“It’s a photograph that has been used to smear a good woman’s name. Enjoy your two hundred dollars.”
As he walked home that evening, one of Rosalind’s starchy proverbs intruded. Glass, china, and reputations are easily cracked and never well-mended. She had been laughing when she said it. How little attention he had paid at the time, but the statement was painfully true. Anything he did to offset this disaster would be no more than a crude bandage plastered over a delicate and luminous work of art.
But he still needed to do what he could for Rosalind. It would be impossible to stuff the Heidelberg gossip back into the genie’s bottle, but perhaps there was something else he could do to prove how sorry he was. He could give her something she didn’t even realize that she wanted.
To do that, he needed the help of Dr. Leal and George Fuller, but he knew where he could find them and was determined to make it happen.
Chapter
Nineteen
Rosalind used to enjoy the walk to her house from the streetcar stop. It was only a five-block walk, but she loved these compact, well-maintained houses with tidy lawns and brimming flower boxes. They signified a degree of professional success, and she felt a sense of accomplishment each time she strolled toward home.
Not anymore. Now women peeked out the window as she passed, their faces a mix of curiosity and derision. The Germans had a word for it. Schadenfreude: the niggling burst of delight taken in another person’s misfortune. Rosalind had witnessed the subtle gloating from her neighbors each time she walked down the street or stepped outside to retrieve the morning newspaper. Even the children knew about her shame. As she walked past a pair of boys, one leaned over to whisper in the other’s ear. They let out a rude noise, pointed, then ran off amidst gales of laughter.
It was best to ignore them. She still had the respect of Dr. Leal, and if any of the college students helping at the lab thought she was a fallen woman, they did not show it to her face. They were all too busy racing to complete their analysis and print the report ahead of the judge’s ninety-day deadline, which was less than a week away.
Something was going on in the front of her house. Neighbors stood in a line along the modest picket fence, but a big black automobile blocked her view of the house. Her palms started sweating as she saw the emblem for the local police department stenciled on the side of the car. She picked up her skirts and ran. Had there been another robbery? Or something wrong with the baby? He could have fallen down the stairs or burned himself in the kitchen.
“Get out of my way,” she ordered as she cut through the crowd of onlookers.
Relief surged through her as she spotted Gus and Ingrid on the front porch, the baby happily sucking his thumb as Ingrid bounced him on her knee.
“What’s happening?” she asked Gus, panting from the sprint home.
“The police are inside,” he said in a low voice. “They’re looking for something.”
She blinked in confusion. “What? Why?” If they needed something, all they had to do was ask, and she would produce it. Could this be related to the chlorine tests?
“They wouldn’t say, but they have a warrant.”
“A warrant?” she asked, unable to keep the appalled tone from her voice. Weren’t warrants something used in criminal investigations? A lot of people were angry over the chlorine tests, but Judge McLaughlin said they hadn’t broken any laws. Maybe the city was trying some low trick to cast aspersions on her character.
“They’ve been here for almost an hour and don’t appear to have found anything,” Gus said, “but they’re still looking.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m going inside.”
The police refused to let her pass. “All members of the household must remain outside until our investigation is complete,” the brusque sergeant said.
“But what are you investigating? I haven’t done anything wrong!” She wrapped her arms around her middle and hoped her nervous trembling couldn’t be seen by her curious neighbors. How mortifying to have this on top of everything else. There would come a time when Dr. Leal wouldn’t be able to continue standing behind her. Maybe even Doctor Clean would be forced to distance himself and his company from their association, and she needed that quarterly infusion of cash from her stock.
In all likelihood, this was some tactic by the city to embarrass her and cast doubt on the validity of the chlorine study. Soon this would all be over, and she could go inside and strategize with Gus about how to diffuse the pointless attack on her reputation.
Ten minutes later, she learned otherwise.
“Please come inside, ma’am,” the sergeant said tersely.
She shot to her feet and crossed the threshold, glancing in dismay at the stacks of books mounded on the floor and the drawers pulled open. Her house was a mess! It was going to take hours to put this all to rights.
When Gus and Ingrid tried to follow, the sergeant stopped them. “Just the homeowner. Everyone else needs to remain outside.”
“He’s my lawyer,” Rosalind said. “I have a right to an attorney, and I want Gus with me.”
Neither police officer looked happy about it, but the sergeant nodded gruffly, then directed her back to the kitchen, where papers had been stacked on the table. Gus was right beside her as they stared at the assortment of papers and a few bound ledgers.
“We have a warrant to seize these materials. Acting on a confidential tip, we came looking for evidence of a scheme to embezzle funds from the Doctor Clean company. It looks like we found it.”
She gaped at the paperwork, speechless. Why would she need to embezzle from Doctor Clean? She already earned a comfortable income every quarter.
“I’ve never seen those papers in my life,” she choked out. “They aren’t mine!”
“And yet they were in your possession. They corroborate our tip that you are funneling money to a bank account in Germany.”
She tried to formulate a sentence, but all she could do was stammer. She wouldn’t know how to perpetrate an embezzlement scheme if her life depended on it. A chill raced through her so strongly that her teeth started chattering.
