The Last Midwife

by Sandra Dallas

  “Confine your remarks to answering the questions,” the judge admonished. “Your personal life is of no concern to this court.”

  The prosecutor paused until all eyes were on him, then asked in a dramatic voice, “And what makes you think that Mrs. Brookens strangled the baby?”

  “I recognized the thread. Nobody else uses linen thread that way, uses it to tie off a baby’s cord. I seen that on a baby that died once, seen it used on his belly.” He glanced at the judge, then said quickly, “Besides, Mr. Halleck told me she done it.”

  The judge pounded his gavel, but Coy had already spoken his piece and sat back, satisfied.

  “Thank you, Mr. Chaney. That’s all for this hearing. I believe, Your Honor, that Mr. Chaney has established that the baby was strangled and with a thread or cord known to be used by Mrs. Brookens.”

  Coy looked disappointed at being dismissed. He sat a moment longer as if hoping there would be more questions, but when the prosecutor made a scooting gesture with his hands, Coy got up from his chair and started down the aisle. Just as he reached Gracy, he said, “I hope you hang.”

  The judge banged his gavel again. “Enough of that talk, sir.”

  “Too late,” Coy mouthed to the room.

  Doak waited until Coy found a seat and then he called, “Richard Erickson. Dr. Richard Erickson,” and Little Dickie walked to the front of the room and was sworn in.

  “You are a medical doctor, not a quack,” the prosecutor began, glancing at Gracy. She stiffened, knowing the word “quack” was meant for her. “Tell us your medical background.”

  Little Dickie raised his chin and began to recite his educational accomplishments, the professional organizations to which he belonged, and his experience. Gracy noted that he didn’t have much to say about his experience.

  “You are a medical doctor, a trained medical doctor, then?” Doak asked.

  The judge leaned over the bench and said, “Enough, Mr. Doak. The court accepts that this man is a doctor.”

  “I was just making sure.”

  “You did. Go ahead.”

  “You examined the murdered baby,” Doak said, drawing out the word “murdered.”

  “I did.”

  “Tell us about him.”

  Little Dickie cleared his throat, then described in great detail the condition of the baby, using language so technical that only Gracy had an idea of what he was talking about. The doctor seemed to enjoy his performance and prolonged it more than was necessary. Finally, the judge said, “Mr. Doak, would you like to ask your witness to state that in English?”

  Little Dickie gave a disdainful smile and said, “I concluded the baby died of strangulation a day or two before he was brought to me, strangled with a length of linen string.”

  “Well, you should have said so and saved us all time,” the judge told him.

  “I am just being thorough.”

  “Too thorough,” the judge muttered. “There is other business before this court today. Move it along, Mr. Doak.”

  The prosecutor dismissed Little Dickie and then announced, as if he were calling forth President Grant himself, “My last witness is Jonas Halleck.”

  Gracy had not seen the man since the day she’d examined Josie’s baby, and her hands shook as she turned to stare at him. Jonas refused to catch her eye.

  Looking important, he walked slowly to the front of the room and raised his hand, saying, “I do,” when the clerk swore him in. He rubbed his hand across his face, and Gracy thought he might have been drinking. His nose was red, and his eyes were glazed. She’d never heard that Halleck was an imbiber, but that might be the reason Edna was in the temperance society. You never knew about vices that took place behind closed doors.

  “Tell us how you saw Mrs. Brookens strangle the baby,” Mr. Doak said.

  “We haven’t established she did. Rephrase your question,” the judge ordered.

  Before the prosecutor could speak, Halleck said, “I saw her do it. She held that baby with her back to me, working over him, and then she laid him in the cradle. And when I went to pick him up later on, he wasn’t breathing. There was a red ring around his neck and what was left of a piece of string, too.”

  Gracy glanced at Ted. If her back was to Mr. Halleck, how could he say he’d seen her strangle the baby? Ted caught her eye and gave a faint nod.

  But Doak had seen the contradiction, too, and he asked, “If she turned away as you said, how was it you saw Mrs. Brookens murder the infant?”

