Kill Me a Husband

by Tedd Thomey

  He wanted to begin his confession immediately, to purge and cleanse himself.

  But it was not to be. Almost at once the delays began, the legal maneuvering by Mr. Morgan, the attorney his mother had hired for him. He knew Mr. Morgan was trying to help him, trying very hard to protect him from himself, but Mr. Morgan had no understanding, not the slightest conception, of the deep torment within him that demanded release.

  Each time he tried to speak, Mr. Morgan interrupted and then the judge admonished him and he realized finally that again he must be patient, once again he must wait and wait.

  The first questions were trivial and required trivial answers. When did you first meet Mrs. Chrysler? How long did you stay at the restaurant? Where did you go immediately afterward? Where is your office located? These were matters that the court had heard discussed previously by Alma and other witnesses.

  “Now would you tell us,” asked Mr. Morgan, “what else happened the very first night you met Mrs. Chrysler?”

  “We were intimate.”

  “That occurred the very first time you met her, Mr. Green, and not the third time, as testified by Mrs. Chrysler?”

  “That is correct. We went into the showroom at my office that night and she tried on one of the corselets, and she was badly sunburned on the shoulders, I recollect, and I had some lotion which I rubbed on her skin, and it was then that we were intimate.”

  He wanted to say more, he wanted to begin his long recital, the words of the long confession that had grown within him day after day, but it was not to be.

  The court adjourned abruptly, because it was four o’clock, and because the judge insisted on keeping the sessions on a careful time schedule.

  Frustrated, tasting the bitterness in his mouth, he waited at the counsel table with Mr. Morgan while the courtroom was cleared.

  “You still mean to do it?” asked Mr. Morgan.

  Ward nodded. “I must.”

  “You realize what it means? Possibly the difference between death or merely imprisonment?”

  “I realize that,” Ward said. “I realize it fully.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” said Mr. Morgan.

  “Yes,” said Ward. “I was a fool. And I am a fool.”

  The bailiff and two special officers escorted him from the courtroom. In the corridor, his mother was waiting for him as she did each day, but today there were more tear stains than usual on her deeply fined face.

  She came to him at once, embracing him, her white hair touching his forehead as she kissed him gently on the cheek.

  “Oh, my son, my son,” she said. “Must you say those terrible things you said?”

  “Yes, Mother. I must.”

  “You mustn’t! You mustn’t!”

  “But, I must, Mother. I must tell the truth.”

  She turned to Mr. Morgan. “Can’t you stop him? Can’t you keep him from telling those awful things?”

  “The truth may help him,” Mr. Morgan said. “I only hope he doesn’t say too much.”

  She nodded, reluctantly. “Then tell the truth, son. And I will pray that it will save you. And you must pray, son. And remember John, Chapter 8, Verse 32, ‘The truth shall set ye free.’”

  The officers separated them and led him along the corridor.

  “Son,” she called after him, “do you have your Bible? And your prayer book?”

  He nodded.

  That night he did not sleep. At times he read his Bible, especially Exodus, Chapter 21. He that smiteth a man so that he dieth, shall surely be put to death. More than once he thought about his wife and the terrible injury he had inflicted upon her and their daughter. He did not blame Virginia for not visiting him here or in the courtroom. He was not worthy of her; he had forfeited her love. He deserved no aid from her, not even sympathy.

  But mostly, through the lonely hours in his cell, he thought about what he must say the following day. And he knew there was only one course open to him, only one possible way to obtain the release which his conscience demanded.

  Shortly aften ten o’clock in the morning, he was permitted to return to the stand.

  Again there were procedures, delays.

  But at last they let him talk.

  He told of each adulterous meeting with Alma. He told of the hotel rooms, the liquor, the endless bottles of rye and gin. And as he talked he looked directly at her, looked at her where she sat at the counsel table.” He met her eyes, saw the hate in them, saw her look fearfully away and grasp at the false rosary beads which she wore around her throat. With disgust he told how he could not stay away from her for more than a day at a time; he told how he was fascinated by her body, “mesmerized by the animal sex of her which provoked him into doing the things that weakened him.

