Leaving his front door, Hopewell smiled hello at the pair by the gate.
“Daddy,” said Heidi, beaming, “this is my friend, Abel. He’s a volunteer from town.”
Hopewell held out his hand to the well-appointed young man in front of him. “I know,” he said, looking into guileless blue eyes, “I’ve been watching you work with the nurses. Do you have hospital experience?”
The young man shook his hand and replied politely. “No, sir. Not really. But, I like working with people better than gardening and the nurses find plenty for me to do.”
Liking the man’s candor, Dr. Hopewell made a snap decision. “Well, as it happens, we have an orderly position open, if you’re interested. I think you would fit in very well.”
Abel Edgewink swallowed a silent victory shout. “Yes, sir!” he gushed, open-eyed. “I’d love to work here, and I can start today.” After two weeks of fruitless scheming and plotting, the doors had magically opened.
Lester Edgewink groaned piteously and tried to keep his stare vacant as the nurse fussed around his bed. His wound was healing, and he was starting to get some strength back, but pretending more pain - and less sanity - than he actually had was all part of his plan. He didn’t think they’d send a sick, crazy man back to Boston, and staying out of Boston meant staying alive. Lester had no illusions about his chances in a court of law. Without Whary and Kennon around to take some of the heat, he knew the electric chair was the only possible outcome of a trial. He had overheard a Doctor telling the nurse that he might be with them for a while so, encouraged, he practiced maintaining a silent, placid demeanor as though slipping further and further away from reality. He had noticed that no one paid much attention to the comings and goings of the quiet, harmless patients, and during the past few nights, he had already explored most of the second floor area around his room. Except for a locked ward at one end and a large open area with couches and chairs at the other, the floor was given over to small one and two person rooms such as his. Lester had already made note of everyone he’d seen with a key to the locked staircase, and was just waiting for an opportunity to steal one as the first step in his escape plan.
Penn Sloater stared at the report on his desk in disbelief. According to the best estimate his men could put together, there was some $50,000 in cash and an astonishing $300,000 worth of jewelry still in the wind from the Edgewink gang heists, with another potential $150,000 in cash and jewelry from jobs that couldn’t be positively tied to the gang. In pursuit of the loot, Sloater and his men, working mostly without virtue of search warrants in cheap rooming houses and fleabag hotels, had ruthlessly torn apart any place any of the gang members had been known, or suspected, to stay. They had had tracked down relatives, girlfriends, neighbors and acquaintances and questioned them relentlessly. As the days turned to weeks, failure became increasingly frustrating and personally infuriating to Sloater; he was being beaten by a two-bit hood and, worse, the public he was sworn to protect was still the victim.
Sloater frowned up at the agent who had brought the latest report. “We’re missing something,” he said. “This stuff’s all in one place and it’s too valuable to just hide and walk away from. It’s got to be with someone Edgewink trusts.” Sloater stood and nodded at a map of the United Sates on the wall. “He came here from Rapid City, Iowa. I want you to get out there again and see what you can dig up. Friends, relatives, anybody he might still have a connection with.”
As the agent left, Sloater was looking at his calendar and aimlessly toying with the knife he had taken from Lester Edgewink, wondering how soon he could get back to Bangor and have another talk with its owner.
Chapter 1.4
July 31, 1937
Abel Edgewink whistled under his breath as he pushed a cart half filled with soiled laundry down the wide hallway. He paused, glancing around casually before entering Lester’s room.
Abel had quickly adapted to his new job and the hospital routine. His position as an orderly gave him access to all the patient areas, and he had located his brother on his second day on the job. The nurse who was showing him around the floor described Lester as a famous criminal who’d been badly injured and lost his mind. She enthusiastically recounted the shootout in grisly, if not precisely accurate, detail but assured Abel that Lester was completely passive and no longer posed a danger.
