City of Liars and Thieves (26 page)

In the time it took for the clerk to repeat the jury's verdict, Levi was freed and had collapsed in his brother's embrace. His face was hidden, but his body heaved with sobs.

I fought my way out of our row and to the front of the room. Elias called after me, but I pretended not to hear. Levi remained in his brother's arms, but Ezra Weeks kept an eye trained on the angry crowd. I could see him quietly urge Levi to retreat to safety. Colden was shaking the judge's hand. Hamilton and Burr patted each other on the back, offering hearty congratula
tions on their success.

While the details were still hazy, intentionally obscured and blurred by the gentlemen before me, I had no doubt that these men had destroyed my family. They had belittled Elma's life and defiled her grave. I approached them, fist held high, shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Ever watchful and intuitive, Hamilton turned first, not a glimmer of remorse in his clear blue eyes. Following Hamilton's lead, Burr spun around. My lungs filled with air and I swore, “If thou dies a natural death, there is no justice in heaven.” Then I fled.

Elias shouted after me, but I didn't stop. I would never listen to him again. It was three in the morning, but the mob outside the courthouse was growing louder and more excited by the moment, demanding Levi's immediate hanging, determined to take matters into their own hands if necessary. I wondered if he would escape unharmed. I knew I never would.

A block north of Wall Street, the crowd abruptly dispersed. Oil lamps cast yellow shadows on the lonely streets. A mangy dog searched the gutter for scraps. I was neither afraid nor concerned with propriety. I marched up Broadway in my own solitary funeral procession.

Elma's life had been exterminated, her reputation ruined. Burr and Hamilton had used the trial as a stage for their political games, defiling her as surely as her killer had. Their renowned oratory skills were more famous than ever. One of them—I did not care which—would capture the presidency for his party. Elma's grave had served as their stepping-stone.

As I turned the corner onto Greenwich Street, my stride became more purposeful, and anger replaced sorrow.

I pounded on the Watkinses' door for several moments before I saw the flicker of a candle within.

“Who's there?” called a sleepy voice.

“It's Caty—Catherine Sands.” I was dull with grief, but even that could not explain why I used my maiden name.

A long moment passed before the door inched open. Elizabeth rubbed her eyes. Her hair was tousled, and she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “Is it over?” she asked.

I pushed past her into the house. The children were asleep on a makeshift bed in the parlor. A quilt was tangled around Charles's legs, and he held Patience in the crook of his arm like a doll. I knelt beside them and, as I watched their narrow chests rise and fall, my own breath began to slow.

“What's happened?” Elizabeth whispered.

I stroked Patience's hair. I couldn't imagine saying the words out loud.

Elizabeth blinked, and her drowsy eyes became alert with worry. “Let me warm something up,” she offered.

I shook my head. The motion freed my tongue. “The jury found Levi innocent. He's free.” The room blurred and I sat back on the floor.

Elizabeth gathered the blanket around her, looking ashamed but not surprised.

Resentment rose within me. “Did thou know?”

She set the candle on the mantel but took a seat in the room's darkest corner. “I…” She covered her mouth with both hands.

“Thy husband testified in court.” My breathing became shallow, and I had to look at the children to remain calm. “Joseph said he heard Elias with Elma. He said he heard them together in her bed.” My voice began to rise. “He said Elias had his way with her.”

Elizabeth's eyes darted from the children to me. “Caty, I beg you. It's not my place.”

“Did thou know?” I repeated.

Fat tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Joseph said it was them.”

“And thou? What did thou hear?”

She gulped. “I heard voices. A man and a woman, and the squeak of a bed, but I cannot say for sure. I did not see anything with my own eyes.”

“Was it Elias's voice?”

“Joseph said it was.”

“And Elma's?”

She opened her mouth but remained mute.

“Why not come to me?” I said, rising to my feet. But as I watched Elizabeth tremble, I realized she was merely another victim caught in this whirlwind of violence and lies. There was nothing she could have said or done. I never would have believed her. My fury began to subside, replaced by regret. “Why?” I asked. “Why did he do it?”

Elizabeth sighed. “Who can say what comes over men? Even the best can be weak. The worst can be cruel.”

I shook my head. Elias had deceived me and set the path for Elma's downfall. But Elma had kept secrets as well. “Why didn't she say something?” I wondered out loud. “Why didn't she tell me?”

