A Stranger in the Kingdom (55 page)

“I'm sorry, your honor, but let's not forget that an innocent girl was murdered. In between all these melodramatics, a young girl was brutally killed.”

Zack turned back to Nat. “Let's go to another episode. Did you or did you not, Nathan Andrews, knock the LaMott boy off the Boston and Montreal train trestle back in June, and nearly drown him?”

“Your honor, once again I must object that the prosecutor is deliberately leading the witness, or trying to, with inaccurate and totally unsubstantiated innuendo.”

“Sustained. You will rephrase that question, Mr. Barrows.”

“Nathan Andrews, did you knock the LaMott boy off the trestle?”

“He fell off the trestle, and I jumped in after him and pulled him out.”

“Did you hit him before he fell?”

“He tried to hit me. I ducked and reached out and swatted him. He fell and I went in after him.”

“Nathan Andrews, you have testified that you advised Claire LaRiviere to talk to your father and tell him that she was pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“After you proffered this wise counsel, did it occur to you that when the baby was born, your father would certainly know that you, and no one but you, had to be the father?”

“I suppose so.”

“I know so. And on that illuminating revelation, I shall turn this versatile young witness back over for your redirect, Charles.”

“Nat, I want to ask you just one more question,” Charlie began. “Did you at any time before or after Claire's death tell your father that you were very probably her baby's father?”

“No. Never.”

“Thank you, Nathan. If Mr. Barrows has no further questions, I'd like to recall Reverend Andrews to the stand, your honor.”

The judge glanced up at the clock. It was nearly noon. “We'll break for lunch,” he said. “Court will reconvene at one-thirty. In the meantime, I'd like to see both sets of counsel in my chambers.”

 

At the
Monitor
, Dad pulled down the blinds, put the CLOSED sign on the window, and locked the door in order not to be bothered. But no sooner had Mom started to unpack our lunch than the phone began to ring.

My father snatched the receiver off the hook. “Hello? Hello?”

He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “It's that damn crank caller,” he said. Then he spoke again into the receiver. “Listen, whoever you are, I am here to tell you that—What? What's that?”

My father listened for perhaps fifteen seconds, then said, “All right, we'll be here,” and hung up.

“Well, that's one mystery solved,” Dad said. “We know who the crank caller is.”

“Who?”

“Ida LaMott. Apparently she's been working up the courage to identify herself. She said she and Frenchy are on their way over here with something very important to tell us.”

“Did she say what it was about?” Mom said.

“Only that it had to do with the trial. James, ran across the street to the courthouse. As soon as your brother comes out of the judge's chambers, tell him to get over here as fast as he can. This may not amount to a hill of beans, but whatever it is Ida wants to tell us, he ought to hear it.”

 

“I'd like at this time to recall the Reverend Walter Andrews,” Charlie said an hour later when court reconvened.

Although he maintained his erect bearing, the minister looked dreadfully tired as he took the stand.

“Reverend Andrews, you've testified that on the evening of June twenty-eighth, the evening Claire LaRiviere appeared at the parsonage you were doing some historical research. What was the exact nature of this research?”

“I was interested in the background of Pliny Templeton—the founder and first headmaster of the Kingdom Common Academy.”

“How did you first hear of Pliny Templeton?”

“From your father, Charles Kinneson. Not long after I came to town this past spring, he told me how Pliny ran away from slavery, with the help of your great-grandfather, and established the Academy here in northern Vermont. The tale captured my imagination.”

“Was there any particular reason for this, apart from the fact that Pliny was a Negro?”

“Well, my own great-grandfather had come north from Mississippi via the Underground Railway. His son, my grandfather, was the first Negro Presbyterian session member in Canada, and at divinity school I wrote my thesis on the Presbyterian church's efforts to help fugitive American Negroes become established in Canada.”

“Was there anything else that especially intrigued you about Pliny Templeton's stoty?”