  He sought such total degradation that he even told about the nights when he was too low in energy to be aroused by her repeated demands. He revealed her total domination of him; how she controlled his mind as well as his body; how he bought the chloroform and the sash weight; how he tested the sleeping powders for her. And as he went on his voice grew stronger and he felt as if he were talking about another person entirely, a man who was not Ward Green at all, a monstrous fornicator and drunkard, a man who did not know wrong from right and who did not care to know wrong from right.

  During most of his testimony, there were no outbursts in the courtroom, no displays, few catcalls and shouted insults. He spoke the truth and they knew he was speaking the truth; they could tell the difference between his words and Alma’s. During much of her testimony, Alma’s voice had been stilted, hesitant, and many times her answers came too quickly, showing that she knew the questions in advance.

  “And now, Mr. Green,” said Mr. Morgan, “would you please state your movements on the night of March 19, starting with your arrival at the Chrysler home?”

  He told it all. He left nothing out, from the objects he found under the pillow, to the moment when Alma took him by the hand and led him into the master bedroom. He told of seeing the sleeping form on the bed and of raising the sash weight high into the air.

  And now for the first time he hesitated, warned by the expression in Mr. Morgan’s eyes and remembering Mr. Morgan’s repeated words: “You did not strike. Remember, you did not strike. If you say you struck even one blow, you are doomed.”

  Only for a moment he hesitated, and then he spoke loudly, so every person in the courtroom could hear.

  “I struck him on the head! He raised up and began to holler and I believe I may have struck him again—”

  There was no sound in the courtroom, not a whisper nor a rustle of clothing. He told how Norman Chrysler seized him and began choking him and how he cried out, “Mommy! For God’s sakes, help me, Mommy!” and how she picked up the sash weight and struck her husband on the head again and again.

  He did not pause.

  Even when he saw Alma collapse at the counsel table, he went on with the telling of it. Even when he saw her head writhing against the table top, her fist weakly striking the surface, even then he continued with it, telling how she returned later to the bedroom and twisted the wire around her husband’s neck, twisting it tightly with the golden automatic pencil from his, Ward Green’s, shirt pocket.

  She shrieked then, shrieked at him from her position of defeat at the counsel table.

  “Stop him!” She seized the arm of her attorney and shook it wildly. “Stop him! Oh, please stop him!”

  But her attorney did not rise from the counsel table. He remained beside her, shaking his head, comforting her.

  Finally it was done. Finally it was told and Ward sat exhausted in the chair, breathing heavily through his mouth, unable to open his fists which had been clenched with tension in his lap throughout his long recital. But he felt no better. He felt no cleanliness. The shame and the guilt weighed even heavier upon him and he knew now for certain that there could be only one release for him, one final release.

  Mr. Morgan came a step closer to the witness chair. In h
is dark eyes there was pity and, strangely, respect.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Green,” he said. “And now, if it pleises the court, I would like to make one further point. Mr. Green, will you tell us what object Mrs. Chrysler handed to you when you left her house that morning just before dawn.”

  “Yes, sir. A bottle of liquor.”

  “Did you drink it?”

  “I took a taste of it.”

  “How did h taste?”

  “Sweetish and sort of bitter.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Green.”

  Mr. Morgan walked to the exhibit table, chose a pint flask from among the numerous objects there, and strode with it to the jury box.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “This, as you can see by the tag, is Exhibit No. 4. The liquor in this flask was analyzed and found to contain bichloride of mercury, an amount sufficient to kill several persons.”

