Winter Sisters

by Robin Oliveira

  Mary and William whispered under the soft tones of the music.

  “Thank God for Jakob,” William said. “Another defense attorney would have torn Emma to shreds.”

  “She did well, yes?” Mary said. “As well as you told her she did? Why did Hotaling say she’d tried to leave the courtroom?”

  “That was infuriating. Emma thought she had been dismissed, so she was just coming to see Elizabeth and me. I think Hotaling told you that just to see what you would do.”

  “What is the matter with that man?”

  “He wants to win.”

  The window was open and the abrupt hoot of an owl sounded above the girls’ shallow breathing. The park harbored one or two during the summer months, when mice overran the open ground.

  Mary said, “I think I derailed everything.”

  “Anyone with a child knows that children imagine themselves somewhere else all the time. It’s the joy of childhood. We’re on a pirate ship! We’re in a palace! Hotaling knows that, too. He just made it sound as if she were out of her mind. His is a dangerous game.”

  “I’m worried, William. If nothing comes of this trial, if Harley is freed and—”

  “It’s the same outcome anyway, Mary, no matter what happens or what you said today. The girls can’t stay here in Albany after the trial. They’ll be the object of curiosity and rumor for the rest of their lives if they do.”

  “But where will we go?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  —

  Uncle William’s and Aunt Mary’s voices whispered through the gentle strains of violin and Emma’s half-sleep, but Emma wasn’t listening to what they were saying. She liked having them there. Somehow they always knew when she needed them and what she needed them to do. She hadn’t even had to ask them to stay with them tonight. After dinner, Uncle William had carried in the extra chair and blankets and then Aunt Mary had read to them and tucked them in and now they were sitting with them as the sky grew dark.

  Earlier, in the courtroom, when everyone was staring at her, Emma had kept a running count. Two eyes for each person. Two; two four; two four six; two four six eight. It was a way to distract herself from paying attention to what she was having to say in front of everyone. Elizabeth and Uncle William had said to look at them, and she had, but it was better to count. It ordered her mind. Two four six eight ten. She hadn’t been able to count them all. She couldn’t see everyone. And there had been the moments when she could see nothing.

  Of course, she had lied to them all. She knew exactly how many times the Other Man had come. Eleven. She knew exactly how many days she and Claire had been inside that cellar. Forty-two. She knew exactly how many times she’d begged to go home. One hundred five.

  She knew how much she missed her mother and father, too, but that was too much love to count.

  She didn’t tell what she knew because she was embarrassed that she couldn’t describe what the Other Man looked like. It seemed ridiculous that she couldn’t tell them that. They all wanted to know. But it had been dark. Not even a candle. All she could remember was that voice. That cold clutch of pain.

  In the witnesses’ room, after Emma had testified, Elizabeth had stayed with her until they could leave. Elizabeth hummed to her because she didn’t have her violin. She said it was one of Mozart’s numbered concertos. Prolific composers almost always use numbers, Elizabeth explained, instead of names to title their pieces of music, for two reasons. One, because they write so many that it would be impossible to come up with names, and two, because music is a matter of count: 3/4 time; 7/8 time. So, Piano Concerto Nos. 1, 2, 3. Violin Concerto Nos. 21, 22, 23. Symphonies Nos. 1 through 9.

  That’s why music lasts forever, Elizabeth said. That’s why we remember it. It’s about time. It’s about eternity.

  Now Emma decided that if enough days passed from when she and Claire had gotten free to when she felt safe again, she was going to compose a piece of music and name it after the number of days it had taken her to stop being afraid.

  But right now she would have to name it the Eternity Concerto, because she couldn’t imagine a time when she wouldn’t be afraid. On that cliff on Cape Cod with Uncle William, there had been a glimmer of possibility, but it hadn’t lasted.

  Through Claire’s quiet breathing and Elizabeth’s playing, Emma could hear Uncle William and Aunt Mary discussing something about her, but she had already given sleep permission to soften the edges of her world.

  —

  The next morning at 7:00 a.m. Gerritt Van der Veer awoke to a fresh-faced maid kneeling beside the bed, gathering the broken shards of the highball glass.

  “Beg your pardon, sir. There’s a man at the door for you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Don’t know,” she said, rising.

  “Send him away.”

  “He won’t go.”

  “Well, have whoever it is meet me in my study.”

  “He won’t come in, sir.”

  Gerritt wiped a line of drool from his beard, straightened his wrinkled vest and crumpled shirt, combed a hand over his bald pate, and stumbled down the stairs, holding a hand to his head to try to subdue the crippling headache shooting flashing stars across his vision. It took a long moment to recognize the bailiff from the previous day, even after the man identified himself. He wore not his uniform but a lumpy tweed jacket, twill work pants, and a rough, high-collar shirt with a narrow string tie. Around his waist he had holstered a Colt, and from a ring dangled a pair of nippers. From the shadows at the side of the door, a young policeman emerged. Dark circles under his eyes suggested that he’d been up all night.

  “Are you Gerritt Van der Veer?”

