Miscarriage of Justice

by Kip Gayden

  Her eyes rounded with fear. “Get out of here!” she hissed.

  Charlie ran toward the back gate and down the alley. What was Walter doing here? Hadn’t he seen him pull out of the driveway?

  WALTER CAME INTO THE KITCHEN just as Anna was closing the door and turning around. “What are you doing home, Walter?”

  He stared at her, then took a quick look into the backyard. “I took a break; I was tired. I was going to come home and lie down for a minute, and . . .” He gave her a close look. “Anna, something is going on. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me, the way your eyes are darting back and forth.”

  “No, Walter. I just went into the backyard for some fresh air. I was coming back inside when you walked in.” Even she could hear the tremor in her voice.

  “You’re lying.” He strode toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Tell me the truth, Anna! He was here, wasn’t he? That damned bastard was back here, in my house, and you let him in, didn’t you? After I forbade you.”

  “No, Walter, I—”

  Yes, you did!” He pushed her away from him and it was all Anna could do to keep her feet. Walter ran to the vestibule and pounded up the stairs.

  “Walter! What are you doing?”

  He came back down a few seconds later, and Anna’s heart froze when she saw the gun in his hand. She grabbed his arms. “Walter, no! No! Don’t do this, you can’t do this!”

  He shoved her against the banister. “Get away from me, you whore. You’re not in any position to tell me what I can and can’t do.” He strode to the front door, pulled it open, and was gone.

  Anna fell in a heap in the middle of the vestibule. Her husband was on his way to kill her lover and very well might come back and finish her, as well. Her children would be rendered as good as orphans.

  Oh, God! There must be some way out of this.

  She wept until she had no tears left. She pulled herself upright and dragged herself to the settee in the parlor to wait for Walter’s return and whatever it might bring.

  There was only one thing left for her to do, she finally decided: Tell Walter the truth, convince him of her sincere resolution to change, and beg him not to commit any violence that might get him sent to prison. She was so weighted down with guilt and remorse; she didn’t think she could live if she also had to bear responsibility for driving her husband to commit murder.

  CHARLIE WENT INTO HIS HOUSE and closed the door. His heart was still pounding from the close call, but he was talking to himself, settling himself down. No harm done. He never saw me. Just lie low for a while, and then—

  Daisy came into the front room. “What’s wrong, Charlie? You look like you’ve had a fright.”

  Charlie was about to answer her when he heard the sound of feet pounding on the front porch, quickly followed by a fist hammering at the door. He opened the door to find Walter Dotson with a gun pointed at Charlie’s chest. Charlie raised his hands, and fought the instinct to back up.

  “Walter, now listen. You don’t want to do this.”

  Walter grabbed the front of Charlie’s shirt and dragged him out onto the porch. He shoved him against a post and jabbed the cold, blue barrel of his pistol up under Charlie’s jaw.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t blow your brains all over the front door of your house,” Walter said from between clenched teeth. “You’ve been fornicating with my wife, and you’ve ruined her reputation and probably mine, too. I ought to kill you right now, you son of a bitch.”

  Charlie fought to control his breathing. “You don’t want to do that, Walter. You’ve got it all wrong. There’s nothing—”

  Walter savagely thrust the gun barrel upward. “Shut up with your lies, do you hear me? At least have enough respect for me not to think you’re going to sell me any more of your lies.”

  The muzzle of the gun made it impossible for Charlie to talk. All he could do was give a little, quick nod.

  “All right.” Walter eased the gun away from his neck, but kept it pointed between his eyes. “Now you listen to me. You’ve got until tonight to get out of Gallatin. I’d shoot you now, but you’ve got a wife and daughter who deserve some consideration. But come dawn, if I see you, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  Charlie nodded again. His eyes flickered toward the crowd of onlookers that was starting to gather in the street behind Walter. He hoped they were listening to the threats coming out of Walter’s mouth. He wished somebody would go call a constable.

