An Inconvenient Wife (39 page)

I had no idea how long I stood in my room. I was freezing, I was aware only of that. I had some vague thought that William
must have installed central heating; why wasn’t the furnace stoked?

Then there was a knock on my door, the sound of the key, and I turned to see the president of the Board of Police enter my
room. He was flanked by two officers who would not look directly at me. But Stephen French was an old friend of my father’s,
and he did not flinch. I thought of all the times I had seen him across my father’s table, laughing at some joke, his large
white mustache twitching.

“Lucy,” he said, hesitating before he stepped across the threshold. “Lucy, my dear, do you realize what has happened?”

“Yes. That is . . . didn’t I shoot my husband?”

“Don’t you know for certain?”

I began to shiver; it was uncontrollable. “This house,” I murmured. “This terrible house . . .”

One of the officers ventured to Stephen, “She don’t seem quite well, sir.”

Stephen nodded. His expression seemed so sad. Gently, he said, “You understand, my dear, that I’ve no choice but to arrest
you for murder. It’s out of my hands. There were witnesses, you understand. But one thing I can do for you—we won’t take you
to the station house. I’ll vouch for you myself. You won’t be able to leave here, at least for now. I’ve posted officers at
every entrance. Do you understand me, Lucy? You’re a prisoner here.”

“It’s no different than it’s ever been, then,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “Your father wants to speak to you,” he said.

“Yes, of course,” I murmured, and the door shut behind them. I heard their voices in the hall, and then it was still again,
and I was alone. The scene in the dining room reeled through my head like a drunken vision, each time bringing another detail
into focus, something I’d missed. A scream, the calling of my name, the way someone had put an arm around me to hold me close.
I heard a voice—my own—asking over and over again, “Is he dead?” and then, at a curt
yes,
the sound of harsh, jagged breathing—again my own.

The key turned once more, and my father came inside, followed by another officer. There must be police all through the house.

Papa looked haggard. He sighed heavily. “My God, Lucy. My God, do you know what you’ve done?”

There was something about his expression—the dismay, the unspoken fury—that made an impossible laugh bubble from my chest
into my throat. I couldn’t keep it down. I started to giggle—a high, tight sound that made my father recoil. Then I began
to laugh in earnest, cackling like a witch, like a lunatic. I’d heard that laugh at Beechwood Grove upon occasion, lingering
in the walls.

“She’s mad,” Papa said. “Look at her—she’s mad!”

“No sir,” the police officer said. He came over to me and put his arm gingerly around my shoulders, leading me to a chair
while I laughed so that my ribs hurt. “There, now, Mrs. Carelton, you’ll be all right. You’ll be all right, you’ll see.” He
clucked his tongue as if I were a child. My laugh turned rough. It hurt my throat, but I couldn’t stop it, and before I knew,
it had turned to coarse, raucous sobbing that robbed me of voice and breath.

The officer handed me a handkerchief. I held it to my face, blocking the sight of my father standing there, and perhaps it
was that, or perhaps it was the smell of the policeman’s sweat on the handkerchief, but my sobs settled into my chest, deep
first, then shallower and shallower, and I could breathe again. I had hold of myself.

The man took his arm from around me and got to his feet. “You all right now, Mrs. Carelton?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Yes, thank you. I—I’m fine.”

“Good. Now, here’s your da to see you. I think it’s best if you listen to him.”

“Yes, of course. I will.”

The policeman nodded, then said, “I’ll wait outside.” He went out into the hallway, but I still felt his presence. I wiped
at my eyes and crumpled the handkerchief in my hand.

“Good God, girl, what’s wrong with you?” my father murmured.

I looked down at the gold and white carpet. “Nothing.”

“It seems that . . . that
place
did you no good at all. What were you thinking, Lucy? Why?”

I didn’t answer him.

“I’m going to call Sullivan,” he said. “He’s a good lawyer.”

“I don’t want him,” I said.

Papa frowned. “What?”

“I don’t want Robert Sullivan,” I said again. “I don’t want a society lawyer.”

