CHAPTER 25

Wednesday, October 18

Harry slaps this morning’s Boston Herald on our table. Even before I look down at it, I know the news isn’t good. There it is. Lou McCabe’s front-page headline. Over the top, even for Lou.

Goody Hallett Dances Again!

A low moan seeps into the room. I pause, thinking it sounds familiar, and then realize it’s coming from my throat. I feel a sudden need to go home to pull the blankets over my head, but the pendulum clock behind the jury box says it’s just five minutes before eight—A.M. I plant my elbows on the table and bury my face in my hands.

The Kydd wheels his chair closer to mine and leans on my armrest so he can read Lou McCabe’s venomous version of journalism. “Who the hell is Goody Hallett?” he asks.

I sit up straight again and face him. “She’s the little old woman of Nauset Sea.”

“A witch,” Harry adds.

“A what?” The Kydd starts to laugh, certain we’re joking, and then stops. We’re not.

“Goody Hallett is a local legend,” Harry tells him. “Cape Codders believe she lived here during the eighteenth century—all hundred years of it. She made her home along the shoals, dancing all night—every night—across the beaches and over the sand dunes.”

“In scarlet shoes,” I pitch in.

“Scarlet shoes?” The Kydd still looks like he’s sure this is a joke.

“That part doesn’t really matter,” Harry says.

“Yes, it does,” I correct him.

“Well, okay, it matters to Marty. She’s something of a clotheshorse. Anyhow, legend has it that old Goody had a penchant for conjuring up nor’easters. And an appetite for the souls of doomed sailors.”

“The souls of doomed sailors,” the Kydd repeats. He looks like he’s starting to worry about us.

“Right,” Harry answers. “Goody would whip up the weather whenever she got the whim and the ships near Cape Cod’s shoals would find themselves in serious trouble.”

The Kydd knits his brow, apparently having a little trouble of his own. Harry doesn’t notice. “And then old Goody would hang a lantern from a whale’s tail,” he continues.

“A whale’s tail.” The Kydd checks in with me to see if he heard correctly. I nod. He did.

“That’s right,” Harry says. “And to the men on the vessels struggling at sea, it looked like a lighthouse. Goody lured them to certain destruction and then gambled with the Devil for their souls.”

“The Devil.” The Kydd checks in again, and I take over.

“Word is that Goody outgambled the Devil and, eventually, he got sick of losing. He strangled Goody and, the following year, a pair of scarlet shoes turned up in a dead whale’s belly.”

“The Devil,” the Kydd repeats.

“That’s why the shoes are important,” I tell Harry.

He nods, giving up the point, and then turns back to the Kydd. “Old-timers take Goody out and dust her off any time they sit around a campfire with their grandchildren,” he says.

“To ensure the folklore lives on,” I explain.

“But mostly to terrify the little tykes,” Harry adds.

“The Devil,” the Kydd says yet again. He takes a deep breath, folds the newspaper in half, and hands it back to Harry. “Get it out of here,” the Kydd says. “Louisa is low enough. She doesn’t need witch talk.”

He’s right, of course. She doesn’t. And in spite of the inappropriateness of it all, I’m touched by his genuine concern for her. He’s a good sort, the Kydd. His heart’s in the right place, even if his pants sometimes aren’t.

Harry tucks the folded paper under his arm and moves to a chair at the bar, behind our table. As soon as he leaves, Judge Long and Louisa enter the courtroom simultaneously, the judge from chambers, Louisa from lockup. A flustered matron rushes to deliver Louisa to us and an equally ruffled Joey Kelsey tells us to rise after everyone in the room is on their feet. I’m not the only one who’s a beat behind this morning.

Louisa looks somewhat refreshed, markedly better than she did yesterday. She smiles at the Kydd and me as she joins us and I realize her eyes aren’t bloodshot anymore. I’m reminded of the Rule of Alternates, a principle Harry shared with me years ago. People newly imprisoned—most notably first-timers—tend to sleep on alternate nights. It’s impossible to fall asleep the first night in the joint; impossible not to the second. For some, the pattern persists throughout their entire stay in county facilities.

Judge Long tells us to sit and everyone except Wanda Morgan does. She stays on her feet instead and walks to the bench with a file that apparently needs the judge’s attention. I lean closer to Louisa so I can whisper and the Kydd leans toward her too, so he can listen. “About the trial date,” I ask her, “what’s your preference, sooner or later?”

Left to its own devices, the machinery of the Commonwealth will deliver a case like this one to trial in about a year. But if there aren’t an excessive number of discovery disputes or pretrial motions, that time can be shortened, sometimes by as much as a few months. For defendants who have a decent shot at acquittal, it’s a no-brainer. They want to get to trial as fast as possible. This particular defendant, though, isn’t one of them.

“That depends,” Louisa answers, looking at the Kydd and then back at me, “on how long the two of you need—”

I shake my head. “That’s not an issue.”

She shakes her head too. “—to find the murderer.”

Now that’s an issue. “What?”

“My head is clear this morning,” she says, “for the first time since this nightmare began. And now it’s obvious.”

“What’s obvious?” The Kydd’s starting to squirm.

“I didn’t kill Herb,” she says. “And I didn’t attack him. But the only way I’m going to convince these people of that”—she nods toward Geraldine and Clarence—“is to prove who did.”

The Kydd stares at me and loosens his tie a little.

“I’ll work every minute of every hour,” Louisa continues. “I’ll make notes. I’ll give you every detail that might be remotely connected to Herb’s death. I’ll do everything I can to figure out who killed him.”

She pauses and looks at both of us again. “But I’m stuck in this dreadful place,” she says, “so you two will have to go get him.” She faces front and folds her hands on the table, as if it’s all settled now.

The judge and Wanda are still poring over their file and after a moment, Louisa twists around in her chair. “Good morning, Harold,” she says.

Harold leans forward and squeezes her shoulder.

She points to the newspaper in his lap. “Is that the Herald?”

He nods.

Her eyes move from Harry to the Kydd and then to me. “Have you read it?” she asks us.

We all nod. The look on Louisa’s face tells us she’s read it too.

“It’s preposterous,” she says, facing front again and folding her arms.

She’s right, of course. Preposterous is Lou McCabe’s middle name.

Louisa turns away from the Kydd and leans over the arm of my chair, as if what she has to say next is just between us girls. “Honestly,” she whispers, “what in the world was that man thinking?”

I shrug. Louis P. McCabe doesn’t think, as far as I can tell.

“A woman with my coloring,” she continues, leaning into me and pursing her perfect lips, “wouldn’t be caught dead in scarlet shoes.”

CHAPTER 26

Geraldine leaves her table and strolls back to the bar—and Harry—as soon as Judge Long goes into his chambers. The Kydd and I are busy packing up. Clarence is too. And all of our yellow legal pads are peppered with multiple dates, the most important one either circled or underlined a few times. Louisa Rawlings’s murder trial is scheduled to begin on September 18, eleven months from today.