A Dark and Lonely Place (25 page)

“What are you doing?” She resisted for only an instant.

“Don’t look,” he said in her ear. “No. Don’t look back. He knows. They’ve seen the posters, the newspapers. They’ll remember any minute now. The man loves to talk. He won’t stop. Neither will she. Back in Miami, they’ll blab their brains out about where they saw us.”

She only partially heard his words in the din around them but knew he was right. They rushed back to their room, careful they weren’t followed, quickly packed up what little they had, and departed before dawn.

They headed to the north country, to Washington State, as far from Florida as one can go. He worked aboard a timber cruiser in a logging camp outside Seattle. Harriet and Langley—their new assumed names—lived as husband and wife. Far away, still free after nearly two years, they sent occasional postcards and letters home, signed with assumed names and no return address.

Neither acknowledged the magnetic pull of that wild and sultry peninsula where they were born. Aside from each other, all they loved dwelt there. Laura ached for news of her children. John missed the camaraderie of his close-knit family and the peace of mind he had always found in Florida’s lusty subtropical wilderness.

One night, after weeks of chilly rain without a single patch of blue in gloomy skies, Laura finally said what they both felt. She stood at the wet, rain-streaked window and shivered, a light blanket around her shoulders. “I can’t see the moon, not a single star,” she said in a small, mournful voice. “Haven’t seen ’em in weeks. It’s like we’re in a gray sea, lost in the world.”

John nodded. “Nobody here or in N’Orleans tried to kill me, run me to ground, or throw me in jail. We’re free as birds, thousands of miles from home, but oh God, Laura, I miss it.”

She touched his hand, her eyes wet. “Me too.”

“I don’t call this living.” He paced the small, narrow room. “It’s just existing. I want our Miami lives, all the plans we made. I’m no murderer, Laura. I’d be acquitted if I went back to face the charge. They couldn’t convict me for something I didn’t do!” He turned to her, his face alight. “If there is any justice, I’d walk outta that courtroom a free man! Nobody could touch us then, not even Baker! We’d be free to live our
lives. What a fool I was, Laura. I never should have let him run us out of Florida.”

He quit pacing to face her. “If I went back, would you stand with me?”

She laughed, a glorious sound that made him proud. “Will the sun rise in the morning?”

He cut his eyes at the rain-streaked windows. “Don’t think so, darlin’, not in this neck of the woods.”

They laughed together. “But”—she hugged him—“the sun
will
rise in Florida, every day, no doubt about it.”

“I
need
blue sky,” he said passionately. “Let’s go find it, girl.”

He dispatched a message for his father to deliver to Sheriff Baker:
John Ashley is ready to turn himself in and clear his name.
Joe hired a West Palm Beach lawyer to negotiate his son’s safe surrender. John made only one request. Since he was coming in voluntarily, like a gentleman, he asked that he not be handcuffed like a common criminal. Sheriff Baker agreed.

Spirits high, John and Laura made the long journey east, then boarded a southbound train. Gravity pulled them home. He felt no fear and regretted running. “Had I stayed and gone to trial,” he repeated more than once, “it would be over, and by now we’d be home, in Miami.”

John never denied that he shot DeSoto Tiger but insisted it was self-defense. There were no eyewitnesses. The evidence was circumstantial. Sure, he sold the otter pelts in Miami. On an errand there anyway, he knew it was where they’d bring the best price. He intended to have his brother Bill, a friend of the Indians, deliver the proceeds to Tiger’s widow, along with the bad news. No jury would convict him. He was sure of that.

Their first sight of Florida’s flat, unearthly landscape with its miracle of light in a sky filled with bright birds and low-hanging clouds sent Laura into a paroxysm of hiccups and happy laughter. “We’re going home! We’re finally going home!” Radiantly happy, her skin luminous, she glowed, far more beautiful than he had ever seen her. He’d never loved her more.

“What are you thinking, John?” She held his arm tight.

“I wish,” he whispered in her ear, “that we could draw curtains around these seats so I could jump you right here.”

Her laughter made other passengers smile, convinced that the handsome young pair so much in love must be newlyweds on their honeymoon. “We’ll be there soon,” she whispered.

