The Murder of Willie Lincoln Read online

  “I am not sure what you mean, sir,” Hay said.

  “I mean, there is no need for you to look into this any further.”

  “Are you asking me to stop investigating Willie’s … Willie … his…?”

  “Exactly that.”

  Hay opened his mouth, but no words emerged; a trickle of saliva reached his chin. He tried again and said, “May I ask why, sir?”

  A long silence. Then: “Nothing will bring him back.”

  Hardly an answer—that had been true when Lincoln asked him to investigate. Something must have happened. But what?

  Hay said, “Surely it matters who…?”

  “Will that bring him back?”

  “Of course not, but it could stop one of his”—Hay saw no choice but to be direct—“brothers from—”

  The clap of Lincoln’s huge hands resounded like a gunshot. Then, in the mildest of voices, the president said, “I know everything I need to know, John. There is nothing more I want to know. My boys will be safe, I assure you.”

  * * *

  Nicolay’s saturnine countenance, dripping with soapy water, drooped. “Did he say why?”

  “Only humbug. ‘It will not bring Willie back.’ ‘There is nothing I need to know.’ No—no reason. Just, stop.”

  “He asked you?”

  “That was my word. He seemed to accept it.”

  “He did not order you.” Nicolay toweled his face and neck.

  “He is not my commander in chief,” Hay said.

  “Of course he is, Johnny. Also, your employer and your landlord. And patron saint.”

  “Yours, you mean.”

  “But the way I see it,” Nicolay said, “an order is an order, and a request is … a request.”

  “You should be a lawyer,” Hay said.

  Nicolay’s balled-up towel was deflected by Hay’s flick of a fist.

  Chapter Seventeen

  SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1862

  Hay forced himself to remain at his desk and turn every page. With so little evidence available, he saw no choice but to make the most of what he had. His shoulder ached, and he longed for laudanum but vowed to wait until nighttime, when drowsiness would serve him well. Hay sat up straight in his swivel chair, planted his feet on the floor, and slapped his cheek, which made his shoulder hurt less.

  The ledger was covered in thin gray cotton, of the sort used for cheap coffins. Scrawled across the title page:

  Residents of

  Riversdale

  The earliest pages, starting with 1822, were clumped together. Hay pried them loose—a crushed insect was the glue. The ledger seemed to be a census of sorts, listing the inhabitants, dwelling by dwelling. By each man’s name was a dollar figure, which Hay took to be the monthly rent. What would Mrs. Keckly want with this?

  Hay found a tactile pleasure in turning the pages, with their rough surfaces and ragged cut. The listings were written in a delicate hand.

  Dwelling #708:

  Ghagan, Philip, 38, white, b. Ireland, gardener $17

  Ghagan, Jane, 39, white, b. Ireland

  Ghagan, Dannie, 8, white, b. Md.

  Ghagan, Morris, 6, white, b. Md.

  Ghagan, Philip, 4, white, b. Md.

  Ghagan, Ann, 2, white, b. Md.

  Dwelling #709:

  Jones, Joseph, 40, white, b. England, farm manager $19

  Jones, Elizabeth, 39, white, b. England

  Jones, George, 14, white, b. England

  Jones, Jenett (f), 11, white, b. Md.

  Hay counted four more Jones children—no wonder the rent was higher. Nor did Hay recognize the inhabitants in the other five dwellings.

  The 1823 listings looked the same, except for another Ghagan daughter and new inhabitants in Dwelling #704. The Godmans were gone; listed first among the new tenants was:

  Webster, James, 45, white, b. Md., asst. overseer $21

  That must be the man Hay had just met. He would be in his eighties now—plausible, Hay supposed, if a nasty nature kept a man looking young. The family he had lived with bore a different name:

  Jenkins, Archibald, 29, white, b. Md., farm manager

  Jenkins, Elizabeth Webster, 20, b. Md.

  Jenkins, John Zadoc, 1, white, b. Md.

  A married daughter, perhaps, with a husband and son. Jenkins—a familiar name. Hay tried to remember why. From Jenkins Hill, perhaps—the original name of Capitol Hill. He checked the 1824 listings. The family had stayed on, now with a newborn daughter, Mary Elizabeth.

