by Speer Morgan
“What kind of questions?”
“First he said that he didn’t know my mother, but then he asked me things that half admitted he was lying, like how had she died, had I been there, were we reconciled. I asked him what he meant by ‘reconciled,’ and he said he meant were we close. He wanted to know whether I was married. He didn’t ask it casually or lightly like people will do.”
“Whether you were married?”
“He demanded to know whether I was married.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“He had a set to his face, kind of mean, kind of confused. ‘Are you married?’ he said.”
“Well, did you answer him?”
“I did, but I was getting nervous.”
“Because you were a lone woman—”
“Oh, heavens no. He wasn’t acting that way. I expected him to be suspicious and provoked. To tell you the truth, I thought he’d just tell me to depart the premises. I expected that. I didn’t expect him to be asking all kind of questions about me.” She was staring up toward the Jesus. “It caught me by surprise. It didn’t even seem to have much to do with the money. At first I thought he was going to reveal something, maybe talk to me about my mother, but he didn’t. He acted like my mother had, ten years before, the day she told me about him. As if he couldn’t speak what was really on his mind. I had the strangest feeling, like I’d been there before.” She broke her stare and looked at Jake. “Anyway, there we were. I told him that I’d come to offer him a way to right what was wrong, and I earnestly requested some answer from him. He faltered a little. Finally he turned around and looked me square in the eye and told me to leave his house.”
“Debt collectors are usually tobacco-chewing men in dirty black suits,” Jake said. “And here comes one looking like you. I can see how it might throw him a little off.”
She reached into the dress pocket and pulled out a small rectangle that Jake had to hold up close to his eyes in the dim light. It was a twenty-five-cent studio portrait of a young girl with long darkish hair and striking eyes. Jake’s unhesitating, first thought was that it was a picture of Sam as a child. On the back was written, in what looked like Mr. Dekker’s distinctive, looping hand,
M. King’s daught.
Left b.
“Where’d you get this?”
“It came from a photograph album in his sitting room.” She pointed at the last of the scrawl. “What do you think that means?”
“‘Left b.’? . . . Left before, left back, left . . . behind.” A chill went through Jake. “Did he give this to you?”
“No. Tom went to his house later that night. You had asked him to find out if Ralph was back from St. Louis. Well, he did, and he found him dead in his bedroom. The photo album was on the floor in the sitting room, and this was in it. Those words were written beside the photograph as well as on the back.”
“Tom found Mr. Dekker dead?”
“Yes.”
“So Ralph got killed between the time you left and Tom came?”
She looked him in the eyes and nodded.
“You told me earlier that you knew nothing about who your father was. Is that right?”
“I didn’t care, or thought I didn’t.”
Jake tried to see Mr. Dekker as someone who abandoned children and rued back on personal debts. All these years he had thought of the old man as a model of rough but honest dealing—a truth teller, stingy but straight. But he hadn’t really known much about Ralph’s past or his private life.
“So what happened to him, Sam?”
“I don’t know. I left him standing in his house looking tired.” “Why wouldn’t he talk to you?”
“He wanted to. Like my mother had wanted to. The way he was questioning me, asking me all about whether I was married and reconciled and all. That was as close as he could get.” Her voice went small. “I don’t judge him,” she said, her voice barely audible in the sound of the wind. She closed her eyes and shockingly big tears popped out of them. “God knows, I can’t judge anybody.” Jake didn’t know what to say. “Hadn’t your mother told you anything about who your father was?”
She looked at him and said nothing. She looked as if she was having trouble breathing. “Oh, Jake. My momma couldn’t tell me the truth about whether the sky was blue or grey. She couldn’t tell me the truth about anything. She was trying to keep me as far away as possible. She was trying to prevent me from entering her life.”
“Why didn’t you just go to Ralph in the first place about this debt business? Why’d you latch on to me?”
“I had no reason to trust him. I had to find out about him. Get whatever I could on him. Learn about his business. Find out whether he even had any money.”
