An Uncertain Justice

For that matter, a sheriff’s wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?
⎯Susan Glaspell, “A Jury of Her Peers”

The morning of Minnie Wright’s trial, I lay in bed, listening to my husband’s growling snores, unable to sleep any longer. The downstairs mantel clock chimed five o’clock. Soon he would rise to chop wood and slop the hogs, and I would stoke the fire in the stove to start the coffee and make breakfast as if this was an ordinary day.

But this cold Iowa spring morning wasn’t like any other because poor Mrs. Wright was being tried for her husband’s murder. Mr. Peters had said I could attend the trial with him, but I told him I wasn’t sure I could bear to see everyone staring at Mrs. Wright and whispering about her. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to stay silent.

I lifted the eiderdown as gently as I could and slipped out of bed, shivering as my bare feet touched the wooden floorboards. Mr. Peters stirred and snorted, and I froze, still as a rabbit hearing a dog, but his snoring resumed. I took up my shawl and crept down the stairs to the kitchen.

I gathered a handful of kindling from the old metal bucket by the door and set about making a fire in the stove. After I lit two matches, the fire caught, and tiny fingers of flame leapt up from the dry wood. Mr. Peters would want biscuits with his ham and eggs. I tied my apron over my nightgown and pulled my mixing bowl from the cupboard. I mixed milk into flour, added baking soda, then a bit of sugar. He didn’t like his biscuits too sweet. I blinked away a memory of a plate of biscuits hurled across our kitchen back in Dakota.

* * *

Seemed ages ago I rode over to the Wrights’ farm with my husband, the Hales, and young Mr. Henderson, the county attorney, after the coroner’s inquest for John Wright’s murder. That December day was the coldest of the year when we rode to the lonesome hollow surrounded by dark, leafless trees, down to that cheerless house, miles from the nearest neighboring farm. It was the first time I’d set eyes on their place, and the peeling paint and crooked shutters saddened me in a way I couldn’t explain.

Inside the farmhouse, we found the kitchen in disarray—dirty pans everywhere, the table half-wiped, the sugar bucket knocked over, its contents spilled on the floor. Had she prepared breakfast for her husband the day he died? What stopped her in the middle of her chores? When the deputy brought her to our house, the poor woman was beside herself, worrying her fruit jars would freeze overnight. I’d thought that peculiar when they’d found Mr. Wright dead in his bed, a rope around his neck. But grief does strange things to a body.

We’d only been living in Milford a little over two years before the murder. We’d moved here back in 1898 when the old sheriff hired Mr. Peters as his deputy. People would tell me they liked my husband, that he was a good sheriff. He was friendly with everyone, quick with a joke or a compliment, always willing to lend a hand to a neighbor. That’s what people saw, good old Fred Peters, friend to all who abide by the law. He’d never shout or cuss, at least not when anyone who mattered was watching. But he got in his black moods sometimes.

He wasn’t always like that. Back when we were courting in Iowa City, he was a soft-spoken man with perfect manners, polite to my mother and father; they were pleased with his prospects as a farmer. I found him handsome and attentive, a good talker. He held me spellbound with his dreams of moving West where he’d build us a home. We married the summer I turned nineteen, and we moved to the Dakota Territory to try our hand at homesteading.

* * *

The floorboards creaked over my head and the stairs groaned under Mr. Peter’s heavy footsteps. I hurried to crack the eggs and warm the frying pan before I poured a steaming cup of coffee and set it at the head of the table, making sure the knife and fork were placed next to, not on, his napkin.

“Morning,” he said as he tucked in his shirt and pulled up his suspenders. “That coffee sure smells good.” I shrank from his booming voice and turned back to the stove to dish his breakfast.

I set the plate of biscuits in front of him and held my breath, watching him take the first bite. I waited until he’d eaten most of his eggs before I poured a cup of coffee for myself and sat at the table beside him. Fred Junior came clattering down the stairs, pulled on his winter jacket and headed out to the henhouse, muttering “mornin’” as the door swung shut behind him.

