Timepiece

  The little girl beamed up at her mother. “Did you see the bird?” Her eyes, though still heavy from a month of sickness, were bright and color had returned to the previously ashen skin.

  MaryAnne called for David, who, fearing the worst, quickly entered the room with Catherine following behind him. He was surprised to see the child sitting upright.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  Catherine clapped. “Oh, MaryAnne!”

  “David, she is well! Andrea is well!”

  David walked over to the bed.

  “Hi, Papa. Did you see the bird?”

  David looked to the window. “He has flown away. Did he say anything to you?”

  “Birds don’t talk.”

  “I forgot,” he said whimsically.

  He kissed her on the forehead, then turned back to MaryAnne and took her in his arms. “You did it, Mary. By sheer will, or love, you won.”

  The next day, before the clocks of the Parkin home had proclaimed the tenth hour, Lawrence limped up the cobblestone drive to the mansion, his broad-rimmed felt hat bent against the morning sun. In one hand swung a book.

  Catherine stood on the porch polishing the paned windows in curt, rectangular swipes. She turned around when she saw Lawrence’s reflection.

  “Good morning, Mr. Flake.”

  Lawrence tipped his hat. “Mornin’, Miss Catherine. Is David or Miss MaryAnne ‘bout?”

  Just then MaryAnne, who had seen him approach, stepped outside. “Lawrence, welcome.”

  “Miss MaryAnne!” Lawrence’s expression betrayed his surprise at how emaciated she had become.

  MaryAnne blushed. “I’m sorry, I must look frightful.”

  “No, ma’am,” Lawrence replied quickly, “you look as pretty as you always done.”

  MaryAnne smiled at the kind fib. “It’s been a hard time, Lawrence.”

  “I know, ma’am. And you been a rock.” Lawrence lowered his hat, relegating it to the same hand which held the book. He scratched his head. “I was thinkin’ that maybe with the fever gone I could see Andrea. I brought her a book, thought maybe I could read to her.”

  “Of course you may. She would love that. Please come in.” MaryAnne led him up to the nursery and announced the visitor to Andrea, who happily bounced up in bed, shedding the tied quilt that covered her legs.

  “Hi, Lawrence!”

  “How you feelin’, missy?” Lawrence asked, stepping into the dusky room.

  “You can come in. I’m not sick!”

  “Your mama told me you feelin’ much better.”

  MaryAnne smiled at the exchange, then excusing herself, shut the door behind them. Lawrence sat down on the edge of the small bed next to her and displayed the book. “I came to read you a story.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s ‘bout a rabbit.”

  “I know a story about a rabbit that got into a farmer’s garden.”

  “Well, this, missy, is a story ‘bout a rabbit made of velveteen. You know what velveteen is?”

  She shook her head.

  “Velveteen is somethin’ real soft, like this blanket here. Feels good against your face.” As he said this, he gently stroked her cheek with his forefinger. Andrea grinned accusingly.

  “Your finger’s not soft.”

  He held up his hands in easy surrender. “These hands done too much work to be soft.”

  She looked at the aged, scarred hands. “Lawrence, will I turn brown when I get old?”

  Lawrence broke out in laughter. “No, missy, you won’t be turnin’ brown.” He rubbed her head. “We best get us some more light if we gonna read.” He drew back the curtains so that a beam of sunlight fell across the bed and climbed the opposite wall. He began the story, carefully holding the book so that Andrea could see its brightly illustrated pages. She was captivated by the tale and spoke only once: when he had committed the unpardonable crime of turning the page before she was done looking at the picture. A half hour later he announced the story’s end and lay the book in his lap.

  “That boy had what I had,” Andrea said. “Scarlyfever.”

  “And you got better jus’ like him.”

  She nodded. “I like that rabbit. Can we read it again?”

  “I told your mama that I wouldn’t be too long. Don’t want to disturb your nap time.”

  The child frowned.

  “I’ll leave the book so you can look at the pictures,” he said, holding the book out to her.

  Andrea smiled as she accepted the offering. “I’m glad you turned brown, Lawrence.”

