and wait in your room until I type this and file. Then I will bring you the words, and read them like the modest prayer they will be.”

•   •   •

She wrote in a fury, with Mason at his worktable. She told him not to go out in the storm for the evening papers because it would all be over soon.

He looked at her, curious. “I can get them tomorrow.”

“Of course you can,” she said.

There was no line downstairs and she filed; possibly she would make the late edition. Copy in hand, she passed by Mr. Parrish at Reception.

“Quite a storm,” he said to her. “Everything is shut down. I don’t know that they’ll get the jury back to the Waldo in this. Listen to the wind.”

“Yes,” she said. “I must go.”

She walked up the stairs to William’s room and let herself in with her key. The lights were off. Snow, blown against the panes of the big windows, gleamed faintly; all seemed enveloped. She heard the water of the bath; fragrance and heat drew her on. The
white-tiled bathroom was fogged with steam. He lay in the deep tub, water drawn to the very brim.

“Are you chilled?”

“No.” His wet hair was swept back. “I’m waiting for you.” He moved in the water and rested his long arms on the tub’s curled edge. Water sluiced to the floor. “Read to me.”

She sat in a small vanity chair he’d drawn up beside the tub. “This is my headline. If I write one, they know to use it.”

“What was that child’s name?”

“Jones’ grandson? Degler, Harry Degler.” She read by snow-light:

“Boy Bolsters State’s Case Against Alleged Child Killer

“Special to the Chicago Tribune, by Emily Thornhill

“December 9, 1931

“Harry Powers’ defense lawyer, J. Ed Law, today attributed five murders to two mysterious acquaintances of Powers, and supplied no witness to corroborate the defendant’s statement that he was in Hagerstown, Maryland, on July 31. A farm family today placed Powers, as Cornelius Pierson, on the road to Quiet Dell that night.

“Thirteen-year-old Harry Degler, of Florida, was visiting his grandfather, H. F. Jones, last summer. According to the child’s testimony today, a car traveling from Mount Clare to Quiet Dell, a distance of four miles on the Quiet Dell road, stopped on the dirt road below the farm at twilight.

“It was the night of a community corn roast. Farmer Jones rents a farm on the rural road and feared that revelers might raid his crop. He watched the fields behind his house while his grandson and his visiting 21-year-old daughter, Ada Thompson, watched the fields below. ‘We heard a car stop,’ testified Mrs. Thompson. ‘A man walked up through the corn and asked me my name . . . he said his was Pierson.’

“ ‘Pierson’ is known as an alias of alleged murderer Powers. ‘Pierson’ said he would pay the farmer well for his trouble: ‘You just send the boy down so he can bring the pliers back,’ he reportedly said.

“Harry Powers is accused of breaking 12-year-old Hart Eicher’s skull with a hammer. In fact, as young Harry Degler followed ‘Pierson’ back through the cornfield to his car, the young boy from Park Ridge, Illinois, was buried in a drainage ditch behind Powers’ Quiet Dell garage.

“ ‘Pierson’ changed a flat tire. ‘He did not have a flashlight,’ young Degler testified, ‘and this woman that was in the car with him, struck matches and held them for him to fix . . . the right tire on the back.’ Spectators at the trial went silent: the woman in the car was likely Dorothy Lemke, last seen leaving Clarksburg’s Gore Hotel with an unidentified man early on July 31.

“Degler said ‘Pierson’ changed the tire, ‘fumbled over some bills in his wallet . . . most of them was twenty-dollar bills,’ said young Degler. ‘He gave me a one-dollar bill. . . . I bought me a pair of shoes the next day.’

“The car went on toward Quiet Dell, said the three witnesses, for it never came back the opposite way, past their farm.

“A practical child buys a pair of shoes, while another loses his shoes, his family, his life. Police found multiple pairs of shoes in Powers’ ‘murder garage.’ Hart Eicher’s muddy brogans were among them, stained with blood.

Emily continued looking at the words and could see no way past them.

“Emily,” William said, “come here.”

“I cannot. I must . . . just be still.”

“No, come here.”

She leaned forward and touched her forehead to the lip of the tub. The heat of the water glowed up and his warm wet hand was on her hair.

December 9, 1931

The players were backstage for the morning session; Emily saw Grimm walking to his front-row seat. Quickly, she got up to approach him. Seeing her, he stepped back into the hallway adjacent to the orchestra rows and stood waiting.

Emily reached him, stepping through the velvet curtains that graced each entrance to the hall. She could smell his aftershave and see behind him the five or six steps leading upward to a door off the stage. “You spoke of inquiries, in the crush of mail to police, from relatives of missing women. I must ask if any of those letters mentions Rogers. If so, might I read and quote them?”

“There are no hard facts. It is not evidence.”

“I’m quite aware. I will not state facts, only the questions themselves, as represented. It must be in the public record, even if not examined in the trial. My source will be confidential, of course, and I must file today.”

Judge Southern was banging his gavel, opening the proceedings. Grimm looked over her shoulder at the lit stage. “There are two letters I can allow you to quote. I will phone the station and have them left for you at the Gore, this noon. You must return them to me personally.”

Emily, moving back, stumbled and fell full against him. “Excuse me,” she said.

“All right?” he asked, setting her on her feet.

“Sheriff Grimm, I did not intend—”

“I realize. You must wait here a moment though, before coming in. You look . . . your color is high.” He walked past her, into the hall.

She turned and began walking up the hallway, all the way round by the lobby, to shake off her embarrassment. Grimm required her guarded awareness, and not only because he was attractive. He loved manipulating his fiefdom, knowing secrets, pulling strings. Her vocation required matching wits with men like him. She paused in the lobby and saw William enter the opera house by the double doors, turning to walk quickly upstairs to the loge. She stopped herself calling out and merely looked after him. Even thinking of him calmed her. She crossed the lobby and walked down the far aisle to the front rows, deftly taking her seat.

“Did you go out?” Eric asked.

“Ladies’ room.” She opened her notebook and nodded toward the stage; she had no wish to converse.

Gretchen Fleming was back on the stand, wearing the same coat and hat, as though not to confuse the jury.

Morris was establishing that Gretchen had heard Powers’ testimony of yesterday afternoon, in which the defendant stated he first met her sister, Dorothy Lemke, in Clarksburg in the fall of 1930. Did her sister visit Clarksburg at that time?

“No, sir . . . she would have told me so.” Dorothy was working that year, Gretchen explained, all but weekends, as a nurse companion. And no, she had no friends or acquaintances at Clarksburg.

“Were you familiar with your sister Dorothy’s handwriting?”

“Yes, sir.”

Morris described Powers’ “Exhibits No. 1 and 2,” purporting to be a note and letter “from your sister to Powers.” Would Mrs. Fleming look at the writing, and tell if the handwriting was that of her sister?

“Question objected to!” Law exclaimed. He asserted that Mrs. Fleming was not a qualified handwriting expert.