“Well, there's the legend that Pliny was the first Negro college graduate in America. Actually, although Pliny did graduate from Middlebury College he had several Negro predecessors at other American colleges, including both Harvard and Yale. What really intrigued me about the man was the end of his life.”

“What particularly intrigued you about the end of Pliny Templeton's life, Reverend Andrews?”

“To begin with, the fact that he allegedly committed suicide over a doctrinal dispute between the church and his school. I was curious about it and decided to look into the entire situation.”

“Your honor, this has nothing to do with the murder of Claire LaRiviere!” Sigurd Moulton cried out.

“Judge Allen, if you'll let me proceed free from the interruptions of the various prosecutors, I'll demonstrate the relevance of this line of questioning in good time.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Kinneson. Get to your point as quickly as possible.”

“Thank you. Reverend Andrews, I'll come back to the matter of your research into the life of Pliny Templeton in a moment. Before I do, though, I'd like to ask you who, besides you and your son, had ready and free access to the parsonage this past summer.”

“Anyone who wanted or needed to come there was welcome, Mr. Kinneson.”

“I understand that. What I'd like to know is who came and went on an informal basis? Without knocking, let's say. Or at odd hours.”

“Well, sir, as far as I can remember he always knocked, but your father quite often dropped in of an evening. Many nights he'd stop off on his way home from covering a meeting or working late at the newspaper office, and we'd visit until all hours. Your younger brother, Jim, used to call for my son. And in late July I hired a local woman, Mrs. Ida LaMott, to come in to clean three times a week. She came and went without knocking. So, for that matter, did Claire LaRiviere.”

“What there anyone else who had access to your house? Anyone from the church? A session member, for example?”

“The sexton, Elijah Kinneson, held keys to both the church and the parsonage. So far as I know he never came to the house except when I called him, though, say to fix the furnace or plumbing or some other practical matter.”

“But the sexton did at your request assist you with those matters? The furnace and plumbing?”

“Yes, upon request.”

“How many times did you request the sexton's assistance over the course of the spring and summer?”

“I'm not sure. Four or five, perhaps.”

“Was he prompt in responding?”

“So far as I can remember.”

“How would you characterize his attitude toward you at those times?”

“Irrelevant, your honor,” Moulton said. “The church sexton's attitude is hardly at issue here today.”

“The sexton has already given critical testimony in this trial, your honor. Surely the jury has a right to be aware of any information that might have a bearing on that testimony.”

“Proceed with care, Mr. Kinneson.”

“Reverend Andrews, how would you characterize Elijah Kinneson's attitude toward you when he came to the parsonage?”

“I don't recall that I was ever at home when he came. The work would simply be done a day or two after I'd spoken to him about it.”

“Can you think of a specific instance?”

“Yes. After the shooting episode at the parsonage, I asked him to replace both the front and back door locks with modern locks. Two days after the shooting, when I returned from a morning meeting with the session and just before I drove Nat back to Montreal the locks had been installed and the keys were on my desk and labeled.”

“So Elijah Kinneson had complete access to your house at any time?”

“Objection! It's been established that the sexton had access to the parsonage only in connection with his job and upon the minister's request.”

“Strike the question,” Charlie said casually. “How would you characterize Elijah Kinneson's attitude toward you in general, Reverend Andrews?”

“He rarely spoke to me directly. I had the impression he avoided me when possible.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

“Immaterial, your honor,” Moulton said. “Were speaking of the vaguest impressions here.”

“Sustained,” Judge Allen said.

“Let me inquire more precisely,” Charlie said. “Reverend Andrews, did you ever have any difficulty, any arguments with Elijah Kinneson?”

“We disagreed on occasion,” the minister said. “I recall asking him one Saturday morning to change the text on the bulletin board outside the church. I thought the message he'd put up was inappropriate, and we exchanged some sharp words over it. He walked away in a huff, so I changed it myself. After that, he refused to have anything more to do with the bulletin board.

