Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit

by Amy Stewart

  Fearing that she would be accused of having stolen them herself, the woman turned everything over to her landlady, who went directly to the police. With so many additional counts of burglary against her, Ruth was now facing a substantially longer jail term.

  “Have you ever heard of an honest landlady?” she asked despondently, as I tried, without much enthusiasm, to console her. Ruth had managed to make herself appear, even to me, like an artist devoted to her craft who happened to be down on her luck and forced through circumstances to lift a piece of silver or two. The picture now emerging was one of an inveterate porch-climber, fleet of foot and light of fingers. Her greatest acting role was in convincing the police otherwise, but now that game was up, too.

  “Couldn’t you put me into some kind of program of reformation?” Ruth asked, appealing to me with wide wet eyes.

  “What sort of program?” I asked, mostly to pass the time. I enjoyed the ramblings of criminals, and the way they ambled around the case assembled against them, kicking at it and looking for any hole through which they might escape.

  “Why, just what you’ve done for the other girls!” Ruth said. She could hardly be considered a girl: it had also emerged, through further interviews with the landlady, that Ruth was not twenty-six but thirty-four. (“Twenty-six is my professional age,” she’d said in her defense.)

  “Those other girls had been wrongly accused, or given sentences that far outweighed the crime,” I told her. “In your case, the police seemed to have underestimated you.”

  Ruth felt she’d been paid a compliment and smiled brightly at that. “They always do.”

  As I waited for word from Geraldine—the waiting is always the most maddening part, and in this case it depended upon a pair of attorneys having the opportunity to secure incriminating photographs—I waited, also, for John Courter to make his next move. If he knew that I’d been to the asylum, he might also know that I’d been to see a lawyer. I thought he might send me some message, or drop a hint during one of his campaign speeches about what he expected from me in exchange for his silence. But he continued as if nothing had happened, making the same fiery speeches as before, and campaigning largely on what he believed to be Sheriff Heath’s incompetence, even though Sheriff Heath was not his opponent in the race.

  Sheriff Heath continued to go out and give a speech almost every night. Mr. Ramsey was hardly bothering to campaign against him, or if he was, it didn’t make the papers. He ran his brickworks downriver from the jail, put in an appearance at a few club luncheons, and ran perfunctory notices in the paper stating his qualifications: “Success in Business—A Builder Looking to a Bright Future—Prosperity and Opportunity for All Americans.” It was perfectly innocuous and free of controversy.

  But that was the congressional race. As for Mr. Courter in the sheriff’s race, Sheriff Heath had assured me that no one wanted a man running the jail who had no ideas about it other than to insult his predecessor—something no sheriff had ever done in Bergen County, owing to the deeply seated spirit of fraternity that had, until now, existed among lawmen.

  William Conklin, for his part, ran against John Courter for the office of sheriff in the gregarious, back-slapping way that was his nature. He rode up to one of Mr. Courter’s speeches in an ice cream wagon, cranking a hand organ that piped out a little tune, and luring Mr. Courter’s audience away with scoops of vanilla and chocolate. He judged a Beautiful Baby contest for the newspaper and posed for pictures with each infant. I heard from Francis that he also popped in at any club that put on a good supper, where he ate his fill, shook hands, and passed out mocked-up ballots with his name printed on every line.

  “It’s the only name you need to remember on November 7,” he said, all over town.

  The campaign was, therefore, in every way, a fight between two men who weren’t even running against each other. It was Sheriff Heath vs. John Courter, and the men actually opposing them for their respective offices seemed content to sit back and let someone else do the squabbling.

  If it seemed strange to me that Mr. Courter would attack the sheriff rather than run on his own merits, it didn’t seem at all strange to Cordelia Heath. One afternoon I was summoned downstairs to see the sheriff and nearly walked in on a noisy argument between the two of them. I didn’t want to listen, but I couldn’t help it: the door to his office was open and both their voices were raised. Even the guard at the end of the hall could hear them. He looked at me sheepishly when I rounded the corner.