  “I want you to get out of here and go somewhere a long way from here, somewhere out of reach. I don’t ever want to cross paths with you again, or hear of anybody I know crossing paths with you. You’re a no-good, low-down, cheating bastard, and you’d better listen to me when I tell you I’ll kill you if I run into you again. I know the sheriff in this county, and he’ll believe me when I tell him I acted in self-defense to kill a sorry, wife-stealing scum. I won’t even spend the night in jail. Understand?”

  Charlie nodded, his eyes moving steadily from the dark circle at the opening of the gun barrel to Walter’s face.

  “This will be the last conversation you and I will ever have. Next time I see you, I won’t say anything. I’ll just shoot you.”

  Walter backed away from Charlie, keeping him covered with the pistol. When he reached the sidewalk, he turned after giving Charlie a final, glaring look, and walked away. The crowd parted to let Walter through. Charlie watched him until the slope took him out of sight.

  “You all heard what he said to me! You’re witnesses. He threatened to kill me.”

  The people started walking away. No one would look at Charlie.

  “You’re my witnesses, I said!”

  He went inside. Daisy and Alice were in the middle of the room. Alice was crying into her mother’s apron, and Daisy was comforting her daughter as best she could. She was staring at Charlie with a stricken expression. “I told you, Charlie. I knew it was Anna. I knew it. What are we going to do now?”

  “Be quiet and let me think,” Charlie said. He paced the width of the room a few times, running his hands through his hair. Daisy watched him with big, fearful eyes.

  “You and Alice better go to your folks,” he said finally. “I’ll put you on the train this afternoon.”

  “What are you going to do? You’re not going to fight Walter, are you? Don’t get yourself killed, Charlie. Don’t make me a widow, not now.”

  “I said be quiet! Who said anything about you being a widow? Now, go in the back of the house and get your things together. And take Alice with you. Just leave me alone for a little while, so I can hear myself think.”

  24

  About twenty minutes after he left, Anna saw Walter coming up the front sidewalk, the gun still in his hand. With her heart freezing in her chest, she pulled herself together and waited for him, standing in the center of the vestibule. He walked in, gave her a glowering glance, and started to go around her, toward the stairs. She grabbed at his arm, but he pulled away from her and continued upstairs. He went into his room, slammed the door and locked it, and ignored her pleas to let her in.

  When the children came home, she told them their daddy was sick and was in his room. She drifted through the rest of the afternoon, hardly able to keep herself from screaming. Waiting for Walter to come down the steps, waiting for a knock at the door with news of what he had done. Waiting to see what new horror she had brought her family.

  BOBBY TUGGED ON THE HAND BRAKE and stopped the Winton Six inside the garage at Walter’s house. He smiled; he owed Walter a big “thank you.” Not only had his drive in the country with Mary Caine succeeded—it had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. On an old covered bridge on a quiet road just outside town, Bobby had actually stolen a kiss from her. He could still taste the softness of her lips. Yes, things with Mary Caine were definitely looking up.

  He went into the house. Anna was sitting in the parlor, listening to Mabel recite her spelling words.

  “Where’s Walter
?”

  “He’s gone upstairs to lie down. He wasn’t feeling well.”

  He nodded and went back outside. He decided to go sit for a while in the Keystone lobby and maybe see a few of his cronies. He wanted to savor his success with Mary Caine this afternoon . . . though he wasn’t about to share his enjoyment with any of his friends. No, he was keeping Mary Caine all to himself. He didn’t want to give any of his friends any ideas that might be aimed in her direction.

  Anna’s face looked more dour than usual, Bobby thought as he crossed the street. He shook his head. He hoped Walter had talked to her, and he fervently hoped she’d decided to have nothing else to do with that no-good Charlie Cobb.

  He went into the hotel lobby and the first thing he saw was a handful of his friends, standing near one of the tables, evidently involved in an animated discussion. But when one of them saw Bobby come in, he said something to the others and motioned toward Bobby with his head, and they all fell silent, staring at him. Bobby gave them a quizzical smile.

