Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(67)

I wanted to give Birmingham credit, if only because James Coyle loved the place and believed it was worth serving; I wanted to hope for the best because of men like George Ward and Chief Eagan, and fierce young women like Ruth Gussman. I wanted to put my faith in the court system Massachusetts shared with Alabama, even after all this time—and even after these damn idiots had fought a war to extricate themselves from the binds that tie the states together in unity.

I wanted to think better of those men than I did.

They did not make it easy for me.

The jury foreman stood, and the judge asked him if they’d reached a verdict, and the bailiff took the little piece of paper over to the judge for him to read.

The judge wore a pair of spectacles pushed up on his head. He drew them down to sit on his nose, adjusted their fit, and read the verdict to himself, and then aloud: “We the jury find the defendant, Edwin Stephenson, not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.”

As if this weren’t bad enough, the audience broke into applause.

Lizbeth took Ruth’s hand and squeezed it; Ruth squeezed back. George Ward said, “Goddamn,” very softly, under his breath. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d shouted it, for no one would’ve heard it over the consensus of delight.

“Well”—Lizbeth sighed—“at least we aren’t surprised.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Ruth suggested. She rose to her feet, and we rose with her, exiting the courtroom with ease. Everyone else had already flooded forward to congratulate Stephenson, so there was no one left to block us there at the rear.

We hadn’t gotten far, though, when the tide shifted and everyone spilled out behind us. A reporter had joined the fray, and there—a woman in a blue dress with the same nose as Ruth. Her mother? I guessed correctly, for she was immediately pushed beside Edwin and asked her opinion by the fellow with a notepad.

“How do you feel, now that your husband has been exonerated?”

“I . . .” She looked frightened, but generally pleased. I suppose she wasn’t accustomed to having anyone ask her what she thought about anything. “I . . . I thank the Lord, of course. I’ll be glad to have him home again.”

“And you, sir?” the newspaperman asked, pointing his pencil at Edwin. “Have you anything you’d like to say? To your daughter, perhaps?”

Ruth cringed.

Stephenson smiled, and it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen on any man’s face. “First of all, I’m happy to be free, and I thank God that the men of the jury were able to see the truth of the situation. And second, to my wayward daughter Ruth . . .” He paused and searched the crowd for her. When he found her, that grin of his got even more gruesome. “I’d tell her she’s forgiven, for all her transgressions—against her parents, and against her Lord and Savior.”

I wondered if such a sentiment might make Ruth cry or turn away, but no. Ruth looked like murder. No, she really did—and I thought all the better of her for it. I felt like murder, too, and it wasn’t even my miserable father who’d done the deed.

The notebook-toting man followed Edwin’s gaze straight to Ruth, and turned his attention to her. “Mrs. Gussman!” he called, for he was ten yards away and there were twenty people between us all. “Would you care to respond?”

“Not in the slightest,” she snapped. She turned on her heel, pushed open the front door, and walked right out.

Lizbeth and George went after her, but I lingered behind as the reporter shrugged and returned his attention to the Stephensons.

“And what will you do now?” he asked. “Go home, have a hot meal?”

Edwin shook his head. “No, I think it’s time for a change. All this trouble, it’s made me want something more, something better for myself and my wife—since my daughter won’t keep our company no more.”

The reverend came to join them then. He put one hand on Edwin’s shoulder, and answered the rest. “Mr. Stephenson is on the verge of being ordained as a minister in our church out at Chapelwood. As such, he and his family are welcome to reside there, on the grounds of the old estate. There’s plenty of room, and we have a handful of other ministers living on site already.”

“So you can tell Ruthie—” Edwin leaned forward and tapped the reporter’s notes with his index finger. “You tell her she can have the house if she wants it. We won’t need it no more, and she can take it as a sign that all’s forgiven, and I guess . . . if she wants . . . I might be just a little sorry about how things happened between us. I hope she’s happy.”

Pretty words, but I didn’t believe a single one of them.

(Except that perhaps I believed he was leaving for the company of his own foul kind.)

I left, too, back outside to follow after Ruth and Lizbeth, and George Ward. They were clustered together, slipping away as a group before anyone else with a notebook or an opinion could bother Ruth. I joined them shortly.

“My mother was with him. Did you see her?”

“Yes, I saw her. Did you want to talk to her?” I asked. By the time the words were out of my mouth, I already knew the answer.

“What would I say? Should I tell her to leave and come with me? Should I . . .” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Should I tell her I’m afraid for her, and that she should stay away from Chapelwood, and Daddy, and the reverend, too? She knows all that already. I’ve said it a thousand times, and either she doesn’t hear me, she doesn’t believe me, or . . . or she doesn’t care.”