  Mr. Morgan raised the flask higher. Reflecting the light from the chandelier overhead, its amber contents glistened with gem-like brilliance.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Mr. Morgan, “this, I submit, is the final proof of Mrs. Chrysler’s criminal mind, a mind which will still rank in years to come as one of the most savage and ruthless in criminal history. This woman, this serpent, not only drew Ward Green into her coils, compelling him to aid her in killing her husband, but she planned to destroy him as well with this bottle, leaving her free to enjoy the fruits of her crime, leaving her free to enjoy her other lovers, her other—”

  It was one of the final thrills for the spectators and they greeted it with the longest, most tumultuous uproar of the trial, shrieking their condemnation of Alma Chrysler, suppressing even the shouted objections of Mr. Whitcomb and his assistants.

  What followed was anti-climactic and foregone. The closing arguments of the attorneys for both sides were lengthy and theatric, passionate and impressive, but in truth added nothing of substance to the legal proceedings.

  The jury was out one hour and thirty-seven minutes.

  Both defendants, Alma Chrysler and Ward Green, were found guilty of murder in the first degree.

  CHAPTER 15

  The year was 1928, the date January 12. In New York City it was a. gray day, brittle with cold. In southern Georgia it was warmish, and in North Dakota and Montana a vast wind was roaring down from Canada. For most people January 12, 1928, was not much different from any other January date on the calendar.

  For some, however, January 12, 1928, was a day of different character, of different routine. In the Pacific a vast search was on for two missing New Zealand fliers, Captain Hood and Lieutenant Montcrieff. In Washington, Secretary of the Navy Wilbur urged a twenty-year building program for the Navy at a cost of three billion dollars. In Forest City, Iowa, a man by the name of C. K. Johnson was fined one hundred dollars for selling cigarettes to minors. The Democrats picked Houston, Texas, for their national convention and Jack Sharkey announced that he was confident he would crush Tom Heeney during their heavyweight battle the following night at Madison Square Garden. Stocks were unsteady, the volume down.

  Late in the afternoon of January 12, 1928, the final legal maneuvers on the behalf of Alma Chrysler and Ward Green ground to a halt.

  The Supreme Court rejected, with finality, the request of their attorneys for a stay of execution.

  At Sing Sing Prison in New York, having received no further word from the Governor’s office, officials began preparing the electrocution chamber.

  At exactly eleven o’clock on the night of January 12, 1928, the door opened to the cell where Alma Chrysler had spent the past eight months of her life, a period of extreme suffering, of pleading, of waiting for clemency which never arrived.

  The woman who stumbled to her feet, whispering a prayer, was no longer a lovely, marcelled blonde with an apricot-smooth, Swedish complexion and clear blue eyes that welcomed love and pleasure. The figure was no longer erect and narrow-waisted, with seductive movements of hip and breast.

  The woman who was led along the twisting prison corridor had gaunt white cheeks. She appeared to be forty-five or possibly fifty years of age. Her hair was long, stringy and decidedly gray. Her jaw was prominent and bony, her eyes glazed with fear. Her shoulders and neck were bent forward as if with some crippling disease, and she was garbed in a shapeless black prison garment, heavy black cotton stockings and rough shoes.

  Two matrons half-carried her, half-dragged her into the death chamber.

  She was too filled with terror to hear the gasps of astonishment which came from the assembled reporters when they first saw her.

  Mercifully, as the matrons strapped her into the chair, she did not hear the whispered comment of the correspondent in the second row who stood on tiptoe to get a better view.

  “My God!” he said. “They’ve got the wrong woman!”

  At eleven-ten, Ward Green entered the death chamber.

  He needed no assistance as he walked with firm steps to the chair. He did not surrender his Bible to the guards until the straps were fixed and tight. And then, in a low, calm voice he thanked them for letting him keep the book with him until his final seconds.

  At eleven-thirty P.M. on January 12, 1928, Alma Chrysler and Ward Green lay together for the last time. They lay side by side on separate wheeled stretchers in the prison mortuary room.

  Their eyes were closed and their hands did not touch.

  THE END