1919: Episode 1

FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW, every other Saturday afternoon Gail Westlake had been sending her son Jack to fetch a bucket of beer for her “gentleman caller,” Mister James Soames of San Francisco.

Though there were rumors in town that Soames was a married man and that his visits with a young war widow like Gail were shameful, Jack knew there was little he could do about it. “Best to leave sleepin’ dogs lie” was the advice his friend, Adam Tucker, had given him.

“Here’s the money,” Gail said, giving Jack a tin pail and a handful of coins, mostly pennies. “Hurry! Mister Soames will be here any minute.”

“Luigi won’t like this,” Jack protested. “He hates pennies.”

Gail looked sternly at her son. He had his father’s square jaw and wide-set blue eyes. It was a handsome face, but at moments like this she saw weakness. There was something furtive and desperate in Jack’s eyes. Like his father, he was too eager to win the approval of others. “Never mind what Luigi likes!” she retorted. “Get going!”

Jack made his way slowly along the wooden boardwalk on First Street until he came to the entrance of Campy’s Tavern. Because it was a hot August day, the bartender, Luigi Berico, had wedged the door open to keep a cross draft from the open windows at the rear of the barroom. The only patrons in Campy’s at this early afternoon hour were half a dozen farmers from out of town. Berico was engaged in animated conversation with one of them when Jack entered.

Placing his bucket on the bar top, Jack gazed around the dark and sparsely furnished interior of the place. Apart from the long bar itself, there were only a few battered wooden tables and chairs. The only décor consisted of four trophy elk antlers hung haphazardly against the long wall opposite the bar.

There was one feature of Campy’s Tavern that fascinated Jack, though. To discourage patrons from spitting on the floor, Campy’s brother-in-law, a plumber by trade, had installed a long metal trough on the floor directly in front of the bar. A steady stream of water flowed through this trough and emptied into a drain near the front entrance.

As he waited for Luigi, Jack suddenly noticed a five-dollar bill floating toward him in the trough. Checking to make sure no one was watching, Jack quickly reached down, picked up the bill, and stuffed it in the back pocket of his overalls.

Jack’s swift movement attracted Berico’s attention. “What d’ y’ want, kid?” he shouted.

Jack pointed to the empty bucket on the bar top. “Mom wants a bucket of beer.”

“Oh yeah?” Berico asked sarcastically as he ambled toward Jack. “And did your Momma give you the money to pay for that bucket of beer? Thirty-five cents, y’ know.”

Grimacing, Jack dumped his handful of coins on the bar top.

Angrily, Berico grabbed the bucket and quickly filled it from a barrel tap. Before giving the foaming bucket to Jack, though, he slowly and methodically counted each coin and dropped it into the till behind the bar. Jack had watched Berico go through this insulting ritual many times before. This time, Jack didn’t care. All he wanted now was to escape from Campy’s Tavern before one of the farmers realized he had lost his five-dollar bill.

On the street again, Jack carried the heavy bucket as fast as he could back to his mother’s second-floor apartment. As he climbed the outside stairway, he heard the tinkling sounds of Gail’s upright piano. She was playing one of her favorite ragtime tunes, her long fingers flying over the keys with joyful abandon. His mother was happy. Obviously, James Soames of San Francisco had arrived.

A tall, lean man with slicked-down black hair, a tiny moustache and shifty green eyes, Soames was lounging in his mother’s favorite mohair armchair when Jack entered the apartment. He had removed his coat, collar, and tie and was cooling himself with a hand-fan Gail had given him. He nodded a perfunctory greeting at Jack but concentrated on fanning himself.

“Did you bring Mister Soames his beer, Jack?” Gail asked as she continued playing.

Jack lifted the bucket onto the kitchen counter, slopping some of its contents on the floor.

“Be careful, Jack!” Gail scolded. Abruptly, she stood up from her piano stool and ladled beer into a ceramic mug for her guest. As she handed the mug to Soames, Gail said softly, “You may go out and play now, dear. Just stay close by so I can call you from the window.”

Jack did not reply. It was all part of the routine. His mother always sent him out to play whenever Soames came to visit. He knew she didn’t really care how far he roamed in the streets of Benicia, as long as he returned by suppertime.

Besides, Jack was eager to tell his friends about the treasure he had found. Five dollars was more than some grown men earned in a week. He could buy just about anything he wanted. The only problem was what — a Daisy air rifle, a shiny new Montgomery Ward bicycle? These were things Jack had always wanted but his mother could never afford. Even if he bought both of them, he might still have money to spare.

Because it was Saturday, First Street was busy with traffic. Scores of vehicles — from buckboard wagons drawn by old nags to new Model Ts — were trundling up and down between Military Road to the City Dock at the waterfront end of First Street, where several vehicles were now lined up to take the car ferry across the river to Martinez.

In 1919, Benicia was a hub of commerce for farmers who brought their grain, nuts and fruit there for shipment by train to Oakland and beyond, shopped for tools and clothing at Wilson’s Dry Goods, and purchased their harnesses, boots and saddles at McClaren’s Tannery. While the farm wives shopped, many of their husbands would visit local saloons like Campy’s Tavern, The Pastime Card Room, or Wink’s Bar. There were more than eighteen of these establishments on First Street, especially close to the waterfront.

The air was filled with dust from the sun-baked dirt surface of First Street — dust that, on a hot summer day, could be as thick as the fog that rolled in through the Carquinez Strait from San Pablo Bay during the winter months. Everywhere you looked, there was dust — especially on people’s boots and shoes, Jack noted, as he stepped down into the street from the wooden sidewalk.

“Watch where you’re goin’, boy!” an angry driver shouted at him as Jack barely missed being struck by the fender of a passing flatbed truck.

His friend, Del Lanham, was waving at him from the stoop in front of Wilson’s store. “Hurry up, Jack. I want to show you something.” She ran into the store ahead of him.

Del was different from most other girls Jack knew. Even though she usually wore a pinafore, Del preferred overalls so she could do daring things like climb to the top of the big water tower near the railroad tracks and throw rocks at the turkey buzzards when they flew low over the tule flats.

It was dark and cool inside Wilson’s Dry Goods store, which was full of interesting smells and sights — everything from sweet-smelling spices and local-grown apples to shiny new shovels and headless wire dummies displaying women’s outer garments. Del stopped in front of the big glassed-in display case where Wilson had filled several wooden trays with penny candy.

“Look, I have some money!” Del declared, holding up two shiny quarters. “We can buy us a whole bunch of candy with this!”

Jack wanted to say he had some money too — a lot more than Del! But he decided to say nothing. After all, Del’s father was a courtroom judge and owned two cars and a big Victorian house on West G Street. He and his daughter could well afford to be generous.

Then he saw it. On a shelf high above the candy counter sat a sleekly varnished wooden box with an iron footrest on its top. Instantly, Jack knew how he would use his five-dollar bill. He would buy that shoeshine kit and start his own business. What better place to do it than here in Benicia? There were bound to be hundreds of shoeshine customers in a town where one of the biggest industries was McClaren’s Tannery.

“So what kind do you want?” Del asked, startling Jack out of his train of thought.

“Ahm … let’s see,” he answered, studying the trays full of multi-colored gumballs, black licorice sticks, chunks of chocolate fudge, and cherry-colored jawbreakers. “I’ll take five licorice and ten of them jawbreakers.”

“You mean those jawbreakers,” Del corrected.

Del was always doing that, Jack thought resentfully — correcting his grammar or telling him how to pronounce some new word he tried to use. He supposed that was because Del was a teacher’s pet at Saint Catherine’s Seminary.

He put up with it, though, because Del was a good friend. She was always generous about sharing things.

1919: Episode 2

“HELLO THERE, MISSY,” Vernon Wilkie chirped as he leaned over the counter and grinned at Del. “What do ya wanna buy today?” Wilkie was one of the clerks who worked in Wilson’s store. He was a scrawny little man with buckteeth and one eye that constantly twitched.

“Five licorice, ten jawbreakers, and fifteen gumballs, please.” Del loved gumballs because she could blow bubbles with them. In fact, Jack thought, she could blow bigger bubbles than anyone else he knew.

Wilkie dropped the candy into a brown paper bag and handed it to Del. “That’ll be thirty cents, Missy.”

Del gave Wilkie the two quarters. “Kaching!” sounded the cash register behind the counter. Wilkie dropped the quarters into the till and handed Del two dimes in change. These she put into the snap-purse she always carried in a side pocket of her pinafore. Turning to Jack, she said, “Come on. Let’s go down by the dock to eat our candy.”

Jack stood his ground. “No. I wanna buy something else first.”

Del looked at him in astonishment. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “You can’t buy anything. You don’t have any money.”

“That’s what you think,” Jack said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the still-moist five-dollar bill.

“Where’d you get that?” Wilkie demanded. “You didn’t steal it from your Momma, I hope!”

“I didn’t steal it,” Jack said, keeping calm, even though he was very angry with Wilkie for accusing him. “I found it, and I want to buy that shoeshine kit up there.”

Wilkie shook his head, still convinced that Jack had done something dishonest. “Lemme see that bill.”

“Not ’til you let me see that shoeshine box first,” Jack insisted.

Again Wilkie shook his head suspiciously. “I s’pose I could let you see it,” he admitted. Pulling a step-stool from under the candy counter, he climbed up to take the shoeshine box down from its shelf. Then, keeping a firm grip on the box, he slid it across the counter toward Jack.

Jack reached inside and pulled out some of its contents, which included three small glass jars of differently colored shoe polish, two flannel rags, and two stiff-bristled shoe brushes. After carefully examining each of these items, Jack placed his five-dollar bill on the counter.

Wilkie quickly reached for it. As soon as he felt its moist surface, he drew back his hand. “Where’d you get that slimy thing — outta somebody’s privy?”

Del promptly leaned over the bill and sniffed it. “Nope. Doesn’t smell like it to me,” she announced with a defiant grin.

“I ain’t pickin’ that thing up with my bare hands!” Wilkie declared. “You’ll jus’ have to wait ’til I get a rag or somethin’ t’ clean it off.” Taking the shoeshine box with him, he disappeared into a room at the back of the store.

“Don’t know why he’s so fussy,” Jack said to Del as he retrieved his bill and stuffed it back in his pocket. “Money’s money, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it,” Del corrected. But she did so with a smile that told Jack she agreed with him. “So where’d you find it?” she asked.

“In the spittoon trough at Campy’s.”

“Eeww! You mean you just picked it up out of a filthy trough?”

Jack nodded. Then, noticing that Wilkie was returning, he put his index finger to his lips. “Shhh!”

Wilkie came back to the front of the store, still clutching the shoeshine kit in both hands, along with a clean dustrag. “Now,” he said, “Lemme see that bill.”

Jack again put his five-dollar bill on the counter. Gingerly, Wilkie placed his dustrag on top of it and tried to wipe it dry. Then, with one finger, he flipped it over and tried to dry the other side. Next he picked the bill up with both hands and carried it over to the big store window where he carefully examined it in the light from the street. “Guess it’s alright,” he said at last and returned to open the cash register drawer and drop in Jack’s five-dollar bill.

“Wait a minute!” Jack declared. “You ain’t told me how much it costs yet.”

Wilkie looked surprised at first, but his expression quickly turned to anger. “Two dollars and fifty cents!” he snapped.

“That’s too much!” Jack retorted. “It’s nothin’ but an old wood box with some little jars, rags and brushes in it. I could buy them things separate for a lot less.”

“So go ahead!” Wilkie growled and slammed the cash register drawer closed. “I ain’t sellin’ this kit for one penny less!”

“Then gimme my five dollars back,” Jack said.

“What’s goin’ on here?” another voice asked. It was Cliff Wilson, the store owner. Wilson was a big man who moved and talked very slowly, as if he were never in a hurry to do anything.

“This kid comes in here with a filthy old fiver and tells me he won’t pay for this shoeshine kit he wants,” Wilkie whined.

“Why not?” Wilson asked.

“He says it costs too much.”

Wilson took the shoeshine box from Wilkie and held it up to look for the price tag he himself had pasted to the bottom. “Dollar forty, it says here.”

“That isn’t what Mister Wilkie told Jack!” Del angrily protested. “He said it was two dollars and fifty cents.”

Wilkie’s face turned white with fear.

“Well,” Wilson said without so much as glancing at his store clerk, “the price tag says a dollar forty. You want it for that price, young man?”

“Yes sir,” Jack said.

“Give the boy his change and wrap that shoebox up for him,” Wilson said to Wilkie. He then calmly walked back to the rear of the store.

“Sorry, kid. Guess I shoulda checked the price tag,” Wilkie muttered grudgingly as he handed the wrapped package, and three dollars and sixty cents in change, to Jack.

“You better be careful, Mister Wilkie,” Del warned as she and Jack walked out of the store with their purchases. “Guess you showed him!” she whispered triumphantly to Jack.

“Aw, forget it,” Jack said. “Let’s go see what Adam’s doing.”

1919: Episode 3

ADAM TUCKER WAS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN who had been a munitions and motor pool officer stationed at the Benicia Arsenal during The Great War. He was discharged from the Army in 1917 because an accidental explosion had blown off his right hand. An Army surgeon replaced it with a steel hook.

In spite of his handicap, Tucker was a skilled auto mechanic. He knew more about car repair and could do more with his left hand and his hook than almost any other skilled artisan in the North Bay. People from miles around went to Tucker whenever they needed work done on their wagons, cars or trucks.

Many children and teenaged boys in town liked to watch Tucker while he worked on the vehicles in his garage, which was in an old blacksmith’s shop on West H Street. The young people were fascinated by the mysteries of the combustion engine and the skill with which Tucker could manipulate tools with his hook. A patient and gentle man, Tucker didn’t mind the spectators as long as they didn’t get in his way or stand too close to his mechanical equipment.

“Whose car are you working on, Mister Tucker?” Del asked as she and Jack stood in the open doorway of his garage.

Tucker, who was leaning over the engine compartment of a 1917 Model T Touring Car, did not look up from his task. “This be Miss Ebert’s car. Gotta fix her carb’retor,” he explained.

Not knowing what a carburetor was, Del simply said, “I see.” She didn’t want Tucker, or either of the two teenaged boys who were standing near her, know how ignorant she was.

So she whispered in Jack’s ear, “What’s a car brator?”

“How should I know?” Jack said out loud.

One of the teenagers, Calvin Watrous, laughed derisively. “Carburetor’s what feeds gas to the engine,” he explained superciliously.

Del felt her face turn red with embarrassment.

“Well no, Cal. Actu’ly it don’t just do that,” Tucker corrected, straightening up and looking around at his young admirers. “Carb’retor mixes gas with air. You got to have air to ignite the fuel. I had to put a new float in this one.”

Del stuck her tongue out at Calvin.

“Let’s see if she works now,” Tucker said as he shoved a hand crank into the slot under the radiator at the front of Miss Ebert’s car and gave it a quick turn with his left hand. The engine sputtered several times but did not start. Tucker cranked it again. This time, the motor rattled into action. Again, Tucker leaned over the engine block and adjusted something that made the engine run more smoothly. “Guess she’s all fixed,” Tucker announced and closed the metal hood. Then, turning to Del and Jack, he asked, “You two wanna take her for a tes’ ride?”

“Sure!” Del and Jack said simultaneously.

“How ’bout me?” Calvin protested.

Tucker gave him a stern look. “You boys stay here with Billy and guard the garage.”

Billy Sparks was a 17-year-old mixed-race boy — people around town called him a “mulatto” — who worked as Tucker’s apprentice. The rumor around town was that Billy was Tucker’s son, though nobody had any proof of that and Tucker himself claimed the boy was an orphan.

Tucker opened one of the backseat doors of the Model T. “Hop in, you two. We’s off an’ runnin’!”

As soon as Jack and Del climbed in, Tucker closed the door. “Don’t you be touchin’ them door handles, now,” he warned. “You can fall out an’ get hurt.”

“We won’t. We promise, Mister Tucker,” Del assured him.

Nodding his approval, Tucker climbed into the driver’s seat, released the hand brake, and slowly eased Miss Ebert’s Touring Car out toward the heavy traffic on First Street. Turning right, he drove the vehicle toward the waterfront.

Jack and Del were excited. They waved proudly at all the pedestrians they passed on the street. Several people gave them dirty looks, appalled that two white children would be riding in a car driven by a Negro.

“She sounds pretty good,” Tucker announced proudly. But then, suddenly, the car’s engine began to sputter again. “Uh-oh!” Tucker exclaimed. “Somethin’ wrong.” As the engine stalled out, he guided the vehicle toward the side of the street, where he locked the hand brake and stepped out of the car. “You stay put while I check to see what’s wrong,” he said.

Tucker opened the hood and examined the fuel line. “Well, I’ll be!” he declared. “I do believe she’s out o’ gas. You two stay here while I goes back n’ gets us a can. Don’t you be touchin’ nothin’ now!” he warned again as he headed back up the street toward his garage.

“Want a gumball?” Del asked, reaching into her paper bag to add to the two she was already chewing.

“Nah,” Jack said. “I don’t like them things. They’re too sweet. Gimme a licorice.”

“Those things,” Del corrected as she drew a black licorice stick out of her paper bag. “And you should always say ‘please,’” she added.

“Please, Miss Lanham — can I have a licorice stick?” Jack mocked.

“You may, Mister Westlake,” she replied with equal sarcasm. They both giggled.

For the next several minutes they sat contentedly chewing and watching the busy activity on First Street. “Have you heard about the big parade next Sunday?” Del suddenly asked.

Jack nodded. “Mom told me about it. She said it’s to celebrate the new law against drinking.”

“That’s not all it’s about,” Del said. “It’s also about women’s suffrage.”

“What’s that?” Jack asked. He had heard the term before, but he had no idea what it meant.

Del gave him a withering look. “Women’s right to vote. It’s another new law they’re passing. It’ll mean every woman over 21 can vote. Papa says he thinks it’s a silly law, but I think it’s wonderful.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

Before Del could answer, their conversation was interrupted.

“Where’s the driver of this car?” a deep male voice asked. Startled, Jack and Del looked up to see a tall man in a dark blue uniform leaning in over the steering wheel. It was Constable Frank Cody, a man whom Jack immediately recognized because he had often seen him patrolling the street in front of Campy’s Tavern.

“He went to get some gas,” Del promptly answered. “He’ll be back soon.”

“Who is he?” Cody asked, pulling a booklet out of his back pocket and starting to fill in a summons form.

“Oh, please don’t give him a ticket, sir,” Del begged. “It’s Mister Tucker. He just fixed Miss Ebert’s car and was taking it for a road test.”

“He didn’t know it was out of gas ’cause Model T’s don’t have gas gauges,” Jack explained, hoping to impress both Del and Cody with his knowledge of automobiles.

The constable acted as if he did not hear them. He finished filling out the summons, tore out a copy and dropped it on the driver’s seat. “You tell Tucker t’ test his cars someplace else. First Street ain’t no place for test drives.”

“But he isn’t driving it now,” Del corrected. “He just parked it here for a few minutes to go back and get some gasoline.”

“Ain’t no parkin’ on First Street neither,” Cody said with a sly smile.

“What do you mean?” Del demanded angrily. “Look at all these other cars parked along here. People can park their cars anywhere they want.”

“Regular people maybe,” Cody snarled, “but not niggers like Tucker.” Having made his point, the constable walked on down the street.

“He’s terribly mean!” Del declared. “I’m gonna tell Papa.”

“Won’t do any good,” Jack said. “That’s Frank Cody. He’s the mayor’s son.”

“We’ll just see about that!” Del retorted.

When Tucker returned with his can of gas and saw the summons, he quickly stuffed it into his overalls pocket. Then he poured gasoline into the tank of the car and cranked the engine again.

Del tried to tell him how mean Constable Cody had been, but Tucker waved his hand indifferently. “Don’t pay it no mind, Miss Del.”

“I’m still telling Papa,” Del insisted. “It’s not fair!”

1919: Episode 4

BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL AGAIN, Adam released the handbrake and carefully eased the Touring Car into traffic. At the next intersection, he turned right and drove around the block. As they pulled into the garage, Jack suddenly realized he did not have his shoeshine box.

“Where’d you leave it?” Del asked anxiously. “Hope nobody stole it.”

“I think I left it on the ground when we got into the car, right near where we were standing,” he told Del.

“Don’t you be worryin’, boy,” Adam said. “We fin’ it.” He called out to Billy, who was working the metal lathe. “Billy, you seen a package layin’ aroun’ here?”

Billy did not look up from his work. He simply gestured toward some large open shelves along the back wall of the garage.

“Tha’ she is,” Adam said as he retrieved Jack’s package from a collection of cans and small engine parts on one of the shelves and handed it to Jack.

“Thanks, Mister Adam,” Jack said. Then, turning to Del, he asked, “You think your Papa’d mind if you took it home with you and kept it at your house?”

“Why?” Del asked. “Don’t you want to take it with you?”

“I don’t want Mom to see it,” he explained. “She’ll ask too many questions about how I got it, and I don’t want her to know.”

“Why not?” Del demanded. “You didn’t steal it, so why worry?”

“Well, no. I didn’t steal it. But she’ll want to know where I got the money to buy it. And then she’s liable to say I should take it back to Wilson’s and get my money back and then give the whole five dollars to old man Campy.”

“That’s silly!” Del declared. “You didn’t steal that money. You just got lucky and found it. Finders keepers.”

“You don’t know Mom. She’s very particular about things like that. ‘Honesty’s the best policy,’ she always says.”

Del still thought Jack was being foolish, but she decided not to argue. Instead, she asked, “So what do I tell Papa? You know he’s going to want to know why I’m keeping that package for you.”

Jack thought for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you just tell him it’s a surprise birthday present for your teacher at school or something?”

“That’s an even sillier idea!” Del declared. “You know he’s going to ask me what’s in the package.”

“Never mind,” Jack said and started to leave with his package.

Adam, who had been standing and listening to this dialogue, intervened. “You can keep it here if you want, Jack,” he suggested.

Jack’s face lit up. “I can? Gee, Mister Adam! Thanks!”

Adam smiled and put the package back on the shelf. “You can come get it any time you want,” he said. “It’ll be safe, an’ I won’t tell nobody.”

“He’s such a nice man,” Del said as she and Jack left the garage and walked back toward First Street.

“That’s because he knows what it’s like to be poor,” Jack observed.

“What do you mean?”

“When you’re poor, you got to keep secrets,” Jack answered, “’cause people are always trying to steal from you.”

“Why would they want to steal from you if you’re poor?” Del giggled.

Jack did not respond. He decided Del would probably never understand.

Just then, they heard the sound of a train whistle. “Oh, that’s the 5:15!” Del exclaimed. “I’ve got to go now, or Papa will be very angry.” Immediately, she ran to the corner and down First Street toward home.

The traffic was even heavier now as Jack walked slowly south on First Street. Most of the pedestrian and vehicular traffic was moving toward the Benicia depot as people rushed to meet the passenger train from Sacramento.

Unlike Del, Jack was in no hurry to get home. He knew his mother would be in a bad mood when he returned, as she always was after a visit from Soames. Often on such occasions, he had found her sitting in her mohair armchair, weeping.

