Janice found the public phones in a cul-de-sac between the men’s and ladies’ rest rooms at the very end of the long corridor. She was happy she had committed the school’s phone number to memory and had kept her purse bulging with coins for just such an eventuality. Still, the transaction took close to five minutes before Ivy’s voice sprang back at her through the receiver.
“Mom! How great! What gives?” The voice was joyful, exuberant, healthy, thank God!
“Nothing important, dear. Just lonely,” said Janice with an inward sigh of relief. “How’re things?”
“Great!”
“Sleeping okay?”
“Sure, except not enough. They wake you up at six for matins. By the way, guess what you interrupted?”
“What?” Janice tried to keep her voice casual.
“Algebra,” Ivy said with disgust. “Sister Mary Margaret was just about to call on me. I could tell by the shifty looks she was giving me.…”
As Ivy chattered, Janice listened with the concentrated, intensive smile of a mother sharing a moment of joyful intimacy with her child, yet in actuality she was scarcely listening. Her mind flitted over other fields of concern. With the play the trial was getting in the press and on television, could it be that Ivy still knew nothing about it? True, the sisters had promised to do their best to shelter Ivy from its impact, but Mount Carmel was certainly no walled-in cloister observing the rule of silence. Certainly there was television, and most of the children owned transistor radios. How Ivy could have been kept innocent of what was going on for so long was a total mystery to Janice.
“… and Sylvester’s more than sixteen feet tall, and we’re only up to his shoulders.”
Ivy was talking with unrelieved enthusiasm when Janice tuned back in to her.
“Mina thinks he’ll top twenty-three feet when we crown him, and that’ll beat the school record.…”
Sylvester was the school snowman—a yearly tradition at Mount Carmel, weather permitting, the cooperative project of the entire student body.
“I’m happy to hear you’ve stopped coughing, dear,” Janice interposed.
“I still do at night a little. Postnasal drip. Nothing serious, the nurse said.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Jill O’Connor menstruates. At least that’s what she told Mina. And she’s only nine, Mom, do you believe it?”
“No, I don’t.” Janice laughed. “I think Jill O’Connor’s a fibber.”
“She’s a liar,” Ivy affirmed with sudden vehemence. “She’s spreading the craziest stories about me around the school.”
“What sort of stories?” Janice inquired with apprehension.
“She says I’m two people, that I’m some kind of freak and that it’s all over the radio and TV.”
Janice hesitated. “That’s silly.”
“I know,” Ivy answered cheerfully. “Besides, there aren’t any radios and TV’s allowed here anymore. Mother Veronica Joseph outlawed them last week. The sisters had a shakedown inspection and collected every one of them.”
Janice hesitated again.
“Daddy and I are looking forward to tomorrow,” she said, forcing a cheery note into her voice.
“So are we. Mina and I’ve decided on pork chops and french fries for supper. We hardly ever get meat here.”
There was no possible way to shield her from the truth forever. Sooner or later she would have to be told, and if Janice had her way, it would be sooner.
As soon as possible.
This weekend.
18
Sunk in a mood of agitated gloom, Janice forbore returning to the courtroom till the last possible moment, lingering in the ladies’ room to sponge her face and repair her makeup until she felt her continued absence ran the danger of exciting Bill’s curiosity. If she didn’t return soon, she was certain a matron would be dispatched to search for her.
One hour and twenty-five minutes after she had left, she returned to the big double doors and, reaching out to the brass handle, felt the door push silently outward as the guard emerged. Smiling and nodding, the elderly man graciously held the door open for Janice to enter.
“Thank you,” Janice whispered, and crossed the threshold.
The shock of what greeted her brought her to a full swaying stop. Holding onto the door handle, she found herself unable to move as she stood staring, in pained surprise, at Brice Mack battering questions at Bill, sitting grimly in the witness box. That Bill had been called to the stand as a witness was not what shocked Janice; it was that he had been called so soon. She had thought surely there would be several interim witnesses, Russ, Harold Yates, before it would be their turn. But for some reason, Scott Velie had put Bill on sooner, which meant that she would probably follow him. And probably today. It was still quite early. Janice was seized with panic. She had not counted on taking the stand today. She wasn’t prepared to or at least hadn’t fortified herself for the ordeal. She had banked on more time, the weekend at least, to think about it, to put her head in order, to get her act together. They had no right to rush her onto the stand like this.
Her return to her seat caused no stir among the spectators since all eyes and ears were firmly fixed on the witness box.
Brice Mack stood with his arms folded across his chest, shooting questions at Bill, who was sitting just inches away from him.
“You have declared under oath that the moment you ordered Mr. Hoover to leave, he seized you and flung you bodily over his head? Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And that prior to this hostile act of his, you did nothing that could, in any way, be construed as having, either by movement, gesture, or direct physical contact, precipitated this harsh and seemingly arbitrary reaction of Mr. Hoover’s?”
“I never laid a hand on him,” Bill said resolutely, failing to add that he had been given no opportunity to do so.
The defense attorney was about to question Bill further on this point, had a change of mind, and asked instead, “After the neck-pinching episode, Mr. Templeton, during which time you were paralyzed, tell me again, if you don’t mind, exactly what happened after Mr. Hoover released your carotid artery?”
“Well, as I said, my wife came out and helped pull him off me, at which point he turned and rushed into the apartment and locked himself inside.”
“Yes, so you’ve said, but think back, Mr. Templeton. Was he not, in fact, requested to enter your apartment?”
“Requested?”
“Yes, requested—by Ivy!”
Bill hesitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, Mr. Templeton, that Ivy’s pathetic cries and pleadings funneled down through the apartment and were heard and accepted by Mr. Hoover as a legitimate summons for his help, that’s what I mean!”
Bill shook his head. “I didn’t hear any cries or pleadings.”
“Is it not a fact that Ivy, just shortly prior to Mr. Hoover’s arrival, had experienced one of her nightmares—a nightmare from which she could not be awakened and of such a punishing nature as to require you and your wife to tie her to the bed?”
“Just a moment,” Velie interrupted. “I object to the form of the question. It calls for a compound answer, and furthermore, it is objectionable because it goes beyond the scope of direct examination.”
“The objection is sustained,” Judge Langley ruled.
Brice Mack shrugged. Then, turning to Bilclass="underline" “The witness is excused, but I will ask the court to instruct him to keep himself available to serve as a witness for the defense when we present our case.”