Elizabeth wrung her hands. “She was a young girl. Perhaps she was ashamed.”

“Yes.” Elma had spent her life trying to overcome the shame of her birth. It was easy to understand how she could have been convinced of her guilt.

Charles stirred, hugging his sister close. The gesture awakened my dull senses. For the first time in a very long while, I was aware of a strong, firm voice within me. I could not follow Elma and withdraw from the living. The world was filled with darkness but also with infinite light. I needed to recapture that light, to reclaim it for my children and myself.

Elias was waiting just inside the door when I arrived home, standing guard like a sentry.

“Where were thou?” he asked, deftly reverting back to plain speech like the chameleon he was.

I did not remove my bonnet. “I plan to take the children to Cornwall,” I said. “The sooner the better.” I could not predict what the future held, but I would never live under the same roof as him again.

Elias stepped in front of me. “I won't allow it.”

“We'll leave on the noon boat.”

“I won't stand by while you take my children.”

I shook my head, ashamed that I had been too blind to see the truth but also no longer afraid. Elias was a coward and a bully. But I would not be as easy a target as Elma.

“I will no longer live as thy wife,” I said.

“That girl was a minx, just like her mother. ‘The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.' ”

My hand was up before I could stop it. I felt the slap vibrate up my arm, and Elias stepped backward, holding his cheek. “Elma is dead!” I said. It was the first time I had uttered the words aloud. Fresh pain seared through me along with the awful acceptance of its truth. Patience would never know Elma, and Charles, who had loved her dearly, was only a child. In time, his agony would recede. It was right and normal, but the idea that she would be forgotten made my heart ache.

“Caty…” Elias's voice wavered, though it was unclear whether he was challenging me or preparing his own defense. “I had nothing to do with that. You saw me here that night. I didn't kill her.”

“Thou defiled her as surely as the murderer who threw her down that well.”

“According to Joseph Watkins, that rambling fool.”

“And his wife. I've every reason to believe them and none whatsoever to listen to thee.”

“Catherine.” Elias grabbed my arm. “Please. I've been punished enough. Don't destroy our family.”

“Thou destroyed our home,” I said, turning away. Elias was pathetic.

“Caty, I'm begging—”

“Elias,” I said softly, in need of full command of the facts before I could fully rest. “Did thou father Elma's baby?”

His chest fell. “That doctor said she wasn't with child.”

I had seen enough to know that, in a court of law, a solemn oath by a man in thrall to an even more powerful man meant nothing. “I can't explain why he said what he did, but I know that Elma was expecting. Who was the father?”

He covered his eyes. “I don't know, Caty, I swear it. Please, believe me.”

“But it might have been thee.”

Elias turned toward the fireplace. I thought that I heard him sob but did not stay to listen.

The sun was rising as I neared Lispenard's Meadows. It was a mild morning. The ground was soft and moist. The air was heavy with mist and sweet fragrance, as if winter had turned to spring over the two days we sat captive in court. I picked my way through spiky brush. The hem of my skirt dragged through swampy puddles, and my heels sank into the mud.

The well looked less menacing now, free of its cover of snow and ice. Splintered boards, broken buckets, and abandoned jugs were tossed aside. A rooster crowed. In the distance, smoke curled from the chimney of Lispenard's farmhouse. The field boasted green sprouts and a handful of purple buds. I saw no trace of the violence that had occurred here.

I sat on the well's edge and leaned as far over the opening as I dared. Then I felt a soft, almost caressing hand on my shoulder. It was a gentle pressure, but I gripped the rough bricks, sure it would send me toppling into the dark waters.

I spun around, expecting to find Elias, here to lead me to Elma's fate so I would not live to expose him.

“Caty?” Tall and dark in the early-morning light, Levi appeared gaunt but handsome as always. Perhaps I should have been frightened. At the very least, I should have been surprised. But I wasn't. Levi's presence was as natural as the breeze.

“I hoped I would find you here,” he said.

“Did thou follow me?”

“I knew you would be here. This place,” he took a deep breath of loamy air, “this place holds Elma's spirit.”

I was too exhausted to bother shaking my head. “I don't believe in ghosts.”

“Nor do I, but Elma's spirit exists. She's here with us now.”