“I was thinking that I might go with you to the courthouse after all.” I watched a fleck of yolk at the corner of my husband’s lip move up and down as he chewed, mouth open, jaws flexing, teeth grinding a piece of ham he’d shoved in his mouth.

“That’ll be fine, Ma. Be nice for you to sit with the ladies. Maybe you can swap quilting tips.” He laughed, pleased with his joke. “I expect all the women hereabouts will want to go to watch. Course, you won’t understand all the finer points of the law, but that county attorney, he’ll put on quite a show.”

He mopped the last of the egg with a biscuit, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, I’ll see to the hogs and get the horses ready. We’ll leave at seven sharp.” He slipped on his work boots and headed out to the pens.

A gust of cold air swept through the kitchen when Fred Junior returned from the henhouse with the morning’s eggs. He set the basket on the counter next to the dry sink and sat at the table.

“Please wash up before breakfast,” I asked him.

“I’m hungry,” was all he said. I stood at the stove and waited until finally he went to the pump and washed his hands. At twelve, he was taller than me, and he looked more like his father with each passing day.

I set a plate of biscuits and eggs in front of him, and he tucked in without another word.

“Your pa and I are driving up to Spirit Lake this morning, and I don’t think we’ll be back before evening, so you’ll need to tend to the hogs after school.”

Fred Junior mumbled something, his mouth full of biscuit. I shook my head at him, he knew how I didn’t like poor manners. He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“But I got plans with Tommy—we’re gonna set out snares, see if we can catch some rabbits.”

“That’s fine, you can do that after the hogs.” I reached over to ruffle his hair but he leaned away from my touch and ate in silence.

* * *

The county courthouse in Spirit Lake was a fine old brick building in the center of town. Mr. Peters and I walked up the steps and stopped beside the wooden doors where posted notices announced elections, probates, auctions of farms belonging to unfortunate families. It looked like all of Milford had come, dressed in their Sunday best, noisily gathered on the steps, waiting for the bailiff to open the doors. I saw Mrs. Hale and her husband in the crowd; he was a witness, there to tell how he’d found poor Mr. Wright. She looked straight at me. She didn’t smile; neither did I, and then she turned away. Though I’d seen her sometimes in town, we hadn’t spoken since that day at the Wrights’ farm.

Mr. Peters shook hands with some of the men, then clapped Mr. Hale on the shoulder. “Well, sir, a nasty business. Don’t reckon I’ve ever seen anything like this. How are you today?”

“Fine, fine, a mite nervous about testifying.”

“Be sure to answer all Henderson’s questions with care and you’ll be good.” Mr. Peters lowered his voice, but I still heard him whisper, “Seems pretty clear she killed him, but you never know with juries—they might be too sympathetic with a woman.” They continued to talk quietly, and I turned away to watch the crowd push into the courthouse. Mr. Henderson came to speak with my husband, and I climbed the stairs to the upper gallery with all the women.

I sat next to several ladies from the First Methodist Church, which Mr. Peters and I attend most Sundays. I leaned over the rail to view the courtroom. The judge’s bench and a witness chair stood at the front; to the right of the bench, a rectangular enclosure held two straight rows of wooden chairs, twelve in all. Mr. Henderson sat at a table, shuffling through a stack of papers. Behind him, a low railing separated judge and lawyers from the crowd of onlookers, all men from the county. Someone pointed out a newspaper reporter from Des Moines.

The bailiffs led Minnie Wright into the courtroom, where her lawyer waited. Her face was as pale as milk in contrast to the black dress she wore. Her shoulders hunched over, and she kept her eyes down. She seemed frailer than when I last visited her in the jail. She nodded as her lawyer whispered in her ear, then she turned and gazed over the throng of whispering spectators, craning her neck to look up at the gallery. Her eyes met mine and she gave a slight bow of her head; I did the same.

The jury entered the courtroom, twelve good men of the county: aldermen, farmers, church elders. They settled in their seats in the jury box, and one by one, they stole looks at Minnie, their faces stern and proper. My heart fluttered as I regarded all these men who would decide Minnie’s fate, and once again, I asked myself if I could stay silent.

