Miscarriage of Justice

by Kip Gayden

  His words followed her inside, going round and round in her mind: still the same, still the same, still the same . . . Anna ran upstairs, screaming just to drown out the maddening voices in her head. She fell across her bed and wept until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

  26

  March 1913

  The barber motioned toward the chair, and Arch Graham pushed himself up from the waiting bench. “Little off the top and pretty close on the sides,” he told the man. The barber nodded. “Shave?”

  Arch told him yes, easing himself into the barber chair.

  “Say, J. P.,” said the customer in the next chair over, “have you ever heard any more from that Cobb fellow that used to have the first chair by the window?”

  “Yeah,” J. P. said. “Why?”

  “Well, I rented him a house when he was living here, and he skipped out of town owing me a month’s rent. I need to get a hold of him so I can get my money. Reckon he’s working somewhere round about?”

  “He told me he’s got a job at a place in Nashville . . . Jackson’s Barbershop, I think he said it was.”

  “Oh, yeah. I know that place,” the man said. “On Broadway. Not too far from Eighth Street.”

  “Maybe so,” J. P. said. “I just hope he stays there. I don’t need any trouble, and I don’t think Doc Dotson has gotten over that business between Charlie and his wife, from last winter.”

  “Well, maybe not. But I’m still going to see about getting my money.”

  Arch Graham thought this was all very interesting. He wondered how Robert Dennis would feel about it. He decided to find out, first chance he got.

  “HE’S IN NASHVILLE! ” Walter’s face was inches from Anna’s; she could feel his spittle hitting her forehead and cheeks. “The son of a bitch has come back! He thinks I didn’t mean what I said.”

  “Walter, please—”

  “And you’re still protecting him, aren’t you? You’re still trying to keep your lover alive, so you can disgrace yourself some more, so you can go away with him and fornicate to your heart’s delight.”

  Anna shook her head.

  “Do you see this?” Walter brandished his revolver in front of her face. “This is what he’s going to get from me. After everything he’s done to me, to our home, this is what he deserves.”

  “Don’t say that, Walter.”

  He whirled and paced away from her, strode back and forth across the room, muttering and scowling. Anna was afraid of him, afraid for him.

  “Will you please put down the gun, at least?”

  He walked over to a table near her chair and placed the revolver there. The muzzle was pointing at her. Watching him carefully, Anna pivoted the gun so that the barrel was aimed away from her and from Walter.

  “Walter, I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to think carefully before you answer.”

  He stopped pacing and looked at her.

  “Will you tell me where Charlie is in Nashville?”

  His jaw dropped. “You actually expect me to give you that information, after what you’ve done?”

  “I want to go see him, Walter, and tell him that he must leave Nashville, never to return. I mean it, Walter. My life is worth nothing to me now, but we still have two children to raise. They need a father who is with them, not one locked up in the penitentiary, or hanged for murder. Let me go to him and tell him to leave. I’ll do it however you say, as long as you stay away. I’ll . . . I’ll take Scott with me, if you like. Charlie and I can’t very well do anything if Scott is there, can we?”

  He was studying her as if she were some sort of animal that he’d never seen before. “You mean to warn him away? Not carry on some liaison with him?”

  Anna kept her eyes on him. She nodded.

  “And don’t let him touch my son. I don’t want that miserable scum putting his hands on Scott.” He looked at her; Anna thought he was still measuring her, trying to decide if he could believe her. “I can find out, you realize,” he said. “I know people in Nashville. If you’re lying to me, I’ll learn about it.”

  She continued to hold his gaze. After a few seconds, he gave a small nod. “All right. We’ll see. He’s working at Jackson’s Barbershop, on Broadway, near Eighth. When will you go?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  He let out a sarcastic laugh. “Can’t wait to get to him, can you?”

  Anna said nothing. After a moment, Walter shook his head and walked out of the room. When Anna was certain he was gone, she scooped up the pistol and put it in a place she knew Walter would never think to look.

