The Murder of Willie Lincoln Page 28

  Every time Willie’s fever reached 104 degrees or higher, Hay circled it. Nine times in sixteen days. Twice, the nurse on duty was MJW, the navy secretary’s wife. Mrs. Keckly was on duty twice; and Dines, EJS, and RP, once each. Twice, no nurse was listed on duty—Doc Stone must have measured the boy’s fever himself, or Tad’s nurse served Willie as well. Once, that would have been Old Aunt Mary and, the other time, EJS. No pattern in particular.

  The schedule, clearly, was incomplete. Nor did it mention the Ancient or the Hell-cat, who had sat up with Willie night after night.

  Could the Hell-cat have…? The possibility had hovered before at the edge of Hay’s consciousness, but he had concluded each time, as he did now: No, impossible. Not even she was that crazy. Still, that would explain why Lincoln wanted the investigation ended.

  All of that, he must ignore. Hay returned to the pages before him, to check the spikes in fever against the nurse during the previous shift. The nurse on duty just before Willie’s fever broached 104 was EJS. The second time, EK—Mrs. Keckly. The third time, EJS. The fourth, EJS. The fifth … again, EJS. Twice, nobody was listed during the previous shift, but two of those times the nurse on duty while Willie’s fever spiked was … EJS.

  Eva Socrates. The dark lady.

  A murderess.

  Who had already paid the price. At the hands of Pinkerton’s men.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 1862

  Hay started to curse at the blackguard who clutched his shoulder, the wounded one. Then he opened his eyes and saw the fright in Lincoln’s face.

  “Come join us, please, John, as soon as you can.” The president’s tenor was a tone higher than usual.

  Three minutes later, barely past six o’clock, Hay crossed to the president’s office and walked into a maelstrom. Members of the cabinet sat at contradictory angles around the center table. Lincoln, at the head, now wore a mask of unconcern. The portrait of Andrew Jackson over the mantelpiece stared across at the military map of Tennessee on the opposite wall. The office was cluttered with the president’s papers, despite the chambermaids’ best efforts, but it was free enough of furniture (the Hell-cat had ignored this room, too, at her husband’s behest) to let a man pace. Edwin Stanton stalked the room like a caged lion, the white streaks livid in his flowing, unkempt beard.

  “Nothing can prevent her destroying seriatim every naval vessel,” the war secretary thundered, “laying Washington in ashes and then placing all of our seaport cities under her guns.” He flung a fist at another map mounted over the sofa, of the Chesapeake Bay and the coastline to the north. “I have notified the governors to protect their cities—we can do nothing for them. Why, sir,” Stanton blared to no one in particular, “it is not unlikely that we will have from one of her guns a cannonball in this very room before we leave it.”

  The rebels’ latest threat—as Hay came to piece it together—had driven the emotional Stanton into an ecstasy of Armageddon. Desperate for warships, the Confederates had dredged up the USS Merrimack, a scuttled Union frigate, and covered it in iron plates. The telegrams had come in overnight, describing how the ironclad had sunk a Union warship off Hampton Roads, set another one ablaze, and was threatening a third. The worst naval defeat in the nation’s history, more than two hundred sailors killed. A leviathan that could never be stopped—of this, Stanton was certain—as it lumbered through the Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac River and then upstream to Washington City. It could shell the Capitol and the Executive Mansion, then steam northward to Philadelphia, New York, Boston.

  “The war is lost!” Stanton shouted—and who could say for sure he was wrong?

  The eminences of the cabinet spouted their solutions, each sillier than the last. Pile rocks on barges and sink them to block the Potomac. String a huge net across the river to snare the ironclad. Move the capital to Pittsburgh. Seward looked as if a molar was being pulled without chloroform. The president pretended to pay attention, but his eye had shifted to the war map on the wall, and his mind was … Hay knew better than to guess. Not on the squabbling in the room.

  “Surely, the Merrimack cannot come to Washington and New York at the same time,” Gideon Welles piped up, earning Stanton’s most menacing look. The navy secretary was either being a dullard or mocking his rival—probably both. Beneath the sycophant, Hay realized, was a bully.