* * *

Mr. Hale strode to the witness chair and gave his oath, his right hand on the Bible the clerk held. Mr. Henderson stood, smoothed his hair, and straightened his suit jacket. When he spoke, his voice was deep and deliberate, like an actor in a play—not at all like his everyday voice.

“Mr. Hale, I want you to think back to the morning of December 6, 1900. Did you have occasion to ride out to John Wright’s farm?”

“I did.” Mr. Hale spoke softly, and I strained to hear. “I wanted to talk to John about a telephone line. See, with our places being so far from town, I thought it would be good to have the phone company string a line down our road, but it’s so expensive, I thought maybe I could get John to agree to share the cost.”

I recalled the sad farmhouse out on the branch road, so solitary and far from any neighbor. A telephone might have been a blessing for Mrs. Wright. I’d known that kind of loneliness out in Dakota, and I’d missed the company of other women.

* * *

Our first year homesteading in Dakota, the wind blew through the gaps of the wood planks Mr. Peters used to build our claim shanty, and dust collected on the furniture crowded into the one room that served as kitchen and bedroom. Our first baby boy was born two months too early; we named him Robert after Mr. Peters’ father, but I called him Bobby. He was a frail thing, like a delicate baby bird, pale with skin that seemed too big for his tiny bones. All winter, I struggled to keep him warm, but the wind kept blowing, and the snow came through the cracks.

 A late spring blizzard killed all hundred head of cattle we’d bought; they froze to death, buried under six feet of snow. Mr. Peters hired on as a hand at a neighboring farm to keep us from starving. Bobby took ill with a fever, but we had no doctor in the settlement, and no money to pay if there had been one. He fussed and cried, refusing to eat; I did what I could, using some of my mama’s remedies. He died one night, simply slipped off to sleep in my arms. We buried him next to our shanty.

After Bobby died, I felt as if the stillness in the shanty would swallow me, as if life had gone out of my body. I’d sit beside his cradle and rock it. I didn’t have the energy to wipe the table, to wash the dishes.

Something in Mr. Peters changed, too. He rarely smiled, he snapped at me if supper was late, he complained about the dust. He’d leave at first light of day to work at the neighbor’s farm and not return until after dark. Our fifty acres didn’t get planted that spring—we had no money for seed—and Mr. Peters started having his moods as he worried about losing our claim. Sometimes, he’d throw a plate at me or knock over a kitchen chair. I learned to stay still while he raged; his storms didn’t last as long that way.

* * *

“And I found John lying in his bed, a piece of rope around his neck. So I called out to Mrs. Wright, did you see what happened? But she sort of laughed and said she’d been asleep and didn’t hear a thing.”

Whispers and gasps ruffled through the ladies’ gallery. The woman next to me murmured, “How dreadful. I can’t imagine how a wife could sleep through such a thing.”

Another woman agreed. “I hear she hasn’t cried once since he died. Something unnatural about it.”

I said nothing, thinking of that bitter December morning at the Wrights’ farm after Mr. Peters arrested Mrs. Wright. I’d come along to fetch some things to bring her in the jail.

The men were there to search for evidence to explain what had happened—to show a motive, as Mr. Henderson said. They poked and prodded into cupboards and corners, and all the while, Mr. Henderson made nasty comments about what a poor housekeeper Mrs. Wright was. After a time, the men went upstairs to examine the bedroom where Mr. Wright had died.

I wasn’t sure why Mrs. Hale came along that day—perhaps her husband thought I needed the company. I didn’t know her well, except to see her at church or in town. We didn’t say much in the first few minutes after the men left, just stood in silence, stiff and awkward, like strangers at a wake for someone they barely knew. I bent down and lifted a kitchen chair lying on its side; someone must have knocked it over in the excitement of discovering poor Mr. Wright. Mrs. Hale picked up a dishrag lying on the kitchen table and brushed away some crumbs.

