May Ward turned around and laughed, still effervescent from her drink. “Yes, of course! Tonight! There’s some sort of affair in the ballroom with an undersea theme, and I must look the part. Won’t it be perfect?”
The dress sat heavily in Fleurette’s arms. It weighed almost as much as a small child, owing to the hundreds of glass beads clinking merrily against each other. It was a beautiful piece of work, something she would’ve been thrilled to put a needle to, even a week ago.
Why was she bothered over missing a single night at the theater? There would be another night, and another after that.
“It certainly will be perfect,” she told May Ward, “after I finish with it.”
39
THREE WOMEN WERE BOOKED into the jail within a few hours of each other: a mother of four accused of drunkenness and neglect, a woman charged with poisoning her husband with mercury, and a domestic cook caught stealing her employer’s kitchen utensils. It took Constance an entire day to get the women booked into the jail, showered and de-loused, issued uniforms, and settled into their cells. She’d been neglectful about supervising chores and had to issue some stern words of warning when she saw that the other inmates hadn’t cleaned their cell blocks.
At the end of the day, she realized that she hadn’t had a chance to look in on Edna Heustis and thought it best to call so that she could file her report. The sheriff’s office was unaccustomed to doing its business by telephone, but it was becoming more of a necessity, particularly lately, as the Freeholders scrutinized the cost of running two automobiles and insisted that the deputies find ways to get by without them.
Cordelia Heath was once again occupying the sheriff’s office. She sat at his desk, paging through a city directory and addressing a stack of envelopes.
“He’s out on a call,” Cordelia said, without looking up.
“Pardon me, Mrs. Heath. I just needed to use the telephone. Sheriff’s business. I’m to report on a girl . . .”
Cordelia pushed the telephone to the edge of the desk. “Go ahead. You don’t have to tell me about it.”
As Constance spoke to the operator, she glanced down at the sheriff’s desk and saw that Mrs. Heath had opened a folder containing a campaign advertisement for his 1912 campaign for sheriff. Next to a formal portrait was a description of his platform: “Honesty—Efficiency—Economy—Social and Spiritual Betterment of Prisoners.”
“That’s a fine platform,” Constance said, while she waited for the operator to put her call through.
Mrs. Heath looked up and said, “It was good enough for sheriff, but it won’t do for Congress. We’re going to need a new picture and a new platform.”“Congress? But I thought he was running against John Courter.”
She gave a polite little laugh. “A sheriff can’t succeed himself in office. Didn’t you know that? My husband’s running for Congress. I’ll leave you to your call.”
She gathered up her letters and bustled out. Constance found herself alone in the office, staring out the open door into an empty hallway.
Congress?
The possibility—no, the certainty—that someone else would occupy Sheriff Heath’s office come November settled over her in one awful moment. How had she not realized that the sheriff was leaving?
Cordelia had always wanted to go to Washington. She had ideas about a particular kind of genteel life as a congressman’s wife that had something to do with silver teapots, bone china, and a husband who didn’t spend quite so much time in the company of criminals. Sheriff Heath had said so himself. Constance just didn’t think he’d ever agree to it. What was she to do, once he was gone? Sheriff Heath had given her a life beyond anything she could’ve imagined. She had a position, a title, and a place of authority. But there was no reason to think that the next sheriff would let her keep any of that.
Mrs. Turnbull came on the line, and Constance gathered herself together to make her inquiry. She was assured that there had been no trouble from Edna. But when Constance asked to speak to her, Edna couldn’t be found.
“I didn’t see her go out,” Mrs. Turnbull said. “One of the girls thinks she went to church.”
“On a Tuesday night?”
“It seems peculiar to me, too,” Mrs. Turnbull said. “She comes home by curfew. That’s all I know.”
“And she won’t tell you what she’s doing?”
“She’s been very secretive about it, to tell the truth,” Mrs. Turnbull said, “but it’s no concern of mine, as long as she behaves herself.”
“Well, I’m obligated to report on her welfare. I believe I ought to come up and speak to her.”
“You’re welcome to try. She won’t tell me a thing,” Mrs. Turnbull said, and rang off.
Constance sat alone in Sheriff Heath’s office and tried to picture another man behind that desk.
And what was this about Congress? She couldn’t imagine Sheriff Heath without his badge.
Perhaps it was best that telephoning hadn’t worked. A trip out of town didn’t sound so bad at the moment.
SHE WENT THE very next day. Before she left, Constance was pleased to receive a reassuring letter from Miss Pittman at the reformatory: the results of the Wassermann test were in, and Minnie Davis was free of disease. Miss Pittman added that Minnie was settling in well, and that she seemed to be a good worker. Minnie herself would not be permitted to write letters for the first month, she explained. Constance very much hoped that there wouldn’t be a second month.
She went first to Catskill to speak to Minnie’s parents, and sat once again in the grimy sitting room, among the odor of strangers’ clothing in need of mending. The Davises did not make their home a pleasant place to be, and it was easy for Constance to sympathize with Minnie’s opinion on that point.
The New Jersey papers were not circulated in Catskill, but Edith Davis had managed to get her hands on them regardless, and had a stack of clippings sitting on a little side-table under a darning egg. She lifted the egg and pushed the papers toward Constance with one fingernail, as if they were too filthy to touch.“I knew from the time she was a little girl that she would come to this,” Mrs. Davis hollered.
Goldie hadn’t said a word since Constance had come in, and even then she spoke quietly from her chair in the corner, without looking up. “You didn’t know her when she was a little girl.”
“Oh, I knew about her, and that mother of hers!” Mrs. Davis shrieked, and offered no further explanation.
Constance had hoped to win over Mr. Davis, who was sitting in his dusty overalls examining a bandage on his left hand. She leaned forward and said, “Please understand that the prosecutor has no evidence. These accusations of your daughter entertaining men—you’ve every right to be outraged to see such a thing in the papers, but Mr. Courter said those things against Minnie without first bothering to find out if they were true. I can assure you that no such charges will be filed.”