  This time, Gideon Welles knew his facts. General Burnside’s forces, blockading the North Carolina coast, were safe from the Merrimack, “because her draft of water is such she could not approach them. And the Monitor, as perhaps you know”—or perhaps the war secretary did not know—“is steaming its way to Hampton Roads. Our own ironclad left the shipyard near New York on Thursday, and may have arrived in Hampton Roads already. When I get word from my men down there, I shall let you know. I have every confidence in the Monitor’s power to resist—and, I hope, to overcome—the Merrimack.”

  Calm amid the furor—or because of the furor—Lincoln pored through the wires from the field. Then with a shake of his hand, he dismissed the cabinet’s combatants and dispatched them to their respective churches, intending to leave no divine option untried. Seward stayed behind.

  “Pittsburgh!” Lincoln sighed once the secretary of the interior was beyond earshot. “Why not Poughkeepsie?”

  “Or Warsaw, Indiana,” Seward said.

  “Between the schoolhouse and the Turkish baths, the perfect spot for a Capitol,” Hay said. “The barber would sell it for a song.”

  “Maybe you should buy it first,” Seward said, “or I could. And turn a quick profit.”

  “Seward’s folly, we could call it,” Lincoln said, without an evident care in the world.

  Seward, relighting his segar, issued a guttural laugh that caused him to choke. “And how … is the investi … investigation coming, my … dear Hay?” he managed between gasps.

  Hay glanced warily at Lincoln, wondering how to describe the investigation he was supposed to have abandoned.

  Lincoln said, “Well, John?”

  “I think I know who it is, sir,” Hay said. “Was.”

  Lincoln exclaimed, “Who who is?”

  “Who mur…” He needed to be precise. “Who administered the toxic doses of calomel to Willie.”

  Lincoln seemed to sag. Then he said with a quaver, “And who is he?”

  “She,” Hay said. “That nurse, Eva. Eva Socrates. A fugitive slave.” He told of matching the spikes of fever with the schedule of nurses and of finding EJS on duty during that shift or just before.

  Seward said, “Always?”

  “No. Two or three times she was off duty that day.”

  “Two or three?” said Lincoln.

  “Let me check,” Hay said.

  “Do.” That was Seward. “We need to know.”

  We?

  “And this fugitive slave,” Seward went on, “you say her name is…”

  “Eva Socrates, Governor.”

  “Rather a whimsical—” Seward began.

  Lincoln broke in, “E … J … S. John, what is the J for? It is rare, you know, for a slave to have a second Christian name.”

  Hay did not know. That, too, he would check.

  He declined Lincoln’s invitation to church. Seward accepted without being asked.

  “Is Robert going?” said Hay.

  “No,” Lincoln replied, “he left last night. Back to college, where he belongs.”

  Without telling Hay good-bye.

  * * *

  Hay could not help but indulge in a round of self-congratulation. Anyone would. The case was closed, and Hay had solved it. He considered hunting up Pinkerton, to offer his own congratulations for capturing—and killing?—the perpetrator. But he recognized it was really to gloat. Better to refrain. More mature, anyway.

  Still, something nagged at Hay. About Lincoln—he was acting oddly. Taking Hay off the case without explanation, then accepting Hay’s solution without any show of interest. Simultaneously courtroom-sharp
and disengaged. Even more remote than usual from the human race.

  From habit and boredom, Hay gravitated to his desk and confronted the heap of correspondence. While penning a letter to Ohio’s attorney general, setting his mind at ease about the Homestead Act that Congress was pondering in its own sweet time—no, sir, the president was not planning to give away the state’s rich farmland—Hay found himself thinking about Eva. What possible reason could she have to poison a boy? A fugitive slave was not a secessionist. There could be no personal grudge. It was not the sort of crime one committed for pay or even as blackmail. It made no sense. Damn those Pinkerton men for killing her—now, Hay would never know her motive. Maybe Pinkerton himself wanted her dead, but Hay could think of no reason for that either.

