Timepiece (14 page)

The day the widow died, there were two rounds of drinks on Hatt, which exhausted the last of his money, followed by another from Barker, who was sure to share in Hatt's good fortune. Not coincidentally, his register of friends swelled that day, and Hatt, who had never enjoyed such eminence, was just stupid enough to believe in his new-found popularity.

Six days later, at the reading of the widow's last will and testament, Hatt's dreams were shattered. It was fortunate for all present that Hatt had not brought a gun
into the law office, as he would likely have killed all present, then turned the weapon on himself.

Once the initial shock of the reading wore off, the details of the will became of greater concern to the men. They found that the bulk of the estate was willed to a church—a faceless entity in which their only retribution lay in profaning God, something they had long before perfected. Then, a week later, Wallace Schoefield, one of the better readers of the group, stumbled onto the one individual who had received a personal gift. A golden timepiece had been bestowed upon a man by the name of Lawrence Flake. Upon further investigation, they discovered that the man was a Negro—a revelation that only added to their outrage.

In the twisted reasoning of the unjust (that all things which do not incur to their benefit are inherently unfair), the men decided that the timepiece was rightfully
theirs and that they would claim it at any cost.

Hatt's motivations ran deeper. He was, as the widow ascertained, unable to derive gratification from anything of true value in life and, frustrated at his own character, despised all those who could. And this was Hatt's state of mind when he went after the delicate golden wristwatch, when in reality he wanted nothing more than to kill the man upon whom it was endowed.

The trial began at exactly nine in the morning, presided over by the Honorable William G. Halloran—an old man rarely seen outside a courtroom, who dressed spartanly and viewed justice and wardrobe with the same idiosyncratic fervor.

Due to the sensationalism of the trial, the gallery was filled to capacity and spectators stood against the wall and outer doors. The press was well represented and
had secured many of the better seats near the front of the courtroom or against the wall near the oak jury box, where hats were hung in a row.

The twelve-man jury wore stone faces throughout the ordeal, listening to the arguments dutifully. By six o'clock, it was over. The jury unanimously found Hatt guilty of trespassing with intent to kill and that David, a model citizen, had acted in self-defense.

Despite the tabloids' promise of a good show, by the end of the trial few were surprised at the reading of the verdict, and the only excitement of the day came when a juror, taking aim at a spittoon, inadvertently nailed a constable, who reacted by brandishing a billy club over the man.

At the conclusion of the reading, the judge thanked the jury for their service and dismissed them, while MaryAnne breathed a great sigh of relief and embraced
Catherine, who sat next to her in the gallery. The four adult members of the Parkin household joined outside the courtroom and all seemed exceptionally relieved except David, who had never shared their anxiety.

“I had expected more of a show.”

“I will not say I am disappointed,” MaryAnne said. “I am just happy it is all over.”

“I am happy that I have not lost all of the day,” David replied, lifting a gold pocket watch from his vest pocket. “I need to meet with Gibbs. Mark, see the ladies on home. I will walk to the office.”

“Shall I come for you later?”

“Gibbs will bring me home.”

“Hurry back,” MaryAnne urged.

“Always, my love.”

David kissed her twice, once for Andrea, and they parted company. He entered the narrow alleyway next to the courthouse
and hurried off to his office. As he neared the end of the passage, three men blocked his path. David recognized one of them from the courtroom.

“Excuse me,” he said, expecting and receiving little reaction from the men.

The largest of the men, Cal Barker, stepped forward and struck David across the face, knocking him backward. David rubbed his cheek, then, lowering his hand, noticed the blood on his fingers. Again, Barker sprang forward. This time, he grabbed David by the jacket and shoved him up against the yellow brick of the nearby building. His breath reeked of cheap whiskey.

“They say that you had nuthin' to do with Hatt's murder, that the nigger killed Hatt.”

David said nothing.

“A white man coverin' for a nigger. Whatsa matter with you?”

David remained silent, staring at
Barker dispassionately. The man's face turned crimson.

“You stinkin' rich, think you can buy anything. Well, you can't buy justice. We'll get our justice.”

David's face showed no sign of intimidation, which only provoked Barker further. “Whatsa matter with you! You dumb?! Don't you know I could kill you right now?”

Confusing control with cowardice, Barker awkwardly recoiled to strike David again. David quickly swung around, slamming his fist against the bridge of Barker's nose and knocking him up against the opposite wall. Barker let out a small cry, then slumped to the ground. The two standing men moved toward David. David flashed a slim black ten-shooter from his waistcoat and leveled it at Barker.