  Halleck had spoken softly before, but now his voice rose. “I saw her hold the baby. I saw her turn her back to me. And when next I picked up my son, he was dead. If that isn’t seeing, what is?”

  He stared at Doak so hard that the prosecutor muttered, “Indeed, sir, what is?” Flustered, Doak studied his notes, then asked. “You know Mr. Brookens, Mr. Daniel Brookens, husband of Mrs. Brookens. Is that correct?”

  “It is. He was in my employ. I fired him.”

  “And why was that?”

  “He’s too old. Besides, he high-graded. Mining isn’t charity work.”

  “And you think maybe Mrs. Brookens strangled your baby because you fired her husband?”

  The judge interrupted, saying what Halleck thought was of no consequence.

  Halleck ignored him. “What other reason would there be? She is a hateful woman.”

  “I think we’ve heard enough,” Doak said. “You are excused, Mr. Halleck, with the sympathy of the court over the loss of your precious son.”

  Halleck didn’t stand up, however. “What about you?” he asked Ted. “Aren’t you going to question me? I’ve gone up against you shysters a time or two. I’m not afraid of you.”

  “This is a hearing. The defense doesn’t have a say. He’ll have that right at trial,” Doak answered. The prosecutor thought that over and added slyly, “If there is a trial, and I believe there will be one.” He grinned at the judge, who didn’t return the smile. He watched as Halleck returned to his seat. Then addressing the room instead of the judge, Doak said, “That’s all the evidence I need to present.”

  “Won’t Edna have a say?” Gracy whispered to Ted

  He shook his head. “Sheriff Miller talked to her—and to the daughter, too—and they nodded when he asked if you’d killed the baby. But they wouldn’t talk to him. I tried to speak with her, but she wouldn’t see me. Her husband’s all but got her locked up.” Then he whispered, “What you told me about her daughter, I guess the sheriff didn’t tell the prosecutor. I bet Doak doesn’t know she might be the mother.”

  The judge glared at Ted to be still, then turned to the prosecutor. “You were saying?”

  “I believe we have established that the Halleck baby was murdered and that the evidence points to Mrs. Gracy Brookens as the killer. I ask that you prefer charges against her, that you charge her with murder in the first degree.”

  “She never—” Daniel yelled.

  The judge banged his mallet, while Gracy turned to look at Daniel, who had risen in his chair as he spoke. “I will have no outbursts,” the judge said.

  “She’s my wife. I know her better than anybody, and I know she never did such a thing,” Daniel insisted.

  Jeff pulled his father down and said loudly enough for Gracy to hear, “Be still, Pa. You don’t do her any good speaking out that way.”

  There were a few mutters in the courtroom. One man said, “You tell him, Daniel,” while another called, “She ain’t no killer, not her.” A woman called, “No!”

  Gracy barely heard the cries of support, as she stared at the judge, hoping he would say a charge of murder against her was nonsense. But she knew that wouldn’t happen. After all, three men who had testified had said just the opposite. She gripped Ted’s arm, her fingers digging into his flesh as the judge gaveled the room to silence.

  “Murder is a serious accusation, and this court does not take it lightly. Mrs. Brookens is a respected member of the community,” the judge said.

  �
�We haven’t established she is any such thing,” Doak said quietly.

  “Don’t interrupt, Mr. Doak. Mrs. Brookens’s reputation is well known, not only in Swandyke but across the Tenmile.”

  Gracy relaxed a little.

  “However,” he said, and Gracy’s shoulders slumped. “However, it appears from the testimony of Dr. Erickson and Mr. Chaney that someone murdered that baby. Mr. Halleck has accused Mrs. Brookens. There is no physical evidence she committed the crime. It is his word against, presumably, Mrs. Brookens’s. So I believe it is appropriate to take this case to trial. I do not believe that this is first-degree murder, however. If Mrs. Brookens did it, then it was a crime of passion—manslaughter. You have your indictment, Mr. Doak. Trial will commence the next time the court meets in Swandyke. I expect that to be in four weeks, maybe sooner.”

