The Tender Years (24 page)

“He does. Anyone can tell you thet. We’ve all seed it.”

“What about when he comes in at night? Does he go through the streets of town then?”

“No sir. He heads straight to his room agin—after putting his friend in the cage in the backyard.”

“His friend?”

“The crow. Rett never goes anyplace without his crow.” A ripple of quiet laughter spread through the filled room.

“Thank you, Mr. Davis. You may step down.”

Virginia managed to catch her grandfather’s eye. He had done a good job on behalf of Rett. She prayed it might be good enough to convince the judge.

“I call Sheriff Brown to the stand.”

Virginia blinked. What was her father doing? The sheriff had already as good as said that he believed Rett Marshall was guilty as charged. After the taking of the oath again, the sheriff lowered himself to the chair and began mopping in earnest.

“Sheriff Brown, you have been in charge of this case from the beginning, have you not?”

“I have.” The sheriff’s voice was so husky he could hardly be heard.

“And after investigating all of the evidence, you have charged the defendant with possession of stolen property. Is that right?”

The sheriff nodded, then was asked by the judge to give an oral response.

“I did.” He nearly choked on the words.

“On what did you base your decision?”

The sheriff fidgeted nervously. The handkerchief was far too wet to do much good. “The evidence.”

“And the evidence was?”

“The stolen goods. We found all of it—” He cast a quick glance in Mrs. Parker’s direction. “Almost all of it,” he amended, “in Rett’s—the defendant’s possession.”

“On his person?”

“No. In his room.”

“Where in his room?”

The sheriff looked even more agitated.

“Confound it, Drew—”

The judge’s hammer rapped sharply, and the sheriff squirmed on his seat.

He mopped his brow again and spoke slowly. “Like I told you before, we found the stolen property in the room of Rett Marshall, in his top drawer, under a pile of socks and underwear.”

“Thank you. Were there any other personal items in the drawer?”

“What do you mean?”

“Any razor or pictures or mementoes of any kind?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Nothing else. Just the clothing items and the stolen goods.”

“Did you happen to notice if there were any such personal items anywhere else in the room?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“Nothing? No books or games or tools or souvenirs?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“Did you check the room thoroughly?”

“Of course.”

“And you didn’t see any?”

“No.”

“Might that indicate that the defendant, Rett Marshall, is not interested in such items?”

“It could.”

Virginia’s father stopped and allowed the sheriff time to pass the limp piece of cloth over his cheeks and jowls.

“Was there anyone else who had access to the defendant’s room?”

“Like—?”

“Anyone? Could anyone have entered through a window, for instance?”

“No, I checked the window. The screen was nailed firm and it hadn’t been tampered with.”

“What about the door? Could anyone have come through the door?”

The sheriff hesitated. “Could have,” he admitted at last.

“So all you really know for sure, Sheriff Brown, is that the stolen items were found in Rett Marshall’s room. You agree that other people had access to that room. Rett Marshall was gone from that room, day after day, from early morning to late at night. Correct?”

The sheriff nodded, then quickly caught himself and answered aloud, “That’s correct.”

“Did anyone—anyone at all, during your careful and thorough investigation—say that they had seen Rett Marshall place those stolen items in that top drawer?”

Weakly, “No.”

“Did anyone say that they had ever seen Rett Marshall with those items on his person or in his hand?”

“No.”

“Did anyone say that they had ever seen Rett Marshall around those houses from which the items disappeared?”

The sheriff blew out puffed cheeks as though trying to cool himself.

“No.”

“Then how do we know, Sheriff Brown, that it was Rett Marshall who placed the stolen items in that drawer?”

There was no answer. Virginia held her breath.

CHAPTER 23

Y
ou were wonderful, Papa,” Virginia exclaimed as soon as her father came in the door.

He placed a leather satchel on the table and sank into a chair. “I don’t feel wonderful.”

Virginia’s eyes widened.

“You’ve won the case—I’m sure you have. The judge—”

“The judge is known to be a man who sees things his own way. He does not like defense lawyers, and he does not bring in his verdict until tomorrow. No one knows how he will rule.”

“But you showed—”

“I also put a very good friend in a difficult position. Ross Brown and I have worked together ever since I came to town.”

He sounded very tired. Very distraught. Virginia had only thought of winning.

“Well, Sheriff Brown will not be called on to go to jail,” she reminded her father. “That’s what would happen to Rett had you not defended him so expertly.”

She thought the words would make him feel better. Less guilty. But he seemed not to hear them.

“Folks in this town have had high regard for Sheriff Brown because he has earned it through the years. If what I have done today destroys any of that, then we are all losers.”