“On the other hand, I never had any cause to complain about the sexton's regular work, he kept the church in apple-pie order. Doctrinally, we never pretended to agree. Mr. Elijah Kinneson is a Reformed Presbyterian, one of the very last in the congregation. I was brought up as a United Presbyterian.”

“Was Elijah Kinneson aware of your interest in Pliny Templeton's life?”

“Yes, he was. That was a curious thing. More than once he gave me to understand that he didn't at all approve of the research I was conducting on Templeton. When I began looking into the circumstances of Pliny's alleged suicide, he went out of his way to tell me that wasn't any of my business. He objected when your father lent me Pliny's book,
The Ecclesiastical History of Kingdom County.
Elijah said that Pliny was a born troublemaker who was at the root of a turn-of-the-century feud between local Reformed and United Presbyterians. I presumed that Elijah thought Pliny richly deserved to languish in obscurity because of the changes he sought to effect in the church and Academy.”

Sigurd Moulton, who once again seemed to have resumed the duties of chief prosecutor, was on his feet. “Your honor, these speculations and presumptions on the part of a defendant in a first-degree murder trial have no place in this courtroom. They're totally unrelated to the case at hand.”

“The jury will disregard Reverend Andrews' presumptions. You may proceed with this line of inquiry, Mr. Kinneson, if and only if Reverend Andrews confines his replies to what he knows for a fact, with no presumptions.”

“Thank you, your honor. Reverend Andrews, where do you keep your research papers on Pliny Templeton?”

“Until recently, I kept them in the lower left-hand drawer of my desk in the parsonage study.”

“Why did you say ‘until recently'?”

“A few weeks ago I asked your father if he'd bring my research notes up to Memphremagog for me. He checked in my desk and found they were missing. So were two newspapers from the summer of 1900, the summer Pliny died, which I'd borrowed from the back files at your father's office.”

“What, specifically, did those two newspapers contain?”

“One contained an article on Pliny's suicide. The other contained a notice concerning a sudden illness of Charles Kinneson—your greatgrandfather and Pliny's close friend and benefactor.”

“Did you keep your desk locked, Reverend Andrews?”

“Yes, always.”

“Do you have any clues as to who might have taken your research notes and the two newspapers?”

“Not without presuming again.”

“Thank you very much, Reverend Andrews. Your testimony has been very illuminating. That's all for the time being.”

Sigurd Moulton stood up. “Reverend Andrews, I'm not going to conduct a class up here on local history. We're all sure that your interest in Pliny Templeton is a very fascinating little hobby to take up your spare time when you're not out getting into fistfights or shooting matches with local citizens, but—

“Objection, your honor. That's exactly the sort of misleading, gratuitous insult that you've warned the prosecutor against.”

“Sustained. Mr. Moulton, if you insult anyone in this courtroom just once more, I'll slap you with a cool one-hundred-dollar fine on the spot.”

“I was simply going to say, your honor, that I intend to back up and ask the defendant some much more relevant questions. Now, Reverend Andrews, I want to explore in more depth your relationship with your son. I'd like to ask you whether you were aware that he was going to testify here today.”

“Not until my attorney told me so this morning. I wasn't even aware that Nat was back in Vermont until Charlie Kinneson informed me this morning that he'd called and asked him to return from Montreal last night.”

“Why did you spirit your son off to Montreal in the first place?”

“As I've said, this simply wasn't a safe place for him after the shooting at the parsonage. He'd been happy at his grandmother's before moving to Vermont, and both he and I thought that it was best for him to return there, at least temporarily.”

“Did your son ever tell you or hint to you that he had slept with the LaRiviere girl?”

“No, he did not.”

“Did the LaRiviere girl tell you or in any way intimate to you that it was your son who had slept with her?”

“No, she did not. And I'm not at all ready to concede that he was the only one who did.”

“Do you know that from firsthand experience?”