Thirteen

Harriet Setzler was in the dressing room at Winona’s Hat Shoppe when she heard about it. Winona’s was Harriet’s favorite store in Essex besides Sarah’s (which was now all boarded up pending Heyward Rutherford’s disposal of it). Harriet trusted Winona’s plate glass windows and red brick walls (it was once a gas station) and the heavy oak door whose bell still jingled when it was opened. Whenever Harriet entered Winona’s, she saw it as it had looked thirty years before—the narrow front room bisected by an aisle down the middle with bouquets of hats clustered around wooden dressing tables on either side. Winter felts with grosgrain ribbons, spring straws fussy with veils and flowers, cloche and pillbox and wide-brim perched on treelike stands to the ceiling, like bridesmaids staggered by height on the church steps after a wedding. Here, to Winona’s, William had brought Harriet every season. He would stand in a corner and nod at the hats he liked as she tried them on.

These days the front room sported only one hat display; Harriet kept hoping hats truly would come back in style but she was about the only woman in Essex doing anything to aid the cause. Thus, most of the floor space in the long narrow room was given over to dresses and suits. Harriet passed the eight-foot oak counter with its ancient cash register and spoke to Winona’s granddaughter, a thin severe woman of thirty. Who didn’t have the slightest idea how to fit a bra, Harriet thought to herself, moving into the back room of the store. She checked to make sure she was alone, crossed to the budget dresses, and selected three of them after shaking her head at most on the rack. Then she headed toward the makeshift dressing rooms jutting out against one wall, flimsy curtains across their fronts, and sighed for the days when Winona herself came to the house with an armload of dresses for Harriet to consider.

Mildred Stokes and her grown daughter Milly were in the curtained cubicle next to Harriet and Harriet wondered how in the world the two plump females got in that small space at the same time. Hanging her own dresses up in the dressing room, Harriet heard the elder woman ask her daughter, “Did you hear they arrested Sarah’s killer? That swamp woman?”

“No, Mama. News never seems to get out our way.”

“Picked her up not two hours ago, that’s what Jimmy at the gas station said. Wonder why she did it. She always seemed harmless enough, what I saw of her anyhow. Course you can never tell with them. That Ella what worked for us so long, I know she took one of my silver teaspoons.”

“If she was stealing, how come you kept her so long?”

“Oh Milly, now you know Ella’s right fine. She was with us a long time, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to anyone. I just wish she’d bring back my silver teaspoon.”

“Mama, maybe you lost that teaspoon. Put it in the disposal or something. What would Ella want with one teaspoon anyway?”

“Ella took my teaspoon. It’s a fact.”

The younger woman sighed as she struggled to get out of a dress that was too small. “Mama, you think I’m too fat?”

“Fat? You’re not fat. Just big-boned. Sturdy. All the Stokes women are like that. Why, Aunt Pearl was at least …”

Harriet, having tried on two of her dresses, rejected them all and left in the middle of the history of the Stokes clan. Outside she heaved open the door to her ancient Buick and climbed inside and drove toward home. Once on Aiken Avenue she stopped at Marian’s house. She knocked and waited, then she walked to the end of the porch and peered into the driveway looking for Marian’s car. When it was clear Marian wasn’t home, Harriet sat down on the porch bench anyway. It felt better to sit there than to go home alone.

She had been worried about so many things in the last day or two. Ever since that policeman was killed. She gazed down the street and ached for Sarah, for her old friend, for someone to talk to who remembered everything she remembered. That was so important sometimes, just to know you weren’t the only person who remembered certain things. Solo memories were too painful, like widowhood. If Sarah were here, Harriet would tell her how concerned she was about Marian right now. About how odd Marian had looked all week, how she kept going off somewhere alone and coming back with a dazed expression on her face—preoccupied with something she would not share. She even looked different—was wearing those big floppy dresses all the time, like the ones Nigra women used to wear to clean in. Her hair was funny too, like she had forgotten an appointment at the beauty shop. This was so unlike Marian, and Harriet knew that when a woman couldn’t be bothered with her appearance, she was in serious trouble.

Ever since Sarah died, Harriet had felt she had to protect Marian. But this second murder made it even harder. She could not protect Marian and still do what she felt she ought to do. It wasn’t for herself she worried but for Marian. Harriet knew she ought to do what was best, safest, what might protect Marian most in the long run, but this time—she felt like she had to do what Marian wanted. She remembered a time when she hadn’t done what Marian wanted; she also remembered Sadie Thompkins’ “too little too late.” Nonetheless, right now nothing would keep Harriet from trying to make it up to her unacknowledged adopted child.