  “Why’s that, missy?”

  “Because I’ll always know it’s you.”

  Lawrence pulled the blanket up over her shoulders as she nestled up against his knee. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, then pulled the curtains tight as the room fell back into a silent infirmary.

  As he left the home he noticed that someone had removed the red placard from the front porch.

  “The most consequential of life’s episodes often begin with the simplest of events.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. October 15, 1913

  Lawrence thought the widows peculiar about death. He learned of Maud Cannon’s passing through another widow, who gossiped cavalierly about the small turnout at Maud’s wake.

  A few days later, there was a knock at Lawrence’s door. A man, dressed in a brown-striped suit and carrying a leather valise, stood outside his shack. He was a pale man with oiled, combed-back hair and pocked skin. His left eye twitched nervously.

  “Mr. Flake?”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Mr. Lawrence Flake?”

  Lawrence nodded.

  He stared at the black man. “Do you have identification papers?”

  “I know who I am,” Lawrence said defiantly.

  The lawyer rubbed his chin. “Yes.” He set down his case, reached into his pocket and produced a small package. An aged jeweler’s box with a vermilion crushed-velvet veneer. He handed Lawrence the box.

  “Needs repairin’?”

  “No. It belongs to you. Our client, the late Maud Cannon, specified in her will that this was to be endowed to you.”

  “You her nephew?”

  “I am the executor of the will,” he replied indignantly. “She wanted you to have this jewelry. Now, if you will please sign this paper, I will go.”

  Lawrence glanced up from the gift. He took the pen and signed the document, wherein the man disappeared as promised. Lawrence stepped back inside, extracted the watch from its case, and held it up to the light, smiling at the exquisite rose-gold timepiece. “Thank you, Miss Maud,” he said aloud. He set the watch back in its case and went back to his paper.

  At first David thought the gunshot was the coughing backfire of his Pierce Arrow. He had concluded the day’s business early and as Lawrence had recently received consignment of the estate of a former steel tycoon known for his eccentricities and remarkable antiques, David thought to stop by to examine the former magnate’s possessions.

  He pulled his car up the dirt drive alongside the east brick wall of the cannery, parking beneath a large painted advertisement expounding the virtues of Schoals shoe black. The car coughed twice before the discharge of a firearm echoed loudly in the back lot, followed by a faint cry. It sounded as if it had come from Lawrence’s shack.

  Apprehensively, David sprinted around to the back of the building. He found the door to Lawrence’s shack wide open. He cautiously peered inside. On the wood-planked floor a small man with a thick reddish beard lay on his back in a pool of dark liquid. The smell of whiskey reeked over the sharp stench of ignited gun powder.

  On the wooden tabletop lay a Winchester rifle. Lawrence sat on the floor in the corner of the room, his eyes vacuous, as if waiting for something he was powerless to stop. He was moaning softly. “Oh Lordy, oh Lordy.”

  “Lawrence, what has happened here?”

  Lawrence stared straight ahead.

  “Lawrence?”
br />   Lawrence slowly looked up. He extended a clenched fist, then opened it to expose the delicate rose-gold wristwatch. The widow’s gift.

  “Man I ain’t never see before pushed his way into my home screamin’ no nigger gonna take his watch. Called me a thief, voodoo-witch doctor. Sez I put a spell on the widow to make her give it to me.”

  David looked down at the dead man.

  “He was stinkin’ drunk. Started a-shovin’ me with his gun. I sez, ‘You take the watch, I ain’t never asked for no watch.’ Made him crazier. Sez, ‘You think this watch is yours to give, nigger? Think I need some nigger tell me what’s rightfully mine?’ Started into cryin’, sez his aunt loves a nigger more than her own flesh. Tha’s when he lifted his gun. I been in war. I know the look in a man’s eyes when he’s gonna kill.”

  Lawrence closed his hand around the timepiece. His face was hard, yet fearful, creased in deep flesh canyons. “Ain’t no watch he wanted.”

