"I gotta go," he said, inching back toward the door. His father was always pretending to know stuff he didn't, and Davis didn't want to hang around for the mailmen-know-things speech.
"Where's my bottle?" his father asked again. "I'll be damned if I'll be stoppin' in that bar to shoot my mouth off after this."
"After what?" He picked up his father's chamber pot and placed it behind the door to the water closet.
"My fault." His father came to his feet, teetered, and fell back down onto the couch.
Davis took a deep breath. "Which bar?"
"And on a saint's day! They'll all be rotting in hell for what they did to her." He slid to the side and his head fell onto the arm of the sofa.
"Who, Da?" he asked, taking several steps toward his father.
The man was sleeping once again, snoring lightly while he no doubt lost his job. Davis considered waking him up, but remembered what Mr. Whittier had told him about letting sleeping dogs lay.
***
Behind Ash something was happening in the courtroom. Before he could turn around, Cabot grabbed his arm. "Don't look behind you," he warned. "Keep your eyes on the jury and sit up straight."
"Don't worry, I'm not about to change my plea this time," he said, shifting in his seat to look for Charlotte and instead being treated to one of his mother's gracious smiles. "What is she doing here?" he hissed at Cabot through gritted teeth.
Cabot shook his head, apparently baffled. "Smile at her," he whispered. "The jury's watching you."
"Is the defense prepared to call its first witness?" Judge Hammerman asked.
"A moment, Your Honor," Cabot said, and began hurriedly sifting through his notes.
"What's wrong?" Ash whispered.
"My first witness was the hooker you spent the night with on February eighth. I can't call her with Mother here."
"You found her?" Ash asked, more than surprised. "Where is she?"
Cabot nodded his head in the direction of a stunning woman whose deep eyes slanted slightly and whose black hair shone. Ash didn't recall ever having seen the woman before. "You're sure?" he asked.
"She's sure," Cabot answered. "But the jury won't like Mother hearing her testimony."
"Counselor?" Judge Hammerman asked.
"Yes, Your Honor," Cabot said. "My wheel here seems to be jammed."
Ash watched as he slipped the brake in place.
"Can't get it to move. Might I ask the court's indulgence for a short recess?"
People behind them began to shift in their seats as if the judge had already granted the request. Ash realized that if the judge refused, the jury would be sympathetic to Cabot, and consequently to him. And if he agreed, Cabot had bought them some time. He was definitely getting the hang of this trial thing. Just in time to be hanged himself.
"Arthur," Ash said, calling Cabot's man over when their request had been granted, "go back to the house and get the new wheelchair as fast as you can."
"What new chair?" Cabot asked.
"Who are you going to put on?" Ash asked in response.
Cabot studied the jury box, hesitating only a moment.
"Mother," he said, with just the hint of a smile.
CHAPTER 26
"I love both my sons," Kathryn said pointedly in response to Cabot's question. "Though neither of them is perfect." There was a titter from the crowd, and Cabot turned his new three-wheeled chair around easily to smile at Ash.
"She never did care for your table manners," he said. Ash's brain raced for a comeback. Was there anything about Cabot his mother hadn't liked? "She hates the way you suck on that mustache," he said, figuring no one could like it.
Cabot looked shocked, and the courtroom erupted in laughter, which only quieted with the banging of the judge's gavel and an order to proceed with the case at hand.
"Do you think that Ashford Whittier could have set either of the fires of which he stands accused?" Cabot asked their mother.
"I do not," she said, looking down her aristocratic nose at the jury.
"What makes you so certain?" Cabot asked.
"I know every mother is sure that her child could do nothing wrong. And they can't all be right, because bad things do happen. Obviously, someone's son did those awful things. How do I know it wasn't my child? Because in all Ash's crazy wild days, in all his wanderings about trying to find the meaning in his life, he has never hurt anyone but himself. His crimes, if you want to call a man's weaknesses that, were without victims."