Jack didn’t understand exactly why his mother acted the way she did, but he did not like to be around her when she was unhappy. He decided to walk down to the depot and watch the switch engine push the passenger cars onto the train ferry that would carry them across the river to Port Costa.

Walking past the entrance of Campy’s Tavern again, Jack noticed the place was now filled to capacity with boisterous male patrons. By sundown, many of them would start reeling across First Street toward the Lido — the largest of several bordellos located near the railroad depot. On either side and to the rear of this two-story building, rows of small private rooms, or “cribs,” had been erected where the women who worked at the Lido would entertain their customers.

The Lido was a source of considerable embarrassment to many upright citizens. But as it had long been one of the most successful business enterprises in Benicia, the town fathers had little alternative; all they could do was confine and control the nefarious activities at the Lido through strictly enforced zoning laws. To protect the health of Benicia’s citizens, they also passed an ordinance requiring that the Lido’s proprietor, Mrs. “K.T.” Parker, send all her female employees to a local physician for weekly checkups — a requirement with which Parker was perfectly willing to comply, since it enhanced the quality of her services.

Jack and his friends always stayed on the opposite side of First Street when they passed the Lido, for parents, teachers, preachers and policemen constantly warned that severe punishment would be meted out to any minor who so much as exchanged a civil word with Mrs. Parker or one of her “girls.” Even so, 9-year-old boys like Jack couldn’t resist sidelong glances at the attractive young women who often waved at them from the second floor bay windows of the Lido.

The depot was crowded when Jack got there. Hundreds of people were greeting newly arrived passengers from Sacramento or bidding others farewell as they climbed aboard the Pullman cars. Porters scurried here and there with luggage, and trainyard workers shouted to each other as the locomotive was decoupled from the front of the passenger train and moved slowly onto a sidetrack.

Jack loved the sound of hissing steam the huge engine made as it moved, its enormous steel wheels revolving slowly but potently, its connecting rods sliding back and forth like the limbs of some giant preparing to charge.

Even as he lay in bed at night, Jack took comfort in the hooting, clanging and chugging racket the steam locomotives made only a few hundred yards from Mrs. Brown’s boarding house where he and his mother lived. They evoked an almost supernatural power that he felt driving relentlessly forward within himself. They were both the monsters and the angels of his boyhood dreams.

Jack joined the crowd of spectators at the waterfront end of First Street to watch as the passenger cars were slowly pushed aboard the Solano — one of the two large ferries that carried rolling stock across the Strait.

Loading the Solano was an arduous and time-consuming task. The passenger cars in the original train had to be pushed aboard in coupled sets, each on one of four parallel tracks built onto the ferry deck, as long and wide as a football field. After each set of cars had been pushed into place, it had to be uncoupled. Then a switch engine pulled back the rest of the train so the next set of cars could be pushed aboard on a parallel track.

Jack yearned to watch these mechanical operations, but there were so many others already crowding for a view that it was impossible for him to get close enough. He decided to walk to the other side of the depot so he could at least watch the switch engine as it moved backward and forward on the tracks approaching the ferry.

As he passed the waiting platform, Jack overheard the conversation between a young couple who had apparently just gotten off the train from Sacramento. The man was wearing a two-piece white linen suit and a Panama hat. The woman wore a canary yellow dress and carried a matching purse and parasol.

“Good heavens!” the woman complained. “What a dreadful smell! What is it?”

“I have no idea,” her companion replied. “Perhaps we should get back on the train instead of waiting here.”

“Yes, let’s do!” the woman said as she led the way back down the steps.

Jack couldn’t help smiling at this conversation. It was obvious these travelers had never stopped in Benicia before. Like most newcomers, they were reacting to the rancid odors coming from McClaren’s Tannery.

They did not realize that, inside the five-story brick building just a few blocks away, teams of men was busily scraping hair and flesh from the hides of recently slaughtered cows, horses, pigs and goats — the first step in a manufacturing process that created a horrid stench in Benicia, both day and night.

But then Jack noticed something much more offensive. His mother’s friend Soames was standing near the entrance to the Express Office, flirting with one of the pretty young women who worked at the Lido.

Now he understood why his mother was unhappy whenever Soames came to visit.

1919: Episode 5

THOUGH IT WAS SUNDAY, Del awoke an hour before sunrise. As she knelt beside her bed to say her morning prayers, she heard the seals barking out on the water. Quickly she ran to the window, hoping to glimpse some of the creatures frolicking close to shore.

But the faint light of pre-dawn was only beginning to define the eastern horizon. The shoreline at the foot of the bluffs in front of Del’s house was still completely shrouded in darkness. All she could see were the lights at the train ferry terminal a quarter of a mile away and, more than a mile away on the opposite shore of the river, the flickering lights of Martinez.

Del knew the seals were not far out there in the darkness, though. For it was August — the time of year when millions of salmon crowded through the Carquinez Strait and rushed up the Sacramento River to their spawning pools. The predatory seals were always in hot pursuit of this sumptuous fare. Feeling compassion for the desperate salmon, Del murmured a prayer to their patron, Saint Francis. Then, putting on her bathrobe and slippers, she tiptoed down the staircase, careful not to wake her father.

Because it was Sunday, their live-in housekeeper, Ruby Hicks, had the day off so she could perform her duties as Head Deaconness at the Evangelical Baptist Church in Vallejo. Del would have the whole house to herself for at least an hour. Very quietly, she crept into the kitchen pantry, where she knew she would find the bowl of cherries Ruby had picked the day before. Taking a large handful, she went into her father’s study to find something interesting to read.

Next to her own bedroom, her father’s study was Del’s favorite room in the house — even though it often reeked from the stench of his cigars. With its high ceiling, dark mahogany paneling, and comfortable Mission-style armchairs — as well as its three tall windows looking out onto the street and back yard — her father’s study made a wonderful retreat.

Two full walls in Judge Lanham’s study were covered floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves crammed full of thick, leather-bound volumes. Most of these were books about California law and history. But there was a special low-level shelf the Judge had reserved for Del containing books he considered appropriate for a nine-year-old girl to read. Among the titles he had chosen were Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” London’s “Call of the Wild,” and Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.”

Del had already read many of these books, even though her Aunt Lucy thought most of them more suitable for older readers. Del had not yet tried one of the newest additions to her special library — Burnett’s “The Secret Garden.” She decided the title looked interesting. Pulling this volume from its shelf, she sat down in her father’s large, leather-cushioned armchair and, within minutes, was completely absorbed.

Two hours later, her father suddenly appeared in the doorway to his study. “Adelaide, hurry and get dressed! It’s time to go to Mass! Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

Surprised that she had not even heard the hourly chiming of the big grandfather clock in the front hallway, Del immediately jumped up. “Oh! yes, Papa,” she said. “But this is such a wonderful book. Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

Her father walked over and took Burnett’s novel from her hands. Looking at its title, he said, “Hmm — ‘The Secret Garden.’ I’m afraid I’ve never read this book. Your Aunt Lucy recommended it to me. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, my dear. But we really must be going now. I’ll wait for you in the car.” As Del rushed upstairs to her bedroom, the Judge called after her, “Don’t dilly-dally,” he ordered sternly.

Unlike most Benicians, Judge Lanham owned two cars — a 1916 Model T Roadster and a 1915 Twin Six Packard Phaeton. The latter was a huge and powerful black four-door sedan and was the envy of everyone in town. Judge Lanham kept both vehicles in a large car barn in his back yard.

This morning, he chose to use the two-seat Roadster because it was only a short drive from his home on West G Street to St. Dominic’s Church on East I Street. Parking the much larger Phaeton would be a great nuisance. Besides, though proud of his possessions, the Judge was averse to ostentatious displays of any kind. He considered it unbecoming to a seated member of the Solano District Court Bench.

Del thought differently. She liked nothing better than to be seen driving through town in her father’s big Phaeton. She was very disappointed when she learned they were driving to Mass in the much humbler Roadster. “Oh Papa!” she declared. “I do wish we could ride in the Phaeton.”

“The Phaeton, young lady, is only for long trips,” her father said emphatically.

It didn’t take long for Del to spot her friend Maggie in the crowd of people leaving St. Dominic’s Church after Mass that morning because Maggie’s father, George Woolsey, was one of the tallest men in the parish. As President of the Bank of Italy on First Street, he was always stopped after Mass and engaged in lengthy conversation by the pastor and one or more of the parishioners who did business with George’s bank.

As soon as she saw Del, Maggie boasted, “Guess what! My sister Colleen’s going to be The Temperance Queen in the parade next Saturday. She’s the prettiest girl in town. Everybody says so.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Del declared, trying to sound enthusiastic even though she did not at all agree Colleen Woolsey was the prettiest girl in Benicia. There were many others who were prettier — even some of the young women who worked at the Lido! Del would never say that to her friend Maggie, however. “Is there going to be a marching band in the parade?” Del asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Of course. Momma says there’s going to be lots of marching bands. There’s the drum and bugle band from the Arsenal, of course. And then there’s the Benicia High School band, the Navy band, and even Doc Blackburn’s Montezuma Minstrel Band from Vallejo.”

“A minstrel band?” Del asked, astonished that such a group would be allowed to participate, for many of its members were Negroes.

“Yes. They’re going to march in front of the John Barleycorn float. Momma says the float’s going to be fixed up to look like a hearse with a coffin inside and inside the coffin they’re going to put a dummy dressed up like John Barleycorn and the minstrel band’s going to play a funeral march — just to make fun of people who drink liquor.”

“That’s silly!” said Del, recalling her father’s disparaging remarks about the 18th Amendment. “John Barleycorn’s just an imaginary character in one of Jack London’s books.”

“No it’s not!” Maggie retorted. “Momma says it’s very serious and thank goodness they passed the new law so now there’ll be no more drunks.”

Del had to admit that it would certainly be better if they got rid of all the drunks in Benicia. Even her father would agree with that. “Well, I hope your Momma’s right,” she said.

“Momma’s always right!” Maggie declared, astonished that her friend could think otherwise.

At this point, Maggie’s older sister Colleen interrupted their conversation. Grabbing Maggie’s wrist, she commanded, “Come on, Maggie. We’ve got to go now.”

Del was furious. Colleen had been terribly rude. She had not even said hello to Del. “Prettiest girl in town indeed!” she fumed.

1919: Episode 6

AS WAS CUSTOMARY for several of Benicia’s more prosperous families, after church on Sundays Del and her father brunched in the formal dining room of the Palace Hotel on the corner of First and H streets. Locally, the Palace was billed as “Benicia’s only first-class hotel.” Its two upper floors of side-by-side bay windows rose above its covered ground-floor esplanade like the tiers of a giant wedding cake.

The walls of the Palace Hotel dining room were decorated with murals depicting scenes of the Carquinez Strait when the indigenous Patwin Indian tribes had fished for salmon and shad in its swift-moving waters and hunted the beaver, elk, and grizzly bear that roamed and foraged freely in the surrounding marshes and hills. Del particularly liked the mural closest to the table where she and her father were now sitting. It depicted a Carquinez hunter crouched in his balsa canoe, poised to launch his spear at a beaver swimming in the tules.

Del’s imaginings were suddenly interrupted by the loud contralto voice of Florence Henshak. “Hello there, Clyde!” she trilled flirtatiously from two tables away where she was sitting with her husband, Oscar, and their two children — fifteen-year-old Rowena and nine-year-old Greg. “Why don’t you come join us?”

Greg was one of Del’s best friends, but she did not like Florence Henshak. Though superficially cheerful and solicitous, Florence would explode in a rage at the slightest provocation. She bossed her husband and children around mercilessly and constantly bragged about the famous people she knew.

Judge Lanham waved cautiously at the woman and focused on the menu the waiter had just given him. Florence Henshak was not to be ignored, however. Standing up, she called across the dining room, “Don’t be standoffish, Clyde! Come over here and sit with us.” To this loud command several other patrons in the dining room reacted with scornful stares. Del felt terribly embarrassed.

“I suppose we really should accept her invitation, Adelaide,” the Judge murmured sheepishly. Rising from his chair, he motioned Del to follow him to the Henshaks’ table. “Are you quite sure we’re not imposing?” he asked as they approached.

“’Course not!” Oscar said offhandedly. Although Oscar Henshak was in his late forties, with his plump, clean-shaven face and full head of flaxen hair he looked not a day over thirty. Without standing up to greet his guests, Oscar signaled the waiter to bring two additional chairs for their table. Then, nodding indifferently at Del, he resumed eating his plate of oysters. “Plenty o’ room,” he somehow managed to say with his mouth full.

“How are you, my dear?” Florence asked, embracing Del as if she were a long-lost relative. “We haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been hiding all this time?”

Caught short by this question, Del looked desperately at her father. She had no idea how to answer.

“Del hasn’t been hiding, Florence,” the Judge said firmly. “She has been very busy this summer helping Ruby around the house. She’s old enough now to take on some of the household chores.”

Del couldn’t help smiling. Her father rarely if ever asked her to perform household chores. Raised in a Victorian household himself, Clyde Lanham believed female children should be treated as hothouse flowers.

There were several reasons why Del and her friends rarely visited Greg Henshak at his parents’ house. For one, it was almost a mile north of town, high in the hills overlooking Benicia. A sprawling two-story ranch house, it had scores of rooms and hired help, including two maids, four groundskeepers, a cook and a butler. That was another reason for the infrequency of Del’s visits — all those servants monitoring everything.

What made Del and her friends most uncomfortable, though, was Florence’s constant bullying and cajoling. “Stay away from the horse and car barns, children!” she would warn. “And don’t you dare go near my perennial gardens! No tree climbing and no running around in the yard or the house either!”

Now in the genteel dining room of the Palace Hotel, however, Florence Henshak was all sweetness and light. “Come sit here next to me, dear,” she urged as the waiter brought an extra chair for Del. “My! What pretty yellow flowers!” Florence gushed, touching Del’s coronet of daisies.

“They’re to show my support for Women’s Suffrage,” Del said, knowing full well this remark would not sit well with Florence, who believed very strongly that a woman’s proper place is in the home.

“I can’t imagine why a nice young girl like you would want to do that,” Florence snapped irritably. “Those suffragettes are just a bunch of hussies!”

“So who you puttin’ behind bars this month, Judge?” Oscar quipped as Del’s father sat down beside him.

“Actually, I have an estate settlement hearing tomorrow,” the Judge replied. “There are no criminal charges involved — just some greedy relatives squabbling over their share of the spoils.”

Oscar snickered. “Oh, I know all about that! You shoulda seen what a mess we had when my old man died. Why, they was relatives comin’ out o’ the woodwork! Even one of our own servants tried to stake a claim. Didn’t do ’em no good, though, ’cause I had me one o’ the meanest lawyers in San Francisco. He chewed up all them phony claims in no time.”

Oscar Henshak III was the grandson of an entrepreneur who had hit the “mother lode” when gold was first discovered in California. The grandsire had made his fortune not from mining or panning gold but from selling camping supplies and equipment to the thousands of prospectors who poured into the state in 1849. In the years that followed the Gold Rush, Oscar’s grandsire had invested his profits in the railroad industry — adding even more to his wealth.

Oscar and his family were now living off this accumulated horde.

Del was desperate to correct the man’s grammar. How, she wondered, could such a wealthy man be so ignorant! But at least Oscar’s outburst had distracted Florence. For the woman immediately jumped into the men’s conversation with more details about the people who had tried to break her father-in-law’s will. This gave Del a chance to tell Greg about Jack’s good fortune. Leaning close to him, she whispered the story in his ear.

“What are you two conniving about?” Florence suddenly demanded.

“Oh nothing, Momma,” Greg said softly, his face white with fear.

“Then why are you whispering?”

“We didn’t want to interrupt you and Mister Henshak and Papa,” Del quickly explained.

“Hmff!” Florence expostulated. But a waiter had just placed in front of her a sumptuous plate of roast duck with orange sauce, au gratin potatoes, and fresh green string beans to which, along with a second glass of champagne, she now eagerly gave her full attention.

By the time dessert was served, Oscar and Florence Henshak had polished off a full bottle between them. Both were in a holiday mood when the Judge politely explained he had to return home to work on the next day’s court hearing. Del and her father made their escape with little fanfare.

1919: Episode 7

CAVE BEACH WAS LOCATED ONLY ONE BLOCK west of Del’s house, at the end of the boardwalk that ran from City Beach on West E to Rosario’s boat dock on West G. Unlike City Beach, which was a bona fide public facility complete with clean white sand and a row of wooden beach houses where bathers could change their clothes, Cave Beach was a shallow inlet that, at low tide, became a mud flat the size of two football fields.

Local residents referred to the area as “Cave Beach” because of a seven-foot-deep hole the waters of the Strait had carved out in the sandstone bluff adjacent to Rosario’s dock. It was rumored that lovers would meet in this “cave” for late-night trysts.

What attracted Del and her friends to Cave Beach on hot summer days was not the cave but the mudflat. Here boys from all over town would gather at low tide to launch their homemade wooden sleds and race each other by paddling across the broad swath of slippery brown muck. It was a messy sport, of which few respectable parents in Benicia (if they knew about it) would approve, for at the north end of Cave Beach a large, rusty pipe dumped raw sewage into the makeshift playground.

Wearing old overalls and sandals, Del had sneaked out of the front door that Monday afternoon while Ruby was beating rugs on the back porch. Knowing she would need a change of clothes, Del had stuffed her pinafore and a towel in a canvas bag. She would change later in one of the public beach houses.

As she walked down the boardwalk toward Cave Beach, she saw her friends Jack, Greg, Sam Geddis and dozens of other boys propelling their boards across the flat, shouting at each other to get out of the way and often colliding. Del ran to the edge of the mud flat and called out, “Jack! Let me borrow your sled!”

But Jack was too preoccupied with racing Sam across the flat. Then Del saw Greg, who was just about to launch his own board. “Greg, wait!” she commanded. “Ladies first!” she added, assuming Greg would respond to this reminder of his gentlemanly duties.

She was wrong. Though he had looked directly at Del, Greg simply waved and flopped down on his board. Then, paddling furiously, he propelled himself beyond the reach of her voice.

Crestfallen, Del decided she would have to wait until one of her friends was ready to share. She walked back along the beach toward Rosario’s wharf, climbed onto it, and sat gazing out across the Carquinez Strait. The broad expanse of water was as smooth as a glass mirror reflecting the bright blue sky of a cloudless summer day.

It was not always so. In early spring and late fall, the waters of the Strait were often roiled with white caps as strong winds swept in from the northwest. Every morning during the winter months, heavy fog rolled in from San Pablo Bay, completely obscuring the high green hills on the opposite shore.

No matter the season, Del delighted in the changing moods of the Carquinez Strait. Often she felt they complemented her own. Right now, she reveled in the stillness of the water and landscape before her. Indifferent to the frantic shouts of the mud-sledders, Del identified with the tiny bodies of two seagulls drifting soundlessly out on the water, and with the solitary turkey buzzard making slow circles in the sky directly overhead.

The staccato sputtering of a single-cylinder gasoline engine interrupted her reverie. Glancing in the direction of the sound, she saw the long white hull and canvas roof of Rosario’s twelve-passenger ferry approaching. Only one person was aboard on the vessel’s return trip from Port Costa. Miguel Rosario himself stood at the wheel in the stern of his converted whaleboat. “Oy, Francisco!” Rosario shouted as his vessel approached.

A door in the storage shed at the end of the long, narrow wharf popped open and a thin, shirtless boy with thick black hair ran out to catch the bowline Rosario threw at him. Bracing a foot against a piling, the boy strained to keep the boat from drifting farther.

Del had known this Irish orphan since he first cam to live with the Rosarios three years before. Miguel and his wife Inez had taken Francis in, primarily for his usefulness as a dockworker and farmhand. Like many residents of Benicia, Miguel was involved with multiple enterprises. He operated the small passenger ferry that daily transported railroad workers between Benicia and Port Costa, and he raised pigs on a hillside farm west of Benicia.

Despite being abandoned by both his parents when he was only five, Francis Flanagan was fiercely proud of his Irish ancestry. Rosario, being his boss and being equally proud of his own Portuguese heritage, insisted on calling him Francisco.

Del moved down the dock toward Rosario’s boat. “Hello, Mister Rosario. Hello, Francis.”

Rosario only grunted, his thick eyebrows knitted in a scowl.

“’Lo,” Francis answered without looking at Del. Francis knew he had to keep his full attention on the cranky old man in the boat who, at any moment, might bark some new monosyllabic command.

Rosario climbed awkwardly onto the dock, handed its stern line to Francis, and headed toward the storage shed. As soon as she saw Rosario enter the shed and close its door, Del asked, “What’s he do in there?”

“Drinks his rotten brandy an’ sleeps,” Francis snorted contemptuously as he secured the stern line to a piling.

“What were you doing in there?” Del taunted.

“Readin’ a book.”

“What kind of book?” Del asked, surprised. It had never occurred to her that an orphan boy like Francis would be interested in books.

“A book about engines. I wanna learn all ’bout ’em, so I can get a better job an’ make some damn money!”

“You want to be a mechanic like Mister Tucker?”

Francis glared at her. “Not like him. Better ’n him — way better! I wanna be like Henry Ford an’ make millions o’ dollars.”

“You’ll have to go to college for that,” Del cautioned.

Francis’s thin lips twitched a fleetingly sarcastic smile. “College — hell, no! That’s a waste o’ time. Ford didn’t go to no college, did he? All y’ gotta do is work on all kinds o’ diff’rent engines. There’s new engines bein’ invented ever day for all kinds o’ things. You take this little one-banger, for instance.”

Francis stepped aboard Rosario’s boat and pointed at the small gasoline engine mounted in the center of the hull. “You know where this come from?”

Del shook her head.

“Out of a 1912 REO run-about Tucker found in a junkyard someplace. All he did was clean that old engine up an’ add a few new parts. Then he put a chain pulley on the flywheel and run it over a homemade drive shaft to turn the prop. Runs like a charm! Hell I could do that easy!”

“Do you really think so?” Del asked.

Before Francis could answer, Del heard Jack calling to her from the edge of the mud flat. “Hey, Del! You wanna use my board now?”

Del turned and jumped off the dock. “Bye, Fancis. See you later,” she said and ran toward Jack.

Francis shook his head in disgust. “Stupid girl!”

1919: Episode 8

THE SUN WAS SINKING FAST OVER THE WESTERN HORIZON as Sam Geddis and his younger brother Tully made their way home from Cave Beach through the hills north of Benicia. Sam was leading the way with long strides that made Tully cry out, “Wait for me!”

Sam turned and looked back down the slope. At nine, Sam was tall for his age, with long legs and an unusually large head. Sam smiled, pleased to see he was at least thirty yards ahead of his brother. Tully was thin and frail — a pesky five-year-old who constantly whined and complained. Sam scowled, but stopped and waited anyway. “We’re late, Tully,” he warned. “If we don’t hurry up, Momma will burn our supper again.”

Sam knew all too well how easily this could happen. Ever since their father Talcott Geddis had killed himself with a shotgun a year before, their mother Florin had turned to drink. Often, when they came home from playing with their friends after school, the boys had found her so intoxicated with wine that she had fallen asleep and overcooked their evening meal.

