Having discharged the sole reason for his visit, Jakob saw no reason to stay. He rose to leave to make his second visit to Harley in jail, but Hotaling waylaid him. He had a few other things to tell the young attorney.
By the time Hotaling was finished, Jakob was shaking with rage.
—
Jakob had first visited Harley more than a week before, on April 25, the day his father had charged him with defending Harley. It was the first time Jakob had ever been inside the forbidding county jail, with its thick brick walls and barred windows. There had been a raft of drunk and disorderly arrests, the flood having unleashed extremities of passion normally encountered only on Independence Day, and the place was full of bellowing drunks. Irritated by the caterwauling, the jailer, a scowl of a man named Charles Bahan, did not respond to Jakob’s questions about Harley’s health as he led Jakob down a dank, central corridor lined with solid steel doors. The gloomy passageway was lit only by a single candle at either end. The jailer carried a third. After unlocking Harley’s cell, Bahan handed Jakob his stub of candle then locked him in with Harley, retreating back down the hallway in semidarkness.
The dingy cell was windowless with only a narrow, louvered slit in the steel door. At the outer limits of his candle’s flame, Jakob spied Harley snoring on the bare wooden bench that served as a bed. Even on the warm afternoon—the thermometer outside City Hall had read seventy-two degrees—the cell was chilly. Roaches scurried underfoot, dispersing into cracks in the brick flooring. Jakob nudged Harley with the toe of one boot and Harley swung his legs over the edge of the cot and erupted with a loud, hacking cough. Groaning, he seized the back of his neck and swore. The bandage was a dirty, wrinkled mess. Harley still wore the nightclothes he’d had on when he’d been found at the whorehouse. Jakob made a note to bring the foreman a change of clothes and handed him a blanket and a bag containing the beef sandwich he’d brought for him from home. It was odd to see the powerful Harley in this enfeebled state, grateful for even small scraps of comfort. Every memory of his father’s yard from childhood included a clear image of the strapping Harley orchestrating the movements of hundreds of men and thousands of board feet from atop a tower of plywood or lumber.
It was absurd to think he had committed such a terrible crime.
“Has a doctor been coming to see you?” Jakob said.
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, he’s done a terrible job.”
Harley shrugged and unfolded the woolen blanket. He wrapped it around his hunched shoulders then gingerly peeled the waxed paper from the sandwich and took an enormous bite. After quickly devouring half the sandwich, he looked up at Jakob and said, “Are those girls really alive?”
Jakob didn’t know what he had expected Harley’s first words to be. “They are.”
An unguarded look of pure relief crossed Harley’s face. “Oh, thank the Lord. Where are they, then?”
“Somewhere being well taken care of.” Jakob cleared his throat. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“Are you going to defend me? Is that why you’ve come?”
“Father wants me to. Unless you prefer someone else, in which case—”
“No. You. Your father trusts you, I trust you.”
Jakob let go this last hope of a reprieve with a small, ironical laugh. “As I said, a few questions—”
“I didn’t kidnap them,” Harley started in, fervently brushing crumbs from his nightshirt. “Someone just brought them to my house. I’m fond of children, you know, just like those boys I helped. I took good care of them—”
“Excuse me. Emma and Claire were actually in your house?”
Harley sat straight up, and this defensive posture came at the expense of his cut. He swore again and gestured toward the back of his neck, refraining from actually touching the bandage.
“You had them all that time?” Jakob said.
“I didn’t have them. I told you. I was taking care of them.”
Harley’s reasoning was incomprehensible to Jakob. “But didn’t you see all the flyers that the Stipps posted? Didn’t you see the advertisements in the newspapers? And what about that dinner? Father brought up their deaths. Why didn’t you say anything? And before, in the yard, we were all talking about them. Didn’t you hear us? Why didn’t you tell us all you had David’s daughters?”
Harley shrugged and took another bite, taking time to chew and swallow before answering. “Because I thought someone might take them away from me, and I loved them.”
