The Murder of Willie Lincoln Page 29

  Not bad. Not entirely bad, anyway.

  Hay returned his implements of creation to his pocket. His fingers were freezing; his gloves went back on. A rumbling was a carriage passing by. Across the street, a light flickered in the first-floor window. Could be the moonlight or a reflection from Hay’s side of the street.

  Then he heard the horses. Not the coordinated trot of a carriage but a jumble of rhythms that suddenly and simultaneously stopped. For suspenseful seconds, the night was silent. Hay peeked around the shed and saw men scurrying noiselessly in the moonlight. Pinkerton’s men. One at each front corner of the house, two others on the staircase, and a short, stout—and yes, swaggering—man who was just reaching the top.

  That was Pinkerton, who pounded on the door and shouted a word or two Hay could not comprehend—“Open up!” or something equally unpoetic. Although potentially effective, Hay had to admit. Pinkerton knew what he was doing. The man was a detective, not a dabbler like Hay.

  Hay edged closer to his side of the street, into the shed’s moon shadow. Pinkerton was calling to his men on the lower steps and pointing to the second-story door, miming an assault with a log. So Hay alone noticed the prick of light on the ground floor as it moved. Somebody was inside.

  Hay crept across the road and circled around the operative at the corner. An alleyway ran along the side of the house, and Hay stole down it. He sidestepped the moonlit chunks of debris, although he kicked a rock, which skittered into the brick wall, just missing a window. The clatter was like an explosion. Hay froze. What if Pinkerton’s men considered him…? Hay thought of Eva. Shoot first and ask questions later—the Pinkerton way.

  No one came running. A braying near the street gave Hay the cover to scuttle along to the rear of the house. He found a door and twisted the knob. It squeaked, and he stopped; then, hearing nothing, he turned the knob again. This time, it slid more easily. Hay pushed his weight against the door. No give.

  He needed to break a glass pane in the door. Either that, or a window. He had seen the light on this floor, at the front of the house. Maybe the second-floor battering from Pinkerton and his men would distract the candle-bearer.

  He had nothing to use but his fist. He wrapped his linen cambric handkerchief around the knuckles of his right hand and took aim at the pane on the lower-left. His professor of pugilism in Providence had taught him to snap his punches, not to push them, which increased their acceleration and the pain they caused. To a pane of glass as to a jaw.

  Pushing with his legs, Hay twisted his hips and drove his fist through the glass. The shattering sounded like a hailstorm. He hardly felt any pain; he knew he would later. He slipped his hand through the hole and was thankful to touch a key in the lock. By contorting his wrist and jabbing himself with a shard, he grasped the key and tried to turn it. The lock was rusty and cold, and it took all the pressure he could apply with the base of his thumb—that hurt—to unfreeze it. When the lock clicked, Hay turned the knob and pressed his hip to the door. It gave way so easily he nearly fell through.

  Because someone was pulling on the door.

  And that someone held a gun. Six inches from Hay’s right temple.

  “Stop!” A man’s voice, barely a growl.

  And unnecessary. Hay had no plans to move.

  Hay pivoted slowly toward his assailant. He could make out a silhouette, black against black, of a pointed chin and a triangular face. The shape of the face Hay had seen leaping into his carriage, then stalking the woods below Arlington House. The face of the young man who had tried twice to kill him. And who, Hay had every reason to assume, wanted to kill him still.

  Now, the man had his chance, but so far he had not taken advantage. Out of fear, probably, that a gunshot would alert the men who were barging in upstairs. This evened things up some.

  “Go!” the man barked at Hay. He grabbed Hay’s injured shoulder, snorting as he did, as if he knew which side was hurt. He turned Hay and shoved him into the blackness. Hay stretched both arms in front of his face, to ward off dangers unseen. At a dip in the floor, Hay stumbled, then stopped, and felt the gun poke at his back.

  “Careful!” The man pushed at Hay’s left shoulder—it hurt like hell, but Hay refused to show it. “To the left,” the man said, steering Hay to a doorway. In the next room, a candle was lit, the one he had seen from outside. Someone was holding it, but the flame hid the face.

  “You!” came the voice from behind the candle. A deep voice, a woman’s.