“From me,” Jake stated, looking at her.
“That’s right.”
“And did I give you the information you needed?” Jake said. She stared at the picture. “You told me he was going to the bank in St. Louis.”
“And that’s why you left Guthrie in such a hurry?”
“Yes. And he did go to St. Louis. He took forty thousand dollars in cash from his bank.”
“Borrowed it?”
“No, it was his own money. All of his savings. He took it in cash.”
Jake understood now. “That’s why we’re out here, then. Where is it? Do you know?”
“He told me to leave his house. I left. I left him standing there. I don’t know where his money is.” She looked away. “He was my father, Jake. He had the chance, and he wouldn’t tell me. Something stopped him. The question about whether I was married was as close as he could get. He knew about me and was ashamed of me.”
“Maybe he was ashamed of himself.”
26
AT TEN-THIRTY Tuesday morning, walking with LaFarge through snow-quiet streets, up the ample entrance steps of the new courthouse, into its ominously wide halls, Tom again remembered Johnny Pointer’s struggle against the marshals as he was being dragged, now drooping, now stiff, yelling and sobbing up the thirteen stairs. Tom’s sympathy for Johnny Pointer was deepening. It was the loss of control and dignity more than death itself that he thought about. Being reduced to a pleading, frenzied animal. At least three times over the last few days he had sensed it happening to him, or almost happening—the accustomed solidity of things melting away, and his own mind floating somewhere outside himself.
The hollowness of the courthouse halls made him conscious of his heart beating against his clothes. At LaFarge’s request, Tom wore the buckskin suit that Jake had bought for him in Tulsa, flamboyant with fringe along the breast and arm seams. Tom almost laughed when he saw the image of the lawyer and himself in the glass-paneled door at the end of the hall: a tall, slightly stooped white-haired gentleman and an Indian in buckskin. An Indian! LaFarge briefly hesitated before opening the door that Said JUDGE ISAAC C. PARKER, 13TH DISTRICT COURT.
He spoke to the secretary, a corpulent man with muttonchops and cold eyes, who acted annoyed but asked them to wait in the hall while he went off to the courtroom. LaFarge glanced at Tom and tried to look reassuring, indicating the satchel. “Have faith. All we have to do is tell him the truth.”
Tom had had an entire sleepless night to think about truth and lies, and about how dangerous a game he was playing, about what he could say and what he couldn’t say, and the more he thought, the more complicated it became. He knew now why he had been for the most part defiantly truthful when he lived at Bokchito: because lies were like building rickety steps beneath yourself into the air, adding one more flight in this direction and then that direction, until sooner or later the whole thing is swaying in the wind, threatening to crash down. Now he was about to admit that he had gone to Muskogee with the person who was found, or soon would be found, in the basement with the dead Reverend Schoot. Admitting it to LaFarge was one thing, Parker was quite another.
The courtroom door at the other end of the hall burst open, startling them both. Two marshals, with big holsters an
d mouths set grimly beneath ornate mustaches, appeared out of a blue haze of tobacco smoke with a man in handcuffs and leg irons, blinking his eyes, stumbling awkwardly before them.
Leonard watched anxiously as the judge came down the hall with the secretary talking to him in an undertone.
The judge’s hair was cotton white, and his face looked puffy and sickly. In the hallway he gave both Tom and LaFarge a brief handshake and smile. He smelled like borax soap.
“I recall you, Mr. LaFarge. Haven’t you practiced in my court?”
“I did, sir, some years ago.”
“Do you practice elsewhere now?” he asked pleasantly.
“Yes sir, in Guthrie. Not so long ago I returned to the territory and fell into my former trade.”
Judge Parker smiled. “Did you try some other occupation?”
LaFarge looked slightly pained but answered him. “I tried several, Your Honor.”
“Oh?”
“Yes sir, I traveled a great deal . . .” LaFarge cleared his throat.
