The Murder of Willie Lincoln Read online

“Mistuh Robert come home, by carriage.”

  “About what time?” Hay felt like a parent inquiring after a wayward child.

  “When de wind come up. Not long befo’ I go.”

  “All right. And?”

  “Mistuh Stackpole.”

  “I thought he had already left.”

  “Mebbe he left ag’in.”

  “When was this?”

  “Soon after I got t’ he-ah.”

  “Good. Anyone else?”

  “Only Missus Keckly.”

  “When was this?”

  “When I left. I was waitin’ fer her. To drive her home, at de Madam’s request. ’Cause so dangerous after dark.”

  “Rather late for her to be leaving.”

  “She gwine leave befo’ dat, so I’se a-waitin’ all that time, ’til she ready.”

  “What held her up, do you know?”

  A long, low sweep of his massive head. “She lookin’ mighty troubled ’bout sumpin. All she sayin’ was, ‘A woman’s work ain’t never done.’ ’Cept she don’t say ain’t. And I says, ‘Neider is a man’s.’ And she laughs, and so do I. And den I takes her home.”

  * * *

  A broad-backed man was seated in Hay’s swivel chair, inspecting the papers on his desk. Hay clapped his hands and snapped, “What the hell?”

  Allan Pinkerton turned and, showing no sign of remorse, said, “I ha’ been waitin’.”

  “You are finished waiting. Now get out of that chair and leave my things alone. I could have you arrested for this.”

  “Nonsense,” Pinkerton said, yielding the seat to its owner. “Ye expect me to arrest meself? Snooping, ye do understand, that’s me business. Yours, too, now.”

  “Well, don’t do it to me.”

  Pinkerton took the hard-backed chair. “News to tell. Tha’ William Spauldin’ is gone. Across the Long Bridge, yesterday.”

  Why was Hay not surprised? He imagined the painter on his gray—no, white—horse, swaggering over the planks that spanned the Potomac. Fading into the darkness, both arms in the air.

  “What time was that?”

  Pinkerton cocked his head. “Why do ye ask?”

  Hay told of his visit to Spaulding’s office the previous afternoon, apparently just hours before he went south. “His office was empty of furniture, abandoned, except for him. And something he told me about the night before was a lie. For no good reason I can see. Well, let me restate that—no good reason except an incriminating one. He said he was here to inspect the State Dining Room. Instead, he went upstairs, where the boys are. According to Old Edward, and why would he lie?”

  “Ye talkin’ the nigh’ the second message was left.”

  “No, the night after.”

  “Was he also here the nigh’ before?”

  Hay retrieved Old Edward’s lists from his desk drawer, sorry that Pinkerton saw where it was, knowing he would need a new hiding place.

  Hay riffled through the list. “Yes, he was.”

  “And the nigh’ o’ the first message?”

  A check. “No.”

  “Ye sure?”

  “What kind of…? Never mind.” Hay did not want to know what Pinkerton thought of him. He could guess. “Yes, I am sure.”

  “What time was tha’—yer visit?”

  “One o’clock. No, closer to two.”

  “Six or seven hours, then, before he went south. What did ye talk about?”

  “That he is a Virginian and makes no secret of his loyalties. He is a secesh through and through—that seems clear enough. He offered the most innocent explanation for why he consorts with rebel spies. And for his previous excursion across the Long Bridge, also unauthorized. With Stackpole, that time.”

  “Did ye say ye suspected him of … anythin’ a’tall? Even hint at it? Though I suppose yer very presence was a hint.”

  “Maybe it was, but I could think of no other way to question him except by being present. You seem to assume he is not coming back. He did the last time.”

  “No’ sayin’ tha’ for sure. But ’twould seem so to me. Leavin’ at night, in such a hurry and all, leavin’ nothin’ behind.”

  “His family?”

  “I will check,” Pinkerton said. “He showed a pass signed by the president. Tha’ is wha’ the sergeant on duty at the bridge remembers. Woul’ ye know anythin’ about tha’?”

  At last, the explanation for Pinkerton’s presence. “Nothing,” Hay said. “Nicolay might know. Or the president.”