  Now, Hay remembered: Jenkins was the name of that nurse. But she was not Mary Elizabeth. Something more euphonious—oh yes, Eugenia. Well, Jenkins was a common enough surname. Oh, and the nurse was Mrs. Jenkins—her girlhood surname must have been something else.

  Then Hay turned the page and nearly fell out of his chair.

  Stackpole, Henry, 35, white, b. Md., asst. overseer $16

  This was not a common surname. And beneath was further proof:

  Stackpole, Anna, 32, white, b. N.H.

  New Hampshire—that fit.

  Stackpole, Thomas, 11, white, b. N.H.

  Stackpole, Peter, 6, white, b. Md.

  One and the same. This would make the doorkeeper—Hay closed his eyes to calculate—not quite fifty. The fat, jowly doorkeeper could be almost any age.

  And if Thomas Stackpole had known Mrs. Keckly in their youths, then … Hay had a sickening thought—that they had not only known one another.

  That they were kin.

  * * *

  “So?”

  Thus, in a word—a syllable—Thomas Stackpole admitted … to what, exactly? “Of course I know her. This town is small. Surely you have learned that, my dear Hay.”

  Hay bristled at dear and wondered at the loquaciousness. “But she is…”

  “Yes, and I am white. This town is small—and wicked—in that way as well. And out there”—Stackpole’s thick finger pointed eastward, toward Riversdale—“is smaller still.”

  Stackpole’s misadventures in Richmond and his involuntary return had not erased his bland yet serene smile. He overflowed his seat outside the president’s door, garbed in a drab, dark suit and his customary aplomb. Hay would have preferred inviting him into his office for a private conversation but worried that Stackpole would decline.

  “You had a good trip, I take it.” Hay meant his smile to be disarming, although Stackpole was never disarmed.

  “I did. The trip was profitable, if that is what you ask. And with an escort home, at the government’s expense. At the cost to the troops of a few blankets and a cannon.”

  “Mister Pinkerton’s men were not too rough with you, I hope.”

  “Oh, I can absorb punishment, Mister Hay. You might be surprised.” He seemed to wink; Hay hoped it was a twitch. “Even when it is undeserved. They were uglier to Mister Spaulding, I should say.”

  “I was unaware he returned with you.”

  “Oh yes, it was a family affair, for which I should be grateful to … you, perhaps?”

  “You give me too much credit, sir. So you did cross paths with Mister Spaulding in … Richmond? Is that where you … sojourned?”

  “How thoughtful of you to inquire. I went on business, Mister Hay. As did he. We were both of us successful, until Mister Pinkerton’s gentlemen interrupted us.”

  “I was under the impression that your business was working for the president.”

  “And for Madam President, my dear Hay; let us not forget that.”

  As if Hay could.

  He could think of no easy way to ask the question on his mind. Often, the solution was simply to ask it. This time, however, he sidled in.

  “How long did you live at the Calvert … estate?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Bear with me, if you would.”

  A pause. “Two years only. When I was eleven years old, we left.”

  “For New Hampshire.”

  “You have been making inquiries, I see.”

  “About everyon
e. Why did you leave the Calvert … place so soon?”

  “I was a boy. Nobody told me. And now, there is nobody left who would know. Why does this matter, besides?”

  Hay noted that Stackpole had not denied knowing why.

  “Missus Keckly, again, if I might,” Hay said. Time to be blunt. “Were you more than friends, perhaps?”

  “What are you implying, Mister Hay?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Although, Hay was accusing Stackpole’s father of exactly that. “I was wondering if she might be … related to you … by blood.” That did not come out quite right.

  Stackpole’s eyes shrank to a pinpoint. “I will not dignify that with a response,” he said, jowls trembling—with rage? with shame? with embarrassment at being unmasked? Hay had no way of knowing. Only one thing was clear: Stackpole would be loquacious no longer.

  * * *

  The correspondence on Hay’s felt-covered table had piled up. The Indiana governor’s request for a pardon for a cousin (an elastic term, Hay thought) convicted of bribery; that would require an answer, but an easy one. A letter from the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher proposing a Negro for a postmastership in the city of Brooklyn. Hay had started to draft a polite refusal to the famous pastor when relief arrived in a knock on his doorframe.