When Anna got home from the swamps later that same day, she found Stoney in the backyard washing the cars. Naked to the waist, he was standing beside the soaped-up Subaru aiming the hose at it. Under the still bright sunlight, the spray of water arced between the two of them and for a moment Anna gazed at him through it, seeing him almost as she might if she didn’t know him. From a distance he was just an outline, a man with powerful shoulders and the taut stomach of an athlete; then, as she drew nearer, he took on more dimension, filled out. As he moved back and forth around the car, she could see the bones in his wrist, the hamstrings in the back of his thighs, the slight creases around his eyes. For once, she just stood watching him, not expecting or anticipating anything.

Finally he saw her and called out above the noise of the hose and for a second Anna, so sweaty from the afternoon with Marian in the humid swamps, wanted to jump in the hose spray like a kid. The harsh sun beat down unrelentlessly and the water was a welcome respite, so she stepped into the edge of it deliberately as he finished rinsing the car. Then he turned the water off.

Sweat and water running down his bare chest, he looked across the car at her. “They did it, Anna. They arrested Maum Chrish. Didn’t even have to go out to the swamps, they found her walking along the highway outside town. Like she knew, like she was coming in on her own. She didn’t say a word, Jim said, didn’t protest or put up a fight or anything. Just went with them. She’s locked up in Ashboro. I went over there this afternoon—she was already processed so I went in and asked her if I could help. I don’t think she understands what’s happening.”

It occurred to Anna that she and Stoney had both spent the afternoon trying to do the same thing—only separately. Why was that? “Surely there’s something we can do.”

At the sound of a mockingbird Stoney glanced behind him, a helpless look in his eyes. Why hadn’t he found anything at Leonard’s house besides porn magazines? “I’m not sure there is, except maybe find her a lawyer. There’s to be a hearing in a few days. The town is convinced she’s guilty and they’re going to crucify her. I feel surrounded by hate.”

Anna started to say something but the lost look on his face stopped her. She couldn’t think of any words that would help. As he leaned over to dip his sponge back into the bucket filled with sudsy water, Anna came up behind him and slipped her arms around his waist. Without speaking, without asking why he was home in the middle of the day or why they never understood each other anymore, she just held him around the middle, rubbing circles on his stomach with her right hand. Neither said a word. He stood still as her fingers trailed along the waistband of his jogging shorts, and between the sunlight above and the cold water on their skin, they both shivered with the juxtaposed sensations. In a moment Stoney turned back around, smiling but not really aware. “We haven’t had a chance to talk for days, have we?” Then he kissed Anna quickly.

She opened her lips beneath his mouth and felt his surprise as she slid her tongue inside his mouth insistently, demanding, needing, her arms around his neck pulling him closer until the heat between them grew so potent that she drew back and said, “I don’t want to talk.”

She turned and pulled him by the hand toward the back door. She didn’t stop until they were in the cool living room with its bay windows wide open. Wet, they knelt atop the Indian carpet. Her tongue was inside his mouth as she slowly undressed herself and reached out for him with a passion that had finally announced itself at the door.

Later, at twilight, the swamp lay like a sleeping snake coiled up in the darkness. Seth Von Hocke stood in the clearing in front of Maum Chrish’s house, and for a second he remembered how scared he had been the first time he’d ever come here with Donny. That was the first time he’d ever seen Maum Chrish. Now the place was scarier without her here.

The fire near the garden had burned down low and the boy dropped to his knees and stirred it back up, threw on several pieces of kindling until the blaze was holding its own again. He didn’t know why, but she never let the fire go out. In its revived light his strained face stood out in relief, like a medieval fresco of beggar children. After a few moments he got too hot by the fire and he walked over to the cabin. He’d never been inside. He tiptoed to the front door and peeked in. There was a tall pole in the center of the room and a table but not much else. Didn’t look like the work of the devil to him.

That’s what they were saying in town. That she was a witch. That she gave up without a fight because she was guilty. That she’d get the gas chamber and never hurt anyone again. Seth stood in the doorway and thought about going on inside the house. Then he changed his mind. Instead, he pulled the seldom-used wood door shut and walked back down the steps.

In his ears he could still hear Donny’s mother: “Seth honey, what’s wrong with a boy like you, going out there to that old nigger’s place all the time? Don’t you know she killed two people? You’re lucky she didn’t cut you up for some devil worship.”

