Mittman, Stephanie (4 page)

Judge
Hammerman nodded unenthusiastically. If Ash-ford weren't Cabot's flesh and
blood, Charlotte had no doubt he'd be looking at a contempt-of-court citation
by now. Instead the judge asked Brent to produce his witnesses.

Brent's
smile was nothing if not chilling. "Prosecution offers the sworn testimony
of Moss Johnson," he said, feeling around for his glasses, which Charlotte
supposed Cabot had somehow moved when he'd wheeled himself around to face the
judge. When he finally located them, Brent handed over several papers to the
clerk. "And calls Selma Mollenoff to the stand."

Think
about what you ate for breakfast, Charlotte,
she could hear Cabot coaching.

Folding
her hands on the table, she watched Selma make her way to the stand, and
pretended it didn't come as a shock that the prosecution would call to the
stand Selma Mollenoff, the sister of Dr. Eli Mollenoff, a man Charlotte
considered her dearest friend.

Selma,
the same woman for whom she'd secured a position as bookkeeper in her
brother-in-law's company, the same woman with whom she'd attended Miss Tracy's
Secondary School for the Education of Women, the same woman to whom she'd lent
her watch at the last meeting of the Ebell Society for the Advancement of Art,
Science, and Literature for Women, so that Selma could time Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's speech. Selma was Charlotte's most ardent, if not her most vocal,
supporter in the case for Virginia Halton's right to disseminate scientific
information to women regarding the functioning of their own bodies.

Of
course, Selma took her oath defiantly, shooting needles at Brent with her eyes.

"Did
you see Mr. Ashford Whittier yesterday, Miss Mollenoff?" Brent asked.

"Yes,
but—" she began, her eyes connecting with Charlotte's apologetically.

"Where?"

"At
the warehouse. That's the G and W Warehouse. But—"

"Just
answer the questions, Miss Mollenoff," Judge Hammerman said. "This
isn't a trial—here all we want is the truth."

Charlotte
covered her smirk with her hand. If whether or not Ash went to trial didn't
rest squarely on Selma Mollenoff's shoulders, Charlotte would have laughed out
loud at the judge's comment. As it was, several spectators behind her did.

"So,
Miss Mollenoff, Ashford Whittier was at the G and W warehouse on the afternoon
of February eighth?"

Selma's
shoulders sagged under the weight of her answer. She sighed, making it appear
she had already convicted her employer. "Yes, as I said, but—"

"Seeing
to the unloading of...?"

"The
Cuervo, but—"

"Excuse
me?" Brent waited for Selma to explain.

"Jose
Cuervo," she said with a heavy sigh. "Tequila."

"What
is that?"

"Alcohol.
From Mexico, but—"

"Alcohol."
He let the enormity of the sin sink in before continuing. "And when the
shipment of... hard liquor... was unloaded, you saw Mr. Whittier leave the
building?" Brent asked, his eyebrows reaching for the ceiling.

"No."
She had given up adding her qualifiers.

Brent
whirled around as if there were actually a jury to which he could pander.
"No? You mean he was still there when you left the premises at four-thirty
on the eighth?"

"He
was there when I left," she agreed. Then she added quickly, running all
the words together to prevent Brent from stopping her, "But he always
stayed late when he came home from a buying trip."

Brent
nodded. The statement hadn't done his case any harm. It also hadn't exactly put
Ash at the scene at one-thirty in the morning.

"That's
all."

Charlotte
looked at Cabot, hoping he would signal for her to question Selma, disappointed
when he shook his head slightly and wheeled himself within a few feet of the
witness box. She could have handled the cross-exam herself. She squeezed the
fingers of her left hand within the confines of her right. Harder, and harder
still, until all of the anger flowed out her fingertips. And then she sat
forward and tried to learn from the master.

"Hello,
Selma," Cabot said warmly, letting the judge know that they went way back,
which wasn't so true, but was Cabot's style. "This is obviously very
difficult for you, isn't it?"