  “Hello, boys. What’s wrong? Do I have horse manure on my shirt, or what?”

  “He doesn’t know,” somebody said.

  “Where have you been, Robert?” somebody else said.

  “Why, just out for a little drive on my afternoon off. Is that a crime?”

  “Then you haven’t heard the news? About your brother-in-law?”

  Bobby’s face went stiff with apprehension. “What news?”

  “Doc threatened Charlie Cobb with a gun,” Arch Graham said with obvious relish. “Told him he was fornicating with another man’s wife, and he was going to—hey!”

  Bobby lunged at Arch, drawing back to punch him squarely in the nose. But two or three of the others grabbed him and wrestled him back.

  “Easy now, Robert,” somebody said. “Arch is telling the truth. I heard the same thing myself, from somebody who was there and saw the whole thing.”

  Somewhere in the middle of Bobby’s mind, he knew that it was probably true, all of it. After all, Anna had lied to him about the magazines, hadn’t she? And Bobby had told Walter of his own suspicions himself. But something about hearing the likes of Arch Graham talking about his sister made him want to punish somebody. He took deep breaths, trying to settle himself down.

  “All right, then. Tell me what happened.”

  His friends looked at each other with wary faces; Bobby was still panting and both his hands were balled into fists.

  “It’s like Arch was telling you. Doc had a pistol, and just he went to this Charlie Cobb’s house and braced him up against the front porch and told him if he didn’t leave Gallatin by morning, he’d be dead.”

  “Why . . . what . . .”

  “Sorry, Robert. Where you going?”

  “I . . . I have to go. I have to go.”

  His hat flew off his head as he dashed through the hotel door, but he didn’t care.

  WHEN THE CHILDREN WERE IN BED and asleep, Anna went into her room and dressed for bed. She stared for a long time at the door to Walter’s room. With her blood cold in her veins, she decided to try one more time to say to him what she could hardly believe she was going to say. She tapped at his door and called to him. To her surprise, the latch clicked and the door opened. Walter went back to his bed and lay across it, still fully clothed. His arm was over his face.

  “Walter, please listen to me. The children are in their beds asleep, and I have things to tell you I don’t want them to hear.”

  Walter moved his arm and studied her carefully. “What do you have to say to me that I don’t already know?”

  “Did you kill Charlie?”

  He made a twisted face. “I thought that might be your first question: asking about your sweetheart.” He said the last word as if it were the worst insult he could imagine. “No, I didn’t. I told him he had until dawn to get out of Gallatin and far enough away that I won’t ever see him again. If he’s not gone tomorrow, then, by God, I’ll kill the bastard.”

  Anna felt an instant of relief, even as she shuddered at hearing Walter speak words the likes of which she’d never heard come from his lips. She began steeling herself for what she had to say. “Walter, I want to tell you the complete truth. I’m doing this because I want to prove to you that I want to change, and that I regret, more deeply than you can imagine, how I’ve violated our marriage and disgraced us both.”

  He peered at her for a long moment. “Is that so? All right. Give me your filthy story.”

  “Walter, I . . . yes, it’s true. I . . . had relations with Charlie Cobb.”

  His jaw clenched. He kept looking at her.

  “It was wrong, it was sin, and I don’t expect you can ever forgive me,” she said. “I could go into all the reasons . . . at least, in my mind, they were reasons. But that wouldn’t do any good, especially now. All I can say is that Charlie led me on, and to my shame I was more than willing to be led.”

  “How long has it been going on?” Walter said, his voice barely a croak.

  “Just over a year—since last summer.”

  “Here? At our house?”

  Anna nodded. Tears of shame were stinging the corners of her eyes.

  Walter covered his face with his hands. She could hear his breath, panting in and out as he struggled with his rage. He turned back toward her. “How many times?”

  Anna struggled to control her voice, but lost. She kneeled by his bedside, as if in prayer. “A lot,” she said, and the syllables came out as sobs. “More than once a week, usually.”

