“I’m Dorothy’s aunt Rose,” the older woman said to Emily, and reached for her hand.
“This must be so difficult for you,” Emily said.
They shook hands all around.
“Please, call me Gretchen,” Lemke’s sister said.
Gretchen had been the pretty one; her round green eyes and fine features were a bit lost now in her plump face. Pleasingly plump, as they said; Emily could imagine her engaged in tinkling conversation, for she had a breathy, little girl’s voice. Gretchen looked the younger sister, by at least ten years.
“Please,” Emily said, “sit down. I’m so sorry for your loss. May I offer you some hot tea? There are sandwiches, as well. I know you drove a long way.” She sat in the straight chair opposite Grimm, the Lemke relatives between them, and opened her notebook. The tea tray was on the low table. Emily leaned forward to pour two cups, and offer the spoons and sugar. The women seated themselves on the settee, looked at the hot tea, didn’t touch it.
Charles Fleming settled into the armchair and crossed his long arms over his chest. “That your dog there?” He jerked his head at Duty, who lay beside Emily’s chair.
“That is the Eichers’ dog, Duty. He was orphaned when the family were killed, so, yes, now he is my dog.”
“Killed all of them,” Charles Fleming said.
“Yes.” Emily supposed she must tell them, as the plan required their permission. “I think the dog ran after Powers, as he was taking the children away, and he kicked it, injured it badly.”
“The jail after this—” Charles Fleming looked at Grimm for confirmation. “Bring the dog.”
“What a good idea. Thank you, Mr. Fleming. Now, can you tell me, from the beginning, about Dorothy and Powers, what you yourselves witnessed.” Emily addressed them all. “Try to keep the facts very clear. You will be called as witnesses, no doubt, and opinion or supposition weakens your testimony. This interview is for the Tribune, but it will be widely circulated. Perhaps we can work together to clarify important points.”
“He called himself Pierson.” Charles Fleming sat forward, turning his hat in his hands, pressing the felt brim so hard that his knuckles were white.
“He was at our house,” Gretchen Fleming said, “on a Monday afternoon, the twenty-seventh of July it was. Arrived at two or so and sat down with us at the kitchen table, with Dorothy, to talk of their plans. Said he was a civil engineer and gave us to know he had property, a big ranch in Iowa his overseer ran. Valuable land, he said, as well as parcels in West Virginia, where he was working presently. Do you recall, Aunt Rose?”
Aunt Rose put her hand upon her niece’s generous thigh, and gave her a cup of tea, nodding at her to drink it. “He told us he was advising on a bridge, across a gorge in West Virginia. Very high cliffs, he told the boys, when they were home from school. And they must come to his ranch to visit Dorothy and him. Seventy-five cows and as many hogs, and he raised all the corn to feed them, he said.”
“How old are the boys?” asked Emily.
“Eight and ten,” Charles Fleming said.
Gretchen held the tea before her and spoke over it, expressionless. “She was all aglow, like the Dorothy of years ago. They would marry in an office, Dorothy said; at her age it should be modest. Well, you’ll need witnesses, I said. That should be Charles and me. Stay the week and marry here. You were home from work by then, weren’t you, Charles, when I said that?”
“I heard you say that.” He looked down, gripping the hat, his jaw tight.
“But no,” Aunt Rose said, “he was in a rush, to check on the bridge project down South and then get back to his ranch, to relieve his overseer. It would be a road trip for them, a sort of honeymoon. Dorothy said she would take photos to send us.”
“And here they are!” said Gretchen Fleming. “He has them!” She turned to Grimm.
Grimm took the photographs from his pocket and put them on the table. These were enlarged from the box camera snapshots. Emily remembered Grimm’s comment: Powers was sloppy. He kept the camera but didn’t bother to dispose of the film. There were three snapshots of Dorothy, three of him, obviously taken at the same picturesque views along mountain roads. Powers wore his glasses, white shirt, suit trousers, smiled. Dorothy outweighed him by thirty or forty pounds. Dressed elegantly in black, she stood, arms at her sides, looking askance in the sun, with a pleased, happy expression. Aglow—yes. The word described her.
