Mr. Picton walked up the court house’s few steps, then held the big door open for us; and as we all filed in without a word, he kept on smiling, without ever telling us why.
The inside of the Ballston court house more than made up for the place’s run-of-the-mill exterior. The walls in the main hall were constructed of alternating types and colors of stone, set in pleasing patterns, and the double-height windows were framed in deep oak what was kept richly polished, as were the big mahogany doors to the main courtroom, located at the far end, and the smaller hearing room on the left. Sunlight was thrown across the marble floor from a few different directions, and the marble stairs what led up to the offices had a beautiful semicircular window at their first landing, along with a series of expertly made iron lighting fixtures running along the banisters. There was a guard’s post to one side of the large space, and Mr. Picton called out to a big man who was standing at it, reading a copy of the town paper, the Ballston Weekly Journal.
“Afternoon, Henry,” he said.
“Afternoon, Mr. Picton,” the man answered, without looking up.
“Did Aggie bring those files from the clerk’s office?” Mr. Picton asked, leading us to the stairs.
“Yeah,” the man answered. “She said it looks like you’re gonna try to go after that nigger ag-” The man stopped suddenly when he looked up and saw Cyrus standing near Mr. Picton; his small eyes grew as big as they could, and he rubbed the top of his narrow head in confusion. “That-uh-that fellow who shot Mrs. Hatch’s kids. She said it-looks like you’re gonna go after him again.”
Mr. Picton brought himself to a stop at the bottom of the marble staircase. It looked like he might get hot for a second, but then he just stopped, sighed, and said, “Henry?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Picton?” the guard answered.
“Mr. Montrose, here, is going to be working with me for a bit.”
“That so, Mr. Picton?”
“Yes. So, Henry-find another word. I doubt that you’d appreciate my coming in here every day and saying, ‘Good morning, Henry, you pinheaded shanty trash’!”
The guard’s face sagged like a kicked dog’s. “No, sir. I would not.”
“I didn’t think so,” Mr. Picton said, turning and continuing to lead the way upstairs. Once we were on the second floor, he turned to Cyrus.
“I am sorry, Mr. Montrose,” he said.
“It’s nothing unusual, sir,” Cyrus answered.
“Yes, and not very helpful to our cause, in its commonness,” Mr. Picton said with another deep sigh. “Such a quaint-looking little town, too, isn’t it?”
The hallway on the second floor was less grand than the big entry way downstairs, but just as pleasant to look at. There was a series of polished oak doors leading back toward an entrance to the gallery of the main courtroom. We grabbed a quick look inside this last chamber, as court was not in session that day; and though it had less frills than most of the courtrooms in New York I’d frequented, it was still handsome, with fruitwood pews for the spectators on the main floor and in the gallery, and a high judge’s bench made out of the same fine material. Looking down at the room, I began to realize that this might actually be the place where we would bring the golden-eyed woman with many names to some kind of justice for murdering God-only-knew how many children; and as my nerves started to flutter with this thought, I began to understand why Mr. Picton had wondered if we were really ready for all the things that might happen during what was sure to be a controversial and probably very unpopular trial.
Mr. Picton’s office was located across and down the hall from the gallery doorway, around a corner from the district attorney’s much grander suite. As only an assistant D.A., he had just two rooms, one a small space for a secretary (though he preferred to work without one), the other, beyond a thick oak door, a larger office that looked out over the railroad tracks and the train depot what lay down the hill. The office had a big rolltop desk and the usual endless quantity of law books and files that could be found in any lawyer’s office, all of them scattered around in what seemed a very disorganized way. But as soon as we were inside, Mr. Picton began to retrieve things in a fashion what showed that the clutter made perfect sense to him.
“Just clear a space for yourselves wherever you can,” he said to the rest of us. “I fear that I’m too ardent a disciple of the philosophy that an orderly office indicates a disorderly mind. And vice versa.”
“Amen to that,” Mr. Moore said, quickly dumping some books off of a big leather chair, then sinking down into it before anyone else had a chance.
As he continued to go through some files on his desk with fast motions what made him look like a second-story man at work, Mr. Picton caught sight of Miss Howard still standing, and then pointed with some embarrassment to the outer office. “Oh, I am sorry, Sara. There are more chairs outside. Moore, you swine, get out of there and let Sara sit down!”
“You don’t know her yet, Rupert,” Mr. Moore answered, settling in further. “Sara despises deference to her sex.”
Cyrus had snatched an oak desk chair from outside. “Here you are, Miss Howard,” he said, setting it near her.
“Thank you, Cyrus,” she answered, sitting down and giving Mr. Moore a sharp kick in the shin as she did.
He let out a yelp and bolted upright. “Dammit, Sara! I will not take any more abuse! I mean it! I’ll go to Saratoga and start gambling right now, and you and your señora can go hang!”
“As you can see, Mr. Picton,” the Doctor said, shooting Mr. Moore a warning with his eyes, “ours is a rather unusual investigative style. But please, if you would return to your story?”
“Certainly, Doctor.” Mr. Picton handed a file across to him. “Here is the sheriff’s report on the incident-Sheriff Jones was his name. Since retired.”
The Doctor began to read the document quickly as Mr. Picton related its contents to the rest of us in a way what was not only agitated, but hinted at the kind of dramatics the man might be capable of in a courtroom.
“Mrs. Hatch claimed that on the night of May thirty-first, 1894, she was driving her family’s depot wagon home after spending the afternoon buying groceries and gardening supplies in town and then taking her children over to Lake Saratoga to watch the sunset. At what she guessed to be about ten-thirty P.M., out on the Charlton road about half a mile shy of her house, a colored man armed with a revolver jumped out of a stand of bushes and demanded that she come down off the wagon. She refused, and tried to drive quickly on. But the man leapt onto the driver’s seat and forced her to stop. Then, seeing the children, he said that if Mrs. Hatch did not do everything he told her to, he would shoot all three of them. At that point, although close to hysteria, she agreed to follow the man’s orders.
“He told her to get down off the wagon and remove her clothes. She followed the command. But as she was removing her undergarments she stumbled, apparently making the man think that she was trying to either flee or go for a weapon. The man shouted, ‘Lousy white bitch-this’ll be on your head!’ and shot each of the children. Thomas and Matthew-ages three and four, respectively-died instantly. Clara, aged five and a half, survived, though she was comatose. The man, after firing the shots, jumped down from the wagon and fled back into the woods, leaving the now-distraught Mrs. Hatch to first try to tend to her children and then, when she realized how dire the situation actually was, to make for home as quickly as possible. Dr. Lawrence, one of our medical men who doubles as the town’s coroner, was summoned. However, he could do nothing. Clara Hatch survived, but did not regain consciousness for quite some time. When she did, it was found that she had lost the ability to speak, along with the use of her right arm and hand.”