When both boys reached the top of the hill, they saw Florin’s 1919 Maxwell Touring Car moving slowly up the winding dirt road from downtown Benicia. Sam waved at her to stop and pick them up. As they climbed into the back seat, Sam noticed several brown paper bags in the front passenger’s seat. “What’s in the bags?” he asked.

“Ah!” Florin said distractedly. “I went to the Farmer’s Market. I found haricots verts for us. Also des baguette fraiche,” she explained, lapsing into the vocabulary of her preferred ancestral French.

Sam leaned forward and peered inside the largest of the paper bags. It was filled with bottles of red wine. Extracting one of these, he held it up and asked sarcastically, “Baguette, Momma?”

“Ah — that too,” she replied with a vague smile. “Some very fine vin du pays.”

Sam flopped back into his seat, giving his brother a disgusted look. Tully only looked puzzled.

As they rounded the last bend in the road, the Geddis’ house came into view — a large, two-story stucco and wood-frame structure with a mansard roof and six bay windows. Though impressive in size, the house was a grotesque mix of French Provençal and Queen Anne architectural styles. It had been built three years before, when Talcott Geddis had moved his family to Benicia from southern California, where he had been an engineering consultant for several independent oil-drilling firms.

After visiting Benicia on business several times in the past, Talcott had decided Suisun Bay would be the perfect location for an oil refinery. The deep-water channel of the Carquinez Strait offered ready access for seagoing tanker ships coming from the Golden Gate through San Pablo Bay. Such a refinery’s close proximity to the Benicia Arsenal and the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in nearby Vallejo ensured a reliable and growing market for its products. Talcott also knew the increasing slaughter of British and French troops on the Western Front made it likely the United States would soon enter the war against Germany; accordingly, in early March of 1917, he purchased seventy-five acres of land on the western shore of Suisun Bay as the site for his new refinery. This venture proved tremendously successful because of the enormous demand for oil and gasoline that followed America’s declaration of war against Germany.

As many local residents said, Talcott Geddis had “the Midas touch.” When he shot himself just as his new venture began generating millions of dollars, therefore, it was a great mystery to everyone — everyone, that is, except Sam, who knew his mother was contemptuous of her husband.

Sam did not understand exactly why. After all, his father had always seemed reticent and passive — always eager to satisfy Florin’s extravagant demands and tolerant of her frequently dark moods. During the years following the family’s move to Benicia, Florin had berated her husband mercilessly whenever he was home — especially late in the evening, after the boys had gone to bed. All the way from his third-floor bedroom, Sam could hear her shouting and slamming around in the kitchen.

Early one morning, just a few days before Talcott shot himself, Sam had come downstairs to find the man on his knees in the kitchen, whimpering softly as he picked up pieces of broken china and glass scattered on the kitchen floor. When Sam asked what had happened, the oil tycoon could only shake his head in speechless despair.

Talcott had met Florin on his first business trip to Benicia in the spring of 1910. She was working as a housekeeper at the Palace Hotel. Her long brown hair, smooth olive complexion, sensuous lips and flashing eyes had captivated Talcott immediately. Having been raised in the cloistered, all-white world of a wealthy San Luis Obispo family and educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Talcott knew little about women — least of all exotic working-class women like Florin.

Florin was the granddaughter of a French-Canadian fur trader named Jacques Delong, who had come to the Carquinez Strait in the early 1840s to hunt beaver, which at that time were plentiful in the tule marshes of Suisun Bay. Her maternal grandmother had been a member of the warlike Suisunes tribe and her mother, the “half-breed” wife of a Portuguese sailor.

Abandoned by her mother as an infant, Florin was taken in by the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine’s Seminary in Benicia. The nuns did their best to indoctrinate Florin in the ways of the Holy Mother Church. From her ancestors, though, Florin had inherited a fierce independence. When she turned sixteen, therefore, the nuns released her from their care and helped her find employment at the Palace.

Fascinated by this handsome, defiant young woman, Talcott had lured her to his hotel room bed. When he returned to Benicia a few months later and Florin told him she was pregnant, his carefully cultivated sense of noblesse oblige induced him to marry her.

As Florin and her sons turned into the long driveway now, the many tall windows at the front of the Geddis house blazed with the blood-red light of the sunset. “Look!” Florin suddenly declared, pointing at the house. “Papa is home!”

Sam shuddered. “Momma!” he shouted. “Papa’s dead!”

“No-no!” she retorted excitedly. “Don’t you see? He has left the lights on for us.”

Terrified, Sam waited in silence while his mother stopped the car in the driveway, got out and headed for the front entrance carrying only her large bag of wine bottles. “Apport les provisions!” she commanded.

Before the boys entered the kitchen, Florin had already lighted a Turkish cigarette, uncorked one of her new bottles, and poured herself a large glass of Cabernet. While Sam emptied the grocery bags, Florin carried her glass into the front parlor and cranked up her Victrola.

Placing a record on its turntable, she sat down to smoke and sip her wine. Her eyes closed, she serenely slipped into the meandering piano rhapsody of Debussy’s “Claire de Lune.”

1919: Episode 9

SAM WATCHED FLORIN WARILY as he stored the various packages of vegetables, meat, and cheese in the icebox. He felt somewhat less fearful now because his mother was behaving as she usually did — attending to her own wants first and indifferent to what was happening around her. Sam decided if he and his brother were going to get any supper that night he would have to prepare it himself.

Rummaging through the icebox, he found a quart glass jar filled with onion soup his mother had prepared two nights before. Removing this and a block of goat cheese wrapped in brown paper, he placed the items on the kitchen table. Then, loading several pieces of pine kindling into the kitchen stove, he ignited a fire.

By this time, the Debussy piece Florin had been listening to had concluded. Roused from her reverie by the noises in her kitchen, Florin came out to investigate. “Quest-ce que tu fais?” she inquired sweetly.

“Preparing supper,” Sam replied. “It’s time, Momma. Tully and I are hungry.”

“Mai sure! Pardon moi, mes chers!” Florin gushed. Then, noticing the cheese and soup jar on the kitchen table, she said, “Ah non! Pas le potage! I make crepes suzette, nest-ce-pas?” Opening the icebox, she extracted one of her newest purchases. “And look — I buy saucisse for you!”

Annoyed that his mother poured herself yet another glass of wine before she placed the iron skillet on the stove, Sam was satisfied he had sufficiently reminded Florin of her maternal duties. He therefore challenged Tully to a game of jacks on the kitchen floor, directly in front of the stove.

“Pas ici!” Florin said sharply as she dropped the sausages into her skillet.

Shrugging defiance, Sam picked up his jacks and moved them to another part of the room, where his superior skill quickly reduced his brother to tears.

“Sammy,” Florin urged. “Be gentle, mon cher.”

“But he’s such a crybaby!” Sam protested.

“Perhaps you should both wash your hands now,” Florin suggested softly. “Supper will be ready soon.”

“I hope so!” Sam groused as he marched to the kitchen sink, splashed cold water over his soiled hands, and wiped them on a dish towel.

Florin’s eyes flickered with anger. Grabbing the towel from Sam, she snarled, “Your trousers and shoes are covered with mud! Go upstairs and change! Vite! Vite!”

Sam ignored this directive and continued playing his game of jacks. Frustrated by Sam’s defiance, Florin retaliated as she always did — by showering affection on her youngest. “Tee-Tee,” she murmured solicitously, using the nickname she had assigned to Tully when he was born. “Come wash your hands, mon petit.”

Tully promptly obeyed, smiling blissfully up at his mother as she took a bar of soap and carefully washed his and her own hands together in a pan of warm water. Then, taking a clean hand-towel from a cabinet drawer, she dried first her son’s and then her own hands. Kissing him lightly on the forehead, she warbled, “T’asseoit, mon petit.”

Sam had already taken his place at the head of the kitchen table where his father had customarily sat and was now tapping on the tabletop with a fork, impatient for his mother to serve him.

Carefully rolling the crepe on their plates and sprinkling them with powdered sugar, Florin added the crisply sautéed sausages and, spreading wide her arms in a dramatic gesture, declared, “Voila!”

Tully applauded vigorously, but Sam continued rapping his fork on the tabletop. Florin signaled her displeasure with this by serving Tully first. Then, as they began eating, she poured each of them a glass of milk and herself another glass of wine.

She did not sit down with them at the table, preferring to stand at the sink and watch them while she sipped her wine. It was just as she had done when his father was alive, Sam remembered. Since Talcott often returned home late from work, Florin would wait to dine and, usually, rebuke him for his tardiness.

The boys devoured their food in silence for several minutes. Satisfied that she had done her duty, Florin returned to the front parlor and put another record on her Victrola — this time a series of lively ballads sung in French by a man accompanying himself on guitar.

As the music drifted into the kitchen, Florin returned carrying a newspaper and her glass of wine. This time, she sat down at the table and began reading. “Ecoutez!” she suddenly declared and read aloud a headline on the front page: “‘First Daytime Mail Flight from San Francisco to New York in 33 hours.’”

Florin spread the opened newspaper out on the table and pointed to the photograph of a smiling aviator standing in front of a single-engine bi-plane. The caption read: “Veteran aviator James H. ‘Jack’ Knight stands beside his Havilland DH-4.”

Sam moved to get a closer look. His mother leaned over his shoulder and read aloud the first paragraph of the news story.

“Let me read it,” Sam insisted, snatching up the paper. He started perusing the news report with both his index fingers.

“Can I see?” Tully asked, running around the table. Sam pushed him away. “Get out of here! You can’t read.”

“Come, Tee-Tee,” Florin said, taking Tully’s hand and coaxing him to follow her back into the front parlor.

Much later that evening, long after Sam had gone up to his room to work on a model plane he was building, Florin awoke from her wine-induced doze. Rising slowly from her chair, she stood unsteadily for several seconds, looking around the room until she noticed Tully sound asleep on the sofa. Stepping softly toward him, she touched his shoulder and whispered, “Come, Tee-Tee. It is time for bed.”

The boy flinched slightly at her touch. Then, without opening his eyes, he sat up and put out his arms to be carried. Though Tully was small for his age, Florin was not at all sure that in her inebriated condition she was ready to carry him. “No, Tee-Tee. If you want to sleep with Momma, you must walk upstairs yourself.”

Reluctantly, the boy stood up and allowed his mother to take him by the hand into the front foyer and up the staircase to her room. After removing Tully’s clothes, Florin gently helped him climb into her bed. Removing her own clothes, she climbed in beside him.

1919: Episode 10

JACK HAD BEEN LATE FOR SUPPER, and his clothing was covered with mud. “Where have you been to get so dirty?” Gail demanded.

“Just out playin’,” he said as he flounced into her mohair armchair and noisily bit into an apple he had taken from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.

Gail snatched the apple from his hand. “Don’t eat that now!” she scolded. “It’s supper time. Go clean yourself up and get out of those filthy clothes!”

Angrily, Jack bounced up out of the armchair and marched into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He emerged minutes later wearing nothing but his undershirt and boxer shorts. Again, he flounced into the armchair.

“What’s wrong with you, Jack? I told you to change your clothes, not strip down to your skivvies!”

“What do you care?” he asked sullenly.

Gail began to worry. This defiant behavior was not at all typical of her son, who was usually a good boy, obedient and kind to his mother. Her voice softening, she walked over to him and touched his forehead. “Are you sick, dear?”

“No. I ain’t sick!” he retorted, pulling away from her.

“I am not sick,” she corrected.

“Dammit!” Jack shouted and leaped to his feet. “You’re always correcting me! You’re worse than Del!”

“How dare you swear like that!” Gail shouted back. “I’ll wash your mouth out with soap, you fresh thing!” Swiftly, she moved toward the sink to carry out her threat.

This was enough to give Jack pause. Hanging his head, “Sorry,” he mumbled, still resentful. “I’m sick of people always picking on me for my grammar.”

“We’re not talking about grammar, mister!” Gail warned. “I’m raising you to be a gentleman, and gentlemen don’t talk that way to ladies — least of all their own mothers!”

Jack glared at her.

Gail stood with her hands on her hips, studying her son in silence for several seconds. At last, she said, “Go put on a clean shirt and trousers. Gentlemen don’t go strutting around half-naked in front of ladies either.”

Jack eyed his mother suspiciously. “Oh no? Then, why does Soames take off his collar and tie when he’s here?”

This retort rocked Gail back on her heels. “That’s not fair, Jack! It was very hot when he was here Saturday. Mister Soames was our guest. I suggested he remove his collar and tie so he’d be more comfortable.”

“Seems like he’s getting a little too comfortable, if you ask me,” Jack groused.

Instinctively, Gail cocked her right arm, barely managing to refrain from slapping her son in the face. “Nobody asked you,” she said coldly. “Now, go get dressed!”

Jack did what his mother had asked and changed into clean clothes. But the two of them ate supper in silence. As soon as he finished eating, Jack got up from the table and started toward his bedroom.

“You didn’t excuse yourself, Jack,” his mother said.

Jack ignored this reproof and entered his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Gail remained seated at the table in silence for several seconds, not sure what she should do. At length, she stood up and cleared the table. Stacking the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, she sat down in her armchair to read the newspaper, determined to distract herself from the turmoil she was feeling.

After the sun went down, she opened the cupboard over her kitchen sink, reached up on the top shelf, and took out the bottle of sherry Soames had brought her as a gift from San Francisco. She filled a teacup with the sweet-smelling wine and sipped it slowly, hoping it would help her sleep. But one teacup was not enough, so she had another. And then another.

Even this did not help. For, after she went to bed at ten o’clock, she lay wide-eyed with worry, keenly aware of the nocturnal clanking and hooting railroad noises she had long since grown accustomed to.

Was her son also unable to sleep? She wanted to get up and go to him, take him in her arms and hold him as she had when he was a little boy — assure him that everything was all right.

But she knew it was not. “Nothing will ever be all right again,” she whispered to herself in the dark, tasting the bitter salt of her own tears.

1919: Episode 11

“GOOD MORNING GAIL!” IRA JACOBS CHIRRUPED as Gail entered Ahern’s Import/Export building. “Ready for another exciting day at the office?” he added with a wink.

“Awfully sorry I’m late, Ira,” Gail replied. “I had kind of a bad night last night. Couldn’t get to sleep for some reason.” She had entered just as the big Monitor clock on the office wall was chiming 8 a.m.

Ira, Ahern’s local branch manager, was a short, chubby man in his late forties. His receding hairline, bulging brown eyes, and wide mouth down-turned at the corners reminded Gail of a perpetually sad frog. “Don’t worry, Gail,” Ira smiled as best as he could. “You’re not late. Look at the clock. It wouldn’t matter anyway, my dear. You’re so fast and efficient, you could come in at noon and still do all the work you need to do.”

Ira had a heart-aching crush on this handsome woman. At five feet, eight inches tall with a long, graceful neck and torso as well as an ample bosom, Gail was what women of her mother’s generation called a “statuesque beauty.” Though seemingly reserved and even-tempered, Gail simmered with latent sensuality. She was very much like her mother in this respect. But, in her ability to concentrate for long hours on performing repetitive arithmetic tasks, she was very like her father.

Ira had been infatuated with this woman ever since she first walked into the office two years before, seeking work as a totally inexperienced clerk. His instantaneous assessment of her bookkeeping skills had been unemotional — keen and accurate. In less than two weeks, Gail Westlake mastered all the subtleties of posting and balancing the scores of customer accounts the office handled every day.

“You’re too kind, Ira,” Gail said as she sat down at her desk and promptly began sorting through the stack of order forms piled there. Shuffling through these in a preliminary inspection, she asked, “Did Mister Grimes drop off those new shipping schedules you wanted yet?”

Ira threw both his arms up over his head and rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Who’s to know with that guy! They were supposed to be ready last week. Tell you what — I’m gonna call him right now. This is making me crazy!”

Ira picked up the candle phone on his desk. “Alice, get me 6324-R2,” he barked into the receiver. “And please do not eavesdrop!” he added irritably. “This call is none of your business!” Thrumming his fingers on his desk blotter, Ira waited impatiently for the right party to answer.

“Grimes — is that you? Where’s my shipping schedules? … What d’ y’ mean they ain’t ready yet? It’s been two weeks since we ordered ’em, already!” There was a long pause during which Grimes was apparently trying to explain the delay. “Don’t gimme that!” Ira made a face at Gail, who was now totally engrossed in her work. “You got a problem with your printing press? So what am I supposed to do about it? I got customers to take care of here. They won’t wait.” Another pause, longer this time. “Tomorrow’s not good enough!” Ira snarled. “I got t’ have ’em today!” Hanging up the phone, Ira again threw up his arms in exasperation and scowled at Gail. “He says he’ll drop ’em off this afternoon. He better!”

Accustomed to Ira’s irritability, Gail had long since learned to ignore it. She knew it would never be directed against her. She also knew Ira Jacob’s bark was bigger than his bite. The man was a showman. He would have been much happier and more effective, she thought, in vaudeville.

Suddenly the street door opened, admitting a frail, wispy-haired woman with a face like a hatchet and the quick, furtive movements of a ferret. It was Gail’s friend, Snooky Wells. Though only thirty-eight, Snooky looked like an old woman — stoop-shouldered, her face heavily creased with wrinkles and her hands mottled with brown spots.

“Hey, lady,” Snooky rasped at Gail in her hoarse barfly voice. Snooky was both a heavy drinker and an inveterate smoker. She puffed whenever she could. It didn’t matter whether it was one of her many boyfriends’ cheap cigars or her own corncob pipe: Snooky thrived in a constant cloud of smoke. “How y’ doin’, Ira?” she said to Gail’s boss.

“I’m good,” Ira replied amicably but warily. He was amused by this eccentric creature and, because she was Gail’s friend, he tolerated her always-bizarre behavior and questionable morals. “How’s Alfie these days?” he asked, peering through the big street-front window at the small figure huddled in a wooden wheelchair outside. Alfie was Snooky’s quadriplegic seven-year-old son.

“Alfie’s great! Would you believe it? That kid never gets sick!” Snooky eyeballed Gail mischievously.

Gail knew her friend regarded her hopelessly crippled and dependent son as God’s punishment for her own sins. Snooky had been raised a Roman Catholic. Despite her always irreverent views of Church traditions and her defiant persistence in violating its most fundamental moral precepts, Snooky was ruthlessly honest with herself. “I’m a scarlet woman,” Snooky had often confessed to Gail. “Ain’t no doubt about it, an’ I’ll prob’ly fry in Hell for it. But — you know what? That little sucker out there could be my ticket to Heaven, so I’m gonna do whatever I gotta do to keep him happy an’ healthy!”

Snooky had been faithful to that vow. Though few Benicia residents approved of Snooky’s ways, practically everyone commiserated with her plight. Soon after Alfie had been born, Snooky’s husband, Zeke Wells — a notorious town drunk and one-time crony of Jack London — had quit his job at McClaren’s Tannery and jumped a freight car to travel nobody knew where. Furious and destitute, Snooky used the only talents she had to support herself and her son.

Ever since she was six years old, Snooky had played the five-string banjo — the only family heirloom passed down to her from her paternal grandmother, who in 1846 had migrated with her family from Minnesota to California in a Conestoga wagon. By the time she was sixteen, Snooky could frail like Earl Scruggs and wail like Libby Holman. With the survival instincts she had inherited from her pioneering ancestors, it was only natural for Snooky to seek employment as an entertainer in Benicia’s many waterfront saloons.

Patrons of these establishments loved her, and proprietors rewarded her with nightly engagements where customer tips helped pay her rent and put food on her table. Alfie was always a part of these entertainments, posted front and center in his wheelchair wherever Snooky performed. While she would belt out her raucous “torch” songs or lead her audience in sing-alongs, Alfie collected the coins customers dropped in the tin can on his lap. “We got no shame!” Snooky proudly declared.

Gail stood up and rushed to embrace her friend, signaling with a quick glance at Ira her wish to share confidences with Snooky. Ira nodded his approval and the two women went outside, where Gail gave Alfie a greeting hug. He responded with a drooling smile and his own garbled greeting, “Hewo, Pail. I wove you.” Gail’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “I love you too, dearest boy!”

Extracting a corncob pipe and a box of matches from the gunnysack she always carried as a purse, Snooky lit up. Speaking through clenched teeth, she asked, “So how’s old Soames these days?”

“Don’t ask,” Gail said grimly. “I think Jack knows about us. It’s not good.”

Snooky leered at her friend through a thick cloud of pipe smoke. “Don’t worry about it. He was bound to find out sometime. You think boys his age don’t already know ’bout that stuff?” Then, laughing harshly, she added, “In this town?”

Gail shook her head. “You may be right. Still – it’s not good.”

“It’s all part o’ growin’ up, honey. Better he learns ’bout it from you than one o’ them damn whores down there.” Snooky nodded in the direction of the waterfront where they now heard the loud hooting of a train whistle. “You goin’ to the parade Sunday?” Snooky asked, realizing it was time to change the subject.

Gail was still looking toward the waterfront, preoccupied with her own anxious thoughts. Finally, she said, “I suppose so. I understand it’s going to be a big event.”

“You better believe!” Snooky affirmed. “Just about the biggest thing’s happened in town since the Arsenal fire. An’ you know who’s gonna be one o’ the stars in that there parade?” Snooky tilted her head coquettishly at her friend.

“You, of course,” Gail smiled.

“You bet! I got me a place right up front on the John Barleycorn float, and I’ll be leadin’ Doc Blackburn’s Minstrel Band ever step o’ the way.”

“I wouldn’t miss that for the world!”

“You better not! You bring your lunch today?” she asked, again switching topics.

“I always bring my lunch,” Gail replied bitterly. “You know that. I can’t afford not to.”

“Tell you what,” Snooky suggested. “How about me and Alfie treat you to a beer and a san’wich over at Wink’s Bar. It’s only a nickel apiece. We did pretty good with tips Saturday night, so I’m feelin’ flush.”

Gail smiled gratefully at her friend. “Alright,” she said. “But only if it’s a Dutch treat.”

“Don’t be such an ingrate! It’s my treat or nothin’!”

“Fair enough,” Gail acquiesced. “I’ll meet you there at 12:30. But I’ve got to get back to work now.” So saying, Gail squeezed her friend’s hand and re-entered her office, but not without first giving Alfie another hug.

1919: Episode 12

BY SEVEN O’CLOCK THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY MORNING, the people of Benicia had already put out chairs, blankets, and pillows along both sides of First Street in preparation for the big Temperance Victory Parade. A makeshift viewing stand had also been erected at the intersection of First Street and West Military Road where the two contingents of the parade – one originating in Vallejo and the other in the Benicia Arsenal – would join and march down First Street to the waterfront.

Several early-bird youngsters had already commandeered the highest tiers of the viewing stand, from which they were repeatedly jumping or pushing each other off. Constables Frank Cady and David Warwick had stationed themselves strategically at the southwest corner of First and Military and watched warily the roughhouse antics of the youthful citizens.

Strands of red-white-and-blue bunting had been hung on buildings and from telephone poles along First Street — all the way to the railroad depot. There, a three-foot-high wooden platform had been erected for the dignitaries and officials who were scheduled to speak during the culminating ceremony at high noon. To protect the speakers from the hot noonday sun, a white canvas cover had been suspended on wooden poles over the stage.

Here, Women’s Christian Temperance Union leader Vicki Callahan and her team of dedicated supporters were now putting the finishing touches on the speakers’ platform decorations, which included more red-white-and-blue bunting as well as garlands of yellow roses.