“But you had no right to keep them.” Jakob began to pace. The dampness was turning his skin clammy. “I don’t understand.”
“When I heard their parents died, I decided to take care of them. They were safe with me. And if I listened to all the jabber in the yard, do you think a stick of lumber would ever move?”
“Custody doesn’t work that way, Mr. Harley. You said that someone brought them to you? Who?”
“Can’t say.”
“Or won’t?”
Harley had finished his sandwich and was wiping crumbs from his lips with the back of one hand and crumpling the waxed paper, stained brown with mustard, with the other. He seemed oddly calm for a man in his situation. “Can’t say as I recognized him. He was all muffled up because of the cold. A do-gooder, I expect. I was so focused on the children that I didn’t take notice.”
“A do-gooder who just happened by your house in the aftermath of the blizzard with two little girls?”
“He may have said he knew O’Donnell, but I can’t remember.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Harley waved away this challenge. “It was a blizzard. You know how it was. I was doing my part for the world.”
“Captain Mantel told me this morning that Emma and Claire were interfered with.”
Harley’s face crumpled. To Jakob, Harley appeared well and truly crushed.
Harley began to shout. “They were interfered with? Impossible! No! How? When? It must have happened that night, the night of the flood, after they ran away. That’s when anyone could have taken advantage of them—out on the streets like that, all alone? Anyone. Oh, I’m heartbroken. I adore those girls. Oh, how cruel. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t.”
“You did nothing?”
“Nothing except care for them.”
“Was it you who took advantage?”
“You know me. You know who I am. I took excellent care of them. Surely they know that, and you should, too. Surely they’ll remember. Surely they’ll tell you.”
Jakob ignored this appeal. “I need to explain to you that the charges are likely to be steep: rape, kidnapping, imprisonment. Ten years each, minimum charge. Thirty years. That would mean that you would likely die in prison. Since you’ve already admitted to keeping the sisters, even if you deny the other charges, the jury will extrapolate to the other. I suggest you consider pleading guilty. If you agree, I can probably bargain for a lesser sentence. Of course, a guilty plea means that you admit guilt.”
Harley was gaping. “Thirty years?”
“Minimum. But there might be other charges added. I’ve talked only to Mantel. I won’t see the district attorney until after he files charges, if he does. Right now I’m going to see whether or not the judge will post bail.”
“But I didn’t touch them. I kept Emma and Claire with me out of the goodness of my heart. I had no idea anyone was looking for them. Everyone knows that orphan asylums are soulless places. I gave them a loving home, I did. I was going to send them to school after they recovered from the shock of losing their parents, but they were still fragile little things. I just wanted to protect them. I was helping them.”
“Thirty years, Mr. Harley.”
Harley’s fretful gaze darted away and back again. “But I didn’t do anything to those girls. I love them.”
—
Now,
seething with rage after his meeting with the district attorney, Jakob hesitated outside Harley’s cell. Not only had the district attorney dismissed any hope of a plea bargain, but he had also outlined Emma’s and the Stipps’ depositions, including Mary Stipp’s detailed summation of Emma’s injuries. He fought to compose himself as the jailer once again handed him a stub of a burning candle.
Unlike last time, this time the overseer rose from his bunk to greet him. In the chamois shirt and canvas pants that Jakob had sent to him, Harley looked more like his former commanding self. In the Van der Veer yard, Harley had held exacting standards for neatness, insisting that the rows of lumber were laid out with military precision. And now he had somehow freshened up, and appeared to be no longer feverish. Even his bandage, clean and free of discharge, was neatly secured with a square knot.
As he had done on his first visit, Jakob handed Harley a bagged sandwich, but Harley tossed it onto the carefully folded blanket at the base of his bed and clutched Jakob by the shoulder. “Where have you been? No one will tell me anything.”