She turned to face the jury. "When my son was a very young boy, he was playful and full of life. He had a streak of mischievousness that always made us laugh. Told to do something, he didn't always obey. Called, he didn't always come. Without going into it, let me just say that on one particular occasion it resulted in a terrible tragedy. He was six. He never forgot and he never forgave himself and he'd never talk about it."
She looked straight at him then, and smiled slyly. "Now I suppose he has to at least listen to me. I watched him as he carried his sadness around with him for years, across oceans. And nowhere he went and nothing he did seemed to free him.
"Until recently. Within the last month or two I've seen a serenity replace his pain, a satisfaction replace his hunger. He's finally stopped running from a guilt he should never have felt. I know my son could never have set fire to his warehouse, because it simply isn't within his nature, and because there is nothing that would have made him risk that newfound peace."
Ash didn't know when he had closed his eyes, but when he reopened them, his mother was only a blur of regal bearing. He'd disappointed her over and over again, and yet there she sat in the witness box with her head held high as if Ash were someone of whom she could truly be proud.
"No further questions, Your Honor," Cabot said in the hushed courtroom, and then wheeled himself back to the defense table with ease. "You know, this works remarkably well," he said to his brother, loud enough for the jury to hear. "Thanks."
Ash just nodded. What a time to find out what he meant to his family. Just before he would break all their hearts by getting convicted and hanged.
"So your son has had a sudden conversion, shall we say," Brent said as he came to his feet and addressed Kathryn. "Why?"
Next to Ash, Cabot's fingers went back and forth on the spokes of his wheel.
"I believe he's fallen in love," Kathryn said, her eyes meeting Brent's.
"Really?" Brent threw a gaze their way, lingering a moment on Cabot. "With whom?"
Cabot sucked at his mustache. Ash studied his fingernails. The courtroom was silent as a tomb.
"He hasn't confided in me," Kathryn said carefully.
Ash held his breath, waiting for Brent to ask her to guess. Who'd have thought that his mother would be a match for the district attorney?
"No further questions," Brent mumbled, and all eyes watched his mother come down from the stand and stop at his table to place a kiss on the top of his head and squeeze Cabot's shoulder lightly as she passed.
"Defense calls Nora Mui to the stand." Cabot wheeled out from behind the desk, leaned over to get a better look at the third wheel, and did a sharp little turn on his way to the witness box.
Nora was sworn in and Cabot went through the pleasantries and preliminaries with her.
"Do you know the defendant?" he asked
"We passed an evening together," she said.
"You saw him socially, then?" Cabot tried to clarify delicately.
"You could say that," she agreed.
"Actually I'd prefer it if you did."
"I saw him socially," she said amiably. Ash thought if Cabot told her to say they swam the bay, she'd say that too. And he figured the jury felt the same way.
"Where?"
"We went to his ship." She looked down at her hand. "The Bloody Mary, it's called."
"You're sure that was the man?" Cabot asked, pointing at Ash, who by now was sure he'd never seen the woman before in his life.
"I remember the bird
," she said.
"The bird?" Cabot asked, wheeling near the jury as if he, along with them, were hearing this for the first time.
"A big red-and-yellow one. He called it a macaw, but I think it was really a parrot, if you ask me."
"He had a parrot there?" Cabot asked.
"Mm-hmm," she agreed. "And we tried to teach it to say something new."
"This parrot talks?"
"Does it ever! Ashford said it belonged to a sea captain and had a very salty mouth."
"Did you succeed in teaching it to say anything?" Cabot asked.
The girl nodded. "'See you soon,'" she said.
"And this was when?" Cabot asked.
"The night of February eighth. I remember because it took nearly the whole night, and a woman in my position doesn't forget something like that."
There were a few guffaws, but they ended abruptly when Ash turned and looked apologetically at his mother. She shook her head as if it didn't matter in the slightest to her. Perhaps it didn't, perhaps she knew the truth of it, but it mattered to him, and he hung his head as Cabot continued.
"Your Honor, I'd like to introduce Defense Exhibit A at this time, if it please the court."