  “Or Stackpole?”

  “No reason he should,” Hay said. “Unless he wrote it himself. Which, now that I think about it…” Hay swallowed hard and plunged ahead. “I could use some help here.”

  Pinkerton’s eyes seemed to soften. “With Stackpole?”

  “I will talk to him.”

  “Because ye ha’ been so successful in questionin’ him so far?”

  Hay thought fondly of punching Pinkerton’s rounded gut. “I will take care of that, thank you very much. But I want to know more about his background. And if I am missing anything. That you happen to know of.”

  A snarl.

  “And,” Hay continued, “if anyone else might be … involved.” With some trepidation, Hay offered his theory about a conspiracy of secessionists. Out loud, it sounded farther-fetched than it had in his mind. Still, Spaulding was gone, John Watt was in custody, and Stackpole was … well, seated outside the president’s door. “Are there others?”

  “I will pu’ me best man on it, Hay. Meaning, me.”

  * * *

  “We know where he went,” Hay said. “I just want to know why.”

  Thomas Stackpole remained absorbed in a copy of The Congressional Globe. Hay doubted the doorkeeper’s interest in the proceedings of Congress.

  “Over the Long Bridge last night. Without his family, or yours.”

  No reaction.

  Hay said, “Do you know where he went?”

  Stackpole kept his eyes on The Globe.

  “Is he coming back, do you know?”

  Stackpole looked up but stared impassively as if Hay were speaking Urdu.

  “Where is your family?” said Hay.

  “Safe.” The high pitch of Stackpole’s voice startled Hay—again.

  “At home, then.”

  “I cannot see what business this is of yours, Mister Hay. What do you suspect me of? And my brother-in-law? Of being a secesh, I take it.” Stackpole’s fat cheeks quivered—in anger, Hay supposed.

  “Are you?”

  “You have asked me this. I am a Union man, and I have been since President Pierce lived here. Longer. Ask me again and I will tell you the same.”

  * * *

  Lincoln dozed in the upholstered rocker, cradling Richard III in his lap. Hay was backing out of the oval study when he heard, “What can I do for you, John?”

  “In this winter of our discontent?”

  A wry smile. “If the Almighty has a purpose here in this house, He is keeping it well-hidden from me. What is on your mind, John?”

  “I am confused, sir.”

  “The beginning of wisdom, I should say.”

  Hay sank into the opposite chair and poured forth the fragments of evidence and suspicions. “Too many suspects, and any of them might have … There is really nobody in this building I trust entirely other than you and Nico. I am not always sure about myself.”

  “I am. Tell me what you know.”

  “What I know? I know almost nothing. I feel stuck—stupid, even. I know that Willie … passed away. That two messages, without postage, were left in my satchel. That a toxic amount of mercury was found in his … tissue. Apparently too much for it to have been an accident. If apparently is the same as knowing.”

  “Which it is not.”

  “Agreed. What else do I know? I have the names of everyone who was here in the mansion around the time those notes were left in my satchel—that is, to the best of Old Edward’s recollection, which is pretty good but probably not perfe
ct.”

  “He would disagree.”

  “In any event, the list is not necessarily exhaustive.”

  “You have spoken to everyone who is on both lists.”

  “Just about. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “So, who do you suspect?”

  “Besides everyone? The secesh, most of all. The ones that Potter’s investigators named. Do they know anything? None of the accusations against them would stand up in court.”

  “Which does not mean they are false.”

  “Granted. But you asked me what I know.”

  “I am also interested in what you think you know.” Lincoln’s face had relaxed. Hay was pleased to have helped.

  “I think I know that secessionists were behind this. And I think I know that there are secesh, or secesh sympathizers, which I know is not necessarily the same, but there are some here in this building. They work here. Two are gone. John Watt is sharing quarters with the roaches and rats under the Capitol—he disliked the boys and maybe was trying to spy on them, but probably not. And this painter Spaulding—do you know him?” Lincoln’s attention had returned to his lap. “He crossed the Long Bridge last night. Did you sign a pass for him to go?”

  A slow shake of the bowed head.

