The bailiff accepted one of those damnable “TA” buttons, and so did the man he escorted—a smallish fellow, wiry and faintly sinister. He was wearing a suit that didn’t fit him very well, and the way his hair oil struggled against the salt-and-pepper fluff suggested he didn’t often keep it so tidily coiffed.
Call it prejudice if you will, but he looked like the kind of man who’d beat his wife and shoot a priest. Which is to say, I loathed him on sight even more than I’d loathed him before looking at him. I might’ve loathed him even if I hadn’t known who he was, or what he’d done—there’s a certain stink on a certain kind of soul, a foul scent of hateful smallness too often thwarted . . . then given an ounce of power. There must be a word for it, but I’ll confess to not having one immediately on hand.
He had a false smile plastered across that craggy, tiny-eyed face, but it turned to an ugly glower when he spied his daughter standing beside me. The hateful little gnome didn’t even put the scowl away when Reverend Davis strolled up to shake his hand, though he bowed and scraped sufficiently to demonstrate that his displeasure was surely not aimed at the clergy.
I do not think it was my imagination that the room became quiet.
True, some of the crowd had already dispersed for other places—back into the courtroom, or to other appointments elsewhere; but plenty of men remained, and now that I looked around, every last one of them was wearing one of those stupid buttons.
It felt childish to me, this need to wear your team’s colors. It felt like showing off, or more precisely, a deliberate and ham-fisted attempt to intimidate our little band of sane folks in this wretched sea of madness. I, for one, was not intimidated. Neither was Lizbeth, who took it all in almost dispassionately. I’m confident she was thinking along the same lines as I was.
But George and the old chief felt the need to respond, for whatever reason. They closed ranks, Eagan taking hold of Ruth’s elbow as if to direct her gently to her seat in a theater—and George folding his arms, planting his feet in front of her, staring down the reverend and murderer.
In all fairness, this is their troubled city, not ours. They know the stakes and the players better than we do; perhaps we should take our cues from these good souls who struggle against the tide . . . but it’s as Lizbeth said: We’ve tangled with worse, or just as bad.
And we are still standing.
Lizbeth Andrew (Borden)
SEPTEMBER 29, 1921
We all filed back into the courtroom, and they put poor Ruth back upon the witness stand. My heart went out to her, it really did. I remember it all too well myself—even after all these years. Was Ruth on trial? Technically, no. But any fool could see she was being tried all the same.
She sat up straight and said her piece, again and again, even as that lawyer did his best to trip her up . . . and her own representative (of sorts) did very little to intervene. I don’t know if he was merely a bad lawyer, or if he actively sought to undermine her appearance on the stand. Either way, the result was the same: The girl was effectively on her own up there.
No, not the girl. The woman.
She certainly carried herself like a woman, despite the nearly uniform opposition to her stalwart presence. She’s twenty-one, I think—or thereabouts. Someone mentioned it to me at some point, perhaps it was Wolf. He whispered a great many things into my ear as the dull, infuriating drama unfolded. We were in the back row, and discreet enough that no one hushed us, or asked us to leave.
This is what I learned.
Hugo Black is the defense attorney for Edwin Stephenson, who in broad daylight assassinated the priest James Coyle. Black is somewhat notorious for his activity with the True Americans, a group that scarcely distinguishes itself from the Ku Klux Klan—except that it opposes a broader variety of people, and perhaps it dislikes them more deeply. If there’s one positive thing that must be said about the group, it does seem to be relatively local. You don’t really hear about it outside Birmingham, so there’s one small blessing to be tallied.
Mr. Black is very likely in the pocket of the Reverend Davis, a man who operates a “church” out at Chapelwood. Edwin Stephenson has also attended this church, and there you see the connection between his costly defense and the house of worship. All three are likewise intimately bound to the True Americans; indeed, the overlap might as well be one hundred percent, from where I’m sitting—in this veritable ocean of revolting little buttons with their awful little initials stamped thereupon.
Henry Mayhew is the prosecuting attorney, in title if not much in action. He’s doing his duty as an officer of the court, by which I mean to say that he’s shown up to present the case against Edwin Stephenson. His enthusiasm for the proceedings is difficult to gauge. He’s a slow-talking sort, and he’s from out of town. He may or may not be affiliated with the True Americans or the Chapelwood church, but he certainly isn’t a firebrand for justice in this matter.
The presiding judge is Harold Holt, about whom precious little is known. He was appointed by the new City Commission president, Nathaniel Barrett—the man who defeated George Ward, who sat at the end of our bench. I’ve only just met Mr. Ward, but he strikes me as a sturdy, intelligent man who did his best to defend and protect the citizens of this city regardless of their race or religion. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well for him—or for Martin Eagan, the former chief of police (who also stands with Ruth, or rather sat in the audience to support her).
Our small row, in the back of the room, is the last line of defense against something awful, or that’s how it feels to me. It also feels precariously empty, given the circumstances. The room is packed, mostly with angry-looking white men and their smug-looking wives, happy to gaze scornfully upon Ruth for every decision she’s ever made—including the decision to testify against her father.