“This will be lovely!” Charlotte Fisk, Secretary of the Board of Trustees at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, declared to Vicki. Looking up at the bright morning sun that had already raised the temperature into the high seventies, Charlotte anguished, “I just hope it doesn’t get too hot today.”

“Oh, it’ll get hot, all right!” Vicki chuckled. “Especially when people hear the speech I’ve prepared. I wouldn’t be surprised if mobs start smashing windows at the Lido this very afternoon,” she added, pointing toward the two-story building only a few yards away.

“I’ll be happy to throw the first stone!” Gladys Holcomb affirmed, somewhat modifying the original biblical text. “The sooner we get rid of that filthy place, the better, is what I say.” Gladys, a pillar of the First Methodist Church in Benicia, had long held Mrs. “K.T.” Parker’s establishment in special contempt — ever since her son Luke, at sixteen, had come home from the Lido late one Saturday night with a bad case of the crabs.

“Well, you know, it’s the liquor that did the mischief,” Charlotte insisted.

“Obviously,” Vicki concurred. “And once we women get the vote, we’ll put a stop to prostitution as well. You can be sure of that!”

Del heard it long before she saw it — the repeated “rat-ta-tat-tat-boom” sound the Drum and Bugle Corpsmen made as they marched westward along Military toward the intersection with First Street. Del leaned as far forward into the street as she could to catch a glimpse of the lead contingent — Arsenal Commandant Colonel Orrin Wright Morris and his officers in full-dress regalia, riding high and proud on their gallant mounts.

Del and her father had been waiting for more than an hour in the throng of spectators who lined both sides of First Street in anticipation of this moment — the beginning of the great Temperance Victory Parade. Then, just as the horsemen rounded the corner, heading south toward the waterfront, the bugles rang out their brisk clarion call and a wave of cheers and applause rolled swiftly down the full length of First Street.

Within minutes, another glorious sound filled the air — that of the Navy Band from Vallejo breaking into a rousting rendition of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The spectators roared with delight and everyone began clapping in time and marching in place to this greatest of all patriotic American marches.

Del jumped and squealed with excitement when the big, handsome steeds leading the parade passed where she stood with her father at the northwest corner of First and G streets. Then, as the approaching forty-man Navy Band struck up its second inspiring Sousa tune — The Washington Post March — she almost ran into the street to join the parade herself. It was only her father’s strong grip on her shoulders that kept her from doing so.

Immediately on the heels of the Navy Band was the first float in the parade. In the middle of this daisy-bedecked wagon was Colleen Woolsey, attired in her white Queen of Temperance gown and surrounded by her retinue of, Del thought, much prettier attendants. Much to Del’s chagrin, everyone cheered wildly as the big float passed and the snooty Colleen waved gloatingly at the adoring crowd.

The cheering quickly died down, however, when the long, ten-deep troop of W.T.C.U. marchers passed in their black broad-brimmed hats and mourning dresses, many carrying street-wide yellow banners that proclaimed such ominous slogans of their cause as “Lips that touch alcohol shall never touch mine.”

Leading this bleak band of determined damsels was the towering figure of Vicki Callahan, carrying her own three-by-four-foot sign depicting a large whiskey bottle with a thick black “X” painted over it. Vicki had learned well from her East Coast mentors in the tabloid newspaper industry that “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Three blocks up on the opposite side of First Street, Gail and Jack craned their necks to see the approach of the John Barleycorn float. But their efforts were in vain, for many other marching groups and rolling displays were yet to come before the John Barleycorn float brought up the rear.

First was the Benicia High School band, its meandering lines of mostly inept teen musicians tooting and bleating their off-key cornets, trombones, and clarinets while members of the percussion section vied to see who could pound loudest and fastest with no regard for a consistent tempo. Del instantly recognized Calvin Watrous as one of these reckless drummers.

Following the high school band was a contingent of men in three-piece suits and straw hats with red sashes across their chests identifying them as members of the Benicia Redmen’s Lodge. Following the Redmen were the officers and members of Benicia’s newly chartered American Legion Post No. 101, marching in stiff formation and proudly displaying their nation’s colors.

Next came a large flatbed truck bearing the Mayors and Town Council members of both Benicia and Vallejo, who bowed and waved at the passing throng with as much vote-getting dignity as they could muster. The politicians’ flatbed led a motorcade of open touring cars and horse-drawn wagons — each decked with banners and signs advertising various merchants in the two cities.

Finally, Gail heard the sprightly twanging of Snooky’s five-string banjo, accompanied by the syncopated jingle of tambourines. In front of the John Barleycorn float — which was really a bulky and ancient horse-drawn hearse with its canvas top removed — were several dozen men in straw hats, prison-stripe suits, and black face (a few were actually Negroes), who twisted and turned as they danced like dervishes to the tempo set by Snooky’s banjo.

As the John Barleycorn float approached Gail and Jack, Snooky hooted and waved frantically at them. Then, shouting to her fellow revelers, she commanded, “Come on, boys, let ’er rip!” With stunning promptness and precision, the dervishes lifted their brass and woodwind instruments to their lips and broke into a classic Dixieland version of “Didn’t He Ramble.”

Instantly, spectators on both sides of the street went wild with cries of joyful release, and young couples rushed out to join the minstrels, wiggling and kicking their improvised versions of the two-step. As the John Barleycorn float moved noisily forward, the crowds on the wooden sidewalks spilled out into the street and followed Old John Barleycorn on his last journey to the waterfront saloons.

1919: Episode 13

IT WAS ALMOST 1 P.M. BEFORE THE TEMPERANCE VICTORY PARADE LEADERS, with the help of police officers from both Vallejo and Benicia, could subdue the hundreds of people gathered in front of the reviewing stand so that Reverend Herald Twitty of Saint Paul’s Church could intone his solemn invocation. “Oh Heavenly Father,” he began, “we thank Thee for this glorious day of emancipation for all our brothers so long enslaved by that worst of demons — John Barleycorn.”

“Hurrah!” interrupted several in the crowd, not a few of whom were simultaneously sipping inspiration from their own pocket flasks.

“And we pray,” the Reverend continued, “that, in Your infinite mercy, You will bring them at last to Your Holy Tabernacle with contrite hearts and humble pledges of everlasting abstinence.”

“Hooray!” the rowdiest in the crowd interrupted again.

Finally, raising his hands in a patient but much-abbreviated blessing, the Reverend concluded, “May the Lord bless us and keep us. May He make His Light to shine upon us and give us peace. Amen.”

“Amen,” echoed scores of voices.

Immediately, a tall man in a white suit and ten-gallon hat — Mayor Tom Cody — stepped up to the podium and, after shaking hands with Reverend Twitty, solemnly addressed the assembly. “Fellow citizens,” he began, “we have come here today to celebrate a great victory.” Pointing to the open casket on the John Barleycorn float where it was parked directly in front of the speaker’s platform, he said, “Here before you lies the visible symbol of that victory.” Then, pausing briefly to punctuate his meaning, Mayor Cody proudly announced, “And at sunrise tomorrow, we shall bury this ugly reminder of our past once and for all in the Benicia City Cemetery!”

With a broad but dignified smile, Cody waited until the cheering and clapping subsided. At this point, he gestured toward the stern-faced woman sitting directly behind him. “It is with great honor, my fellow citizens, that I now present to you our featured speaker for this historic day — Victoria Hogue Callahan. Miss Callahan is an officer in the national chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and she comes to us today all the way from that noble organization’s headquarters in New York City. Please join me in welcoming Miss Callahan to our own fair city.”

As Vicki rose to full height, her retinue of black-garbed followers, who had scattered themselves strategically throughout the audience, clapped as loud as they could. But the response of this audience was lukewarm at best. Still a small town in 1919, most of its residents were wary of outsiders. Especially those from the crowded ghettos of New York City were viewed with suspicion.

Vicki Callahan was not in the least bit put off by such xenophobia. Indeed, she had come fully prepared to wow these rubes with the full force of her well-honed oratorical skills. She had even prepared a special visual aid for the occasion — an oblong package wrapped in plain brown paper, which she now carried to the rostrum like some mysterious birthday surprise.

Nodding haughtily to the Mayor, who bowed diffidently and returned to his seat, Vicki looked out over the restless crowd for several seconds. Suddenly, she fixed her steely gaze on the bearded face of one of its most intoxicated members. Pointing a long index finger at this individual, she roared, “You, sir, are a disgrace!”

Immediately, hundreds of eyes focused on the object of Vicki’s scorn. “This is not a man!” Vicki declared. “This is a mutant — the vile offspring of John Barleycorn!”

Everyone in the audience stood stunned in silence. Even Vicki’s most loyal supporters had not expected such an aggressive assault. Vicki smiled, satisfied she now had everyone’s full attention. “But I am not here to condemn such pathetic beings,” Vicki said, her tone less severe now but still deadly earnest. “Rather, I come here to offer a cure for this plague that has so long enslaved our nation.”

There were smatterings of applause from the women in black, and the shocked expression in many faces softened to bewilderment.

“Look around you — at the person to your right and the person to your left,” Vicki commanded, noting with satisfaction that almost everyone complied. “Are these people worthless drunkards and reprobates? Certainly not! They are your brothers and sisters, your neighbors and friends. All share utter repugnance for the dissolute and deformed in our society. How, then, you must ask yourselves, have we come to this pass? What barbaric customs and feckless laws have made this possible?”

Snooky, who was standing beside the John Barleycorn float directly in front of Vicki, clutched fearfully at Alfie’s shoulders. “You rotten bitch!” she muttered and looked around defensively to see whether others were staring at her “deformed” son. She was relieved to discover that all eyes were on Vicki.

“My friends,” Vicki continued, sounding almost amiable now. “I’m sure you know the answer to these questions. First and foremost are the barbaric customs of those primitive tribes in Africa and Asia that have kept women in slavery since the dawn of time — customs that force women to bear thousands of unwanted children every year. Second is the Roman Papacy that has for centuries condemned women to lifetimes of unbridled procreation. Third are the archaic man-made laws in our own nation that block the spread of scientific facts about population control.”

“Clearly, my friends, it is not we whose foremothers and fathers founded this great nation. No. It is the hordes of ignorant and superstitious immigrants who have been pouring across our borders for decades. And how do we stop those hordes? The answer, my friends, is simple and clear. We must enact strict laws to stop this deluge of unwanted races.”

“Isn’t she wonderful” Gladys Holcomb exclaimed to her friend Charlotte Fisk.

“Smart as a whip!” Charlotte affirmed.

“What the hell’s she talkin’ about?” Tom Cody grumbled to the elderly man sitting beside him, tannery owner Ralph McClaren.

“Damned if I know! Who invited this witch, anyway?”

The Mayor shrugged his shoulders, reluctant to risk exposing and thereby alienating the members of the Parade steering committee who had recommended Vicki.

“As many of you know,” Vicki resumed, “one of our most respected national leaders, Missus Margaret Sanger, has written and spoken volumes on this issue. Her monthly magazine has edified and liberated women both here and abroad. Among the liberating policies Missus Sanger advocates is the right of every woman to control her own destiny. And what is that destiny?”

Here, as Vicki had been taught to do in her oratory classes at Vassar, she focused on the enraptured faces of her most ardent supporters. “Is it simply to stay home and have babies as our mothers and grandmothers and their mothers and grandmothers have done for so many centuries? Or is there something more we women can do? Do we not have brains as smart and hearts as stout as men? Were not we too created in the image of God? Why, then, should we not be treated as equal to men in every respect? That is the question Margaret Sanger repeatedly asks.”

By now, Vicki sensed she had lost the attention of almost everyone in her audience. Still, she plied on. Like a clipper ship under full sail, she felt nothing but the force of her own gale. “What we most need now, Misses Sanger believes, is a new scientific morality. For only that will solve the most compelling social and economic problems of our time.”

When these high-sounding words were greeted only with silence, Vicki decided to move directly to her dramatic conclusion. “We have come here today, ladies and gentlemen, to celebrate two great victories in the annals of human history — the nationwide prohibition of alcoholic beverages and, soon, the enactment of universal women’s suffrage. With such triumphs behind us, how can we fail to progress in this new Twentieth Century?”

Yet again Vicki paused, patiently waiting as what she considered her own inane platitudes gradually prompted polite applause. Now she would hit them where they lived! Slowly and tauntingly, Vicki began to unwrap the package she had placed on the speaker’s podium. She knew all eyes were riveted on this act.

“And so, my good friends,” she declared triumphantly as she raised high the long-handled axe she had unwrapped, “with the firm conviction of my courageous sister Carry Nation, I raise high the implement she used to culminate her crusade against Demon Drink. Down with John Barleycorn!” Vicki bellowed.

Instantly, the crowd roared its approval with repeated shouts of “Down with John Barleycorn!”

Then, suddenly pointing with her axe toward the Lido, Vicki declared even more fervently, “And, with the firm conviction of my courageous other sister Margaret Sanger, I say — down with those Demon Women!”

Immediately, the face of every dignitary and official behind her became either white with fear or red with rage, and from the open bay windows on the Lido’s second floor, eight angry women leaned out and simultaneously made the same obscene gesture at Vicki.

Seizing this rebellious moment, Snooky jumped up on the John Barleycorn float and began strumming and singing the opening bars of You Are My Sunshine. As soon as they heard the familiar lyrics, hundreds of onlookers joined in singing the refrain. Even the dignitaries on the reviewing stand rose to their feet and began clapping and singing along — all, that is, except Vicki Callahan.

Her face flush with fury, Vicki marched off the platform. Waving her axe and bullying her way through the jeering throng, she fled up First Street to the safety of her room at the Union Hotel. By six o’clock that evening, she would be on a passenger train to Chicago.

The “soiled doves” of the Lido had saved the day.

1920: Episode 14

“OYE! OYE! CALLED OUT THE BAILIFF. “All rise and give your attention. The honorable Justice of the Circuit Court of Solano County, Clyde Lanham presiding. This Court is now in session.”

After sternly surveying the courtroom to make sure everyone was respectfully standing, Judge Lanham nodded to the bailiff. “You may call in the jury.”

Del, sitting in the gallery with Ruby, watched with keen interest as the twelve men filed into the jury box. The first was a handsome young man with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He looked around nervously and immediately headed for the back row. The other jurors were in their thirties and forties, many of them with the rough and callused hands of tradesmen. The last juror to enter was the oldest, with graying hair and thick sideburns. He confidently took a seat in the front row. All the men were wearing dark suits, white shirts and ties. Most of them looked very uncomfortable in such formal attire.

Once the members of the jury had taken their seats, Lanham greeted them solemnly and then focused his gaze on District Attorney Joshua Wyman. “We are ready to proceed. Mister Wyman. You may make your opening statement.”

Wyman stood up. It was hard to tell, though, because he was just over five feet tall. Still, he had a deep and commanding voice. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he began as he moved confidently to stand directly in front of the jury box. “You have been called here today to pass judgment on a woman who has defiled the most sacred honor God can bestow on any human being — the crown of motherhood.”

Wyman paused for several seconds, his eyes ablaze with righteous wrath. “As the evidence in this case will show, on the night of March 3rd, 1920, the defendant, Missus Florin Geddis, did willfully attempt to murder her own innocent children — Samuel Geddis, age nine, and Tully Geddis, age five.” At this point, Wyman turned to glower at Florin, who seemed completely oblivious.

Shaking his head in disgust, Wyman turned again to the jury. “As you can see with your own eyes, gentlemen, the defendant is coldly indifferent. Clearly, she considers herself above the laws of both God and man. But God is not mocked! Once you have heard the overwhelming evidence against this heartless and soulless creature, you yourselves will be the instruments of His Almighty Justice and return a verdict of Guilty.”

Florin’s defense attorney, Calvin Patterson, immediately stood in protest. “Your Honor, I object! The prosecution’s opening statement is argumentative and completely out of order! Clearly, this is nothing but a hostile attempt to influence the jury with condemnatory epithets.”

Struggling to conceal his own anger, Lanham sustained Patterson’s objection. Then, to Wyman, he said, “I would remind you, sir, that it is the Court’s role, not the prosecution’s, to inform the jury what the defendant is charged with.”

Without acknowledging this rebuke, Wyman sat down.

Lanham nodded to Patterson. “You may make your opening statement, Counselor.”

Though still a young man, Patterson already had a successful private practice in Fairfield, the county seat. Before he died, Talcott Geddis had named Patterson as backup trustee of the Geddis Family Estate. Though a trust attorney by specialty, Patterson also occasionally handled criminal defense cases. Smoothly confident, he now took a position several feet from the jury box, determined to address not only members of the jury but also the judge and the hundreds of spectators in the gallery.

“Your Honor, gentlemen of the jury,” Patterson began. “Motherhood is indeed a gift from God. We are not here to dispute that. This is not a church or a temple, however. It is a court of law. Our first duty in this case is to determine whether or not a crime has even been committed. Even should the prosecution somehow manage to demonstrate that a crime has been committed, the discovery documents already offered simply do not support any evidence of guilt. Moreover, as the testimonies of the witnesses will show, the prosecution’s arguments are based entirely on circumstantial evidence. I am confident, therefore, that once you have had an opportunity to consider all of the facts, you will return a verdict of Not Guilty.” Turning to Lanham, Patterson said, “Your Honor, the defense is ready.”

Lanham looked toward Wyman. “You may call your first witness, Counselor.”

Rising from his chair with calculated calm, Wyman slowly moved toward the witness box. “Thank you, your Honor. The People call Benicia Police Chief Frank Colpepper to the stand.”

Plump but pleasant-faced, Colpepper was in his late thirties with prematurely graying hair. Neatly attired in full-dress uniform, he briskly marched into the witness box and was sworn in by the bailiff.

“Chief Colpepper,” Wyman began with the cloying formality of a mortician, “it is my understanding that you were the primary investigating officer in this case. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Colpepper’s voice was musical and warm, almost caressing in its softness.

“Would you please tell the Court what you observed when you first arrived at the Geddis residence on the night of March 3rd, 1920?”

Colpepper swallowed hard, for the first time indicating that he felt uncomfortable. “Actually, I didn’t get there until after the Benicia fire brigade arrived. You see, Officer David Warwick, who was on duty that night, did not receive a phone call about the incident until almost midnight, and he had trouble starting his car and coming to pick me up at my house.”

Wyman grimaced with impatience at this answer. “Approximately what time was it when you did arrive, Chief Colpepper?”

“I’d guess it was around 12:30 a.m. and, of course, the first thing we did was talk with Fire Chief Hodges and his men to find out what caused the fire. By then, the Geddis home was almost completely burned to the ground. Bill … I mean, Chief Hodges told me he didn’t know for sure and that we’d have to wait ’til dawn when there was enough light for us to search through the ashes.”

“And, when you were finally able to conduct that search, what did you find?”

“Actually, it was one of Chief Hodges’s men who found it. It was a knife.”

Wyman quickly walked to the evidence table and picked up a wooden tray containing the badly charred remains of a ten-inch carving knife. He carried it over to show Colpepper. “Is this the implement to which you are referring?”

“Yes, sir. I believe it is.”

“You must answer simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the counselor’s question, Chief Colpepper,” Lanham warned.

After first looking up fearfully at the judge, Colpepper nodded, “Yes, Mister District Attorney, that is the knife.”

After asking that the knife be labeled as Exhibit A, Wyman resumed his interrogation of the witness. “Now then, Chief Colpepper, are you aware of any other tangible evidence found at the site of the fire that morning?”

Again glancing up at the judge, Colpepper answered softly, “No, sir.”

“Speak up so the members of the jury can hear you, sir!” Lanham barked irritably. “No,” Colpepper responded, much louder this time.

“No tangible evidence,” Wyman repeated. “However, you did interview several witnesses at the scene, did you not?”

“Yes, sir. Officer Warwick and I interviewed the Geddises’ neighbors, Mister Eli Strohmann and his wife Esther. We also interviewed Missus Geddis’s oldest son, Sam.”

“And you have filed affidavits to that effect with the Court, have you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

To the judge, Wyman said, “As you know, your Honor, the prosecution will be calling these witnesses to present their testimonies to the Court.”
Lanham nodded.

“Thank you, Chief Colpepper,” Wyman said dismissively. Then, glancing at Patterson with a taunting smile, he added, “Your witness, Counselor.”

Addressing Judge Lanham, Patterson replied, “The Defense has no questions of the witness at this time, Your Honor. We reserve the right to re-call on cross-examination, however.”

“So approved,” Lanham acknowledged. “You are excused for now, Chief Colpepper.” With conspicuous relief, Colpepper stepped out of the jury box and exited the courtroom.

“You may call your next witness, Counselor Wyman,” Lanham said.

1920: Episode 15

“THE PEOPLE CALL BENICIA FIRE CHIEF, CAPTAIN WILLIAM HODGES.”

“Bailiff, you may summon this witness,” Judge Lanham directed.

Minutes later, the bailiff re-entered the courtroom accompanied by a long, lean man with the comical features of a scarecrow — coarse, canvas-like complexion, small black-button eyes, and unruly straw-colored hair that stood out in every direction. Except for a wrinkled blue blazer with brass captain’s bars on either shoulder, he was dressed in civilian clothes. After the bailiff had sworn him in, he sat down in the witness box and gazed around in wonder at the full assembly.

Wyman stepped forward and, standing a few feet to the left of the witness, began his examination. “Captain Hodges, I understand you and your men were the first to arrive at the scene on the night of March 3rd, 1920, when the Geddis house was reported to be on fire. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you recount for the Court, please, the details of that event?”

Hodges crossed one of his long legs over the other in an attempt to appear relaxed and confident. “Well, it must’ve been around 11:30 when I got a telephone call from Eli Strohmann. He’s a poultry farmer lives out near the Geddis place.” Hodges paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Actu’lly, it was Missus Strohmann called. She was pretty worked up. She said the Geddis place was burnin’ like crazy an’ I’d better get out there fast.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, right away, o’ course, I rousted my boys. Told ’em t’ grab their boots and buckets an’ meet me up at the Geddis place soon as they could. Then, I went over to the firehouse and got the tank truck. By the time we all got there, though, it was too late to do much of anythin’. That house was already just about burned to the ground. ’Sides, there wasn’t no outside well or fire pond, so alls we could do was wait ’til she burned herself out enough to go in an’ douse the flames with what water we had in our tank truck. And I’ll tell you that’s pretty slow goin’ ’cause we only got one spigot on that thing.”

“I see,” Wyman remarked impatiently and began pacing back and forth in front of the witness. “Once the fire was completely out, what did you do?”

“Well, by then there was a whole bunch of us up there, includin’ Chief Colpepper and his men and some o’ the Army boys from the Ars’nal. So we all started siftin’ through the ashes to see what we could find out about what caused it all.”

“I see,” Wyman said again, still pacing back and forth. He was visibly annoyed with Hodges’s rambling responses. Suddenly, he stood still and faced Hodges. “And what precisely did you find, sir?” he demanded.

Hodges straightened up, putting both feet on the floor to let everyone in the courtroom know he knew this was serious business. “We didn’t find much o’ nothin’ ’til sun-up. It was way too dark up there, even with all the lanterns we had. Soon as the sun come up, though, Clem Shotwell found a kitchen knife.”

