by Amy Stewart
“He doesn’t want me here—he’s made that plain,” I said. “But I must defend my position, and the role of a jail matron. I’m doing it for all of you.”
Providencia squinted at me, unsatisfied. “Who knows about me?”
“Only Sheriff Heath and I,” I said. “Mr. Courter was never told.” Providencia had been quick to take responsibility for shooting her tenant, but didn’t want it known that she’d been aiming for her husband, who would undoubtedly seek revenge. If I was gone, there would be no one to protect Providencia if she were to be released early, or if her husband were to try to come and visit her.
“I could speak to some of the guards,” I offered.
But Providencia shook her head. “Don’t say a word. When it’s my time to go, I’ll go.”
i did speak to John Courter once, and it only showed me how ill-prepared he was to run our jail. (I thought of the jail as belonging to me, and the other deputies and guards and even the inmates, but not to him.) I was walking out of the kitchen with my own supper, late one night in the middle of December, when Mr. Courter came marching down the corridor with one of the men he’d hired on after the election.
Between them was a young woman, skinny and scantily dressed, her hair in disarray and a thin coat slipping off her bare shoulders. Even with the deputy holding her by one elbow (Mr. Courter quite conspicuously wasn’t touching her), she wobbled and wove with the unmistakable gait of a drunkard.
She couldn’t have been more than seventeen.
I went to them and reached out to take her, in an almost matter-of-fact way, but John Courter stepped in front of her. “Scott’s got this,” he said, referring to the man behind him. I knew I was at last meeting Walter Scott, the man Judge Seufert refused to swear in as my replacement.
I summoned my manners and said, “How do you do? I only meant to take the young lady for registration and . . . to get her settled.”
I hated to announce in front of the girl that she’d be de-loused. She would know, even under the effects of liquor, what an unpleasant proposition that might be, and would kick up a fuss.
Mr. Courter spoke to his deputy. “They think everything around here requires a woman’s touch. Do you suppose you can handle writing her name in a book and tossing her in the de-lousing room?”
“Tossing me where?” the girl shrieked, just as I knew she would. She flailed around and slipped momentarily away from the deputy, who only had hold of her coat sleeve and not her elbow. For reasons I couldn’t imagine, she wasn’t handcuffed.
It gave me a wicked little taste of gratification to see an inmate escape, however fleetingly. The deputy chased after her and threw one of his massive arms rather roughly around her neck and kept her pinned to him, her head pressed against his chest. It was an unprofessional maneuver. He hadn’t had any training in holds at all. In a position like that, a girl had her legs free, and might just jab a knee into whatever soft parts were suddenly in close proximity.
I can’t say that I was displeased when she did just that. Deputy Scott—a substantially built man, mind you, thick of neck and broad of shoulder—shrieked and let go of her again. It was with immense satisfaction that I collared her and snapped the handcuffs on those skinny wrists.
She was a little thing, but she was fiery. I liked her already.
Deputy Scott leaned against the wall, panting and red-faced. John Courter looked disgusted with both of us.
“It has been the policy of this jail,” I said, “to have a matron present in the shower room, for the most obvious of reasons.”
“My policy is to station a male guard outside,” John Courter said, although from the way he was glaring at his deputy, I wondered who he would appoint to the job. “I’m sure the girls can handle their own washing-up.”
I hated to say anything more in front of an inmate, but I already felt as if this girl (I didn’t even know her name yet) was a kindred spirit and wouldn’t mind a little rough talk.
“I’m afraid you cannot,” I said. “You’ve obviously never combed an inmate for lice. They can’t do it themselves, and women in particular have such long hair. Nor would they do it, if you left them alone with a comb and a bottle of ointment. They’d pour the ointment down the drain and bring the infestation right into the jail, and then you’ll have an outbreak on your hands. Furthermore, women in particular are quite expert at secreting away small items on their person, such as a file, a knife, or a hatpin sharp enough to take out an eye. That’s why they strip down to their altogether with one of us watching. Which one of you would like to volunteer to see Miss . . .”
“Frederick,” the girl offered.
“Miss Frederick, in the shower room, wearing nothing but her charming smile?”
Miss Frederick managed, in spite of her compromised state, to put on a charming smile.
I wish I could say that we left Mr. Courter speechless, but an incompetent man is never without another terrible idea. To Deputy Scott he said, “Those are the duties of a nurse. We can have one here from the hospital in thirty minutes. There’s no need to keep a matron on day and night.”
“That isn’t all I do,” I said. “I’d tell you all about it if you’d let me.”
In fact, I wanted nothing more to do with Mr. Courter, but with Miss Frederick weaving back and forth under my grip, I had to consider the welfare of my inmates. Perhaps Deputy Scott would listen to what I had to say and persuade his boss. He’d recovered somewhat from his injuries, but couldn’t bring himself to look at Miss Frederick.
Mr. Courter was having none of it. “The voters did not put me into office so that I would run this jail according to your instructions. Take the girl with you, and Deputy Scott will see about hiring on a nurse next time.”
I never thought I’d miss that de-lousing room, but as Miss Frederick and I went off to do our business, I was quite mournful at the prospect of never seeing it again.