  “None other,” Hay said, more jauntily than he felt. “At your service.”

  The woman who stepped toward him, candle in hand, he knew as Eugenia Jenkins. This was the opportunity Hay was waiting for. He grabbed for the candle as he spun to his right, elbowing the young man’s gut and ramming the burning candle into his face. The man shrieked and toppled backward, and Hay snatched the gun.

  Then fingernails scraped at Hay’s cheek, and a knee slammed into his testicles. Hay started to crumple, but before he reached the floor, a feeling of rage overtook him, and he rose up through the pain and delivered a haymaker with his hand that held the gun.

  Was it moral to strike a woman? That disputation would have to wait. His single punch put her on the ground.

  * * *

  “A ghastly looking thing, which is one of the beautiful things about it.” Lincoln might have been talking about himself, Hay thought, and not about the USS Monitor, which wags described as a cheese-box on a raft. “The bullets rattled off the iron cladding like so many peas, they say. Until the Merrimack retired—retired. That was the beautiful word in the wire.” Lincoln smacked the yellow flimsy in his lap. “This is a grand day, John, one of the rare ones.”

  Hay had made his report, and Lincoln was sitting by the telescope in his office, in a chair that was sized for Willie or Tad. The president had squeezed into it and looked as if he could never escape, nor wanted to. He had a delicate smile. The Confederates had abandoned Manassas; the weaponry McClellan had described as rebel cannons—based on Pinkerton’s intelligence—turned out to be painted logs. Better still, the Monitor had withstood the Merrimack’s assault, and the Confederate ironclad had fled. Washington—indeed, the Union—was saved.

  Chapter Nineteen

  MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1862

  “So, you knocked down a woman of venerable age and a skinny fellow who had never sparred in his life. You have every reason to feel proud, Johnny.”

  “Well, he did have a gun, Nico.”

  “I will grant you that. But your brass is too big for your britches.” Nicolay leaned over the porcelain bowl and expertly maneuvered a razor between his whiskers and right ear. His eyes met Hay’s in the mirror, and he chortled. “So proud.”

  “I am, actually. Not bad for a night’s work. Pinkerton would never admit it, of course. Nor you, apparently.”

  “Oh, I might, under duress.”

  * * *

  Emerging from his room, stomach rumbling, Hay spotted Mrs. Keckly outside Mrs. Lincoln’s bedchamber. He rushed through the double doors and called. She seemed not to hear him, but she must have, because at the sound of his voice she retreated into the Hell-cat’s haven, where Hay could not—well, should not—follow.

  But he did.

  The door, swinging shut, smacked his palm, and Hay pushed it open again. The room smelled of camphor. Inside, Mrs. Keckly stood poised and calm, in a frilly black gown. As Hay passed through the door, she began to collapse. Her legs gave way first, followed by the swish of crinolines cascading into the floor. As her body fell forward, Hay caught it beneath the arms. He bent her back over his arm and looked for a resting place. If not on the floor, then the bed. Yes, the bed. Hay half carried, half dragged her over, pulling her head onto the pillows and then lifting her legs onto the bed. His shoulder did not hurt.

  Royal-blue drapes shrouded three sides of the canopy bed. The entire bedchamber reminded Hay of a cavern at midnight, cut off from the everyday world. Only while Hay was gathering the folds of Mrs. Keck
ly’s skirt did he notice the other body prone in the bed. It was motionless, like the guest of honor at a wake. Hay had known the Hell-cat was here, of course—where else would she be?—but her presence made no demands. Even as Mrs. Keckly’s eyes opened, the Hell-cat did not stir. Hay fetched a cup of water, passing up the piped Potomac water for the jug filled from Willard’s sweet well. Mrs. Keckly sat up and sipped daintily.

  “What happened?” she said. Water trickled from a corner of her mouth.

  “You fainted.”

  “I know that. But why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I have no idea except…” She stopped—she did know why. “No idea at all.”

  “Let me ask you something, then.” He did not wait for her consent. “How long have you known this Eugenia Jenkins—or whatever she calls herself?”

  “Since we were girls.”

  “Did you know what she was trying to do—what she did—here?”