Seth knew it was probably a sin but he thought Donny’s mother was just a little dumb. And he didn’t like how she called Maum Chrish a “nigger” either. Donny had told everyone about Seth’s visits to the swamp—despite the piggy bank, the other boy had not kept his word. Now most of the guys were always giving Seth a hard time about having a “thing” for an old black lady.

Eventually his brother had heard about it and his brother had told his parents. His father was red in the face when Seth came home that day: “Young man, you are not to go out there again. Ever. Whatever you’ve been doing out there, it isn’t healthy; a boy your age should be with his friends, not hanging around an old recluse. You stay away from that woman—we don’t know her.”

The boy sat down by the fire. Every one of them made his time with Maum Chrish sound so—wrong or dirty or something. And he was grounded, wasn’t supposed to ride his bicycle for the next four weeks. A month. If his parents discovered he’d sneaked it out here this afternoon anyway, they’d probably take it away for good. Maybe he should run away. To Chicago or New Orleans or someplace like that. Only he felt most comfortable right here, with her. Now everybody said she killed people. That she was evil. Seth thought for a second about when Maum Chrish took her clothes off in front of him and dove in the river. He knew if he told anyone about that, there would really be trouble.

Abruptly he kicked sand on the fire, deliberately aiming his sneaker at the new pieces of kindling until he’d knocked them aside. Over and over again he attacked the burning center, knocking the wood askew, stamping on the embers, burning his shoes in the process. He kicked and kicked, his face red, tears running down his scorched cheeks. Finally the fire was out, dead.

Two nights later Judge Harry Thompson yawned at midnight and looked out the window of his dusty study in Ashboro at the clipped yard below. Sometimes he wasn’t exactly sure how he’d become a judge. Accident? Fate? About six years after he had begun practicing law in South Carolina, a district attorney he knew put him up for the judgeship rather suddenly, without explanation. At the time Harry Thompson had been something of a young hotshot in these parts and, flattered, he’d pursued the judgeship as though it’d been his idea to begin with. It was only later that he realized that the district attorney had finally rid himself, very effectively, of his most skillful opponent.

To date he’d sat on the bench for over fifteen years, and now he was a lot less flattered by the position. What it took to be a good judge was an uncanny ability to always see both sides of an issue. That much was good; he could do that. He nearly always felt sympathy for the defense and the prosecution, unless a case was obviously one-sided or the attorneys were untalented. But the trouble was—if you empathized so well with both sides, how the hell did you determine who was right?

You guessed.

It was such an inexact profession it kept him awake nights. Sometimes he lay in bed and wondered about cases he’d heard ten years before. His wife of twenty-five years would sigh out loud, to let him know his tossing and turning was keeping her awake. Sure hadn’t been anything else going on in that bed for some time to keep a body awake. But he’d pat her rump and mumble something and she’d go back to sleep. Then he’d try the case again in his head. More quietly. One time he made a list of thirteen cases from the past ten years he was certain he’d ruled on incorrectly. He felt like he was totaling up his sins so he’d have an organized list when he got to heaven.

Provided he got there at all, what with all the screw-ups. Like his very first case, an Ashboro black woman accused of knifing her husband. When the couple was brought before him, it was clear the husband beat the wife regularly. The jury sided with the husband, though, who was still bandaged and had lost part of his right pinky finger. Then the judge of the century stepped in and commuted her sentence, let the woman go instead of incarcerating her. The joys of parole would be hers, thanks to him. The trial ended. But that night her husband killed her with a two-by-four.

It was the black-white cases that made his skin crawl. The judge turned away from the window and looked down at the arrest report on the woman known only as Maum Chrish. Lord help—a defendant with a slave name. The whole town of Essex would probably be at the preliminary hearing. Did he do the right thing to call an open hearing, or would it just stir those folks up even more? They wanted a trial. However, he simply did not see enough evidence to impanel a grand jury now, which was making him about as popular as Judas Iscariot in that small town down the road.

Judge Thompson closed his eyes. It was not going to be a routine hearing. No, it was going to be a packed house. Hot as hell too. Nothing like a crowd of paranoid people all bunched up, angry and sweating to death. Often he envied the Japanese justice system—the severe and irreversible penalties inscribed for serious crimes. It was one of the oldest civilizations in the world and one with almost no violence. Was it possible your civilization had to be millions of years old before it truly lost its barbarity? If so, was America as old as the Europeans who founded it—or just as old as itself?