CHAPTER 46

While the former housekeeper was walking down the aisle, the Doctor leaned over to ask Mr. Picton:

“What about Parker?”

Mr. Picton shrugged. “Two of Dunning’s deputies were supposed to escort him up on the early train this morning. They should have arrived by now. I’ll have to get to him this afternoon.”

Wearing an old-style blue dress, Mrs. Wright walked steadily and proudly through the gate in the oak railing, turning her gray-haired head and sharp features to the defense table just once and registering no emotion of any kind when she saw Libby Hatch. To Bailiff Coffey’s oath she near yelled a solid “I do!” and then stated her name like she expected somebody to challenge her on it. It was an attitude what she never lost through all of Mr. Picton’s opening questions, during which time he established a very clear picture of what life in the Hatch house had been like. Libby had been a woman of very changeable temperament, Mrs. Wright said, and when she felt that her own desires were being frustrated, she was capable of flying into extreme rages. Mr. Picton made sure the jury understood that Louisa Wright had no great love for Daniel Hatch and felt no jealousy toward her former mistress: as she’d told Miss Howard when we first got to town, the only people that she felt any genuine sympathy for or attachment to in the house were the three kids, who’d grown up so rattled by their father’s crankiness and their mother’s changeable moods that they sometimes seemed to be in a constant state of nervousness.

“Now, then, Mrs. Wright,” Mr. Picton finally asked, after he’d painted this none-too-pleasing picture of the Hatch home, “when would you say that the Reverend Clayton Parker became a regular visitor to the house?”

“Well,” the old girl answered, mulling it over, “he generally dropped by at holidays, Christmas and such, and of course he took care of christening Clara-but he didn’t start paying what you’d call regular social visits until later. Clara’s first birthday, I think, was the first night he actually stayed to dinner.”

“And how often did he visit after that?”

“Oh, at least once a week, and sometimes more often. Mr. Hatch was taking more of an interest in the church’s business by then, you see. A lot of people’ll do that, when they start thinking that they don’t have much time left.” Mrs. Wright hadn’t meant the statement as a joke, and she was surprised when it got a laugh from the galleries. “They will!” she insisted, folding her hands tightly, like she was embarrassed. “I’ve seen it happen.”

“Of course you have,” Mr. Picton answered. “But was Mr. Hatch’s interest in the church the main reason for Reverend Parker’s increased presence at the house?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow droned. “The question calls for a speculative answer.”

“I shall rephrase it, then,” Mr. Picton said, before the judge could order him to. “Mrs. Wright, was it Mr. Hatch that the reverend spent the greater portion of time with during his visits?”

“No, sir,” Mrs. Wright answered with a little scoff. “After all, how long does it take to write a check?”

That got more laughs out of the crowd, and the judge responded in his usual manner: with irritated raps of his gavel. Leaning over, he scolded Mrs. Wright gently: “The witness will please try to keep the element of sarcasm out of her responses.”

“I am, sir!” she answered, looking a little offended. “That’s all Mr. Hatch did when the reverend came-write checks, and maybe talk for a few minutes about theology. The rest of the time it was the missus that looked after their-guest.”

“And why was that?” Mr. Picton asked.

“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” Mrs. Wright replied. “I only know what I saw, six or seven times.”

“And what did you see?”

Stiffening her back and narrowing her eyes, Mrs. Wright lifted a pointing finger in the direction of the defense table. “I saw that woman and the Reverend Parker. Out in the birch grove, about a quarter of a mile from the house.”

“And what were they doing?”

“They were not doing the sorts of thing that a reverend generally does with a married woman!” Mrs. Wright answered, as offended as she would’ve been if the incidents had occurred just yesterday.

The judge sighed wearily. “Mrs. Wright, the question is a direct one. Do please try to make your answers follow suit. I’ve got enough wordplay to contend with in this case.”

Mrs. Wright looked up at the bench, a shocked look on her face. “Do you mean-I should just say what I mean?”

The judge tried to smile. “It would be most refreshing.”

Mrs. Wright folded her hands in her lap. “Well, I don’t know as-but if you order me to, Judge, well…” She took a deep breath and went on. “The first time, I went looking for the missus, being as Clara’d been taken sick. I saw her in the birch grove with the reverend. They had their arms around each other. They were-kissing.”

More mumbles in the crowd netted more raps of the gavel from the judge.

“And the other times?” Mr. Picton asked.

“The other times-well-” Mrs. Wright shifted uneasily. “Some of them were the same. But others-well, it was the middle of summer, those times. Warm, like now. The ground’s soft in that grove, with a fine moss bed. And that’s all I’m going to say, judge or no judge, court or no court. I’m a decent woman!”

Mr. Picton nodded. “And we certainly wouldn’t ask you to behave in an indecent manner. But let me put the question to you this way, Mrs. Wright: Would it be accurate to say that you observed the defendant and Reverend Parker in a state of partial or complete undress?”

Now starting to positively squirm, Mrs. Wright nodded. “Yes, sir. It would.”

“And engaged in physical intimacy?”

Her discomfort seeming to turn to anger, Mrs. Wright barked, “Yes, sir-and her with a husband and the sweetest little girl anybody could ever wish for back at the house! Disgraceful, I call it!”

Nodding as he started to pace before the witness chair, Mr. Picton slowly asked, “I don’t suppose you could give me precise dates for these events?”

“Not precise, sir, no.”

“No. But let me ask you this-would you feel sure saying that they preceded the births of Matthew and Thomas Hatch by at least nine months?”

“Your Honor!” Mr. Darrow called out. “I’m afraid the state is indulging its taste for suggestion again.”

“I’m not so sure I agree with you this time, Counselor,” the judge answered. “The state, though they have been an infernal nuisance about it, have introduced evidence that speaks to opportunity and means, in this case. I’m going to allow them to start approaching the question of motive. But you do it carefully, Mr. Picton.”

Looking like he could’ve kissed that white, fuzzy head what was bobbing behind the bench, Mr. Picton said, “Yes, Your Honor,” and then turned back to his witness. “Well, Mrs. Wright? Would you say that the timing was about right, with respect to the birth of the two younger Hatch children?”

“It was awfully close,” Mrs. Wright replied with a nod. “I remember remarking on it to myself at the time. And when the boys came out looking the way they did, well… I drew my own conclusions.”

“And how was it that they looked?” Mr. Picton stole a glance up at the bench. “I ask you not to be presumptuous here, Mrs. Wright.”

Wagging a finger toward the defense table again, Mrs. Wright said, “Those boys didn’t get their coloring-their eyes, their skin, their hair-from Mr. or Mrs. Hatch. Anybody could see that. And there was something else, too-when you live in the house that you work in, you get to know its rhythms, so to speak. Mrs. Hatch slept in a separate bedroom from Mr. Hatch. When they were first married, they spent some nights together in his room, but after Clara came… well, Mr. Hatch never slept anywhere but in his own bed. And if the missus ever went into Mr. Hatch’s room again, other than to take him food and medicine when he was dying, I certainly didn’t witness it.”