“They’re accusing you of murder, girl. You’d better have the best lawyer my money can buy.”

“I want William Howe,” I said.

“What?”

“I want William Howe.”

My father looked stunned. “William Howe? His reputation—”

“—is for winning,” I finished. “He’s the one I want.”

Papa’s face was thunderous. “Absolutely not. By God, I’ll call Sullivan and—”

“I will refuse him,” I said. “I don’t want him. Papa, you go to William Howe. If you don’t, I’ll find someone who will. It
would be best, don’t you think, if you were the one who hired him? You could control him that way. After all, who knows what
he might say or what he might discover?”

My father stiffened. I saw a dawning surprise in his eyes.

“It’s quite late now, I think. Perhaps you should try to rouse him from his bed. I’m sure a visit from the esteemed DeLancey
Van Berckel will be enough to do so.”

He was studying me. His voice was quiet when he said, “What has happened to you, Lucy?”

“It’s growing late, Papa. Unless you want to see the Van Berckel name further marred by the scandal of a daughter in Sing
Sing, I suggest you contact Mr. Howe.”

He said, “I don’t think you completely understand. He’s a showman. He’ll drag your name through the mud.”

“As if it hasn’t been there already.”

“This will be worse, Lucy.”

“How many reporters are in Hummel and Howe’s pockets, Papa?”

He looked startled. “My God, how do you know of this?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I lowered my voice. “What matters is that he understands this city as no one else does. That’s what I
need, Papa, you know this as well as I.”

He was quiet. Then he said, “How did you get to be so clever, girl?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Very well. I’ll see if
Mr. Howe’s services can be engaged.”

“Thank you.”

“Just tell me, Lucy, when you shot William—”

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I lied to him. “I can hardly remember doing it.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes indeed. I understand.”

I let him believe he did.

The rest of the night passed restlessly. I was aware of the constant motion downstairs. The police wagon did not move from
the drive, but in the early morning another carriage came. When I saw it was the morgue wagon, I drew my curtains. In place
of my numbness was anxiety. I wondered if my father had engaged William Howe. I wondered when they would take me to court.
I wondered even what they would do with William’s body, whether his parents might come to his funeral, whether I would meet
them at last.

There was only one person of whom I dared not think. I would not allow myself even to think his name.

William Howe did not make an appearance. As the hours dragged on, I began to believe my father had failed, and desperation
and fear joined my nervousness. I began to imagine terrible things, my future behind bars, crowded with other women, listening
to their snores, breathing their breath, and I grew panicked—was I destined to spend the whole of my life in a cage?

“No,” I whispered, calming myself, and then
“No.”
I thought of William Howe and prayed Papa had hired him.

As if I had conjured him, I heard a knock on the door and an officer say, “Mrs. Carelton, you’ve a visitor.” He opened the
bedroom door—it was the same officer who had held me last night. Now he was formal, almost stern. “You’ve a visitor in the
parlor, ma’am.” When I stood there, unmoving, he frowned. “Ma’am?”

“I don’t know where the parlor is,” I whispered.

If he found it surprising, he showed no sign. He only nodded curtly and motioned for me to follow. I had no awareness of this
house, of
my
house, as he took me down some stairs to a closed door. I found myself glancing down the hallway, involuntarily, wondering
if they had cleaned the dining room, if I would ever have to see it again. Then the officer opened the parlor door, and I
was face-to-face with William Howe.

Howe was unmistakable; no one who had lived in New York for long could fail to know him. In the papers they called him “Big
Bill,” and it was not just his size—he was a man who obviously enjoyed a good meal—that dictated his nickname. He was larger
than life, flamboyant, a man who’d bought life from nearly certain death sentences with his rhetoric and his crocodile tears.
Today he wore a bright green vest with sparkling buttons that vied for attention with the diamond stickpin in his lapel and
a large, clustered diamond ring. Behind him was a small, thin man with sparse brown hair, wearing an ordinary brown suit,
carrying a leather-bound journal and a pocketful of pencils.

Howe said, “Mrs. Carelton, I am William Howe, and this is my assistant, Mr. Blake. He is the soul of discretion, I assure
you.”