Judge Parker looked surprisingly curious, as if he wanted to ask LaFarge more. Tom could not then know—few people besides Judge Parker and his doctor knew—that the judge was seriously ill. Tom could only sense that on that day, at that moment, standing outside his office, the judge was mild and almost disconcertingly open.
“And you?”
Tom realized that the blue-grey eyes were on him. “I worked at Dekker Hardware Company, sir.”
“Sad news about Ralph Dekker. I didn’t know him well, even though our places of work were close for many years.”
“What we’d like to talk to you about relates to that subject,” LaFarge said. “I was hired by my old friend W. W. Jaycox, who worked at Dekker, to help find out something about Ralph’s death.”
The judge’s pleasantness began to fade.
“Mr. Jaycox doesn’t believe that it was suicide.”
A look of impatience, or weariness, started forming on Judge Parker’s face, and LaFarge said quickly, “I realize that your time is limited, Your Honor, so I will get to the point. Inquiring about what happened to Mr. Dekker, we’ve stumbled across the fact that an attempt is being made to bribe the federal judge in Muskogee.”
Judge Parker stiffened and narrowed his eyes.
“Judge John Crilley,” LaFarge said.
“Please come into my office.”
They walked past the secretary, who looked up suspiciously, into Parker’s office, where he shut the door. They all continued to stand.
“Bribe him for what purpose?”
“More immediately to my concern, Mr. Jaycox has been kidnapped.”
Judge Parker waited.
“Deacon Jim Miller, in the hire of Ernest Dekker, took Mr. Jaycox from his boarding house. Early this morning. Hit him over the head and dragged him into the street. I saw it happen.”
Everything LaFarge said was making the judge look less friendly, which made Tom wonder if the lawyer knew what he was getting into.
“I presume there’s some connection between these accusations?”
“There is, Your Honor.”
“I have to go back to the courtroom in two minutes. Perhaps you can enlighten me within that time.” There was a loud knock on the door, and one of the mustachioed marshals appeared carrying a packet of mail, which he put on the judge’s desk. The marshal eyed the satchel that Tom was carrying and hesitated. “You can wait for us outside,” Parker said to him. After the marshal left, Judge Parker looked at his watch.
LaFarge took a deep breath. “I’ll try to put it in a nutshell. Ernest Dekker colluded with certain parties of the Mercantile Exchange Bank to obtain control of his father’s business. He then called in the debts of his customers in Arkansas, Oklahoma Territory, and the Indian Nations. He is threatening to close their businesses if they refuse to transfer merchandise mortgages for land and improvement mortgages of their customers. Ernest Dekker essentially wants his retailers to sign over their customers’ land wherever they’re holding mortgages. He is selling these mortgages to a land syndicate that I believe will exploit the mineral resources, possibly oil—”
“What?” Judge Parker said.
“Rock oil, sir. Kerosene, gasoline, lubrication.”
“I know what oil is used for, counselor,” the judge said. “But I’m not aware of any oil trade in the territory.”
“Lately in Guthrie, I’ve been hearing a great deal more about oil than coal. There’s beginning to be a great interest in it, although at twenty-five cents an acre, it doesn’t much matter what use they intend for the land.”
“In your practice you’ve been hearing this?” Judge Parker said. “Yes sir.”
“Which is currently the practice of law?”
LaFarge nodded, looking wounded. “I do have a modest practice, sir.”
“Please excuse my limited knowledge of the law, counselor. I am only a federal judge. But the last time I checked, white men couldn’t own land in the Indian Nations. In certain arranged circumstances, they may be allowed to lease it from the tribal government for grazing. They may even ‘hold’ improvements—but they may not own land. The land belongs to the tribes, by treaty and by statute.”
“That’s where Judge Crilley enters,” Leonard said.
Parker waited for him to explain.
LaFarge hesitated, and Tom saw him make a decision. “He is trying a case that reflects on this.”
“What case is that?”