Wyman quickly moved to the evidence table and again held up the carving knife to which the bailiff had attached an Exhibit A tag. He carried the knife over to the witness and asked, “Is this the knife to which you’re referring, Captain Hodges?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it.”

“Your witness,” Wyman said to Patterson and, after returning the knife to the bailiff, sat down again at the prosecution’s desk.

“Your Honor,” Patterson said, rising from his chair but not coming forward, “the defense wishes to challenge Counselor Wyman’s allegation that the knife identified as Exhibit A has some bearing on this case. No clear connection has yet been established between this knife and the accused. The only reasonable conclusion that can be made is that it was a kitchen utensil recovered from the ashes of the fire. Doubtless there were many such implements in the debris left by the fire.”

Wyman immediately jumped to his feet. “Objection! According to the police report already submitted to the Court, the knife marked as Exhibit A was found in a part of the house far away from the kitchen area and, by inference, fell from an upstairs bedroom when the floor of that room collapsed in the fire.”

Lanham scribbled a note to himself. Then, looking up, he said, “Your objection has been sustained, Mister Wyman — even though it is inferential. Please sit down.” Then, to Patterson, he said, “Do you wish to cross-examine this witness, Counselor?”

“Yes, your Honor. I have just one question.”

“You may proceed, then.”

Still remaining behind the defense’s table, Patterson asked, “Captain Hodges, have you made any determination as to what caused the fire at the Geddis residence?”

“Nope. Not for sure, anyways. There wasn’t much to go on — just a bunch of ashes an’ charred timbers. Could’ve started just about anywheres. Coulda been the wood stove in the kitchen or one of the fireplaces. They had one in just about ever’ room o’ that house, and it was a mighty big house!”

“To the best of your knowledge, however, there was no evidence of the true cause of the fire,” Patterson said.

“No, sir.”

“Thank you, Captain Hodges. I have no further questions of this witness, your Honor,” Patterson said and sat down.

“You may step down, Captain,” the Judge told Hodges.

Nodding and smiling obsequiously, Hodges exited the courtroom.

“Call your next witness, Counselor Wyman,” Lanham ordered, eager to move the case along.

“Thank you, your Honor. The People call Master Samuel Geddis to the stand.”

Again, Calvin Patterson stood up to address the bench.

“Your Honor, before you call this witness — a point of clarification, if I may.”

“You may, Counselor.”

“Sam Geddis is a minor — only ten years old as of last month. It is our view, therefore, that his youth may be an impediment to his judgment in this matter.”

Lanham fixed Patterson with a withering stare. “As you know, Counselor, we have already resolved this issue in chambers. I will allow the witness.”

“Yes. Thank you, your Honor.” Patterson sat down again.

1920: Episode 16

AFTER SAM WAS SWORN IN AND SEATED in the witness box, Wyman approached him with a disarming smile. “You needn’t be nervous, son,” Wyman said reassuringly. “I just want to ask you a few simple questions. All you need to do is tell the truth. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” the 10-year-old Sam almost whispered, for he was in fact both nervous and frightened.

“Very well then,” Wyman resumed soothingly. “Would you please repeat for the Court what you told Chief Colpepper the morning after the fire?”

Sam couldn’t resist the impulse to look at his mother, who was sitting absolutely still now, staring into space as if she had no idea where she was. There was absolute silence in the courtroom as everyone waited for Sam to speak.

“Well,” he said at last, “Tully and I were asleep in our rooms and all of a sudden I woke up and smelled smoke. And then, when I looked around, I saw my bed was on fire. And then …” Sam paused, his throat suddenly tightening so much that he thought he would choke.

“Take your time, son,” Wyman murmured.

“And then I looked up and saw Momma standing over me with this big knife in her hand. She was leaning over me with this awful look on her face.” Sam paused, his lips trembling as if he were about to break into tears.

“What did you do then?” Wyman prodded.

“I got out o’ there!”

The courtroom erupted in laughter. Sam’s response had been so simple and logical that everyone found it comic relief.

Judge Lanham, however, was not amused and firmly rapped his gavel, quickly restoring silence to the courtroom.

“What did you do next?” Wyman asked, still keeping his voice low and gentle.

“I went to get Tully and sneaked him downstairs and out to the woodshed. I told him to stay there ’til I got back. Then I ran across the field to the Strohmanns for help.”

Now the spectators broke into uncontrollable applause, punctuated with several loud cheers. Furious with this outburst, Lanham pounded his gavel. “Order! Order in this Court!” he shouted. Then, as the applause quickly died down, he glared around the room and declared, “If there are any more of these outbursts, I shall order the bailiff to clear the room!”

Absolute silence greeted his warning. “You may proceed, Counselor.”

Wyman stepped back from the witness box a few paces, still keeping his eyes on Sam and his voice low. “Now Sam, what was your mother doing while you were rescuing your little brother?”

Again, Sam looked at his mother. Still, she was staring blankly into space. “She was running all around upstairs in the house, screaming at us. I think she was trying to find us. I don’t know for sure. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as we could.”

Wyman nodded his approval. “And what happened when you got to the Strohmanns’ residence?”

“Well, they were all asleep, I guess. So I just banged on the front door ’til somebody woke up. Mister Strohmann opened the door, and he was really mad. But when he looked across the field and saw our house burning, he told me to come inside. That’s when I told him about my Momma chasing us with a knife and about how Tully was hiding in the woodshed. Right away, Mister Strohmann got his shotgun. ‘You stay here,’ he told me. ‘I’ll go get your brother.’ Then, Missus Strohmann got up and tried to keep Mister Strohmann from going out with his gun. But he told her to shut up and call the firehouse. So that’s what she did, I guess.”

“And did Mister Strohmann rescue your brother?” Wyman asked.

“Yes, sir,” Sam replied. “I followed him and saw him do it.”

Again, applause and cheers broke out in the courtroom.

Lanham promptly ordered the bailiff to clear the courtroom and declared a fifteen-minute recess.

When the court reconvened at 2:30 that afternoon, Wyman resumed his dialogue with Sam. “You have told the Court, Sam, that Mister Strohmann rescued your brother. Where was your mother when this happened?”

“He rescued her too,” Sam said. “We heard her screaming from inside the house and he ran in and dragged her out just before the roof caved in. She fought with him, but he threw her on the ground and tied her wrists behind her with some rope we found in the car barn.”

“Did your mother still have the knife in her hand when Mister Strohmann rescued her?” Wyman asked.

“No, sir.”

Again Judge Lanham scribbled a note to himself.

“What happened next, son?” Wyman inquired.

“Well, we all went back to the Strohmanns’ house and Mister Strohmann called the police.”

Wyman stepped close to the witness box now and, placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder, said, “Thank you, Sam. You have done very well in your testimony. I have just one more question for you. Do you have any idea about how the fire started that night?”

Patterson was caught by surprise with this question. By raising this question to Sam now, Wyman had played a card that could strengthen the case against Florin Geddis. Patterson did the only thing he could to foil Wyman’s ruse. Standing at his desk, he said, “Objection. Your Honor, the prosecution is calling for speculation.”

The Judge nodded. “Objection sustained.” Then, to Wyman he said, “Either withdraw your question, Counselor, or ask a different one.”

Leering devilishly at Patterson, Wyman replied, “Of course, Your Honor, I’ll withdraw the question and ask another.” Then, to Sam he said, “Let me ask you this, Sam. Does your mother have any habits that might be a fire hazard?”

Somewhat puzzled by the wording of Wyman’s question, Sam took his time answering. Once more he looked at his mother and again saw that she seemed completely indifferent to what was happening. “Momma smokes cigarettes,” he said. “Sometimes she even smokes in bed. I don’t know. Maybe her cigarette started the fire.”

Simultaneously, the two lawyers exchanged glances. Smiling smugly, Wyman said, “Your witness, Counselor.”

Though stunned by Wyman’s skillful recovery, Patterson too recovered quickly. Ordinarily, he would have challenged Sam’s speculation about his mother’s starting the fire with a lighted cigarette. He decided this approach might backfire with the jury. “I agree with Counselor Wyman, Sam. You are an excellent witness. I too have just one more question, if you please.”

“Yes, sir?” Sam sat erect in his chair now, feeling very proud of himself, no longer at all nervous or frightened.

“You have said that, when Mister Strohmann rescued your mother from the fire, she no longer had the knife with her. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you quite sure that she actually had a knife in her hand when she woke you up earlier that night? Is it possible you just imagined she had a knife because you were startled from a deep sleep?”

Wyman jumped to his feet. “Objection! Your Honor, Counsel’s question is argumentative and calls for speculation. What’s more, Counsel’s question is compound and must certainly be confusing to this innocent child!”

“Objection sustained. Counselor, if you have nothing of more substance to add, I suggest you release this witness.”

“Your Honor, the Defense is simply trying to establish whether the accused actually had a knife in her possession when, in fact, she may simply have been trying to warn her son that a fire had started. We also believe it’s important to accurately establish this witness’s state of mind at the time.”

Lanham smiled indulgently. “The boy has already testified under oath that he saw his mother with a knife. That is sufficient for this Court. As for his state of mind, only God and the witness himself know that. I urge you to release this witness, Counselor.”

“Very well, your Honor,” Patterson replied. Then, to Sam, he again said, “Thank you, Sam. You’ve done very well.”

“Thank you, son,” Lanham echoed. “You may step down.”

Not familiar with such courtroom jargon and visibly rattled by Patterson’s question, Sam remained in the witness box for several seconds until the bailiff walked over to him and gently ushered him out of the courtroom.

“That lawyer’s very mean!” Del whispered to Ruby as they watched from the second-floor gallery. Ruby nodded in hushed agreement. Del then leaned over the railing to see what effect Patterson’s question might have had on the members of the jury. As she scanned their faces, she saw nothing but intense and stony attentiveness.

The next witness Wyman called was Salvatore Maroni, proprietor of Maroni’s Butcher Shop, where Florin had purchased meat on the day of the fire. A taciturn man who spoke only broken English, Maroni had very little to contribute as a witness except to confirm that Florin was one of his regular customers and that she had in fact purchased some sausage from him that day.

Having already elicited similar testimony from several other vendors, Wyman rested his case.

1920: Episode 17

JUDGE LANHAM NODDED TOWARD PATTERSON. “You may call your first witness for the defense, counselor.”

Patterson rose and moved again to a neutral position at the front of the courtroom. “The defense calls Missus Helen Moran to the stand.”

Helen Moran was a plump, matronly woman in her early forties. Attired in a gingham dress that looked as if it had been picked from a mail-order catalogue, she had the smooth complexion and perkiness of a much younger woman. She seemed perfectly at ease as she took her oath and sat down in the witness box.

“Good afternoon, Missus Moran,” Patterson greeted her affably. “I understand that you are acquainted with the defendant, Florin Geddis. Is that correct?”

“Oh yes, I know her quite well because she brings her boys to our Sunday Bible School every week. She’s always seemed to me a very gentle and loving mother.”

Lanham leaned toward the witness box. “Please simply answer yes or no to the Counselor’s questions, Missus Moran,” he courteously advised.
Helen smiled sweetly up at the judge. “Yes, your Honor.”

“Have you ever seen Missus Geddis mistreat either of her boys?” Patterson asked, coming right to the point.

“Oh dear no!” Helen answered vigorously. “In fact, I should say quite the opposite. She is always solicitous toward them. If anything, I have to say Sam has sometimes seemed to me quite rude to his mother. On one occasion, I’m told, he even slapped her in the face while they were shopping at the City of Paris.”

Startled by this response, Patterson appealed to the judge. “Your Honor, this witness’s last statement was based on hearsay. Her remark should be stricken from the record.”

“I agree, counselor. The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement.” Once more, Judge Lanham leaned toward Helen, this time with a very stern expression on his face. “Missus Moran, I implore you to restrict yourself to simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. I must warn you further not to repeat whatever rumors you may have heard about any of the litigants or witnesses in this case.”

“Oh but, your Honor, it’s not a rumor!” Helen protested. “I heard it from several of the most respectable members in our congregation.”

Furious at the woman’s audacity, the judge growled, “You are under oath, Madam! Any testimony you give in this Court must be restricted to your own first-hand knowledge. Is that understood?”

“Yes, your Honor,” Helen said meekly, now no longer smiling.

Realizing he would have to proceed very cautiously with his witness, Patterson asked, “Would it be accurate to say then, Missus Moran, that — based on your own first-hand experience — you consider Missus Geddis to be a responsible and dutiful parent to her children?”

“Most definitely!” she affirmed.

“Thank you, Missus Moran,” Patterson said, eager to get the woman off the stand as soon as possible. “Your witness, Mister Wyman.”

Wyman eagerly stepped forward. “Madam, we have heard testimony that Missus Geddis smokes cigarettes. Do you yourself have any reason to believe that she engages in such unladylike behavior?”

Looking up apprehensively at the Judge, Helen replied with nervous hesitation. “Well, I’ve sometimes smelled tobacco on her clothing.”

“So you agree with the earlier testimony that Missus Geddis may be a smoker, is that correct?” Wyman asked.

“Well, yes. I suppose it’s possible. But I’ve never seen her smoking myself,” Helen insisted. “She has always seemed to me a perfect lady.”

“Have you ever smelled alcohol on Missus Geddis’s breath?”

“Certainly not!” Helen declared.

Satisfied that he had sufficiently undermined the woman’s credibility as well as underscored Florin’s smoking and drinking habits as a possible cause of the fire, Wyman headed toward the prosecution desk. “No further questions, your Honor.”

It was now almost 4:30, so the judge called for adjournment. Rapping his gavel, he announced that the Court would reconvene at 1:30 p.m. the following day.
Immediately after leaving the courtroom, Wyman entered the County Clerk’s Office to phone his junior partner, Fred Koontz, and tell him what had happened during the first day of the trial.

“Sounds good, Josh!” Koontz declared. “Asking the kid about the cause of the fire was perfect. That guy Patterson must be a real amateur! Oh and listen to this: I got some more good news for ya. I got us an interview with that old nun over at St. Catherine’s you wanted to talk to. You know, the one that used to teach Florin Geddis when she was a kid?”

“When?” Wyman asked. “We don’t have much time.”

“Right now soon enough for ya?”

“Where? At the convent in Benicia?”

“Right. I’ll come over an’ pick ya up. It’ll only take us a few minutes to get to Benicia.”

“Good. I’ll be waiting at the front entrance.” Wyman hung up the phone and, after making a quick stop in the men’s room, rushed out of the building.

A new Model T sedan was already waiting in front of the courthouse with Koontz at the wheel. Koontz’s most distinguishing physical traits were his big feet, long neck, and a face covered with marks left by a childhood bout with chicken pox. Wyman had taken Koontz on as a partner four years before. He knew the man was far too ugly to be a courtroom lawyer. But Koontz was a relentless and skillful researcher. He liked nothing better than to spend hours poring over the archived documents in the County Clerk’s Office. He also had an uncanny ability to spot the most abstruse but critical precedents in case law.

As soon as Wyman climbed into the passenger seat, Koontz gunned the engine and the car leaped into the steady stream of traffic heading westward on Texas Street. Within minutes, they were speeding at nearly fifty miles an hour along the macadam-paved roadway toward Benicia.

“Nice car!” Wyman observed. It was the first time he had even seen Koontz’s new vehicle.

“This is old Henry’s latest model!” Koontz announced proudly.

Dreading the likelihood that his junior partner — an automobile fanatic — would launch into a long recitation of his new car’s engine and body specifications, Wyman changed the subject. “How did you manage to get an interview with the nun?”

“Easy!” Koontz chuckled. “I’m a Saint Cat’s alum. Donate to the school every year. No way they’re gonna turn me down!”

It was precisely five o’clock when they pulled in at the main gate of St. Catherine’s Dominican Convent School on Military Way. They could hear the chapel bell ringing as they drove into the parking area next to the main building, parked the car, and approached the concrete steps at the entrance. Ahead of them, a long line of nuns in white habits filed into the refectory.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said a tall, stentorian woman who immediately stepped in their path as Wyman and Koontz entered the front foyer. “How may I assist you?”

“My name’s Fred Koontz and this is District Attorney Joshua Wyman, Sister,” Koontz explained with the diffidence of an altar boy. “We’re here to see Sister Mary Clare.”

Immediately, a smile of recognition softened the nun’s rigid features. “Ah yes, Mister Koontz,” she said. “Sister Clare is expecting you. But, as you can see, this is our supper hour. I’m afraid you will have to wait here in the foyer for a moment.” The nun gestured toward a wooden bench close to the entrance door.

“That will be quite all right,” Wyman replied with a courtly bow, though there was a distinct timber of impatience in his tone.

The gatekeeper nodded and disappeared through the open double doors of the refectory, where Wyman and Koontz glimpsed several dozen nuns lining up like soldiers at long wooden tables. The double doors were quickly closed, leaving the two men to sit in sacrosanct silence.

“Right now, eh?” Wyman taunted his partner as the two men sat down on the bench.

Koontz swallowed hard in embarrassment, so much so that his Adam’s apple bobbed conspicuously above his stiff white shirt collar. “Sorry, Josh. Afraid you’ll have t’ be a little patient. These nuns live in a different world — different routines, different time schedules.”

“That may be. But time is of the essence, my friend,” Wyman reminded his colleague. “Besides, it’s Friday night and I promised Carolyn I’d be home by six. We’re having some important guests for dinner this evening.”

Koontz did not answer. Instead, he sat nervously folding and unfolding his large hands for several minutes.

Suddenly one of the double doors to the refectory opened and a pretty young novice stepped into the foyer. Moving swiftly toward the two men, she asked in a cautious whisper, “Are you the two gentleman who wish to see Reverend Mother Clare?”

“Yes, Miss!” Koontz jumped to his feet, again introducing himself and his partner. Wyman, however, remained seated. This young slip of a girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, he conjectured — hardly a figure of authority.

“Please wait in the reception hall, gentlemen,” the novice murmured softly and pointed to a wood-framed glass door opposite the entrance to the refectory. “I’ll bring Reverend Mother Clare to meet with you there.”

“Sister Clare doesn’t eat with the others?” the always-inquisitive Koontz asked.

The girl shook her head and placed a cautioning finger to her lips, reminding the two visitors that all in this part of the convent were constrained by a rule of silence. She then quickly disappeared into a dimly lighted corridor leading toward the rear of the building.

1920: Episode 18

WHAT FIRST CAPTURED WYMAN’S ATTENTION when they entered the reception hall was its Victorian simplicity. Though it was a large room with tall, mahogany-framed windows, these were covered with sheer white curtains framed by sage green cotton drapes. The walls above the dark mahogany wainscoting had been painted white and were bare except for two large portrait paintings depicting saintly personages unfamiliar to either Wyman or Koontz. The highly polished hardwood floor was also bare.

In the center of the room was an enormous oak table with elaborately carved legs, its surface obviously dusted and polished daily to preserve a high sheen. A dozen matching straight-backed chairs lined each long side of the table. Apart from this, the room was sparsely furnished. An eight-foot-high mahogany armoire stood against one of the interior walls, and facing the marble-framed hearth in the other was a semicircle of six wingback armchairs.

“Thank God they have a fire going!” Wyman declared as he claimed the wingback closest to the fireplace. Although it was early April, the dampness and cold of the Carquinez Strait was still penetrating, especially late in the day.

It wasn’t long before the novice returned, pushing a wooden wheelchair bearing the withered frame of an aged nun. The woman’s face was so creased with wrinkles that any form of expression seemed impossible. Somehow, though, Sister Clare managed a welcoming smile.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice conspicuously tinged with a French accent. “Please forgive me for not greeting you in the front foyer. I am old, and the drafts in that part of our building are most uncomfortable.” Addressing the novice, she said, “Thank you, Maureen my dear. I shall summon you with this when our guests are ready to leave.” As she spoke, the nun touched a small brass bell attached to the side of her wheelchair.

The girl nodded and promptly left the room.

“Now, then,” Sister Clare asked, “how may I help you gentlemen?”

Wyman was impressed. Immediately, he stood and introduced himself with his best courtroom demeanor. “Sister Clare,” he began solicitously, “it’s very gracious of you to meet with us on such short notice. Please accept our apologies if we have inconvenienced you at the dinner hour. I assure you, we will keep our meeting as brief as possible. We’d just like to ask a few questions about a woman who, as I understand it, was once a student of yours — Missus Florin Geddis? I believe her maiden name was Carvalho.”

“Ah yes. Chief Colpepper has told me about her. It distresses me to learn she is in trouble with the law.”

“Only as a suspect, Sister,” Koontz was quick to explain.

“Actually,” Wyman corrected, “she has been indicted as the defendant in a murder trial. I am the prosecuting attorney representing the Court in this case. Mister Koontz here is my associate.”

The old nun revealed no emotion in her response. “What is it you would like to know, gentlemen?” she asked.

“It’s my understanding, Sister,” Wyman continued, “that you have known Missus Geddis since she was an infant. Is that correct?”

“Oh yes,” the nun replied, her eyes brightening now with keen recollection. “Florin was scarcely more than a few months old when one of our priests found her in a basket left on the front steps of Saint Dominic’s rectory.” She paused, reflecting for a moment. “I believe it was sometime during the winter of 1894 when Father Lawrence brought her to us. At first, we did not know whose baby she was. But Benicia was a very small town then. It did not take us long to discover that her mother was Anne Carvalho. Anne was the wife of a Portuguese sailor named Jose Carvalho. Alas! Jose was not a good husband. As a merchant seaman, he was often away from home for months at a time. When he was at home, he often drank too much and beat his wife.”

“And that, I presume, is what prompted you to take this infant in as an orphan?” Wyman was genuinely excited now. Koontz had been right. Sister Clare was a veritable treasure trove of information.

“Our order does not usually take in foundlings. In this instance, however, the Prioress said it was our Christian duty to care for this helpless innocent. As she grew older, Florin proved to be a very bright child, though intraitable.” Sister Clare hesitated for an instant, aware that the French word she had used might not be familiar to her guests. “I think perhaps you would say ‘headstrong’?” she suggested.

Wyman nodded, eager for her to continue.

“I came to know Florin well because I taught her throughout grammar school, and she was one of the best pupils in my secondary school French classes. Perhaps this was so because Florin’s grandfather was French Canadian, a heritage that set her apart from her classmates. Florin was always a very proud and aloof child.” At this point, the old nun stopped speaking, suddenly aware she might have revealed too much.

“You said she was headstrong. Could you tell us more about that?” Wyman urged.

“Florin did not respond well to discipline,” Sister Clare replied cautiously. “She often quarreled with the other children. Also, she held grudges and could be very … how do you say — vindictif?”

“Vindictive. Yes, I understand, Sister. Please continue. Could you share with us an example of what you mean?”

“On one occasion, when Florin became very angry at Father Lawrence for giving her a severe penance, she tried to poison the parish cat. And several times, when we disciplined her, she attempted to run away.”

Wyman studied the nun several seconds before he asked his next question. He wasn’t at all sure how she might react. He was not Roman Catholic and was inclined to think all Catholics were ignorant and superstitious. “Do you believe,” he said finally, “Florin was possessed of the Devil?”