  Just in case . . .

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE’LL DO, Walter?” Bobby said. “Do you want me to follow her?” The two men were sitting in Walter’s office at the clinic. After his conversation with Anna, Walter had gone to the hardware store and asked Bobby to come down to the clinic as soon as he finished work.

  “No, she might see you, Bobby, or else Cobb might, and know they were being watched. I’ve got a cousin who’s in Nashville now, on business. His name is Jent. I’ll get in touch with him and tell him what’s afoot. He can observe them and remain undetected.”

  “What will you do if she . . . goes with him?”

  Walter clenched his jaw. “I don’t care what Brother Olmstead or Anna or anybody else says. I’ll kill the bastard.”

  ANNA STEPPED OFF THE DIXIE FLYER into the bustle of Union Station, tightly gripping Scott’s hand.

  “Are we going to buy some candy, Mama? Do we have time to go look at some toys or something?”

  “I don’t know, son,” she said, barely registering his words. “We’ll see.”

  Anna and Scott walked down Broadway toward the Cumberland River. The day was gray and cool; to Anna, it had seemed the weather so far this year wasn’t paying the least attention to the calendar. Here it was March, and as far as she could tell, it might as well still be January.

  The striped barber’s pole was impossible to miss. The shop was on the south side of the street, and as Anna walked through the front door, she could tell it was a busy place.

  And there, working at the chair on the far end, was Charlie Cobb.

  CLARENCE JENT HAD SEEN ANNA when she got off the train at Union Station, holding her little boy with one hand and keeping the other inside a fur muff. She looked exactly as Walter had described her on the telephone; he could probably have picked her out of a crowd, even without the help of knowing she was traveling with her young son. She was a fine-looking woman, Jent had to admit; in the right circumstances, she could offer temptation to just about any man.

  He stayed well behind them as they made their way down Broadway toward the river. Jent had already reconnoitered the barbershop and knew where they were headed, but he had decided to pick up the trail at the train station, in case Walter’s wife and her lover had made some sort of plan for misdirection in connection with their liaison. Walter had told him that she might suspect being followed, but as far as Jent could tell, if she did suspect something, she didn’t care. She walked right down the middle of the sidewalk, turning neither to the right nor to the left. And when she came in view of the barbershop, she made a beeline across the street, walking in without as much as a backward glance, like she owned the place.

  Pretty bold, missy. Pretty bold.

  Jent found a deep, arched doorway into a bank, directly across Broadway from the barbershop, and stationed himself so he could see the front of the place. Though the glare on the plate glass window made it a bit chancy, he could make out Anna’s form as she walked from one end of the shop to the other. She stopped in front of the last chair. Jent guessed she must have arrived at her destination. He hoped the two would come outside; he wanted to see the man who had his placid cousin Walter ready to commit murder.

  As best he could tell through the glass, when Cobb’s customer got out of the chair, the little boy got in. He guessed Cobb was trimming the boy’s hair. Anna stood beside him as he worked, no doubt planning something underhanded.
Well, Jent would see to it that Walter got a full report.

  After a while, the front door opened, and here came the three of them: Walter’s wife, the little boy, and Cobb. Jent studied him. He had a dark, shifty look about him that Jent instinctively mistrusted. What in the world did Walter’s wife see in this lout, with everything that Walter had given her?

  They stood on the sidewalk in front of the glass window and talked. The little boy didn’t seem to be paying much attention, which was a mercy, as far as Jent was concerned. Better not to fill his ears with the lascivious filth passing between his mother and her paramour. Jent felt his lip curling with distaste. This woman didn’t deserve his cousin!

  The conversation went on for a good while, and by the angle of their faces and their expressions, Jent could tell they were pretty serious about it. Once, Anna put her hand on Cobb’s arm, her face wearing an expression of pleading. She was doing most of the talking, it seemed. Cobb would shake his head or nod and get in a few words, then she’d go at it again. Sometimes she appeared to be pleading, and other times she’d be smiling at him. Jent couldn’t get the drift of it, watching from across the street. But he couldn’t very well do anything else.