When he stepped into Lester’s room for the first time, Abel feared the nurse might be right in her assessment. Lester’s pale face was framed by oily locks of lank hair. His body seemed shrunken and bent with pain and his lips writhed in continuous, silent mumbling. It was only when the nurse turned away to adjust the window shade that Lester’s gaze sharpened and he tipped Abel his familiar wink.
Now, Abel pushed his cart into Lester’s room and left it to give his brother a hug. After a warm welcome, he turned back and retrieved the small canvass satchel from under the laundry.
“Here it is,” he said, excitedly, “All the jewels and a hundred grand in cash.”
“Watch the door,” Lester whispered, taking the satchel. He knelt and lifted a heating register set into the floor near his bed. The satchel just fit on its side between the open floor joists and was completely invisible when he put the grate back in place.
“If I can look around and find a better place, I’ll leave a note in there,” he said pointing at the register. “Just in case they move me or something before we can get out of here. I don’t know how much longer they’re going to buy this crazy routine.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Abel said with a grin. “The staff already thinks you’re harmless and they ain’t going to mind if you start wandering around in the daytime, as long as you take your daily dose of downers and don’t go too far.” Barbiturate therapy had the doubly beneficial effects of calming those patients prone to violence and keeping them from wandering away from the hospital (and their daily fix). It was a basic therapeutic plan of the day, and one that Abel had warned Lester about at the first opportunity. The two talked for another few minutes and then, promising to work on an escape plan, Abel left to continue his rounds.
Sloater strained to hear through the static of the long distance line.
“He’s got a younger brother named Abel. They were split up in an orphanage, but I think they got back together before Lester went east and it looks like Abel went with him.” The agent sounded like he was shouting down a long tunnel.
Penn Sloater gripped the receiver tightly in his excitement. “Can you get a picture?” he asked, loudly.
“I got one of Lester in high school, and a younger one of Abel in the orphanage.” replied the agent in Rapid City. “There’s nothing else here; I’m flying back tonight.”
Sloater hung up with a determined look on his face. He would dismantle Boston to find Abel Edgewink and his the stolen loot!
Chapter 1.5
August 18, 1937
Maine Superior Court Judge Elliot T. Manning II took a last look at his reflection in the oak-framed mirror which hung over the elegant side table in his office. He’d served the court for more than twenty years, but today’s hearing might be the most important of his career. Certainly it would be the most notorious.
Satisfied with his appearance, Judge Manning stepped out of his office, swept into his courtroom and mounted the bench, pausing, as always, to appreciate and absorb the calming atmosphere of the stately old chamber. Ignoring the crowd of onlookers behind the rail, he looked down and caught the eyes of the County Prosecutor and the baby-faced lawyer he had drafted as defense attorney for the apparently penniless Edgewink. “Are we ready to proceed?” he asked formally.
As both attorneys answered in the affirmative, Judge Manning studied the defendant.
Lester Edgewink sat quietly at the defense table, clad in shapeless, gray cotton pants and shirt and thin slippers. He was manacled hand and foot and appeared to be in an almost somnolent state.
A hum of whispered conversations arose from the audience, and
Judge Manning looked at them for the first time. “We are here,” he said in raised tone, “to determine the fitness of this defendant to stand trial for one or more murders committed here in Bangor and/or to be extradited to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to be tried for multiple crimes at the federal level. There is no jury, the decision is mine alone to make, and I can make it with or without an audience. You people will be quiet or I will clear this courtroom. Mr. Prosecutor, call your first witness.”
All that day, the prosecutor, a pompous, old-school barrister, introduced a parade of law enforcement witnesses who described in great detail the violence with which Lester had resisted arrest and the subsequent bloodbath. It was postulated that he was in Deerfield for the commission of some violent crime (Objection! Sustained), and further that he represented the first trickle of what would become a flood of big-city crime in Maine’s pristine communities (Objection! Also sustained). The final law enforcement witness was the F.B.I. agent in charge of the Boston office.