Much to his surprise, Sister Clare merely smiled at this question. “Not in the sense you may construe, Monsieur Wyman. No doubt you have heard the old saying, ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’ I assure you, so too does Satan. He rarely takes possession of anyone in a manner that would require an exorcist. It is much easier for him to work through mere mortals like us.” The old woman paused momentarily, studying her inquisitor as she might an insect under a microscope.

Wyman was beginning to feel uncomfortable in the woman’s presence. She was obviously much more intelligent and canny than he had anticipated. “I’m sorry, Sister Clare,” he said. “I don’t think I quite understand what you mean. Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain.”

“Naughty children are not naturally so, Monsieur. More often than not, their bad behavior can be traced to the emotional atmosphere of their early childhood. In Florin’s case, I suspect that atmosphere was very disagreeable. Very early, she learned not to trust the grown-ups in her world. After that, almost any adult who reminded her of that atmosphere prompted her instinct to rebel. Satan, you see, had worked his will through Florin’s parents.”

Wyman exchanged glances with Koontz. To the nun he said, “I see. That’s a very perceptive observation, Sister. Were there perhaps any other adults who may have contributed to this ‘atmosphere,’ as you call it? You mentioned, for instance, that Florin was hostile toward one of your priests. Is it possible she was physically abused by this individual at some point during her stay here?”

Sister Clare stiffened in her chair. She paused several seconds before answering. It was clear to Wyman the woman was struggling to calm her emotions. Her voice still tense, she said, “As I’m sure you realize, Mister Wyman, even priests are human.”

Wyman smiled disarmingly. “I take it, then, that your answer is yes. Florin was physically abused by this priest.”

“I did not say that, Monsieur!” the nun declared. “There has never been any incident of abuse at Saint Catherine’s Seminary. We are, after all, a teaching order of Holy Mother Church!”

Satisfied that he had gone as far as he could with this line of questioning and convinced that Sister Clare would fiercely defend her faith no matter how it might conflict with secular law or common sense, Wyman stood up. “Thank you for sharing your insights with us, Sister. I think we have all we need for now.”

Immediately, the ancient nun’s features softened in an expression of relief. “I hope I have been of some assistance to you, gentlemen,” she said softly. “I am very old, and I fear my memory is not what it used to be.”

Though he couldn’t repress an amused smirk at the unintentional contradiction in what the old nun had just said, Wyman made his best effort at departing gallantry. “I just hope mine is half as good as yours when I retire, Sister.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Koontz exclaimed as he and Wyman headed north again toward Fairfield. “Are you out of your mind, Josh, asking a question like that of a nun?”

“No one is above the law, my friend,” Wyman said grimly. “Not even a member of the clergy. We’ve done what we came to do. We’ve established a motive. Unfortunately, though, if we ever put this woman on the stand, she would blow our case to bits!”

Koontz’s Adams Apple bobbled above his collar. “Yeah. You’re right about that,” he admitted. “Sorry, Josh!”

1920: Episode 19

GAIL WESTLAKE WAS THE FIRST WITNESS CALVIN PATTERSON CALLED when the Court reconvened the following Monday afternoon. Dressed simply but tastefully in a gray frock with prim, high-cut lace bodice, long sleeves, and a hemline just a few inches above her ankles, Gail looked the paragon of ladylike propriety. Her steady gaze and glowing natural beauty drew admiring glances from everyone in the courtroom.

Patterson especially was captivated by Gail’s quiet composure as she took her seat in the witness box.

“I understand, Missus Westlake, that you are well acquainted with Missus Geddis. Is that so?” Patterson began.

“Yes. I would say so. We’ve known each other ever since the Geddises first moved here four years ago. My boy and hers go to school together and play together often.”

“Do you and Missus Geddis socialize with each other — as adult friends, I mean?”

“Oh yes. I frequently go to her house for afternoon tea and, whenever we can, we shop together in Vallejo and Martinez.”

Wary now about asking any leading questions like the one he had posed to Helen Moran, Patterson hesitated over his next question. But he knew it was a question he must ask. “I gather,” he began, “based on your friendship with Missus Geddis, as well as on the friendship between your son and hers, that you have had many opportunities to observe Missus Geddis’s relationships with her children. Would you describe her as a good mother?”

“She’s a wonderful mother!”

Gail’s response was so warm and sincere that it made Patterson’s heart flutter. He felt sure it had the same effect on every member of the jury as well. “Thank you, Missus Westlake.” Turning to Judge Lanham, he said, “I have no further questions of this witness, your Honor.”

In cross-examination, Wyman approached Gail as if he were a suitor for her hand in marriage. “I hope you’ll not think it bold of me, Missus Westlake,” he began. “But I’m sure I speak for everyone here when I say that’s a very becoming dress you’re wearing.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gail replied with a modest but wary smile.

Seething with envy, Patterson immediately objected. “Your Honor, the Prosecution is openly flattering this witness!“

“I concur, Counselor,” Lanham snapped irritably. To Wyman he said, “Counselor, please restrict yourself to matters of relevance in this case.”

Wyman was not one to be easily dissuaded from his own courtroom strategies, however. Bowing slightly to the Judge, he replied, “Thank you, your Honor. I shall do so.” Then, turning to Gail with a sardonic smile, he said, “Since you and Missus Geddis are such close friends, I presume you’re aware that Missus Geddis is a smoker.”

“Yes,” Gail said, unperturbed. “But I see nothing wrong with that. An increasing number of women smoke nowadays. It’s becoming quite fashionable in some circles.”

“In large cities like Chicago and New York, perhaps, but not in Benicia or here in Fairfield, I’m sure you’ll agree.” Wyman had directed this last comment at the members of the jury, several of whom now registered facial expressions of righteous disapproval.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Gail replied coolly. “Since the War, manners have greatly changed in our society. I expect they will continue to do so. After all, we women now have the right to vote.” Then, parrying cleverly but not at all coquettishly with Wyman, she added, “I’m sure you’ll agree, sir, that that is a good thing.”

Wyman nodded but only to indicate he had heard what she said. He was keenly aware of what most of the men on the jury panel thought of universal women’s suffrage. Quickly, he moved to his next pointed question. “And are you aware, Missus Westlake, that Missus Geddis consumes alcohol?” Once more, Wyman directed a meaningful glance at the jury.

Still Gail was unruffled. “I’m aware that she enjoys an occasional glass of wine in the privacy of her own home. But, again Mister Wyman, I see nothing particularly wrong about that. Florin is a sophisticated woman. She has often traveled abroad with her husband and has very cultivated tastes.”

“Indeed!” Wyman remarked with conspicuous sarcasm. “Am I to understand, therefore, that you yourself approve of alcohol consumption even though it is now prohibited by both federal and state law?”

Realizing she had been cornered, Gail paused briefly before responding. “I do not approve of anyone’s breaking the law, if that’s what you mean. But I understand that many people do bend that particular law in their own homes nowadays. I’m sure Florin does not do so in public.”

Wyman looked up at the judge, expecting him to intervene as he had with Helen Moran. Lanham, however, remained silent. He admired Gail’s pluck and, though he would never publicly admit it, he agreed with her implied argument that the Volstead Act was bad law.

“How can you be so sure, Madame?” Wyman asked, now becoming openly hostile. “Do you yourself bend that particular law, as you put it?”

Patterson was on his feet. “I strongly object to this line of questioning, your Honor!” he declared. “Missus Westlake is not on trial here. Counselor Wyman is simply sparring with this witness.”

Lanham promptly agreed. “Counselor, I must ask you to get to the point. What is it you want from this witness?”

Raising his hands in feigned surprise, Wyman explained. “I’m simply trying to show, your Honor, that Missus Westlake here is fully aware of her friend’s eccentricities and that these eccentricities are clear indications of Missus Geddis’s thorough contempt for the norms of decent behavior in our society.” Glancing toward the jury, he added: “It is therefore evident, to me at least, that Missus Geddis is quite capable of perpetrating a despicable act such as the murder of her own children.”

Everyone in the courtroom was stunned by this open assault. Wyman paused for several seconds after he had made his statement. Then, stepping back from the witness box, he said, “I am finished with this witness, Your Honor.”

Aware that there was little he could do to counter Wyman’s attack and that any additional good things Gail might say about her friend would fall on deaf ears, Patterson moved on to his next witness — the Geddises’ next-door neighbor, Eli Strohmann.

A short, stocky man in his late forties, Strohmann had first come to Benicia with his family from Buffalo, New York, in 1912. He had moved to California chiefly because his wife’s poor health had been aggravated by the cold winters of upper New York State and because farmland in Benicia was relatively cheap. Though formerly a dairy farmer, he had decided to raise chickens because the care and maintenance of such livestock was far less costly than raising cows. In addition, as a food commodity in California, poultry offered a much better margin of profit than dairy products, which had to be processed and distributed through commercial vendors.

Strohmann was, first and foremost, a practical businessman. Aloof and taciturn, he believed in hard work and had no interest in the community life of Benicia. Nor did he encourage his wife Esther or his 8-year-old daughter Rachel to mix and mingle. Their only outings were occasional shopping trips to Vallejo and their weekly attendance at the Jewish Orthodox Temple in that city.

Strohmann’s testimony added little to the arguments of either side in the case. Though he corroborated Sam’s account of the fire and rescue, his answers to both attorneys’ questions were curt and specific. All he provided that was new to the jurors was that, prior to the fire, the Strohmanns had had no social contact with anyone in the Geddis household.

1920: Episode 20

CALVIN PATTERSON’S FINAL WITNESS WAS DR. SCOTT MERRIWEATHER, a physician at the Solano County Hospital where Florin Geddis had been sequestered in the Court’s custody since the night of the fire. Still in his late twenties, Merriweather was a recent graduate of Stanford University Medical School, where he had specialized in the relatively new science of psychiatry. It was because of this background that he had been asked to examine Geddis to determine whether she would be able to appear as a witness in her own defense. Merriweather had recommended against it.

“Doctor Merriweather,” Patterson began, “would you please tell the Court why you have recommended that the defendant, Florin Geddis, not be allowed to testify?”

“As I stated in my deposition,” Merriweather explained confidently, “during the past six weeks, I have conducted numerous physical examinations and administered a number of psychological tests of the defendant. I have also closely monitored her behavior and met with her in private counseling sessions. My physical examinations indicate that Missus Geddis is in good health. The results of the psychological tests, however, indicate a neurosis that may have its roots in hysteria. Moreover, in private counseling sessions, she has been consistently unresponsive. It is for these reasons that I have concluded Missus Geddis may not be prepared to testify in her own behalf.”

“Thank you, Doctor Merriweather,” Patterson said. “Your witness, Counselor.”

Wyman now took a position midway between the witness stand and the jury box. He was determined to choreograph his final assault so that it had maximum effect on the jury.

“Doctor Merriweather,” he began, “you have stated that you have found Missus Geddis unresponsive in her private counseling sessions with you. Would you please explain to the jury, sir, precisely what that means?”

“As I trust you are aware, Counselor, the content of a physician’s private consultation with a patient is strictly confidential. I am not at liberty, therefore, to divulge any of Missus Geddis’s specific responses.”

Wyman pursed his lips in mocking skepticism. “Is that so? Well then, perhaps you will allow me to pose to you a few clinical questions about Missus Geddis’s condition. You may, of course, answer them or not — however you see fit.”

“Fire away!” Merriweather said with a degree of youthful informality and impudence that startled many of his listeners.

Wyman stepped back, closer to the jury box, still keeping his eyes fixed on the young doctor. “In your professional opinion, sir, would you say that Missus Geddis is a psychopath?”

“That’s an interesting but relatively new term, sir,” Merriweather replied with a sardonic smile. “Very little clinical research has been done on psychopathic behavior, and the results of the few studies that have been done are inconclusive.”

“What about this, then?” Wyman asked, moving closer now to the witness box. “Would you say that Missus Geddis exhibits homicidal tendencies?”

“There is nothing in her behavior to support such a diagnosis, sir.” Merriweather was clearly beginning to lose patience, which was precisely what Wyman wanted. Pausing momentarily to recover his composure, Merriweather explained, “To make an accurate diagnosis, I would have to observe Missus Geddis over a much longer period of time than I have been able to so far. I would also need to consult with other experts before reaching any firm conclusion.”

Wyman raised the index finger of his right hand. “I detect a slight hint of uncertainty in your response, doctor. Is it possible, then, that you believe Missus Geddis could be homicidal?”

“Anything is possible, Counselor. In this case, however, it is highly improbable.”

These were precisely the words Patterson had been waiting to hear. Rising from his chair, he addressed the bench. “Your Honor, I would remind the Counselor that it is only guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, not mere possibility, with which we are concerned in this case. Doctor Merriweather’s response should put an end to this fishing expedition.”

“I agree,” Lanham said. “Counselor Wyman, unless you have more substantive questions to ask of this witness, I suggest you release him.”
Smiling benignly at the Judge, Wyman said, “I have no further questions, your Honor.”

By the time Merriweather was dismissed, it was 3:30 in the afternoon. Lanham therefore called a recess until the following morning when the prosecution and defense counselors would be asked to give their summations and the jury to begin its deliberations as to a final judgment.

1920: Episode 21

“HEY BOY — YOU DO A PRETTY GOOD JOB!” Bob Jenson said as he looked down for the first time at his newly polished shoes. Jenson had been lounging in one of the two leather-cushioned chairs in Hewitt’s Barber Shop while Huey, the owner, lathered him up for a shave. Jack, having completed his shoeshine duty, was now deeply engrossed in an article about circus clowns in The Saturday Evening Post.

“Yeah,” Huey said. “He’s gotten pretty good at it. Been with me now almost a year. Ever since Adam Tucker brought him over to work for me las’ August. Makin’ pretty good money too, ain’t y’, boy?” Huey added, directing his question at Jack.

Jack looked up briefly from his magazine to give Huey an ambiguous smile. He was not entirely happy with the payroll arrangements Tucker had made for him with Huey, who took five cents from every dime charged for Jack’s shoeshine service. Having inherited from his mother and his grandfather a natural affinity for numbers, Jack knew he was being cheated.

Even so, by coming to work at Hewitt’s Barber Shop every Friday afternoon and all day most Saturdays, Jack had accumulated a sizeable cash nest egg for himself, which his mother had encouraged him to put in a savings account at the Bank of Italy. From his earnings, she allowed him to keep a weekly allowance of fifty cents. This was a princely sum for any ten-year-old boy.

Jenson suddenly interrupted Huey’s ministrations by announcing that he needed to use the bathroom. He was gone several minutes. By the time Jenson climbed back into the barber’s chair, Huey was visibly annoyed. He did not like being interrupted in the practice of his craft. “I gotta re-lather y’ up again,” he announced briskly as he wiped Jenson’s face clean with a towel.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Jenson said with uncharacteristic compliance. As the head dyer at McClaren’s Tannery, Jenson was notorious for his bravado. “Say, Huey, what d’ y’ think o’ that verdict the jury come up with in the Geddis trial las’ week?” he asked, seeking to recover control of the barbershop dialogue.

“Wasn’t no verdict,” Huey replied, sharpening his straightedge razor on the leather strap that hung on the back of his barber’s chair. “A hung jury? Don’t seem right t’ me. From what I read in the Times-Herald, it shoulda been an open an’ shut case against that Geddis woman.”

“So what’re they gonna do to her?” Jenson asked.

“Judge sent her to some loony house up in Napa. Who knows what they do in them places?” Huey was now scraping the three-day-old growth off Jenson’s face. “Far as I’m concerned,” Huey added, “they oughta lock her up an’ throw away the key.”

“Mmm,” Jenson grunted, careful not to move the muscles in his face and risk being nicked by Huey’s fast-moving razor.

The shop was silent for several minutes while Huey worked. Outside on First Street, though, there was plenty of noise from the heavy Saturday afternoon traffic. Occasionally, the face of a male passerby would peer through the front window of Huey’s shop to see how busy he was.

When at last Huey was finished and began slapping his customer’s face with witch hazel, Jenson said, “Wonder what’s gonna happen t’ them two boys o’ hers.”

“You mean the Geddis kids?” Huey asked. “I hear they gonna live with relatives down in Oakland. Can’t say as I’d want t’ take ’em in. That kid Sam’s pretty wild, from what I hear.”

At this, Jack looked up from his magazine. He knew his boss was a relentless gossip who liked nothing better than to share any bad news he could garner with every one of his customers. This rumor about his friend Sam, however, he had not yet heard.

“What d’ y’ mean?” Jenson asked.

“Well, y’ remember on Mischief Night las’ year when them kids dumped the whorehouse privies into the river an’ old man Cooney got caught in one of ’em an’ almos’ drowned?”

Jenson sat upright in the chair. “No kiddin’! He did?”

“Sure ’nough!” Huey affirmed. “If Terry Duckworth hadn’ o’ heard him holerin’ and swum out an’ rescued ’im, sure as shootin’ he’d be up in the city graveyard right now.”

“Well, I’ll be! How come I never heard ’bout that?”

“Don’ know, Bob. But one thing I do know — Sam Geddis was one o’ the kids they caught dumpin’ them privies. Him an’ the Holcomb boy an’ a couple of others.” As he said this, Huey cast a jaundiced eye in Jack’s direction. Jack quickly refocused on his magazine.

The bell attached to the entrance door jangled, announcing the arrival of a new customer. “How y’ doin’, Huey?” asked the redheaded man who entered.

“Not bad, Wally. How’s yourself?”

“Got a hot date t’night,” announced the newcomer with a self-congratulatory grin as he sat down to wait in the chair next to Jack’s.

Looking up from his magazine, Jack instantly recognized the Henshaks’ red-headed groundskeeper. “’Lo, Mister Sykes.”

Sykes threw an arm around Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, little buddy! How are y’?”

Put off by Sykes’s familiarity, Jack cringed.

“Who’s yer date?” Huey asked, eager for new gossip. “Got one o’ them putahs from the Lido?” he taunted.

Always resilient, Sykes grinned. “No siree! Got me a date with a real lady. Sara Wilkes at the Express Office. Gonna take her to the big barn dance over at Bert Holcomb’s place tonight. Sara says she’s crazy ’bout square dancin’, so that’s how I roped her in.”

“Won’t be much fun, now Pro’bition’s started,” Huey observed, determined to needle Sykes. “Y’r gonna have t’ be satisfied with lemonade.”

“Yeah. Lemonade spiked with some o’ Holcomb’s home-made schnapps!” Sykes fired back. “Pshaw! That new law don’t mean nothin’ in this town. You seen any slow-down in business at Campy’s ’r The Pastime yet?”

“Mayor says he’s gonna shut them joints down,” Jenson commented.

Sykes chuckled. “I’ll bet ten-to-one the Mayor’s gonna be over at Holcomb’s suckin’ up that spiked lemonade hisself t’night!”

“Not if them Temp’rance women’s there,” Huey rejoined.

“You mean like that Callahan woman?” Sykes asked, still chuckling over his own worldly sagacity. “Hell! They run that witch out o’ town months ago. Wasn’t you there when Parker’s girls give her the finger at the big parade las’ August?”

“I ain’t talkin’ about that,” Huey persisted. “I’m talkin’ about our own lady folk here in town. ’Specially the ones over at Saint Paul’s.”

Sykes waved his hand contemptuously at Huey and gently poked Jack in the shoulder. “Come on, boy. How about shinin’ up these dancin’ shoes?”

Reluctantly, Jack obliged by putting down his magazine and sliding his shoeshine kit in front of Sykes. As he did so, the entrance doorbell rang again, and two railroad workers came into the shop — switch-engine operator Kevin Lockyer and oiler Joe Patmos. Both were still dressed in their work clothes and Patmos’ hands were black from the grease and soot he’d picked up from his morning labors. Holding his palms up now, he asked, “I gotta wash up. Can I use y’r bathroom?”

“Sure. But don’t f’rget t’ clean up the sink when y’r done,” Huey cautioned.

“We had a near disaster this mornin’,” Lockyer reported as he sat down with an exhausted sigh in the chair next to Sykes.

“That so?” Huey asked, all ears. “What happened?”

“Harry Bettencourt and me pulled a bunch o’ boxcars on the Solano and was waitin’ in our goat when all of a sudden we felt ourselves gettin’ pushed from behin’. We tried to throw the brakes on, but it didn’t do no good ’cause the yard boss ordered the other goat t’ help us out. Well, he helped us out alright — our goat an’ six boxcars right off the deck an’ into the river.”

“Holy smokes!” Sykes declared.

“Anybody hurt?” Huey asked.

“No. Lucky for us, me an’ Harry jumped out before our goat went over the side. But I don’t min’ tellin’ y’ we was pretty scared.”

“So what happened to yer engine and the cars?” Jenson asked.

“That goat sank right to the bottom with the cars hangin’ off the deck. They had to bring the barge crane over from the shipyard. They’re tryin’ t’ pull the engine an’ cars back up right now.”

“I seen the whole thing,” Joe Patmos announced proudly as he returned from Huey’s bathroom.

“I was standin’ right next to Boss Chilton when he called up the other goat. He was over t’ Campy’s for his usual mornin’ pick-me-up so he didn’ even know they was another goat pullin’ from up front. Damn fool!”

“Guess Chilton ain’t gonna be Yard Boss no more,” Jenson chuckled. “They’ll fire his ass for sure.”

“They better!” Lockyer said ominously.

“Okay, Bob — you’re all done,” Huey announced as he removed the cover sheet from Jenson and shook it out for his next customer.

Jenson promptly stood up and paid Huey.

“Don’t drink too much lemonade tonight, Wally,” Jensen quipped as headed out the door.

Huey looked disparagingly at the two quarters in his hand. “What a cheapskate! Didn’t even pay for his shoeshine!”

He dropped the two coins into his cash register and started to work on Sykes.

Seeing this, Jack decided it was time to start asking his own customers to pay him in advance.

1920: Episode 22

MONDAY IN MRS. THORNDIKE’S CLASS WAS ALWAYS RECITATION DAY. Every one of the three grade levels she taught had to memorize and recite some passage from their classroom reading text. Children in grade three were usually assigned a nursery rhyme or the abbreviated version of one of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, while children in the fourth grade — Jack’s class — were assigned more challenging passages, such as a few quatrains from Kipling’s “Gunga Din.” Only the fifth graders were allowed to choose their own passages. Mrs. Thorndike made sure these choices would be even more challenging by prescribing a list of longer poetry and prose passages, such as all of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.”

Jack hated Mondays. It was not so much having to stand up in front of the class and recite that bothered him; it was the time it took over the weekend to memorize his assigned passage. He did everything he could to put this off until the last minute — usually after supper on Sunday, when he knew his mother preferred to sit quietly and read the Examiner rather than goad him to practice his recitation.

As Jack walked down East J Street toward school on this sunny April morning, he noticed the peach trees along his route were filled with bright pink blossoms and chirruping sparrows — signs of spring that sharply contrasted with the lines he had been assigned from Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid poem “The Raven.” When he reached the bottom of the hill, Jack heard running footsteps behind him.

“Wait up, Jack!” It was his friend Greg Henshak. “You ready for recitation?” Greg asked breathlessly when he caught up with Jack.

“I don’t know. I hope so. That Poe poem is really hard. You ready?”

“Oh yeah!” Greg boasted. “I really like the poem I got.” Immediately, Greg started reciting his poem:

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night.
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

“What’s it mean?” Jack asked, baffled by the strange imagery.