“They are charging you with rape, kidnapping, and imprisonment,” Jakob said. “Just as I predicted. And no plea bargain. Hotaling won’t do it. He wants to make an example of you, though in my opinion a plea bargain is just as good as a case won. However, the nature of the injuries that Emma O’Donnell suffered has persuaded him to pursue this case with a vengeance.” Jakob could not erase from his mind Hotaling’s recitation of Mary’s painstaking catalog of harm meted out to the girl. There could be no doubt it was rape. It was difficult even to look at Harley now, wondering whether or not he had done it. Pushing his still simmering rage aside, Jakob cast his thoughts ahead to the trial. He’d studied a few rape trial transcripts to evaluate defense strategies. They seemed to consist mostly of heaping shame on the accuser: Do you wear underclothing under your dresses? Are you sure? Do you ever go without it? Did you that day? How can you remember? What were you doing alone in that part of town? Isn’t it true that you have already had relations with other men? Aren’t you flirtatious by nature? How long have you been promiscuous? Did you even resist a little? Did you fight to the point of exhaustion? Why not? You seem strong enough to persuade a man that you’re not interested, if you really didn’t want to, but you really wanted it, didn’t you? Did you scream? No? Why not? If you didn’t scream, then any reasonable man would take that as leave to do as he pleased.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a more experienced attorney?” Jakob said, making one last effort to remove himself.
A momentary flicker of indecision crossed Harley’s face. “No. I’ve decided.”
Jakob sighed. “Very well. Before the district attorney turned down our request, he shared some information with me. Since I last saw you, he has interviewed Emma. Just as you claimed, it seems Emma insists that another man—not you—brought them to your house.”
Harley’s gaze lit up. “But I already told you that, didn’t I?”
“But she also says that this other man raped her in your cellar. Repeatedly.” Jakob did not mention that Hotaling had summarily dismissed Emma’s assertion of another man: “Unreliable, those sisters,” Hotaling had averred. “Not right in the head. They developed a fondness for their kidnapper—Mr. Harley—and in order to survive excused his misdeeds on the grounds that he was the one who fed and nurtured them. They were making up stories for themselves to keep their sanity from deteriorating. Happens, sometimes you know,” he’d continued. “And you can bet that if there were another man, Harley would name him, just to get himself freed.”
Jakob wondered whether it was possible that Emma had imagined this other man. He supposed that it was possible that a girl as young as Emma could drift into confusion and reverie to cope with horrific circumstances, but he didn’t know. He studied Harley’s stolid expression for any indication of what the truth might be. Today Harley had a hurried, practiced air about him, but Jakob wondered whether his anger with Harley colored his impression of everything the overseer said.
“I swear to you, I didn’t touch them,” Harley said.
“Tell me the truth. Did you rape Emma?”
“No. Ask her. She’ll tell you.”
“I plan to.” He had sent a note to the Stipps yesterday evening, requesting a formal interview with Emma, but he’d not yet heard back. “Did another man come to the house?”
Harley met Jakob’s gaze with the same authority he had commanded in the yard. “See here. No one raped them—not at my house. If it happened at all, it happened the night of the flood, when they were out of my care.” Harley sank onto his bench and yanked the sandwich from the bag and began to tear off mouthfuls of bread and meat.
Jakob said, “I need to clarify something else. Was the reason you didn’t go to the yard the night of the flood because you went to your house to make certain that Emma and Claire wouldn’t drown?”
“That’s right,” Harley said. “I couldn’t leave them to fend for themselves. I had to get them out of the house. Then, something hit me and I don’t remember anything after that, not until I woke up in the hospital.”
“But why couldn’t they walk out of the house by themselves? You didn’t lock them in, did you?”
“I couldn’t leave them to their own devices. Children get scared. And about you—out there on that ice. I’m sorry about that. I thought I’d make it back in time to help you. I didn’t know that I’d get hurt or you’d get stranded.”
“Just tell me, Mr. Harley. Were Emma and Claire locked in?”