The little man nodded, murmuring a hello in a reedy voice. Howe gave the police officer an impatient glance, and the man drew
back, stopping only when I said, “When we’re finished, I’ll call you. Will you escort me back?”

“Of course, Mrs. Carelton,” he said. He left, closing the door behind him. Mr. Blake opened the journal and took a pencil
from his pocket.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. So much depended on this visit. “Please, Mr. Howe, do sit down,” I said, as if this
were a social call. “Shall I ring for tea?”

“No, thank you,” Howe said. He perched on the very edge of the nearest chair like a fat robin upon a fence rail. Mr. Blake
leaned against the wall as if accustomed to never sitting. He didn’t stop writing as Howe said, “There will be a bail hearing
soon, within the next few days. I expect you’ll be free then to go about the city as you please. For now you should know that
there are reporters clamoring to talk to you, to hear ‘your side’ of the story.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” I said hastily.

“Oh, but you will,” he said. “And soon. I’ve handpicked one of them, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Adler. She writes for
the
World
.”

“The
World
?” I asked, horrified.

“My dear Mrs. Carelton, the readers of the
World
will be ready to vilify you simply because you’re a member of the moneyed class, unless we have someone there to raise their
sympathy. Believe me, in a case such as this, we need all the public support we can rally. I think you’ll find Elizabeth to
be quite sympathetic to your plight—you will have paid her a fortune to be so. When she visits, you will be contrite and regretful.
You will say you remember nothing of what happened. You will tell her that your husband was a monster.”

“But William was—”

“I don’t care what he was,” Howe said. “For the purposes of the
World
, he was intolerable. Do you understand, Mrs. Carelton? You’ve hired me to make sure you don’t spend the rest of your life
at Sing Sing. I will require that you follow my directions to the letter.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

“Excellent.” He glanced at Blake, who nodded and turned a page. “Now, then, let me tell you what the district attorney has
said. At your arraignment, which I expect to take place in about a week’s time, they will charge you with murder in the shooting
death of your husband, which is a very serious crime. Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that you did it, as there were
several witnesses. There is much that can be done with the testimony of witnesses—I assure you, no one sees exactly the same
thing—but there were several, and though I can shake their credibility in the eyes of the jurors, I can’t make the entire
scene disappear. I must tell you, Mrs. Carelton, that if you were going to shoot your husband, I wish you’d chosen a more
private place.” His voice softened. “Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”

“I don’t remember much. It comes to me in bits and pieces.” The lie was easy to say. “I remember being nervous. It was our
first party in this house—it’s just been finished, you know, and I am not accustomed— Then I was in the dining room, and he
looked up. He had . . . bourbon. And when I shot him, it went everywhere.”

“Bourbon,” said Howe thoughtfully. “Yes.”

“He was anxious that I do well. I’d only just got back—”

“Yes, I’d heard. From the continent.”

“No. From Beechwood Grove.”

Howe frowned. “Beechwood Grove?”

“A private asylum. On the Hudson River. William had me committed there in July.”

“Good God.” Howe’s whole body seemed to become sharp and angular. Blake paused in his writing. “He had you committed to an
asylum?”

“I was there for nearly three months.”

“Who knows of your confinement there?”

“My father,” I said. “My doctors.”

“No one else?”

“Only the men William hired to take me there. I don’t know their names.”

“Your husband told your friends that you were visiting the continent. An extended visit, no doubt.”

“Of course.”

“And did none of them suspect anything different?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t say.”

“Just when did you return, Mrs. Carelton?”

“The night before the party,” I told him. “The fifth of October.”

“I assume we’re talking of a lunatic asylum. Beechwood Grove
is
a lunatic asylum?”

I nodded.

Howe was avid. “Did he commit you there with your full consent?”

“Hardly,” I said bitterly. “He drugged me with laudanum. I had no idea. I would have fought him.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“I had grown . . . inconvenient,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll discover that I’ve been treated by many doctors over the last three
years.”

“For?”

“Hysteria. What they call uterine monomania.”