“But surely folks—”

“People can be strange, Virginia. Fickle. They too easily forget all the good one has done if they think you have made a mistake. Ross didn’t make any mistakes, but I can’t stand up and tell folks that. He was thorough and careful, and he hated this whole process just as much as I did.”

Some of the excitement drained from Virginia. Perhaps they had not won a victory, after all.

Virginia made sure she was at the school building, converted to courtroom, early the next day. The crowd would be back. Everyone was buzzing about the verdict. People were taking sides. For and against. Trying to outguess one another as to the judge’s decision. Virginia prayed it would be in Rett’s favor, then realized that if so, their dilemma would not have been solved. If Rett had not committed the crimes, then who had? Were they right back to Jenny again?

———“All rise.”

The judge entered and set his sheaf of notes on the desk in front of him. He cleared his throat and paused. Virginia thought he enjoyed having the whole, tense group in his full control.

“Well, this has been a … a difficult case. I have pondered it carefully … for half the night.”

Virginia cringed. Local gossip had it that the judge had spent the entire evening playing poker at the town’s only saloon.

“It seems like Sheriff Brown has done a commendable job in his pursuit of justice. He has investigated carefully all aspects of this case and would not have had this matter brought to trial had he not felt that it was warranted.

“The defendant, Mr. Rett Marshall, is not able to speak for himself. The character witnesses have brought a good report—perhaps too good—making me ask the question, ‘Can anyone really be that sure of another?’ Like the parson said, ‘We cannot know another man’s heart.’

“The defense council—” the judge stopped and fixed Vir? ginia’s father with a cold stare, “is skilled with words. But is that what this trial is all about? Who is the best orator? I think not.

“As I said, my evening—and yes, well into the night—was devoted to working through this case, and I am prepared to hand down my decision.”

He cleared his throat again.

“In the case of the State versus Mr. Rett Marshall—”

“Wait!”

It was more a screech than a call. It made Virginia’s spine tingle. Who had been so bold as to interrupt such a solemn occasion? But she could not see for the press of bodies.

She could hear the commotion. Someone was moving forward, loud sobs coming from the very depths of an anguished soul.

“I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t,” the person was crying. Virginia shifted in her seat and saw Mrs. Kruz, the landlady, as she turned to face the crowd, her hat askew, her face crumpled in torment as the tears streamed down her face. “I did it. I did it. I had to. He made me.”

Virginia took one look at the distraught woman and felt a little shiver pass through her entire body. It was one of both sorrow for what she saw and relief for what she instantly understood. It wasn’t Rett. And it wasn’t Jenny. Thank God.

“Then what happened?”

Virginia was reliving the entire trial for Jamison on the way home from school. At times she was so animated she had to stop and look up at him, her eyes, her face, her hands all beseeching him to see and feel what she had seen and felt in the makeshift courtroom.

“Everyone was stunned. Just stunned. There she stood—shaking—sobbing—crying out that she was the one who had stolen the items. Placed the things in Rett’s room. I think most folks would have dismissed her even at that point. Silly, isn’t it, but there was this feeling that no, it can’t be you, you must be mistaken.

“And then she slowly lifted up her shaking hand and gradually uncurled her fingers and there—right in the palm—was Mrs. Parker’s pin. Well, that set Mrs. Parker off, you can be sure of that. I heard her all the way to the front of the room. Then I … I just felt a tremble go through the whole gathering.

“Someone asked for a glass of water to be brought. The woman was so beside herself that folks feared she might faint. My papa brought her a chair, and they sat her down—told her that she didn’t have to say any more, but she almost pushed them away—sort of flayed out at them.

“‘I want to say it all,’ she cried. ‘I can’t live with it any? more.’

“The room quieted down and folks sort of leaned forward to listen.

“‘He made me do it,’ she said again, and no one under? stood who
he
was.

“The judge looked over and nodded to my father and said in a funny-sounding voice, as though he was totally thrown off by it all and calling for help, ‘Counselor?’

“My father stepped forward. He first tried to calm her some. Then he slowly began to question her. And she poured out the whole story.

“There is this man—Jenks is his name. Maybe you’ve seen him around town. He’s … rather … greasy-looking and has these strange, shifty eyes. He lives at the boardinghouse and some way or another Mrs. Kruz owes him a large sum of money. Some old debt of her husband’s—from the past. She didn’t reveal all that, and my papa didn’t ask her to.

“Well, he—this Jenks—was pushing pretty hard for payment—and the poor woman had no way to get the money. She was desperate. Then—when the accident happened, she got to thinking about Rett. Folks were already talking. Blaming him for things he didn’t do.