  Just then, there was a sharp, metallic click behind them—the bolt action of a carbine. The door opened and a thin man with red cheeks and small puffy eyes stepped into the room. He wore a navy blue, double-breasted police uniform with gold buttons and a black velvet collar and a bell-shaped hat with a diminutive leather rim. He held a rifle chest-high and his eyes darted nervously between David, Lawrence, and the dead man.

  “Stand up, Negro.”

  Lawrence pushed himself up against the wall. The officer knelt down and placed his fingers on the man’s throat. “Everen, you jackass. So you finally got yours,” he said to the corpse. He looked up.

  “Who killed this man?”

  “I did,” David said.

  The officer stood back up. He looked at the firearm on the table. “Whose gun is that?”

  David gestured towards the lifeless body. “It’s his. I killed him with his own gun.”

  The officer noted the look of astonishment on Lawrence’s face. He pointed his rifle at David. “You come with me.”

  “You won’t need the gun.”

  The sheriff turned towards Lawrence. “You come too.”

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with this,” David protested.

  “This your home, Negro?”

  “Yessuh.”

  “You see this man get shot?”

  Lawrence glanced over at David. “Yessuh.”

  “Then you have something to do with this. Come along.”

  A crowd of onlookers had already gathered outside the shack as the two men were led to the horse-drawn paddy wagon and driven off to jail.

  The police captain stared at David over a desk cluttered with papers and a dinner of baked chicken, black beans, and Apple Brown Betty. He suddenly smiled. “Mr. Parkin, please sit down.” He motioned to an austere wooden chair. “Please.”

  The sudden display of courtesy struck David as rather peculiar and he speculated that someone in authority had called on his behalf.

  “Care for anything?” He gestured towards a platter. “Saratoga potatoes?”

  David looked at the food and shook his head.

  “I just heard from the mayor’s office, Mr. Parkin. The mayor wishes to express his personal concern with this matter and hopes that you have been treated respectfully.”

  “I have no complaints.”

  “He personally vouches for your character and wishes to see you sent on your way. In light of Officer Brookes’s report, and your reputation, I see no reason to further detain you.”

  David looked back at the door. “Then I am free to go?”

  “Certainly. I am curious, though. Do you know the man that was killed?”

  “No.”

  “Everen Hatt. He was a regular down here. Everyone in this building, including the domestics, knows him by sight.” He leaned forward onto his thick hands. “This affair ought to be very clear, Mr. Parkin. Hatt was a brawler and a drunk. He was shot in someone else’s residence. The only weapon that was discharged was his. What I don’t understand is your testimony that you shot the man.”

  “Why is that difficult?”

  He leaned back, picking his teeth with his thumb. “Witnesses claim they saw you enter the shack after the gunshot.”

  “They must be mistaken.”

  The police captain looked at him in disbelief. “Yes . . .” His expression suddenly turned grave. “A word of caution, Mr. Parkin. In spite of your connections, these are serious matters. A man has been killed. There will be an inquest and no doubt a hearing.” He pushed his chair back from his desk. “I don’t know what this Negro has on you, but I hope to heaven it does not go bad.”

  David ignored the warning. “May I go now?”

  “You are free to leave.” The Captain shook a brass desk bell and the officer reappeared at the doorway.

  “Brookes, kindly take Mr. Parkin back to his automobile.”

  “What about my friend?” David asked.

  He rubbed his nose. “And release the Negro.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Brookes, shut the door.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the door had shut, the captain leaned forward to a cold dinner and cursed the mayor for his interference in the affair.

  MaryAnne had just heard of David’s arrest and was preparing to go to him when he entered the front door.

  “David! Are you all right?”

  David looked at her blankly. “I will be in my den,” he said as he walked past her. Catherine smiled at MaryAnne sympathetically. MaryAnne took her hand. “It will be all right,” she said.

  An hour later, she entered David’s den carrying a silver-plated tea service. Two sconces lit the wall, teasing the darkness with flickering illumination. From outside, the din of crickets sang in syncopated harmony to the voices of the clocks in the room.

