A White Room (47 page)

“You know what happened! You know!” Another man bellowed.

Marcellus stood, quickly charged the pen, and pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside of his jacket. He shoved the pen and paper through the bars. “Sign it!”

I took them from him.

“Don’t let her corrupt you.” I recognized Margaret’s voice coming from the front room.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Sign it, Mrs. Dorr. Now!”

I unfolded the paper. The heading said “Coddington Offices of Law,” and under it was a single typed paragraph: “I, Emeline Evans Dorr, confess to having knowingly committed a criminal act that could kill. I maliciously conducted an illegal abortion on Mrs. Lottie Schwab. My accomplices included Mr. John Dorr, Mr. Oliver Schwab, Dr. Walter Bradbridge, and Mr. and Mrs. James Evans.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not signing this.”

“We’ll take out your accomplices. They won’t be charged. Sign it now or we’ll charge everyone. I will not offer this again.”

I didn’t know what to do.

I heard a voice that I was almost certain belonged to Lewis. “Step into that room, and I will see to it that you never work in the state of Missouri again!”

“You’ll regret this for the rest of your life,” Margaret shouted.

“Mother, move!” Was that Walter?

“That’s it!” Marcellus unlocked the cell door, stepped inside, and locked the door behind him. He marched toward me, and I backed up against the cell wall.

Marcellus snatched the paper from me, grabbed my wrist, and whirled me around to face the wall. He smacked the paper on the stone and forced me to hold the pen to it. “Sign it!”

“No!”

“Sign it!” He squeezed my wrist, causing a sharp pain to shoot up my arm and panic to swirl in my head.

I spread my fingers and let the pen slip and clack to the floor.

“You wretched—”

“Release her this instant!” The ragged voice shouted from outside the cell.

I craned my neck and saw—dark eyes. “John?”

The stout deputy with rotting teeth trailed in behind him.

John pointed to the cell. “Open it.”

The deputy’s eyes darted from John to Marcellus, and the detective released me and stepped away.

I rubbed the skin on my wrist and stared at John in disbelief.

“I said open it,” John demanded.

The deputy shoved the key into the lock.

I looked at Marcellus, wondering if he would lunge at me again.

“It’s too late,” he said. “She confessed.”

John’s body and face stiffened. “From the looks of it, she didn’t sign anything, and she’s not going to. Anything she said was obviously under duress.”

Marcellus pointed down the hall. “I don’t care what that dandy Bradbridge says or doesn’t say.” He swung his finger in my direction. “She is guilty.”

“All you’ve got is hearsay!”

They stared at each other.

With two loud clacks, the deputy unlocked the cell and heaved it open.

John stepped forward and offered his hand.

“I thought you turned me in? I was sure you…”

His ungreased hair fell around his eyes. His white shirt billowed without a vest or jacket to hold it in place, and his sleeves were rolled up. He appeared to have not slept in days, yet he looked more striking and handsome than ever. “I wasn’t about to leave you here,” he said.

I reached out and felt his hand grip mine, and inside I rejoiced because I knew he wanted me. It happened so fast I didn’t even think to grab my shoes. We dashed past the deputy, and Marcellus followed us down the narrow hall and into the front room with desks and cabinets.

Walter stood blank-faced next to the exit as his mother screamed at him. “How could you? How could you with that whore? Now you’re a criminal, too? An abortionist?”

Sheriff Neal sat behind his desk, watching with a flabbergasted expression.

I watched with shock and confusion too. The last I’d seen Walter, he had finally made his parents proud by turning me in to the authorities.

Walter’s jaw stiffened. “Mother, I have a right to love whomever I choose. I don’t care what you think.” He turned to his father, who was sitting in a chair at one of the desks. “Olivia and I are getting married. I’m starting my own practice, and I’m done waiting for you to think I’m ready.”

His father focused his eyes elsewhere, but Margaret pounced. “You’re not my son. You’re no one. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Margaret!” The deep voice froze her. “That’s enough.” The senior doctor stood up and towered over her. “He’s a grown man. He made his decision.”

Margaret clenched her jaw and hesitated before finally turning and stomping out.

My lips twitched as I held back a smile. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen.

Benedict lifted his chin toward the hefty man at the desk. “Sheriff, can you hold this woman or not?”

My limbs stiffened as I expected to be hurled back into the cell.

Without getting up, the sheriff cocked his head toward Marcellus, as if searching for an answer.

Marcellus stood with his head forward of his lopsided shoulders. He grimaced and looked away from the sheriff.

Sheriff Neal threw up his hands. “He’s got habeas corpus and we don’t have a signed confession.”

Benedict left casually, as if he hadn’t cared about any of it, but Lewis approached us with his normally glossy eyes wide open and his placid face swollen with anger.

John squeezed my hand tighter and I trembled.

Lewis locked his knees and leaned forward as he snarled his words. “I’m serious, John. If you go through with this, I’m going to see to it that you are disbarred.”

John smiled wryly. “If you put me on the stand, everything that man has done to my wife is going to be known.”

“His methods are no different than any other detective’s,” the sheriff called from his chair, arms folded.

“Detectives are allowed to hold a woman down and force her to sign a confession?”

The sheriff uncrossed his arms, sat up straight, and squinted at Marcellus.

“I witnessed it myself and so did your man.”

“Is that right?”

The deputy stood behind Marcellus, nodding.

John eyed Lewis. “You were well aware of his past in Chicago. What’s going to happen to your cases when his
methods
are known? Everything will be thrown out.” John looked back at the sheriff. “And what about you? Will you remain in your position after this?”

The sheriff pressed his lips into a thin, hard line, and Lewis’ eye twitched.

