The Attempted Murder of Teddy Roosevelt Read online

  “Out of the trolley?”

  “Mebbe some of the folks on the running boards did. Inside, into the bench in front of ’em. Was nobody hurt much.”

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary before the crash?”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as anything.”

  “I seen nothin’ … No, nothin’ at all.”

  He was lying, I just knew it, being practiced at the art myself, as any diplomat was. “Was Mr. Madden behaving oddly at all?” I said.

  “N-no, nothin’ I seen.”

  I was getting closer. But to what? “He was driving a little too fast, perhaps?”

  No reply. Closer still.

  “How fast would you say?” I tried. “Twenty miles an hour? Fifteen?”

  Kelly squirmed on the bed. Fast indeed, was my guess. But I had a feeling he was hiding something else. A hunch, I suppose you would call it. Isn’t that what detectives had?

  Did my hunch extend to what he was hiding? Actually, yes!

  “Mr. Kelly,” I said in my most commanding voice, the one I use with German envoys who consider the kaiser a deity, “that folded-over paper—who handed it to Mr. Madden? Who was it?”

  The conductor looked stricken. “I had nothing to do with it,” he pleaded.

  “I have no reason to think that you did,” I said.

  “I can’t,” he rasped.

  “And why not?” Chief Nicholson said, in his most intimidating voice.

  “I just can’t. He would kill me.”

  “Who would?”

  “I can’t.”

  “My men will protect you,” the police chief said.

  “Against…” Kelly whined. “Mr. Hull?”

  Chief Nicholson looked stunned.

  Kelly’s whimpers dissolved into tears, thence into uselessness.

  * * *

  “The Republican machine is what its enemies call it,” Chief Nicholson said. He had shed his jacket and was pouring two whiskies.

  “It runs the city, I take it,” I said, sipping. Warmth descended my chest.

  “County, too. Even the state, right now, though Murray Crane is his own man. Rich as Croesus from the family mills.” By federal contract, the Crane mills manufactured the paper used for every rectangle of currency in every American’s wallet. “Though you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “What can you tell me about this James Hull?”

  “Not a lot to tell. Grew up near Albany, came to Pittsfield as a young man, as an office boy for the national bank. Went over to the insurance company and rose through the ranks on the strength of his penmanship, if you can believe that. He is the company’s secretary and now also the treasurer. Good Republican, good family man, a wife, five children, three servants. Not many friends, not many enemies. Not one of these backslappers. Silly-looking fellow, but that’s his business. Oh yes, and he’s also a director of the street railway company. He helped get it started. One of the civic-minded men of business”—a wry smile—“who manage the affairs of our fair city.”

  “So any mere motorman would do whatever he … suggests.”

  “Only if he wants to keep his job.”

  This was a cop I could like.

  * * *

  The second whisky, in the dimmest corner of the hotel’s dining room, brought me to my senses: Clara was the woman for me. She had been, from the moment we met, in her aunt and uncle’s parlor on Thirty-seventh street in New York, even if it took a month or two or three for me to see it. I admired her before I loved her, but when I fell, I fell hard. She was calm and reserved, sweet and serene—everything I was not. Even since Del’s death. She had been stoic, Lord knows, a boulder in a wild-running stream.

  But something had happened between us—I couldn’t deny it. It wasn’t clear what. There was an uneasiness, a gulf. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she blamed me for Del’s death. It was an accident! We both knew it. And yet … it hung there, suspended, keeping us … apart. The very thought set the earth trembling under my feet; at stake was all that I held dear.

  The third whisky sent me back to Lizzie. She was any man’s dream—or nightmare. Lithe and lovely, beguiling. So far my marriage vows were intact, but not for want of trying. Well, not trying exactly—I hadn’t actually tried. I had hinted and nudged and winked in the time-honored manner, which gave us both an out, for good reasons or none.