If Ward were still president and Eagan were still chief, then the situation might appear less dire, even with the numbers stacked against us. We would have some rightfully elected or appointed authority on our side; we would have some shields to protect us, for isn’t that what their badges are made to symbolize?
We would have someone left in power who wished something better for the city, for justice, for Ruth.
Instead we sat there, our allies stripped of their official assets. And the inspector and I, we were strangers, interlopers. Our appearance did not hurt Ruth’s credibility because it could not have been any lower than it already stood. Still, we added little to her store of resources, so far as the court of opinion was concerned.
That was another small silver lining, I suppose: No one knew who we were, or why we were there. No one had any reason to consider us a threat, or to treat us accordingly.
Of course, why would anyone bother? Our foes had an entire city’s worth of bureaucracy, manpower, and friendly sentiment at their behest. We were a band of five civilians, as I sighed to Wolf. He almost argued with me, ready to flash his own badge, I’m certain; but Eagan beat him to the punch.
Having overheard the inspector’s breathy summing up of the matters at hand, he offered his own whispered contribution: “It’s not so dire as that, but you can see it from there.”
“Are there others?” I asked him quietly. “Any other allies we might call upon?”
“Not in this courtroom, but yes.”
I liked his vestigial brogue, and found it reassuring—but not so reassuring that I did not argue with him. “If you mean the colored folks, the Catholics, the Jews . . . I meant the kind of allies who might prove peers to the reverend or the commission president, you understand.”
He gave me a sidelong look that I no doubt deserved, but I was only trying to be realistic. “Aye, we have all those folks in our corner, and you’d be ill-advised to count them out. Their numbers alone might aid us in time; but yes, there are still good men in positions of service. We might find a few, and call upon them.”
“I think we mus
t,” I said anxiously. “For as it stands, I’m not sure our merry little band is enough to protect Ruth, or your city, or anyplace else from whatever weird threat presents itself.”
At the end of the row, George Ward made a harrumphing sound. Under his breath he added, “Weird threat . . . Madam, you have no idea.”
I leaned forward, around the old chief’s chest, so that I could whisper my answer more directly. “Oh, but I might surprise you, sir.”
“You surprised me by coming at all, but there’s more to this . . . there’s more to Chapelwood . . . ,” he muttered, not speaking to me anymore. Speaking to himself, I believe. He did that quite a lot—the mumbling under his breath. It worried me, I confess. It reminded me too much of dear Doctor Seabury in his later days . . . that rumbling grumble that threaded through his every conversation, editorializing everything he meant to say aloud.
Wolf saw my frown, and gave me a nudge with his elbow. “We should chat, when this is finished.”
Finally, at what surely seemed to be long last, a fellow seated in front of us turned around and said, “You’ve been chatting for the last twenty minutes. Save it for the close of day, would you? Some of us are trying to listen.”
He was right, of course. It was rude of us to natter on, even in our most precious whispers. This was not the place to conspire, whether it felt like the thing to do or not.
Regardless, I appreciated Wolf’s loose sketch of the players on this chessboard . . . for all that it made me feel ill to consider our perilous position in this game. Or it isn’t a game, but you know what I mean, don’t you, Emma?
I’m sure you would, if you were here. I’m sure you do, if in fact you haunt me.
We spent the remainder of the day’s testimony in silence, and again I was struck by the strength of Ruth Gussman. She was getting tired and impatient, something I recall all too well about my own time on the stand; she was hounded and harangued by the lawyers, who asked her the same questions again and again, phrased differently by a word or two—just in case she’d trip over herself and say something incriminating.
No, not incriminating. She wasn’t the one on trial.
But you know what I mean. You once sat where I’m sitting, Emma. You’ve seen it yourself.
I observed her struggle and was pleased to see her remain steadfast, and I thought about how they treated her just as badly as they’d once treated me, when I’d sat vulnerable and afraid with everyone watching. It’s an awful thing, if you aren’t accustomed to being watched. For someone who’d spent time on the stage, or now in the “movies” as they call them . . . for someone like Nance, I don’t know. She might have seen it as an opportunity for performance, and taken some grim glee in the proceedings. Or then again, she might not have. I wish she were here. I wish I could ask her.
But back then, I was not accustomed to having so many eyes upon me, and I know that Ruth wasn’t, either. She was sweating, but we all were sweating a little by the end. She tried not to look at the defendant’s desk, where her father glared, nearly unblinking. I could see his profile, just barely—I was at just the right angle to glimpse his hateful scowl fixed upon her like a lamp.
She refused to look at him, and good for her. He didn’t deserve her regard, not in any meaning of the word, and she knew it—that’s what she was doing up there, telling the world that the murdered priest was a thousand times better in every way than the man who’d raised her. Her old father was broken, so she’d gone out and found herself a new one, even though he was a Catholic, God forbid, and a virtual pariah to everyone she’d ever known.
Still, she held her own, and answered their questions, lobbed at her like cannonballs.
When they finally let her go, she climbed down the two short steps and faltered, holding the rail. Her father barked something—I couldn’t hear it, but she finally glanced his way.
