I'll Be Your Blue Sky (Love Walked In #3)(36)

“No, no, I didn’t mean I doubted you. I was just picturing one hundred twenty-one newspapers. Because it’s a lot of newspapers.”

“It is.” She smiled and—ping—for a split second, a halo appeared around her head; at least I’m pretty sure it did. “Luckily, two years ago, we received a grant to convert all the papers to digital.” She gestured toward a small bank of computers in the back of the room. “Come. I will show you.”

Mostly relieved but a tiny bit disappointed—because I’m one of those who likes the feel of paper in my hands—I thanked her and in no time—click, click, click—I was immersed in the winter of 1956/1957 and, after hours of reading, backtracking, and note taking, I pieced together the story of the arrest and trial of Antioch Beach Chief of Police John Blanchard.

According to John Blanchard, on the night of Monday, December 10, 1956, even though he was technically off duty, due to a rash of reported car thefts, he was in his car patrolling Birch Grove Street, along which the grandest houses in town—summer homes of wealthy Philadelphians and Delawareans, bankers, politicians, heirs to a chemical company fortune—stood in a row, when he heard a single gunshot. Seconds later, as he attempted to ascertain the source of the sound, before he had time to call in a report of the shot, a woman in a dressing gown staggered out her front door, a baby—a boy, Steven, born exactly one week earlier on December 3—clutched to her chest. The moon was full that night, and when the woman, Sarah Giles, got close to his car, Chief Blanchard could see that she was badly injured, bent almost double, her face battered and bleeding, her neck ringed with red marks, soon to become dark bruises, as if she’d been throttled. When he got out of his car and approached her, she told him that her husband, drunk and enraged, had threatened to kill both her and the baby, had struck her repeatedly with his closed fist before pushing her down a flight of stairs, and that, as he thundered toward the nursery where the baby slept, Sarah had dug out the gun she’d hidden under a chair cushion weeks before and shot him dead.

John Blanchard was familiar with the family. Elliot Giles was the son of wealthy banker turned Pennsylvania state senator Robert E. Giles. While the elder Giles was a pillar of the community, handsome Elliot had the reputation of being charming but reckless and easily angered, a ladies’ man who had surprised everyone three years earlier by marrying a young teacher whom he had bumped into, literally, on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since then there had been rumors that all was not well within the marriage, and John Blanchard had himself responded to two calls from the Gileses’ neighbors reporting shouting, banging, and other unsettling noises coming from their house. But each time, when he arrived on the scene, all was quiet and Elliot had apologized profusely, saying the first time that a visitor to their home had made unwanted advances toward Sarah and Elliot had had to dispatch him and the second time that he had had one too many Manhattans, had gotten angered by a baseball game he was listening to on the radio—damn Phillies—and had knocked some furniture around. Neither time did John see Sarah Giles, but, both times, he had a “bad feeling” about her well-being, a feeling on which, to his sorrow, he did not follow up.

Because, on that fateful December night, he believed Sarah Giles was telling the truth about killing her husband to save her own life and that of her infant and because he felt concern that a jury might not see the situation in the same light, he made the split-second decision to help her get away and to start a new life free from abuse and fear. He took her inside, and while she dressed, he packed, as best he could, clothes and supplies for her and the baby. Then, he urged her to get into his police cruiser, and because her injuries seemed severe, he took her to the home of Edith Herron, owner of Blue Sky House and the widow of his good friend Joseph Herron. While he was unhappy to involve Edith in his plan to relocate Sarah and her son, his options were limited, and he knew Edith to be not only a former nurse but a thoughtful, trustworthy person. Although he gave Edith no information about the situation and refused to answer her questions, she quietly did what she could for Sarah.

While she was tending to Sarah’s wounds, Mrs. Stella O’ Shea, who lived at the other end of the street, entered the screened porch at the front of Edith Herron’s house. At the trial, Mrs. O’Shea testified that she’d seen John’s car parked “near Edith’s house” (although he’d been careful to park it down around the corner, not directly in front of her house) and, concerned about Edith, who lived “without a man to protect her and with complete strangers coming and going,” had decided to check to make sure all was well. Certainly, the swirling rumors about Edith having more than just a friendship with the police chief played no role in her decision to investigate, since Mrs. O’Shea “never listened to that kind of idle gossip.”

Because the front rooms of the house were dark, Mrs. O’Shea decided not to knock, since no one appeared to be home. As she was turning to leave, she heard what sounded exactly like a hungry newborn’s cry. Perplexed and concerned and not at all idly curious, she proceeded to look, not only through the front windows, but, leaving the porch and walking around the outside of the house, through all the first-floor windows, and it was as she was standing on an overturned bucket, peering through the back window that she saw, through the open door of a bedroom, what appeared to be a woman lying on the bed. Edith was leaning over the woman applying what appeared to be ointment to the woman’s face. This sight so startled Mrs. O’Shea that she lost her balance and fell off the bucket, which clattered against the side of the house. Abashed at the possibility of being discovered peeping—even though of course she’d only had the best of intentions—she ran away, darting just one quick glance over her shoulder to see what she thought was the outline of tall, lanky Chief Blanchard in the window.