  Gracy slumped against the back of the chair. The reality of the manslaughter charge hit her every bit as hard as if she had been chunked on the head with a piece of ore. She put her hands to her face, her fingers pressed against her eyes to keep from crying. She’d be ashamed if anyone saw her cry.

  She started to get up, but Ted held her down. “We’re not through yet,” he whispered.

  Doak was speaking to the judge. “We ask that Mrs. Brookens be jailed until the trial,” he said.

  Gracy turned to Ted, her eyes wide. “There’s women due. I can’t deliver their babies in jail.”

  “Your Honor,” Ted spoke up. “I believe I have a say in this matter. As you yourself said, Mrs. Brookens is a respected member of this community. There are women whose babies are about to be born, and incarcerating Mrs. Brookens would do them a great disservice. You would punish them more than the defendant.”

  “There’s a doctor can deliver babies,” Doak argued.

  “I don’t want Little Dickie,” a woman called, and the courtroom laughed.

  “I’ll make sure she’s here for the trial,” John Miller said. Gracy sent him a grateful look.

  The judge thought a moment. “I don’t see any reason to lock her up, Mr. Doak. It’s on you, John. You make sure of her appearance.”

  The sheriff nodded, glancing at Gracy, who remembered how he had urged her to disappear. There weren’t many who were such good friends as Mittie McCauley and John Miller, even though he had gathered evidence against her.

  “That’s all for this case,” the judge said, looking down at a paper in front of him. “Next we got a man suing the owner of a dog he says took off with a pouch of gold dust.” The judge smiled. “We’ll take a minute, since I expect most of you didn’t come to hear that case.”

  People got up then, scraping their feet, muttering, here and there expressing an opinion about the outcome of the hearing. Gracy stayed where she was, however, too stunned to move. “I’d hoped…” she said.

  “We got just what we wanted,” Ted told her.

  Gracy didn’t understand. “I’m charged with murder.”

  “With manslaughter, not murder. That’s a much lesser charge, easier to defend. After those three men spoke out against you, the judge had to do something. We just have to prove someone else might have killed the baby.”

  “Jonas Halleck.”

  “My money’s on him.”

  “But how do we prove it?”

  “We don’t. We just cast enough doubt that you did it, enough so that at least one juror votes you not guilty. I believe we can do that.”

  “Mr. Halleck has his hates. You could see that on his face when he looked at me. I believe he’ll have a way of getting men on that jury who’ll vote to hang me.”

  “It’s my job to see he doesn’t,” Ted said, but he didn’t sound as confident as Gracy wished.

  Twelve

  Gracy was mute as she and the lawyer followed the crowd outside. She could see Daniel standing a few steps away; he was angry and agitated as he stood in the sunshine, taking in huge gulps of air.

  These charges against his wife, they were all a mistake, Gracy heard him say, his voice loud with scorn.

  Jeff gripped his father’s arm as he searched the crowd for Gracy. “Ma needs us. Come along, Pa.”

  Daniel nodded and said in a voice loud enough for Gracy to hear, “She was right glad to see you. Surprised, too.”

  “You didn’t tell her I was coming?” Jeff’s voice rose above the murmur of the crowd.

  “Didn’t know for sure you really were, not after the way you taken out. I didn’t want to disappoint her if you didn’t show up.”

  “You knew I would.”

  “Did I?” Daniel shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d run off that way. God, hell!”

  Gracy hurried toward her husband and son. At seventeen, Jeff was a slimmer, taller version of his father. No one could doubt that Jeff was Daniel’s son. The boy had Daniel’s handsome face, his broad shoulders, his hips, but his brown eyes were the color of Gracy’s. Well, almost. They had bits of amber that Gracy’s didn’t have. The flecks made his eyes sparkle like shards of quartz in the sun.

  Just as Gracy reached the two, someone grabbed Daniel’s hand and said, “It’s a crime, them charging her with murder. My missus thinks a heap of yours after the Sagehen sat through two nights with her. I don’t hardly believe she’d have made it if Mrs. Brookens hadn’t been there. You let us know can we do anything.”

  Others murmured their support and slapped Daniel on the back. But not everyone, and a miner said in a loud voice, “That’s the murderer’s man.”

