Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(54)
“The other time I was lonesome, and he was nice. He didn’t pull anything funny. We just sat on a swing and talked, then Daddy found us and—”
“And he was upset, I expect.”
“I couldn’t leave the house for a month.” I added real quick, before he could shoot me down, “Because he gave me a broken leg.”
To the judge, Hugo Black said something about striking that last bit from the record, because it wasn’t relevant. I wondered how on earth he could claim such a thing, but I’d already been told that the courtroom doesn’t work like real life, and there are strange rules you’ve got to play by. Chief Eagan had told me, and so had Mr. Ward, when everyone was getting ready for the trial.
Mr. Mayhew objected to Hugo Black’s objection, so the two men approached the judge to chat about it.
I looked back at Chief Eagan and he gave me an encouraging nod. I appreciated it, but it didn’t do much to make me feel better. I wished Pedro could’ve been there, but he had to work. I wished Mr. Ward had been there, but I didn’t know where he was—and come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. I wished I wasn’t quite so alone, and maybe I wished it so hard it turned into a little prayer . . . because just then the doors opened at the back of the courtroom and two more people slipped inside.
One of them was Inspector Wolf, and the other was a woman about his age—but I didn’t know who she was. She was not too tall and was rather ordinary-looking, except that she was dressed more nicely than the rest of us. I don’t mean she was wearing anything flashy; it was just a nice cream-colored dress that suited a lady of a certain age, and it probably came with a nice price tag, too.
When she first walked in, she looked uncertain. The place was packed, so I thought at first she was just wondering where to sit, or if she should bother trying. But we locked eyes while the men beside me argued with each other and with the judge . . . and I swear, I think she understood. She felt sorry for me, and she wanted to say something to that effect—I could see it all over her face. Under ordinary circumstances, I might’ve been put off by that because I don’t need anybody’s pity. But right about then, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, and that lady was welcome to join the party.
Inspector Wolf and the mystery lady stepped over to the side so they didn’t block the door. They stood at the rear of the room, just behind Chief Eagan—but he didn’t see them, because he didn’t turn around. If he had, he probably would’ve said hello to the inspector, because I know they’ve met before.
Anyway, the lawyers and the judge quit arguing and they went back to their respective corners, like a couple of boxers in a ring. Hugo Black checked some paperwork he’d left there, then returned his attention to me. He didn’t bother to come up to me again; he just half leaned, half sat on the edge of his table, facing me while he talked.
“So you felt that your father’s household rules and punishments were excessive, is that right?”
“They were excessive,” I told him. “And that wasn’t just my opinion, either.”
“You’re the one on the stand. Other opinions need not be considered at this time—there’s already plenty of hearsay to go around. Let us stick to verifiable facts: You’ve run away before, by your own admission.”
“That’s right.”
“Because your father treated you poorly, most recently by making you attend church against your will.”
“That’s right, too.”
The men in the jury box got even more lemon-faced. Hugo Black said to them, and to the rest of the room, “Let the record reflect, Mrs. Gussman found the very idea of Sunday school so odious that she was compelled to seek a less virtuous arrangement.”
“That’s not fair!” I blurted, which was the wrong thing to do, and I knew it. But I kept talking anyway, even though the lawyer tried to talk over me at the end. “I ought to be able to pick whichever church I want! I didn’t want to go to Chapelwood, that’s all. I was happy to go someplace else, almost anyplace else!”
Fast on the heels of me saying that, he said, “Anyplace like Saint Paul’s?”
I could tell it was supposed to be all dramatic, and it was supposed to make me embarrassed because just about everyone in the room thought Catholics were so bad, but I wasn’t embarrassed and I didn’t feel bad. “Yes, like Saint Paul’s. They were kind to me there. Kinder than my daddy’s ever been, since the day I was born.”
“But their teachings are false, and they follow the Antichrist—or so some people would say,” Hugo Black was quick to add—I don’t know why. It’s not like anybody in a position to judge me disagreed with him any.
So I told him, “I didn’t believe everything they taught me, any more than I ever believed anything the Methodists told me, either. And I believed even less of what they were saying at Reverend Davis’s church. That place is crazy, and I didn’t want to go back. That’s partly why I ran.”
A murmur ran through the jury box and went around the room. I knew the reverend was a popular man, but I might’ve underestimated how popular, exactly. Tough luck, because I’d already said my piece. My neck was burning hot, and my head was starting to hurt. All right, maybe I was a little embarrassed and feeling bad—but it wasn’t due to anything Hugo Black thought was appropriately shameful.