Chapter 111
JONAH AND I watched from the rear balcony as L.J.’s carriage clattered down the back drive and onto the Old Laurel Road. The crowd in front continued chanting for another half hour or so, but then the rain picked up and extinguished their torches, and their anger, at least for tonight.
Before long I was seated in the ground-floor parlor with a snifter of brandy and a pot of coffee. Two of L.J.’s house-men were sweeping up the broken glass and bringing in planks to nail over the windows. Quite the sight. And quite the night.
A knock came at the door. I looked up to see Nelson, one of the houseboys.
“There’s a Miz Begley here to see you, sir,” he said.
I went and met Elizabeth in the front alcove. Her bonnet was glistening from the rain, and she looked uncharacteristically disheveled.
She reached out and took my hand. “Oh, Ben, I was in the courtroom today,” she said. “It’s awful, just awful. We all see what’s happening. How can I help?”
I led her to L.J.’s study, toward a green damask sofa, where we sat. Elizabeth untied the bow of her bonnet and shucked it off. Her hair went flowing onto her shoulders.
“I want to help you Ben. Please let me in. These hangings, all of it, has got to stop. Most of us in town want it to stop.”
“I don’t know what to say, Elizabeth. L.J. just took Allegra and their kids out of town.”
“Don’t push me away again. Please. I live here. I have more to gain, and to lose, than you do. Ben?”
After a brief silence, I told her about a plan that had been forming in my head. It was quite a daring one, and I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “You already are a help to me. Just knowing that I have your support and trust means everything to me.”
Chapter 112
SINCE THE NIGHT we had convinced Phineas to arrest the White Raiders, I’d known that if this trial ever came about, winning three guilty verdicts would be close to impossible. But this was the first time I had ever considered that it might be completely impossible.
I couldn’t think of a way to combat all the lies, the false testimony, the faked documents, the bigoted jurors—and, of course, the overwhelming and nearly laughable prejudice of the presiding judge.
Jonah Curtis, on the other hand, seemed to be clinging to his little tiny ray of hope. He kept urging me to have the courage to stand by him; he intended to fight Loophole Lewis to the bitter end.
So it was that Jonah went after every scrap of evidence with passion, intelligence, and no little amount of cunning. He did constant battle with my increasingly impatient father. On the third day of the trial, everyone was astonished when Judge Corbett actually upheld one of Jonah’s objections. “Don’t let that give you any ideas,” my father growled.
The next day Jonah put an emotional Conrad Cosgrove on the stand.
“That’s right, Mr. Curtis,” Conrad said, “they was at least eight of ’em coming from all directions. They never said a word, they just started shootin’ everything and everybody in sight.”
And later: “Yes, sir, Mr. Curtis, I seen my brother Luther take that man’s boot to his head at least six, seven times. Hard enough and long enough to kill him. I was standing closer to him than I am right now to you.”
But then Maxwell Hayes Lewis always got his chance at rebuttal.
“Now, Mr. Cosgrove, my dear Mr. Cosgrove, would you say that your opinion of what happened that night is influenced at all by your sorrow at the death of your brother?”
Conrad pondered the question, then shook his head. “No, sir. I do feel sad that Luther is dead, but that doesn’t have a thing to do with my opinion about what happened that night.”
It was a small trap, but Conrad had walked right into it.
Loophole Lewis pounced. “So the testimony you gave to Mr. Curtis just now was your opinion, not fact?”
“Well, sir,” Conrad said slowly, “it is my opinion, like you said, but it’s based on what I saw. And that’s just a fact.”
“But you’re not absolutely certain of those facts, are you? How could you be?”
Jonah climbed to his feet again. “Your Honor, Mr. Lewis is purposely trying to confuse this witness.”
Judge Corbett looked over his spectacles. “If the witness is so easily confused,” he said, “then perhaps you made a mistake calling Mr. Cosgrove to testify in the first place.”