  “What of it?”

  “You are under court order to come with us now.” The policeman presented Gerritt with a subpoena.

  “Holy hell,” Gerritt said and tried to shove the door shut, but the young policeman put out a hand and stopped him.

  “Jakob!” But Gerritt’s bellowing did not summon his son. “Holy hell, what is this for?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “For God’s sake, at least allow me a chance to clean up,” he said, managing to get hold of a cap hanging from a hook.

  “Sorry, sir,” the bailiff said. “I can’t.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Dr. Stipp, can you describe for me what occurred at your home on Thursday, the eighth of May?”

  Jakob Van der Veer had recalled Mary Stipp to the stand as his first witness for the defense. It was nine o’clock, and the courtroom overflowed again. Outside, barred onlookers required a near cavalry troop to control them, and occasionally shouts of Free Harley! and She’s of age! penetrated the courtroom.

  Jakob stood at his defense table, one hand resting on a wooden crate. He’d not slept except for a few fitful hours before dawn. When the bailiff had come for his father, Jakob had not answered his father’s fury. He’d gone to the window, watched them cart him away, and then dressed in a new frock coat and gone down to the Delavan House to visit his mother. She had taken a corner room under her maiden name of Van Wyck and hidden herself away with her maid, who ferried meals upstairs from the dining room so that she wouldn’t be seen. His mother had already dressed for the day in a sunny-yellow frock and a matching hat, a disguise of optimism. He took the wooden crate she had hidden for him and tucked its bulky weight under one arm.

  Viola touched his elbow the way she used to when he was younger. “I’m frightened, Jakob.”

  He had kissed her on her cheek, unwilling to tell her that he was frightened, too. For both of them, after today nothing would ever be the same. There ought to have been hope in that statement, and maybe there was, but it was still all before them and everything depended on him.

  “Do you know where to go?” Jakob said.

  “I do.”

  “Al
l right, then. I’ll see you later.”

  Now, in the courtroom, as Jakob awaited Mary Stipp’s answer, he fought to keep his gaze on her and not look again at Elizabeth, who sat as she had yesterday directly behind Hotaling. He wished he could banish the look of distress that enveloped her. Yesterday when their hands had briefly touched, he’d wanted to believe that the gesture had been deliberate on her part. It had been on his.

  Mary said, “On May eighth, you had come to our home to question Emma, and while you were there, a pair of dolls was delivered to our home, addressed to Emma and Claire.”

  Had he eaten this morning? Jakob couldn’t remember, but now he tamped down a swell of nausea and touched his hand to the wooden crate. “Is this the crate they came in?”

  “Yes.”

  Jakob made a show of opening the case and withdrawing the dolls, much as William had done that day in the Stipps’ parlor when they were delivered. Jakob held them up for the crowd and the jury to see. That day at the Stipps’, they had given him permission to take the dolls with him and he had hidden them under his bed until his mother had taken them with her to the Delavan yesterday. “Are these they?” he asked Mary.

  “They are.”

  He carried the dolls to the prosecution table and gave them to Hotaling, who held them at arm’s length.

  “Objection,” Hotaling said. “These dolls were not collected by a policeman. Provenance cannot be authenticated.”

  “Will both counselors approach the bench, please?” Thayer said. Thayer narrowed his eyes as he tapped the end of a pencil on his desk. This morning, his face wore a haggard look of concentration. Earlier, Jakob had heard Thayer ask the bailiff to replenish his tea at regular intervals.

  “Mr. Van der Veer,” Thayer said. “How did you come to be in possession of these artifacts?”

  “I took them from the Stipps’ home that day. I recognized them—at least, their type—and believed them relevant for reasons that will soon become clear. I kept them hidden in my home until I could present them here today.”

  “Why was I never told about them?” Hotaling said.

  No defense attorney needed to provide the prosecution any evidence unless they asked for it, and Hotaling hadn’t, a point of procedure that Hotaling was well aware of. Jakob began to explain for the record, but the judge was already waving his hand in approval. Hotaling exhaled loudly and turned on his heel, making for the prosecution table in disgust.

  Ignoring him, Jakob said, “Dr. Stipp, can you please describe these dolls?”

  “I know very little about them except that they are from a French manufacturer named Jumeau. Your mother knows far more than I do. What I do know is that they are very expensive and very rare.”

  “Do you know who sent them to Emma and Claire?”

  “I do not. There was a note included, but it wasn’t signed.”

  “And what did the note say?”

  “Do you miss me?”

  Jakob had not expected the same dread from the gallery as had hit both him and the Stipps, but the polite silence that greeted Mary Stipp’s answer unnerved him. He retrieved the card from his desk and showed it to her. “Is this the note?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you understand its meaning to be?”

  “I thought it was sinister. Emma told me that the man who raped her told her that she would miss him.”

  “And you believed this note was a direct reference to that?”

  “I did and do still.”

  “What did you do after you received the note and dolls?”