  Walter grabbed his head as if he’d been stricken. His eyes squinted shut and his face was locked in a grimace, like someone having red-hot irons pressed against his flesh. “Oh! God in heaven! I can’t believe my ears.”

  “Walter, you must listen to me. I’m telling you this, confessing my sin to you, because I really want to change. Look here.” Anna tugged off her wedding ring and laid it on Walter’s bedside table. “I’ve defiled my vows, Walter, and I don’t blame you if you want to send me out of your life, but listen to me. You mustn’t kill Charlie. You mustn’t! Our children need you. They need you more than they need me, most likely. At least you’ve never betrayed their home and their innocence, as I have. Walter, please control your anger. Not for my sake, but for Mabel’s and Scott’s.”

  While she was saying this, she felt the bed moving. She looked up just in time to see Walter grabbing the pistol out of the drawer of his lamp table and pointing it at her head. She screamed and grabbed at the gun, knocking the barrel upward just as Walter pulled the trigger. The pistol roared and Anna screamed again, then sprang up and fled downstairs.

  She didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going; she only felt the need to run somewhere. She went outside; a cold north wind had begun to blow after sunset, and the frigid air tore at her lungs. Anna ran, barefoot and clad only in her nightgown, down North Water Street away from the lights and the people at the Keystone, toward the town square, empty now that it was dark and the stores were closed. She fell down in a heap in front of Owen Pinkney’s drugstore, curled up in a wretched ball.

  Anna was shivering and sobbing at the same time. Maybe she would just stay here until she froze to death; that would solve the problem. She’d be gone and finished with her miserable life. Walter would have no more reason to kill Charlie or her.

  walter listened to the brief silence after the back door opened and slammed. A few seconds later, he heard the children beginning to wail.

  What was he doing? He had almost murdered Anna, right here in this room. The gun was still in his hand. He stared at it; the fingers curled around the grip seemed like someone else’s. He felt as if he were falling outside himself, as if he were ceasing to inhabit his own body.

  Mabel and Scott were coming down the hall toward his room. Quickly, Walter slid the pistol into a drawer in his bedside table and ran his fingers through his hair. The children . . . he had to think about the children . . .

  ANNA DIDN’T KNOW how long she sat
on the cold brick sidewalk. Not long enough for anyone to happen by and notice her. She decided to go back to her house. She could freeze herself to death in her own backyard just as well as she could do it here. She pulled herself to her feet and started shuffling toward home, her teeth chattering as she clutched herself against the cold.

  She went into the backyard and curled up at the base of the elm tree where she had first given herself to Charlie Cobb. This was fitting, wasn’t it? She would die in the place where she had put herself irrevocably on the road to hell.

  As she lay there shivering, she heard footsteps, then breathing, somewhere above and behind her. She looked up and saw Walter’s figure silhouetted against the night sky. He was holding a blanket in his hand.

  “I was coming to look for you. Anna, come back inside. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Mabel and Scott were standing in the kitchen, in their bedclothes, holding onto each other and whimpering. Anna and Walter talked to them and did their best to soothe them. “The gun woke us up,” Scott said.

  “All right, son, all right,” Walter said. “Come on. Let’s go back upstairs.”

  Comforting the children was having a calming effect on Walter; his breath was still coming in ragged gasps, but he was trying to gain a purchase on himself.

  “You’re right about one thing, I suppose,” he said, when he and Anna were back in his room. “That low son of a bitch isn’t worth killing. He’s not worth the cost of the bullet it would take to send him to hell.”

  Anna waited a few moments, then said, “If you can find it in your heart, Walter . . . I’d rather not tell Mabel and Scott any more than we must. I don’t want to hurt them any more than they may already have been.”

  He stared at the floor for a long time, then shook his head slowly from side to side. “No. They’re completely innocent. They should be spared.”

  “Thank you.”

  A few more moments passed. “What will you do next?” he asked her.