Gretchen went on bitterly. “To think he talked to my boys, telling them all his stories. They were full of questions. How did he light up the farm and the house at the ranch? Why, he had his own electric works! He impressed them so, lying.”
“He talked big,” Charles Fleming said.
“Some tell tales to children,” Aunt Rose said. “But I said to myself, if even half was true, Dorothy would have no worries. He said they’d be back in two weeks. We all sat down over supper.”
“I’d sent the boys to bed.” Gretchen put down her untouched tea. “It was just the adults. He took Dorothy’s hands before us, like a pledge, said he was going to give her everything she would wish for, that he wanted her to be happy. She said he was her change of fortune. And he said, ‘My dear.’ ”
“That part fooled us,” said Charles Fleming.
Aunt Rose said, “I asked her in private, was she sure? She said she could weep with happiness. No one was so fine, so respectful, as Mr. Pierson. How could I ask her not to go?”
“Did you hear from her in the month she was missing?”
“We had three letters, that wasn’t her writing,” Gretchen Fleming said.
“No need to describe those,” said Grimm. “They will come out at the trial.”
But Gretchen went on. “She said she wasn’t marrying after all, because ‘she told things that wasn’t true and was found out.’ Can you imagine, saying such about herself?” Gretchen addressed Emily in disbelief. “And she was going on a long cruise with a rich lady that hired her as companion! Glad she would never marry now; she would have missed all this!”
“Dorothy had been married before, in St. Paul?” Emily was writing, but they said nothing. She tried again. “She appreciated another chance.”
“St. Paul was never her home,” Aunt Rose said carefully. “After her boy died, she had a hard time. It was polio, and she nursed him one whole summer. He wasn’t but four years old.”
Emily followed an instinct. “Was Dorothy herself ill, then, from the strain, and came home to you?”
“She was much preoccupied.” Aunt Rose took an envelope from her purse and gave it to Emily. “She wrote her will. That is her true voice, that we want people to know.”
“The will must be quoted exactly,” Grimm said.
“Of course,” said Emily.
“What it doesn’t say,” Aunt Rose added, “is that everything reminded her . . . of her boy. She used to say she saw him before her, just as real, and knew not to move, or he would disappear. Oh, it was terrible.”
“But she got better,” Charles Fleming said. He looked at his wife.
“Of course she did,” Gretchen Fleming agreed. “That was only at first. She worked at the library, she did companion nursing—not because she had to, for she had her own funds, and a home with Aunt Rose, but she liked to. She was a good companion, capable and steady. She might have gone on as such.”
“I knew.” Aunt Rose looked before her. “I had a fever and saw Dorothy, looking up through a narrow opening and begging for her life. But I told myself I was ill, and worried for her.”
“She wanted to leave,” Charles Fleming reminded them. “She went off happily, thinking the best.”
“She knew she’d always have a home with me,” said Aunt Rose. “Dorothy was like my own daughter.”
“She didn’t deserve this,” Charles Fleming said.
Gretchen Fleming accepted the handkerchief her aunt offered. “Oh, I hope she is with her boy?” It was a question, and she wept.
• • •
&
nbsp; The jail was a series of warrens in the first floor of a large Victorian building. Outside, mounds of earth were thrown up; construction of the new courthouse had just begun. Townspeople milled around the one large tree, all of them men in work clothes, clearly aware that Powers was inside. Bond drove the group to a sheltered area, out of sight of the crowd. They entered through a hallway and found themselves in a front office. One of Dorothy’s trunks, brought from Quiet Dell, lay on the table behind the desk. Chief Duckworth held the lid open. The trunk, Emily saw, was lined in calico print paper.
“Do you recognize these articles?” Duckworth asked.
Behind him, Emily saw Eric, and beckoned him forward to stand with her, out of the jumble of officers and press. Duty was in her open valise, moving restlessly.
“Those are her slippers and underclothes,” said Aunt Rose.
“Those are her dresses. Her jewelry box is not here.” Gretchen Fleming stood with her aunt, and the two women began going through a pile taken from the trunk.