  “And Stackpole. He seems to be pals with John Watt—they have both worked here for a very long time—and this painter Spaulding is married to his sister.”

  Hay was describing Stackpole’s behavior the night the Confederates were expected to attack when Lincoln waved his hand and said, “Yes, yes, Potter told me. And I think it is hogwash.”

  “And his visit with the lady from Manassas.”

  “A man knows who he knows. I have known many a man—and lady, too—of Confederate sympathies.”

  “You are content to have him sit outside your door.”

  “Yes, of course. I even lent him money—three hundred eighty dollars, and without collateral.”

  “Really! For what?”

  Lincoln gave Hay a stern look and said, “A family emergency, I would imagine. I never asked. So yes, I have taken the measure of this man and, yes, I trust him.”

  Hay wondered, and not for the first time, if Lincoln trusted too much.

  “And Doc … Doctor Stone,” Hay said. “Might he have administered too much calomel, inadvertently or … not?”

  “You think not?”

  “This is far from anything I know, or from anything I think I know, but…” Hay recounted Dr. Stone’s connections to Richmond, through his wife and his own sojourn there.

  “Hardly evidence of a willingness to betray his medical oath.”

  “True.”

  “But you are right,” Lincoln said, “we must reach beyond the evidence and look for the truth.”

  Hay could not remember having said something so wise but hoped that he had.

  “And we do have the one witness,” Lincoln went on, “who we think was a witness. We can ask him again.”

  Chapter Ten

  SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1862

  “We need to go.” A rough hand shook Hay’s shoulder. “Now.”

  His grandfather was waking him up for school. Hay tried to push the hand away.

  “John, I need you to come with us.”

  Hay’s eyes snapped open and stared up into Lincoln’s.

  “Where to?”

  The president explained the morning’s destination and the need for dispatch. Although the Hell-cat was unlikely to awaken for hours.

  Hay said, “Should Bob come, too?”

  Lincoln left without responding.

  Hay dressed swiftly and prattled with Nicolay (how nice to rise earlier for once!) and drank the dregs of last night’s huckleberry tea. Dirty and hungry, he wended his way down to the north portico, where a barouche was parked. The matched pair of shiny black horses pawed the gravel. Tad was already inside, asleep, his head resting in Mrs. Pomroy’s ample lap.

  Hay climbed in and sat facing the rear. Mrs. Pomroy sang out, “And how are you this very fine morning, Mister Hay?”

  Too much cheer at too early an hour. “I got out of bed, didn’t I?” Maybe he was becoming an Easterner.

  Mrs. Pomroy’s smile broadened. Her iron-gray hair and gentle blue eyes suggested a woman of competence and kindness. Neither her countenance nor (Hay guessed) her character showed any sharp edges.

  “And how is he?” said Hay, nodding at Tad, who looked angelic at repose.

  “Recovering, thank the Lord. A tough little fellow, he is. ’Twill take more than the devil to defeat him. Or a nightmare.”

  “You will be staying out there with him?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “And your own family?”

  “My husband and children are…” She pointed at the ribbon of mourning that hung from her bonnet.

  Hay started to say, “Children?” when the president climbed into the carriage.

  “His other valise,” Lincoln said. “The oxblood—you have that, too, Missus Pomroy?”

  “Oh yes,” she said.

  “You sure?” Lincoln seemed nervous.

  “Oh yes.”

  The carriage rolled away from the mansion, past Lafayette square, and headed northeast along Vermont avenue. The morning was crisp and clear; the streets were deserted. Tom Cross drove slowly, easing the ruts, skirting the bumps. Tad stirred but did not waken. Hay saluted Lincoln’s restraint in not pulling his son onto his lap and disturbing his sleep. The president gazed out the window, his hand engulfing his young son’s ankles.

  Lincoln said lazily, “And did you always feel you could say, ‘His will be done’?”

  Hay thought Lincoln was speaking to him, and he was stumped for a reply.

  “No, not at the first blow,” Mrs. Pomroy replied. Hay realized they were resuming a conversation begun earlier. “Nor at the second. My dear husband and then my young son. Then my oldest, on the battlefield.”

