Death at Tammany Hall (5 page)

C
HAPTER
6

 

“A
re you well, Jeremiah?” Pamela gazed at her companion with sympathetic concern. He had just moaned as the train bounced over a rough patch of track.

With a grimace Jeremiah Prescott stretched out his ailing legs. Even in a spacious parlor car, the train ride from New York to Williamstown was uncomfortable for a wounded veteran of the Civil War. Pamela patted his arm and then rose to her feet to stretch. With a firm grip on the overhead luggage rack, she swayed gently with the car's rocking motion.

Prescott nodded toward a middle-aged man at the far end of the car and remarked softly, “Noah Fawcett is our traveling companion. You saw him a week ago at Delmonico's.” The judge was reading a New York newspaper through thick spectacles. At his side was a bulging legal portfolio.

“Is Fawcett really corrupt?” Pamela asked. Yesterday afternoon, she had shown Prescott the incriminating messages that Norton had pieced together.

“The messages raise suspicions,” Prescott replied, “but they are too fragmentary to convict Fawcett in a court of law or in public opinion.”

The train rattled on through the countryside. The view out the window was bleak November. Trees in the distance had shed their leaves. Stubble covered the fields. The sky was gray, and low clouds shrouded the Berkshire Hills.

Pamela asked Prescott, “Why would Fawcett be traveling north in November? This isn't the season for a vacation. The colorful foliage of autumn is gone.”

“He might have personal business in North Adams. He was raised in the area and still has a home there. His family's woolen factory is in nearby Williamstown. Since his father died a few years ago, the judge owns the business and has hired a manager to run it.”

Intrigued, Pamela studied Fawcett more closely. He had laid down the newspaper, leaned back, and closed his eyes, but not to rest. His lips were pressed tightly together, his brow creased.

“He looks troubled,” she remarked. “Perhaps his workers have upset him. They might be on strike. In today's depressed economy I can imagine the factory's management has cut their wages or laid them off.”

“You could be right, Pamela. On the other hand, he might simply be suffering from indigestion.” He smiled in a teasing way.

“You lack imagination, Jeremiah.” She frowned in mock reproach, and then whispered, “Don't look now. I believe the judge is beginning to show interest in us.” Fawcett had opened his eyes and glanced in their direction.

“He probably has recognized me and wonders who my lovely companion is.”

“Tush!” she murmured.

As the train pulled into the North Adams railroad station, most passengers scrambled to their feet and rushed to the doors. Pamela and Prescott remained seated. Their connecting train to Williamstown wasn't due to arrive for a couple of hours, and their bags were checked through. They would walk the short distance to Main Street to see the town. It had a bustling, rapidly growing population and was seeking a municipal charter from the state government.

On the station platform they ran into Judge Fawcett as he descended from the car. “Prescott!” he said coolly. “What brings you here?” He glanced with interest at Pamela.

“We're on our way to Williamstown for an important football game. My son is playing for Williams College against Amherst tomorrow. May I introduce my assistant, Mrs. Pamela Thompson?”

The judge appeared to recognize her name and frowned slightly. Pamela suspected that he had heard of her husband Jack's embezzlement of bank funds and his subsequent suicide nearly three years ago. She was distressed when a stranger seemed to brand her with her husband's disgrace.

He politely tipped his hat and then remarked to Prescott, “I'm going to the game as well and will watch from the bleachers with my nephew Isaac, also a student, though he excels in Latin and Greek rather than football.” The judge glanced at his watch. “Shall we have tea together at the Wilson Hotel? It's quite decent and close to the station.”

Prescott glanced the question to Pamela.

“We'd be delighted, sir.” There was calculation in her friendliness toward the judge. She was trying to figure him out. Thus far, she didn't like or trust him.

 

At tea, Fawcett proved to be a learned, well-mannered gentleman. Their conversation sought common ground and avoided courtroom disputes, politics, and other sources of contention. Pamela learned that the judge's nephew, Isaac, was a junior at the college and an industrious young man who had won awards for his essays on Latin literature.

The judge explained that Isaac's parents had passed away. “I am his legal guardian.” The judge's tone of voice hinted at a disagreeable burden.

In turn, the judge asked about Edward Prescott. His father replied that the young man was a good student with wide-ranging interests. Most recently, he had enjoyed a summer of gardening at Mrs. Morgan's estate, Ventfort, in Lenox.

The judge seemed impressed. “Mrs. Morgan has spent millions on the mansion, and her husband has invested nearly as much in the gardens. Your lad is fortunate. He may later find the Morgans to be powerful patrons.”

In the course of conversation Pamela realized that Fawcett had once attended Williams. “How was your experience at the college?” she asked.

“That was thirty years ago,” he replied readily, apparently pleased by the question. “I was a classics and religion scholar, rather like my nephew. Nature hadn't designed me for the rough and tumble of college sports. In those days, I preferred to hike to the summit of Mount Greylock and enjoy the view. Professor Mark Hopkins had the greatest influence on my education. I was drawn especially to his lectures on the moral foundations of character.” He glanced quizzically at Prescott. “How was it to study at Columbia College?”