“But you know my family,” he said plaintively. “We won’t even have five minutes alone before I have to . . .”

They disembarked north of Palm Beach to quietly make their way south to the Ashley homestead. But Laura tugged at John’s sleeve as he made travel arrangements.

“Isn’t that a hotel over there?”

He nodded.

“I think,” she said, “that we need to take a room.”

He looked puzzled.

“I need to lie down for a while.”

“Didn’t know you were that tired, darlin’.” He looked concerned.

“I’m not.”

His entire demeanor changed. With springs in their steps and smiles on their faces, they turned to walk toward the hotel.

He swept her up and carried her across the threshold into their small, comfortable room. “Hello, little girl,” he said in his sweet, soft drawl, as he kicked the door shut behind him. “Know how much I love you?” He set her down gently on the bed.

“Show me.” She unfastened the waistband and kicked off her skirt, which slipped gracefully to the carpeted floor.

He loosened his tie. “What do you want, little girl?”

“Everything, Daddy,” she answered in a breathless baby voice.

He unbuckled his belt and took a deep breath. “That’s a tall order, but I’m up to the job.” He glanced thoughtfully at the leather belt in his hands. “Have you been a bad little girl?”

“I’m about to be.”

“Well, I may have to whup your backside with this belt to teach you a lesson.”

“All right, Daddy, but if you do,” she purred, “I’ll be really, really bad—”

He smiled fondly.

“—and have to break that fancy glass lamp up the side of your head and smash that pretty wooden chair across your kneecaps, then set fire to the bed.” She smiled sweetly.

He gingerly set the belt down on the dresser and backed away from it. “Only a passing thought, sweetheart.”

“I thought so, darlin’.” She opened her arms.

Strangers who heard their laughter down the hall smiled and looked wistful.

Later he kissed her throat. “In Miami we’ll have beautiful daughters like you and a son I’ll teach to shoot like me.”

“I’m so happy,” she whispered, her arms around his neck.

He smiled down into her eyes. “We’re doing the right thing, girl. This can’t be wrong.”

They arrived home late the following day and enjoyed a thirty-six-hour family reunion. Then John kissed and hugged Laura and his mother and promised, “It’ll all be over soon.” He went, with his father and the lawyer, to the prearranged surrender site near the Ashley family home.

Alone and shirtless, hands in the air, John stepped into a clearing and approached the waiting deputies. They honored his request and used no handcuffs.

The sheriff’s son, Deputy Robert C. Baker, was now the Palm Beach jailer. John was a model prisoner, helpful, agreeable, and eager to clear his name. Young Baker’s priority was to please his father. The sheriff’s thin-lipped son was a small, intense man. He favored well-pressed dark suits, ties, and stiff starched collars despite the steamy climate. His odd stare, beneath shaggy dark eyebrows, revealed the whites of his eyes beneath the pupils. Behind his back, his prisoners and his father’s other deputies called him Crazy Eyes, a hated childhood nickname he could not shake.

John never expected to spend months in a small jail cell awaiting trial. Free to roam the outdoors for his entire life, he found confinement excruciating. Worse, young Baker had established his own set of rules. One was to make jailhouse visits available only to a prisoner’s lawyer, blood relatives, and legal spouse. Laura was excluded.

“A rule’s a rule,” Baker said. “No exceptions.”

Every day she stood in a doorway across the street so John could see her from the small, high window in his cell. His trial date could not
come soon enough for him. When it did, at last, in June, he wore his good white suit and eagerly took the witness stand.

On the water, in the canoe, DeSoto Tiger wanted whiskey, John said. He refused, but Tiger demanded it. John testified that he carried only a small flask and knew it would never be enough. Tiger, he said, threatened him. Pointed a weapon at his head at close range, his finger on the trigger. John said he fired in self-defense, a single shot that knocked Tiger overboard.

John’s extended family attended every day of the trial, as did scores of friends and neighbors. He was able to talk to Laura face-to-face during brief court recesses. The family felt optimistic; newspaper coverage was favorable. One reporter described John as “calm, well spoken, and well dressed.”

Hopes soared as the case went to a twelve-man jury. If found not guilty, he’d walk free from the courtroom. A knock from the jurors signaled that they’d reached a decision. Excitement mounted. It was July third, 1914, the day before the county’s big Fourth of July celebration.

