After a lot of arguing, which was mostly the women pointing out how unfairly they’d been treated, the judge finally banged down his gavel to shut them up. Elizabeth wasn’t surprised: judges rarely paid any attention to fairness. He pronounced them guilty of obstructing traffic.
Obstructing traffic? Was that all he could come up with? Nobody laughed, so apparently it was. Then he started pronouncing sentences. The red-haired woman who had given the speech got six months, and most of the rest of them got three months, except for one little old lady who looked to be about a hundred.
“Mrs. Nolan,” the judge said in a voice he must have thought sounded kind, “I am only sentencing you to six days in deference to your advanced age, but you may avoid even that by paying your fine of twenty-five dollars. I urge you to do so, since a stay in jail might be too severe and bring on your death.”
She looked like twenty-five dollars might not be too hard for her to scrape together, and Elizabeth would have advised her to take the deal, but the tiny old woman pulled herself up as tall as she could go. “Your honor, I have a nephew fighting for democracy in France. He is offering his life for his country. I should be ashamed if I did not join these brave women in their fight for democracy in America. I should be proud of the honor to die in prison for the liberty of American women.”
Most of the women nodded their approval, although Elizabeth wondered how many of them would be willing to die for the old woman’s liberty. Even the judge looked ashamed of himself, but he didn’t back down. They never did.
He sent them off to the district jail to start their sentences.
Three months. The district jail was a roach-infested dump, but she’d be safe from Thornton there, and she’d have time to figure out what to do next. Maybe she’d be able to get a message to the Old Man. The guards started herding the women out and putting them back in the vans.
Anna slipped her arm through Elizabeth’s. “I wish I were as brave as you.”
Elizabeth looked at her in surprise. “I’m not brave.”
“Oh, but you are. The way you took my banner and marched right toward the police. And now, you aren’t a bit afraid to go to jail.”
“Of course I am. The trick is not to let it show.”
Now Anna was surprised. “How do you do that?”
One of the first lessons the Old Man had ever taught her. “Just smile.” She forced her face to obey, and she felt her own fear slipping away.
“But how can you . . . ?”
“Just do it.”
Tentatively, Anna stretched her mouth, but it didn’t look anything like a smile.
“Pretend I’m a fellow you want to notice you.”
Anna blinked uncertainly, and her gaze locked with Elizabeth’s for a moment. Then she smiled. She really smiled.
Elizabeth smiled back.
“It works!” Anna said.
“Of course it does. Don’t let them see how you really feel inside. Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
They were among the last to be loaded into the waiting vans. The other trucks had already left. Elizabeth scanned the busybodies on the sidewalk who had gathered to watch the suffragettes getting their just punishment, but she didn’t see any potential danger in the moments before they slammed the van doors shut. Three months from now, she’d walk out of the district jail and disappear. She’d never have to worry about Thornton again.
But when the van doors opened a short time later, they weren’t at the jail. They were at Union Station. The guards dragged them out, prodding the laggards with billy clubs. Elizabeth knew better than to resist a cop with a club, and she moved along with the others toward a waiting train.
“Where are they taking us?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know.”
One of the other women said, “They’re sending us to Virginia, to the Occoquan Workhouse.”
Elizabeth shuddered and swallowed down hard against the bile in her throat. She knew all about the Occoquan Workhouse.
? ? ?
Oscar Thornton looked up from his newspaper when the boys finally came back to his hotel suite. “Well?”
They exchanged a glance that told Thornton all he needed to know.
Rage boiled up in him, but he knew better than to let his anger show unless he could use it to his own advantage. He’d lost control once today and look where that had gotten him. “You lost her.”
“She went to the White House,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher was the short, dumb one, a sniveling whiner, always making excuses. “Are you telling me she got a presidential pardon?”
“She might,” Lester said. He was taller and not so dumb, at least. “She got herself arrested with the suffragettes.”
“What?”
“She got there just as the cops were throwing them all in paddy wagons.”
Fletcher nodded vigorously, as if his opinion mattered. “Jumped right in with ’em, like she belonged or something.”
Thornton managed not to sigh. “Why didn’t you follow her and pick her up when they let her go?” He held up the newspaper he’d been reading and stabbed at the headline: “Suffragettes Released.”
Lester looked offended. “We did, but the judge didn’t let them go this time. He sentenced them to three months.”
“Three months? Are you sure?” Those damn women usually didn’t get sentenced at all, and if they did, it was only for a few days.
“That’s what the clerk told us. I had to slip him a fin. They wouldn’t let us in to see, but afterward they put the women back in the paddy wagons and took ’em off to the jail.”
Thornton swore eloquently. “What about that bastard Jake? What’d you do with him?”
They exchanged another glance, and Thornton bit back another curse.
“Don’t tell me he got away, too.”
“He was done for, Mr. Thornton,” Fletcher said. “We had to leave him when you told us to go after the girl, but there’s no way he could’ve . . .” He looked to Lester for help.
“He wasn’t in the alley when we went back for him, but he couldn’t’ve walked away by himself. I’d swear to that.”
“So you think some Good Samaritan took him to a hospital?”
“The morgue more likely,” Lester said with more confidence than he had any right to feel. “You won’t see him again.”
“You’re right I won’t, because you’re going to find him and make sure of it this time. And then you’re going to find Mr. Coleman.”
Fletcher winced and Lester started studying his shoes.
Thornton thought he might explode from fury. “Well?”
Lester didn’t look up. “Coleman already checked out.”
Of course he had. Thornton had frightened him off when he got rough with that Jake character. The thought of never finding the man made him ill. Coleman was the only one who could help him get his money back. Next time he wouldn’t be stupid enough to use a worthless check, and then there’d be no trouble collecting his profits. In one or two plays he’d make it all back and more, and he wouldn’t have to worry about Jake and Betty Perkins ruining the deal.
Meanwhile, all he had left was revenge. “Go bail her out.”
Lester blinked. “What?”
“They must’ve given her a fine. She can pay it or go to jail, so if it’s paid, they’ll let her go. Get her out of jail and bring her back here. That should be easy enough, even for you.”