Greg shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about a tiger in a forest fire, I guess.”

“Is that all you had to memorize — just those few lines?”

“No. There’s five more verses. But they’re all short like the first one and the last verse is the same as the first. You wanna hear the rest of it?”

“No,” Jack said. “It’s hard enough trying to remember my own poem without mixing it up with yours.”

“Is your poem longer?” Greg asked, feeling sorry for his friend.

“A lot longer and a lot harder!”

Greg threw his arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Jack. You can do it. You’re really smart!”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with being smart,” Jack grumbled. “It’s just stupid memory work.”

“But Missus Thorndike says memorization is very important because it helps you think.”

“That’s baloney!”

They were approaching the school entrance now, where scores of children were crowding into the front hallway and depositing their lunch pails in the wooden cloakroom lockers. Jack did not have a lunch pail but carried the jelly sandwich and apple his mother had prepared for him in a paper bag. He would stuff the bag into his classroom desk.

Emma Thorndike, a stout, matronly woman in her early fifties, stood in the classroom doorway marking her attendance book as her pupils filed inside and drifted toward their desks. Emma had taught at the Benicia Primary School ever since she graduated from St. Catherine’s Seminary in 1888. Even-tempered and soft-spoken, she was well liked by most of her pupils, though some of them made fun of her behind her back.

Fourth-grader Priscilla McClaren was the classroom monitor this week. At precisely 9 a.m., she walked to the front of the classroom and rang the brass bell Mrs. Thorndike kept on her desk. Instantly, all of the pupils stood up at their assigned desks. Even the most rambunctious knew the ringing of Mrs. Thorndike’s brass bell was a serious summons to order. Anyone who failed to heed it would face an hour of after-school detention.

Silence prevailed as Mrs. Thorndike mounted the dais at the front of the classroom and solemnly nodded to Priscilla, who promptly covered her heart with her right hand and led the class in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Next, Mrs. Thorndike gestured for the children to sit down and listen while one of her fifth-grade pupils read a passage from the Bible. This morning’s reader was Rosemary Clinger, a pig-tailed and freckle-faced ten-year-old whom Jack considered an insufferable teacher’s pet. Like many of the other boys in the classroom, Jack paid little attention to the Bible reading, for he was focusing on a last-minute review of the verses he was supposed to recite.

The morning rituals concluded, Mrs. Thorndike immediately began calling on individual third-graders to recite their memory passages while standing at their desks. After each pupil recited, Mrs. Thorndike made a mark in her grade book and, without comment, called on the next pupil. These recitations went quickly because the third graders rarely had difficulty with their short and simple memory passages.

Mrs. Thorndike always called on her students in alphabetical order, so Jack was the last in his class to be summoned to the dais. As he stood beside Mrs. Thorndike’s desk and looked around the room, he noted that several other boys were making faces at him. Jack tried to ignore them and concentrate on the first words of his assigned stanzas: “Prophet!” Jack sputtered. “Thing of evil …”

Jack’s mind went blank. He couldn’t remember the next line. Frantic, he looked toward Mrs. Thorndike. But her face was expressionless. The silence in the classroom was deafening. At last more words came back to him. “Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant …” Again, Jack drew a blank and again he looked at his teacher.

“Aidenn,” she murmured with a slight but compassionate smile.

This was all Jack needed. Suddenly his memory cleared and he began to recite — without much expression but, for the most part, fluently and easily. As he spoke the last lines, he felt a tremendous sense of relief: “And my soul that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted nevermore.”

Swallowing hard, Jack stood in exhausted silence. Mrs. Thorndike gave him a little nod and made a mark in her grade book. As he returned to his desk, though, Jack heard someone at the back of the room call out, “Hooray, shoeshine boy!”

Mrs. Thorndike was quick to reprove this miscreant. “Antonio Marino,” she scolded, “I will see you during recess!”

Jack stuck his tongue out at the scrawny third-grader who had mocked him. Tony responded by biting the tip of his thumb at Jack. Jack wasn’t sure what biting your thumb meant, but he suspected it was much worse than sticking out your tongue. He decided to ignore it.

This was not the first time Jack had had a falling out with the Marino brothers. A year before, Tony had suddenly walked up to Jack in the school playground and punched him in the jaw. The blow had taken Jack completely by surprise. He had no idea why Tony had punched him. Because Tony was much smaller than he, Jack simply warned him not to do it again. But as Jack walked through the cloakroom at the end of recess, he was suddenly grabbed from behind, lifted off his feet and stuffed into a trash can. “That’ll teach you to pick on my little brother!” eighth-grader Mario Marino snarled, and then stood back to laugh at Jack’s humiliation.

When, after school, Jack told his mother about his latest confrontation with Tony, she did not sympathize. “You’re not the only one who has to put up with bullies in this world, Jack. You just have to ignore it.”

“What about bullies like Soames?” Jack retorted, determined to punish her for being so indifferent to his plight.

Once again, Gail had to resist the impulse to strike Jack in the face. “Just what do you mean by that remark, young man!” she demanded.

“Well, how come you let Soames bully you when you know he fools around with those women at the Lido?”

For almost a year, Jack had kept what he knew about Soames’ flirtation with the girl at the Lido to himself. The expression of pain and distress in his mother’s face now made him regret what he had said.

Gail turned her back to him. “That’s not true. You have no business saying such nasty things.” But she spoke without conviction and her shoulders started to shake.

Jack reached out and touched his mother’s arm. “Momma! I’m sorry! You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. But it’s true. Soames is a bad man.”

Gail spun around, her tear-streaked face flush with fury. This time, she did not resist the impulse to strike her son. With the full force of her rage, she slapped him in the face. Jack stumbled under the blow, falling against the kitchen counter. “Get out of here!” his mother screamed. “Get out of here right now!”

Terrified, Jack ran out of their apartment and down the stairs into the street. Stopping at the foot of the stairs, he looked back to see if his mother had followed him. She had not.

Suddenly, Jack realized he had crossed a forbidden boundary in his relationship with his mother. There was no going back. Who would take him in after the terrible thing he had done? He burst into tears.

1920: Episode 23

“WHAT’SA MATTER HONEY?” SAID AN UNFAMILIAR FEMALE VOICE. “You lost or somethin’?”

Terribly embarrassed, Jack quickly tried to dry his eyes with clenched fists. Through his tears, he saw the pale face of a young woman with brilliant red hair close to his own. Her hand rested lightly on his shoulder.

“N … nothing,” Jack blubbered forlornly. “I … I’m OK.”

“Don’t look it to me, honey,” the girl said softly. “Whyn’t you come with me an’ I’ll buy you a hot choc’late or somethin’, OK?”

His vision clearer now, Jack recognized the face of this sympathetic stranger. It was one of the young women who had so often waved to him from the second-story bay windows of the Lido. He was speechless with shame. Of all the people in Benicia, this was the last person he would have expected — or wanted — to offer him sympathy. Yet, at the same time, he felt a sudden flood of relief, even joy. The words erupted from his lips: “Gee! You’re awful pretty!”

“So are you, honey,” the girl murmured affectionately as she pressed her brightly rouged lips against his cheek and then, stepping back, said, “Who could resist those long eyelashes of yours!”

It was the first time anyone had said anything like that to Jack. What did it mean? Was it some attribute women found attractive? He did not know. He did not care. What mattered most just then was that someone else cared.

“Come on,” she insisted, grasping his arm firmly and propelling him up First Street. “Let’s go get us some hot choc’late.”

Overwhelmed with a tumultuous sense of gratitude toward this beautiful stranger, Jack allowed himself to be guided along the boardwalk. “Thank you,” he muttered.

Jack was glad that the young woman seemed content simply to walk beside him in silence, though she continued to hold on to his arm. Looking at her more closely now, he realized she wasn’t much taller than he. Despite the rouge on her lips, she had the slender figure and wholesome freshness of a girl his own age. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Becky Parsons,” she smiled. “What’s yours?”

“Jack Westlake. I’ve seen you before.” He was reluctant to say where. He did not want to offend Becky, no matter what her reputation might be.

“I know. I’ve seen you too, honey.” She winked at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t bite you. I just want to be friends, OK?”

“OK,” Jack echoed. He was feeling calmer now. Becky seemed to him much more like a big sister than a “scarlet” woman. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Fifteen,” she said. “I’ve only been doing this for a year. And it’s not as if I want to or anything,” she suddenly explained. “When you’re poor and homeless like me, you don’t have too many choices.”

“I know what you mean,” Jack said sadly, thinking that he too was now poor and homeless.

“So, do you want to tell me what’s makin’ you so sad?” Becky asked as they crossed First Street toward the entrance to Huey’s barbershop and soda fountain.

“I had a big fight with my Mom.” Jack surprised himself with his own candor. “She slapped me and told me to get out.”

Becky chuckled at this. “Oh, that’s all? Don’t be silly, honey! Your Mom will get over it.”

“I don’t think so. She’s really mad.”

“How old are you, Jack?” Becky asked.

“I’m ten.”

“And you’ve been living with your Mom all that time?” When Jack nodded, Becky laughed again. “Come on, honey! You think your Mom’s gonna throw you out on the street after ten whole years of taking care of you? I just wish I had a mother like that,” she remarked as she pushed open the door of Huey’s shop.

“Hi, kids! How y’ doin’?” Mary Lou Hewitt called out cheerfully as Becky and Jack sat down at the soda fountain counter. Mary Lou, Huey’s wife, ran the soda fountain and pool hall that occupied most of the ground-floor space in their building. Huey’s barbershop took up only a small partitioned-off area in the front of the store.

A grotesquely overweight woman, Mary Lou moved very slowly behind the counter. She was always happy and friendly, though, and especially catered to the many children and teen-agers who frequented her shop. “Well, well!” she said with a chuckle, “I see you found yourself a new girlfriend, eh Jack?”

“This is Becky Parsons,” Jack announced sternly, determined not to let Mary Lou’s often-tasteless sense of humor get out of hand.

“Oh, don’t you fuss now! I know Becky. She’s a good girl, ain’t y’ Becky?” Mary Lou said with a knowing wink.

“We want two hot choc’lates,” Becky announced matter-of-factly.

“Alrighty, two hot choc’lates comin’ right up!” Mary Lou turned to fill two cups from a steel pot she kept on a gas-fueled hot plate behind the counter. “You want marshmallows in ’em?” she asked.

“Sure,” Becky said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack noticed two older boys playing pool at the rear of the shop — “Joey Junior” Vitalie and Calvin Watrous. He was glad to see they were too engrossed in their game to notice Becky and him. At the far end of the soda fountain counter, though, Mary Lou’s twelve-year-old daughter “Isty” Hewitt and her friend Priscilla McClaren were giggling and whispering together, obviously gossiping about Jack and his new friend.

Becky poked Jack in the ribs with her elbow. “Forget about them!” she whispered harshly. “Drink your hot choc’late!”

Jack did as he was told, noticing that Becky had extracted a dime from her purse and placed it on the counter to pay for their beverages. Mary Lou put one fat finger on this coin and pushed it back toward Becky. “First roun’s on the house, honey,” Mary Lou chirped to Becky with another knowing wink. “After all, Jack works here.”

“Do you really?” Becky turned to gaze at Jack, her eyes wide with admiration.

“Yeah. I work Fridays and Saturdays shining shoes.” Jack noticed with relief that Mary Lou had moved farther down the counter now and was talking to her daughter and Priscilla. It looked as if Mary Lou might even be scolding them.

“Good for you! How long you been doin’ that?” Becky asked.

“Almost a year now.”

“Your Mom must be real proud of you.”

“Not now, she ain’t.” Jack’s lips trembled as he spoke.

Becky patted his shoulder. “Come on, honey. Cheer up. Everything’s gonna be alright.”

As if on cue, the bell on the entrance door suddenly jangled loudly and Constable Frank Cody entered the shop, his face red with anger. “So here you are!” he declared. Marching swiftly up to the counter, he grabbed Jack’s arm and glared disdainfully at Becky. “Come along now, boy! Time for you to go home. Your Momma’s been lookin’ all over town for y’!”

“See?” Becky said with a big smile at Jack. “What’d I tell y’? Bye, honey!”

1920: Episode 24

GAIL WESTLAKE WAS WAITING ON THE LANDING AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS when Constable Cody brought Jack back to Mrs. Brown’s boarding house. “Jack, where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been worried sick over you!”

“You best keep a close eye on your boy, Missus!” Cody warned sternly as he pushed Jack up the steps. “I found him up the street at Huey’s with one o’ them girls from the Lido.”

“Oh Jack, no!” Gail exclaimed. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“We weren’t doing anything wrong, Mom. Becky just bought me some hot choc’late and told me not to worry. She was very nice to me.”

“I bet,” Gail said, her face hardening with suspicion.

“Like I say, Missus — you best keep a close eye on your boy,” Cody said again. “Next time I find him keeping such bad company, I’ll have to take him down to the station.”

“That won’t be necessary, I assure you,” Gail replied archly. Then, realizing her response was unwarranted, she added, “Thank you, Constable.” Giving Jack a warm hug, she said, “Come inside, dear. I’ve made your favorite supper — some nice beef stew.”

Perplexed by the sudden change in his mother’s demeanor, even suspicious of it, Jack nonetheless followed her inside. The sweet aroma of his mother’s cooking immediately softened his feelings toward her. Much to his surprise, she did not even insist he wash his hands before he sat down at the kitchen table to eat.

But, as Gail solicitously served him his bowl full of hot stew and sat down at the table with him, Jack noticed she had poured herself a full glass of sherry. Though he had long known his mother drank an occasional glass of wine when she visited with her friends, he had never seen her do so when she was alone with her son.

Jack immediately thought of what his friend Sam had told him about his mother’s drinking habits as well as about the fire and trial that had resulted in her being committed to an insane asylum. Jack felt his mother’s eyes on him now as he slowly ate his stew, savoring the delicious flavors of meat, vegetables and gravy but reluctant to return her gaze.

“Jack, dear,” Gail said softly. “I’m so sorry! I should never have struck you the way I did. It was awful of me!”

Jack looked up at her. Gail’s eyes glistened with tears. “It’s OK, Mom. I shouldn’t have said that bad stuff about Mister Soames. It’s none of my business.”

Gail bit her lip. What could she say to a ten-year-old boy? She wished her friend Snooky were there with her now. She would know what to say. Reasoning that whatever she might say would only make things worse, Gail decided to say nothing.

The two sat in silence for several minutes, the only sound that of Jack’s spoon scraping the bottom of his bowl. At length, he said, “Can I have some more, Mom? The stew’s really good.”

“Of course, dear.” Gail immediately jumped up and refilled his bowl. “Would you like some bread with it?”

“No thanks.” Jack continued to focus on his food. For him, it was sufficient proof that Becky had been right. His mother still loved him.

1920: Episode 25

BEFORE DAWN ON A CHILLY APRIL MORNING, twenty-five men in full hunting regalia gathered in the large front parlor of the Commandant’s house at the Benicia Arsenal. Colonel Orrin Wright Morris, the host of this gathering, had provided crystal carafes of fine brandy for all to warm themselves before heading out to Grizzly Island, several miles east of the Southern Pacific Railroad line. He also provided three Army lorries to transport everyone to the site.

In addition to such charter club members as Colonel Morris, Judge Clyde Lanham, James Fisk, and Oscar Henshak, several guests from Concord and Martinez were also present. Among these was the chairman of the Contra Costa County Republican Party, Howard “Gunslinger” Roach. Roach had acquired his nickname by firing a six-shooter to get everyone’s attention during a particularly contentious party caucus.

Though not a sportsman, Roach had eagerly solicited an invitation to this outing. For 1920 was an election year when important political issues were at stake. Roach wanted to be sure his party was well represented at any event that might attract the rich and powerful.

“Good idea, this,” Roach said as he held up his glass of brandy in a toast to the Colonel. “Bitter cold out there.”

“Normal for this time of year, sir,” Morris replied briskly, his stern, leathery features barely concealing the contempt he felt for this plump and pompous little man. “I hope you brought your long-johns, Mister Roach,” he added caustically.

Henshak, who was standing directly behind the Colonel and who had been instrumental in securing Roach’s invitation, immediately stepped forward to join the conversation. “Oh, don’t worry, Colonel. I gave Howie plenty of advance warning. Only thing he needs now is a gun. I don’t s’pose you’d have a spare one he could use, now would you?”

Morris, who stood head and shoulders above both men, smiled tolerantly. “He may have his choice of several hundred.” Then, tilting his head toward the uniformed officer at his side, the Colonel said, “Captain Siefert here will see to it you have whatever you need.”

“Certainly,” the alert young officer affirmed. Then to Roach he said, “If you’ll follow me, sir, I’ll take you to our armaments building.”

“Thanks,” Roach replied with a wince at the thought of leaving his place beside the giant hearth, where a roaring fire filled the room with warmth. “I’ll finish my brandy first, if ya don’t mind.”

“Certainly, sir. Just let me know whenever you’re ready.”

“That should probably be right now,” the Colonel suggested. “We all need to be at our stations as soon as the decoys have been released.” Setting his own unfinished brandy glass on the mantel, he added, “Excuse me, gentlemen. I have some important matters to attend to.”

“Pretty cocky, ain’t he?” Roach said to Henshak as soon as the Colonel was out of earshot.

“Well, he is a colonel, after all,” Henshak said. “What d’ y’ expect, Howie?”

Half an hour later, as the first faint signs of dawn were showing on the eastern horizon, most members of the hunting party had found their places behind one of the fifteen wood-frame blinds that had been erected across an open strip of solid ground at the edge of the tules. Ten more blinds stood several yards farther forward, their supporting wooden stakes stuck deep in the muddy shoal so as to be completely hidden by the marsh grass.

The seasoned hunters behind these forward blinds, including Judge Lanham and Colonel Morris, waited in patient silence for almost a full hour. Before long, though, those on solid ground began mumbling discontentedly.

“How long we gotta sit here before the damn birds come?” Roach complained. “I’m freezin’ my balls off!”

“Guess you didn’ wear them long-johns the Colonel was talkin’ about,” Henshak observed unsympathetically. Reaching into a side pocket of his jacket, Henshak extracted an ornate silver flask. Unscrewing its cap, he handed it to Roach. “Here. Take a couple o’ swigs o’ this. It’ll warm y’ up.”

Eagerly, Roach grabbed the flask and put it to his lips. “Oh my Gawd!” he squawked, drawing fierce looks of disapproval from every hunter who heard him. “What the hell is this stuff?”

“Shhh!” Henshak warned, but added with a grin, “They call it Injun Juice. Special brew cooked up by some o’ my friends over in Port Costa. Pure wood alcohol. Prob’ly scraped off the hold of an old coal barge.”

Roach gave him a murderous look. “You son of a bitch!” he rasped. “You tryin’ t’ cause me an early death?”

Ignoring Roach’s protest, Henshak pointed up at a wide V of mallards moving in perfect formation directly overhead, “Here they come!”

Instantly, Roach raised his borrowed shotgun to fire. Henshak grabbed its barrel, though, and firmly pushed it to the ground. “You gotta wait ‘til they’re on the water!” he rasped.

Slowly, the graceful V circled lower toward the open water until at last the birds slid smoothly to rest on its surface a few yards beyond the tules. Even then, Roach noted impatiently, there was silence from the hunters in the forward blinds. When would they begin firing? He decided his best strategy was to imitate whatever Henshak did. As soon as his partner raised and sighted his gun, he would do the same.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!” suddenly sounded from three of the forward blinds. Immediately, the initial explosions were followed by the roar of more guns as hunters everywhere fired at will and the squawking creatures on the water either rose in frantic flight or flailed in helpless agony.

By the time Roach and Henshak managed to raise and sight their guns, the fleeing birds were out of range. Nevertheless, Roach emptied both barrels and vehemently rebuked Henshak for his poor timing. Both watched bitterly as other hunters released their dogs to retrieve the dead and wounded fowl.

The same scenario recurred several times that morning. Each time, the entire hunting party moved to a new set of blinds in a different location along the shoreline. Every time, Roach thought, it was the same small cadre of seasoned hunters who bagged the birds. This was a tedious and stupid sport, he concluded when the party broke up at 11 a.m.

Late that afternoon, Fisk, Lanham, Henshak, Roach and four other men who had been invited guests at the hunt club outing sat comfortably before an open fire in Oscar’s study, sipping his Benedictine brandy and puffing on his Cuban cigars. Their conversation was not about duck hunting, though. Instead, it focused on Republican Party plans to disrupt the upcoming Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

Because of the political turmoil of 1920, there were four separate national conventions and parties vying for control of the federal government. Both the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party scheduled separate conventions in New York City, while the Republicans met in Chicago and the Democrats in San Francisco. For the first time in history, a national convention was taking place on the West Coast.

Businessmen, lawyers and politicians all over California were excited by this milestone event. Especially in the greater Bay Area, political leaders saw the San Francisco Democratic Convention as a perfect test case for putting California on a par with the long-dominant states of the East and Midwest. For Republican political machine bosses like Howard Roach, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Any you fellahs ever read Jack London’s ‘John Barleycorn’?” Roach suddenly asked in the middle of a heated discussion about how the California Republican Party should best combat the press coverage of the San Francisco convention.

“Never read it and never will!” snarled Bert McCutcheon, a Scottish land speculator who owned several hundred acres of prime real estate in northern Contra Costa County. “The man was a communist!”

“My wife read it,” James Fisk snarled disparagingly. “She says he was just a damn drunk! Who cares what a bum like that wrote in his books?”
Roach smiled slyly at this last remark. “You might be surprised, Jimmy. Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t sayin’ I agree with ‘im. I’m sayin’ we can make good use of what he says in that book.”

“What d’ y’ mean, Howie?” asked Tom Horvath, president of the Contra Costa Growers Association, an advocacy organization representing the large agribusinesses operating in the East Bay and Central Valley.

“There’s a part of his book where London tells about this time when a bunch of politicians rounded up the drunks in Benicia and got ‘em t’ brake up a political rally. London said they put ‘em all on a train, shipped ‘em down to Hayward, got ‘em all crazy on hooch, an’ turned ‘em loose on the town. Now I’d say that’s a pretty smart idea.”

“Smart for who about what?” Henshak asked, fully aware of what his friend had in mind.

Roach leaned back in his wingback chair and took several long puffs on his cigar. Then, squinting at the others through a thick cloud of smoke, he said slowly, “I look at it this way, gents. We gotta do whatever we can t’ make them Democrats look like a bunch o’ damn radicals. You know all the papers is goin’ t’ be converin’ the Frisco ballyhoo. ‘Specially that feller Hearst. I say we ship a couple o’ ferry loads o’ drunks from Benicia over there t’ parade aroun’ town with commie signs, bust into stores an’ get int’ fights. It’ll turn that convention into an all-out riot.”

Fisk nodded. “Sounds like a pretty interestin’ idea, Howie.”

“Nonsense!” Judge Lanham declared with uncharacteristic candor. “I could never be a party to such an unconscionable scheme!”

The other men stared at the Judge in disbelief. There was a long pause in which everyone was silent until, at last, Oscar Henshak said, “Now Clyde, don’t jump to conclusions. Nobody’s said we’re really gonna do anythin’ like that. It’s just sort of an idea Howie’s tossed out for us t’ think about.”