I opened the airing cupboard, looking for the apron and dress Mrs. Wright asked me to bring her. A wrought iron handle poked out of a pile of blankets at the bottom of the cupboard. I tugged on it and pulled out a small birdcage. Its door hung limply to one side, the top hinge snapped off like someone had wrenched the door open.

I showed it to Mrs. Hale. “Funny, they didn’t mend this or throw it away.”

Mrs. Hale didn’t reply. She continued to straighten the dirty kitchen. Opening a cupboard near the kitchen door, she exclaimed, “Oh, Lord, would you look at this.” She held a jagged piece of a Ball jar, blackberry jam dripping from the edges. “Her preserves all froze last night. There’s but one jar left.”

I took the dishrag to wipe up the sticky mess, but she pulled my hand away from the shelf.

“Don’t. You’ll cut yourself on all that glass.” She removed the one intact jar from the shelf and closed the cupboard door. “Best leave it be.”

I returned to searching for Mrs. Wright’s sewing basket. She’d been most insistent I bring her quilting to the jail. I supposed she wanted to busy herself, to push away her grief. After my Bobby died, I’d tried to occupy my hands, hoping to distract my mind from thoughts of my baby boy lying in the frozen ground, but I never succeeded.

The front parlor was latched, probably to keep things tidy. A dingy sheet covered the settee. I opened the oak chifforobe, although I didn’t expect to find anything—from the looks of things, the parlor hadn’t been used in years—but there was her quilting basket, overflowing with scraps and squares of fabric. A rectangular wooden box, the kind used for sewing shears, was tucked in the basket. Without thinking, I opened the box and inside, wrapped in a scrap of gingham, was a tiny dead canary. Its head lay at a right angle to its body, and I realized its neck was snapped.

I nearly dropped the box. I thought of the birdcage with its damaged door, the knocked-over chair, and the spilled sugar in the kitchen, and I remembered the faded bruise on Mrs. Wright’s cheek when the deputy brought her to our home.

Another memory came to me, a night back in Dakota when Mr. Peters pushed me into a wall and raged at me for hours until he’d exhausted his anger and fell asleep. I’d cleaned up the supper he’d hurled at me and wiped away the gravy splattered over the floorboards and walls. Then I sat up all night, rocking in the chair next to the empty cradle, my heart pounding and my mind clouded, and it took all my strength to not pick up the knife lying on the kitchen table.

Mrs. Hale came into the parlor to see what I was doing. She snatched the box away from me and slipped it into her coat pocket. Then she went back to tidying the kitchen without a word. I never did find out what she did with the dead canary.

* * *

The county attorney called Mr. Peters to the stand; he gave his oath and answered the attorney’s preliminary questions. Yes, he’d known John Wright, they’d met at the Grange; he was a decent law-abiding man. No, he hadn’t met Mrs. Wright prior to the murder. He couldn’t rightly testify to the state of their marriage, although there’d been rumors of loud arguments. I wondered who could have heard them arguing.

His search had revealed no sign of a broken window, and the rope around Mr. Wright’s neck was from the barn. Found it peculiar that Mrs. Wright fretted about her preserves when her husband had been strangled. Mr. Peters’ voice boomed in the courtroom, and the crowd held its breath to see what he’d say next.

“Sheriff Peters, did you believe Mrs. Wright’s explanation that she slept through her husband’s murder?”

“No, sir, she was lying.” He turned so the jury would see his face. “I believe Minnie Wright killed her husband.” His face practically glowed with the righteousness he was feeling; I’d seen that look before when he felt the spirit at a revival meeting. An excited murmur ran through the courtroom, and the newspaper reporter hastily scribbled in his notebook.

Minnie sat straight in her chair, her gaze directed towards my husband, her face emotionless, her hands gripping the arms of the chair, her knuckles white with the strain. I waited for her attorney to ask a question but, to my surprise, he remained seated.

