by Amy Stewart
I didn’t want to stand in the corridor any longer and argue the matter, but what choice did I have? “We caught the inmate. In fact, I caught him. I don’t know how that puts the jail in an unfavorable light.”
She seemed as though she was trying to keep the conversation light, but it was all too plain to me that she was the one under enormous strain over the matter. “Of course you caught him. It’s only that he never should’ve escaped in the first place—at least, that’s how the papers see it—and once again, it’s the lady deputy under fire. Surely you see the difficulty.”
In all honesty, I did see the difficulty. Everything I did drew attention, but what was I to do about it? “I never ask to be in the papers, ma’am,” I said.
Cordelia’s expression hardened. “Well, the reporters seem to have no trouble finding you. They know your name all the way out in California. But just as your star rises, my husband’s falls. Don’t you see that? He pays a price.”
I tried to interrupt, but she wouldn’t let me. “And now we have an inmate under your care who requires extra . . . sensitivity. I just wanted to alert you. It’s for your own good, too. A lady like her can make use of certain highly placed connections if she feels she’s been badly served.”
“Served? We aren’t a hotel, Mrs. Heath.”
She studied me for a minute and then said, “Never mind. I’ll speak to my husband. I was only asking for a little kindness for a friend.”
“I’m always kind to the inmates,” I said, more brusquely than I should have, and went on down the hall.
By this time I was truly in no mood to receive Mrs. Pattengill. My spirits did not rise as I went through the metal door and approached the room where she was being held. Her voice could be heard all the way down the hall, and it was apparent the guards were having a miserable time of it. I always wondered what the inmates thought they’d gain by antagonizing the guards, but there was no time to ponder it, as Mrs. Pattengill and the guards were obviously in distress.
“I was told I’d have a lady attendant!” I heard her shriek.
“Yes, ma’am, we’re just waiting,” the beleaguered guard said.
“I should not be made to wait, after what I’ve been through! Bring her to me now or call my attorney!”
The guards had never been so happy to see me walk into a room. They were gone as soon as I arrived.
Mrs. Pattengill seemed to deflate when she saw me. “Oh, there you are. Now, they didn’t give me a bite to eat at the courthouse, and I’m prone to dizzy spells. What I’d like you to do . . .”
That was absolutely the wrong way to open a conversation with a sheriff’s deputy. “Why don’t I tell you what you’re going to do, ma’am,” I said.
Mrs. Pattengill looked shocked at that but allowed me to take her arm and lead her to the de-lousing room.
Until that moment, I had never booked a lady into the jail as grand as Mrs. Pattengill. Most inmates arrived in the plain dress of working folk, and some wore nothing but rags. But this woman possessed a fine wardrobe, and she was not at all willing to part with it. When I told her that she was to remove every stitch of clothing in exchange for a broadcloth jail uniform, she gave another of her high-pitched shrieks.
I ignored that and further explained that she’d be removing her fine garments in my presence, to be followed by a hot shower and a scrubbing with naptha soap. I did not mention the mercurial ointment that would be rubbed into her scalp, for fear she might faint. As it was, she clutched at her chest and demanded a telephone.
“You may speak to your attorney tomorrow,” I told her, and opened the door to the shower room, which smelled of ammonia and sassafras. Mrs. Pattengill stepped inside dubiously.
The door to that room was exceptionally heavy. When it closed, the place had the muffled silence of a bank vault. Mrs. Pattengill took advantage of the privacy and tried to appeal to my sympathies.
“You must understand, Miss . . .”
“Deputy Kopp. We met on the jail tour.”
“Yes, Miss Deputy, you see, I don’t belong in here at all. I’ve done nothing wrong, and the only reason the police don’t understand the situation is that they know nothing of double-entry bookkeeping and the methods by which women of society solicit donations for their pet causes.”
“The police know quite a bit,” I said mildly, “but so do the judges. I suppose your attorney will put up an able defense?”