  “You wish to see me, Mister Hay?” It was Elizabeth Keckly, stately and buxom in a plain black gown.

  “No. Well, yes. But how on earth did you know?”

  She smiled. Stackpole must have told her, and she was inserting herself before Hay knew what he wanted to ask.

  “Please, come in.”

  Mrs. Keckly seated herself in the hard-backed chair without being invited. Hay found this audacious but also refreshingly matter-of-fact.

  “How is your shoulder, Mister Hay?” she said.

  “Much better, thank you,” Hay replied. If this was a bout, he had lost the first round. “As you can see, I am already back at my desk—my own little battlefield.”

  He immediately regretted the lighthearted allusion to sacred ground, where Mrs. Keckly’s only child had given his life. But she seemed not to mind.

  “You are a vigorous young man, indeed. The president is lucky to have you.”

  Although Hay recognized the tactic—he was practiced at being the charmer, not the charmee—he could not help but enjoy it. This was a side of Mrs. Keckly he had not seen before. But why did she feel the need?

  Hay thanked her and decided to surprise her with his suspicions in the guise of fact. He said, “Tell me why you sent Eva back to Riversdale. Was it to bring you that ledger of slaves?”

  Mrs. Keckly’s face tightened, and tears slid down her cheeks.

  “You know, then,” Hay said.

  She lifted an embroidered handkerchief to her face and nodded.

  “It is your fault she is dead,” Hay said. He meant to be cruel: The greater her shame, the likelier her cooperation.

  She lowered the handkerchief and spoke through arched lips. “Not in a world that was just.”

  “Which world is that?” Hay felt ridiculous playing the realist with a self-emancipated slave. “I think I know why you wanted the ledger,” he said. “Your name is in it, and your mother’s. But why did you send her?”

  “You have seen it?”

  “Oh yes. I have it.”

  Mrs. Keckly’s eyes grew wide. “May I see it?”

  The second round was his. “When you answer my questions,” he said.

  “Then ask them.”

  “Why did you want it at all? Everyone is from somewhere. Who cares if you came from the Calvert place?”

  “I just wanted to know, is all.”

  A lie.

  “Then let me ask the question I asked before. Why did you send Eva?”

  “I could hardly go myself.”

  “And why is that?”

  “In case I was seen.”

  “By whom?”

  “By anyone.”

  “But why send Eva—a friend’s daughter, yes—send her back to…”—Hay decided not to say her death—“to do this for you? You wanted it that much?”

  “No one else knew where it was.”

  “Sally did.”

  “You have seen her.”

  It was unmistakable—there was fear in her eyes.

  “I have.”

  “What did she tell you?” Mrs. Keckly leaned forward in the chair, her face so near to Hay’s he could smell the mix of perfume and perspiration.

  “That you wanted the staff ledger as well. Why?”

  No reply.

  The hell with starting from the edges. “Because it listed Thomas Stackpole’s family?”

  “What?” It was almost a shriek.

  “Yes, I am also in possession of that one. Well, is that the reason?”

  “Oh my, no.”

  At last, he believed her.

  “Isn’t that the reason you refused to testify on his behalf? That you knew him—that you are kin to him. That you are—”

  “No, no—by everything I hold holy, no.”

  Mrs. Keckly, her backbone rigid, started to rise from the chair.

  Hay asked her for a schedule of nurses but found he was addressing her back. The third and final round was hers.

  * * *

  A Saturday night with nothing to do and no one to do it with, and so much frustration to work off. Nicolay was visiting friends who were too tedious for Hay, with their ever-expanding horde of tots. Lincoln and Robert were taking in a burlesque opera at the Odd Fellows’ Hall, on Seventh street—they were together, which was good, and both of them needed a laugh. Hay decided to take a walk, hoping to clear his mind, or even to organize it, although that was aiming high.

  The northern sidewalk of the Avenue was crowded with revelers in varying stages of inebriation. A soldier whose tunic was torn brushed shoulders with Hay, who curled his fists in a way he knew was unwise. Hay crossed the Avenue, dodging a carriage and its glazed-looking nag.