37
the decision came on December the twenty-first. At Fleurette’s insistence, I’d worn my very best suit, somber gray wool trimmed in a collar of pale blue silk that Fleurette said made me look more like a woman of the world. I wasn’t sure how that would induce the commission to rule in my favor, but I didn’t bother to ask. I felt like I was dressing for a funeral, and numbly accepted whatever Fleurette handed me.
The deliberations of the civil service commission were private, but outside their doors, the usual crowd of courthouse reporters and other interested parties milled about. John Courter was called in to answer the commission’s questions, but neither I nor my attorney was permitted inside, so we waited in the hall.
“I wouldn’t flatter this proceeding by calling it judicial,” Mr. Ward said, as we sat side-by-side on a bench. “They’re not in there judging the merits of your case so much as they’re trying to find out how far they can bend the law without breaking it.”
“Then why was Mr. Courter given a chance to speak?”
“Oh—well, he’s the sheriff.”
He was making a joke, but it didn’t come off well. “They probably want to know who he plans to keep on if the ruling goes his way,” he added, “now that he’s had a month to work with all of you.”
“Well, he doesn’t plan to keep me,” I said.
It was an interminable wait outside the commission’s meeting room. A few of the reporters tried to interview me, but I brushed them away. As I sat in the hall and watched the minutes tick by, I could think only of the losses, the defeats, and the failures: The fugitive who had escaped under my watch the previous year. The girls who couldn’t be helped. The inmates who were too hardened by their own misfortunes to ever trust me. Tony Hajnacka, breaking loose and running for the river. It was an impossible line of work, as I thought back on it.
Sheriff Heath had always found something heartening, something spine-straightening, in the notion that our work was never done. “We’re just here to hold the line against lawlessness,” he would tell me, enlivened by the prospect. “I can pro
mise you right now that you’ll never rid this world of crime or trouble or turbulence. All you can do is to take a stand against it.”
There was a time when I allowed myself to be cheered by that idea, too, but no more. I sat with my own miserable thoughts, until at last a door opened and interested parties were invited to step in and to hear the decision. John Ward had gone over to listen at the door and was one of the first inside. The reporters all crowded in after him, along with a few other public servants whose jobs were on the line. A couple of the other deputies had come over to hear the decision, and they, too, rushed inside.
But I stayed on my bench. There was no good outcome for me. If they ruled in my favor, I couldn’t work for John Courter anyway. If they ruled against me, I’d be dismissed immediately. What difference did it make?
It will come as no surprise that I succumbed to a ferocious head cold just as the civil service commission announced its decision. The early indicators had been rolling in all morning, like clouds swarming before a storm. First came a pounding at my temples, then a raw scratching at the back of my throat, a dull ache in my hips and shoulders and every other joint, and, finally, just as the door opened, a noisy and violent sneeze.
That wasn’t all. The work of a sheriff’s deputy is physically difficult: even on a fairly tranquil day, one might have to hoist a recalcitrant suspect into an automobile, wrestle with an inmate who refuses to enter or exit her cell, or shoulder a basket of laundry or a tub of dishes. In a jail, there is no one else to do the heavy work. The deputies and the guards take it up equally, and, from time to time, we pay a price.
At that moment I was nursing a sore shoulder brought on by Miss Frederick slipping in the shower just as I was taking the last of her undergarments from her. Although she was dainty, she was quite wobbly as well, and tugged fiercely on my arm as she went down, wrenching it backward just enough to do some damage. Something was not quite right in my hip as well, owing to a tug-of-war with the heavy old mangle that finally had to be taken out for repair.
Both of those injuries reached their boiling point as I waited in the hall. When the decision was announced, I had every intention of rising to take the news with dignity. In fact, I could hardly heft myself off the bench, and when I planted my right arm to give myself some purchase, the shoulder gave way.
The reaction was muffled behind the wooden door, but I knew it soon enough. The door burst open and Mr. Courter—Sheriff Courter, there was no way around it—was the first one out. He went right up to me, and spoke the words he’d been waiting to say for months.
“I’ll take your gun and your badge, Miss Kopp. You’re dismissed.”
38
i did manage to stagger to my feet, although I was, by then, considerably enfeebled. As such, the wrenching feeling I might’ve had while I unpinned my badge and slid my gun from my belt was muffled by the resurgence of my injuries and the insistent pounding of my head cold. When John Courter took those heavy bits of metal from me, still warm from having been worn close to the body, I felt that I’d lost the only anchor holding me on solid ground. I could’ve floated away, there was so little left of the person who had once been Deputy Constance Kopp.
I didn’t march out of the courthouse so much as I limped. The reporters hounding me for a quote backed away quickly when I scowled at them from behind a wet handkerchief. By the time I arrived home, over an hour later, a fever had taken hold. I surrendered to the exquisite agony of it, even reveled in it, as there was no room in my mind for anything but my corporeal suffering. I was free from worry, from panic, from blame, and from wondering why. It was a relief to be so thoroughly flattened.