Hammerman nodded and Cabot signaled to the back of the room, where Moss Johnson was coming through the doors with Liberty perched on his shoulder.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Liberty shouted. Ash slid down in his chair with the full intention of slipping right on through the floor and pulling every piece of the marquetry wood over him.
"That's enough of that, Liberty " Cabot said.
"Shut up, you stupid bird! Awk! Shut up!" Liberty shouted. The crowd behind him roared their approval of the bird. On Moss's shoulder, Liberty nodded his head vehemently as if he were taking bows.
"Now, what was it you taught him to say?" Cabot asked the woman on the stand when the crowd had quieted enough for him to continue.
"See you soon," she said, her shoulders up and her back pressed into the chair.
"S-s-see you s-s-s-soon! Oh! Oh! Oh! He's so big!" the parrot shrieked.
Cabot put his hand up to his forehead. "Get him out of here, Moss," he directed.
"S-s-see you s-soon!" Liberty shouted. "Shut up, you stupid bird!"
It took several minutes of gavel banging to restore order to Judge Hammerman's courtroom. Finally the judge looked at the time and simply adjourned court for the day, but not before the crowd had subtly shifted into Ash's corner.
***
"Oh, Charlotte, I wish you'd been there," Kathryn said over dinner. "I'm quite sure I did him some good, didn't I, Cabot?"
Charlotte was barely paying attention. She'd spent the day at home with Davis, going over papers and looking for something to hang her hope on. Maybe she was seeing things that weren't there, mirages in the distance on a landscape barren of hope, but she was convinced that Davis knew something about Selma's case. She wasn't sure what, or how much, he might ever be willing to tell her.
Naturally she didn't want the boy to implicate his own father, but if he could just point her in the right direction...
***
"And then when Liberty started in," Kathryn was saying. "You know, at first I didn't believe that girl. I mean, I'm fully aware that Ash hasn't led a monk's existence, but that woman uses kohl on her eyelids, I've no doubt! Then when the bird—"
"Liberty was in court?" Charlotte asked. She had tried not to pay attention to Kathryn's rattling on about Ash's exploits, but this bit of news was impossible to ignore.
"Oh, yes," Katherine said. "Cabot had him there to prove that Ash had visited a friend on the night of the first fire and that the bird had been with them."
"Really?" Charlotte asked despite herself. Was that where the bird had learned to shout, Don't stop?
"Charlotte, are you ready for the boy's appeal?" Cabot asked her, steering her artlessly away from the subject of Ash's liaisons. "I've arranged for a longer-than-usual luncheon break tomorrow, so that I could actually do the argument if you want me to."
"What was the point of all my training, then, if you are going to take my cases? Why did we do all our hard work? You've given me wings, Cabot. It's time you let me fly," she said.
He ran his finger around the rim of his wineglass. "Do you see yourself caged?"
Her heart spent ifs nights in a barred cell with the man she loved. She was locked out of the courtroom. "I'd like to do the argument," she said softly.
"And so you shall. I'll be in the back of the room if you need me."
"You have your own case to worry about. I know you and Ash think that I'm seeing things that aren't there, but Davis told me today that since the accident his father has changed. Did you know that Ewing Flannigan was that mysterious beau of Selma's? And Davis says that there are men at the bar who are asking about him but he won't go there anymore. Don't you think there's something to it?"
Cabot tipped his wine goblet slightly, watching the deep red liquid coat the glass.
"And Davis says that his father asks after Eli. Don't you think that's strange?"
"Well, he liked Selma. Selma loved Eli. What's strange about that?"
"Eli hated him. And with good reason."
"That doesn't make him a murderer," Cabot said.
"Will you at least look into it?" Charlotte asked. "I went to the bar myself today, but they wouldn't let me in."
"Women aren't allowed in those bars," he said, shaking his head at her. "And for good reason. A lot of drunken men can only mean trouble. Don't you have any fears?"