Selma
nodded, grimacing, and threw her shoulders back. "It's ludicrous. Mr.
Whittier wouldn't hurt a—"

Cabot
didn't allow her to finish. Lord knew what Selma might say, given the
opportunity. "Well, I'll be very brief. You saw Mr. Whittier at the warehouse
in the afternoon. Is that unusual when he came back from a trip?"

"No.
He always came just as soon as he got into port." She smiled, apparently
grateful to be able to say something helpful. "And he always brought a
little gift for everyone in the office, something you can't get here, or
something for their children, and—"

"Thank
you, Selma," Cabot said, cutting her off. "And you say that Mr.
Whittier was still there when you left. That unusual?"

She
shook her head, twisting a handkerchief with her hands. "He always remains
as long as the men will work. But they only stay until dark, and so sometimes
he stays on with Moss and they finish after the others have gone."

"Well,
this is February. It gets dark early, doesn't it?" He didn't wait for her
to respond. "I noticed you referred to the Mexican liquor as Cuervo. Are
you a big drinker, Miss Mollenoff?"

She
rolled her eyes at Cabot's foolishness. "We've been importing tequila from
the Cuervo Company as long as I've been with G and W. And it was on the books
when I started."

Cabot
wheeled back to the defense table. "So, all in all, it was a pretty normal
day down at the warehouse. That right?"

Selma
agreed, neither of them mentioning the fistfight between the partners.

"Thank
you, Selma. No further questions, Your Honor."

"The
clerk will read the statement of Moss Johnson into the record," Judge
Hammerman said, apparently not much more impressed than Charlotte with the
evidence.

The
clerk cleared his phlegmy throat. "I, Moss Johnson, do swear that I am the
foreman at the G and W Warehouse and that on February eighth, 1888, I saw Mr.
Ashford Whittier have words with Mr. Greenbough, which came to blows. And I
heard Mr. Whittier say that he'd be best off if he just burned down the place
and walked away with the insurance money."

There
was dust in Charlotte's mouth. There had to be. What else would explain the
fact that she couldn't swallow?

"I
didn't mean—" Ashford started to say, but a hand on his arm quieted him.
"It's something you say," he whispered to her, and she nodded
understandingly as she watched Brent come to his feet.

"Motive,
Your Honor," he said, putting his hands up as if everything was
self-evident. "Tequila—means. At the premises—opportunity. I don't know
what more you could want to hold the man over for trial."

The
judge, biting the inside of his cheek, nodded his agreement, and thumbed
through some papers on his desk. "On the weight of the evidence here
presented, the court has no choice but to insist that the defendant be bound
over for trial. The matter will be heard in this court on March twenty-second,
1888." He banged his gavel.

March
22.
The
dust in Charlotte's mouth turned to boulders around which she couldn't even
speak.

Cabot
ran his fingers up and down the spokes of his wheels until the tips turned
white.

"Your
Honor, as Ashford Whittier's attorney, I ask that bail be set in the amount of
five hundred dollars and that he be released on his own recognizance until such
time as his presence is required in this Court."

"Ha!"
Brent choked out, looking at the judge as if Cabot had clearly lost his mind.
"Three people murdered, Your Honor."

"You
agreed to manslaughter," the judge reminded him. "Offense isn't
punishable by death. The man's entitled to bail."

"And
five hundred dollars is supposed to keep a man whose home is on a boat from
sailing off into the sunset to spend his days sipping milk from coconuts?"
Brent demanded, throwing his glasses off again, and then reaching out to keep
one hand on them.

"The
Whittier honor and integrity is what will keep him here," Cabot answered
somewhat smugly. Unfortunately it was rather widely known that it was Cabot
Whittier who had cornered that particular market in the Whittier family, so
Brent just crossed his arms and stared at the judge as if daring him to set
foot in that pile of horse manure.