Then Bond brought Powers from his cell. Bond, who was not a tall man, was a head taller than Powers, who was unshaven, pudgy, soft.
Gretchen Fleming rushed forward. “I know you! You stayed at my house. Say you know me!”
Powers, silent, bit his lip.
Bond placed himself squarely between Powers and the assembled group and demanded, “Do you know these people?”
The women, with Charles Fleming behind them, advanced on Powers. “You killed my sister,” Gretchen Fleming screamed. “Why did you do it? Have you got a heart?” She pointed at him, ignoring the flash of Eric’s camera, and reached across once to hit his chest with her fist.
“No,” said Aunt Rose. “He is a beast.”
Powers blinked and turned stiffly to Bond. “Is that all?” he said.
“No, that is not all,” Bond answered sharply.
“What did you do with her money?” asked Aunt Rose.
“I have nothing to say,” Powers replied.
“She would have given you her money,” Charles Fleming shouted, “to spare her life.”
More people had suddenly poured in, and there were shouts of “Keep ’em back!” as though a mob had gathered. The group around Powers loosened, opening the way. Emily unleashed Duty and lowered the valise to the ground. The dog leapt the distance in two bounds and fastened his teeth in Powers’ ankle, snarling.
Powers jumped and began kicking out wildly. He was handcuffed and dragged Bond with him; Duty was latched on. The snarling was like the seizing of a small, efficient engine.
Emily stepped forward and addressed Powers in a loud voice. “This is the Eichers’ dog. I believe he knows you.”
The detectives and Lemke’s relatives stared; Eric put down his camera and shouted at Powers, “Hold still.” He grasped Duty’s jaws from behind as Emily held the dog, and the terrier released his grip. Someone was coming up from behind in the hallway, yelling, “See here! See here!”
“That’s Law,” said Bond.
Powers was sputtering, “I don’t wish to be made a public spectacle. Take me back to my cell.”
Emily faced him, a foot away, holding the lunging dog. “This is Duty, Hart Eicher’s dog, and Annabel’s, and Grethe’s. You killed them. The dog knows you.”
“Who is this woman?” Powers said, backing away.
A tall white-haired gentleman with a small mustache was pushing toward them, calling over the heads of the detectives crowding his path. He addressed his client from a distance. “If you have nothing to say, keep quiet!”
“That is an unusually smart dog,” Aunt Rose remarked loudly.
Bond was marching Powers to his cell. “Tell Dr. Goff to bring some antiseptic,” he shouted to an officer.
“If only the dog had got his throat!” Gretchen Fleming called after them.
• • •
Emily was about to file her story in the Gore Hotel telegraph office when Grimm signaled her from the window that faced the lobby. She went to the tearoom to find him at the back table; it seemed now a kind of private office space devoted to their conversations, but she hadn’t long. She must file.
Grimm smiled as she approached. “Where’s your accomplice?”
“Do you mean Eric?”
“No, the one with the teeth.”
“Oh. Duty is asleep upstairs. The whole thing exhausted him.”
“I don’t wonder. I would say the identification was positive.”
“It was positive for me,” Emily said. “I hope it wasn’t a problem.”
“Lots of confusion, luckily. Law was preoccupied with the crowd in front of the jail, and once he could hear the shouting, Powers was not so concerned with the bandaging and antiseptic Goff administered. The city jail is too accessible; we’re moving the prisoner to the county jail tonight after dark.”
“You expect a lynch mob?”
He signaled the waiter, who approached with a loaded tray. Grimm had ordered lunch for them. “Relax, will you, Miss Thornhill? We are having lunch.” He looked at her, amused, until the waiter departed. “The fact we’re moving Powers is privileged information. If I wanted him lynched, I’d tell you to announce his departure, but that’s not my intent.”
“I see,” said Emily. “But you are concerned.”
“There’s growing outrage. Luella Strother leased the garage property at Quiet Dell, the murder scene, to some concern that tried to fence it off and charge admission. The farmers have torn the fence down twice, outraged that she’s trying to make a profit.” He’d ordered soup and sandwiches, and moved a plate toward her.