“Those papers don’t belong to me,” she managed to get out.
The sergeant held up a piece of paper. “This letter is addressed to you from Mr. Peter Schmidt. You know him?”
Peter was the accountant for Doctor Clean and sent her the quarterly revenue from her stock. He’d offered to buy her out earlier in the summer.
“Yes, I know him, but I’ve never seen that letter—”
“Rosalind, you don’t have to talk to them,” Gus interrupted. “In fact, you shouldn’t.”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m willing to answer any questions. I want this cleared up right away.”
Gus grabbed her arms and turned her to face him, his voice stern. “Get used to the idea that we aren’t going to clear this up tonight. I need you to listen to me and follow my advice. Someone is trying to frame you, and they are ten steps ahead of us. Anything you do on the spur of the moment will probably play into their trap.”
She swallowed hard. Everything Gus said was surely correct, for the odd assortment of financial papers and bank statements weren’t hers and had to have been planted, probably by the man who broke into her home a few weeks ago for no apparent reason.
“We have a court order to take you into custody, ma’am,” the sergeant said. “You’ll have to come with us. Now.”
“Are you arresting me?” This couldn’t be happening. Any moment she was going to snap awake from this nightmare and find herself safe in bed and planning her day at the laboratory.
“Yes, ma’am. If you come along quietly, there will be no need for handcuffs. If you want to be difficult, we can cuff and frog-march you out past all your neighbors. Your choice.”
Her mouth went dry, and she glanced at Gus, who looked as helpless as she felt. Finally, he found his voice. “What about bail?” he asked. “Can we both go down to the courthouse and pay
that now to avoid this whole farce?”
The sergeant shook his head. “A bail hearing will be held at a later date. It’s up to a judge to determine how serious the offense is.”
In the end she decided to go quietly. Only a handful of onlookers still loitered outside her house, but they watched as she stepped up into the back of the glossy black police wagon. Gus wasn’t allowed to go with her. She’d never felt so alone as when the door of the wagon slammed shut, enclosing her in a dim compartment that smelled like sweat and had only two hard benches along each side.
She was on her own.
In her wildest nightmares, Rosalind had never wondered what the inside of a women’s jail looked like, but she certainly hadn’t expected this. Jersey City wasn’t large enough to have a female jail, so women were held in a separate section in the men’s jail. That “section” was in the converted attic, a long, narrow room beneath the steeply pitched roof. The wall of heat as Rosalind walked inside almost knocked her flat.
Ten bunk beds filled most of the floor space, but there were only eight women in the attic. Four were pickpockets, two were here for public drunkenness, and the teenaged girl had lit a schoolyard trash can on fire. The only truly alarming inmate was Melinda, a massive woman with beefy arms who worked as a cook at the local train depot and had been accused of poisoning her employers.
“Did you?” Rosalind asked in trepidation, expecting a quick denial. Didn’t everyone in jail deny the accusations?
Melinda’s triumphant expression took her aback. “Some people just need poisoning,” she said ominously.
Rosalind quickly retreated to a vacant bed as far away from Melinda as possible, fanning herself in the motionless heat of the attic. Attics were always warm, but this one seemed unusually oppressive.
“It’s because we’re over the kitchen,” one of the women explained. “You’ll want to strip out of that getup, or you’ll die of heat up here.”
Rosalind wore a high-collared cotton blouse with a woolen vest made by her aunt in Germany. Never in her life had she shown her bare arms in public, but all the women in this attic wore nothing but bloomers and a chemise. They draped their clothing over the iron bedsteads, and the entire room smelled like dirty laundry.
“I’ll be okay,” Rosalind said, clutching her hand to her throat, which the other women thought hysterical. The girl who’d set the trash can on fire hooted and called her a fussy prude.
A woman named Gabriella, who looked far too skinny to be sporting such an obviously pregnant belly, sprawled on the bunk next to her, fanning herself with vigor. “We won’t tease you when you change your mind. It’s only going to get hotter as the ovens downstairs cool off.”
“Can’t we open the window?” Rosalind asked. There was a large one at the end of the room, but it was closed.
“The warden says it’s an escape risk, and it’s been nailed shut,” Gabriella said. “We can keep the door open, so that helps a little.”
Another surprise. The women weren’t even locked into the attic. At Rosalind’s look of astonishment, one of the inmates explained that the prison kept two vicious dogs at the base of the stairs, and if any woman tried to leave, the whole jail would know it.
Everyone was here only until their trial could be held or a family member was able to post bail. None of these women had been able to come up with the bail money, and they were stuck here until their trial. It was outrageous that these women should be incarcerated in this sweltering attic for want of fifty dollars. Rosalind had hoped to be released by tomorrow morning, but she’d been told by the warden that it would be a few days, since the judge only heard bail hearings twice a week.
It was another embarrassment. Would Judge McLaughlin be responsible for setting her bail? He was the only judge she knew, and it would compound her mortification if the man who lived down the street from her learned of this humiliating event.