I wasn’t particularly interested in the answer to this question, but Mrs. Pattengill had already removed her Gainsborough hat with its accompanying plumage and handed it to me, as if I were her personal attendant—and at that moment, I was willing to play the part. I had the idea that as long as I kept talking, the garments would keep coming off. That was my preferred way to do it: I never liked to wrestle a woman’s clothing away from her if I could avoid it.
“Oh, my attorney will do what he can,” Mrs. Pattengill said, “but you know how it is with these old family friends who only ever dabble in the law. He’s very much a gentlemen’s attorney, good for writing up wills and paying off inspectors, but he’s not particularly quick-witted in the courtroom.”
With that came her high-buttoned shoes, made of good Dongola leather. I set them carefully aside and said, “Am I to understand that you’ve been jailed over some charge connected to the work you do for a charity?”
“Oh, several charities, and that’s the tragedy of it.” She peeled off a pair of embroidered stockings, tied them in a knot, and dropped them, still warm, into my outstretched hand. “The Society for the Destitute Blind, the Home for Friendless Girls, the Imbeciles’ Work-House—I am a missionary for all of them, and so many more. Why, you couldn’t name a charity that hasn’t had an envelope from me, and I’m always happy to do it. I consider it my duty.”
Next came one of those knobby taffeta skirts that were popular a few years ago. I was enlisted to hold up the hem so that it wouldn’t drag on the floor as Mrs. Pattengill stepped out of it, and I admit that I did it, as if it were an everyday occurrence at the Hackensack Jail for me to serve as a lady’s maid.
Mrs. Pattengill hesitated after her outer clothing was removed. To keep her going, I said, “Most ladies are given awards and gratitude for all their good charitable deeds, and not a jail sentence. Whatever went wrong?”
“You are exactly right, Miss Deputy. They should’ve given me a medal. In fact, I was out raising donations for the Injured and Maimed Police Officer’s Fund when one of Hackensack’s own constables came up alongside me and told me to go quietly with him or else he’d put the handcuffs on me. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
I had, of course, heard of criminals having handcuffs put on them.
At last Mrs. Pattengill went to work on an elaborate ruffled shirtwaist, obliging me to help with the dainty pearl buttons in the back. The room was close and stuffy, and the walls were still wet from the last inmate who’d been scrubbed down in there. We were both starting to sweat, so much so that she had to peel the shirtwaist away from her bosom. Her corset cover underneath was similarly plastered to her chest. She looked down in discouragement, and I feared she was about to abandon the effort.
“Am I to understand that you’re widowed?” I asked.
That got her working furiously at the buttons down the front. “Oh, wouldn’t that be a mercy. No, he lives and breathes, but we don’t speak of him. Mr. Pattengill went off to Chicago without so much as a word of good-bye. I’d divorce him if I could find him. My attorney delivers a little stack of twenty-dollar bills now and then if I show up at his office and complain loudly enough. I suspect he knows right where Bill’s gone, but he won’t tell me and he says the money will stop coming if he does.”
She liberated herself from the corset cover and a long ruffled petticoat or two. There was nothing left but one of those form-reducing corsets that belted all the way down to the hips. Red welts glared from under her arms where it pinched.
The time had come to reveal all.
“Do you mean to say that your husband vanished,” I asked, “and refused to pay for your support, but all the while you took up charitable work and went door to door asking for donations to charity?”
The corset sprung loose and the truth was laid bare. “Yes, and with only a drop now and then for my expenses, naturally! You see, this is what the police cannot understand.”
I took Mrs. Pattengill’s hairpins and combs and folded everything into a tidy bundle. At last my inmate submitted to the shower and the naptha soap, and I congratulated myself for having maneuvered her into it without so much as a harsh word.
I still hadn’t told her about the mercurial ointment for her scalp, which was intended to rid her of the lice she would swear she didn’t have. Mrs. Pattengill was in too vulnerable a state to have more than one indignity imposed upon her at a time, and nothing was more distasteful than a struggle with an unclothed inmate. When I did invite her to sit down on a metal chair and to turn her head down so that I could comb through it with the ointment, she just sighed and gave in. We finished quickly, as her hair was fine and quite clean. She even laughed when I told her that the comb ran neatly along her oiled scalp and picked up no stragglers.
