Between Earth and Sky(23)
At last she burst free, the navy silk falling into place around her. After rushing through her buttons, she snatched a brooch from her travel case and brought it to the lace yoke. Her fingers slipped. The pin gouged her thumb. Tarnation!
“Are you ready, darling? The dining hall shall close soon.”
Stewart’s voice from the parlor made her jump. She sucked the blood from her thumb and secured the brooch’s clasp. The white lace was unbesmirched, but her finger throbbed. “Coming.”
The Ryan’s grand dining hall sat just off the lobby with a bank of windows overlooking the bustling street. Glass sconces lined the walls and a great chandelier with dozens of glowing bulbs hung from the ceiling.
Despite the late hour, the room swelled with patrons, all dressed for show. The familiar spectacle felt strangely foreign. The newly polished silverware glinting in the light, the melody of clanking china, the smell of sauce soubise wafting from the kitchen—this was her life. How different it might have been, though. She usually guarded against such comparisons, tucked that vision of another life deep within her bones. But seeing Asku brought it all back into relief.
She and Stewart followed the ma?tre d’h?tel to a table at the far wall situated with some privacy. Her head continued to buzz as the waiter came and Stewart ordered dinner. Hands concealed in her lap, she picked at her nail beds, ignoring the pain and echo of her mother’s reproving voice.
How would Stewart take the news that Asku had declined their help? He’d taken leave from work, traveled with her all this way—and for what?
“How was your meeting with your friend?” he asked.
Here was her chance to reveal the bitter news. The words readied themselves on the tip of her tongue. Just tell him. Instead she said, “You first. How’d things fare with Harry’s lawyer?”
Stewart straightened, taking on that sedulous persona he donned at the office or the marbled rooms of City Hall. She’d always enjoyed watching him work—the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes flickered across the pages of some dossier or legal brief, the occasional scowl or thin-lipped smile, the way he groped for his pen and fell into a flurry of writing when struck with an idea. However unglamorous all that patent and antitrust business might be, he believed strongly in what he did. Once he took on a project, he never erred or faltered.
“First, the good news.” Stewart sipped his iced tea. “Mr. Gates is amiable to me appearing pro hac vice on the case. We submitted the motion this afternoon. I’m confident the judge will sign off.”
“And the bad?”
He glanced at the nearby tables and lowered his voice. “The case was mismanaged from the start. The original police report listed several witnesses, but only one—another employee of the agency—was ever interviewed. There was never any investigation into the relationship between Mr. Muskrat and the victim, and his link to the murder weapon is tenuous at best.”
“I knew he was innocent.”
“Perhaps, but proving that won’t be easy. Onus probandi hardly matters in a case like this.”
“Onus what?”
“Sorry, darling—burden of proof. Usually that lies on the prosecution, but, well, with Mr. Muskrat being Indian, I fear that burden rests upon us.”
The waiter appeared with their soup. Stewart thanked him and resumed. “Every man in that jury will come to the trial already biased. At best, they’ll think him a wild curiosity. At worst, a blood-hungry savage.”
“But that’s not true at all. If they knew how smart and kind and—” She stopped, realizing her voice had begun to tremble.
“That’s what we must show them.”
“How?”
“Mr. Muskrat will have to take the stand, speak about his time at Stover and Brown. We’ll get him a new suit. A haircut, a shoe shine . . .”
Alma lost track of her husband’s words. Around them, most dinner guests were sipping their cordials and scraping the last of the mousse from their dessert cups. She felt the target of their errant gazes, the topic of their whispers, as if everyone knew her secret and was waiting for her to interject, waiting for her to admit Asku wanted no part in their attempts to save him. She picked up her spoon and cut a lazy pattern through her bowl. Hunger hadn’t touched her in days. She ate now for pretense and to spare Stewart worry, but the terrapin soup sat like a stone in her stomach.
“It’s an Algonquin word, terrapin,” she said over him.
Stewart gave her a quizzical look, then glanced down at his bowl.
If only they were back home in their quiet parlor, or out for a stroll along Chestnut Street, so happy, as they had been, in each other’s company that the rest of the world fell away.
“Are you done, ma’am?”
Alma nodded up at the waiter and he whisked away her bowl. He had a maestro’s grace, but a farmer’s rough hands. How long until that part of him, the toil of his youth, faded completely? Perhaps it never would. She thought of Asku’s hands—cracked and calloused but nevertheless clean and manicured, as if he, too, were torn between competing identities. Robbed, he’d called it. But how could he say that? Her own hand found its way to her lips and she bit down hard on skin aside her nail. Like their adroit waiter, Asku had been given a chance at a better life. Where had it gone wrong? “I don’t know if Harry will agree to testify.”