The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(46)

PROSECUTION: I’m entering into evidence exhibit 56A, Your Honor. Miss Fields, is this the logbook you use to record calls?

MF: It is.

PROSECUTION: Can you tell us about the telephone call you connected at seven fifteen that evening?

MF: Yes, I can. That phone call came from a telephone booth on College and Church Streets. They called Mr. Montgomery’s telephone. I don’t see many calls coming from telephone booths going to the Ellingham house, but that’s right by the market, so I thought it might be a delivery or some such. But I was curious, you know?

PROSECUTION: Can you describe the voice on the line?

MF: Rough. Very rough. With a strange way of speaking. He sounded like he was speaking through a tube or something. That telephone can have a funny connection, though.

PROSECUTION: Was there anything else about the voice? How was it strange?

MF: Oh, it had an accent.

PROSECUTION: What kind of accent?

MF: Not American. European, I think. My neighbor, Mrs. Czarnecki, from down the street, she’s from Warsaw, in Poland, and it sounded a bit like her, but not quite? I stayed on the line just long enough to hear Mr. Montgomery answer. I wish I’d hung on, but we don’t do that. Oh, I wish I had. You don’t know how I wish I had. I don’t know what I would have done.

PROSECUTION: How long did that call last?

MF: Five or six minutes.

PROSECUTION: What happened after that?

MF: The next call was outgoing. This was at seven forty-five. Mr. Mackenzie telephoned out and asked to be connected to . . . that would be George Marsh. That’s another common call. After that, Mr. Mackenzie called me back and asked me to make a special note of where all calls coming in and out of the house came from that evening. He sounded a bit funny, but he said something about Mr. Ellingham just needing to know for some business reason. And he asked where the previous call had come from, and I told him. I usually go on a half hour dinner break at seven in the evening, but I ate my sandwich at my station because Mr. Mackenzie had asked me to pay special attention, and we always take care of the Ellingham lines. He’s done so much for those children. I remember I had a cheese and tomato jam sandwich, and a call came in as soon as I took a bite.

PROSECUTION: What can you tell us about the other calls?

MF: All right. I’ve recorded here that at 8:03 p.m., there was an incoming call from New York City that went to Mrs. Ellingham’s personal telephone. That was unanswered. I didn’t know why then, but I do now, of course. That was from a Manhattan exchange—a line I saw often. I think it’s a friend of hers.

PROSECUTION: That call was identified as being from Mrs. Rose Peabody, and she was a friend of Mrs. Ellingham.

MF: Yes, there was nothing really new about that call. Now, the next call, that was incoming from another telephone booth, which was odd. This was at 8:47. This was a telephone by the gasoline station as you go out on Route Two. Do you know the one? That call was to Mr. Mackenzie’s line. Now, this was the same strange voice as the first call, I’m sure of it. Very rough. I stayed on long enough to hear Mr. Mackenzie pick it up. There was another call at 9:50 to Mrs. Ellingham’s line, the same number from New York City, Mrs. Peabody, and it went unanswered. I went off duty at midnight and I called Mr. Mackenzie to tell him so and I read off the information to him.

PROSECUTION: Those were the only calls?

MF: Yes.

PROSECUTION: Coming in, going out, even between the buildings?

MF: Some days the Ellingham lines are very busy, but the evenings are generally quieter, and I think Mr. Ellingham was in town that day, so his phones were quieter. So it wasn’t that odd.

PROSECUTION: The voice you heard. Could you identify it if you heard it again?

MF: I . . . think I could? I might. It was a strange voice. There was something wrong with it.

PROSECUTION: Something wrong?

MF: I can’t explain it.

PROSECUTION: But you think you would know it?

MF: I think I might?

PROSECUTION: Your Honor, I’d like to ask the defendant, Mr. Anton Vorachek, to read something out loud.

DEFENSE: Objection, Your Honor.

JUDGE LADSKY: I’ll allow it.

PROSECUTION: Mr. Vorachek, I’ve written something on this piece of paper. I’d just like you to read it in your normal speaking voice.

ANTON VORACHEK: I am not an actor. I won’t be in your play.

JUDGE LADSKY: You are out of order, Mr. . . .

ANTON VORACHEK: This court is a farce! You are all puppets of the capitalist state!

JUDGE LADSKY: Mr. Vorachek! I am on the verge of having you removed from the courtroom.

PROSECUTION: Your Honor, that may be enough for my purposes. Miss Fields, you’ve just heard Mr. Vorachek’s voice. Was that the voice you heard?

MF: Oh, voices are strange. You hear so many of them down the lines and you pick up little things and you think you can pick them apart, but then they all go back together again. I just got the feeling that this person . . . didn’t want to be understood? It was such a terrible night. I didn’t know that then, of course, but after. But . . . yes. I think, maybe yes.

PROSECUTION: No further questions, Your Honor.

Stevie knew better than to say, “What about it?” She looked to Fenton for a clue as to where this was going.

“She says that there were no other calls from nine fifty to midnight,” Fenton said. “And Miss Nelson says that she found out about the kidnapping in the morning. So, I did a little checking.”