LaFarge’s glance fell to the newspaper on the desk and he sniffed. He squinted, right hand going up to his stomach. Tom got the feeling LaFarge had lost the bridle. He suddenly sounded less sure of himself. “It concerns whether whites may . . . own land in the Indian Nations, be sold land, or in some way exploit its mineral . . . resources.”
“This must be a rather undefined case, counselor,” Parker said. “Who are the parties in it?”
“Sir, my immediate concern is that Jim Miller, in the hire of Dekker, has kidnapped Mr. Jaycox, along with . . . another. Another person.” LaFarge sounded almost breathless, and Tom saw his gaze wander to the newspaper again. “Knowing how limited your time is, I hesitate to go into that part of it. It’s the bribery of Judge Crilley that most concerns me.”
The judge had become openly impatient. “Mr. LaFarge, you just said that it was the bribery you were most concerned about, then you said it was the kidnapping, now you’ve come back to the bribery. Which will it be?”
The office was cool, but LaFarge was sweating. Tom wondered when he was going to signal him to give over the money and letter. “I don’t know the name of the particular case that Judge Crilley is considering, Your Honor. I should have admitted that. I haven’t had time to investigate it.”
“On what evidence are you making the charge?”
“Logic, sir, inductive logic.” He added limply, “Based on fact.” LaFarge looked stricken. His complexion had gone chalky and he looked sick to his stomach. He was sinking like a rowboat with the plug pulled out, and Tom didn’t understand why. Only a moment ago he’d had Parker’s interest.
There was a rapping on the door, and the secretary opened it and left it open. Past the stern-faced marshal, down the hall, people were filing back into the courtroom.
Tom unaccountably felt less afraid, despite the fact that the marshal was looking holes through him. He got the impression that the judge was more interested than he was acting.
“They’re back in court,” the secretary said.
Parker tranquilly rested his light blue-grey eyes on Tom for a moment. “If you have reason to do so, I admonish you to see a law enforcement official. Specific complaints will have to be made to them. It is beyond my power to protect citizens from harm, except by harsh punishment of the guilty.”
Desperately, LaFarge said, “Your Honor, I came to you because you have always been a protector of the people of the Indian Nations. Their land is being stolen, and the new courts in the Oklahoma Territory and Indian Nations are the wors
t villains in it.” Parker’s eyes flashed on him. “Are you just becoming aware of that, counselor? Many times over the years, recently converted protectors of Indian rights have come to me for one thing or another. Always, it seems, their newfound philanthropy is happily congruent with their own immediate interests. Now, if you have cause to talk with a federal marshal, please do so. I must wish you good day, gentlemen.”
With his eyes Tom signaled to LaFarge, Don’t you want me to give him the satchel? LaFarge looked alarmed. Had his nerve failed? Should Tom just dump the contents out on the floor? Surely that would get the judge’s attention. But LaFarge took him by the arm with a surprisingly strong grasp and pulled him through the door.
They walked in silence for a few blocks, LaFarge huffing and puffing and looking green in the daylight. He went into a druggist and bought a little brown bottle of Dr. Poole’s Stomach Relief and drank a slug on the spot, while Tom hung around a dark corner of the druggist’s display case, gazing at a group of “sanitary instruments” with carefully printed labels: ELECTRIC BELT, PHIMOSIS DEVICE, PILE COMPRESSOR, SPERMATORRHOEA RING, AND SOLUBLE SANITARY TAMPONS. Leonard LaFarge looked unsteady for a moment, then he walked out of the drugstore without a word, and Tom followed.
At a barbershop, LaFarge bought a Fort Smith Elevator, and they walked on to Mrs. Peltier’s. The two of them went up to Jake’s room and LaFarge fell down on the couch, still sipping his medicine, reading something on the front page of the newspaper. Finally he looked up and sighed. He held out the paper, and now Tom understood—before he took it—what had happened in the judge’s office.
ORPHAN MURDERS BENEFACTOR