  Daniel punched the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left and stared at the miner who’d insulted Gracy. The man backed away, and Jeff grabbed his father’s arm and steered him to Gracy.

  She watched them approach, her back straight, her lanky body in the dark dress black against the shadow of the courthouse. After Gracy’s dress was ripped in the buggy accident, Daniel bought her a new one, red, the bright color of fireweed, and she had exclaimed over it. But Ted had said her black merino—her Sunday dress—would be better for a courtroom, even though the room would be as hot as a frying pan inside, and so she had worn the old dress, a garment that had been old when Jeff was a baby.

  People stopped talking then, and the silence was eerie, so quiet that Gracy heard the song of a lark bunting and the swish of a squirrel as it scampered up a pine tree. Most people looked openly at Gracy, curious, although a few pretended not to stare and glanced at her from the corners of their eyes. They were watching, waiting to see if she said anything they could repeat, something they could gossip about. A woman clapped, and a few others took it up. It was their way of supporting her. Still, Gracy thought the display odd, more like people clapping at the end of a minstrel show. That was what the hearing had been, and the trial would be worse, a show, an entertainment, something for people to watch and snicker over.

  Daniel saw Gracy, and the two of them smiled at each other, the laugh lines beside her mouth and eyes deepening. Then she turned to Jeff and held out her arms. It was an unusual gesture, right out there where people could see. She had never kissed Daniel except when they were alone, and when he took her hand once as they were walking along a street, she had snatched it back, embarrassed. She didn’t show her emotion with her son, either, not in front of people. But right then, Gracy didn’t care what people thought. She hugged her son, and he hugged back, just as he had when he was a boy.

  “Son,” she said, her eyes glistening with tears.

  “Hello, Ma,” he said as he pulled away, grinning. “You’re still pretty as ever.”

  Gracy couldn’t help but laugh at that. She was aware she’d never been much to look at, but in Jeff’s eyes, she knew, she’d always been beautiful.

  “You can’t keep out of trouble when I’m not around to look after you, can you?” he asked.

  “Seems not,” Gracy said. She used her arm to wipe away the tears. Her eyes watered more now, although she still didn’t cry much. “I never saw a sight in my life that looked so good as you there in the courtroom with your
pa. Why, it was almost worth getting into trouble just to have you home.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t worth that much.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “But it’s good to see you just the same. Where’ve you been?”

  “Oh, here and there, everywhere. I went out west, back to Virginia City.”

  “I figured you would.” She put her hand on his shirtfront, feeling the warmth of his skin through the fabric.

  “I didn’t like it so much as Swandyke.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. There aren’t mountains there like the Tenmile, and I know you love a mountain with snow as deep as your head in winter and aspen trees with leaves the color of green apples in the summer. The mountains out there are kind of dry with sun, and puny, as mountains go.”

  “And you and Pa weren’t there.”

  “There’s that, and you’re a good boy to say so.”

  Jeff looked around and saw people watching them, leaning close to hear what he and his mother were talking about, for many were curious about why the boy had disappeared the year before without a word to his friends. Jeff stepped back from his mother. “We got time to catch up later.”

  Gracy glanced around and took her son’s meaning. “Best to go on home now,” she said.

  She took a step, but a woman gabbed Jeff’s arm and welcomed him home. Then Jeff exchanged words with a young man his own age, and by the time the talking was done, the crowd had dispersed, leaving only those with business at the courthouse.

  A man came up to Gracy then and said, “Mrs. Brookens, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get your side of the story.” He didn’t introduce himself, because Gracy knew him as Joseph Grossman, the editor of the Swandyke Clarion.

  “My side? I’ve got no side. Only the truth.”

  “She has nothing to say,” Ted Coombs said, coming up beside Gracy.

  The man started to protest, but instead he turned to Daniel. “What about you, Dan. What do you think of all this?”

  “It’s a goddamn shame—”Daniel began.

  Ted cut him off. “He’s got nothing to say, either. Ask me your questions. I’m Mrs. Brookens’s solicitor.”