  Lincoln turned to Hay and said, “At Bull Run.” Hay had ridden out, with much of Washington City, to watch the battle’s devastation and returned, shaken, to the capital the following dawn.

  “It was months after my … my affliction that God met me at a camp meeting.” Mrs. Pomroy told of the church gathering in the fields of Maryland and of the certainty and comfort she had felt ever since. “Simply by trusting in God,” she said, her cheeks shining, “and feeling that He does all things well.”

  Her voice was thick, but her tone was matter-of-fact. Hay glanced over at Lincoln and saw his hands clasped to his face.

  They rode in silence northeastward along Rhode Island avenue and turned north onto Seventh street. Signs of civilization became sparse—scattered houses, a low stone wall, a field cleared of trees, the howl of a dog or a fox. The clip-clop of the horses merged with the rasp of Tad’s breathing. Hay felt himself dozing off.

  They crossed Boundary street, leaving Washington City behind, and pressed steadily uphill. The landscape in Washington County was a tangle of bushes and trees. Tad gave a snort and jolted awake. His body arched, and Lincoln reached for the elfin boy and lifted him to his shoulder like a colicky infant.

  “Where, where?” said Tad, gesturing ahead with the arm that swung free, clinging to his father with the other.

  “A quieter place,” Lincoln said, “so you can get all the way better, my Taddie, like you used to be. And maybe the Taft boys will come to play.” Mrs. Lincoln had banned the playmates from the Executive Mansion as too painful a reminder of the son she had lost.

  “Oh, Papa-day, weally? I miss, miss Holly. I do, I do. And Bud, too.” Then he burst into tears.

  His father wrapped his long arms around him, and the swaddled boy fell back to sleep. Lincoln, too, fell asleep, or so Hay thought, until the president said, “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” It was a statement, not a question, and was directed to Hay.

  “Pardon?”

  Lincoln repeated it. “From Hamlet, John. What did they teach at that school
of yours?”

  “Nothing so callow as Shakespeare.”

  “‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.’ We can control the little things in life, John, but the big things are out of our hands. Which is the only thing that makes any of this bearable. That the ways of the Almighty are larger than we can know.”

  Larger than I can know, anyway, Hay thought.

  Forty-five minutes passed before they crossed into the manicured grounds of the Soldiers’ Home. This was where veterans of the young nation’s three past wars came to molder and die. The carriage rolled to a stop in front of a many-gabled stucco cottage with a weathered look. The superintendent had nagged Lincoln to stay here in the summertime, to escape Washington City’s viciously humid heat, like Buchanan had done (as if that were a recommendation). A ploy, Hay guessed, to put the president in the superintendent’s debt at budget-writing time.

  Tom Cross opened the carriage door, and the cold pressed in, along with a whiff of the woods. For a minute or more, father and son sat without moving. Then Lincoln sighed and stepped down from the barouche. Refusing all offers of aid, he cradled Tad in his arms and mounted the ramshackle steps, crossed the wide porch, and entered the house. Tom Cross and Hay followed with the valises and a small trunk of Tad’s toys—including (or so Hay judged by the weight) his collection of tin soldiers, minus the ones he had mangled out of frustration. Mrs. Pomroy carried a portmanteau of her own.

  By the time Hay found his way upstairs, Tad was sitting cross-legged in bed, talking without cease and (to Hay’s ear) without sense. He was hard enough to translate at normal speed, but with the excitement of a new place and the sunlight spattered across the bare walls, his words blurred into babble.

  “Yes, Taddie. Yes, Taddie,” Lincoln sang in his nasally twang. “Yes, Taddie. Yes, Taddie.”

  Some way to rear a hellion, Hay thought. The child is always right.

  “Now, you may try him again, if you like”—Lincoln had turned to Hay—“with your question.”

  Hay thought, Just one?

  “Now, my boy”—Lincoln’s face softened, talking to Tad—“John here wants to ask you something, and I want you to listen. All right?”

  Hay wished he had prepared. Some lawyer he would make.

  “Papa-day, you stay wiv me.”

  “Of course, Taddie, as long as you like. But first, I want you to listen to John here.”