* * *

I’d never met Minnie until the night the deputy brought her to our home to stay before the inquest, before the county attorney brought murder charges against her. She didn’t talk much, just sat staring off as if she were someplace else. After a while, she blinked and startled as if seeing me for the first time, as if she hadn’t realized I was there in the parlor with her.

When I first visited after her arrest, I hadn’t planned to stay, but this time she appeared to be glad of the company. Her jail cell seemed cheerier than the Wrights’ farmhouse. It was a plain, whitewashed room with a chair, an iron bedstead covered by a thin cotton blanket, and a washstand with a chipped basin. Even though it was winter, bright sunlight shone through the high, barred window, and outside, a band of chickadees chirped loudly as they scratched and scrambled for seeds.

“Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Peters, coming to the jail like this. It must be difficult, what with your husband being sheriff and all.”

“It’s no bother at all, Mrs. Wright, and please, call me Ellie.” Actually, Mr. Peters had been the one to send me in the first place—she was the first woman in the jail since he became sheriff— and he thought it best a woman ask her what she needed.

The silence was awkward between us, so I asked what I could bring her from home. I’d thought perhaps she’d like her Bible for comfort.

Her request surprised me. “I’d love a clean dress and my apron. Don’t feel right dressed without it. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind, there’s my quilting.”

I told her I’d see what I could do. As I said goodbye, she seemed to fade back into herself.

Next day when we drove out to the Wrights’ farm, I thought how alone she must have been in that cheerless place, no other women to converse with. Back in Dakota, I wished there’d been someone I could talk to about Mr. Peters’ moods. I suppose that’s why I decided to continue to visit her, to talk and to listen.

I brought the apron and dress she’d requested, but Mr. Peters didn’t allow me to bring her sewing basket. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I can talk to him again.”

Mrs. Wright shook her head. “It’s all right. There isn’t enough light in here to sew by anyway. Won’t you set a spell?” She offered me the one caned-back chair, and she sat on the bed. We chatted about the weather, about the new Methodist minister, about a recipe I’d cut from the newspaper. We talked about everything, except the reason she was in jail.

The next time I visited, I brought a quilt from my home so she’d have something warm for the chilly winter nights. She studied the quilt and smiled.

“Jacob’s Ladder, one of my favorite patterns.” Her hands stroked the quilt over and over, like it was a pet cat. She turned it over to examine my stitching. “Such dainty stitches. I used to stitch like that when I was a girl, but…”

Her eyes had a faraway look, like she was seeing her younger self, bent over a quilting frame. I recalled the piecework I found in the farmhouse, the few pieces with the queer stitches that spoke of a nervous disposition. She pulled back to herself and stared straight at me.

“Course, my eyes aren’t what they used to be.” She took the quilt and laid it gently on the bed.

Mr. Peters wasn’t pleased I was going to the jail so often. “Ma, I don’t think it’s proper for you to be visiting her. The woman’s been charged with killing her husband. What will people say about my wife spending so much time at the jail?”

I thought of the one reason even he couldn’t question. “I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” He looked at me blankly; he wasn’t a great one for memorizing Bible verses. “It’s Matthew 25:36.”

That was the last time he said anything about the visits.

My time with Minnie fell into a pattern of talking about daily life, things my husband would have dismissed as women’s foolishness. Sometimes, we’d sit in silence, stitching the pieces for her log cabin quilt I’d brought from the farm after Mr. Peters finally gave his permission. I found myself telling her about homesteading in the Dakota Territory, how we’d lost our claim right about the time Fred Junior was born, and we moved back to Iowa so Mr. Peters could find work.

“I am sorry for your troubles, Ellie, to be so far from home and kin. I’ve lived here all my life. You wouldn’t have recognized Milford back when I was a girl. Not so many people as now.”

“Did your family have a farm, too?”

“Oh, no, we lived in town. I sang in the choir, and on Wednesday nights, all the girls would gather for Bible study.” Minnie concentrated on her stitches, lost in her thoughts.