  Did I want to take Lizzie to bed? Yes. No. I don’t know. Of course I did, in a way. Any man would, wouldn’t he? There was nothing sinful about the wanting, even (or especially) at my age. Surely that was the true cause—time-honored as well, I suppose. Age, I mean. A man starts to see the end in sight and he wants whatever he can’t have. A cliché, to be sure. But clichés are clichés for a reason. Still, could I imagine actually following through, instead of continuing to let us pretend? I shook my head. I hoped not, although I couldn’t be certain. Was I a bad person? I didn’t feel like one, although I guess the kaiser didn’t, either.

  I pulled my calfskin notebook from the side pocket of my frock coat along with the nub of a pencil.

  A woman is a woman, every fiber of her self

  Nice rhythm, a trifle trite (or worse), with a monosyllabic punch at the end. And timely. Self—the center of the new psychology. But what in the hell rhymes with self? Elf. Shelf. Guelph.

  Start again. That never hurt.

  No woman is a woman without a sense of self

  Better. That actually meant something. About both women.

  If she’s haughty—No, naughty …

  If she’s haughty—or naughty—let her seem so.

  About Lizzie. And veering toward meaninglessness.

  Now, to face the problem I had been postponing and dithering over. In diplomacy, ignoring a problem often solved it. Not in poetry. Nor, I feared, in love. I knew I loved Clara, as much as I understood what love was. She gave me a center to my life, a keel. She made me feel complete. But was it Clara that I loved—I knocked back a swig of whisky—or was it me I loved when I was with her? With Lizzie, the question never came up; she appealed to the part of me that carried no obligations.

  I was so damn tired of obligations. What a relief it would be to break free of them, to not think, to just do. To be truly selfish for once—twice? thrice?—the mortal’s thrill. (Which all of our rules are meant to prevent, and rightly so.)

  No woman is a woman without a sense of self

  If she’s haughty—or naughty—let her seem so.

  If she is ugly, or flighty, send her to Guelph …

  I snapped my notebook shut and stuffed my pencil away. Why did poems have to rhyme, anyway?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1902

  I pulled the heavy drapes aside. The sunlight surprised me. Shouldn’t the heavens be as gloomy as my world was? As this case was? Assuming—assuming—it was a case. The threshold question: Had a crime been committed?

  Possibly. Manslaughter, the authorities alleged. Or, if Theodore was right, something worse.

  I plumped up the pillows and rested my head and considered the mystery of Euclid Madden. The perpetrator, by all available accounts. His name, for one thing—a Greek first name and a … what was Madden? French Canadian, Chief Nicholson had said. I needed to see the man, and not only to question him. To see him. With luck, to see inside of him. As a means of figuring out why.

  Yes, why. Why on earth would a streetcar motorman at the edge of Massachusetts want to murder the president?

  Because he could. Yes, but as an explanation that hardly sufficed. Just because he could doesn’t mean he would. Why would he, then? This was harder. Political fervor? Plausible. An anarchist had murdered McKinley. Was Madden an anarchist, or even an agitator? He was mild-mannered, but so was Guiteau. Still waters run deep, and all of that. Far-fetched, I must say, but I couldn’t rule it out.

  Or money. A motive for murder that was tried-and-true. Five children and a sixth on the way? On a motorman’s salary? He could surel
y put the money to good use. Anyone could. That could be checked, if a bank was involved.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the president that Madden wanted dead. Theodore hadn’t ridden alone. Maybe Madden had wanted to murder … William Craig. Ridiculous! Why would anyone want to kill Craig? The Scotsman had never seen Pittsfield before. (Probably.) Or maybe the target was Governor Crane. That made slightly more sense. He was from Dalton, the next town to the east, and was wealthy and powerful enough not to care what anyone thought. Lord knows what kinds of resentments and rivalries simmered hereabouts.

  * * *

  “He was scheduled to visit Pittsfield for fifteen minutes at most,” May Nicholson was saying. “Nothing fancy, nothing showy. It just grew and grew. You know how these things are. Once the schools shut down and the GAR wanted a parade, next thing you know we had a bandstand and a speech in Park Square. I don’t know who all got involved.”