  “The trial wasn’t to begin for more than a month, so my husband, mother, and niece took Emma and Claire away. We were worried that the person who had sent it might mean them harm. I, however, did not accompany them. I stayed behind to care for our patients. Then, one day I went to Manhattan City to see about the dolls.”

  “Which day?”

  “May twelfth.”

  “And with whom did you undertake this trip?”

  “With your mother, Viola Van der Veer.”

  “Objection.” Hotaling shot to his feet “Does the defense lawyer regularly use his mother as a private detective?”

  “Your Honor,” Jakob said. “Neither Dr. Stipp nor my mother alerted me to their journey before it was undertaken, but as you will soon learn, their trip uncovered a fascinating turn of events.”

  “It had better be fascinating,” Thayer said.

  Jakob preferred the more alert Thayer to this exhausted, scolding shell. It was ten thirty-five. Morning shadows still cooled the courtroom, but the bailiff was heaving open the windows anyway, hoping to preempt the noontime swelter. A sleek crow squawked in protest from the branch of the majestic elm tree across the street as angry wrens in the upper branches scolded the interloper. The jury hunched in their places. It was these men Jakob would have to convince of everything he believed to be true, which in this moment was also everything he feared to be true.

  “Now then, Dr. Stipp,” Jakob said. “Why did you and Mrs. Van der Veer both go to Manhattan City, and what did you discover there?”

  “As I said, Mrs. Van der Veer collects Jumeau dolls. No one in Albany sells them. She knew of just one store that did, in Manhattan City, where she purchases hers. The store is Arnold Constable’s, near Union Square. It was logical to assume that the same shop may have sold the dolls to whomever had sent them to Emma. So we went. Mrs. Van der Veer is well known there. She asked them whether or not they would look through their receipts to see who had sent the dolls, and because of who she is, they obliged her. It did not take them long to find the bill of sale in their records. It was from late April of this year, purchased via mail, paid in cash.”

  Jakob went to his table and fished in his case for the slip of yellow paper that Mary and his mother had given him the night they had returned from Manhattan City. He showed it now first to Hotaling, then to the judge, then to the jury, then to Mary. “Is this that bill of sale?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who does it say was the purchaser?”

  “Captain Arthur Mantel.”

  —

  Hotaling shot to his feet. “Objection. This witness is not on the list the defense attorney delivered to us.”

  “Viola Van der Veer will address the issue of authentication,” Jakob said. Hotaling sighed and sat down again.

  To those few in the gallery who had never encountered Gerritt Van der Veer’s wife, she appeared on first assessment to be diminutive and self-conscious. However, to the many who knew her, she carried herself with far more self-possession than usual. The pleated silk of her dress gathered in cascades of folds in a modest bustle and drew envious glances from every woman in the room. Her doll-like face lacked the unsettled fear that usually characterized her, too, and her voice, though hushed, carried a new note of determination during the particulars of residence and identification. Viola, like Emma, was barely visible from the back of the room when she took the stand, but her tall, elaborately decorated hat gave the latecomers occupying those rows a focal point.

  “Can you tell the court how many Jumeau dolls you own?”

  “Fifty.”

  A loud murmur greeted this pronouncement, and Viola hastily added, “They are not playthings. These are collector items.”

  “Can you tell us, is one more exceptional than all the others?”

  “Yes. One of the ones that you have there on your table. She was released in Paris earlier this year. I own one of the very few of that type sent to the United States. That is another,” she said, nodding toward the dolls.

  “Can you describe her particulars to us, please?”

  “She was designed by a famous French sculptor named Carrier-Belleuse. What distinguishes this doll from others is the remarkable detail of her porcelain face, which appears very human, and the expressive beauty of the
glass paperweight eyes.”

  “Paperweight?”

  “They open and close with the movement of the doll. She has an eight-ball body, made of wood, which means that she can be put into various positions when held up by a stand. It makes her appear more lifelike. As you can see, her dress is stunning. It’s made of rose silk, with exquisite pleating and Belgian lace and fine ruffles. The detailing is as subtle and cultured as the most expensive ball gown. Her hair is human. Her hat is finished with a white plume that mimics an egret’s. Baroque pearls close the shoe tabs. The hat, dress, and shoes are all made of the same rose silk.”

  Her voice had taken on a serious, educated tone, as if she were describing the various physical attributes of a prize horse. The men in the audience stirred with interest, responding to the unspooling details, recognizing expertise when they heard it.

  Jakob held up a second receipt. “Is this your bill of sale?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how much did this doll cost?”

  Viola hesitated before saying, “Thirty dollars.”

  Everyone in the room gasped. It would take most people half a year to make that sum, and few could spare that to buy something as frivolous as a doll. A laborer might make fifty cents a day if he was well paid, and far less if he was not, which included most everyone.

  “Who knows that you have this collection?”

  Viola lifted her chin. “My maids and a few acquaintances, the few people I invite to see them. Most of the women I am acquainted with would not understand my interest. So I am careful not to throw my pearls before swine.”

  Everyone registered the covert dig, including several Pruyn women, who had hidden themselves beside their husbands in an effort to remain inconspicuous.