The Body in the Gazebo (19 page)

“Possibly, although what she wants you to do could be as simple as helping her tell her children about their father. With Pix out of town she has the time to be alone with you to work it out.”

The next day back with Ursula, Faith thought Tom might be right about Ursula’s wanting her help, not in telling Pix and Arnie, but in deciding whether to tell them at all. Yet the thought that this wasn’t the whole impetus for revealing her secret nagged at Faith nevertheless.

“Pix is having a wonderful time in Charleston. She called yesterday.”

“I talked to her, too,” Faith said. “The Cohens are going to be wonderful in-laws.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting them at the wedding.”

“Me, too.” Nothing was going to keep Ursula away from the wedding of her first grandchild, and Faith hoped she would be at all of them.

Ursula abruptly changed the subject, plunging back into the past.

“I never thought the guards wouldn’t let me see Arnold. That’s how naïve I was. Or that he wouldn’t want to see me. I walked into the jail, told them that I wanted to visit Arnold Rowe, that I was a relative—a fib, but I thought, given the circumstances, justifiable—and one of the men at the desk told me to wait. I’m sure they thought I was a great deal older than sixteen. I was wearing a suit, hat, and gloves plus I was quite tall for my age. He brought a chair for me to sit on. I assumed it would be a while and I began to worry about what I would tell my mother. Fortunately he returned soon and escorted me to a nice little room. I later learned it was the warden’s sitting room. A guard came in with Arnold and then left us alone. I scarcely recognized him. He was so pale and thin.”

“Miss Lyman, what on earth are you doing here?”

Arnold Rowe had been curious to find out who his “cousin” might be since both his late parents had been only children. Possibly last on the list he’d considered as he made his way through the series of barred doors was Theo’s sister.

Ursula had planned various openings, but as soon as she saw Arnold the words that were uppermost in her mind came spilling out.

“I know you didn’t have anything to do with my brother’s death and I think I know who did.”

“I think we should sit down,” Arnold said. “I know I need to.”

He indicated the horsehair settee next to the fireplace. It was slippery and slightly scratchy; Ursula sat on its edge as Arnold started to speak.

“First of all—and the most important thing—is to say how sorry I am about Theo’s death. There are no words that can convey the depth of my sorrow. He was not just my student, but also my friend, and the guilt that I feel will be with me every day for the rest of my life. I should never have left the house that night.”

Ursula started to speak, but Arnold held up a hand.

“No, there isn’t any excuse. I should have demanded he end the party when we returned from Illumination Night. It was getting quite wild. At the very least I should have stayed with Theo. I’ve never been able to say these things to your parents. I asked the lawyer the court appointed for me to deliver a letter with these sentiments, but he, for reasons of his own, would not. At some time you might deem appropriate I hope you will convey what I’ve said.”

Ursula shook her head. “They never speak of him—or that night. I only learned recently that you had been convicted of . . . convicted of his murder.”

“I am guilty of it in my negligence, but please believe me, I had nothing to do with the act itself.”

“I do believe you.” Ursula looked straight into his eyes. “As soon as I read the newspaper accounts of the trial, I knew the wrong person had been arrested. That the wrong person was in prison. Today by mere coincidence I got final proof of it.”

Arnold looked astounded. “Proof?”

She quickly told him first about the time discrepancy and then about the conversation she’d overheard just before the murder took place.

“I’ve often wondered how you came to be there. The sight of you, so young, beside Theo’s body, is one I can never—and should never—erase from my mind.” He had tears in his eyes and Ursula felt her own fill.

“It was definitely Charles Winthrop speaking. I’m positive.”

She described being at Stearn’s and hearing the voice again, the voice that had been reverberating consciously and unconsciously over the years.

“I don’t think he planned to harm Theo, but he was not in control of himself.” She shuddered slightly as she recalled the vehemence of his words: “You’re not going anywhere.”

She told Arnold what she believed had happened. A night that had begun in innocent, albeit self-indulgent pleasure, gone terribly wrong as an argument over money turned deadly.

