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MARY’S BACK WAS SORE and stiff from having spent two nights in a row in jail, upon lumpy straw-filled mats, with no pillows. But Christena, being twice her age, suffered even more, and appeared visibly crooked by the time the deputy brought the two of them up to the courtroom in Sault Ste. Marie on Friday after lunch.
There were only a few people in the gallery. One of them was Paul Forbes, who managed to reach out and touch Christena’s hand as she was being led to the defendants’ table. When Mary, Christena, and Edmond had failed to show up on Mackinac Thursday morning as promised, it seemed that Paul had sounded the alarm—immediately wiring Mary’s father in Duluth.
Which was no doubt why John MacDougall’s personal attorney, Archibald Cullen, was seated next to Paul. “Uncle Archie,” Mary had always called him. He had been a family friend since she was little. He nodded to her, but the look on his face was not as good-humored as Mary was used to. She could only imagine what the conversation had been like between her father and Uncle Archie when they learned of her and her aunt’s predicament.
The third man who was with them, Mary didn’t know. But as soon as she and Christena were seated at the defendants’ table, he walked up to join them.
“Phinneas Wilcox,” he said, shaking hands with each of them. “I’ll be representing you. Mr. Cullen said Mr. MacDougall wanted the best criminal-defense man in the Upper Peninsula to represent his daughter and sister. And that would be me.”
Mary grimaced when she heard the word “criminal.” She had never thought that she would ever be associated with that particular noun, except in the ferreting out of them.
“How in the world did Uncle Archie...” Mary wondered. “I mean, Mr. Cullen get here from Duluth so quickly?”
“Traveled all night, I understand,” the attorney explained. “Hired a private car and engine out of Superior.”
Mary, cringing, could only imagine what that must have cost her father.
Mr. Wilcox began to pepper the two of them with questions about what had happened two nights before. Christena, closer to him, answered most of them.
Mary knew she should be listening, but her mind wandered back to the misadventures of Wednesday evening.
She had been informed by the deputy sheriff in Dillmont that it indeed had been Edmond Roy who had made that terrible ruckus at Westerholm’s front door. In his effort to get into the asylum, he engaged in fisticuffs with a male attendant who, unceremoniously, tossed him down the granite steps. He had been arrested, but spent the night in the infirmary at Westerholm, where Dr. Applegate treated him. Mary was worried sick about his injuries, but no one could give her any details.
And this all happened to him because of stupid, boneheaded Mary MacDougall!
Not only had she been wrong to involve Edmond and her aunt in this disaster. She had also apparently been terribly wrong about Dr. Applegate’s character.
During her brief residency on Westerholm’s deluxe second floor, Christena had learned from one of the nurses that the doctor’s liberality in committing men’s wives came from his personal experience. His own wife, at the loss of their two young children to diphtheria, fell into extreme melancholy; and, in fact, tried to kill herself. She had been the white-haired woman Mary saw, who clutched the photograph of her dead son and daughter as she stared out the window, awaiting their return.
A couple of the wealthy inmates at Westerholm had told Christena that they actually preferred to be there, rather than at home. Putting up with their husbands was a considerably more distressing situation than living comfortably and simply on the second floor of the east wing.
Mary’s thoughts were interrupted as the door at the rear of the courtroom creaked opened. She turned to look. A tall man came limping in, being steered by a deputy.
It was Edmond. She had not seen him since they parted just outside Westerholm.
His summer suit was covered in dirt and dried spots of blood, and torn in at least two places. A bandage covered the left half of his handsome forehead. And a plaster cast encased his arm. His right arm. His painting arm.
She gasped and could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
He waved at her with his good left hand and managed a despondent smile, as Mary waved back. The deputy nudged him into a seat at the rear of the courtroom.
Mary turned back, moaning, overcome with guilt. Edmond had reluctantly agreed to help her in this misbegotten scheme and this was his reward—a broken arm and another encounter with the law.
How would he ever finish his mural? Or manage the portraits of Mrs. Ensign and her granddaughter?
She slumped in her seat. The world would be a much safer place if the judge simply tossed Mary into jail and threw away the key.
Christena put her arm around Mary and tried to comfort her. As she did, the bailiff entered the room and called out, “Hear ye, hear ye. Please rise. The District Court of Chippewa County is now in session, Judge Anson Tolliver presiding.”
“Good Lord, it’s dear old Anson,” Christina whispered to Mary as they rose.
Mary blinked at the lanky gentleman in the black suit who mounted the bench and sat in the tall chair behind it. It was none other than Christena’s dancing partner, from the ballroom of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.
The judge told everyone to be seated, then spent a few minutes reading through the documents on the desk before him.
“Well, well, well,” he said, finally looking up. “It really is Miss MacDougall and Miss MacDougall here before me today. And I believe your friend Mr. Roy is also among us. You three are charged with offenses I would not have expected of you. Some of them serious offenses.”
He fixed his penetrating and Lincolnesque gaze first on Mary and then on Christena.
“I assume that, as the sister of a millionaire, you have not taken up a career in crime as a matter of choice. Would I be correct?”
“You would, your honor,” Christena concurred.
“And your response, Miss Mary MacDougall, would be the same?”
“It would, your honor,” Mary meekly confirmed.
“And Mr. Wilcox is counsel for both of you?”
Mr. Wilcox nodded and said, “I am, your honor. And I will also represent Mr. Edmond Roy.”
Mary’s heart jumped. Knowing that Edmond would have a proper defense took at least a little of the sting out of her feeling of guilt.
“All right then,” the judge said. He picked up a sheet of paper and summarized the contents. “The county attorney enumerates the following charges against Miss Mary MacDougall. We have criminal trespass at Westerholm Institution, malicious damage to property at Westerholm, first-degree battery against a Willis Flugum, and assault with a deadly weapon with regard to a Mr. Merton Olcott. Against Miss Christena MacDougall the charge is malicious damage to property.” Judge Tolliver turned to look at the assistant county attorney, sitting alone at his table. “Is that everything, Mr. Phelps?”
“It is, your honor,” replied the prosecuting attorney.
“Are your clients prepared to make pleas, Mr. Wilcox? If they are, I am inclined to be lenient, except with regard to the charges of assault and battery.”
Mary leaned across Christena and whispered urgently to Mr. Wilcox about Olcott and Flugum. He nodded several times and stood.
“On behalf of Miss Mary MacDougall, I can say she’s willing to take her medicine for the damage she did to the chapel at Westerholm, by way of paying restitution and more. And so is Miss Christena MacDougall. But the matter of the battery against Mr. Flugum and the assault against Mr. Olcott raises this question. Are the gentlemen prepared to make their complaints and provide testimony in person or by deposition?”
The judge peered down his nose at the assistant county attorney. “A fair question, don’t you think, Mr. Phelps? Are Mr. Olcott and Mr. Flugum available to this court?”
The prosecutor rose, a bit of red showing in his cheeks. “Well, your honor, both gentlemen said they would swear out complaints at the time of the incidents. I have word from the deputy sheriff in Dillmont that he’s looking for them. But they seem to have vanished. Mr. Flugum’s house is empty and the hotel never heard of Mr. Olcott.”
“I knew it!” Mary exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “The two of them have gone to ground.”
“Miss MacDougall,” the judge snapped, “you will please control yourself. If you don’t, I will find you in contempt of court.”
Mary apologized and sat down. This nightmare, she hoped, might finally be ending.