I thought it peculiar how she only talked of when she was a girl, as if the past thirty-five years hadn’t happened. She never spoke of Mr. Wright, and I didn’t pry. But in town, I heard gossip about the Wrights’ marriage, how he’d been known to be cruel. At the Ladies Aid meetings, the women liked to chatter, and Molly Parsons was especially talkative.

“Minnie Wright used to complain about how mean he was. I heard she even talked of leaving him.”

Old Mrs. Walsh said, “Mr. Wright was a good God-fearing man. He had the reverend speak to her to set her straight.”

Molly snorted. “I heard that’s when the Wrights stopped attending church. Guess she was too embarrassed to show her face after that.”

I kept my thoughts to myself; to talk of family matters in public was an unforgivable sin to these women. No matter how cruel Mr. Wright had been, Minnie was expected to endure it like every other good wife in Dickinson County.

Mrs. Hale remained silent about what we found at the farmhouse, I suppose because Minnie had been her friend. Even so, the men of the jury might condemn Minnie simply because she wasn’t acting womanly, like a proper grieving widow. Listening to the women gossip, I became more convinced Minnie would hang.

Someone needed to speak up for Minnie, at least to save her from the gallows, and the other ladies weren’t about to do it. But if I were to speak, what would become of me? There was no telling what Mr. Peters would do, Fred Junior would be ashamed, and I doubted the good ladies of Milford would welcome me into their homes. I didn’t know if I had the courage to speak—and would it make any difference for Minnie Wright if I did?

I read my Bible, seeking an answer—for God to guide me—but I found no comfort there.

* * *

On my last visit before the trial, I brought Minnie a gift wrapped in an old newspaper. Her face lit up when I handed her the package; she carefully undid the string and unrolled the paper. Inside was a small figurine of a young girl holding a tiny bird in her open hand as if to set it free. Minnie stared at the figurine, then at me, and I thought I saw a glimmer of understanding in her eyes.

The trial drew closer, and I continued to pray for God to show me the way to help her. I was troubled by nightmares of the canary singing in its cage. In my dreams, a shadow passed over the cage as a gnarled and calloused man’s hand ripped the door from the cage and snatched the tiny bird from its perch. I tried to cry out, but my throat constricted; my mouth would not open. The man’s back was toward me, but I heard a sharp crack, then stillness. He turned, and I saw my husband’s face as he laughed and handed me the small, limp, yellow body.

Two nights before the trial, I woke from the nightmare, my heart thundering in my chest, my nightgown soaked with sweat. Mr. Peters slept soundly next to me, his hog-like snores rumbling in the darkness. I went downstairs and lit a lamp. I took up my Bible, hoping for comfort. The page opened to Proverbs.

* * *

After the county attorney concluded his case, the judge said there would be a recess, and the lawyers and the judge disappeared behind the bench to talk. The ladies around me rose and went downstairs for a respite from the warm gallery. I followed them, fingering the folded piece of notepaper I carried in my pocket. I handed it to the bailiff and returned upstairs.

When the lawyers returned to the courtroom, I stared at the back of the defense lawyer’s head, willing him to turn around, to look for me. He took a paper from his suit pocket, unfolded it and read. He stood up and spoke to the judge.

“May it please the court, I’d like to call a character witness on behalf of the defendant.”

The judge nodded and said to proceed. The lawyer turned, looked up to the ladies’ gallery and said, “The defense calls Mrs. Eleanor Peters.”

An excited whisper came from the women around me as I stood. Time seemed to slow as I walked down the stairs, concentrating on each step I took. The men in the courtroom all turned to watch me. Then, their faces receded into a white blur, and all I could see was the witness chair ahead of me.

I silently recited the passage I’d found in Proverbs: Open thy mouth for the speechless, for the cause of all who are left desolate.

As I placed my hand on the Bible, I dared not look at my husband’s face.

BARBARA BUCKLEY RISTINE

Barbara Buckley Ristine began her professional career as a trial attorney. Her work has appeared in Bards and Sages Quarterly, the Mojave River Review, and Literally Stories, among others. She lives with her family in northern Nevada, where she is working on a novel about the Great War.