The women had been right about her inability to remain fully clothed for long. It was impossible to sleep while drenched in sweat, and Rosalind gave up, stripping down to her chemise like the others. Even so, the air was stagnant and oppressive, and she lay awake most of the night, staring at the starlit sky out the window.
It was a casement window, with two large sections that ought to be able to swing out but had been nailed shut in the interest of security. At the top were two narrower windows, no more than a foot high, but they were simple pieces of glass mounted to the window jamb.
Rosalind eyed the smaller windows. If she had her music box tools, she could attach a hinge to the top of each of those two narrow windows and prop them both open. Just thinking about how much those few inches could cool the room made the heat feel even more oppressive.
With luck, Gus would be able to get her out soon, so thinking about how she could modify this space was pointless. She finally drifted into a feverish doze in the hours before sunrise when the heat faded a few degrees.
The jail insisted all the female inmates perform chores during the day, and Rosalind welcomed the reprieve from the hot attic. Most of the women were assigned to kitchen duty, but the poisonous Melinda was obviously precluded from kitchen work. That meant she was assigned to show Rosalind how to assist in the laundry.
It wasn’t a complicated task. Melinda did the scrubbing while Rosalind performed the wringing. As the hours passed, Rosalind held her breath each time a person walked past the open door, certain she was about to be called to the visiting room to talk with Gus. Her fingers grew waterlogged as she lifted socks from the rinse tub, then fed them through the wringer of the clothes press and turned the crank. At first the job seemed easy, but a blister soon formed at the base of her thumb, and residue from the soap made her skin tighten and itch.
It was late in the afternoon before a guard came to tell her Gus was in the visiting room. Her clothing was spattered with water and sweat stains, but she must have looked even worse than she felt, as Gus blanched in horror when he saw her.
“I don’t look that bad, do I?” she said, trying to summon a bit of humor. Soon this would all be over, and she’d have a story to tell her grandchildren after the mortification wore off.
Gus merely shrugged as he took a seat opposite her in a small room with four tables and a warden’s desk at the front. Two of the other tables had tough-looking male inmates at them. She didn’t relish discussing private business with so many strangers in the room, but she didn’t have much choice. She looked at Gus with expectation.
“I don’t have any good news,” he said. “The judge has set your bail at five thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand!” she gasped. “The other women need only pay fifty dollars. The largest bail I’ve heard was a hundred dollars. Five thousand? Are you sure?”
“They said you’re a flight risk because you have family in Germany, where you’ve spent most of your adult life. They think you also have plenty of money stashed away in some German bank account, all swindled from Doctor Clean.”
Her mind reeled at the news. She didn’t think she could endure another night like last night, but even worse, how could she prove herself innocent while locked up here doing other people’s laundry?
“I’ll never be able to raise five thousand dollars,” she whispered. Unless she could borrow it from someone. Nick was ridiculously rich, but they weren’t even on speaking terms. She swallowed hard and met Gus’s gaze. “Doctor Clean?” she asked.
The expression of pained sympathy on Gus’s face did not bode well. “I wish to heaven I didn’t have to tell you this, but after Doctor Clean was informed of the charges, he cut all ties with you. There is a moral turpitude clause in your original contract, so he’s got the right to cut you loose without a penny. He did so.”
She curled over. She had no other income aside from Doctor Clean. The quarterly bank note on her house came due at the end of next month. Most of the money from her parents had been going toward her living expenses, and Dr. Leal couldn’t afford to pay her.
She als
o needed to hire a real lawyer. Gus hadn’t passed the necessary tests to practice law in New Jersey and wouldn’t be permitted to defend her in court. It was becoming apparent there was no quick escape for her. Whoever was framing her had put a lot of work into forging those documents and persuading the judge she was a flight risk.
“What about Peter Schmidt?” she asked. “Have they arrested him too?”
“They tried. He was able to post bail right away, but Doctor Clean has fired him as well.”
She thought quickly. “Could you seek him out? My hunch is that he’s also innocent and is being targeted as a way to get to me.”
“Maybe,” Gus said. “Or it could be that Schmidt really has been siphoning funds from the company and used you as some kind of decoy. I’ll know more in a few days.”
Her muscles ached as she climbed the stairs back up to the attic, weary, water-stained, and depressed. She felt like weeping as the wall of heat clobbered her.
Well, she wasn’t going to weep. She was going to find a way to rig those top windows open. Two sets of hinges rimmed both of the large lower windows that were nailed shut. All she had to do was transfer the hinges to the upper windows and cut a seam into the jamb. Over the years, she had attached the lids to dozens of music boxes, and the principles of rigging something to swing open and closed were the same.
She couldn’t do it without tools. If she had a screwdriver and a jigsaw, she could have the smaller windows open before nightfall.
The warden was instantly suspicious when she asked for the tools.
“Those are weapons, and you are criminals!” he said.
She drew herself to her full height, grateful for the high-necked collar that gave her an air of dignity even in this humiliating situation. “I am a biochemist, and these women are pickpockets. The tools are more likely to be stolen than used as a weapon.”
Unless Melinda got her hands on them, but given the way all the women in the attic were silently cheering her on, she didn’t think Melinda would interfere.
A Daring Venture Page 23