“Our course of studies was like yours at Williams: Latin, English literature, mathematics, and philosophy. But, as you can imagine, we had many distractions in New York City.”

Pamela detected a knowing smile on the judge's lips, as if he felt confirmed in his view of Prescott, a godless cynic with little respect for law and order.

After tea, they returned to the station and caught a late afternoon train. In a few minutes, they crossed the town line into Blackinton, a small village belonging to Williamstown.

“We are approaching my family's woolen factory,” the judge announced, pointing with obvious pride to a long, three-and-a-half-story industrial building, built of fieldstones and mortar.

“It's now fifty years old. We employ some two hundred and fifty men and women and provide them with houses, a school, a church, and a store. The blue military uniform you wore thirty years ago, Captain, might have been made here. We supplied the Union army with thousands of them.”

At a large profit, Pamela remarked to herself. During the war, her mother used to complain of the poor quality of the uniforms worn by the wounded enlisted men she tended.

Pamela asked the judge, “Has your firm seen any labor unrest during the present economic depression?”

“No, madam. When we reduced production and therefore wages and employment, we made it clear to the workers that troublemakers would be the first to go, and they would leave with nothing but a bad reputation. We didn't tolerate any discussion of a union, not to mention a strike, and we fired a few complainers to show we meant business. Our firmness has cowed the workers. Snuff the first spark, I say.”

Pamela was tempted to ask if docile workers were also fired. Were they and their families evicted from the company houses? But she wanted information from the judge rather than an argument. So she gave him a noncommittal nod.

“Is Blue Monday a problem here?” Prescott asked the judge.

“What's that?” Pamela asked.

Prescott explained, “Over the weekend, many workers indulge in heavy drinking. By Monday, they are so tired or ill that they slow down production in the factory and cause accidents.”

The judge agreed that many of the larger mills had that problem. “But we simply don't allow production to slow down on Mondays. If a worker is unfit for the job, we fire him or her on the spot and require other workers to fill in for him. Half of our workers, by the way, are female, mostly young, and some of the males are children. They are less likely to drink than grown men. In any case, no liquor whatsoever is legally sold in the area. Because our workers don't waste their wages on drink, we can afford to pay them less. That helps to keep us competitive.”

While he spoke, Pamela tried to imagine the lives of typical workers in Williamstown. Dawn to dusk for six days a week, they tended noisy, dangerous machines, repeating the same mechanical process remorselessly, and breathed air filled with dust. If distracted for a moment, a worker could easily lose a finger or an arm or life itself, with disastrous consequences especially for a family.

Pamela had recently witnessed a similar system in New York's meatpacking plants. She could understand why many workers would seek relief and drink themselves sick on Sunday, their only day off. The judge showed no sympathy or compassion for his workers, a fault that appeared to have carried over into his administration of justice to the poor and unfortunate in New York. She imagined that his heart was a dry and thorny place.

 

At the Williamstown railroad station they hired a cab for the one-mile ride into the village and waited on the platform for their luggage. A large brick factory stood across the Hoosac River.

“It makes coarse cotton cloth and is the main employer in Williamstown,” the judge remarked, resuming his role as guide.

Pamela shook her head. “Williamstown appears to have greatly changed. When I vacationed here as a child, it was a small, charming New England rural village. Now it's beginning to look like an ugly factory town.” In an aside to Prescott she asked, “Has the college suffered?”

“No, it has become a splendid little island of leisure and learning for young gentlemen.”

Pamela silently resented the image: a splendid island indeed, now surrounded by regimented, soul-killing textile mills.

Their luggage arrived. They followed the judge into the cab and set off for the center of the village and the college campus.

On Main Street, Pamela recognized old, ivy-covered college buildings on spacious lawns: Griffin Hall, the Observatory, East Hall, and the Chapel.

Near the head of Spring Street, the village shopping center, the judge remarked: “President Carter has overseen a remarkable expansion of the college campus: Hopkins Hall on the right, Lasell Gymnasium and Morgan Hall on the left are among the most handsome academic buildings in New England. Set back from the road you'll see three new science buildings, outfitted to the highest modern standard. The enrollment has doubled during Carter's tenure to over three hundred students.”

It was now late in the afternoon, the sun had set, and students were returning from the athletic fields to their fraternities and residence halls. Shouts and laughter filled the air. In the distance a band of musicians was practicing. Classes had ended for the week, and the young men were looking forward to tomorrow's game and to visits with family and female friends.

Pamela and her companions passed a large twin-towered Congregational church on the right, where college ceremonies and other events were held. Next door stood the college president's house, a white, well-proportioned building in the neoclassical style from the beginning of the century.

Farther up Main Street, the cab pulled into a drive and stopped at the door of the Greylock Hotel. It had closed a few weeks earlier after the summer season but opened again for this special weekend. The Greylock and its companion across Main Street, the Taconic Inn, offered modern conveniences, including hot and cold running water and electricity. The judge arranged for a room, then left in the cab to meet his nephew. Pamela and Prescott took adjoining rooms.