  I stopped short just before the doorway, then backed down the hall so they wouldn’t see me.

  “Forget about Courter,” Sheriff Heath was saying. “He’s not running against me. Let Bill Conklin take him on, if that’s what he wants to do.”

  “Bill can’t be bothered, and you know it,” Cordelia said. “Mr. Courter isn’t out smearing his reputation. He’s going after you.”

  “What of it? I don’t know why you want to involve yourself in the sheriff’s race at all. I’m out of this office in November either way. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Cordelia made an unhappy little snort and said, “I don’t think you see what’s happening here, Bob. Mr. Courter attacks you because it’s working for him, and that means John Ramsey doesn’t have to. The voters hear it either way, and they’ll remember it on Election Day. You’d say something about it if it was coming from Mr. Ramsey, wouldn’t you?”

  “But it isn’t,” Sheriff Heath said, “and I think it’s awfully decent of Ramsey to—”

  Cordelia smacked something down on a table—I was still lurking in the hall and didn’t see what it was, but it gave me a start—and very nearly shouted her husband down. “He’s not being decent. He’s letting Mr. Courter run you down and he comes out smelling like a rose. They’ll both win. It’s a trick, and you’re a fool to fall for it.”

  There are certain arguments that married couples have with each other over and over, to no useful end. I could tell from Cordelia’s tone that this was one such well-trod line of dispute. I saw no reason to let it continue, so I took a few silent steps back, coughed once or twice, and stomped rather noisily into the sheriff’s office. Never had he looked so relieved to see me.

  “A telephone call came for you while I was away,” he said to me, in a tone meant to indicate to his wife that he was getting back to business. “It was John Ward. You haven’t found yourself in need of an attorney, have you?”

  Cordelia sensed right away that something was amiss. She was watching me quite sharply.

  “I can’t imagine what he’d want,” I said, as casually as I could. “Are you sure the call wasn’t meant for you?”

  Cordelia gave a high and nervous laugh. “I don’t know what use either one of you would have for a divorce attorney.”

  Sheriff Heath kept himself composed, as he always did. He came around from his desk and took his wife’s elbow, in a manner that anyone would describe as courtly, and escorted her out.

  “I don’t want to bore you with the running of my jail, dear,” he said, in a voice that was truly gentle, “but you do recall that every attorney in town has need of the sheriff’s office from time to time. We handle all manner of criminal and civil affairs here.”

  Mrs. Heath wasn’t happy about it, but she allowed herself to be sent away. When she was gone, the sheriff turned to me as if nothing had happened.

  “I suppose he might have a job on offer for you,” he said.

  I tried to make light of that. “I have no need of a divorce attorney, nor do I have need of another job. I’ll be in Paterson tomorrow, so I’ll call on him then.”

  If Sheriff Heath suspected anything, he didn’t let on.

  28

  it was careless of Mr. Ward to call for me at the jail, after I’d warned him to keep our conversation a secret. I didn’t entirely trust a man who took any sort of drink, and I suspected that a lunchtime whiskey might’ve been to blame for the call. Regardless, the news was good: when I stopped into his office the next day,
he put the photographs before me with all the pride of a painter exhibiting his art. There was the evidence we needed, unmistakably plain: Charles Kayser and Virginia Townley, arm in arm at the theater. Another showed them kissing in an open automobile, and in another they were reading companionably in bed, as seen through the bedroom window.

  “Did Mr. McGinnis crouch in the shrubs and take a photograph through the curtains?” I asked in horror.

  “He did,” Mr. Ward said. “I dressed him up like a cat burglar and put a few pieces of silver in his pocket.”

  “So that he could pretend to be a burglar if he was caught? That’s a terrible story to tell the police,” I said.

  “I wasn’t worried about the police catching him,” Mr. Ward said. “The disguise was for Mr. Kayser. But no one saw, and now we have the pictures. I’ll file my divorce suit on behalf of Joseph Townley, and as soon as the salacious news of these pictures hits the papers, that girl attorney of yours will put her own lawsuit forward on behalf of Anna Kayser.”