  “A thousand dollars in decorations,” Chief Nicholson chimed in.

  His invitation to Sunday dinner had startled me. I could only assume his wife was behind it. The house at 75 Center street was small but well kept—the yard neat, the porch swept, the shutters recently scrubbed. Inside, the furnishings were late ’eighties, plush and wine-colored, lived in, able to take a punch and bounce back. At the dinner table, the gold-flecked tablecloth set off the platters of lamb, sweet potatoes, and summer squash.

  “Tell me, Mr. Hay, are you a churchgoing man?” Mrs. Nicholson said in all gaiety and innocence. She, too, was small and well kept—well kempt, rather—with a lithe figure, crinkly blond hair, and a cherubic face. I died for her dimples.

  “When my wife tells me,” I said.

  Chief Nicholson restrained a laugh, and both daughters giggled. Mrs. Nicholson bristled. I deduced that the master of this house felt the same.

  “What do you think of our fair city, Mr. Hay?” she said, recovering nicely, maybe from practice.

  “It is quite … handsome, I would say. Buildings of considerable dignity.” Not including the police headquarters. “Park Square is such an elegant … centerpiece. It reminds me, I must say, of Lafayette Square. That’s where I live. Do you know of it?”

  She didn’t, which I found enchanting.

  “And I like the feeling here of being in the mountains, even if you don’t always see them,” I said. “The air is clean. Far away from the world; comfortably remote.”

  “I wish we were, Mr. Hay, but I assure you that we are not remote in the slightest from the outside world and its sins. Pittsfield is no Eden, as my husband’s work will attest.”

  “I have never seen an Eden myself,” I said. “Have you?”

  “Someday I might,” she said dreamily.

  I felt only envy.

  “I fear that people are the same everywhere, good and bad,” I said. A platitude, but like most platitudes, generally true.

  “Not in my school,” Marion, their younger daughter, piped up. She was a pretty girl, with blond curls and a yellow polka-dot dress she had outgrown. Her expression was somber.

  “Oh?” I said. “How would you say they are different?”

  “They are meaner,” she said.

  “They are merely training for life, my dear,” I replied. “How old are you, Marion?”

  “Twelve and a half.”

  “Not an easy age,” I said. “Though what age is?”

  The familiar ache.

  “And what brings you to Pittsfield?” Mrs. Nicholson said.

  I finished chewing a hunk of lamb that had lost its flavor. “The collision last Wednesday,” I said, swallowing.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “We could have been Buffalo.”

  “But we weren’t,” Chief Nicholson said sharply.

  Marion said, “What about the collision?”

  “Marion!” Chief Nicholson said, half rising, leaning dangerously over his antique water glass.

  “Because it’s that Mary Madden who is the meanest to me. She’s in my class.”

  “That’s the eighth grade, at Center Intermediate,” Mrs. Nicholson explained. Then, to her daughter, “Mean in what way, dear?”

  “Calls me names, says she’ll hit me and get her friends to help. And I bet she will.”

  “Why would she want to do that?” Mrs. Nicholson said.

  “I don’t know. Because she hates me.” Marion’s voice quaked. “Because they’re going to blame her daddy for something that wasn’t his fault.”

  I said, “What does she mean, wasn’t his fault?”

  “It was something that somebody else did. Or made him do. Something like that. Anyway, it wasn’t his fault. But he’s the one getting blamed. He might even go to jail. And she acts like it’s my fault.”

  “Or mine,” Chief Nicholson said. His eyes were aflame. “Except it isn’t mine, either.”

  “Marion, do you have any idea what she meant?” I repeated. Had my detective work come to this—the badgering of a child?

  A blank look: I had lost her.

  “Do you know the family?” I asked her parents.

  “I know the mother a little, from the school,” Mrs. Nicholson replied. “She’s all right, I guess. It’s him that struts around Park Square in a bowler hat, looking like a circus clown.”

  “Really!” I said. “Since the collision or before?”

  “Always,” she said.