"Five
thousand and into your custody, Whittier," Judge Hammerman said, banging
his gavel and rising before Cabot could argue further—which the judge, and
Charlotte, and probably the DA, as well, knew full well he wouldn't, since they
were luckier than ladybugs to have gotten away with all they had.

"God
bless the prejudices of the Californians," Cabot said quietly, brushing a
speck of lint from his thighs. "And the preponderance of Chinese
vagrants."

"I
can't believe you did that," Ash said, crumpling up the piece of paper he
had been scribbling on and throwing it to the floor. "Just like that.
Three nonpeople. Someone killed them, Cabot—"

"Not
one word," Cabot told him, pointing for Charlotte to retrieve the paper for
him and then smoothing it out. On it were a woman and two children, coffins
drawn awkwardly around each of them. Cabot handed the paper back to Charlotte,
who held on to it, rather than open her satchel and place it in there, which
was clearly Cabot's expectation.

"Can
we go?" Ash asked, rising and stretching out a body that seemed all the
taller next to his brother's sitting form.

"When
they're all gone," Charlotte told him. Cabot didn't like impeding anyone's
exit with his chair maneuvers. She placed her hat onto her head, adjusting the
angle until it could accommodate her bun beneath it.

"It's
nicer than I thought," Ash said, obviously trying to take his mind off his
troubles as he tilted his head to look at her. "At least it doesn't
compete with that pretty face of yours."

Charlotte
felt herself blush. Crying and blushing in one day. What would she stoop to
next?

Good
glory! The last time anyone had called her pretty, well... she couldn't
remember the last time! Cheeks positively on fire now, Charlotte busied herself
with opening her briefcase and carefully laying the scrap paper inside it. Any
reporter would have made an editorial out of Ash's doodle, and one of Cabot's
first lessons had been never to leave in a courtroom anything she didn't want
splashed on the front page of the
Oakland Enquirer.

"I
do believe the brim on that hat is too wide, Charlotte," Cabot said,
assessing her hat and shaking his head. "Have it cropped before you wear
it to court again. It wouldn't do to have you looking frivolous, featherbrained."

Ashford
stifled the laugh, settling for tapping gently on her briefcase.

Inside
it the little black-capped chickadee strained up toward her and let out the
loudest cheep he could. "As soon as we get home," she whispered.
Fortunately, Cabot had made his way over to the prosecution's table, where he
was busy exchanging pleasantries as though the fact that Brent had charged his
brother with murder had nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Which,
when one thought about the circumstances and the supposed motive for the fire,
was more to the point than anything else might have been.

Did
Ash, in fact, import tea? She shrugged. In five years of marriage to Cabot she
didn't think that Ash had been to Whittier Court more than half a dozen times
or so. While they'd have the occasional Sunday dinner at the Tubb's Hotel with
him when he was in town, the meetings were what Cabot would call short and
sweet. Or maybe simply short. And though Kathryn received occasional letters
from him, she never shared their contents.

"Much
as I hate to admit it, he is pretty amazing," Ash said, pointing to his
brother. Cabot sat with one hand raised, gesturing toward the ceiling fans and
explaining something about how a reversal of their direction was bringing the warm
air down into the room.

Charlotte
agreed. It seemed to her there wasn't a subject about which Cabot wasn't well
versed, or one about which he didn't have an opinion worth hearing. "Was
he always so smart?"

Ashford
Whittier closed his eyes and swallowed hard, his features softening with the
pain of remembrance. How stupid she was, how unkind! She should have known
better than to bring up those awful memories—she was careful enough with Cabot,
after all.

"Cabot
was already twelve when I was born," Ash said, his easy smile pasted back
in place once again. "He was a man in even the earliest of my memories—and
brilliant, even then. Of course, to a four-year-old anyone who can figure out
how to peel a banana seems smart."

"What
about bananas?" Cabot asked, having shaken hands with the opposition and
shooed them from the room. "You still like them?" he asked his
brother.