  “I thought you might like some tea. And perhaps some company.”

  He looked up and smiled. “I am sorry. I did not mean to ignore you.”

  She handed him a cup, then set the tray on a buffet and sat on the love seat next to him. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I am fine.”

  She hesitated, gathering courage for her question. “David. Why did you tell them that you shot the man?”

  “You do not believe that I did?”

  “I do not believe you are capable of killing a man.”

  David stared vacantly into space. The room was quiet and MaryAnne looked at him pensively.

  “It seems unlikely to me that Lawrence would get a fair trial.”

  “Mark told me the police officer said that this was a very clear case of self-defense.”

  “Lawrence did not have the mayor vouching for him. If it was Lawrence on trial that clear case would suddenly become very murky.” David frowned. “Even if he was acquitted, the man’s family would likely lynch Lawrence for a miscarriage of justice, not because he was guilty, but because he is a Negro. The only way to protect Lawrence is to keep him out of it.”

  “What if they want to lynch you?”

  David thought for a moment. He had not considered this possibility. “A man cannot live his life by the calculations of retribution. I did what I had to do and hope the consequences are kind.”

  “You are a good man, David. I pray that God will be good to us in this matter.”

  “I am disinclined to think God takes notice of such things.”

  MaryAnne took a sip of tea. “Then you believe it a mere coincidence that you arrived when you did?”

  David found the query intriguing. “I had not considered it. I don’t know, MaryAnne. I really do not know if God or fate meddles in our affairs.”

  “It seems to me that there is a ‘divinity that shapes our ends.’ ”

  David contemplated the assertion. “If this is true, then you must accept that this God, or fate, also besets our species with great calamities.”

  “It is our lot . . .” MaryAnne replied solemnly. She set down her cup. “I cannot answer for the whole of human suffering. I can only speak f
rom my experience. But I have found that my pain is instructive. That through it I become more than I would otherwise.”

  David considered her argument. “To become . . .” He rubbed his forehead. “I think oftentimes that instruction is too hard to bear.” He looked at his wife, then smiled in surrender. “I have become much too serious in my matrimonial state. And perhaps fatalistic. If that same divinity has brought you across the sea to me then it must be of some good.”

  “Or at least have good humor,” she said, suddenly laughing at her husband. She kissed his cheek and laughed again.

  David lay back in the plush seat. “Oh, MaryAnne, that laughter. How I need it.”

  “Then you shall have it.” MaryAnne fell laughing into his arms as David covered her face with kisses.

  “I confess that I find it difficult to take this affair seriously, and were it not for MaryAnne’s anxiety, I would, perhaps, not concern myself with it at all.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. November 22, 1913

  David received notice of the trial two weeks after his arrest and regarded it with little more concern than a coal bill. The trial had been set for the third of December and though it was not of any great interest to David, it provided ample fodder for the local tabloids, which increased circulation with sensational headlines: LOCAL MILLIONAIRE TRIED FOR MURDER.

  The city became caught up in the scandal and nowhere more so than at the bar Everen Hatt had frequented with his soul mate and mentor, Cal Barker.

  Everen Hatt’s disposition could not be blamed entirely on Barker. Hatt was a self-made loser even before he met the man; a year after Hatt’s parents died and he was taken in by his only living relative, the wealthy widow Maud Cannon. The widow learned with great distress of the shallowness of her nephew’s character and, with Christian resolve, set about to reform the boy, leading to squabbles that increased daily in frequency and rancor. It was months before she began to learn the extent of his depravity. He readily took from her with no thought of gratitude or obligation, and when she finally refused to further finance his incessant drinking, valuables began to disappear from around the house. She confronted him with the losses, to which he responded so violently that she feared for her safety and never mentioned the subject again, quietly hiding the pieces with the greatest sentimental value. So when a few years later he begged a sizable stipend with the promise that he would leave her life forever, she gave him the money and considered it a small price to rid him from her life. Not surprisingly, he was not true to the arrangement and descended upon her at least twice a year for additional subsidy.