Penn Sloater took the stand and immediately got to the heart of the matter. “I swear,” he said, pointing at Lester in response to the prosecutor’s first question, “I personally know that man to be Lester Edgewink, late of Boston Massachusetts, for whom a federal warrant exists charging kidnapping and robbery.” Sloater went on to describe Lester as a master criminal whose intelligent and cunning stewardship of his gang resulted in their extraordinary success in avoiding apprehension and protecting their loot. He tried to sound sincere as he heaped praises on local law enforcement for their skill and sacrifices in bringing Lester to justice, and ended by pledging his own tireless efforts in completing the processes should Lester be remanded to his custody.
The following morning, the prosecution called the doctors and staff who treated Lester at the Bangor Hospital, who testified to his physical injuries, his apparently normal reactions to them and his subsequent transfer to Bangor State Hospital. The final prosecution witnesses were two private psychiatrists who had been hired to do independent mental examinations. Both agreed that although seemingly quite intelligent, Lester was currently in a diminished mental state. When pressed for an opinion, they ascribed his condition to guilt and ‘endogenous melancholia,’ a term that implied he was affected by extreme feelings of diminished self-worth, and held that the disorder, although seemingly debilitating, did not affect his competency to stand trial. Throughout both days of testimony, Lester sat passively in apparent indifference, his expression unchanging, and only the movement of his lips in soundless muttering and the occasional delicate driblet of drool lending animation to his presence.
With the prosecution closed, the young defense attorney stood to assume his place in the unfolding drama. He made no plea on behalf of his client nor any move to counter the State’s villainous descriptions of Edgewink and his gang. He called Dr. Hopewell who testified to the State Hospital’s role in confining and treating dangerous, even criminal, patients; followed him with the staff psychiatrist who had worked to evaluate and treat Lester for more than a month; and finally introduced a long procession of orderlies and nurses who all described Lester as harmless, completely out of touch with reality and totally indifferent to his own situation.
When it seemed that he had at last exhausted the hierarchy of potential mental health witnesses, the attorney turned to the judge and said, “The defense calls, as its last witness, Lester Edgewink.”
The prosecutor’s stentorious objections could scarcely be heard over the roar of the crowd, and Judge Manning beat a significant span off the life of his gavel before order was restored.
When a phalanx of grim faced court deputies finally quieted the shocked crowd, he nodded grimly at the prosecutor to continue.
“Your honor,” roared the rotund lawyer, arm raised, finger pointing to heaven, “the outrageous idea of this person… this, this zombie taking the stand makes a mockery of this proceeding and of this court. The prosecution strongly objects and stands in awe of the audacity of the defense for suggesting such a preposterous thing.”
The defense attorney stood tall. “Your Honor,” he said in a calm voice, we intend no disrespect to the court, but the defense still calls Lester Edgewink to the stand.”
Judge Manning concealed an appreciative grin as he paused, ostensibly to consider his ruling. ‘Audacity, indeed,’ he thought. He had listened carefully to the psychiatric testimony, particularly that of the people who were in daily contact with the defendant and had watched Edgewink closely while he was being reviled by the law enforcement witnesses. He would let the defense strategy play itself out. “Objection sustained,” he said.
The defense attorney’s shoulders slumped, but the look on his face was one of relief, not despair as he turned away from the prosecutor’s victorious smirk. “Your honor,” he said in a firm voice, “given the prosecution’s opinion that Mr. Edgewink is unfit to take part in his own defense at this hearing and the court’s affirmation of that opinion, I submit that the court has no choice but to find him, in his present condition, incompetent to stand trial in any court.”
The Judge’s gavel did not survive the ensuing outburst from the crowd.
In his written decision, Judge Manning ruled simply that Lester Edgewink was found incompetent to stand trial, and remanded him to the custody of the Bangor State Hospital, where continuing treatment and evaluation would dictate his eventual disposition.