Then she dressed, and looked down mournfully at the house dress and slippers that had been issued to her.
“It’s better this way,” I told her. “You wouldn’t want to stand out. Most of the other ladies don’t have nice things.”
She didn’t seem to find that a cheering thought, but she went along obediently, as even the most defiant inmate would after being stripped and de-loused.
On the way upstairs, she asked, “What have they done—these other women?”
Her curiosity about the inmates, it seemed, was undiminished from her previous visit. “Why, you’ve met some of them already,” I said. “You can ask them yourself. You’ll have all the time in the world.”
She stopped and gave me a meaningful look. “What I want to know is—well, is it entirely safe to put me in with criminals?”
I wondered how much money Mrs. Pattengill had stolen, and how many people she’d stolen it from. Mrs. Heath might’ve taken pity on her, but I didn’t.
“It’s a jail, Mrs. Pattengill. They’re all either convicted criminals, or they’re awaiting trial, just like you are.”
“Oh, but I’m only here as the result of a terrible misunderstanding! I never meant to do anything but to offer my services on behalf of the less fortunate, and once it’s all explained . . .” She sputtered and ran out of steam.
We were on the fifth floor now. “Nobody means to do the things they did,” I said, “or at least, they didn’t mean to get caught. In here, it amounts to the same thing.”
25
fleurette liked to make her announcements at breakfast, when she was sure I’d be in a rush to leave for work. Norma, by that time, had already been up and outdoors for an hour or two. She came inside for coffee but couldn’t be bothered to linger at the table, which was just as well, as she’d been mucking out the chicken coop and was still shedding bits of rotten straw.
“I took to heart your advice,” Fleurette began, directing those gratifying words to me in her warmest tones, “about finding some way to help with the war effort.”
I was very much involved with digging the last of Bessie’s lemon preserves out of a jar at that moment, so Norma answered for me.
“It’s about time you put your mind to something.”
A remark like this would’ve usually set Norma and Fleurette to bickering until the dishes were cleared, but she’d obviously rehearsed her lines ahead of time and was determined to deliver them according to her design, because she said, “Yes, well, as you’ve both been saying, there’s so much to be done, and we must all put our talents to use.”
“That’s a fine idea,” said Norma. “I see no reason why you couldn’t be turning out uniforms by the dozen.”
This threw Fleurette off-track momentarily—when had anyone ever said anything about making uniforms?—but she pushed on. “Freeman Bernstein is organizing a troupe of entertainers to perform at the Plattsburg camps. He’d like me and Helen to put together a group of girls from Mrs. Hansen’s Academy.”
Now she had my attention. “What kind of performance? Do you mean to say that he’s putting together another vaudeville act?”
“Well, he—”
“I don’t think any good can come of an association with Mr. Bernstein,” Norma said.
Norma’s dislike of May Ward’s husband and manager was well-established in our household, but not particularly well-founded. When Fleurette left unexpectedly to tour with May Ward in the spring (I preferred the term “left unexpectedly” to “ran away”), Norma was certain that Fleurette had been somehow misled or subjected to mistreatment. In fact, Fleurette had been hired on as the company seamstress, but didn’t like to admit it. She preferred for us to think that she enjoyed a successful turn on the stage.
Norma and I went along with that little fiction. It was one of many such falsehoods that allowed the three of us to live together in whatever harmony we could manage.
“You needn’t worry about Mr. Bernstein,” Fleurette countered, still calm, still logical, quite clearly sticking to the lines she’d rehearsed. “He’s doing good work for the troops. We are to put on a show of wholesome patriotic music. That’s all there is to it.”
“I don’t think we can call them troops quite yet,” I put in gently.
“Of course we can,” Fleurette said. “They’re training for Army duty.”