“But what doesn’t make sense to me is how there was enough evidence to try you. Let alone convict you.”

“The first year I was here I thought of nothing else. I was innocent. How could it have happened? My lawyer was young and very impressed by the names of those involved in the prosecution—wealthy Bostonians, prominent old families. The owner of the house you rented pushed for a speedy trial. He made it clear to my lawyer that he was out for blood, my blood, on behalf of your family. I had a hard time even getting my lawyer to listen to my account of that night. And I had two eyewitnesses who saw me, me alone, going down the path toward the gazebo after midnight. He finally interviewed them, but said afterward he wouldn’t call them to testify.”

“Who were they?”

“Mary Smith, who worked in the kitchen, and the gardener, Elias Norton.”

“I know, or rather knew, Mary. She was deaf and I learned to sign from her.”

“Elias is deaf, too. I thought that was why the lawyer wouldn’t put them on the stand, but that wasn’t it—there were plenty of interpreters available on the island. He said they weren’t friendly witnesses. I wanted to talk to them myself. I’d learned to sign, too—the whole phenomenon of the Vineyard deafness and subsequent sign language had interested me—but there was no way I could contact them except through him. And the most damning testimony of all came from Violet Hammond.”

“She’s Violet Winthrop now, remember.”

Arnold nodded. “I’m not surprised. She was after him all that summer and poor Theo was like a lovesick calf. I tried to talk to him—Violet was costing him a lot of money, and had been during the school year what with champagne suppers at Locke-Ober and the like. He wouldn’t listen. I thought she’d find someone else and leave him alone, but she enjoyed stringing him along, even though Charles was the one she wanted. I wish I had been more persistent.”

Ursula interrupted. “He wouldn’t have listened. I saw the way he looked at her, too, and she is very beautiful. What was her testimony?”

She had a feeling she knew. . . .

“She testified that she overheard a violent quarrel between the two of us and that I threatened Theo to the point where he ran out of the house, apparently in fear of his life. She said she saw me follow him and immediately got Charles Winthrop to go after us both. She said we’d been drinking heavily. Winthrop corroborated her story. He described going after us as soon as she alerted him, coming upon us in the gazebo when it was too late.

“But they lied!” Ursula flushed angrily. “Didn’t your lawyer challenge them? And what about your testimony?”

“He didn’t question them at all and he’d told me early on that he wouldn’t put me on the stand. That the prosecutor would, as he said, ‘eat me for breakfast.’ ”

It was getting late. Ursula knew she should leave, but not yet. She needed to hear more.

“What made you go out to the gazebo? How did you know Theo was there?”

“As I said earlier, the party had become wild. Word of it had spread all over the island and cars filled with crashers kept arriving. Most of the servants, including the housekeeper, had disappeared, no doubt to the Illumination, but also to avoid any involvement. I saw a young lady tuck a small silver cigarette box into her bag, which I promptly retrieved, much to her fury. The house was filled with valuables. I knew we might need to call the police, but I didn’t want to do it without telling Theo first. I thought I could get him to announce the party was over and tell people to leave himself—a face-saving gesture. No one had seen him. I went out to the pool. It was filled with partygoers, some had shed their clothes. I was at my wit’s end and then someone, a man, told me he’d seen Theo heading in the direction of the gazebo quite a while ago. I thought he must have arranged to meet Violet there as I hadn’t seen her, either.”

“So this man saw you, too? Who was it?”

“I didn’t know him, had never seen him before, and even though I begged the lawyer to put an announcement in all the papers seeking his help, nothing ever came of it.

“And then several people began shouting at me that Theo was in the gazebo and wanted me there. They seemed to think it was some kind of joke.”

“And they were never questioned, either?”

“No.”

“So you went after Theo—and found him.” Ursula’s voice trembled.

