The Devil Amongst the Lawyers (19 page)

There was a long pause before Kenneth Hubbard replied, probably because he was silently discarding all the discourteous replies that had come to mind. Finally he managed to say, “You are very kind to take an interest.”

Mrs. Manning toyed with the rings on her plump fingers. “A poor educated schoolteacher, languishing in jail. Is she being ill-treated, Mr. Hubbard?”

Again, the lawyer hesitated. “If she is innocent, then any incarceration is ill treatment,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But since it is Miss Morton’s own uncle who is the town jailer, I think she has less cause than most prisoners to worry about conditions in the jail.” He nodded toward Harley Morton, still lounging beside the fire. “When she was first detained, my client found the bedding in her cell to be unsatisfactory, but her brother very kindly bought her a new mattress, and her family brings her clean linens from home. They also deliver her meals so that she does not have to partake of the usual jail fare, which is often soup beans, simmered in pork fat.”

With a wave, Mrs. Coeburn dismissed all talk of soup beans.
“But what of her defense? Surely her family cannot afford—” Even she realized that she was about to go too far. The words “proper representation” hovered in the air, but you cannot sit as a guest in a man’s parlor and accuse him of incompetence. “Well, surely they are concerned about the expense. Can she afford effective representation?”

“In Knoxville we have started a defense fund,” Mrs. Manning explained. “Our club is soliciting donations on behalf of poor Miss Morton. Money is of supreme importance in a court fight.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Kenneth Hubbard said again. Carl wondered if his teeth were clenched as he said it.

“We would like to interview Miss Erma Morton herself. Not out of any ghoulish desire to gawk at her, of course. We wish to satisfy ourselves that she is being humanely sheltered. And we’d like to hear her story from her own lips, so that we can report back to her many supporters in Knoxville and elsewhere.”

“No!” Harley Morton’s voice was too loud for the cozy little parlor, and his tone was too harsh for the gentlewomen he addressed. “You can’t see Erma.”

“I beg your pardon!” Judging from Mrs. Coeburn’s outraged expression, Carl wondered if she considered refusal worse than profanity. She probably wasn’t used to hearing either one, he decided.

Kenneth Hubbard gestured for silence. “What Mr. Morton means is that, while you may certainly go and see his sister, she is not at liberty to talk to anyone not connected with the defense.”

Carl stared. “You’ve decided not to let her talk to anybody?”

Harley Morton came forward, his chin jutting and his hands balled into fists. “You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but I’m a local journalist. Not one of the national fellows.”

“Well, that’s too bad. The national fellows, as you call them, have been mighty helpful to us.”

“Helpful? Printing that nonsense about your sister breaking curfew? All that Code of the Hills garbage?”

Harley Morton smirked. “Oh, they’re a fanciful bunch, I’ll grant you that. They may have shallow minds, but their pockets are deep enough.”

Mrs. Coeburn clutched at the arm of the sofa. “Mr. Morton, do you mean that the newspapers have offered you money?”

“Offered and accepted, ma’am.” Harley Morton grinned at her, amused by the naiveté of those unused to big city ways. “It costs a deal of money to mount a defense, as you ladies were kind enough to point out.” His tone was the boastful triumph of one who had pulled off a successful deal against the big wheels, and he was proud of his coup.

But Kenneth Hubbard didn’t look proud of this accomplishment. He reddened, and laid a hand on Harley Morton’s arm, as if to rein him in. “The Mortons have made an arrangement with the Hearst Newspaper Syndicate,” he muttered, avoiding the eyes of his visitors. “In return for financial assistance, the family has agreed that the syndicate journalists will have exclusive access to my client. Exclusive.”

“You sold her!” said Mrs. Coeburn, quivering with outrage.

Harley Morton shrugged. “We don’t want anything for ourselves. We’re not intending to profit by this deal. My sister needed the best defense we could afford. Remember, my father was a coal miner, so there wasn’t any family money for legal fees. We did what we had to.”

“And your sister agreed to this?” asked Carl.

“Erma trusts me to do what’s best for her. I’m the head of the family now.”

Mrs. Manning summoned an oil-on-troubled-waters smile for Harley Morton, and succeeded in looking like a fat sparrow attempting to pacify an alley cat. “We are not journalists, sir. We are representatives of a woman’s club, and we, too, are committed to your
sister’s defense. Indeed, we are trying to raise money to help her. We came all this way to express our sympathy and concern. Won’t you let us speak with her?”

Still annoyed at their disapproval of his financial coup, Harley Morton scowled at the twittering woman, but since she had mentioned money, he judged it best not to snub them completely. “You can go see her, I reckon. She’s right partial to company. But you can’t ask her any questions, or discuss the case in any way, shape, or form. That’s the best I can do.”

Mrs. Manning was aghast. “But we cannot go and gawk at the poor girl as if she were an animal in a zoo. We are not ghouls. We are sincerely concerned for her well-being.”

“Well, I made a deal, ma’am. And I am a man of my word.”

“Yes, we are quite clear on the matter of your honor, Mr. Morton,” said Mrs. Coeburn, but either her withering scorn was lost on Harley Morton or else he chose to ignore it.

Both ladies were on their feet now, and, judging by their outraged expressions, they were ready to bolt for the door. Carl could see his chance at an exclusive audience with the defendant slipping away, and to his shame he felt that his honor was akin to that of Harley Morton: he had promised his employer a story, and so he must do his damnedest to deliver one. “You ought to go and see her anyway,” he told them. “To make sure she’s all right. Your club members will want to know the conditions of the jail. And you came all this way.”