  “Then—she’s to be released?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s a bit more rigmarole to come, but I expect so. Luckily for you, it won’t happen until after the election.”

  “I don’t know why that would matter,” I said, although of course I did. Setting free a lunatic wouldn’t look good for Sheriff Heath’s side.

  “Everything matters in an election,” Mr. Ward said.

  he was right. Everything mattered—even, as it turned out, Mrs. Pattengill’s discontent. When I returned to the jail, Cordelia Heath stepped outside the minute I walked up the drive, giving the impression that she’d been waiting for me.

  “I’ve been thinking about how kind you are to the inmates,” she called, by way of greeting. I was suspicious already.

  There were just a few stairs from the sheriff’s living quarters down to the driveway. She skipped down them in dainty kid slippers of the sort Fleurette favored, and said, “It’s such an important part of Mr. Heath’s program. I hear him talk about it in every speech. Treat the inmates with good Christian compassion, and show them a better way. If they receive nothing but cruelty and hatred in jail, that’s what they’ll take with them when they’re released back into society.”

  It came out in one long, breathless stream, as if she’d memorized the lines.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, because she seemed to be waiting for my reply.

  She’d been wearing an expression of earnest hope, but she dropped it when she saw that I wasn’t warming to the subject. She pushed on nonetheless. “Yes, well, in that spirit I wanted to speak to you concerning Mrs. Pattengill. She’s to be charged formally tomorrow and she’s in such low spirits. I’ve put a nice supper together for her and left it on a tray in the jail kitchen. If you wouldn’t mind taking it upstairs . . .”

  “I do mind,” I said, pushing my way past. “We have women upstairs on charges far more serious than that of swindling a charity. I don’t recall you putting a picnic together for any of them. Sheriff Heath says I’m to treat her the same as any other inmate. You may speak to him about it if you don’t like it.”

  I left her in the drive and marched inside and up the stairs to the fifth floor. If there was one advantage to working in a jail, it was the fact that the boss’s wife would venture only so far and no farther. The fifth floor was my sanctuary.

  But when I arrived, I was greeted by a volley of complaints from the inmates, with Mrs. Pattengill leading the charge. Apparently she’d suffered a steam burn in the laundry and wanted to be excused from further duties. I asked to have a look at the burn, and when she couldn’t find it on either arm, I reminded her (as gently as possible, under the circumstances) that she was in jail and was expected to do a little hard labor.

  “But that old laundry’s appalling,” she complained. “I’m terrified of the mangle, and you would be, too, if you had to work it.”

  With some force of will I reminded myself that Mrs. Pattengill couldn’t possibly know how her name had just been invoked downstairs, and I tried not to take it out on her.

  “I have worked the mangle,” I said mildly. “Just mind your fingers and go slowly.”

  “Couldn’t I speak to Mrs. Heath about it?”

  “You could not.”

  There it was. She made a direct appeal to the sheriff’s wife, and I, just as directly, refused it.

  Something tightened in Mrs. Pattengill’s doughy features just then. I could see her turn against me, once and for all. I wasn’t intimidated by it—there’s nothing unusual in an inmate deciding to hate the guards in a jail—but I had some awareness, however dim and unexamined, that she had a bit of power, still, and was prepared to use it. I just didn’t know how.

  “No matter,” she said lightly. “I suppose all this business about extending kindness and comfort to inmates is just to give the candidates a good slogan.”

  I wasn’t about to be drawn into an argument over it, with all the other inmates on the fifth floor listening in, not to mention the men below us, who managed to overhear us more often than I liked.

  “You’ve never been in another jail so you wouldn’t know it,” I said, “but we do extend you quite a bit of comfort and kindness. There’s another principle we honor here, and that is one of fairness. We expect you to do your share of the work, and to accept the fact that while you’re here, you’ll be treated like any other inmate. We don’t bend the rules for anyone.”