“Yes.” Arnold put his hand briefly over hers. “Would that I had gone sooner.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. You’ve been kind enough to listen.” Arnold’s expression was resigned. “It’s not as horrid here for me as most. I’ve been teaching classes in all sorts of things from basic reading and arithmetic—many of the inmates never learned—to history. Civic groups donate books. We never know what we will get. As time has passed I’ve been granted certain privileges like seeing visitors without a guard, although you are my first.”

“What about your classmates at Harvard? The professors? Surely they would take up your cause!”

“That’s not how things work, Ursula. Again, it was wonderful of you to come, but I think you’d best not visit another time. This is no place for a young lady.”

Ursula stood up. She’d tell her mother she’d taken a long walk, which was partially true, but even a lengthy promenade about the parts of town where she was permitted wouldn’t have taken up this much time.

“I intend to return, Mr. Rowe—and I intend to get you out of here. The best way is for me to find out as much as possible about what really happened and present the facts to my father. He is a fair man and he would never want an innocent person to be unjustly confined. If need be, a judge will have to order a new trial.”

Arnold Rowe shook his head slowly. “You make it all sound so easy. I’m afraid you are going to be terribly disappointed—and hurt.”

“Perhaps—but I have to try. We know that Charles Winthrop was desperate for money and that Violet Hammond was, if not his fiancée at the time, about to be. They had every reason to lie. I’ll say good-bye for now.”

Arnold opened the door and the guard showed her out.

“Good afternoon, miss,” he said.

Ursula walked down West Cedar Street toward her aunt’s house on Louisburg Square. She felt as if she had passed from one world to another and was struck by how normal things looked in this one. The people she passed nodded and smiled slightly. The old, wavy amethyst glass in the windows of the Beacon Hill houses were unchanged, the brass door knockers and handles as bright as the day they were installed. The brick sidewalks uneven from years of use. Cars passed slowly. It was all as it had been before she’d rung the bell at the Charles Street Jail, but it would never be the same for her again.

Arnold Rowe had been framed. She was certain of it.

Her mother barely noted her tardiness and rushed her off to catch the train back to Aleford. On the way Ursula showed her the gloves and the purchase was met with approval. The motion of the train, the sound of the tracks, was soothing and for a moment Ursula allowed herself to feel happy. Arnold had looked a shadow of his former self—emaciated and deathly pale, but there was no pallor in his warm brown eyes or the smile that crossed his lips several times. She had found him; she was going to help him.

And she would start now.

Charles Winthrop had needed money right away. Theo hadn’t had any to give him, nor was there any money in the house. As she’d walked back to her aunt’s, Ursula had thought of something. She needed to ask her mother a question and the sooner the better.

“I know it’s very hard to talk about Theo, Mother, but I’ve been thinking of him so much today. Perhaps, in part, it was being near the old house. I would like to have something of his as a keepsake. Would you and Father let me have the pocket watch Father gave him when he turned eighteen?”

It had been gold, and was a reward for not smoking or drinking.

Her mother looked very tired.

“In all the confusion of that night, some of his things were lost. We don’t have the watch.”

“Or his signet ring?”

All the Lyman men were given these rings with the family seal when they were confirmed.

“That was lost, too.”

Ursula had her answer. It was as she thought.

The train was slowing down for the Arlington station. She watched the landscape come to a halt, but she wasn’t seeing the town center, she was back in the gazebo caressing her brother’s hands. His fingers were bare.

The ring was already missing.

Chapter 9

“M
y greatest problem was figuring out how to go off to Martha’s Vineyard for an entire day. I couldn’t tell my parents. Finally the simplest solution was the most obvious one. I cut school.”

Faith had been reeling from Ursula’s account of her sixteen-year-old self marching up to the Charles Street Jail, gaining admittance, and embarking on an investigation to free a convicted murderer. And now this? Cutting school? This was the kind of thing people like Ursula, and her daughter, never, never did without at the least a gun to their heads.

