“I’m sure they weren’t,” Thornton said, glaring at them. They refused to meet his eye.
“Tell him what you told us, about how you got out,” Lester said.
She sighed, obviously bored with the story. “They’d been coming around for a couple days, calling out for Betty Perkins. They said somebody’d paid her fine and she could go, only nobody ever owned up to being this Betty Perkins.”
Thornton turned to Lester. “Don’t they keep track of who they’ve got locked up there?”
“They told us they didn’t have no Betty Perkins in there. She must’ve used another name when she got arrested.”
“Why didn’t you just go in and look for yourself?”
“They won’t let anybody in to see those women. No visitors at all, not even if we paid.” He said to the girl, “Tell him the rest.”
“So last night, the guard comes around calling for Betty Perkins again, and this girl says to me why don’t I tell them I’m Betty Perkins and they’ll let me go.”
Rage swelled inside him. “What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. Auburn hair, I guess.”
“Blue eyes?”
“I didn’t notice.”
Thornton gestured to Fletcher, who slapped the girl so hard, she fell to her knees.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Why’d you go and do that?” she cried, clutching her face and cringing in terror.
“Blue eyes?” Thornton said.
“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t pay much attention!” She yelped when Fletcher raised his hand again.
“It was her,” Lester said. “She told Sally here to claim she was Betty. Who else could it be?”
Who else indeed? She’d tricked him again.
“Wasn’t no need to hit me,” she said. “I think you broke my jaw.” She felt it gingerly.
For one blissful moment, Thornton considered breaking far more than her jaw, but then common sense prevailed. A hotel was too public a place for that. “Get her out of here,” Thornton said.
“Not so fast,” she said. “They said you’d pay me. I came here and told you what happened, didn’t I?”
“Get rid of her,” Thornton said.
• • •
Nearly three full days had passed since O’Brien had sent Gideon back to Washington with the ladies and still no word. Somehow Gideon had expected the case would be heard today, Monday, but if it had been, O’Brien hadn’t seen fit to let them know. Gideon was pacing around the front room of the Woman’s Party headquarters, earning black looks from the handful of women who hadn’t yet left for the day, when Mrs. Young came in.
Gideon rushed to meet her, alarmed at how pale she was. “Are you all right?”
“What? Oh, yes, thank you, Mr. Bates. I . . . I’m just confused.”
Gideon asked one of the women to fetch Mrs. Stevens. “Sit down,” he said to Mrs. Young, pulling over one of the desk chairs for her. “Wouldn’t Mr. Tumulty see you?”
“Oh, he saw me.” She shook her head as if trying to dispel some unpleasant memory.
Mrs. Stevens came hurrying into the room. “Mrs. Young, were you able to—” She stopped when she got a good look at Mrs. Young’s face. “What happened?”
“I was just telling Mr. Bates, Mr. Tumulty met with me. I don’t know how he could have refused. I’ve known him almost my entire life, after all, but it was the strangest thing. He knew all about the writ that Mr. O’Brien had obtained. He even knew the judge’s name. How could he have known that?”
“Someone at the courthouse probably told Warden Whittaker,” Gideon said. “I’m sure Whittaker is keeping his superiors informed. What did he say about it?”
“He told me it was silly for us to go to all that trouble. He said if we would just wait a week, the prisoners would be released.”
Mrs. Stevens huffed derisively. “If they’re going to release them, why do they have to wait a week?”
“That’s what I asked him, but he just started telling me how foolish the women were to start a hunger strike.”
Gideon felt a chill of apprehension. “A hunger strike? Did he mean Miss Paul’s hunger strike at the district jail?”
“No, he was talking about the women in Virginia.”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Stevens. “Lucy Burns is probably leading it. After the way the women were treated that first night, what else could she do?”
She could have thought about the safety of the other women, Gideon thought, imagining his mother wasting away in a prison cell. But that wasn’t fair. His mother was just as likely to be the leader. “What in God’s name is O’Brien doing? He should have gotten the women released by now.”
The telephone rang, startling them all. Gideon ran a hand over his face as one of the women answered it. “Mrs. Stevens, it’s Mr. O’Brien.”
She hurried over and picked up the candlestick phone. “Mr. O’Brien? What’s the situation?”
Gideon and Mrs. Young had followed and stood hovering, straining to make out O’Brien’s words.
“Good heavens, are you sure?” she asked after a few moments.
“What is it?” Gideon asked, somehow resisting the urge to snatch the telephone from her hands.
“Yes, he’s right here. Just a moment.” She handed the telephone to him. “He wants to speak with you. He said he hasn’t been able to find a deputy to serve the warrant.”
“What?” Gideon lifted the earpiece. “You can’t find a deputy?”
“No, they’ve all disappeared,” the tinny voice said.
“What do you mean, disappeared?”
“I mean I’ve got a list of them, and none of them are at home or any other place where they can be found.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Yes, it is, which means that someone has instructed them to hide from me.”
This was worse than they’d feared. “Mrs. Young just returned from seeing Wilson’s secretary, Tumulty, and he told her if we just wait a week, the women will be released.”
“A week? What will happen in a week?”
“I have no idea, but we can’t wait a week. They’ve started a hunger strike.”
“How do you know that?”