  A noise outside his door sent Hay looking for Nicolay, but the corner office was dark. The Sabbath quiet was creaky; it must be windy outside. Hay’s own somber office seemed unappealing. He continued on through the double doors and into the central hallway, just as Elizabeth Keckly emerged from the Hell-cat’s bedroom. She was carrying a silver tray with dishes jammed with napoleons and apple fritters—evidently ordered but not eaten.

  “May I have a word, please?” he said.

  Mrs. Keckly looked desperate to escape. “Of course,” she said. “Where?”

  Hay nodded toward the Prince of Wales Room. There, they would not be disturbed. And taking her to the scene of the crime could only amplify the power of his questions. Instead, it increased Hay’s own unease. The gilt highlights on the opulently carved bedstead, the purple wallpaper, the heavy gold-and-purple drapes—Hay found the décor oppressive. Indeed, funereal. He kept thinking of the undersized body in the oversized bed.

  Hay guided Mrs. Keckly into the less comfortable chair at the foot of the bed. He took the other, which left them sitting closer to each other than he wished.

  She adjusted the folds in her billowing skirt and said, “How may I help you, Mister Hay?”

  “An odd question first, if I might.” He waited politely for a nod that did not come. “What is … was Eva’s middle name?”

  Mrs. Keckly visibly relaxed. “I am not aware she had one.”

  “You have her on the schedule as EJS, yes?”

  “No, no. That is not Eva. She is not on this schedule at all. She came and went as she … could.”

  “So, she might have been here … here … in this room … anytime at all.”

  “That, I cannot say for certain.”

  “Then who is EJS?”

  “You met her. More than once, I believe. You know her as Eugenia.”

  “Jenkins.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean, ‘I know her as’? Isn’t that her name?”

  “It is her confirmation name. After Sister Eugenia, her favorite teacher in Alexandria. Her family was Protestant, but they sent her to a Catholic school, and she converted. To her family’s displeasure, I should add. She often calls herself Eugenia.”

  Hay pictured the pinch-faced woman with severe black hair. Efficient, businesslike, courteous in a mechanical way. With a glower. Not a lighthearted presence. In demeanor, rather dark.

  Hay gasped. Then he whistled.

  A dark lady.

  “That explains the E and the J,” Hay said. “Eugenia Jenkins. What is the S?”

  Jenkins was her maiden name. Her married name meant nothing to Hay.

  Mrs. Keckly said, “I call her by her given name, her Christian”—she meant Protestant—“name. Which is Mary. Mary Elizabeth.”

  Mary Elizabeth Jenkins—Hay had seen this name before, within the past day or two. But where? Hay combed through his recent travels and his sources of information.

  Then he remembered.

  * * *

  Hay shut the door to his office. From the top right drawer of his desk, he pulled the ledger that listed the Calvert plantation’s resident staff. He leafed through the stiff pages until he found what he was looking for, from 1824:

  Jenkins, Archibald, 30, white, b. Md., farm manager

  Jenkins, Elizabeth Webster, 21, b. Md.

  Jenkins, John Zadoc, 2, white, b. Md.

  Jenkins, Mary Elizabeth, 1, white, b. Md.

  All under the roof of Webster, James. The overseer Hay had met.

  Mary Elizabeth Jenkins—Eugenia. EJS. On duty at the most incriminating times. More than likely, a murderess. And Hay knew where she lived.

  He also knew this was something he should not handle alone. Lincoln might have returned from church by now, but Hay saw no reason to bother him with a suspect’s arrest, not when a lethal threat to the Union was on his mind. Besides, Hay preferred to keep mum on his mistake—about Eva’s guilt—until he knew he was not making another. That could wait until Eugenia—whatever her name—was in custody.

  To call on Pinkerton, however—Hay saw no choice. Beyond his lack of legal authority, Hay could hardly arrest the woman by himself. He did not know how.

  The detective was probably at his home, out on Sixteenth street, nearly to K. Hay stood to fetch his greatcoat. He was closing the ledger when the light from the window fell obliquely on an indentation in the thick scaly page. A furrow had been pressed into the paper. By a thumbnail, Hay guessed. Or a pencil. Hay picked up the open ledger and lifted it close to his face, then tilted it in every direction to make the most of the light. Yes, the line had been a pencil’s marking, erased. Presumably by whoever had drawn it in the first place.