“I told Mother that I was involved in a project that required my presence both before and after school. I would have to leave early and might be quite late. Mother was not particularly interested in academics, although she was a reader—she was quite fond of Mazo de la Roche’s novels, and all she ever wanted as gifts were the newest Jalna and a box of Fannie Farmer chocolates. I knew she wouldn’t ask me any particulars, so I told myself I wasn’t really lying. I did have a project. A large one.

“We’d been in Aleford for some time, but I didn’t know many people in town. Since I attended Cabot, not the public school, I knew I wouldn’t run into any fathers on the train who might recognize me. In any case, I took a very early one before rush hour. I changed to the train for Woods Hole and the ferry in town. Before I boarded I called school. Mother and I had very similar voices and people often mistook us for each other on the phone. I simply told the secretary, Miss Mountjoy—you can imagine what fun the girls had about that name, especially since she always looked as though she’d received dire news and perhaps she had.”

Ursula got back on track. “I said that Ursula would not be at school today, but would return tomorrow. She said, ‘Thank you for calling, Mrs. Lyman,’ and I hopped on the train.”

At this point Faith was no longer reeling—nothing further would surprise her, she was sure—but had a strong sense that the nation had lost a valuable resource. FBI agent? Spy? G-woman?

“I had time to think on the ferry over. It was a beautiful spring day, so warm it could have been July. . . .”

Ursula stood on the deck watching the gulls circle overhead and wished she could be a little girl again on Sanpere sailing with Theo in his beloved catboat. It had been built on the island and he’d helped, a little boy himself at the time. Friends had much larger boats and Theo never turned down a chance to go “yachting,” but she knew he was never happier than when he was in his own boat sailing down Eggemoggin Reach up into Jericho Bay.

The trip was taking longer than she’d remembered and her time on the Vineyard would be shorter than she hoped. She knew that neither Mary Smith nor Elias Norton had been live-in employees. Mary lived in Oak Bluffs with her family, happily not far from the ferry landing. She’d pointed the house out to her once when Ursula had received permission to walk into town with Mary, who was doing various errands for Mrs. Lyman. Ursula didn’t know where Elias lived.

The salt air had dried her throat out and she walked quickly to the Smiths’ house. Mary would give her a glass of water and they’d talk. Everything was going to be all right. Ursula closed her eyes for a moment. All morning she had steadfastly pushed any thoughts about the enormity of what she was doing from her mind, as well as any thoughts of failure.

Outside the tidy Cape, a young woman was weeding the front garden. Ursula started to speak, then, seeing her resemblance to Mary, signed instead. Her effort was returned with an appreciative smile. She was relieved to know that her signing skills were still intact. Mary and Elias had married and were living only a short walk away. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as she set off.

Even if it had been possible—if they had been able to hear and speak—Ursula would not have wanted to talk with them on the phone. Nor had she wanted to write to them. She had wanted to appear unannounced, wanted to present Arnold’s case, her case, and gauge their reactions without their prior knowledge.

Mary opened the door, and the first thing Ursula noticed was that the woman’s obvious surprise seemed more like fear. Elias stood behind his wife in the doorway. Neither of them moved or responded to Ursula’s signed greeting. Ursula hadn’t thought beyond finding them and getting them to tell her what they’d seen that night. That the couple might not want to cooperate, not agree to see her, simply hadn’t occurred to her. She congratulated them on their nuptials. The well-wishes triggered a polite response. Mary invited her in and Elias stepped back, both still visibly ill at ease.

“Would you like tea, miss? Or something cold?” Mary signed.

“I’d love a glass of water, thank you,” Ursula replied.

They both disappeared to what Ursula assumed was the kitchen in the back of the house. The parlor was small, spotless with a few cherished possessions on the mantel—a framed wedding portrait, a pair of brass candlesticks, and an iridescent glass vase filled with blue hyacinths.

When they returned, Ursula’s heart sank at the look on Mary’s face. The woman was blinking back tears and her hand shook slightly as she handed Ursula the glass of water. In contrast, Elias’s face was blank, his mouth set in one firm line.