Chicago, I thought. I remembered that. I remembered Walter telling John about that, about Marcellus being dismissed in Chicago for going “too far,” for…forcing confessions. I looked at Walter. He stood near the door, arms crossed, grinning.

Marcellus’ chin jutted out, but he kept his eyes down and to the side.

Lewis swallowed hard and dropped his shoulders before finally backing away from us.

I stared at John, amazed by his gumption.

“Come with me.” John pulled me out of the jail and into the daylight, which seemed brighter than normal. Walter followed us. We walked across the grass toward the road. The musty scents of the horses were oddly more splendid than I remembered. The colors—blue sky, white buildings, green grass—they were so vivid. Then I noticed the curious eyes and whispers of lingering passersby who had undoubtedly spotted the Bradbridge, Rippring, and Coddington carriages outside the jailhouse. I didn’t care that they watched us. I halted and forced John and Walter to stop. “What about James and the others?”

John flashed a superior grin. “We’re lawyers.” Then he gestured down and across the street.

I gasped and then laughed upon seeing James waiting for us in the driver’s seat of his rented buggy.

“We kept them from taking Mr. Schwab too,” John said. “They took you and Carmine for questioning, but they released her when we mentioned her father. I knew Sheriff Neal wouldn’t risk holding a politician’s daughter without charging her.”

“So her father isn’t here? He doesn’t know?” Hope swelled inside me. “I don’t understand. How did you do this?”

John’s brown eyes brightened. “Habeas corpus.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an official demand to release a prisoner who has been unlawfully detained without evidence.”

“No evidence? But Walter—” I hesitantly glanced in his direction.

Walter stood tall next to John. “I don’t condone what you did, Emeline, but I don’t believe in watching people die either. That’s why women like Mrs. Schwab end up butchered and why people like Mr. Hughmen rot in agony.” He held his lips tight and his chin high. “And why people like you take such serious risks.”

I stared at Walter’s sad boyish face. I’d had no idea how much his understanding would mean to me.

He continued. “When I saw them mistreating Mrs. Schwab despite her condition, I remembered why I had once said I wouldn’t call upon Marcellus Rippring again.”

“But I thought you had already told him everything.”

“No,” John said. “Walter had
Olivia
fetch the authorities. He never actually told Marcellus anything. It took us a while to realize it ourselves, but Marcellus took you based on hearsay. They were only holding you for questioning. They had no evidence to charge you. That’s why they were trying to get you to confess. The only way they could hold you without charging you is if they could claim you were insane.”

It suddenly became clear why Margaret and Ida had pushed me to fall back on hysteria. Margaret’s son had turned on her, and she wanted to blame it on a crazy woman and have Marcellus send me off to an asylum to prove it. But…“But I confessed, and what about what I did…to Lottie?” I lowered my eyes as they watered. “I killed her.”

“What?”

“Margaret said…” I stopped.

John shook his head. “No. Lottie’s at our house.”

I looked from John to Walter in disbelief.

Walter nodded. “I wouldn’t let them move her. Trust me, after the way she cursed at them, they tried.”

“But…” My lips trembled and my skin tingled.

John grasped my upper arms and looked into my eyes. “They told you lies to get you to confess. Marcellus tried to physically force you to sign. That’s how desperate he was. He went too far, and he has a history of that in Chicago. Anything he claims you said would be thrown out of court.”

My bottom lip trembled, and chills fluttered through my body.

“Lottie is alive,” John said. “She refused to testify. I refused to testify. Walter refused to testify. No one said anything against you. You didn’t sign a confession. They have no evidence.” John pressed his hands against my cheeks and kissed me quickly and then pulled back. “You’re free.”

I remembered to breathe, and my knees wobbled.

John smiled, took my hand again, and led me across the dirt road toward James and the buggy. I didn’t even feel the stones and dirt beneath my bare feet.

We walked past the Bradbridge carriage, and on the other side Ida attempted to comfort a blathering Margaret. Walter stood taller but clearly noticed Margaret spotting us and breaking free of Ida. “You won’t get away with this, you wretch,” she screeched at me. “You’ve ruined my son. Walter, she’s ruining you. She’s ruined everything. That woman—”

John stopped and silenced her with a look. He pointed at me and I froze. “That woman risked everything she had, including her freedom, to help another human being, and I pray to God that I would have the courage to do the same.”

Forty-Five

October 1901

W
e all collapsed in the parlor, exhausted from having been awake for nearly forty-eight hours. I desperately wanted to speak to Lottie, but she hadn’t wakened, still weak from losing so much blood. Lottie lay on a makeshift bed of blankets and cushions on the parlor floor because Walter said she shouldn’t be moved to a bed. I refused to leave her, and Walter insisted he stay to tend to her, so we all remained in the parlor, lingering through the day and dozing on and off into the night. The house and the furniture sat quiet, lifeless. The only breathing came from the people resting within. After darkness fell, blue moonlight shone through the windows and onto our faces. I lay awake most of the time, sometimes enjoying the sweet comfort of John’s arms wrapped around me and sometimes staring at Lottie. As I watched her, my heart both swelled with happiness and sank with guilt.

After drifting off for an hour or so, I woke and it was that time of the morning just before the sun rises and there’s only a tiny glow on the horizon. I rose and lay in front of Lottie to observe her condition. She lay on her side and Oliver slept behind her. She breathed shallowly and looked better but pale, so I touched her to feel her temperature.

I hadn’t expected her to open her eyes. She scanned the room and then looked back at me. “I didn’t say anything,” she whispered.

I whispered, too. “I know. Thank you.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yes. Walter refused to testify.”

She pursed her lips and blinked.

I motioned to where Olivia and Walter slept on the floor. After he’d announced his love for Olivia to his parents, we insisted on fetching her.