  No reply, which Hay took as a yes. Hay felt his temper rise.

  “How could you let her…?” That was why Mrs. Keckly had wanted the slave ledger stolen, to conceal her connection to the Calvert plantation—to Eugenia. He told her of his discovery in the staff ledger, the erased line that connected Webster, James and Agnes H. “Your father,” Hay said.

  Mrs. Keckly stiffened, then started to tremble, until the pillows seemed to shake. Hay wondered if a person could collapse while lying down. He considered touching her forearm, to calm her, and looked across and saw a hand on her shoulder. The Hell-cat’s, in a firm yet tender grip. She was whispering into Mrs. Keckly’s ear, stroking her taut, graying hair. The dressmaker lay there and listened, eyes wide open, and eventually her trembling ceased.

  Hay said, “Which makes Eugenia related to you by blood, does it not?”

  No response.

  “Your mother told you this when she was dying.”

  In a low voice, Mrs. Keckly said, “I promised I would take it to my grave.”

  “And you shall,” Hay said. “Just not yet.”

  “Lizabeth, Lizabeth,” Mrs. Lincoln murmured.

  Out in the corridor, a child squealed. Mrs. Lincoln catapulted over Mrs. Keckly and leapt from the bed, her black satin dressing gown flowing behind her.

  “Tad! Tad!” she shrieked, rushing through the doorway. “My darling, darling Tad!”

  Hay heard the president’s voice crackling with emotion, followed by the whoop of a boy smothered in loving arms.

  Mrs. Keckly lay still, her eyes unfocused.

  “When did you know?” said Hay.

  She whispered, “Know what?”

  “What she was doing.”

  The trembling resumed. Then: “She is a good nurse. Good at everything, is Mary.”

  Yes, everything, Hay thought. “So, when did you first understand her intentions?”

  “Only when it was too late.” A cry erupted from Mrs. Keckly’s throat that belonged to a night-prowling animal, and then her voice lost all expression. “Not until … until Willie’s fever started to rise. You could tell just by touching his forehead. And she said nothing about it. Acting unsurprised, like she expected it somehow. More than once this happened. After the third or fourth time, I got a feeling in my bones. I could neither prove it nor let it go.”

  “Nor tell anyone.”

  “What was there to tell? You would have laughed at me. Mister Lincoln would have smiled kindly. I knew nothing at all, really.”

  “Or tell Missus Lincoln.”

  Mrs. Keckly’s passing look of amusement revealed more than she probably intended.

  * * *

  The sugar maples were showing their first buds. Yet the Old Capitol Prison looked gray at midday. The ring of whitewash at ground level, meant to complicate prisoners’ escapes, was ashen under the overcast sky. The prison’s front door, on First street, just across from the Capitol, was made of the thickest oak.

  At the entrance, a stocky soldier in blue flannel and a cape said, “State your business, sir.”

  “I am John Hay, of President Lincoln’s staff, here to see a prisoner.” He unfolded the note on Executive Mansion stationery.

  The bearer of this letter, John M. Hay, is conducting business for the President of the United States of America. Please accord to him the same courtesies as you would accord to me.

  —A. Lincoln

  The soldier’s rheumy eyes, inches away, peered accusingly into Hay’s. He said, “Anyone might have written this.”

  “You are correct, Lieutenant. But only one anyone did.”

  The sentry cocked his head and said, “The prisoner’s name?”

  Hay glanced down at his calfskin notebook. “Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt. Mary Surratt.”

  “Ah, our latest valued guest.”

  Hay wondered if the soldier was aware of the grounds for arrest; asking him would only pique his curiosity. The soldier pushed on the door and called to a guard with a scraggly red beard, “Missus Surratt.” The guard grinned.

  Hay managed to stay a half step behind as the guard hurried past the superintendent’s office and turned into a short corridor. The guard mumbled something.

  “Pardon?” said Hay.

  “Treats her like a queen, he does.”

  “Who does?”

  “He does”—gesturing at the office they had passed—“the new … man. Superintendent Wood is her friend. Her brother’s friend. And so she merits our finest accommodations.”