It was impossible to disagree. The wind filled with the scent of lavender, and while, logically, I knew that the flower did not bloom in early spring, I did not doubt its perfume. The sense that Elma was nearby was so powerful that I looked for her. My eyes scanned the desolate field, then came to rest back on Levi's haunted face.

“Thou are a free man,” I said. “Why bother with me?”

Levi gazed anxiously over his shoulder. “That mob wants me to hang. I'm leaving the city. But I couldn't go without telling you the truth.”

“Thou had every opportunity to tell the truth.”

Levi ran his fingers through his hair. “Please understand. I was desperate and scared. I thought I was protecting myself.”

I had little sympathy for his sorrow. “What about Elma? Who was protecting her?”

Levi shook his head so violently that I wondered at his sanity. “Elma was already lost.”

In a sickening instant, I understood. From the start, I had been convinced that Levi killed Elma, but as I listened to his feeble muttering, I realized my grief had obscured the truth. Out of all those who mourned Elma, only Levi shared my devastation.

“Levi, who killed Elma?”

Levi kicked the boards by his feet. “Caty, I beg you to forgive me. I've already caused you so much pain, but it is important that you know that Joseph Watkins was telling the truth. Elias took advantage of her.” His eyes grew moist with the tender expression I had seen on his face the night I saw them together. “She was carrying his child.”

I watched a robin pick through the wet ground until it flew away with a worm dangling from its beak. “Yes,” I said.

Levi looked startled. “You knew?” When I did not respond, he continued. “Elma turned to laudanum. She thought she might lose the child that way, but I confronted her. I told her she would destroy herself.”

“So now thou are her savior?”

Levi looked desperately into my eyes. “You don't know. You weren't there.”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “There is enough blame to go around. I will regret that for the rest of my days.”

“I took the vial from her but poured the contents out. And I kept it as a reminder to both of us.”

“A reminder of what?”

“That life is precious.” Levi's gaze, which had always seemed so arrogant, was entirely changed. It was clear he had also been permanently scathed.

“Caty,” he said, “you're a mother; you understand. I told Elma that no matter how her baby came to be, it was a miracle. I explained how my mother had died while giving birth to me, and Elma told me how much her mother loved her despite her disgrace.”

I remembered the evenings Levi and Elma had spent locked away in her bedroom and the assumptions I had made. In my eight years with Elias, it had never occurred to me that love and friendship could coexist.

“Elma was a loving person,” Levi said, echoing my thoughts. “I knew she would be a wonderful mother.”

I recognized the tenor of his voice. I had heard it when he stood over Elma's sickbed, when he addressed her, and when he defended her. But it was the first time I understood how desperately Levi wanted to be loved, as did Elma. And they had found each other.

“I wanted to help her,” he said, “but it was more than that. I loved her, and I wanted to be a father to her child. Our baby would enjoy the happy home she and I had never experienced. We would be a family, but instead…”

My former self might have accepted Levi's tearful confession and left it at that. But I was singularly focused on the truth, the only possible succor to my pain. “Elias will suffer for his sins, but he was with me the night Elma died. He could not have killed her. Tell me who did.”

“She's dead. Does it matter how?”

“Yes.” I looked down. My shoes were muddy. My hemline was in tatters. I had not eaten in days, and I had deserted my children to visit this wretched hole in the ground one final time. Elma deserved the truth, and so did I.

A blue jay squawked and a woodpecker tapped, but Levi was oblivious to all but his own sorrow. “She's dead and buried,” he moaned. “Let her rest in peace.”

It occurred to me that Levi was weak. He was handsome. He may even have loved Elma. But he was no match for wills and wits stronger than his own. “I am tired, Levi,” I said. “Please, do not delay me further. Thou came here to tell me the truth; now out with it.”

Levi's dark-blue eyes darted back down the road.

“Elma is dead, yes,” I continued, seeing his resolve wavering, “but the truth will set her spirit free. It's all we can do for her now.”

Levi gazed helplessly around the swampy meadow. “It was snowing when we left the house. My brother drove up in his sleigh…”

I remembered Croucher's predawn confession:
Weeks did it
. He had been trying to tell me the truth. “Ezra?”

Levi continued as if he had not heard me. “It was a dark night and he startled us both. You see,” his voice trembled, “the sleigh had no bells.”