“Thank you,” she said. She saw that he enjoyed working with her, looking at her, and felt what she knew was a ridiculous impulse to protect him by distancing herself.
“I suppose it’s silly to be so pleased the dog tore into him.” Grimm smiled.
“I must file soon,” she told him. “Of course I won’t mention the dog at the jail today, nor will Eric. I don’t think other press even saw it; they were caught up in the mob at the front.”
“The relatives arranged for Lemke’s cremation, and went home. They’ll be back for the trial, of course. As will you, Miss Thornhill.”
“Of course.” She put one of the small sandwiches in her mouth in two bites, and saw Grimm watching her. She realized that his pained look the other night had been self-restraint.
“Look,” Grimm said. “Concerning the forged letters from Lemke—Powers may not have forged them; it may have been Luella. We brought her in for questioning. She spent the night in jail but we had to release her this morning. She provided a handwriting sample, and we have others, from Powers’ papers. An analyst is coming in from Washington, D.C., tomorrow.”
“Luella. I must get to her today, this afternoon.”
“That shouldn’t be hard. The sisters were stonewalling the press about Powers, but now they’re mounting a bit of a campaign. Public sympathy, lest they be run out of town. Or we arrest Luella, if we can prove anything.” Grimm loosened his tie and collar.
“What can you tell me about them? They run a grocery store?”
“Matching spinsters. Luella, born in ’eighty-eight. Eva, born in ’eighty-six, the older sister.”
“But Luella is married to Powers.”
“Doubt it was ever consummated.” He paused.
“Go on.”
“They met through a matrimonial agency; we have the letters. Powers was living in Ohio, and came here. It’s my bet Luella knows the same lies about him everyone else knows, but that doesn’t mean she’s innocent. The sisters dress poor and the grocery is modest, a neighborhood place, 111 Quincy, in Broad Oaks, but the mother owned property.”
“The mother’s dead?” She was eating the soup Grimm had slid toward her. Vegetable soup it was, with barley.
“Died, oh, four years ago, soon after Powers married Luella, within a month or two. The sisters inherited everything. Neighbors think he was involved.”
“How?”
&nbs
p; “Vague. She was fine, a busybody, began to fail over a matter of weeks. Her hands were numb, she said. Collapsed on the sidewalk. Powers hosted the funeral like a grandee.”
“So—arsenic poisoning?”
“She was cremated, and no one filed any complaint. We have, from Powers’ seized papers, a 1928 will in which he leaves everything to Luella, and a power of attorney that would have given him rights to all his wife’s property, both dated the same day. But neither was ever recorded or signed.”
“Someone wouldn’t sign,” Emily said.
“Law has the right to review all evidence, and Powers authorized him to slip these to the press, to create sympathy for the wife. Banner headlines this afternoon.” He gave her a tightly folded copy.
“What do the sisters know of the garage?” Emily put the paper in her valise for later perusal. She must file, she was thinking, she must file.
“Not all the victims’ possessions were in the garage. We found clothes and linens strewn around at the Quincy Street house where they live, back of the grocery on the first floor.”
“You think they knew about the women, the letters?”
He shrugged. “They knew he didn’t work, that he traveled all the time. He must have been contributing money, and they didn’t mind how he got it. We’re tracing the letters he was caught with. And there’s the matter of the checks, from Lemke’s funds. Powers cashed them under an alias in Pennsylvania, put the cash in his account, then wrote checks to Luella. We intercepted this letter from Powers last night. I want you to release it, tomorrow, quoted word for word.”
She felt his hand at her knee, under the table, and realized he was passing her the letter. “To agree, I must read it now, before you.”
He folded his hands and nodded. “It’s your scoop, Miss Thornhill.”
It was a typescript copy of the original, and went on at some length. She read, quickly:
My beloved dears,
We are facing a bitter fight and should we fight together, we will win . . .
They will say that the check I gave you the other day was part of the estate of Mrs. Lemke. . . . testify that you gave me $4,000 for the purpose of building a house at Quiet Dell. You gave me $2000 one day and $2000 a few days later.
Quiet Dell: A Novel Page 21