“Back off! And you stay down or you will die like Hatt.”

Barker motioned to the men with his
eyes and they retreated. Barker wiped at the thin stream of blood that flowed from his nose.

“You are not the ass your appearance would suggest.” He looked up at the two men, continuing to point the gun at Barker's head.

“Step aside.”

The men moved to the wall. As David made his escape, Barker spat blood on the ground and scowled. “Justice will be served, Parker. We will have justice.”

“Parker? It's Parkin, you ass.”

At David's arrival, Gibbs slid the bolt from the door and let him in, then barred it behind them. He noticed the blood on David's hands and chin.

“What happened?”

“Hatt's friends.”

Without explanation, David went up to his office with Gibbs following closely behind.
He set a lit candle on his desk, then reclined in his chair, rubbing his fist. Gibbs sat down in the chair before his desk.

“What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“These hoodlums.”

David shrugged. “Nothing. It's done.”

Gibbs leaned forward toward the desk. “David, listen to me. There is much talk about these men. It's not going to end here. They are trouble.”

David stared quietly at the candle burning on the table. A wax tear fell to its base. He looked up slowly. “What would you have me do? The trial is done.”

“Go back. Turn Lawrence over to the law. Let him go to trial.”

David looked at him levelly. “What kind of trial?”

“What does it matter! If they hang him, they hang him! He's an old man, a poor old man! He's got nothing, David, you've got your whole life ahead of you.”

“What kind of life could that be knowing that I had betrayed a friend?”

“Betrayed?” His eyes squinted in disbelief. “He put himself in this situation, not you! David . . . he's a Negro!”

David looked at him sadly, then dropped his head in his hands. He felt weary. “Leave me, please.”

Gibbs sighed, then reluctantly stood. “We have been through a lot together and you always seem to come out on top. But I have a bad feeling about this. I grant you that what you are doing is noble in its own way, but the cost of what you are doing is too great.”

David shook his head. “No, Gibbs. Only the cost of doing nothing is ever too great.”

“All is ashes . . .”

David Parkin's Diary. December 4, 1913

It was easy for the five hooded men to enter Lawrence's shack. The structure had been constructed by the cannery as a storage shed, so it could not be locked from the inside but only from the exterior by a rusted steel latch that had once run horizontally across the outside of the door. Lawrence had removed the latch the previous summer after some teens, in a schoolyard prank, had locked him in his own house. He had never considered moving the lock inside, thinking to himself,
Who would rob a shack?

The men entered clumsily, growling in foul and guttural tones, drunk with whiskey and hatred. They hovered above the sleeping man only long enough to focus their assault. Lawrence was awakened by the rifle butt that smashed across his face. Panicked and bleary-eyed, he looked up at the hooded men who stood over him. Suddenly, one of them struck
him across the face with a metal flask, then fell on him, thrashing wildly. With a powerful kick, Lawrence sent the man sprawling backward into a pile of clocks. In an instant, three men pounced on him, pummeling him with their fists, leaving his face a bloody mask. One clumsily tried to force a glass bottle into his mouth, which cut open his lip and cracked his front tooth, but slipped from the bumbling hands and bounded onto the floor and was lost in the darkness, followed by the man's cursing.

Lawrence managed to free one hand and, swinging wildly, knocked one of the men to the ground. His mind reeled in confusion. He did not know who was attacking him, nor what he could have done to warrant the assault.

As he struggled to raise himself, an ax handle caught him across the back of his head, knocking him off his cot and to the
ground, unconscious. The men, growing increasingly sadistic in their violence, stripped him of his clothes, dragged him outside, and bound him to a tree, where they beat and kicked him until they thought him dead. Two of the men returned to the shack and, after taking what they had come for, smashed several clocks with the ax handle, then disappeared into the night.

The fire spread quickly from the back porch, climbing upward to the second level, hungrily devouring all in its path. MaryAnne awoke to the baying of a mongrel dog and thought there was something peculiar about the dawn light shimmering through the bedroom window. Suddenly, there was a sharp crack, like the vaporous expansion of a log in the fireplace. She bolted up in bed as a thin stream of smoke
snaked upward from beneath the bedroom door. “David! Our house is on fire!” She suddenly shrieked, “Andrea!”