“She let it go for quite a while, pushing the idea away, but then the man kept on tormenting her, and she kept mulling it over and over. Finally she decided to do it. She stole the first thing and hid it in Rett’s drawer. But the sheriff didn’t look for it there. He never really thought that Rett had done it. At least, at first.

“So she had to keep on and on. Taking little things. Pushing them in among Rett’s clothing. Rett never found them. He never even bothered to open the drawer himself. But when she took the pin—intending to do the same with it—she thought it so pretty that she couldn’t give it up. She hid it in her own drawer and just went in and admired it from time to time. She didn’t use it as part of her trap to catch Rett.”

“But
why
?” Jamison could not resist interrupting, his voice incredulous. “How could framing an innocent man help the woman with her debt?”

“That was what we were all asking ourselves. Why? What possible good for her could come from framing Rett? My papa asked her. What was her purpose? How would this act help her cause? And then it came out. Before his death, Rett’s father, Cam Marshall, had set up a trust. Mrs. Kruz was to take out the monthly funds for caring for Rett as long as he lived with her. When those funds were no longer needed, she was to have whatever remained.”

Jamison stopped dead still, his eyes on Virginia’s face.

“No!”

“Yes,” she replied, her body trembling with intensity. “She said with Rett sent away to an asylum—that’s what she figured would happen with him—that Rett would be given proper care, and she would have full and rightful—in her mind, at any rate—access to all of the remaining funds. She could pay the man off and still have money left for herself.”

“It’s unbelievable!” said Jamison.

“I think that’s the way we all felt. She was going to move away. Take the rest of the money and move away somewhere and start over, she said. Just … just put the whole thing behind her.”

They began walking again, their footsteps slowly leading them toward the Simpson household.

“Well, it nearly worked.”

Virginia shivered. “It would have, had she not had a con? science.”

“A conscience? I bet God just kept hammering away at her, didn’t He?”

Virginia had not thought to bring God into the picture. But it was true. Her father had been right all along. Prayer had worked.

Virginia nodded slowly. “But I feel so, so sorry for the poor thing. You should have seen her. It was … was heartbreaking.”

“Will she be sentenced?”

“I’m sure she will, though Papa will plead for leniency.”

“What about the—this other fellow? Was he in on it?”

“Oh, yes. He knew of the trust. He was the one who pushed Mrs. Kruz to take advantage of it. The sheriff has already gone to bring him in for questioning.”

A silence hung between them, relaxing the excited tension of a moment before.

“You know …” admitted Virginia with a self-condemning tone. “I had convinced myself that it was Jenny.”

“Jenny?” He waited for her to go on.

“She … she was always so—I don’t know—anxious to heckle me about Rett. To insist … And she did work for Mrs. Kruz over the summer.”

“She just likes to torment you. See the fire in your eyes.”

“Do you think so?”

He nodded. “I don’t think that Jenny understands—really understands—any other emotion than … than frustration and … and anger. That’s the only way she knows how to … to relate to people. It’s all she has ever learned.”

Was it true? Yes—perhaps it was. If so, she had truly failed her friend. She had never succeeded in showing Jenny anything else. She had always been on the defensive. Fighting back. Holding herself apart. No wonder Jenny had found her Christian faith confusing. No wonder she had wanted no part of it.

Virginia felt tears sting her eyes. Her thoughts went back to the scene in the courtroom. Her father had extended a hand and, by the look on his face, an unspoken apology to the local sheriff. The man had taken the outstretched hand, and the two had stood, actions and eyes expressing to the entire gathering that there were no hard feelings between them.

“I’ve got to try again,” Virginia said, and the words were spoken softly, more to herself than to Jamison.

“We will.”

Virginia blinked away the tears and looked up at him. It was so nice to have Jamison as a friend. Sort of like a team. She managed a smile, the tears still glistening on her lashes.

“We’ll start by praying,” Jamison said. “That seems to get the most done.” He grinned at her, and she chuckled softly. It was a bit of shared humor, but a reality all the same.

Jamison shifted the books he was carrying to the other arm. She felt fingers reach—rather tentatively—for her own. She did not pull away. Shyly—yet with certainty—she curled her hand about his and felt his grip tighten in response. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to be—
special
friends.

They were almost home when Virginia saw Mr. Adamson lift his head above the wooden pickets of his fence and squint to look down the sidewalk. When he saw Virginia, his wrinkled face lit with a broad smile.

He seemed to take in the situation with one sweeping glance, then lifted his hat and scratched his graying hair with fingers dirtied with garden soil. The gap-toothed smile on his face widened, but he said not a word. Just watched Virginia and her friend walk dreamily down the sidewalk toward her home.

His eyes twinkled.