Free Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis by Alexis Coe

defense, and Patterson labored over it, lest there be any suspicion that Lillie knew what her old friend really had in mind for that afternoon. When Alice eventually materialized at the Johnson family’s front door around two o’clock, Lillie was caring for her young nephew, and thought the ride suitable for him as well.
    If Lillie had known that they were headed into a murder scene, Patterson repeatedly asked, would she have brought him along?
    With two members of the Johnson family in tow, Alice drove past Mrs. Kimbrough’s house where, indeed, Freda was spotted; she then proceeded toward Madison Street, as Lillie wished to stop by her brother’s work for a brief visit. Lillie admitted she had noticed the Ward sisters and Christina Purnell walking on the street, but since Jo was no longer speaking to her, she had specifically asked Alice not steer the buggy in their direction.
    Alice held the reins, but assured her that they were only going to the post office, and Lillie had no reason to doubt her. In light of the scandal made in court of her correspondence with young men, it no doubt pained Lillie to sit on the stand and admit she thought nothing of stopping at the post office; the business of sending and receiving mail was an exciting part of their lives.
    “Oh, Lillie,” she recalled Alice saying. “Fred winked at me. I am going to take one more look at Fred and say good-bye!”
    At the post office, Lillie preferred to stay with the horses. She was still sitting in the buggy when she saw Alice running up the hill. Between the obscured view and caring for her nephew, she had no idea what had just transpired, nor any reason to suspect foul play. To her knowledge, Alicehad never threatened Freda, or said anything to indicate she had a capacity for violence. Lillie knew that Alice was far more hurt by their estrangement from the Wards, but assumed Alice’s experience with Freda mirrored her own with Jo. The dissolution of their friendship had been an unfortunate and confusing loss, but not a totally devastating one.
    It was the blood that opened her eyes. Alice was covered in it. Lillie knew something had gone terribly wrong, but Alice ignored her questions until the horses were in motion again, trotting down Court Street. Having had little worldly experience, and coming from a particularly tight-knit family, Lillie could think of only one piece of advice for Alice in the heat of the moment: Go home and tell your mother. It was a sad irony that this suggestion was the very thing that was used to incriminate Lillie, since it could clearly be traced back to her upbringing as a proper young woman, instructed to obey her mother’s dictates.
    The courtroom could have handled more from Lillie, but she was unable to offer it. Her physician, Dr. Z.B. Henning, and her family priest, Father Hale, had already testified to her “delicate health.” Her father and brother spoke to “a sick headache” that had long plagued her. Lillie’s condition had forced her to withdraw from a covenant school near their former home in Indiana, and then again from Miss Higbee’s in Memphis.
    Judge DuBose once again softened upon seeing her fragile state, and excused her from further testimony. It was clear that Lillie was delicate, someone to protect from the conditions of jail and the kind of women it housed—especially Alice Mitchell. The audience, though disappointed, approved of his paternalistic compassion as much as Lillie’s display of weakness.

    P ETERS WAS EVENTUALLY ALLOWED to cross-examine Lillie, which he did very carefully so as not to draw the ire of those who sympathized with the young woman. While Lillie’s obedience was understood as a desirable trait in the Victorian era, Peters wanted to portray it as feckless and shifty. To link her behavior to the ugly traits of a criminal, he needed only ask Lillie why she accompanied Alice home after the slaying.

    “[Alice] asked me to stay, and I would do anything for her,”