Charlotte thought about Ash spending the rest of his life in prison, or worse. She thought of herself, spending night after night alone in her narrow bed. Lining up her knife and spoon carefully with the edge of the table, she took a moment to pull herself together before looking up to meet his eyes. Had she no fears? Fear was her constant companion, her closest ally and her most hated enemy. It was what she conquered every morning when she opened her eyes, it was what fueled her energy when she wanted to give up working on Ash's case and what left her hoping long into the night.
But was she afraid of the men in McGinty's?
"Do you want to go there, Cabot, or shall I try again?"
CHAPTER 27
Charlotte wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt and stood up. This one was for all the marbles, as Ash always put it. She smiled down at Davis and pointed out to him that Cabot was in the back of the courtroom. Across from her table sat Ewing Flannigan. Even spiffing up for the occasion, he looked a great deal worse than he had the last time they had met in court.
"Mrs. Whittier?" Judge Mallory asked. "It was my understanding that your husband would be presenting the argument this time."
"Your Honor," Cabot called from the back of the room, "as you undoubtedly know, I'm trying a case next door and may be called away at any time. I beg the court's indulgence and stand ready to answer any questions that may arise."
Mallory was clearly not pleased, but he nodded at Charlotte. "You may proceed."
"First, I'd like to apologize to the court and to Mr. Flannigan. I made a terrible mistake at our last hearing and I want to acknowledge it."
She came out from behind the desk and stood in front of Ewing Flannigan.
"I made a great many assumptions I had no right to make. Having gotten to know Davis better over the past few weeks, I want to apologize to you for assuming that you didn't love or value your son. He couldn't be as wonderful a boy as he is, as trustworthy, as honest and good natured, if you and his mother hadn't put in the time that being a good parent takes."
Ewing Flannigan acknowledged with a nod that they had done their best. She could see the hurt on his face at just the mention of his wife, and she knew she was on the right track.
"Times are tough, Mr. Flannigan, and life can be unfair. Losing someone you love, love desperately and beyond all reason, as you must have loved your wife, must leave an emptiness that nothing can fill. I don't blame you for trying to dull the pain with alcohol. I'm not so
me zealot who thinks that liquor is the instrument of the devil or that your indulgence shows a weakness of character. I imagine that I, too, could be driven to the bottle after a loss such as you have suffered.
"But when you are drunk, sir, you hurt the boy you love. And it is the duty of the court system to protect that child. Indeed, if someone else raised a hand to your son, you would turn to the courts to see justice done, I'm sure. And the truth is that you cannot control your anger and your pain when you are drinking. And further, it is true that you cannot control your drinking.
"And because you love your son, I'm asking that you voluntarily give him into the court's care with the stipulation that he come and live with Mr. Whittier. That sweet child of yours has had to survive the loss of his mother. Don't make him bear up to the betrayal of his father. If you truly love that boy, Mr. Flannigan, and I believe you do, it has to be slowly killing you inside to see him hurt. And to be the one inflicting that pain.
"Being the one who loves him the most doesn't mean holding on the tightest. It means wanting what's best for him, not what might be best for you. It means wanting to see that child be all that he has the potential to become, and as happy as he has the capacity to be. Can you give him that, Mr. Flannigan? Or can you offer him work in the canneries ten hours a day when he's lucky, and a beating every night when he's not?
"If you love him, Mr. Flannigan, you'll let him go."
She took her seat without looking at Cabot, and felt Davis's fingers slip into hers. She squeezed gently and he squeezed back.
"Come up here, Davis," Judge Mallory ordered, and with a quick look at her first for permission, Davis slid from behind the table and approached the bench. Charlotte was struck by how small he seemed in front of the massive judge's podium. Of course, she wasn't more than an inch taller than him herself. "How did you get that bruise on your face?"
Davis turned to look at his father before answering the judge. "Banged into a door," he said softly.
"A door, huh?" the judge said. "Come around the side here and raise your shirt, boy."
Davis dragged his feet as he made his way around the witness chair and up the two steps of the judge's dais.
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