Mrs. Coeburn, who had been putting on her gloves, hesitated, seeing the sense of his argument. “It would be a shame to waste the time and expense of the journey on a fool’s errand,” she conceded. “We have a duty to the club members.”

Her companion nodded. “We do, indeed. And, Alice, we are worried about the poor girl’s treatment. At least we could satisfy ourselves that she is in good health.”

Carl solemnly agreed with this line of reasoning, since it suited
his purposes so well, but privately he was thinking that anyone housed in a private cell with a brand-new mattress, a family member running the jail, and food brought in every day without their having to do a hand’s turn of work was a good deal better off than he was. But, since he was all for getting a look at the prisoner, he forbore to say so.

Mrs. Coeburn looked at her watch. She had sent away the taxi for an hour, but no more than ten minutes had elapsed. “Well, Mr. Morton, if we are not permitted to speak with your sister, perhaps you can give us your own views on the case.”

Harley Morton shook his head. “I was five hundred miles away when it happened, ma’am. All I know is what the rest of the world has been told—the events of that night, based on my sister’s word. But I trust her completely.”

“Yes, you are an honorable family,” Carl murmured.

Morton glanced at him, and addressed his remarks to the two women. “My father’s death was an unfortunate accident, ladies. He was a heavy drinker, and in his drunken state, he fell and hit his head. It was a tragic occurrence, but it is a private family sorrow, not a matter for the courts. My sister is innocent. That’s all I have to say.”

Carl wondered how many times he had said it. The speech had all the polish of a well-worn homily. He turned to the lawyer. “Is it far to the courthouse from here, Mr. Hubbard?”

Kenneth Hubbard smiled. “Nothing is very far in Wise, though you might think so in this weather. You just go along to the main road there at the corner, and go right about a block. Well, you can’t miss it. Big yellowish stone building. Italianate architecture, they call it.”

“And the jail?” asked Mrs. Coeburn.

“In the basement.”

“Will they let us in?”

The attorney walked them to the door. “I will telephone the jail
and instruct them to let you in to see Miss Morton. My permission will suffice.”

Mrs. Manning clutched at the sleeve of her friend’s coat. “But, Alice! What about the taxi? He is expecting to fetch us here.”

“I’m sure Mr. Hubbard will send him on to the courthouse. And if we are not there, tell him that he can find us at the home of your colleague, Mr. Schutz.”

“The prosecutor?” Carl marveled at Mrs. Coeburn’s ruthless determination to complete her mission, regardless of how many people’s Sunday afternoons she had to disrupt in order to do so.

Alice Coeburn smiled. “Certainly.” She swept the fur stole across her shoulders so that little mink feet dangled inches from Carl’s nose. “I believe in getting both sides of a story whenever possible. Come along.”

As long as the road is, even if it ends in dust, the gods come with us.

—
MATSUO BASH

Should we go and have a look at the village where the murder took place?” asked Rose. “Ordinarily I’d be in favor of going to the hotel first, but it gets dark so quickly this time of year.”

Shade Baker glanced up at the slate-colored sky. “I’d like to go this afternoon. Besides losing the light, the other thing about this time of year is the uncertainty of the weather. Right now it’s cloudy outside, but reasonably dry. Tomorrow, though, we might get anything from gully washers to blizzards, so I’d just as soon get the pictures taken. Then I won’t have to worry about them anymore. If that’s all right with you, Henry?”

In the backseat, Henry was either lost in thought or dozing, but he roused himself enough to wave vaguely his assent. “I am along for the ride, children. Go where you will. I only ask that when the dinner hour arrives, we shall be in some approximation of civilization.”

Rose turned, peeping at him over the fur collar of her black coat. “I don’t hold out much hope of that, Henry, but we’ll dine at the hotel and hope for the best. It isn’t far to Pound from Wise, is it, Shade? Didn’t you check?”

“Yeah, I did. Maybe half an hour if the sages of Abingdon can be believed. And it shouldn’t take long to look over this little one-horse town. We ought to make the hotel right at dusk.”

Rose laughed. “Take long? In twenty minutes we should be able
to tour the place, get your photos taken, and help them roll up the sidewalks for the night.”

“You are indeed an optimist, my dear,” Henry called out. “Sidewalks, indeed!”

“What about talking to people?” said Shade. “Do you plan to go knocking on doors, seeing if you can round up some gossip about the Morton family?”

“Not today,” said Henry. “We just want a general idea of the place. Snapshots of the mind, as it were.”

“Good, because if it’s too cold, I plan to be back in the car with the motor running within five minutes.”

“Shade, you can’t even get your camera focused to your satisfaction in five minutes.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, with Henry dozing and Rose staring out disapprovingly at the bleak landscape of leafless trees and barren pastures of brown grass. Then, losing interest in the scenery, she pulled out her notebook and began to write, scratching out a word here and there, and then pushing on in her crabbed, illegible script.

For the last few miles of the drive, the mountains seemed to close in around the car. To Shade, the prairie native, the looming hills seemed vaguely oppressive, as if eyes were watching him from atop every wooded ridge, and an ambush waited around every curve. In flat country you could see trouble coming from a mile away, but here in this temperate jungle, an attacker could be ten feet from you before you knew he was there. It made him vaguely uneasy. And the steep mountains blocked the low winter sun, making for long stretches of gloomy shade in the narrow passes.