  She looked at me for a long time, the way a woman in her station might regard a servant she suspected of wrongdoing. She carried herself with quite a bit of authority, and I admit that I fell sway to it. Although I towered over her, and held the keys to the jail in which she was held captive, I nonetheless felt a little cowed by her expression, and exposed, as if I’d told some unintentional lie.

  But how could I possibly be at fault? I was entirely certain of my position. Mrs. Pattengill was owed no special favors.

  “You’re perfectly right, of course,” she said at last. “You have your rules, and you must follow them. The sheriff’s under such scrutiny right now. Any hint of impropriety would ruin him.”

  There it was. It was the threat I couldn’t see, the dim outline of what was to come. It was only a shadow, though, and I brushed it aside.

  “I’m glad we understand each other, Mrs. Pattengill,” I said.

  “At first we didn’t,” she said, “but now we do.”

  29

  the next day, I left the jail to look in on a few probationers, and returned to find calm and quiet on the fifth floor. I soon discovered the reason: Mrs. Pattengill had been released. I hadn’t expected to see her cleared of her charges so quickly, but it wasn’t so unusual that I thought much of it. A sheriff has little control over who comes in and out of his jail. Sometimes inmates are turned loose without notice or explanation.

  My unionists were gone as well, having served their entire sentence without even considering paying the fine. They’d been proud of their principled stand and seemed to relish their time behind bars, thinking it would serve as proof of their fidelity to the cause. I often questioned the value of my inmates’ principled stands, but they were popular among the young and seemed to propel them onward.

  Providencia Monafo wanted to speak to me. As it was unusual for her to confide in me, I hurried through my rounds of the other inmates. I was just settling into her cell when I heard a commotion on the street below.

  “Let me just see to this,” I told Providencia, and rushed over to the window.

  There was an unruly mob on the courthouse lawn below. Someone was shouting—I couldn’t hear what he was saying—and the crowd was bellowing out its approval. From above, I saw only a sea of black hats and the tops of canes lifted into the air.

  This quite obviously demanded an investigation. I turned to tell Mrs. Monafo that I’d come back to her, but she was staring at me with such a look of urgency that I stopped.

  “We hear everything on the fifth floor,” she said

>   I was impatient to rush downstairs, but I said, “I know you do. What did you hear this time?”

  “It’s what Mrs. Pattengill heard.”

  “Hasn’t she been released?”

  “She said she found a way out just like the man downstairs did.”

  I had a sick feeling about what that meant. The noise from the crowd outside grew louder. I told Mrs. Monafo I’d come back to her, and ran down the stairs. On the way outside I met the sheriff. He tipped his hat at me, cordial as always.

  “It’s John Courter, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “I suspect so.”

  “Mrs. Monafo just told me—” But there were too many people around us now. I didn’t dare say it aloud.

  “Your Italian lady?”

  “Never mind.”

  We rounded the corner together. There, on the courthouse steps, stood John Courter at a podium with a court bailiff on either side of him. A crowd of onlookers had pushed their way up the stone steps and spilled out over the lawn. None of this should’ve surprised me: in the waning days of the campaign season, speeches were erupting like volcanoes on Pacific atolls. One never knew when the next one might come, or how much fire it might eject.

  Still, this was no ordinary speech. There had to be three or four hundred men gathered around. It was a chilly enough day that everyone had pulled out their wool and tweed. A faint odor of moth balls and cedar drifted toward us as we approached.

  Mr. Courter had adopted the sing-song cadence of a preacher, but it didn’t suit him, as he was far too sour and mean-spirited to lift the souls of his audience.

  He had a megaphone but mostly didn’t use it. Instead he kept it by his side and raised it to his mouth only when he wanted to repeat whatever line won the most applause from his audience.

  And he was winning quite a bit of applause.

  “I could stand up here all day and tell you what I think of our weak sheriff, but you don’t need to hear that. I could say that he coddles the inmates, but I won’t, because that’s only my opinion. I could remind you that when a thief breaks into your home and steals your silver, Sheriff Heath rewards him with a haircut and a shave, and a new gold tooth if he’d like one.”