It was a mistake to bring up the Army in Norma’s presence, as she believed herself to be an expert in all wartime matters. I settled in for the lecture I had no means of preventing.
“The Army has no official orders to prepare for war, and that’s just the problem,” Norma said, as I expected she would. “They’ve been dragged into these volunteer camps because it looks bad if they don’t at least show up and offer something in the way of a training exercise. But these are hardly troops preparing for war. The Plattsburg camp is nothing but an excuse for salaried men who are weary of their offices to escape to the countryside for a few weeks. They’re having the time of their lives up there, camping and fishing and shooting off rifles.”
“Mr. Bernstein says they’re serving the nation, and that we are to lift up their spirits, and to remind them why they fight.” Fleurette finished weakly, having failed to prepare herself for a debate on the merits of the volunteer camps.
“There’s nothing wrong with their spirits,” Norma said. “These are Harvard and Yale men who pay a handsome fee for the pleasure of traipsing around a lake in a khaki uniform. It’ll be another matter entirely when our boys go into service.”
Fleurette’s ploy had succeeded in one way: I was eager to get off to work and wanted the matter settled. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t go with the rest of the girls, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said as I pushed myself away from the table.
But of course that wasn’t what she was asking. She intended to go whether we wanted her to or not. She reached out to catch my sleeve as I took my dishes to the sink.
“I thought you might like to come along,” she said to me, in as sincere and inviting a tone as she could muster. Her hair was pinned into two low coils, one behind each ear, according to a new style she’d seen in a magazine. She looked like a grown woman now, not a little girl who could beg for favors.
“You’re nineteen. You don’t need me to chaperone you,” I said lightly. I did very much like the idea of keeping an eye on her, but I couldn’t possibly leave work.
“Oh . . . well . . . of course I don’t need a chaperone, but the other girls do. You know how it is at Mrs. Hansen’s. The parents are very strict.” She buttered a corner of toast and dipped it into the sugar bowl.
I didn’t say a word, because I knew Norma would declare what a waste of time the whole enterprise would be. To my utter astonishment, she stood up abruptly and said, “That’s a
fine idea. We’ll all go.”
Fleurette obviously hadn’t prepared for that. “You will?”
“Of course,” Norma said. “I’d like to have a look at one of these camps.”
“You would?” I said.
“Yes. The Army’s sending someone to run the place, and it’s about time I spoke to them.”
“Spoke to . . . the Army?” Fleurette looked up helplessly, having been snared in her own trap.
“Yes, the Army! Our pigeon transport cart is nearly finished. Carolyn and I have been working on it all week. We should have something to show the generals any day now.”
I shot a warning glance at Fleurette to keep her quiet, but I didn’t have to: she and I both knew perfectly well that it was pointless to argue over something that wouldn’t happen anyway. Norma hadn’t managed to get her pigeon messaging station built behind the drugstore, so why should this ridiculous cart be any different? It was just another project to occupy her time.
Fleurette must’ve agreed with me, because she smiled to herself and dipped into the sugar bowl again without a word.
“Plattsburg is the perfect place to take it,” Norma said. “We can put on a demonstration for the Army men.”
“No!” Fleurette shrieked. “Don’t you dare.”
“You haven’t even seen it yet,” Norma said.
“I’ve been trying not to,” Fleurette said.
“I don’t believe it exists,” I said. I’d heard her hammering away at something, but as Norma liked to pound on things as a general matter, I hadn’t thought anything of it and never bothered to go see what she was up to.
But now we had no choice but to follow Norma out the kitchen door to have a look. There wasn’t enough room in our barn to build the cart, as it was already occupied by our buggy and harness mare, along with a flock of chickens and the more sheltered portion of the pigeon loft. For that reason, Norma and Carolyn had been obliged to build it behind the barn and to keep it covered with an enormous canvas tarp to protect it from the elements while construction was under way (and, I suspected, because Norma believed herself to be building wartime equipment that had to be concealed from German spies).