  After ten or fifteen minutes they parted. Anna’s hands were inside her fur muff, and Jent watched as Cobb reached out and took them, inside the muff, and gave them a parting squeeze. Anna smiled at him, then turned and walked back the way she’d come with her son, toward Union Station. Cobb stood staring after them for a moment, and Jent felt his disgust rising as a big smile spread across the face of the louse.

  Well, if he’s not grinning like a pig in mud! I’ll wager he just heard her tell him she’d find a way to come to him again—maybe for good!

  As soon as Cobb went back inside, Jent hurried after Anna and the boy. He tailed them into Union Station and watched them until they boarded the train for Gallatin. They were still on the train when it pulled out of the station.

  Jent hurried back to his hotel, digging in his coat pocket for the scrap of paper on which he’d written the number Walter had given him yesterday, the phone in his clinic. Jent had things to report to his cousin.

  ANNA SAT IN HER ROOM, her Bible in her lap. Maybe it was true; maybe God really did sometimes send guidance when you least expected it. At least, it seemed so to her from the words she had just read in the Old Testament book of Judges:

  And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering . . .

  . . . and Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him.

  Anna read the story several times, and each time she read it, it made more sense. Sometimes, to win the victory over your enemies, you had to give up something precious.

  Anna went to sleep that night, thinking that maybe there were worse things than death.

  27

  What are your plans for today, Anna?” Walter said. He was sitting in the parlor, drinking a cup of coffee when she came downstairs. He studied her carefully; she looked different—calm, somehow. She had made some sort of decision, he guessed.

  After hanging up the phone on his cousin’s call last night, he had decided to see what Anna would do. His cousin had told him he believed Anna and Cobb had made plans to be together, and what did Walter want to do about it? Walter had told Jent he would contact him as soon as he made a decision. It seemed as if maybe that moment was fast approaching.

  “Oh, not much of anything,” she said, looking everywhere in the room but at him. “I may try to get some cleaning done, maybe a little shopping.”

  He nodded, giving her a tiny smile. Of course she was lying to him. Keep giving her rope. “Well, I have to go see a patient out in the country,” he said. “I expect I’ll be gone all afternoon.” He waited to see what effect this news would have on her. Sure enough, she gave him a quick, interested look. “Really?” she said. “You don’t have patients in the clinic?”

  “Not this afternoon. I imagine I’ll leave around two, two thirty. Something like that.”

  She nodded and went into the kitchen. He heard her bustling around, clattering plates. He finished his coffee and reached for his overcoat, draped over the back of a chair. He put it on, then carried his cup and saucer into the kitchen.

  “We have an appointment with Brother Olmstead tonight, remember,” he said.

  “What? Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

  Yes, I guess you were. “I said, remember our meeting with Brother Olmstead tonight.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, I’ll be ready for that, whenever you get back from your patient.”

  “Well. Goodbye, then.”

  She gave him a flickering little smile and he left, thinking of the best way to be prepared for whatever the day might bring. He drove to his office, parking his automobile in its usual, conspicuous place, in full sight of the town square. He went inside, locked the front door, and hurried to his office. He picked up his phone.

  “Clarence, I need your help again today.” He told Jent what he suspected and outlined a plan.

  ANNA LEFT HER HOUSE at one thirty, dressed in her warm coat and with her hands in her fur muff. Today wasn’t any warmer than yesterday, she thought. She walked down North Water Avenue and rounded the corner, looking up the street toward the town square. Walter’s car was in its usual place, so he hadn’t yet left for his appointment.

  Anna went into the hardware store to say hello to her brother, but for some reason, Bobby wasn’t at work. She went down the street and into a few stores, browsing among the goods and displays, looking at whatever clock she could find in order to keep close track of the time.