Penn Sloater tried again after the trial, but his attempts to interrogate Lester were at first delayed by a protective hospital staff, and then defeated by Lester’s unresponsive attitude. Sloater returned to Boston two days after the hearing, grimly determined to find Abel Edgewink, recover Lester’s loot and rob him of at least that much of his victory.
Chapter 1.6
September 3, 1937
Lester Edgewink stood blinking in the unfamiliar sunlight. It had been determined that a light work schedule would be beneficial to his physical and mental recovery, and this morning the nurse had told him that he was going to be helping the maintenance department today. He had nodded and obligingly followed a large, middle aged man dressed in a gray coveralls out of the hospital.
“I’m Dan,” the large man said once they got outside. “I run most of the maintenance around here. We’re going to be working in the cemetery today, and you’re going to stick close to me and give me no trouble.” The penalty for non-compliance was left unspoken.
Glad to be outside and delighted at the unexpected chance to explore more of his surroundings, Lester smiled and nodded some more. “Ok,” he mumbled, shambling after Dan toward the rear of the building.
Lester spent the morning shoveling and raking as directed, working slowly, warmth and strength seeping back into flaccid muscles. At noon, Dan led him towards a couple of chairs outside the mortuary where a grizzled old man sat, tall and erect in the sun. Dan gestured at the man saying, “This is my father, Will Dennison. Dad, this is Lester.”
The old man leaned forward holding out his hand. “Please to meet ‘ya, young feller,” he said with a piercing look. “They call me Sarge.”
Wilber ‘Sarge’ Dennison was ninety-two years old and still had the weathered look and erect bearing of a career soldier. In 1862, at the age of 16 and suffused with the firm belief that no man should be slave to another, he had joined the newly created 6th Maine Battery of Light Artillery in Bangor. He proved to be an excellent soldier, surviving minor skirmishes and major battles - including 2nd Bull Run, Antietam and the three day hell at Gettysburg - unscathed. He was wearing the bright red stripes of an Artillery Corps Sergeant when he led his gun crew onto the field at Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia on May 8th, 1864. Whether those stripes caught the eye of a Confederate sharpshooter, or the Minnie ball that broke his left arm and three ribs was a simply a random shot will never be known, but Sarge Dennison’s war came to an end that day. He spent a week in a field hospital, miraculously avoiding the infection and amputation which was the normal aftermath of Civil War battlef
ield wounds, before being shipped back to Maine. Assigned to the Bangor garrison for convalescent duty, he re-enlisted and remained there until the unit was disbanded in 1885.
Settling in as a career garrison soldier, Sarge had taken a wife and built a small house at the edge of the garrison grounds. He was still there when the new hospital was constructed in 1901 and became a member of its first maintenance crew when it opened in 1902. He officially retired as head of maintenance in 1915, but would always be recognized as the grand old man of Hospital Hill. By 1937, Sarge was content to sit in the sun and share lunch with Dan and his workers while regaling them with tales of the war.
Now, nudging a large basket towards Lester with his toe, Sarge grinned. “You’d be the crook,” he said, nodding his head thoughtfully.
Startled, Lester momentarily forgot his insane act. “I guess I would,” he laughed, “but I still get to eat, don’t I?”
Sarge laughed, and Dan looked seriously at Lester. He sensed that this patient was different than others he had worked with, but that did not trouble his pragmatic mind. “As long as you’re willing to work and give me no trouble, I don’t care about the rest,” he said. “Sit for a while and have some lunch.”
In the days that followed, Lester became a more or less permanent cemetery worker, and he and Sarge developed a firm mutual friendship. Sarge seemed amused by Lester’s criminal escapades and Lester was fascinated by Sarge’s civil war adventures and particularly by his confession that he had made the garrison a secret station on the Underground Railroad in the latter years of the war. Sarge showed him where he had constructed a hidden cell in short tunnel off the cellar of the building that now housed the hospital mortuary and spoke with pride of those he had helped to find a new life.
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