The only thing to do was start from the beginning and tell them everything—finding the newspaper articles, encountering the Winthrops in the department store, and finally her visit to Arnold in jail. Mary gave a gasp at this last piece of information and started to lift her hand, but dropped it back in her lap. Elias had sat impassively throughout Ursula’s account. When she stopped signing and drank some water he stood up, firmly taking charge.

“We’re very sorry about young Mr. Rowe, but we don’t know what we can do to help him.” He tapped Mary on the arm and she jumped up. No other kind of sign was necessary. The visit was over.

“Please,” Ursula implored. “Please sit down again and just tell me what you saw that night in the woods. Arnold saw you both. You must have seen him, too.”

“It was a long time ago. We talked to the lawyer fellows when it happened and it’s all over now.”

Mary’s hands were clasped behind her back. Ursula stood up and signed her thanks. Despair slipped over her, threatening to engulf her completely, but she had to leave the house, get back to the ferry, and make her way home. At the door, she signed one last question.

“Is Mrs. Miles, the housekeeper, still on the island?”

A look of disgust crossed Mary’s face, the expressive face Ursula remembered so well from their times together. Mary’s emotions were always close to the surface.

“That one! A she-devil to work for and she took off that night for good. I haven’t laid eyes on her since she went out the back door in her Sunday best before it was even dark, neither has anybody else.”

Elias took Mary’s hand and held it.

What did he want her to keep from saying, or was it a gesture of affection? Ursula wondered. She thought the former, and after wishing them well—she could tell Mary was expecting and, from the lack of any children’s toys or things in the room, assumed it was their first—she went out the front door.

As soon as she heard the door close, Ursula darted around the side of the house. She was sure they would be discussing her visit and thought she might be able to see into the room from a side window, but Elias’s green thumb had produced forsythia bushes and spirea in such abundance that it was impossible. She was about to give up and head for the landing when she heard steps on the back porch of the cottage. She had a clear view of the yard from where she stood and stepped farther into the cascading blooms, blessing them now for their protective cover.

Mary was carrying a basket of wash to hang on the line and Elias was following her, signing away like mad even though her back was turned. He reached out to stop her; she dropped the basket and began to sob. It was all Ursula could do to keep from running out to comfort Mary herself.

“Run after her, Elias. The ferry won’t be leaving for a while. What we did was wrong!” she signed frantically.

“We didn’t tell any lies.”

“We didn’t tell the truth, either.” Mary wiped her eyes with her apron. “We saw that boy lying in the summerhouse as plain as day. You thought he’d passed out from drink. And we never checked! Somebody else was nearby in the woods, but we couldn’t see. It wasn’t Mr. Rowe, because we did see him close to where the path started at the house. He was running toward us and it was after we’d gone by Mr. Theo.”

She stopped signing when she saw Ursula emerge. Elias seemed to be battling two warring instincts; his expression was tormented.

“I guess I know when the Almighty is trying to tell me something,” he signed to Ursula. “All you told us, and your coming here today, was meant to be. We did see Mr. Rowe, but we don’t know how your poor brother came to die and that’s the truth. Let’s go inside and sit down again. We’ll tell you everything. If you miss the ferry, I’ll run you over to the mainland in my skiff.”

Tea appeared rapidly—and a plate of oatmeal cookies. As they sat in the parlor, Ursula remembered that Arnold’s lawyer had said Mary and Elias would not be friendly witnesses. A better description would have been “terrified” ones.

Elias signed that the prosecutor had warned them that he would bring up what he imagined they had been doing off in the woods if they took the stand.

“It was a lie. I respected my Mary, but people want to believe the worst! He told us he’d make sure it got out and no one would hire servants with such low morals. It didn’t matter how good we were at our jobs.”

Ursula was shocked. She felt as if she had left the few remaining remnants of her childhood behind over the course of the afternoon, a childhood where, before Theo’s death, she’d believed that all adults told the truth and nothing bad could happen to anyone she knew.

