“I was upset over what I had heard, and didn’t want to even be in the same room with him. I handed him the print proof, and said that Mr. Larkin would have the boxes sent to the park gazebo, as originally arranged. I excused myself, but he rudely told me that I had not been dismissed, and that he would be allowed the courtesy of my silence while he verified the correction.
“My heart was pounding hard enough, I suspected he could see it shaking my body.”
“Were you afraid of him?” asked Gerber.
“Not at first. I saw him as someone who wanted to be in control, to have the upper hand. I have seen many women like Mrs. Calloway, and I believe God has given me a voice for those women. Therefore, I confronted the man. Before I knew what had happened, he had grabbed my wrists and wrenched them, forcing me onto his lap. I tried to struggle, but he was more than twice my size. He laughed then, and said he wished he had a feisty woman instead of that—I’m sorry, Mrs. Calloway—that milquetoast he had been saddled with.
“He let go of my left wrist with his right hand, and clamped it around the nape of my neck. I put up a real struggle then, started to cry out.” Lucinda brought her hand to her throat and swallowed. “That’s when he grabbed my throat. I fumbled for the gun. I thought that if I could scare him with it, he would back off. As I pulled the gun loose from the clip, and pivoted the barrel toward him, it went off. I had no idea it was one of the new double-action pistols.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Messenger, nothing further.”
“Halsted?” said Judge Stanton.
Halsted approached, thinking how he had never seen the likes of this case. Remarkably, the woman seemed innocent of the crime for which she was on trial. Yet, she had admitted to other killings. Rather than cover up the rumors—the legend of Lucy Angel—who was most assuredly the woman seated before him in the witness box, the defense had looked it boldly in the face and attacked it. If the strategy works, Halsted thought, I must try it.
Today, though, he had a job to do. He said to the defendant, “Do you deny that you have blatantly taken the lives of three men?”
“Yes.”
“Yes? But—”
“None, sir, were blatant. All were in defense.”
“Were there more than three?”
“Objection! Irrelevant.”
“Sustained.”
“Three, then. Nothing further.”
Judge Stanton glanced at his watch. 2:45. He should have just enough time to make the 4:15 train. “Closing statements, gentlemen.”
Halsted drank water from the glass—more than anything, it was a means of collecting himself—and approached the juror’s box. “This woman has appeared before you today and admitted to killing three men. Murdering them. She even had the audacity to share her lawless ways with a writer. Gentlemen, I implore you. Do not allow her feminine wiles, her notions of some cosmic justice to sway you. She could have asked for help from the authorities. She could have walked away. She could have remembered her place as a lady and avoided confrontation. Lastly, she could have minded her own business, and not interfered in the privacy of marriage. Be mindful of our laws when you govern this case.”
Matthew Gerber waited for Halsted to sit before he addressed the jury. “Gentlemen, the real victim in the case set before you is our very own defendant, Lucinda Messenger. She did not kill Asa Calloway because of his repeated abuse to his wife. She shot him in self-defense when he, like an animal, physically attacked her. You have seen what hanging a man does to his throat. Imagine, if you will, the beefy hands of Asa Calloway around the slender throat of Lucinda Messenger. If she had not acted swiftly and with a cool head, she surely would not be here now to relate her story.
“Do not allow the prosecution to make you believe that this woman is anything less than a survivor, a champion of the weak, an angel of mercy.”
Gerber clasped his hands on the rail of the jury box. “God placed Lucinda Messenger in harm’s way to help those in need. Who was she to question that calling? Could any one of you have left a child to the devices of a barbarian hiding behind the Word of God? You could not. There is a greater justice in having saved that child.
“Does any among you condemn her for defending herself against a husband so cold-blooded that he would throw her into the viper’s pit?
“Those nightmarish events gave her the strength not to be a victim when she was brutally attacked by Asa Calloway.”
The jurors deliberated for only twenty minutes.
Judge Mortal D. Stanton brought down the gavel with vigor.
The foreman of the jury handed a folded slip of paper to the bailiff, who in turn handed it to the judge.
Stanton opened and read the slip. “Will the defendant rise?”
Lucinda Messenger and her attorney stood.
“Gentlemen of the jury, what say you?”
The foreman rose. “Your Honor, in the matter of the territory versus Mrs. Lucinda Messenger, we find the defendant not guilty.”
The crowd whooped. The women sprang to their feet and applauded (save Kathleen Calloway, who fought her way through the press of people and out of the courtroom).
Judge Stanton said, “Mrs. Messenger, you’re free to go. Court dismissed.” One more strike of the gavel, and he was gone. Many years later, long after he had forgotten about clocks and trains, the Lucinda Messenger trial would form the centerpiece of his memoirs.
The crowd scattered. Lucinda lowered herself back into the chair.
Matthew Gerber confirmed that she was all right before making his way toward the cluster of reporters waiting in the foyer. He had no way of knowing that among the cluster was one J. B. Pendleton, scribbling across the top of his pad a title for his next book: Lucy Angel and the Devil of Destination Point.
After another moment, Lucinda breathed a sigh, then stood and turned. Two women faced her, smiling tentatively. The younger one’s eyes glittered with hope as the older said, “Mrs. Messenger, would you care to join us for tea?”
Lucinda’s eyes welled. “That is so kind of you. Yes.”
They linked arms. The older woman said, “Your dear lawyer should keep those reporters busy enough that we can sweep you right out of here.”
“Is it true that you carry one of them derringers?” asked the young woman.
“Of course. As I said, a lady alone cannot be too careful.”
“I need to get me one.” The young woman’s brow wrinkled. “Men seem to have guns everywhere upon their person, have you noticed?”
Lucinda Messenger nodded, but it didn’t concern her. She wondered whether the men of the world would ever understand the power of women united.
As the three walked down the street, they were joined by one woman, then another, and another.
Two