  * * *

  “He will be in his office on a Sunday?” I said.

  “Oh yes,” Chief Nicholson said. “I told him to.”

  The Berkshire Life Insurance Company’s headquarters stood at the corner of North and West streets. It had a mansard roof and enough pillars and pediments and arched windows to drive an architect giddy. The door was locked; an elderly servant let us in. He pointed us to an office at the end of the deserted hall. Our footsteps echoed between the tiled floor and marble walls.

  At the appointed place, a glass panel announced, in a Gothic script, “James W. Hull.” The door was ajar.

  The man behind the desk had white side-whiskers that reached to his chest. I had never seen them so long, bushier than my old editor Horace Greeley’s (and he went insane). I wanted to yank his whiskers on both sides, like an udder. I shook his hand instead.

  A reliable man, Chief Nicholson had told me. Whatever that meant. I had my doubts.

  Introductions were made and the usual insincerities exchanged. Hull pointed at me and snapped, “What is he doing here?”

  I was wondering the same thing myself. “I am making inquiries on behalf of the president,” I said. Each time I explained this, it sounded lamer. “Last Wednesday morning, you were a passenger in the streetcar that collided with the president’s carriage, were you not?”

  “What about it?”

  “Can you tell me anything that would shed light on what caused the … accident?” I said. Too vague.

  “Accidents happen,” Hull said. “Why must anyone be at fault?”

  I had said nothing about fault. Or about anyone. Chief Nicholson was leaning forward in his seat. Best to circle back.

  “The streetcar was full of passengers, correct?” I said.

  “Out to the running boards.”

  “All heading to the country club? Hoping to get there before the president did—is that right?”

  A hesitation, then a tentative “Yes.” A pause. “Why are you asking me these things? I know terribly little about it, really. Only that I was present at the scene.”

  “Where were you sitting?” I said.

  “The first row, almost directly behind the motorman.”

  “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Not until all hell broke loose. The motorman lunged at the brake and started ringing the gong. Only then did I see the carriage.”

  “Coming across the tracks?”

  “Yes, coming from the right. Directly into my line of sight.”

  “How fast would you say the streetcar was traveling down the hill?”

  “I have no way of k
nowing. Fast. I wanted to get there. That, I admit.”

  Admit? I had said nothing about guilt.

  “Did you say anything about this—about wanting to get to the country club in time—to the motorman?”

  “As I say, he was very busy.”

  “Before that, I mean.”

  “Not to speak of.”

  “What does that mean?” I said, casting diplomacy aside.

  A pause. Hull’s side-whiskers jiggled. “A little,” he said at last.

  “You said a little to him about wanting to get to the country club in time to see the president?”

  “So he would stop there. He said he would. Or somebody said it for him. I am a member of the country club, you know, a director.” Chief Nicholson hadn’t mentioned this. “So I have seen the man before.”

  “The president?”

  “No, no. The motorman. He’s new to the route. Mr.—I didn’t know his name until … all this happened. Mr. Madding.”

  “Madden.”

  “Yes, Madden. See?” One word too many to convince me. “We had a chat, nothing to speak of. About the president, the crowds, the streetcar route, the fine weather—Roosevelt weather, they call it. Nothing of note.”

  “A long chat,” I said. “About the streetcar route?”

  “I … we … wanted him to get moving.”

  “He wasn’t moving fast enough?”

  “He wasn’t moving at all.”

  “What do you mean, he wasn’t moving at all?”

  “I tell you, he wouldn’t move. Way before we got to the bottom. The streetcar stood still at the top of the hill for … who knows how long.”

  This was news to me. “How long do you think?”

  “Ten minutes? Twelve minutes? Fifteen minutes? It seemed like forever.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know. I kept asking him.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “Something about his schedule. But there was no schedule. This run was a special, for us. You know, they stopped all the streetcars while the president was in town, except for this run.” That was another thing Chief Nicholson hadn’t told me. “We had to get there before the president did. We had to. Otherwise the president wouldn’t stop. Or he would leave before we arrived.”