Norma took up the role of nursemaid during those first few days. Her services were much needed. My raw and swollen throat prevented me from saying more than a few words at a time. Anything I did try to get out would trigger a coughing fit that strained my ribs and further aggravated my already inflamed vocal cords. If I put my head on the pillow, I couldn’t breathe, which forced me to sleep sitting up, and that meant that I hardly slept at all. No position was comfortable, owing to my strained shoulder and tortured right hip. I had no appetite and refused anything but tea and an occasional small bowl of Norma’s noodles drowned in butter and salt.
Norma was up and down the stairs constantly with trays, mustard plasters for my chest, hot-water bottles for my feet, and ice packs for the shoulder and hip. A hot bath seemed to offer the most relief, so she drew one every day, sometimes twice, and carried up kettles of boiling water to add to the tub as it cooled. I hung my head over the water, my hair down around me like a curtain, and gasped and choked over the rising steam.
All of these ailments went on longer than they should have. On the fifth day, Bessie sensed that reinforcements were needed and appeared with jars of soup, delicate sandwiches on spongy bread, and every sweet that had ever tempted me: coconut cake, cherry tarts, meringues, hot cinnamon buns. Bessie was a woman of a great many talents, but chief among them was the ability to revive a flagging appetite. I rallied under the influence of her good cooking. I took a cup of coffee for the first time, and put away a cinnamon bun fresh from the oven.
Bessie sat on the edge of my bed and watched me eat. “I wake up every day and it’s the same,” I croaked, between bites. “I still have a horrible head cold, it hurts to move, and John Courter is still sheriff. If only one of those would change, I might do better.”
She murmured sympathetically and poured a little more milk into my coffee. Fleurette had taken a chair by the window, where she worked at whatever hand-stitching needed doing, while Norma leaned in the doorway.
“The head cold is breaking up, I think,” Norma said, with the air of someone describing the ice on a river. “The shoulder needs a little more time. John Courter will take three years.”
“Yes, and where will I be by then?” But that was too much talking for me, and brought on another coughing fit. I could only nod in answer to questions and dab at my eyes. Bessie speculated as to whether a hot cherry compote might go down easier, and I indicated, with what hand signals I could manage, that it just might.
“I’ve been waiting until you’re better to ask you about this,” Norma said. She held up my little green notebook. “You tossed your coat down when you came in, and it slipped out.”
I reached for it and Norma handed it over. There were the names and addresses of all my probationers, with notes as to their progress. What would become of them? Would Mr. Courter assign another deputy to make my rounds? And what would happen if one of them had an unfavorable report? I hated to think of any of them going back to jail because I wasn’t there to intervene.
I tried to say something about it but could hardly get a word out. Norma snatched the book away. “I’m going to the jail to collect your things. One of the deputies was kind enough to gather them up for you.”
“Who—” I didn’t know what had become of any of the other deputies. Had they all lost their jobs?
Norma knew what I was about to ask and answered it. “In the end, Mr. Courter only disputed your appointment. The other deputies were also deemed exempt from the civil service rules, but he kept them on. The guards were obviously civil servants and never should’ve been caught up in that mess, so they’re fine, too.”
“Then there was no point to it,” I croaked.
“Oh, I think there was. You delayed the whole mess by a month, and Mr. Courter had time to settle down and realize he needed those men. Morris has gone into retirement. The rest have jobs if they want them.”
“Then isn’t that fine for them,” I muttered. It was ungracious of me to be bitter over it: after all, the feud had always been between me and Mr. Courter. He would’ve gotten rid of me somehow. But I wasn’t ready to be gracious about any of it.
Norma was still holding the notebook. “Well? Should I hand this over to the sheriff?”
There it was, between the green leather covers: all of my good intentions. Everything I believed I could do right,
and do well. The evidence of my diligent work, and of the girls’ willingness to turn their lives in a better direction. If I had only succeeded—if I could only have served under another sheriff for a few more years—I would’ve made something substantial out of my program. I would’ve gone off to one of those conferences for policewomen, and held my green notebook high, and told of the good work we’d been doing in Bergen County.
What was it now, but a list of the names of formerly delinquent girls along with information that Sheriff Courter might see fit to use against them?
I shook my head and coughed again into a handkerchief. “Don’t give it to him. It belongs to me. But there’s something I want you to do.”
39
norma proved herself to be a dogged and efficient probation officer. She took up her new responsibilities with the same stolid determination she applied to any other task. Whether she was thumping on a fence post to set it upright, or warning a girl accused of waywardness to keep her wits about her, Norma was equally blunt and pragmatic.
“I’ve come to warn you that Deputy Kopp won’t be looking in on you any longer,” she would announce when the door opened, without bothering to make sure that she was, in fact, speaking to the woman whose name appeared on my list. “In case you believe that to be good news, it isn’t. She was the only one keeping you out of jail. Now you’ll have to look after yourself, which is to say that you’ll have to behave even though there isn’t anyone here telling you to do it.”
Without waiting for a response, she would push on down the road to the next address, leaving the girls to call out their questions to her sturdy tweed-covered backside. There were fifty addresses in all, some of them outdated, but Norma was nothing if not thorough and thought it best to scatter her warnings far and wide, in much the same manner that she broadcast seed on the meadow in the spring.