“I needed to keep them safe!”
Jakob noted the sidesteps. Harley had not completely denied that there was another man, nor had he denied locking the sisters in. “How were you injured? Something hit you, you said?”
Harley shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Did Emma hit you with a shovel?”
“A shovel? Emma? Hit me? Why would she do that?”
“Time,” the jailer said, peering in through the louvered window in the door. Jakob had heard nothing of Bahan’s approach. He had the terrible feeling the man had been eavesdropping outside the cell the whole time.
“Can you give me a few more minutes?”
Bahan said, “I’ve got seven hundred things to do and being at your beck and call isn’t one of them. Time.”
On the way out, Jakob asked the jailer, “Has someone besides the doctor been to see Mr. Harley? His manner is a little—let’s say changed.”
“You mean other than Captain Mantel?”
“Captain Mantel?”
Bahan shrugged, newly reticent. “Can’t say, really. I’m not here twenty-four hours a day.”
“Does the jail keep a visitor’s log?”
“Sometimes.”
“May I see it?”
There were pages and pages of visitors scrawled into the ledger, and very few of the entries were readable. The trick, it seemed, was to answer to the letter of the law—sign something—but not to write legibly enough to have anyone detect your name.
Jakob shut the ledger with exasperation and went on to his next appointment.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Argus
May 6, 1879
By Horace Young
Winter Sisters’ Whereabouts Confirmed
Emma and Claire O’Donnell, the blizzard girls, widely believed to be receiving treatment in a sanitarium, are instead living with the Doctors Stipp in their home on Madison Avenue. Can this be prudent in light of the injured girls’ situation? Especially since it is now known that Dr. Mary Stipp finances and provides medical care for Ladies of the Night at a clinic in downtown Albany. This reporter wonders whether there might be a connection between the assault on the O’Donnell children and Dr. Mary Stipp’s immoral activities. Given these vagaries, we pose a third, more important question: Ought any citizen of Albany County patronize the Stipp Clin
ic from this day forward?
Chapter Thirty-Six
After leaving Harley at the jail, Jakob had some time before his next appointment, so he went by the Lumber District to see how the cleanup was faring. He hadn’t been there since the night he’d spent on the roof. The Van der Veer office had withstood the flood’s onslaught, but the entirety of the inside had to be torn out and replaced, several broken windows reglazed, and the axed roof patched. Twenty carpenters were hard at work while Gerritt ran the business from a room he’d rented at the Delavan House. Indeed, the entire Lumber District was picking up the pieces, repairing its docks, relaying its trolley tracks, putting its sawmills to rights, and sorting and restacking salvaged lumber wrestled out of rushes miles and miles away. The place was still a bog of mud, though the Hudson had long ago retreated into its channel. Sloops and tugs and day boats plied the river, and the Erie Canal had reopened to a backlog of packet boats, its infuriated captains losing money by the minute.
He met Farrell at the base of State Street, and they veered down Green Street, covering the quarter mile to Harley’s house in more time than they would have liked. River silt nearly a foot deep sucked at their boots as they slogged down the center of the road, which was still impassable to wagons. People were slopping mud from their homes with tin buckets and flat shovels, hanging bedding and clothing out to dry on lines strung between tree branches, and tending to steam pumps chugging brown water and more muck onto the already buried cobbles. The air was thick with humidity as the rivulets evaporated into the summerlike air.
At Harley’s house, a bored policeman, very young and pimpled and hot in his wool uniform, blocked the door. “Captain Mantel says that no one is to come in.”
“No one but police, that is,” Farrell said. He jerked his head in Jakob’s direction “And this one’s defending Mr. Harley, so he gets to see everything.”
Chastened and newly cooperative, the young officer waved Farrell and Jakob in, reporting that they had pumped out the cellar only that morning with a steam rig borrowed from the Albany Brewery and they ought to be careful because the stairs to the cellar were swollen and slippery.
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