I thought for a moment that his eyes were like Medusa’s, and the dear young thing had been turned to stone; but no, she was stronger than that, stronger than him by far. Whatever he’d said, she didn’t answer it. She only stood up taller, straightened her shoulders, and tossed her hair before exiting down that aisle.
When she passed us, we all rose together in order to see her out.
George Ward opened the door for her, and let her onto the courthouse steps—where she sat down and put her face in her hands, and cried like a child.
I crouched beside her and took her by the arm. As gently as I could, I said, “Not yet, dear. Soon, but not here. Don’t let them see it—if they see it, they’ll think they’ve broken you. And you and I both know they haven’t.”
Leonard Kincaid, American Institute of Accountants (Former Member)
OCTOBER 1, 1921
It was only a small delay, only a small problem with the numbers. The woman’s face, if I squint at the slate board sideways, is long gone—replaced with the usual digits I’ve come to expect, upon awaking from sleep or from a daze (whichever is most convenient).
I used to work the math myself, and it was a laborious undertaking, if not unpleasant. Now the math does its own work while I’m not paying attention, and I wait for it to announce its results. It’s faster this way. It’s cleaner this way, though I wake up with chalk dust on my hands—or ink smudges, if I’ve run out of slate and resorted to paper notations. I wake up with an ache in my skull, and a sense of confusion that I can’t seem to shake—almost a motion sickness, except that it seems prompted by my very dreams.
Coffee helps, except when it doesn’t. Cigarettes help, too, though I’ve never cared for the taste of those. Whiskey doesn’t help at all, which is fine; it’s no longer as easy to acquire as it once was, and since it’s technically illegal, there’s no sense in drawing attention to myself by breaking the law—however minor and common the infraction.
So I stick to coffee and the occasional puff of tobacco, even if it’s not my favorite combination of stimulants. It looks ordinary enough, anyway. No one watches me sip or smoke and thinks it’s cause to alert the police.
I worry about that a great deal, these days; I worry about what will happen when the numbers outpace my ability to intercept them. What will happen if I am caught or captured? There’s no one standing by to take up this mantle of mine, and no one I’m likely to convince of its virtue. Any friends I once had have been gently ushered out of my life. What family I have left has scarcely noticed the irregularity of my contact—but then, I’ve never stayed close with any of the cousins or uncles who remained loosely in touch after the death of my parents, over a decade ago.
I could use a protégé. An assistant. I’d settle for a confidant, but my wishes amount to nothing.
I am a sentinel, standing between the fiends of Chapelwood and the world at large. Or does that lend me too much credit?
More likely I’m a minor inconvenience to them. Nuisance and vermin, idly tolerated (instead of exterminated) because their plans and methods are slow, and I do little to interfere with the long-term goal of their proceedings.
I hope that’s not the case. I hope these men and women I’ve killed have served some larger purpose in the baffling scheme . . . but in the end, do any of us? I’m sure I cannot say, and it’s a thought that keeps me awake more consistently than the coffee ever does.
• • •
And so the numbers come, and the numbers go. They don’t always send me out on the town with my axe, but that failing might be my own. I don’t always understand what’s being asked of me. I don’t always detect whatever the math of the universe attempts to convey. But I sleep and wake, I read the papers and watch for patterns. And the numbers come, and the numbers go.
• • •
It might be my imagination, but in the last few days I’ve wondered if I wasn’t losing some thread . . . if my grasp on the messages wasn’t slipping in some specific and concrete way. It’s possible, I know. I am only one man, an ordinary
and mortal one at that; what mere human brain can possibly be expected to process these mysteries? But regardless of my lack of suitability, I’m the one who’s been assigned the task.
So yes, it might be that my faculties are failing me. It must be my faculties, for the numbers wouldn’t fail me, would they?
No, I don’t think they could. Sums and figures do not deteriorate with time; they remain as true as they ever were, when they were first inscribed on clay tablets, poked into that willing substance by deliberately shaped sticks, however many millennia ago.
Any deterioration is mine. I’d rather believe that I’m the weak link than believe whatever guidance I receive has begun to falter. If that’s the case, then all this toil really has been for nothing.
I won’t accept that. The ghosts of those who’ve died at my hands . . . they won’t accept it, either.
• • •
I came to a realization this morning, when I struggled with the little lines on the slate, and on a table—they’d spilled over to the other surface, but I’d not shifted my writing implement. So whatever I’d written on the polished wood was lost to me. Not with all the squinting in the world could I force it to appear.
I needed help. A protégé. An assistant. A confidant.
And I remembered Gaspera Lorino, waiting out his days at the hospital downtown—not even two miles from where I sat despairing at my desk. My hands so dry and pale, my knuckles outlined in white chalk dust.
I’d heard about him before. His sister had spoken to the papers, after I’d hit him with my axe and nearly killed him. He wasn’t my primary mission, but he stood in its way. That was all. I bore him no ill will, no more than I ever bore anyone I was charged with killing. It was only a happenstance of timing and location.
His sister told the newspaper that he was alert and conscious, but changed. She said he had frenzied thoughts and wild outbursts, that his mind was not what it once was—that although he still seemed like himself in most of the usual ways, his interests had changed, and his reading habits had changed. He’d taken up an interest in astronomy.