“It’s a preposterous idea!” the judge insisted even more adamantly.

Roach again sucked hungrily on his cigar, exhaling a stream of smoke toward Lanham. “You need to remember, Judge. You’re an elected official too — indirectly, anyhow. Maybe you’ve had your nose in your law books too long.”

“I will not be intimidated, sir!” Lanham retorted, his eyes flashing defiance.

“We’ll see,” Roach said. “There’s more than one way t’ skin a cat, mister.”

“And, like my dear old Momma used to say,” Horvath added with a sneer, “all cats are gray in the dark.”

Everyone laughed except Clyde Lanham. His glum silence was an ominous portent that no one seemed to notice.

1920: Episode 26

“PHEW! THIS TOWN STINKS! BERNADETTE ROACH DECLARED as her traveling companion helped her down the steps of the Pullman car.

“It’s the tanneries,” Guido Pirelli explained, pointing up First Street toward a matching pair of five-story brick buildings, their top floors connected by an enclosed wooden walkway over the street. Thick yellow smoke was pouring out of several chimneys on the roof of each building. “They got a saying here,” he added with a chuckle. “‘When the West wind blows, hold your nose.’”

“I’ll say! Noisy and dusty too! How’s anybody survive in this burg?”

“Couldn’t tell ya, Bernie. Guess the locals just get used to it.” Guido reached up to take Bernie’s two suitcases as the porter handed them down from the Pullman car. More than six feet tall, Guido had the bulk and muscle of a barroom bouncer.

Despite her own much smaller stature, Bernie Roach was very much an independent woman. As the daughter of Howard Roach, she had no illusions about the sinister underside of so-called gentlemanly behavior. “Never mind, Guido,” she snarled. “I’ll carry this. Just get us out o’ this stink!”

“Have it yer way,” Guido shrugged as he hefted his own suitcase. “It’s a three-block walk to the hotel, though.”

“Lead on!” Bernie growled.

As they walked up First Street toward the Union Hotel, Bernie took note of the several old scows tied up to the piers between West A and B streets. On the deck of one of these vessels, a shabbily dressed woman was hanging her wash on a clothesline rigged between the roof of the scow’s cabin and one of the pilings. “You mean people actually live on them filthy old barges?” Bernie asked.

“Sure. Greeks, mostly,” Guido replied without slowing his pace. “They fish the Strait at night an’ sleep all day. Most of ’em’s drunks like ol’ Jack London. He kep’ a barge here once, y’ know.”

“Yeah, sure. Ever’body knows that!” Bernie puffed breathlessly. She was having difficulty keeping up with Guido’s long and rapid strides. She was not about to let an ignoramus like Guido think he knew more about Benicia’s history and culture than she did.

“Wait ’til you see some o’ the houses,” Guido continued with his tour guide lecture, alluding to the several wood frame cottages they were approaching on their left. By houses he meant bordellos; for they were now in the heart of Benicia’s infamous “red light” district.

Bernie grimaced. “Yeah. I know all about ’em. ‘Heaven or Hell,’ they call this part o’ town — right?”

“All depends on how ya look at it,” Guido chuckled again. “The sailors and soldiers think it’s Heaven. The townsfolk think it’s Hell.”

“Men got no brains!”

Once inside the Union Hotel, the two travelers breathed a sigh of relief. Gone were the rancid smell of the tanneries, the clanging racket of locomotives at the depot, and the incessant rattle of horse-drawn carts and automobiles on First Street.

Edward Fuller, proprietor of the Union Hotel, had taken every precaution to ensure the comfort of his guests by installing double doors in both street entrances, keeping all ground-floor windows firmly shut, and strategically placing sachet-filled urns throughout the hotel lobby. For this last and most important touch of hospitality, Edward was indebted to his wife of twenty years — Rebecca Lynch Fuller, daughter of Rear Admiral Robert Perry Lynch, one-time Commodore of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo.

“Welcome, folks. How can I help ya?” Fuller asked as Bernie leaned with both elbows on the registration desk and glared at this meek and soft-spoken old gentleman.

“Name’s Roach,” Bernie said abruptly. “We booked two rooms tonight — me an’ Pirelli here.”

“Oh yes, Missus Roach,” Fuller replied cheerfully. “Your rooms are ready for you. All you need to do is sign the register here.” With utmost deference, Fuller pushed a large open ledger toward Bernie and, extracting a freshly cut goose quill from a marble inkwell, proffered it to this woman he mistakenly perceived to be a lady.

“It’s Miss, not Missus!” Bernie barked as she seized the quill and quickly scribbled her own name and Pirelli’s several spaces below the last guest name that had been entered. Then, pushing the ledger away, she asked, “Where’s the bar?”

At this, Fuller’s bland features hardened into righteous disdain. “I’m afraid we don’t serve alcoholic beverages, Miss. Prohibition, you know.”

“Don’t gimme that line!” Bernie snarled. Then, suddenly realizing her belligerence might be counter-productive, she reached into her purse and extracted a five-dollar gold piece. Carefully placing the coin on the registration desk, she winked at Fuller. “That’s awright. Mayor Cody’s a good friend o’ mine. He won’t give you no trouble.”

Feigning offense at Bernie’s conspicuous bribe, Fuller scowled. “You’re friends with Hizzoner?” Then, blinking several times but unable to prompt any reply to his question, Fuller rang a bell on the registration desk. “I’ll have the boy show you to your rooms.”

“Sure,” Bernie said. “You do that. Then, we’ll come down and have us a couple o’ Mickey Finns.” Again, she winked at Fuller.

Ignoring this, Fuller summoned the bellhop, a pimply faced boy in a white dust jacket. Handing the boy two sets of keys, Fuller said, “Charlie, show our guests to rooms three and four.” But when Charlie dutifully attempted to pick up Bernie and Guido’s suitcases, Bernie intervened.

“That’s OK, kid. We’ll handle the bags.” This time, she allowed Guido to carry all the suitcases.

Minutes later, Guido and Bernie were seated at the bar in the Union Hotel saloon, both contentedly smoking cheroot cigars and sipping shot glasses of Canadian whisky. Apart from Bernie, Guido and the bartender — the Fullers’ eighteen-year-old son Martin — the saloon was empty. Since it was only 4:15 on a Tuesday afternoon, most of the usual drinking clientele were still elsewhere engaged.

“So what time he s’posed t’ get here?” Guido asked.

“He told me 5:30. I wouldn’t count on it, though. That guy’s always late to meetings,” Bernie was talking to herself more than to Guido. She didn’t really care what Guido thought. He was nothing but a hired henchman her father assigned as her bodyguard whenever she was on potentially hazardous missions like this — her first meeting with the notorious bootlegger, James Soames.

Angrily, she glared at her own image reflected in the big mirror behind the bar. She did not like that image — the flat full moon face with close-set eyes and pug nose, all of which she had inherited from her father.

It was no surprise to Bernie that enemies often referred to her as “the Pig Woman.” She didn’t care what such fools thought, she told herself. She was smarter and tougher than they were. In this world, that’s what counts most. But in spite of her bitter bravado, Bernie couldn’t help entertaining romantic fantasies about the handsome young bartender who was now self-consciously busying himself with washing already clean glasses.

Guido, impatient with the prospect of having to wait in an empty saloon for an hour, gulped down the last of his whisky and stood up. “I’m goin’ up the street t’ see if I can fin’ me a card game or somethin’.”

“Go ahead,” Bernie said without expression. She didn’t really care what the big oaf did. She only tolerated his company because her father insisted on it. Besides, now she would have the bartender all to herself. As Guido exited the saloon, she called out sarcastically, “Hey, kid — how ’bout some more o’ that sars’parilla?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Martin promptly tipped the bottle he had left standing on the bar top to refill her whisky glass. “You in town on business, Ma’am?” Martin asked, remembering his mother’s instruction to “always be real nice to hotel guests.”

Bernie made her best effort at an amiable smile. “Yeah. We’re here on business — real important business.” At the very least, she wanted to impress this young sheik with her own importance, even if he, too, thought she looked like a pig. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

When Martin gave her his full name, she said, “So you’re workin’ for your pa, huh? That’s nice. I work for my pa, too. Family business. It’s the best kind.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Martin allowed bleakly.

Like many young men in Benicia, Martin yearned to get away from his hometown — to escape its industrial squalor and the ridiculous hypocrisy of its most “respectable” citizens. When he had graduated from Benicia High School five months before, one of his favorite teachers had given him a copy of a new novel titled “Main Street.” Instantly, Martin had identified with the social satire of its author, Sinclair Lewis.

“So what do ya do for kicks in this town, Marty?” Bernie asked.

Martin picked up a rag from behind the bar and began polishing its already impeccable high-sheen surface. He wanted to give himself time to think of an answer that would discourage further conversation with this obnoxious woman. “Not much. Friday nights, they have dances over at the Veteran’s Hall and every Saturday there’s a film at the Majestic.”

Bernie shook her head. “Well, whoop-de-do! Don’t sound like much fun t’ me. How ’bout billiards? Ain’t they even got a pool hall in this jerk-water town?”

“Yes. There’s one over at Huey’s Barber Shop and I think they got one at the Pastime.” Martin thought of adding that he considered billiards a bore. He did not, though, because he supposed the ugly woman would only use this as excuse to prolong their conversation. He continued vigorously polishing the bar top.

Several minutes passed during which Bernie sat in silence, puffing on her cheroot and sipping her whisky. She continued to monitor every move Martin made, certain that her intense scrutiny would make him uncomfortable. At last, losing interest in this cat-and-mouse game, she broke the silence. “Where’s the john?”

Martin stopped his polishing and pointed toward the entrance into the front lobby. “Down the hall. First door on the right.”

Bernie stubbed out her cigar in the big glass ashtray Martin had provided. Then, stepping down from her barstool, she headed for the lobby. “Refill my glass, kid,” she commanded.

1920: Episode 27

WHEN BERNIE RETURNED MINUTES LATER, SHE WAS CARRYING a copy of the local weekly newspaper, The Benicia Herald-New Era. Without so much as a nod at Martin, she climbed back onto her stool, lit another cheroot, and began reading the paper.

Taking this as a signal that he was now off the hook, and having refilled Bernie’s glass as she had requested, Martin picked up a half-filled trash barrel behind the bar and carried it to the lobby.

“Where ya goin’?” asked his father, who was dutifully manning his station behind the registration desk.

“Just takin’ out this trash,” Martin replied. “I’ll be right back.”

“You better be,” Fuller senior warned.

“Yes, sir.” Martin knew his father, a retired Army officer, never tolerated anyone’s neglect of duty. Although he had hoped to roll and smoke a cigarette while emptying the trash, he changed his mind and immediately returned to the saloon.

This turned out to be a smart decision. As Martin returned to his post, two new customers entered the bar — a tall, dapperly dressed man with a moustache and a short, stocky man wearing a garish black and yellow plaid suit and matching saddle shoes.

“How’s tricks, Bernie?” the taller man said as he approached the bar.

Startled, Bernie looked up from her newspaper. But she quickly recovered her caustic mien. “Well, well! You must be Jimmy Soames! Miracles never cease! From what I hear, you’re never early to a meeting.”

“My mother taught me well,” Soames said with an ingratiating smile. “It’s not nice to keep a lady waiting.”

“Yeah, sure!” Bernie retorted. “So who’s the clown in the funny suit?”

“Now, now, Miss Roach!” Soames gently scolded. “Do be nice. This is Ted Peters — one of my most distinguished associates.”

Bernie eyed Peters skeptically. Deciding she needed to be a little more politic, she reached out and manfully shook Peters’s hand. “Pleased ta meet ya, Ted.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, ma’am.” Although Peters was forty-two years old, his voice was high-pitched and nasally, almost like a young girl’s. In shaking hands with Bernie, though, Peters did his best to seem vigorous and virile. Soames had warned him in advance what to expect of the pig woman.

Throughout this brief exchange, Martin had been standing at attention behind the bar until Peters turned to him and said, “Gimme what she’s got, kid.”

“I’ll take the same,” echoed Soames. He winked at Bernie, confident that she demanded only the best booze for her own consumption. As soon as Martin served their drinks, Soames held up his glass to make a toast. “To Gunslinger Roach!” he proclaimed. “May he live prosperously and for many years.”

“To Papa!” Bernie chuckled.

“To yer ol’ man!” squawked Peters, taking his vengeance.

As the three clinked their glasses and tossed off the contents in one swig, Guido entered the saloon.

“Well, well — what d’ ya know? Here’s Johnny Come Lately!” Bernie snarled.

Guido pulled out his pocket watch and checked it against the time shown on the big Monitor clock on the wall behind the bar. “I ain’t late,” he said to Bernie. Then, to Soames, he said, “You’re early.”

Soames slapped Guido on the back. “Yeah. Too bad, Guido. You missed a free round.” Tossing two silver dollars on the bar, he said to Martin, “Keep the change, kid. We got t’ get goin’.”

“Go get my tan suitcase and bring it out to the car,” Bernie told Guido as she followed Soames and Peters into the hotel lobby.

Somewhat startled that Bernie was delegating responsibility for fetching this important piece of luggage, Guido nonetheless promptly carried out her order. He had long since learned never to second-guess Bernie’s whims.

Peters had parked his brand new 1920 Roamer sedan directly in front of the Union Hotel. The exterior of this luxurious new five-passenger car had been custom-painted black and yellow — no doubt, Bernie surmised, to match Peters’s wardrobe. As Soames climbed into the front passenger seat and Bernie and Guido into the back, Peters started the engine with such a loud roar that it forced his three passengers to cover their ears.

“Jeez, Ted!” Bernie protested. “D’ ya have t’ do that?”

Peters laughed haughtily as he moved his car out into the traffic on First Street, which — both ways — had been brought to a complete stand-still by the loud roar of the Roamer’s engine. “It’s my new G-Piel Cut-Out. Gives me extra power,” Peters proudly explained. “Which way, Soames?”

“Go around the block and up First to Military. Then make a right.”

Just after Peters made the right-hand turn at Military, Soames directed him to turn left onto the State Highway toward Cordelia — one of two paved roads out of Benicia. Within minutes, they were traveling through open countryside in the rolling hills north of town. Off to the right, they could see the blue water of Suisun Bay.

“So where ya takin’ us, Jimmy?” Bernie demanded. “Timbuktu?”

“Not far,” Soames said reassuringly, without looking around at the always impatient and querulous Bernie. “Just up the road here a bit.”

Actually, they traveled almost twelve miles before Soames told Peters to make another left turn onto a narrow dirt road that wound up the side of a mountain heavily forested with oak, spruce and candle pine. When they were almost at the top of this mountain, the road abruptly dead-ended in front of an abandoned farmhouse, behind which was a large hay barn that appeared to be in much better condition than the house.

“This is it,” Soames announced.

Stepping out of the Roamer, he led the way up the front steps onto the porch of the farmhouse. Opening the front door with a key he had extracted from a hiding place under the porch steps, he went inside.

The interior of the house was dank with the smell of mold. The first room they entered had once served as a kitchen. Along one wall was a row of counters and cabinets and an old iron sink, upon which was mounted a rusted hand-pump. Several floorboards in the center of this room were splintered and broken around an opening that revealed the dark crawl-space beneath the house.

“What the hell is this?” Bernie protested as she stood on the threshold of the front door, refusing to enter.

“The perfect hide-out,” Soames explained reassuringly. “Follow me.”

As he spoke, Soames carefully circumvented the broken floorboards and unlocked an interior door that led to another room. This room was completely dark, as its windows had been boarded up on the outside. Soames disappeared inside and, striking a match, lighted a kerosene lantern.

Cautiously, the others made their way across the kitchen floor. As they stepped into the boarded-up room, Soames lighted another kerosene lantern. The two lanterns revealed a well-furnished office space, complete with wall-to-wall carpeting, several oak filing cabinets and chairs, and a large roll-top desk.

Opening one of the cabinet drawers with another key, Soames brought out a bottle of Jack Daniels and four glasses.

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing the others into chairs. Then, filling four large glasses, he handed one to each of his guests and sat down himself. “Now … let’s talk business.”

“Not bad!” Peters remarked, though it wasn’t clear to anyone whether his remark was prompted by the elegant appointments of Soames’s clandestine office or the crisp bouquet of the bourbon.

“What’s in the barn?” Bernie asked, determined to dispel every mystery as soon as she could.

“Let’s talk business first,” Soames answered.

1920: Episode 28

SOAMES DID NOT LIKE PUSHY, UGLY WOMEN LIKE BERNIE ROACH. He knew they were not the least bit vulnerable to the wiles he so successfully used with prettier women. The muscles in his handsome face tightened now, and his usually soft-spoken tone grew harsh. “First, I need to know what kind of a deal we’re making here.”

“OK,” Bernie said. “We got some friends over in Yolo County that wants t’ grow their operation. They already got plenty o’ stills and pretty good distribution. But they need sugar. From what I hear, that’s yer specialty, Jimmy. That so?”

Soames nodded. “One of ’em. I’m into a lot o’ things,” he added with an enigmatic smile. “What quantities are we talking about here and how often do you need delivery and where?”

“Whoa, boy!” Bernie held up her hands in caution. “First, we need to know how many labels per hunnert.” She was referring to the hundred-pound bags of refined sugar bootleggers used in the fermentation process. The “labels” were the cash-equivalent medium of exchange she was bringing to the table in this transaction.

A month before, Bernie’s father had negotiated a deal with none other than Al Capone, who had flown to San Francisco with the intention of taking over bootleg booze distribution throughout California. Bernie’s father had managed to ward off Capone’s aggressive move by negotiating an alternative. In exchange for retaining control of local distribution, Roach and his business associates would purchase from Capone all the labels used on bottled spirits in California at five cents per label.

Always a practical businessman, Capone had immediately understood the advantages of such an agreement. Instead of having to send and maintain armies of his own henchmen to enforce collections in California — an enterprise that would be both costly and difficult to manage halfway across the continent — he would simply collect a labeling fee on each bottle distributed in the state.

Soames smiled slyly. “Well now, Miss Roach, surely you realize that the price of everything in this business is determined by the size of the order. Give me a big enough order and I’ll give you an attractive offer.”

“There’s lots of other things, Jimmy,” Bernie observed matter-of-factly. She was not going to respond to Soames’s obviously condescending use of formal address. “Things like shipping, delivery schedules, security. All that figures into price.”

“Agreed.” Soames took a thoughtful sip of his bourbon and waited for Bernie to elaborate.

“I got the shipping part o’ this deal,” Peters announced. “You need to talk to me about that separate.”

“That so?” Bernie reached into her purse for a cigarette to give herself time to think about this unexpected complication in her business negotiations. Lighting up, she waved the smoke away from her face and said, “We’re talking at least three tons a week here. Maybe more down the road.”

Soames stood up and walked over to the roll-top desk. Unlocking it with yet another key he carried in his vest, he took out a leather-bound ledger, a pad of blank writing paper, and a fountain pen. Then, using the ledger as a support under his pad, he sat down again and began writing down calculations. In the meantime, as was his custom in such situations, Guido stood up and walked back out onto the front porch to smoke and keep watch for any possible intruders.

After several minutes of calculating on paper, Soames tore off the top two sheets from his writing pad and handed them to Bernie.

Bernie’s eyes quickly went to the bottom line. Shaking her head, she said, “Way too much! That’s five dollars worth o’ labels per bag? You gotta be kiddin’ me!”

In point of fact, the four-dollar cash-equivalent price she had planned to cite as her cost was twice the amount her father had negotiated with Capone. Soames, of course, did not know this.

Sipping at his glass of bourbon, Soames paused for several seconds before he spoke. “That’s my offer,” he said at last. “Take it or leave it.”

Bernie puffed furiously on her cigarette. “Guess I’ll leave it, then. You can take us back to the hotel now.”

“Now just hold on, there, you two!” Peters protested. He figured he knew much better than Soames what was at stake. Soames was from San Francisco. It wasn’t likely he knew how powerful Bernie’s father was — not only in Contra Costa County politics, but statewide. “We gotta give each other the benefit of the doubt here. Lemme see them numbers,” he said, reaching over and grabbing the sheets of paper from Bernie.

“Hey!” Bernie shouted angrily. “What d’ ya think yer doin’?” But she resisted the impulse to sic Guido on this small-time crook.

Peters studied Soames’s calculations for a moment, while Soames watched, cat-like, and Bernie fumed. Looking up at last, Peters said, “How ’bout this? I charge fifty cents a bag for shipping an’ you, Jimmy, charge three dollars. That saves Bernie here a dollar a bag.”

Soames did not respond, his watchful gaze focused on Bernie.

Realizing her father would be very angry if she reported back to him empty-handed, Bernie decided to hedge. “I’ll have to talk about it with Papa. See what he thinks. We’ll let ya know sometime next week.”

Apparently satisfied with this arrangement, Soames stood up and refilled each of their glasses. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you,” he said with unctuous courtesy. “But you better send a trusted personal courier directly to my office in Benicia. No phone calls. Too many snoopy phone operators in Benicia.”

Bernie downed the contents of her glass. “Good enough,” she said. “So now how about showin’ us what you got in that barn out there.”

Soames smiled slyly at Bernie. “Tell ya what — I’ll show you if you show me first. You bring some of those labels with ya? How ’bout lettin’ Peters an’ me see a couple o’ samples?”

“Sure. Why not?” Bernie stood up and walked to the door. “Hey, Guido!” she called to her henchman. “Bring that suitcase in here.”

With Guido standing at her side, his right hand gripping the handle of the revolver in his shoulder holster, Bernie lifted the suitcase onto her lap and opened it just enough to extract a single package of labels wrapped in brown paper. Tearing open this package, she held it out so that Soames and Peters could see the official-looking seal on the top label.

“How many o’ them labels you got?” Peters asked.

“Don’t worry,” Bernie sneered. “I got enough, an’ I can get more any time I want.” Quickly she placed the opened package back in her suitcase and closed it. “Now it’s yer turn, Jimmy. Show us what’s in the barn out there.”

Soames promptly led the way out of the farmhouse to a large sliding door at the front of the barn. Two heavy padlocks secured iron latches on both sides of this door. Unlocking these with separate keys, Soames slid the door open.

Bernie couldn’t help gasping at what she saw inside. Stacked to the ceiling on three sides of the interior were hundreds of bags of refined sugar, and parked in the large open space between the stacks were three two-ton trucks and an armored vehicle, bristling with gun ports and equipped with a machine-gun-mounted turret.

“Where’d ya get the tank?” Guido asked.

“Army surplus,” Soames explained coolly. “The Benicia Arsenal’s full of ’em.”

“You plannin’ on goin’ to war?” Bernie asked, doing her best to sound unruffled.

“You never know what to expect in this business,” Soames remarked grimly. Then, suddenly switching to an affable tone, he said, “Now, if your curiosity’s satisfied, let’s go back to Benicia and have dinner. My treat.”

“Sounds good to me,” Bernie allowed.

“Legends of the Strait” is a novel by Benicia resident Bruce Robinson. It is a work of historical fiction based on Benicia in the first half of the 20th century. Copyright 2007 by Bruce M. Robinson. For inquiries regarding obtaining the book, contact Robinson at bruce8177@att.net.