  When it was just after two o’clock, she stepped onto the sidewalk and glanced toward Walter’s clinic. His car was gone. As soon as Anna saw this, she turned and walked quickly toward the train station.

  She bought a ticket to Nashville and stepped aboard the Dixie Flyer when it came wheezing and hissing up to the platform. She found a seat in an almost-empty car and sat as low as she could, hoping not to be seen or spoken to by anyone. It worked; the train pulled away from the station at a quarter past, and Anna was still alone in the car.

  Forty-five minutes later, when the train began slowing for Union Station in Nashville, Anna felt panic rising in her. She was trembling and her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps. What if Walter suspected she was coming to meet Charlie again? What if Bobby was here? So many things could go wrong.

  But she was here, and this was the only way, she had decided. She could no longer exist in a world so crowded with conflicting desires and needs. It was time to act.

  She exited the train and walked down Broadway toward the river, as she had the day before. Without Scott to worry about, she was able to keep both hands inside the muff, which was a mercy. She neared the barbershop, but looking at the clock tower rising above Union Station, she could see that it was barely past three o’clock. Four, Charlie had said. The shop closed at four, and they could go somewhere and talk, he said. Somewhere private.

  She walked on past the barbershop, wondering if Charlie noticed her through the glass window. She thought about the first time she’d walked by J. P.’s shop, back in Gallatin, much as she was doing right now. She didn’t look, didn’t try to see him. Not yet. That would come later.

  She continued on down the street, weaving in and out of the crowds, taking deep breaths and trying to think about mundane things. She walked to the intersection of Broadway and Eighth, then kept going, around the corner, to the next intersection. She rounded the block and again approached the barbershop. She looked over her shoulder at the station clock tower: it was now a quarter past three.

  She decided to go on inside. Anna leaned against the revolving door, then another man, in a h
urry, came through behind her. The door pushed against her, almost causing her to lose her balance. Pressing her hands, still inside the muff, against the glass pane of the door, she regained her equilibrium, and entered the barbershop.

  The man in Charlie’s chair was finished. Charlie swept the towel from in front of him and he dug in his pocket, then handed Charlie some coins. Charlie looked up and saw her. He smiled.

  Anna returned the smile and started toward him. He watched her approach, and the look on his face told her that he was seeing everything he expected to see. She waited until she was close, maybe four feet away, then pulled her right hand out of the muff, bringing Walter’s revolver with it. She shot Charlie once. Then again. He fell, writhing in pain. Noise erupted all around her. Anna stood over Charlie and watched as his blood pooled on the floor beneath him.

  Goodbye, Charlie. I’m sorry, but this was the only way.

  PART TWO

  The Trial

  28

  Gallatin, Tennessee

  March 15, 1913

  The phone rang and Walter snatched the mouthpiece from its cradle, bringing it close to his lips. “This is Walter.”

  “Walter, this is Clarence. My God, Walter, she shot him!”

  “What?”

  “Anna shot Charlie Cobb. I saw the whole thing from across the street. She walked into the barbershop, went right up to him, pulled a gun and shot him, in full view of a whole roomful of witnesses.”

  Walter groped with the idea for a few seconds. “Is he dead?”

  “If he’s not, he’s missing a good chance. I ran over there just after it happened and looked through the window. He was on the floor and blood was pooling all around him. He wasn’t moving. I don’t think he’ll make it.”

  Riptides of emotion were coursing through Walter. First came the fierce joy that the cheating scum Charlie Cobb was dead or close to it; then unbelieving shock—of all the courses Anna might have pursued today, this was the one Walter never saw coming. Then came a sudden, intense fear for Anna’s future, followed by guilt over having left his gun out on the table a few days before—he never doubted that his Smith and Wesson .32 was what Anna had used to commit her crime. Finally, there was the anxiety over how he was going to explain this to Mabel and Scott, followed by deep sadness for the suffering and uncertainty their innocent children were about to endure.