  Hay could guess who that was, for the not-quite-obliterated line started at the end of

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

  and extended into the gutter between the facing pages. Hay knew what this kind of line meant in a genealogical listing—a liaison that clergy could never agree to bless. Only a family guileless enough, or unforgiving enough, would record it. And only when it produced a child.

  Where the line ended, the indentations resembled hieroglyphics. Hay angled the book toward the window. He thought of shading the paper with the side of a pencil but feared concealing whatever it showed. Outside, a cloud must have moved, because the light brightened and nestled for an instant in the etchings.

  Hay examined the crevices, as if made by a stylus without ink, and his stomach lurched.

  AGNES H.

  Agnes Hobbs.

  The line ran from her name to … James Webster. Agnes Hobbs had borne his child, whose name was half-legible.

  ELIZ.

  Agnes and Elizabeth. This was Elizabeth Keckly’s father. James Webster, the old overseer Hay had just met at Riversdale. The kinship Mrs. Keckly had not wanted known.

  Hay glanced down at the names below Webster’s. The last entry was as he remembered:

  Jenkins, Mary Elizabeth, 1, white, b. Md.

  Yes! That was Eugenia. Eugenia Jenkins—that is, Mary Elizabeth Jenkins. Tad’s dark lady. Willie’s murderess. Related to Mrs. Keckly by blood.

  * * *

  “Asinine,” Pinkerton sputtered. “Explain it again.”

  Hay tried. “The overseer out at the Calvert place, his name is James Webster, he is this Eugenia’s grandfather, and he is also Missus Keckly’s father. Which makes this Eugenia, or whatever her name is, Elizabeth Keckly’s … aunt. No, niece. Anyway, blood kin.”

  Hay told Pinkerton about the house on H street, almost to Sixth, and described what he remembered of the floor plan. Pinkerton stared past Hay’s shoulder, and his face took on an intelligent cast. This was Pinkerton at work, doing what he excelled at. After two or three minutes, he said, “Six men should be enough. Including myself.”

  “And me,” Hay said.

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “This is a policin’ operation. Armed.”

  “Plus me.”

  Pinkerton refused to tell Hay when the operation would begin.

  * * *

  Hay was hungry but wary of arriving too late. He grabbed two hard rolls from the kitchen and left for the stables. He had nothing to
give Hasheesh, who sulked.

  “Please, be nice to me,” Hay implored.

  The mare paid no mind.

  The daylight was fading when Hay concealed himself behind a blacksmith’s shed on the northern side of H street. Across the way, the white-painted brick row house seemed to back away from the street, with a timidity Hay found affecting. It stood four stories high, counting the dormer windows. On the third story, four of the six shutters hung awry. An outside staircase was pressed diagonally against the front wall, rising from the sidewalk to the entrance on the second floor.

  Hay sat on a barrel and looked over the fence. Nothing moved on the rutted road. He removed his fleece-lined gloves and gnawed on a roll, which tasted like hardtack, sandy and stale. Nothing like crumpets. Hay pitied the men in the field.

  Hay felt in his greatcoat pocket for the comforting presence of his calfskin notebook and a stub of a pencil. The barrel top could serve as a desk.

  In winter twilights, when the day has rolled …

  That was the opening line of his class poem at Brown, winter substituted for summer. Those 436 lines of poetry—on the subject of poetry—had said very little but said it … artfully.

  In winter twilights, when the day has rolled,

  The biscuit is hard and the evening is cold …

  This new line, inspired by self-pity, an endless wellspring. Keep going.

  In the middle of war, in the throes of a fight

  May we gird our loins in the darkening light … darkening night …

  No, oh no. He stared at the darkening sky as if its beauty were to blame for his poetic incapacity, his devotion to cliché. And so, he girded his own loins: Try again.

  In winter twilights, when the day has rolled,

  Rolled? Well, leave it for now.

  The biscuits are … biscuit is hard and the evening is cold …

  Comes a moment of truth, not known to transpire

  Perhaps.

  Unless winter has fallen, and evil … goes … higher.