Lawyers rushed to the courthouse. The defendant was marched in. Spectators crowded the room, the building, and spilled into the street outside, anticipating a victory party. Friends brought firecrackers to set off if John was acquitted.

But the decision the jury had reached was that they could not agree. Nine voted to acquit. Three to convict. None would budge.

The judge declared a mistrial.

He explained, to the shock and dismay of the bewildered defendant and his loved ones, that John would have to remain in jail until a new trial was scheduled. Perhaps then, the judge said, a new jury would agree on a verdict. Women wept. The men were furious. Instead of leaving together, John and Laura exchanged heartbroken looks as he was taken back to the jail.

John, now twenty-seven, counted the days, nights, and brief glimpses of Laura standing across the street for another four months. The new trial was set for November 1914.

The prosecution and defense attorneys began jury selection before
Circuit Judge H. P. Branning. Every potential juror questioned seemed to know John or his family. “I never met a more mannerly or nicer young man in my life,” one swore. “He always has a smile, a helping hand, and a pleasant word,” said another. And so it went.

Prosecutor John C. Gramling fumed and quickly used all twelve of his peremptory challenges to dismiss jurors who seemed biased in John’s favor.

The defense attorney did not use a single challenge. He had no reason to do so. Unseasonably hot, the day dragged on. Fans fluttered in rows of spectators. By late afternoon, eleven men were chosen. Just one more juror and an alternate were still needed. But the hour was late and the judge impatient. When he said they would resume jury selection in the morning, spectators groaned, and the prosecutor rushed forward.

“There can be no fair trial here in Palm Beach!” he shouted, and demanded that John be tried in Miami instead.

His surprise request for a change of venue stunned the defendant, his family, and friends. Miami? Shocking. If the judge agreed, John would be moved to Dade County Jail, more than sixty miles south, to await yet another new trial date. His supporters insisted he be tried in Palm Beach where the crime took place, where everyone involved lived. A move to Miami would place a severe hardship on John’s loved ones, who’d already exhausted all their resources on his defense.

Even more ominous, two defendants recently accused of murder in Miami had been quickly convicted and hanged. His family feared that John was being railroaded to the gallows. They protested and shouted objections until the judge ordered the courtroom cleared.

That bright fall day that had dawned full of promise and new beginnings had spiraled down along with the family’s spirit and the weather. After a long, tiring day of confusing legal arguments, the sky had grown ominously dark. A strong wind began to howl. A violent thunderstorm burst overhead as the lawyers continued to argue.

Rain pounded the courthouse, nearly drowning out the judge, who agreed to consider the prosecutor’s request overnight. The judge seemed to favor the move; he looked downright pleased. He saw a way out. The burden would be lifted from his shoulders if he could just lob this hot potato of a case over to a judge down in Miami. Let strangers to the
south decide the fate of the favorite son of a large, well-known, and extremely popular Palm Beach family. It was a godsend for him and his future political aspirations.

The dark sky and wind-driven rain were seen by many as bad omens. John turned to seek Laura out before leaving the courtroom. They had had such high hopes. She tried to smile, then gasped. “Oh no,” she murmured, then fell back into her seat as he was led away. Bystanders thought she’d felt faint, but it was something she had seen in his eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

W
ind and rain buffeted them as Deputy Sheriff Bob Baker escorted John back to the jail. As usual, the defendant was not handcuffed. He had been a model prisoner from the start.

The storm grew wilder. Trees bent and limbs cracked overhead as they reached the jailer’s residence adjacent to the lockup. Baker’s drab-looking wife opened the door, squinted against the driving rain, and handed out a home-cooked meal Joe Ashley had left for his son. Baker unlocked the gate in the ten-foot chicken wire fence that enclosed the jail yard. The two men stepped inside and Baker secured it behind them. He handed John the plate of food to hold while he switched on the bright light above the jailhouse door. The wind whistled fiercely as Baker, drenched, his feet soaked, unlocked the heavy door and pushed it open. As he did, Ashley dropped the plate, vaulted the fence, sprinted around the corner, and disappeared into the storm.