  On the southern sidewalk, the proportion between the sexes skewed toward women with paint on their faces and a strut in their strides, winking at men without regard to age or girth; Hay felt flattered at their attentions anyway, which he realized was their intent. That he was prey rather than predator did not trouble him; it was arousing.

  The first three winks he ignored, from women who were, respectively, too old, too plump, and too rouged. The next girl was none of those—rather shy, in fact, in offering Hay a sidelong glance. As in: I am embarrassed to be out here, but because of reasons beyond my control, here I am. As was Hay.

  She had passed him when he stopped and turned to look. His shoulder hurt; he would have to make allowances. She, too, was looking back, and Hay found himself smiling—this would increase the price, no doubt—and walking toward her. She waited. She had a sauciness around her mouth and a liveliness in her eyes and pleasing curves in her girlish overcoat.

  “Hello,” Hay said softly.

  “Hello yourself.” There was a lilt in her voice.

  “A nice evening.”

  “Not very.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Hay said. “But it can be.”

  “I am open, sir, to suggestions.”

  Hay made one.

  * * *

  Hay’s cravat was crumpled, and half of his collar was detached. Hay tiptoed into his dark office, grateful for the absence of witnesses who might ask where he had been. (His shame at sin was gaining on pride, which Hay hoped was a sign of maturity.) It was too early for bed, but he felt too tired to do anything productive. He meant to collect himself at his desk before facing Nicolay, who might still be awake.

  Hay sank into his swivel chair and felt a crinkling beneath him. He reached down and retrieved three or four pages of foolscap, folded and refolded, nestled inside one another like petticoats.

  Hay was disbelieving. The schedule of nurses! He shoved the piles aside on the desktop and lit the kerosene lantern. His fatigue had disappeared.

  The
pages felt brittle as he unfolded and smoothed them out. On the top page, pencil lines crisscrossed, marking off a grid. Each row was marked with a date, from February 6 through February 11; two of the four columns were labeled Willie and two, Tad. Each oblong, Hay gathered, represented a twelve-hour shift. Written inside most, although not all, of them were initials or a name.

  The next page continued from February 12 to February 17. On the third page, below the row for February 20, the left-hand columns were blank.

  The lettering, slender and crisp, looked nothing like the messages left in Hay’s satchel. MJW—that would be Mary Jane Welles. Dines was Old Aunt Mary. EK—Keckly. EJS—Eva Socrates, must be. On the last page, RP—that was Rebecca Pomroy, the nurse now taking care of Tad. Hay figured the boxes devoid of initials or a name must mean no nurse was on duty or one nurse covered both boys. Or Mrs. Keckly could not remember. Or she preferred not to say.

  Now, Hay needed to match the schedule of nurses against the spikes in Willie’s fever, in search of a pattern. Lincoln’s advice remained valid, even after its purveyor had supposedly taken Hay off the case.

  Hay lifted a stack of correspondence from his desktop onto the floor and removed Willie’s medical chart from the top drawer, then arranged the nurses’ schedule and the medical chart side by side. The likeliest way to detect a pattern, he decided, was to note Willie’s fever in every twelve-hour block of time. Dr. Hall had estimated a toxic dose of calomel would bring on a surge in fever in two or three hours. So, a nurse bent on evil might want to administer a dose toward the end of her shift, to deflect suspicion. Hay’s task, then, was to track which nurse was on duty when the fever was recorded and during the previous shift.

  Tedious work, Hay’s least favorite kind. If this was Vidocq stuff, it was overrated. Hay whittled his pencil to a jagged point and just missed slicing his thumb. Some of the notations of Willie’s temperature were daunting to decipher. The 102s resembled the 105s; a couple of the 6s might have been 0s (fortunately, after the decimal point).

  The chore took nearly an hour, penciling in Willie’s fate in Fahrenheit. His fever was recorded, in various handwriting, at eight o’clock, four in the afternoon, and midnight. On February 6: 102.5, 104.3, 102.9. Steady for a day and a night and then 104.5. Twice, Willie’s fever reached 105.3. A spike, then a decline and, twelve or eighteen or twenty-four hours later, another spike. A pattern of sorts, but erratic, the work of a sardonic God or the capricious course of disease or a person who meant to do harm.