  At the end of the corridor stood a Crusader archway and a door made of richly grained walnut. The guard detached the ungainliest key from a ring on his belt and guided it into the lock.

  The room, modest in size though not in style, belonged in the pages of Godey’s Lady’s Book. Except no black-and-white lithograph would do justice to the furniture upholstered in reds and golds or to the brownish-red quilt that covered the wide bed. The rug showed a faded pattern of roses that were larger than any garden could know. Back when the building served as the temporary Capitol, after the British had burned the real one, this room must have hosted the Speaker of the House or the Senate president.

  The prisoner sat in an armchair upholstered in magenta brocade. The light from the back windows threw her face into shadow, although Hay thought he saw bruises that darkened a cheek and her chin. Surely, there were worse things than hitting a woman. Although he was hard-pressed to name one. Well, murder. Damned if he would feel any guilt.

  Severe black hair framed both sides of her face, like a nun’s wimple. She wore the same black dress as the night before, with lace at the neck, now with splotches of dirt on the bodice. A tartan shawl was spread over her lap. Her thin lips, pressed into a line, reminded Hay of the prim ladies in Providence, until he took in her rough-hewn features and the eyes that glowed black with defiance.

  “The last man I want to see,” she said. There was steel in her voice.

  “Our last meeting was all too brief, Missus … Surratt, is it?”

  “It is.”

  “Then why did you use Jenkins?”

  “That is also my name.”

  “And Eugenia.”

  “Also, that.”

  Actually, Hay knew why: because she had had murder in mind from the first and used a name—names—that would be harder to trace.

  “Whatever you call yourself,” he said, “it will go easier on you if you confess.”

  “Confess to what?”

  Hay sighed; this would not be easy. “The murder of William Wallace Lincoln. And the attempted murder of Thomas ‘Tad’ Lincoln. As you know all too well.”

  “I trust you have compelling evidence of these … rather imaginative allegations.”

  Which was different, Hay thought, from saying they were untrue. “We have a witness, for one,” Hay said, cringing at the thought of Tad in a courtroom. “Plus the correlation between your shifts on duty and the spikes in Willie’s fever—that is what led us to you. And your use of a, shall we say, misleading name. And then the tin box
of calomel found in your home, beneath the floorboards.” All of this was true, but the more he talked, the weaker the evidence sounded. “So, how do you explain these things?”

  “I am not aware that possessing calomel is against the law, or even a ground for suspicion.”

  “The quantity, and its being hidden away—those are grounds for suspicion.” Hay had no doubts about Mrs. Surratt’s guilt, but he feared she was right—that what he called evidence would be laughed out of court. “And that young man who was with you last night—I have seen him before, all too often.”

  “Where is he? I demand to see my son!”

  Of course—Hay should have guessed. “Demand?” he said. “You are in no position to demand anything. No matter who you think you know”—Hay swept his hand in the air—“here. And even if I did know where he is, which I do not”—this was the truth, for the moment—“I would have no authority to tell you. Or any reason to. Unless, perhaps…”

  Hay let the hint of an offer hang in the air, but she betrayed no interest in telling him anything to learn more about her son.

  “Very well,” Hay said.

  “John would never kill anyone.”

  Hay had said nothing about the charges against John Surratt. “He tried to kill me, twice, you know. Three times, counting last night.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” Mrs. Surratt said. The shawl slipped a few inches; only now did Hay notice that her wrists were cuffed to the arms of the chair. “And if he did try, I can see with my own poor eyes that he failed. My son does not fail.”

  “Happily, he does. Did. Let me assure you, he tried. Tell me, how did you persuade Missus Keckly to hire you on as a nurse?”

  “It took no persuasion at all, Mister Hay. I asked, and she agreed. She was looking for nurses. Besides, she would do anything I asked.”

  A bold assertion. “You have leverage over her?”

  “I would not put it that way. It was her mother’s dying wish—oh, she did not tell you that? Yes, when the sainted Agnes told poor Lizzy about the fortunes of her birth—and Lizzy told me, though of course I knew it already—Agnes asked her, begged her, to come to my assistance the instant I should need her. Related by blood. A Christian lady, Agnes was. Turn the other cheek to those who harm you.”