Mary looked tired, and Ursula told them she would be in touch. In fact, she didn’t know what her next step would be, other than toward the ferry, which hadn’t left. She hugged her old friend, now restored to her, and Elias went with her. As the ferry pulled away, he waved once.

She waved back and went to the prow of the Naushon. As she faced Woods Hole, crossing Vineyard Sound, the world seemed newly made and she imagined herself as a kind of figurehead—a sort of Winged Victory.

It was after dinnertime when Ursula walked into the house. She had planned to phone, but had just made both trains. Her mother rushed over to her.

“Ursula! Where have you been? We were just about to start calling around!”

“I’ve been to Oak Bluffs and I need to tell you why.”

Her earlier exhilaration had left her and now she was exhausted.

Her father got up from his chair.

“Sit down. Have you eaten today? And I think a drop of brandy might be a good idea.”

Mr. Lyman had thought the whole notion of the Thirty-second Amendment was misguided, making criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens. He wasn’t much of a drinker himself, but saw no harm in keeping decanters of port and sherry as well as a bottle of brandy.

Ursula was not used to spirits and choked at the first swallow, but soon the alcohol’s warmth suffused her body and she realized she was hungry. She made short work of the sandwich her mother brought.

It took a long time to tell her parents what had transpired and her mother had not wanted to hear any of it at first.

“It won’t bring Theo back. Why stir things up again?”

“I’m sorry to disagree, Dorothea,” Mr. Lyman said. “If what Ursula has been telling us proves to be true, we must do everything in our power to clear Arnold Rowe.”

At midnight, Ursula knew she couldn’t talk any more. Her mother had gone to bed with her usual Ovaltine and her father told her to go, too. He wanted to make some notes. While he believed her, he wasn’t totally encouraging.

“I’m not sure how to proceed,” he said. “The only evidence against Charles Winthrop is a young girl’s recall of an extremely traumatic night. Lawyers for Winthrop would be able to easily discredit your testimony, questioning why you hadn’t mentioned it at the time to anyone—the fact that you were ill and didn’t know any of the particulars of the charges, or even the outcome of the case against Arnold, will not make a difference, I’m afraid. They’d also bring up the notion of false memory after so many years. They will also”—Theodore Lyman hesitated—“put your motivation down to a schoolgirl’s crush.”

Ursula started to protest.

“No, daughter. I believe you, but the Winthrops are a very powerful—and proper—family. They are not about to have it come out that their son was in debt to the worst sort of bootleggers and involved if not actually in committing the crime of murder, then in covering it up. Young Charles knew his actions, had they come out, would have resulted in his estrangement from the family—emotionally and financially.”

On this note, he kissed her good night and told her not to set her alarm. He’d call the school to tell them she’d be late.

She thought she would have trouble falling asleep, but Ursula sank almost immediately into oblivion—sleep, the sweet escape.

“U
rsula,” Faith said, “this has been an amazing story. I know it has a happy ending”—she assumed they had reached it—“otherwise there wouldn’t be a Pix or an Arnold junior. I wouldn’t be sitting here, either.”

“This part
did
have a happy ending, but it’s not over. I’ll explain shortly. To finish up about Arnold’s imprisonment—Father consulted his own lawyer, William Lloyd, taking me with him. The next day both men went to the jail and spent a long time talking to Arnold. After that everything happened quickly. A judge in Dukes County ordered a new trial, but before they got to jury selection, Mr. Lloyd asked that the charge be dismissed in light of new evidence that exonerated his client beyond the shadow of a doubt. Of course it had all been worked out beforehand. Mary and Elias had been deposed, as was I. Arnold’s full account was presented to the judge also. The charge was dropped and the case was left open: ‘Murder by person or persons unknown.’ It was hard on Mother. Not that she wanted Arnold in jail, but she had hoped that justice would be done. That Charles Winthrop would be punished—she’d come to believe he’d been responsible. But there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest him. Both he and his wife stuck to their accounts of that night.”